Comment Its very simple (Score 1) 202
What the government creates the government controls.
Comment Re:Keypad (Score 1) 102
No, they were just stupid.
By and large I've found that the reason we say crime doesn't pay is that we only catch the dumb ones.
As I like to say, "crime doesn't pay, but only because when it does we call it politics."
By and large I've found that the reason we say crime doesn't pay is that we only catch the dumb ones.
As I like to say, "crime doesn't pay, but only because when it does we call it politics."
Submission + - Thermal noise encyrption
Light Licker writes: Measuring the thermal properties of existing cables can offer encryption more secure and cheaper than quantum cryptography, says New Scientist. A scheme from Texas A&M University exploits the fact thermal noise is related to resistance. Sender and receiver transmit over a wire using resistors to manipulate the noise — any eavesdropping attempt can instantly be spotted because it will change the resistance. Messages have been transmitted this way over more than 2000 kilometres — much further than any quantum security scheme.
Submission + - Zune team getting amnesty for iPod use
MsManhattan writes: The Zune development team at Microsoft is apparently offering amnesty to employees who give up their iPods in favor of using the Zune MP3 player. An MSNBC employee has posted a photo on Flickr of the company's "iPod Amnesty Bin," which sports an image of a bitten green apple and the words "Bite me." Whether it's to be taken seriously or is a joke to boost employee morale is anyone's guess, and naturally no one at Microsoft was available for comment. From what can be seen in the photo, only a few early-model iPods have been deposited.
Submission + - Best Presidential Candidate for Geeks
blast writes: I was wondering who the community thinks best candidate for geeks. I.e, regarding the war on privacy, "total information awareness" or whatever they're calling it these days, Internet regulation and taxation, copyright/patent reform, the right to read, the right to secure communications, the right to tinker, etc.
Submission + - Sun Says OSS Developers Need To Be Compensated
krelian writes: "Talking at Netbeans Day, Rich Green, Sun executive vice president for software, expressed doubts about the current model in which open-source developers create free intellectual property and have others scoop it up to generate huge amounts of revenue.
"It really is a worrisome social artifact," Green said. "I think in the long term that this is a worrisome scenario [and] not sustainable. We are looking very closely at compensating people for the work that they do.""
Submission + - Disaster recovery
moogoogaipan writes: After a few days thinking about the quickest way to bring my website back to the internet users, I am still stuck at DNS. From experience, even if I set the TTL for my DNS zone file as low as 5 mins, there are still DNS servers out there won't update until a few days later(yeah you, AOL).
Here is my situation. Say, I have my web servers and database servers at a remote backup location. They are ready to serve. So my question for ./ers is that if we get hit by an earthquake at our main location, what can I do in a few hours to get everyone to go to our backup location?
Submission + - US to pass bill outlawing genetic discrimination
fatduck writes: "NewScientist reports that, "On 25 April, the House of Representatives voted 420 to 3 to pass the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). The Senate is expected to endorse the act within a few weeks, which is also supported by President Bush."
"There is no gene for the human spirit.""
Submission + - Boredom Drives Open-Source Developers?
Henry McClyde writes: Chris Anderson of The Long Tail posted an article yesterday in which he claims that "spare cycles" — or boredom and the tons of people who wish they had something better to do — is what drives Web 2.0.... and the open source development community. While Web 2.0 in general is driven by "the long tail," NeoSmart seems to have taken up issue with Anderson's claims that open source developers (and other freeware programmers in general) do what they do because they're bored and have nothing better to spend their time on. Same with Wikipedia contributors, and bloggers in general.
I feel it's a mix between the two. It may have started off as boredom and ended up as a real passion for helping people out and making a difference. But definitely interesting that Anderson of all people would compare a Linux kernel developer to a bored sheriff watching a DVD or a travel playing Solitaire.
I feel it's a mix between the two. It may have started off as boredom and ended up as a real passion for helping people out and making a difference. But definitely interesting that Anderson of all people would compare a Linux kernel developer to a bored sheriff watching a DVD or a travel playing Solitaire.
CNN To Release Debates Under Creative Commons 151
remove office writes "After calls from several prominent bloggers and a couple of presidential candidates, CNN has agreed to release the footage from its upcoming June presidential debates uncopyrighted. Senator Barack Obama was the first candidate to call for all presidential debates to be released under Creative Commons, with fellow Democratic hopeful John Edwards following shortly afterwards. CNN will be the first to do so with their June 3rd and 5th Democratic and Republican debates. MSNBC hosted the first presidential debates recently but refused to release them under Creative Commons, opting instead to post online only commercial-ridden clips in Windows Media format."
Submission + - Court rules playlist customization not interactive
prostoalex writes: "Is music played via customized playlist delivered interactively (i.e., via user participation) or non-interactive (i.e., decisions are made on the server side)? The question does seem metaphysical, but it took Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Yahoo! six years to figure it out. User-driven playlists are bucketed with on-demand music services, while server-driven playlists are equaled to broadcasts, thereby causing different licensing mechanisms to take place. Yahoo! inherited the legal wrangle when it purchased a music startup Launch, which built a music recommendation feature. Court decision determined that recommendation algorithms that rely on usage data to build playlists server-side are still eligible for broadcast license, thereby substantially lowering the costs of operating a music recommendation site."
Submission + - DARPA artificial arm comes with VR training
An anonymous reader writes: The first prototype of an artificial limb commissioned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency can reportedly be controlled naturally, provide sensory feedback and allows for eight degrees of freedom — way beyond the current state of the art for prosthetic limbs. Oh yeah, it also has its own VR environement to learn how to use it.
Journal Journal: Bill Introduced to Save Internet Radio
According to SaveNetRadio.org, Representatives Jay Inslee and Donald Manzullo have introduced a bill to restore reasonable royalty rates to Internet Radio. It hasn't passed yet, so there's still time to let your representatives know that you support this bill (or don't).
Journal Journal: Slashdot moderation has two obvious and condemning flaws. 11
1) It encourages new members to stay new.
Feed Another 419 scam ring nicked (theregister.com)
Hundreds to go?
Amsterdam police this week arrested another 419 cell and confiscated computers, fake travel documents, and bogus banking documents.
Slashdot Top Deals
The relative importance of files depends on their cost in terms of the human effort needed to regenerate them. -- T.A. Dolotta
