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Comment Re:Proof (Score 5, Interesting) 546

by knightmad (#49907291) Attached to: Report: Russia and China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files
Also it's a very interesting time. Right after they find out that the recent breach by the Chinese Government got the personnel files with information for all executive employees up to cabinet level (including the security clearance data) they reveal that the Chinese (and Russia) got secret personnel information after all via the Snowden leaks. Something seems weird about this timing.

Comment Two questions need to be asked (Score 5, Insightful) 546

by knightmad (#49907225) Attached to: Report: Russia and China Crack Encrypted Snowden Files
First (as stated in the summary): "Have the actions of Snowden, and, apparently, the use of weak encryption, made the world less safe?"

Second (not asked, but as important as the first): Was it worth it? Did the revelations made the world a better after the revelations?

IMO yes, it was worth it. Having secret programs authorised by secret laws and secret alliances to reduce or remove the privacy of the population as a whole for some geopolitical goal is not something that should happen in democratic countries.

Submission + - Reddit Removes Communities To Address Harassment, Users Respond (reddit.com)

Submitted by sethstorm
sethstorm writes: As a change to their community management, Reddit administrators have banned multiple communities (known as subreddits) in a bid to remove harassment. In response, users have responded in different ways — some have pointed out the bias of Reddit admins for leaving known harassers alone such as those in the "SRS" subreddit, others have attempted to re-create the banned subreddit "FatPeopleHate", and many have gone to overwhelm Voat (a competitor).

Comment Weird subject matter for a book on Slashdot (Score 3, Interesting) 270

by knightmad (#49721779) Attached to: Book Review: The Terrorists of Iraq
This is a weird subject matter for a book review to be on Slashdot. I don't want this to be dismissed like one of those "this is not news for nerds / stuff that matter" comments so I will develop further about why this is my opinion:

1. From Slashdot's own Book Review Guidelines (emphasis mine): "In particular, we're interested in reviews of books on programming, computer security, the history of technology and anything else (including Science Fiction, cyberpunk, etc.) that fits under the "News for Nerds" umbrella."

The reviewed book doesn't seem to fit any of the name checked categories and even to fit in the more general "News for Nerds" umbrella seems to be very generous for most interpretations of what a "nerd" would be in this context (of computer, technology, science fiction and cyberpunk).

2. Here are the reviews from the past 12 months. Despite of the lack of reviewers the theme is almost always related to technology (even if as a pretext to discuss infosec, law enforcement and natsec). Curiously the same reviewer that submitted this review submitted most of the barely related ones.

by Saint Aardvark: Book Review: Networking For System Administrators (subject: infrastructure, sysadmin)
by Michael Ross: Book Review: Drush For Developers, 2nd Edition (subject: web development)
by benrothke: Book Review: Future Crimes (subject: infused, cybercrime, law enforcement)
by benrothke: Book Review: Data and Goliath (subject: infosec, privacy, law enforcement)
by benrothke: Book Review: Core HTML5 2D Game Programming (subject: game programming)
by benrothke: Book Review: Designing and Building a Security Operations (subject: infosec)
by Saint Aardvark: Book Review: FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials (subject: infrastructure)

2014

by MassDosage: Book Review: Build Your Own Website: A Comic Guide to HTML, CSS, and WordPress (subject: web development)
by benrothke: Book Review: Spam Nation (subject: cybercrime)
by benrothke: Book Review: Bulletproof SSL and TLS (subject: infosec)
by benrothke: Book Review: Countdown To Zero Day (subject: infosec, cyberwarfare, natsec)
by benrothke: Book Review: Measuring and Managing Information Risk: a (subject: infosec)
by sobczakt: Book Review: Scaling Apache Solr (subject: networking, infrastructure)
by benrothke: Book Review: Architecting the Cloud (subject: networking, infrastructure)
by benrothke: Book Review: Social Engineering In IT Security Tools (subject: infosec)
by benrothke: Book Review: Introduction To Cyber-Warfare (subject: infosec)
by benrothke: Book Review: Data-Driven Security: Analysis, Visualization (subject: infosec)
by benrothke: Book Review: Hacking Point of Sale (subject: infosec)

I don't want to speculate about the motivations for this review to be on slashdot but this seems to be a recurring theme: to inflame the audience with polarizing subjects and what more polarizing now than "who is more to blame for the Iraq mishaps: 43rd or 44th?".

But between this and the monstrosity that attempt to change the target audience that Beta was the most visible aspect we (the loyalty audience) will sure be needing a new home very soon.

Comment Not in june, only after september (Score 5, Informative) 97

by knightmad (#46515879) Attached to: Brazil Blocks Foreign Mobile Phones

However, these electronics will continue to operate normally until at least September, when the deactivations should actually begin. Until then, the system will only mount a database with information on the equipment in use in Brazil.

This is a new low, blatant lies in the summary only for cheap country based hate and some pageviews. Good job!
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Amazing Cancer Drug Found; Scientist Annoyed.

