ncl2fth - Slashdot User

Google Launches Public DNS Resolver 540

Posted by timothy on Thursday December 03, 2009 @03:04PM from the their-interest-is-understandable dept.

AdmiralXyz writes "Google has announced the launch of their free DNS resolution service, called Google Public DNS. According to their blog post, Google Public DNS uses continuous record prefetching to avoid cache misses — hopefully making the service faster — and implements a variety of techniques to block spoofing attempts. They also say that (unlike an increasing number of ISPs), Google Public DNS behaves exactly according to the DNS standard, and will not redirect you to advertising in the event of a failed lookup. Very cool, but of course there are questions about Google's true motivations behind knowing every site you visit."

Submission + - Power consumption and the future of computing (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by mrdirkdiggler on Friday June 29, 2007 @03:18PM

mrdirkdiggler writes: ArsTechnica's Hannibal takes a look at how the power concerns that currently plague datacenters are shaping next-generation computing technologies at the levels of the microchip, the board-level interconnect, and the datacenter. In a nutshell, engineers are now willing to take on a lot more hardware overhead in their designs (thermal sensors, transistors that put components into sleep states, buffers and filters at the ends of links, etc.) in order to get maximum power efficiency. The article, which has lots of nice graphics to illustrate the main points, mostly focuses on the specific technologies that Intel has in the pipeline to address these issues.

Submission + - John Edwards on IP and open source

Submitted by goombah99 on Friday June 29, 2007 @02:30PM

goombah99 writes: John Edward, the presidential candidate and lawyer, is emerging as quite techno savy. He has been guest hosting on Lawrence Lessigs Blog, giving his view on the current imbalance between property right protection and the good of public access. And he has become the first presidential candidate to support "open source code" for election systems in addition to voter verified paper records. He's even personally using a twitter.

Vista Security Claims Debunked 315

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday June 28, 2007 @08:14PM from the setting-things-straight dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently Microsoft still hasn't learned that counting vendor acknowledged vulnerabilities isn't a good way to establish the security of an OS. As an analysis of Microsoft's claims on Full Disclosure shows, we see that the methodology used was badly flawed. A bug in Firefox (not to mention emacs), counts as a flaw for Linux, while IE bugs get ignored on Vista's chart. Then we see that vulnerabilities aren't vulnerabilities when they're security-challenged features such as Vista's Teredo. Also, there's far too little consideration given to severity, given that it stoops to counting even extra access restrictions on a file in OSX to have something to show. In short, the original Microsoft analysis was good PR and poor research."

Submission + - CallerID spoofing to be made illegal (loc.gov) 1

Submitted by MadJo on Thursday June 28, 2007 @07:36PM

MadJo writes: US Congress has just approved a bill that will make it illegal to spoof CallerID.
If someone is found guilty of spoofing his CallerID, he could face fines up to $10,000 per violation.

From the bill:

The amount of the forfeiture penalty (...) shall not exceed $10,000 for each violation, or 3 times that amount for each day of a continuing violation, except that the amount assessed for any continuing violation shall not exceed a total of $1,000,000 for any single act or failure to act.

Submission + - City demands immobilizers on high-risk cars (reuters.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Thursday June 28, 2007 @07:13PM

mytrip writes: "Drivers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, one of Canada's worst cities for auto thefts, will have to install electronic immobilizers on new or "high-risk" cars in order to qualify for auto insurance, the province said on Wednesday.

Most "high-risk" vehicles will include those on the top of the province's most-stolen list."

Submission + - Drugs to Prevent Cell Suicide

Submitted by MrErlenmeyer on Thursday June 28, 2007 @06:39PM

MrErlenmeyer writes: Many injuries and diseases including heart attacks, stroke, and Parkinson's cause healthy cells to kill themselves. A group of scientists at Washington University in Saint Louis believe they have a lead on how to stop apoptosis, unwanted cell suicide, and thus minimize the tissue damage that occurs as a result of these injuries. They designed drugs that halt the actions of executioner caspases, proteins that as a molecular wrecking crew. Other scientists had found that a chemical called isatin could prevent tissue damage in rabbit hearts that were deprived of oxygen. This was the starting point for the team of researchers in Missouri. By making some changes to the molecule, they were able to develop an even more effective molecule. With some further refinement, this may lead to a new class of emergency medications.

Submission + - Value propositions of current CPUs put to the test (techreport.com)

Submitted by J. Dzhugashvili on Thursday June 28, 2007 @05:45PM

J. Dzhugashvili writes: Processors are typically compared by their performance alone. However, the folks at The Tech Report have put together an article that attempts to quantify the value propositions of AMD's and Intel's latest processors. The article takes 16 processors through an extensive battery of tests that range from gaming and video encoding to Folding@Home and energy efficiency, and examines the value they offer in each. The results may surprise you.

Submission + - Vista Security Claims Debunked (seclists.org)

Submitted by

[Send Bug Reports Here]

on Thursday June 28, 2007 @03:38PM

[Send Bug Reports Here] writes: "Apparently Microsoft still hasn't learned that counting vendor acknowledged vulnerabilities isn't a good way to establish the security of an OS. As an analysis of Microsoft's claims on Full Disclosure shows, we see that the methodology used was badly flawed. A bug in Firefox (not to mention emacs), counts as a flaw for Linux, while IE bugs get ignored on Vista's chart. Then we see that vulnerabilities aren't vulnerabilities when they're security-challenged features such as Vista's Teredo. Also, there's far too little consideration given to severity, given that it stoops to counting even extra access restrictions on a file in OSX to have something to show. In short, the original Microsoft analysis was good PR and poor research."

Submission + - Open source set-top-box adds YouTube support (last100.com)

Submitted by mrspin on Thursday June 28, 2007 @12:55PM

mrspin writes: Media streaming boxes such as the AppleTV, XBox 360, PS3, and products from Netgear, do a varying job of bridging the gap between the PC and television, as well as, in some cases, delivering Internet content directly into the living room. But all are closed systems. The result of which is that users are left trying to hack these devices against the wishes of manufacturers or have to make-do with whatever official features are implemented. Bucking this trend, Neuros is taking a wholly different approach, and has open-sourced the firmware for it's Neuros OSD media-center, meaning that anybody is free to write add-ons that extend the device's functionality. This week the company announced that thanks to the open-source community, the device now lets users browser, search and view the entire YouTube catalog.

Microsoft to Offer Free Online Storage 290

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday June 27, 2007 @07:17PM from the the-first-500-megs-are-free dept.

athloi writes "Microsoft Corp. is giving computer users up to 500 megabytes of online storage for their documents, music, photos and video. They're offering it to a select 5,000 test users for now, but will make it widely available later this summer. This move is the latest in a series by the previous large corporation we all loved to hate to compete with the newest large corporation we might hate and fear, Google."

Submission + - Giant microwave turns plastic back to oil (newscientist.com)

Submitted by on Wednesday June 27, 2007 @07:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: From the article: "Key to GRC's process is a machine that uses 1200 different frequencies within the microwave range, which act on specific hydrocarbon materials. As the material is zapped at the appropriate wavelength, part of the hydrocarbons that make up the plastic and rubber in the material are broken down into diesel oil and combustible gas."

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