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Sci-Fi

Sci Fi Channel Becoming Less Geek-Centric "SyFy" 798

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the or-you-could-quit-cancelling-good-programs dept.
narramissic writes "According to a TV Week article, NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to SyFy. Why? To pull in a more 'mainstream' audience. If you're unclear what 'more mainstream' means, TV Historian Tim Brooks spells it out for you: 'The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.' Yes, we should probably all be offended. And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help."
Mars

Mars Winds Clean Spirit's Solar Panels Again 269

Posted by timothy from the like-mom-making-the-bed dept.
Titoxd writes "In a blast from the past, NASA reports that Spirit's solar panels have received a much-needed cleaning courtesy of the Red Planet. The report states, 'The cleaning boosts Spirit's daily energy supply by about 30 watt-hours, to about 240 watt-hours from 210 watt-hours. The rover uses about 180 watt-hours per day for basic survival and communications, so this increase roughly doubles the amount of discretionary power for activities such as driving and using instruments.'"
Privacy

More Claims From NSA Whistleblower Russell Tice 271

Posted by Soulskill from the where-does-it-end dept.
eldavojohn writes "Russell Tice, former NSA employee & whistleblower, has revealed yet more details claiming that wiretapping was combined with credit card data to target civilians. He also suggests the CEOs of major companies hold the truth: 'To get at what's really going on here, the CEOs of these telecom companies, and also of the banking and credit card companies, and any other company where you have big databases, those are the people you have to haul in to Congress and tell them you better tell the truth.' Will Congress follow his suggestions?" This adds to information revealed by Tice last week that the wiretaps targeted journalists in particular.
Security

CCC Create a Rogue CA Certificate 300

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-even-faked-this-dept dept.
t3rmin4t0r writes "Just when you were breathing easy about Kaminsky, DNS and the word hijacking, by repeating the word SSL in your head, the hackers at CCC were busy at work making a hash of SSL certificate security. Here's the scoop on how they set up their own rogue CA, by (from what I can figure) reversing the hash and engineering a collision up in MD5 space. Until now, MD5 collisions have been ignored because nobody would put in that much effort to create a useful dummy file, but a CA certificate for phishing seems juicy enough to be fodder for the botnets now."

Comment Two keys to include (Score 1) 411

by porkface (#25679761) Attached to: How Do You Justify the Existence of IT?

You reduce your company's exposure, or risk, to certain failures.

Part of quantifying that is stating the cost of catastrophe. That's the big scary part of the pitch.

But since there is always competition afoot (outsourcing IT), you must also quantify how much time the little things you do save the company, if say the response time of an outside IT vendor is 24 hours or whatever it would be. If you need to know what the response time is, call some as if you were looking to outsource your company's IT and ask them. Then add a little because it's never as efficient as they'll claim.
The Internet

Millions of Internet Addresses Are Lying Idle 500

Posted by timothy from the gathering-their-strength-for-hallowe'en dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The most comprehensive scan of the entire internet for several decades shows that millions of allocated addresses simply aren't being used. Professor John Heidemann from the University of Southern California (USC) used ICMP and TCP to scan the internet. Even though the last IPv4 addresses will be handed out in a couple of years, his survey reveals that many of the addresses allocated to big companies and institutions are lying idle. Heidemann says: 'People are very concerned that the IPv4 address space is very close to being exhausted. Our data suggests that maybe there are better things we should be doing in managing the IPv4 address space.' So, is it time to reclaim those unused addresses before the IPv6 crunch?"
The Courts

EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and VP Cheney 267

Posted by timothy from the aw-heck-why-not dept.
VisualE writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance."
Yahoo!

Yahoo Ends Talks With Microsoft, Embraces Google Instead 214

Posted by timothy from the oh-google-you're-so-good-to-me dept.
snydeq writes with a story from InfoWorld which says that "Yahoo has ended its talks with Microsoft and is instead nearing an agreement with Google. Yahoo's purported reason for breaking off the talks? That Microsoft was only interested in purchasing Yahoo's search business, not all of the company. 'Such a transaction would not be consistent with the company's view of the converging search and display marketplaces, would leave the company without an independent search business that it views as critical to its strategic future and would not be in the best interests of Yahoo stockholders,' the company said in a statement. The deal with Google allegedly involves Yahoo's search advertising business. The move likely will draw more ire from Icahn and may in fact remain part of the elaborate poker game between the two companies. Microsoft said this alternative transaction remains on the table and did not confirm that talks between it and Yahoo have concluded." Update: 06/12 23:58 GMT by T : CWmike writes "Just hours after saying it ended talks with Microsoft, Yahoo announced that it will start running advertising from Google alongside Yahoo search results. Yahoo expects the deal, which has a 10-year term, to generate $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow during the first 12 months."
Biotech

Scientists Discover Way To Reverse Memory Loss 212

Posted by samzenpus from the insert-probe-and-remember dept.
electricbern writes "Scientists have accidentally discovered how to reverse memory loss by stimulating a specific part of the hypothalamus. Good news for people with Alzheimer's and those who just forgot where they left the car keys."
Space

Space Potato Hits the Streets 106

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the i-know-a-few-space-potatos dept.
gasmanpopey writes to tell us that sweet potato seeds sent to space as a part of China's Shenzhou VI mission are hitting the streets as a part of special Valentine's day meals. While supporters are trying to claim better flavor and better nutrition there doesn't seem to be anything beyond a pure novelty angle.

Novell to Develop Cross-Platform Data Center Tools 36

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the say-that-ten-times-fast dept.
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us eWeek is reporting that Novell is currently working on a new suite of tools that will assist in the management of data centers across Windows, Unix, and Linux environments. From the article: "The tools also help users maximize server utilization by setting up a series of workload policies based on the business application resources required. The project, currently titled "The policy-driven adaptive data center," will leverage virtualization, identity management and resource management to deliver a flexible and adaptive data center."

Stealth Sharks to Patrol the High Seas 331

Posted by samzenpus from the friggin-laser-beams-not-included dept.
dylanduck writes ""Imagine getting inside the mind of a shark: swimming silently through the ocean, sensing faint electrical fields, homing in on the trace of a scent." That's what the Pentagon wants to do, says New Scientist. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements using a newly designed neural implant, the military hope to transform the animals into stealth spies."
User Journal

Journal Journal: hackers

Journal by porkface
"Johansen has become a symbol for hackers" - BBC online tagline for the Jon Johansen DVD CSS trial in Norway.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Is this thing on?

Journal by porkface
Is this an acceptable place to blog or is this supposed to be private?

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