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China

Submission + - If You're a Foreigner Using GPS in China, You Could Be a Spy (vice.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: China has accused Coca Cola of espionage for its "illegal mapping," allegedly with the use of GPS "devices with ultra high sensitivity." On its face the case looks like yet another example of China's aggressive sensitivity about its maps, no doubt heightened by its ongoing fracas with the US over cyberwar. Li Pengde, deputy director of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, said during a radio interview on Tuesday that the Coca Cola case was only one of 21 similar cases involving companies using GPS devices in Yunnan to "illegally obtain classified information." According to Chinese authorities, geographical data can be used by guided missiles to strike key military facilities—a concern that one GPS expert says is overblown at a time when the US government already has high-precision satellite maps of China. Nevertheless, Chinese law dictates that foreigners, be they companies or individuals, are prohibited from using highly-sensitive GPS equipment in China.
Canada

Submission + - Company Behind Canadian File Sharing Suits Admits to Copyright Trolling (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Canipre, a Montreal-based intellectual property rights enforcement firm, has admitted that it is behind the Voltage file sharing lawsuits involving TekSavvy in what is described as a "speculative invoicing" scheme. Often referred to as copyright trolling, speculative invoicing involves sending hundreds or thousands of demand letters alleging copyright infringement and seeking thousands of dollars in compensation. Those cases rarely — if ever — go to court as the intent is simply to scare enough people into settling in order to generate a profit. The Canipre admission is important because it is consistent with arguments that the case involves copyright trolling and that the Canadian Federal Court should not support the scheme by ordering the disclosure of subscriber contact information.
Hardware

Submission + - Ask Slashdot :: seeking advice on constructing a low budget computing cluster.

Submitted by jackdotwa
jackdotwa writes: Machines in our computer lab are periodically retired and we have decided to recycle them and put them to work on combinatorial problems. I've spent some time trawling the web (this Beowulf cluster link proved very instructive) but have a few reservations regarding the basic design and air-flow. Our goal is to do this cheaply but also to do it in a space-conserving fashion. We have 14 E8000 Core2 Duo machines that we wish to remove from their cases and place side-by-side, along with their power supply units (PSUs), on rackmount trays within a 42U (19", 1000mm deep) cabinet. Removing them means we can fit two machines into 4U (as opposed to 5U). The cabinet has extractor fans at the top and the PSUs and motherboard fans (which pull air off the CPU and remove it laterally — see images) face in the same direction. Question 1: would it be best to orient the shelves (and so the fans) in the same direction throughout the cabinet, or to alternate the fan orientations on a shelf-by-shelf basis? Question 2: would there be electrical interference with the motherboards and CPUs exposed in this manner? We have a 2 ton (24000 BTU) air-conditioner which will be able to maintain a cool room temperature (the lab is quite small), judging by the guide in the first link. However, I've been asked to place UPSs in the bottom of the cabinet (they will likely be non-rackmount UPSs as they are considerably cheaper). Question 3: Would this be, in anyone's experience, a realistic request (I'm concerned about the additional heating in the cabinet itself)?

The nodes in the cabinet will be diskless and connected via a rack-mountable gigabit ethernet switch to a master server. We are looking to purchase rack-mountable power distribution units to clean up the wiring a little. If anyone has any experience in this regard, any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Submission + - EFF jumps in to defend bloggers being sued by Prenda (eff.org)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The Electronic Frontier Foundation has entered the fray to defend the bloggers sued by Prenda Law Firm. Prenda, oblivious to such well known legal niceties as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the affirmative defense of truth, the difference between a defamatory statement of fact and the expression of a negative opinion, and the First Amendment, has immediately — and illegally — sought to subpoena information leading to the identities of the bloggers. I would not be surprised to see these "lawyers" get into even more hot water than they're already in. And I take my hat off to the EFF for stepping in here."

Submission + - What if Manning had leaked to the New York Times? (nytimes.com)

Submitted by minstrelmike
minstrelmike writes: Two page editorial in the NYTimes (10 free articles / month then firewalled) about what would have been different legally, morally, and security-wise: "If Manning had delivered his material to The Times, WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein. In fact, you might not have heard of WikiLeaks. The group has had other middling scoops, but Manning put it on the map."

He also discusses what the Times would and would not have done, admitting they probably wouldn't have shared with other news outlets but also admitting they would definitely have not shared everything.
Space

Submission + - Astronomers discover third-closest star system to Earth

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "Astronomers have found the third-closest star system to the Earth: called WISE 1049-5319, it's a binary brown dwarf system just 6.5 light years away. Brown dwarfs are faint, low mass objects 13 — 75 times the mass of Jupiter, and are so dim they are very difficult to detect. These newly-found nearby objects were seen in observations from 1978 but went unnoticed at the time, but since that date the large apparent motion of the binary made their proximity obvious. Only two star systems are closer: Alpha Centauri (4.3 light years) and Barnard's star (6 light years)."
Technology

Submission + - SpiderSense Suit Delivers Superhuman Perception (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: In the Spider-Man comics and movies, the famous hero's "Spider Sense" warns him of incoming danger, which proves to be just as important a superpower as slinging webs and climbing walls. Now a group of researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago may have found a way to replicate such superhuman perception that doesn't involve any radioactive spiders. Using a collection of sensors placed all over the body, the group has designed a "SpiderSense" suit that detects objects in the environment and warns the wearer when anything gets too close.

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