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Comment Re:Picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue... (Score 1) 631

by lordharsha (#32332984) Attached to: Emergency Dispatcher Fired For Facebook Drug Joke

Speaking of mafia, are the brave men and women of the Police and Fire Department prohibited from playing Mafia Wars since, in their own words, it "is blatantly inconsistent with the mission of the Police Department that employs her."

And another thing, do they need to report which of their friends do play the game to the City Overlords too? Hell, are they fired for cultivating personal friendships with possible mafia members?
Privacy

Submission + - Ubuntu's new Firefox is watching you (launchpad.net) 3

Submitted by sukotto
sukotto writes: Ubuntu recently released an unannounced and experimental "multisearch" extension to Firefox alpha3... apparently to improve the default behavior of new tabs and of search. In a response to one of the initial bug reports the maintainers mentioned that the extension's other purpose was for "collecting the usage data" and "Generating revenue" [citation] . Since this extension installs by itself and offers no warning about potential privacy violations, quite a few people (myself included) feel pretty unhappy.

There is no way to opt-out other than manually disabling the extension via Tools >> Add-ons.
Networking

Submission + - Comcast the latest ISP to try DNS hijacking (comcast.net)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "In the latest blow to "DNS neutrality", Comcast is starting to redirect users to an ad-laden holding page when they try to connect to nonexistent domains.

I have just received an email from them to that effect, tried it, and lo and behold, indeed there is the ugly DNS hijack page.

The good news is that the opt-out is a more sensible registration based on cable modem MAC, rather than the deplorable "cookie method" we just saw from Bell in a recent slashdot story (http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/pzlZQFaBZBw/Bell-Starts-Hijacking-NX-Domain-Queries).

All you comcast customers and friends of comcast customers who want to get out of this, go to https://dns-opt-out.comcast.net/ to opt out.

Is there anything that can be done to stop (and reverse) this DNS breakage trend that the ISPs seem to be latching onto lately? Maybe the latest net neutrality bill (recently discussed on slashdot: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OuTwCeuF0MU/Network-Neutrality-Back-In-Congress-For-3rd-Time) will help?"
Earth

Submission + - 3D Images Reconstructed of 300M Year Old Spiders

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Scientists at Imperial College London have created detailed 3D computer models of two fossilized specimens of ancient creatures called Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestvicii, closely related to modern-day spiders. The researchers created their images by using a CT scanning device, which enabled them to take 3,000 x-rays of each fossil then compile them into precise 3D models, using custom-designed software. Both spiders roamed the Earth before the dinnosaurs during the Carboniferous period, 359 — 299 million years ago when life was emerging from the oceans to live on land. C. hindi's front pair of legs were angled toward the front, suggesting they were used to grapple with prey, an "ambush predator" like the modern-day crab spider, lying in wait for prey to come close. Another finding from the models is that E. prestivicii had hard spikes along its back, probably as a defensive measure making it less palatable to the amphibians that would have hunted it. "Our models almost bring these ancient creatures back to life and it's really exciting to be able to look at them in such detail," says researcher Russel Garwood adding that the technique could be used to return to fossils that have previously been analyzed by conventional means. "Our study helps build a picture of what was happening during this period early in the history of life on land.""
Earth

Submission + - Expedition to Explore Texas Size Plastic 'Island' 1

Submitted by
Peace Corps Online
Peace Corps Online writes: "BBC reports that an expedition called Project Kaisei leaves this month bound for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch a huge "island" of plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean estimated to be twice the size of Texas to study the impact of the waste on marine life. "Every piece of trash that is left on a beach or ends up in our rivers or estuaries and washes out to the sea is an addition to the problem, so we need people to be the solution," says Ryan Yerkey, the project's chief of operations. The garbage patch occupies a large and relatively stationary region of the North Pacific Ocean bound by the North Pacific Gyre, a remote area commonly referred to as the horse latitudes. The rotational pattern created by the North Pacific Gyre draws in waste material from across the North Pacific Ocean, including the coastal waters off North America and Japan. As material is captured in the currents, wind-driven surface currents gradually move floating debris toward the center, trapping it in the region. "You are talking about quite a bit of marine debris but it's not a solid mass," adds Yerkley. "Twenty years from now we can't be harvesting the ocean for trash. We need to get it out but we need to also have people make those changes in their lives to stop the problem from growing and hopefully reverse the course.""
Privacy

Submission + - Can we abandon Confidentiality for Google Apps? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I provide IT services for medium sized medical and law practices and have been getting a lot of feedback from doctors and lawyers who use gmail at home and believe that they can run a significant portion of their practice IT on Google Apps. From a support standpoint, I'd be happy to chuck mail/calendar service management into the bin and let them run with gmail, but for these businesses, there is significant legal liability associated with the confidentiality of their communications and records (eg HIPPA).

For those with high profile celebrity clients, stating that "Google employees can read your stuff" will usually end the conversation right there, but for smaller practices I often get a lot of pushback in the form of "What's wrong with trusting Google?" and "Google's not interested in our email/calendar". Weighing what they see as a tiny legal risk against the promise of Free IT Stuff(TM) becomes increasingly difficult in the face of the clear functionality/usability/ubiquity that they experience when using Google at home. So my question to the Slashdot community is this:

Are they right? Is it time for me to remove the Tin Foil Hat from their confidentiality obligations and stop resisting the juggernaut that is Google?
If not, what's the best way to clarify the confidentiality issues?

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