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German Spy Agency Can Keep Tabs On Internet Hubs, Federal Court Rules (phys.org) 54

Earlier this week, a federal court in Germany threw out a challenge by the world's largest internet hub, the De-Cix exchange, against the tapping of its data flows by the BND foreign intelligence service. What this means is that the country's spy agency can continue to monitor major internet hubs if Berlin deems it necessary for strategic security interests. From a report: The operator had argued the agency was breaking the law by capturing German domestic communications along with international data. However, the court in the eastern city of Leipzig ruled that internet hubs "can be required by the federal interior ministry to assist with strategic communications surveillance by the BND." De-Cix says its Frankfurt hub is the world's biggest internet exchange, bundling data flows from as far as China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa, which handles more than six terabytes per second at peak traffic.

De-Cix Management GmbH, which is owned by eco Association, the European internet industry body, had filed suit against the interior ministry, which oversees the BND and its strategic signals intelligence. It said the BND, a partner of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has placed so-called Y-piece prisms into its data-carrying fibre optic cables that give it an unfiltered and complete copy of the data flow. The surveillance sifts through digital communications such as emails using certain search terms, which are then reviewed based on relevance.

Comment Re:PR Nightmare (Score 1) 239

At all, the majority of players hate cheaters, and I am myself quite happy that this is happening. Being 14 years does not give you immunity, especially if your infringement has been repeatedly pointed out. Suppose this kid was a client of your store, but every time he comes to visit (without buying anything) takes a crap on the floor. What are you going to do, not call the police because he is 14 years old? And when you call the police, do you think other clients would be mad at you because you tried to stop someone of their age?
You are clearly not a gamer, and you clearly have no idea of how a 14 years old age think.

Comment This is how software should be (Score 5, Insightful) 103

I agree: no flat design, no minimalist interface, no fancy icons or flashy features. It does exactly what it has to do, and nothing more. Its UI is so clear that I don't think I ever had to check the documentation on how to use it (and I am no expert in the field). One of the best free source software out there.

Comment You don't want a natural language (Score 2, Insightful) 106

While it may be useful for a programming language to somehow resemble the syntax of a natural language, you want to stay far away from pretty much everything else.

Having dialects, semantic ambiguity, or whatever a 'phonology' of a programming language could be is bad, because a programming language is created to speak to a computer/compiler, not to a human. The two computational system have very different requirements. It's the same reason you don't want to use humanoid robots in a warfare scenario. Yes, they are cool, but a tank does the job much better.

Comment "may not be the panacea for innovation" (Score 1) 93

Nobody ever claimed that it was. In fact, I don't think anybody in has honestly shown that X is the panacea of Y. It's a new, different, and complementary way of funding a project. There are others such as public fundings and VC. Nobody said kickstarter was going to replace those. News at 11.

Comment Open Source is not (necessarily) Free (Score 1) 87

An option I didn't see is to consider selling the compiled program, and release the source code for free. People who wants to support your project will buy the compiled version, and hopefully not release the compiled version for free on an alternate mirror (which would would be like pirating). People who care about the source code, and wants to modify it, they can get it for free and do it and compile it themselves.

Has anybody ever tried this model? Indeed, as someone has already said, it depends a lot on the software, but I wonder if it may work in some cases.

Comment Am I in a minority? (Score 1) 644

I started coding when I was about 15 years because I was in an IRC channel, and I wanted to "hack it:". I googled "how to become a hacker", and the Eric Steven Raymond's guide came up, so I started learning Unix, and shortly after coding. I liked coding so much that I almost never stopped since them, although I did not end up taking a CS major.

How many of you think that they got interested in coding because of Hollywood (legit question)? Do you think a movie could possibly affect such a decision or induce you into having a new passion, or not have it rather?

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