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Submission + - WSJ and Al-Jazeera Lure Whistleblowers (eff.org)

Submitted by jjoelc
jjoelc writes: The success of Wikileaks in obtaining and releasing information has inspired mainstream media outlets to develop proprietary copycat sites. Al-Jazeera got into the act first, launching the Al-Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU), and On May 5, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co., Inc., launched its own site, SafeHouse. According to the EFF though, both sites offer "false Promises" of anonymity.
Google

Submission + - Google Drafts Cloud Printing Plan for Chrome OS (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "Google is unveiling early-stage designs, software code, and documentation of a project whose goal is to let users of the company's Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application. Called Google Cloud Print, the technology would dispense with the need to install printer drivers by routing print jobs from Web, desktop, and mobile applications via a Chrome OS Web-hosted broker. 'Rather than rely on the local operating system — or drivers — to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Computer ban for sex offender unfair (skunkpost.com)

Submitted by crimeandpunishment
crimeandpunishment writes: A federal appeals court says a 30-year computer restriction for a convicted sex offender was too stiff a punishment. The man, who was caught in an internet sex sting, had been ordered not to own or even USE a computer.
Iphone

Submission + - Microsoft, employees embarassed about iPhone use (wsj.com) 2

Submitted by portscan
portscan writes: There is an entertaining and telling article in the Wall Street Journal about iPhone use by Microsoft employees. Apparently, despite it being frowned upon by senior management, iPhone use is rampant among the Redmond rank an file. The head of Microsoft's mobile division tried to explain it away as employees wanting "to better understand the competition," although few believe this. Nowhere does the article mention attempts by the company to understand why the iPhone is more attractive to much of Microsoft's tech-savvy workforce than the company's own products.

Submission + - Why broadband in North America is NOT slow (theglobeandmail.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An article written in response to that study regarding how far behind the rest of the word the US and Canada are with regards to broadband internet. It basically tears it apart and shows why the US and Canada are actually far ahead of most of the european countries. It has a canadian slant, but is interesting!
Windows

Submission + - Typical Windows User Patches Every 5 Days (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: The typical home user running Windows faces the 'unreasonable' task of patching software an average of every five days, security research company Secunia said on Thursday. 'It's completely unreasonable to expect users to master so many different patch mechanisms and spend so much time patching,' said Thomas Kristensen, the company's CSO. The result: Few consumers devote the time and attention necessary to stay atop the patching job, which leaves them open to attack. Secunia says that of the users who ran the company's Personal Software Inspector in the last week of January, half had 66 or more programs from 22 or more different vendors on their machines. 'It surprised us that there were so many applications on the systems,' said Kristensen. 'That's why we called for software vendors to create a unified patching standard last year,' said Kristensen, referring to a pitch Secunia made at the RSA security conference last year. The company's offer didn't go over well. 'A few vendors said 'We want to hear more,' but a lot just ignored us or turned down the idea outright.' Secunia has published a white paper (PDF) that details its findings.
Businesses

Submission + - IO Data Licenses Microsoft's "Linux Patents" (techflash.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: So far we've witnessed Novell, Samsung and even Amazon licensing "Linux patents" from Microsoft but now it seems the frequency is increasing with companies like IO Data apparently lining up to license Linux patents with Microsoft. Yes, even the press releases use the word "Linux" to describe these patents. From the press release, 'Specifically, the patent covenants apply to I-O Data's network-attached storage devices and its routers, which run Linux. Although the details of the agreement have not been disclosed, the parties indicated that Microsoft is being compensated by I-O Data.'
The Internet

Submission + - U.K. bill would outlaw open Wi-Fi (zdnet.co.uk)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The government will not exempt universities, libraries and small businesses providing open Wi-Fi services from its Digital Economy Bill copyright crackdown, according to official advice released earlier this week.

This would leave many organizations open to the same penalties for copyright infringement as individual subscribers, potentially including disconnection from the internet, leading legal experts to say it will become impossible for small businesses and the like to offer Wi-Fi access.

"This is going to be a very unfortunate measure for small businesses, particularly in a recession, many of whom are using open free Wi-Fi very effectively as a way to get the punters in.

Even if they password protect, they then have two options — to pay someone like The Cloud to manage it for them, or take responsibility themselves for becoming an ISP effectively, and keep records for everyone they assign connections to, which is an impossible burden for a small cafe" Lilian Edwards, professor of internet law at Sheffield University told ZDNet UK.

ZDNet : http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,40057470,00.htm
The Internet

Submission + - Virgin bringing 100-Mbps to UK homes... USA?

Submitted by registerShift
registerShift writes: Virgin said it will roll out 100 megabit-per-second broadband connections to homes in the UK. The company said users will experience speeds "very close" to what's advertised as it plans to deploy cable instead of ADSL used by competitors. "There is nothing we can't do with our fibre optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience," Virgin Media's chief executive officer, Neil Berkett, said.

This is just days after the FCC announced aims of 100Mbps by 2020, and companies panned it as unrealistic.
Security

Submission + - Anatomy of a SQL Injection Attack (threatpost.com) 2

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: SQL injection has become perhaps the most widely used technique for compromising Web applications, thanks to both its relative simplicity and high success rate. It's not often that outsiders get a look at the way these attacks work, but a well-known researcher is providing just that. Rafal Los showed a skeptical group of executives just how quickly he could compromise one of their sites using SQL injection, and in the process found that the site had already been hacked and was serving the Zeus Trojan to visitors.

Submission + - Australian Judge rules facts cannot be copyrighted

Submitted by nfarrell
nfarrell writes: Last week, an Australian Judge ruled that copyright laws do not apply to collections of facts, regardless of the amount of effort that was spent collecting them. In this case, the case surrounded the reproduction of entries from the White and Yellow Pages, but the ruling referred to a previous case involving IceTV, which republishes TV guides. Does this mean that other databases of facts, such as financial data, are also legally able to be copied and redistributed? Some analysis here and here

Submission + - FCC's Net Neutrality Plan blocks BitTorrent (eff.org)

Submitted by master_p
master_p writes: The FCC's formally issued draft net neutrality regulations have a huge copyright loophole in them; a loophole that would theoretically permit Comcast to block BitTorrent just like it did in 2007 — simply by claiming that it was "reasonable network management" intended to "prevent the unlawful transfer of content." The new proposed net neutrality regulations would allow the same practices that net neutrality was first invoked to prevent, even if these ISP practices end up inflicting collateral damage on perfectly lawful content and activities.
Censorship

Submission + - Ballmer Defends Microsoft in China (technet.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mr. Ballmer has recently posted on the official Microsoft blog discussing future business in China and defending Microsoft's stance of cooperating with the government even as other large IT companies have begun making public condemnations (Google and Twitter being the most prominent). Couple this with Bill Gate's speech on China's censorship being not all that bad (a speech very well received by Chinese media) and you've got people wondering: Is Microsoft aiming to take Google's place in China?
Privacy

Submission + - Tracking browsers without cookies or IP addresses? (eff.org) 1

Submitted by Peter Eckersley
Peter Eckersley writes: The EFF has launched a research project called Panopticlick, to determine whether seemingly innocuous browser configuration information (like User Agent strings, plugin versions and, fonts) may create unique fingerprints that allow web users to be tracked, even if they limit or delete cookies. Preliminary results indicate that the User Agent string alone has 10.5 bits of entropy, which means that for a typical Internet user, only one in about 1,500 (2 ^ 10.5) others will share their User Agent string.

If you visit Panopticlick, you can get an reading of how rare or unique your browser configuration is, as well as helping EFF to collect better data about this problem and how best to defend against it.

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