miller60 writes "A hosting firm has purchased a nuke-resistant bunker in Novia Scotia, and plans to convert it into a data fortress for financial firms. Bastionhost hopes to attract European financial firms wary of housing sensitive data in the US due to the USA Patriot Act. The facility is one of a series of 'Diefenbunkers' built during the tenure of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker to keep the Canadian government running in the event of a nuclear attack. While not all of these underground data bunker projects work out, a similar nuke-proof bunker in Stockholm, Sweden was recently converted into a stylish high-tech data lair for an ISP."

An anonymous reader writes "Given the OpeniBoot project is just a breath away from getting Android onto the iPhone, maybe Apple should consider opening up the platform. This post has five reasons, but I think there are far more. Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA, unhappy with the Court's decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict over $23.76 worth of song files, and throwing out the legal theory on which it was based, has made a motion for permission to file an appeal from the Judge's order, in Capitol v. Thomas. Normally, only final judgments are appealable, and appeals are not permissible in federal court from 'interlocutory' orders of that nature."

unassimilatible writes "Bios Magazine is reporting that the world's first commercially available liquid-metal based CPU cooler is about to ship. Danamics, a Danish company, claims that its LM-10 outperforms standard air-cooled heatsinks and most watercooled systems with a mere 1W power draw. 'The liquid metal is a key component in Danamics cooling systems. Liquid metal has two major advantages when cooling high power density heat sources: Firstly it has superior thermo physical properties that decrease temperature — and temperature non-uniformity — on die and across chips. Secondly, the electrical properties of the liquid metal enables efficient, reliable and ultra compact electromagnetic pumping without the use of moving parts, shafts, seals, etc.' Awesome technology, if it actually works and is affordable. The submitter requests that the moderators terminate all T-1000 jokes."

An anonymous reader writes "It has been a number of years since the fantasy that hackers will be offered a job by those who they hacked was even a potential reality, but this might still be the case in New Zealand. An 18-year-old hacker responsible for writing a number of applications used by an online group called 'the A-Team' that allowed the creation of a million-plus machine botnet and a range of credit card fraud activities to take place, has walked free from court sans conviction despite pleading guilty. And to top it all off, the NZ police force were interested in talking to the hacker about working for them, and 'several computer programming companies' were also chasing him for his skills."

An anonymous reader writes "The latest findings of a report explore the trend of loosely organized clusters of attackers trading stolen data online being replaced by hierarchical cybercrime organizations. These organizations deploy sophisticated pricing models, crimeware business models refined for optimal operation, crimeware drop zones, and campaigns for optimal distribution of the crimeware. These cybercrime organizations consist of strict hierarchies, in which each cybercriminal is rewarded according to his position and task."

An anonymous reader notes a recent post on the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center site estimating the time to infection of an unpatched Windows machine on the Internet — currently about 4 minutes. The researcher stipulated that the sub-5-minute estimate was valid for an unpatched machine in an ISP netblock with no NAT or firewall. The researcher, Lorna Hutcheson, called for others to post data on time-to-infection, and honeypot researchers in Germany did so the same day. They found longer times to infection, an average of 16 hours. Concludes the ISC's Hutchinson: "While the survival time varies quite a bit across methods used, pretty much all agree that placing an unpatched Windows computer directly onto the Internet in the hope that it downloads the patches faster than it gets exploited are odds that you wouldn't bet on in Vegas."

bsk_cw writes "Although many Windows users intend to hold onto their copies of XP until it is pried from their cold, dead fingers, Microsoft fully intends to phase out the OS in favor of Vista. If you're unwilling to move to one of the alternatives, and really don't like Vista, the least you can do is be aware of what's in store. David DeJean offers a rundown on Microsoft's timeline for Windows XP, why the company does things that way, and what you can do about it."

The Globe and Mail has an interesting piece taking a look at Google's latest headache, the US Government. Many people are suddenly deciding to spurn Google's services and applications because it opens up potential avenues of surveillance. "Some other organizations are banning Google's innovative tools outright to avoid the prospect of U.S. spooks combing through their data. Security experts say many firms are only just starting to realize the risks they assume by embracing Web-based collaborative tools hosted by a U.S. company, a problem even more acute in Canada where federal privacy rules are at odds with U.S. security measures."