Submitted by
sporkme
sporkme writes: "A scientist was frustrated when the compound she was working with destroyed her sample of cancer cells. Further research revealed that the substance was surprisingly well suited as a cancer treatment. From the article:

"I made a calculation error and used a lot more than I should have. And my cells died," Schaefer said. A colleague overheard her complaining. "The co-author on my paper said,' Did I hear you say you killed some cancer?' I said 'Oh', and took a closer look." They ran several tests and found the compound killed "pretty much every epithelial tumor cell lines we have seen."
Lab test results on hapless mice have resulted in the destruction of colon tumors without making the mice sick. The PPAR-gamma compound is expected to be especially useful in combating treatment-resistant types of cancer."
The Internet

Bird Flu Pandemic Could Choke the Net 364

Posted by kdawson from the edge-cannot-hold dept.
PetManimal writes "If a pandemic were to occur, many companies and organizations would ask their staffs to work from home. The impact of millions of additional people using the Internet from home might require individuals and companies to voluntarily restrain themselves from surfing to high-bandwidth sites, such as YouTube. If people didn't comply, the government might step in and limit Net usage. The scenario is not far-fetched: last year at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, a group of telecom and government officials conducted a pandemic exercise based on a hypothetical breakout of bird flu in central Europe. The results weren't pretty." From the latter article: "'We assumed total absentees of 30% to 60% trying to work from home, which would have overwhelmed the Internet,' said [one] participant. 'We did not assume that the backbone would be gone, but that the edge of the network... would be overwhelmed... The conclusion [of imminent collapse] was not absolute, and the situation was not digitally simulated, but the idea of everyone working from home appears untenable,' [he] said."
Graphics

Vista Not Playing Nice With FPS Games 437

Posted by kdawson from the shoot-em-up dept.
PetManimal writes "Computerworld is reporting that gamers who have installed Vista are reporting problems with first person-shooter titles such as CounterStrike, Half-Life 2, Doom 3. and F.E.A.R. (Users have compiled lists of games with Vista issues.) The complaints, which have turned up on gamers' forums, cite crashes and low frame rates. Not surprisingly, the problems relate to graphics hardware and software: 'Experts blame still-flaky software drivers, Vista's complexity, and a dearth of new video cards optimized for Vista's new rendering technology, DirectX 10. That's despite promises from Microsoft that Vista is backwards-compatible with XP's graphic engine, DirectX 9, and that it will support existing games. Meanwhile, games written to take advantage of DirectX 10 have been slow to emerge. And one Nvidia executive predicts that gamers may not routinely see games optimized for DirectX 10 until mid-2008.'"
Software

The Pirated Software Problem in the 3rd World 252

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that's-a-whole-world-more-than-world-two dept.
RockDoctor writes "Dark Reading carries an article by one Nathan Spande who works in Cambodia. Locally he finds that OpenOffice.Org and MS Office are the same price ($2), or $7-20 by downloading. He discusses why the economics of OpenSource don't work in this environment, and how it contributes to global computer security issues through the "little extras" (trojans, spambots and other malware) that typically accompany such "local editions" of software. The economics of software outside the west are very different to what most people are used to."
PC Games (Games)

25 Games Tested in Vista 102

Posted by Zonk from the games-for-working dept.
mikemuch writes "Jason Cross at ExtremeTech has installed more than 25 PC Games in Windows Vista and reports back with his experiences with each. For the most part, the OS handled games with aplomb, but on the whole ran them slightly slower than XP, and some required logging in as administrator to install them. These and other minor issues were the result of immature drivers. It was hit or miss whether games would appear in the Games Explorer correctly with box art, and GameTap doesn't work yet at all."

Comment Three things that make this article suspicious (Score 4, Interesting) 158

by knightmad (#17889672) Attached to: Finding New Code
1) "Java Only for now, more coming soon!"
2) "Alpha"
3) The linked article is a "product announcement" on Newsforge

This is slashvertisement for a vaporware product. Although this is promising, there is nothing concrete there to call it "what we need to unify the open-source community", not even an alternative to Google codesearch.

Btw, is alpha the new beta?
United States

More States Challenging National Driver's Licenses 389

Posted by Hemos from the get-together-right-now dept.
berberine writes "A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states. The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real ID. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network. Maine's rejection was recently discussed on slashdot."
Microsoft

Confidential Microsoft Emails Posted Online 479

Posted by CowboyNeal from the behind-the-curtain dept.
dos4who writes "From the class action 'Comes et al. v. Microsoft' suit, some very enlightening internal Microsoft emails are now made public. Emails to and from Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Jim Allchin, etc all make for some mind blowing reading. One of my favorites is from Jim Allchin to Bill Gates, entitled 'losing our way,' in which Allchin states 'I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft.'"
Operating Systems

BBC To Host Multi-OS Debate 344

Posted by samzenpus from the get-ready-to-rumble dept.
Bananatree3 writes "BBC is currently seeking submissions from all you Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux devotees "in 100 words or less, why you are such a supporter of your chosen operating system and what features you love about it". They will then select one user of each platform to go head to head in a debate that will be part of the BBC's Microsoft Vista launch coverage on January 30th."

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