celtic_hackr writes "Well, I never thought I'd be an advocate for placing GPS devices on people. However, since it took less than three days for my local school district to misplace my daughter, I have decided that something needs to be done. By the school district's own admission it has a recurring problem of placing children on the wrong buses. Fortunately, my daughter was located, with no thanks to the local school district. Therefore, I would like input on a way to be able to keep track of my child. I know there are personal tracking devices out there. I have nothing against these systems. But I want more than this. My specification are: 1) a small unobtrusive device I can place on my daughter, 2) an application to pull up on any computer, a map with a dot indicating the real-time position of my child, 3) a handheld device with the equivalent information, 4) [optional] a secure web application/plug-in I can install on my own domain allowing me to track her from anyplace in the world, 5) a means of turning it all off, 6) a Linux based solution of the above. I believe all the pieces for making such a system are out there. Has anyone built anything like this? Is there an open source solution? How would I go about building my own? Has anyone hacked any of these personal trackers before, to serve their own purposes? How does a tinfoil hat wearer engineer such a device to make sure Big-Brother isn't watching too? Can these devices be locked down so only certain devices can pick up the GPS location of an individual locator? What other recommendations do you have?"

Hugh Pickens writes "Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick 'the right person' as its copyright czar. Biden warned of the harms of piracy at the private event organized by the Motion Picture Association of America in the sumptuous, newly renovated Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 'It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people as consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of income,' Biden said, according to a White House pool report. Biden addressed President Obama's forthcoming decision about who will be named the intellectual-property enforcement coordinator, better known as the copyright czar. Under a law approved by the US Congress last October, Obama is required to appoint someone to coordinate the administration's IP enforcement efforts and prepare annual reports. Copyright industry lobbyists sent a letter to the president asking him to pick someone sympathetic to their concerns, while groups that would curb copyright law sent their own letter (PDF) urging the opposite approach. We 'will find the right person for intellectual property czar,' Biden said."

Al writes "Researchers at Boston University have developed a way to predict the behavior of different DNA segments and make synthetic biology a little bit more reliable. James Collins and colleagues have built libraries of component parts and a mathematical modeling system to help them predict the behavior of parts of a gene network. Like any self-respected bunch of grad students, they decided to demonstrate the approach by making beer. They engineered gene promoters to control when flocculation occurs in brewers yeast, which allowed them to finely control the flavor of the resulting beer."

Jamyang (Greg Walton) writes "I am editor of the Infowar Monitor and co-author of the recent report, Tracking Ghostnet. I have been asked by the Office of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (OHHDL) and the Tibetan Government in Exile (TGIE) to offer some policy recommendations in light of the ongoing targeted malware attacks directed at the Tibetan community worldwide. Some of the recommendations are relatively straightforward. For example, I will suggest that OHHDL convene an international Board of Advisers, bringing together some of the brightest minds in computer and international security to advise the Tibetans, and that the new Tibetan university stands up a Certified Ethical Hacking course. However, one of the more controversial moves being actively debated by Tibetans on the Dharamsala IT Group [DITG] list, is a mass migration of the exile community (including the government) to Linux, particularly since all of the samples of targeted malware collected exploit vulnerabilities in Windows. I would be very interested to hear Slashdot readers opinions on this debate here." (More below.)

arbitraryaardvark writes "An Ohio swinger's magazine objects to keeping proof on file that its advertisers are over 18. I reported here in 2007 that the 6th circuit struck down U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 as a First Amendment violation. The full 6th circuit has now overturned that ruling. The case might continue to the Supreme Court. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports."

ChadDa3mon writes "I work for a large MSSP type operation and we deal with a plethora of vendors, versions, and .... skill sets. We're facing a critical problem as we grow when trying to deal with these varying degrees of technical competency. The end result is we're getting to the point where we have to document every procedure and process, no matter how mundane or 'common sense' it may seem." How, ChadDa3mon wants to know, can complex skills be documented to account for various users? Read on for more details of what he's seeking.

QuietR10t writes "A new technique has been developed for detecting and tracking illegal content transferred using the BitTorrent file-trading protocol. According to its creators, the approach can monitor networks without interrupting the flow of data and provides investigators with hard evidence of illicit file transfers. 'Our system differs in that it is completely passive, meaning that it does not change any information entering or leaving a network,' says Schrader." I wonder if it can specifically identify legal content, too.