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Submission + - Wikileaks to sue Visa/Mastercard (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After 6 months of financial blockade by Visa and Mastercard, during which they claim to have lost over $15,000,000 in donations, Wikileaks and Datacell are filing a complaint against the two financial giants, with plans to litigate should the block not be lifted. Wikileaks stated, "On June 9th a the law firms Bender von Haller Dragested in Denmark and Reykjavik Law Firm in Iceland acting on behalf of DataCell and WikiLeaks told the companies that if the blockade is not removed they will be litigated in Denmark and a request for prosecution will be filed with the EU Commission." It has also been repeatedly noted that both financial companies still allow financial transactions by the Ku Klux Klan.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/bfp1qh

Comment Re:I can't read Dutch... (Score 1) 143

by remmy1978 (#36527286) Attached to: Dutch Legislature Accidentally Votes For Internet Filtering

I don't see anything wrong with that proposal. If a customer wants to have a filter for "Oh, think about the children!" reasons, let them. It's for a niche market and niche ISP's that want this. It doesn't make it possible to circumvent net neutrality for commercial reasons.

It depends on the definition of "ideological". If your religion is "capitalism", then requiring content providers to pay you for transmission of signal is perfectly "ideological".

Then the customer still has to request it first... I know I won't request such a thing...

Comment Re:I can't read Dutch... (Score 1) 143

by remmy1978 (#36526802) Attached to: Dutch Legislature Accidentally Votes For Internet Filtering

It did go something like that. As votes go, this one was a bit more disorganised than what we are used to...

That said, I think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion. The Netherlands is one of the first countries in the world where net neutrality is becoming a law. This after telecom companies speculated that they wanted to charge extra for certain types of traffic (Skype, What's app, etc.) as they were starting to see their income fall when people would use those tools on their smartphones instead of making regular calls or sendings SMS text messages. They also speculated that traffic to google or youtube might be charged at a premium, etc.

The 'accident' that happened on this vote was that an amendment made by a small conservative Christian party was also voted in. This amendment allows an ISP to offer filtering to their customers provided that this happens both at the customers initiative and that the ISP is not allowed to charge *less* for it than an unfiltered connection. This so the telco's can't use it as an excuse to provide cheap filtered plans and expensive unfiltered plans.

I don't see anything wrong with that proposal. If a customer wants to have a filter for "Oh, think about the children!" reasons, let them. It's for a niche market and niche ISP's that want this. It doesn't make it possible to circumvent net neutrality for commercial reasons.
Debian

Submission + - Debian 6.0 Released In Linux, FreeBSD Flavors (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: After two years of work, the Debian Project has announced the release of Debian 6.0. 'There are many goodies in Debian 6.0 GNU/Linux, not the least of which is the new completely free-as-in-freedom Linux kernel, which no longer contains firmware modules that Debian developers found troublesome,' says blogger Brian Proffitt. And in addition to Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is introduced as a technology preview. 'Debian GNU/kFreeBSD will port both a 32- and 64-bit PC version of the FreeBSD kernel into the Debian userspace, making them the first Debian release without a Linux kernel,' says Proffitt. 'The Debian Project is serious about the technology preview label, though: these FreeBSD-based versions will have limited advanced desktop features.' Installation images may be downloaded right now via bittorrent, jigdo, or HTTP.
Classic Games (Games)

Pac-Man's Ghost Behavior Algorithms 194

Posted by Soulskill from the i-hate-the-pink-one dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This article has a very interesting description of the algorithms behind the ghosts in Pac-Man. I had no idea about most of this information, but that's probably because it's difficult to study the ghosts when I die every 30 seconds. Quoting: 'The ghosts are always in one of three possible modes: Chase, Scatter, or Frightened. The "normal" mode with the ghosts pursuing Pac-Man is Chase, and this is the one that they spend most of their time in. While in Chase mode, all of the ghosts use Pac-Man's position as a factor in selecting their target tile, though it is more significant to some ghosts than others. In Scatter mode, each ghost has a fixed target tile, each of which is located just outside a different corner of the maze. This causes the four ghosts to disperse to the corners whenever they are in this mode. Frightened mode is unique because the ghosts do not have a specific target tile while in this mode. Instead, they pseudorandomly decide which turns to make at every intersection.'"
Media

1928 Time Traveler Caught On Film? 685

Posted by samzenpus from the I-hate-time-travel-stories dept.
Many of you have submitted a story about Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who claims to have found a person using a cellphone in the "unused footage" section of the DVD The Circus, a Charlie Chaplin movie filmed in 1928. To me the bigger mystery is how someone who appears to be the offspring of Ram-Man and The Penguin got into a movie in the first place, especially if they were talking to a little metal box on set. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Space

Collision of Two Asteroids Spotted For the First Time 31

Posted by timothy from the delicious-space-dust dept.
sciencehabit writes "Astronomers report that a small asteroid located in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter took a major hit early last year. Previously rendered only in artists' conceptions, the first asteroid collision known in modern times revealed itself in a tail of debris streaming from what astronomers at first assumed was a comet. Instead of a steady stream of dust, however, they found boulders near the object with dust moving away from them."
Sci-Fi

Browser-Based Deep Space Nine MMO Coming In 2011 153

Posted by Soulskill from the to-boldly-stay-home dept.
A publisher based in Germany has announced Star Trek: Infinite Space, a browser MMO based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The game will be free-to-play, and it's planned for sometime in 2011. "Gameforge also contracted Michael Okuda, who served as scenic art supervisor for every live-action Star Trek series except for the original program, as a consultant. His wife Denise Okuda, who was a video supervisor and scenic artist for several of the sci-fi series' films and shows, will serve as a consultant, too."
Mandriva

Submission + - Developers fork Mandriva Linux, creating Mageia (mageia.org) 1

Submitted by Anssi55
Anssi55 writes: As most of the Mandriva employees working on the Linux distribution were laid off due to the liquidation of Edge-IT (a subsidiary of Mandriva SA) and the trust in the company has diminished, the development community (including the core developers) has decided to fork the project. The new Linux distribution, named Mageia, will be managed by a not-for-profit organization that will be set up in the coming days. There are already many people that have decided to follow the fork, but the people behind it are still welcoming any help offered in the various tasks related to establishing the new distribution.
Security

Submission + - Hole in Linux kernel provides root rights (h-online.com)

Submitted by oztiks
oztiks writes: A vulnerability in the 32-bit compatibility mode of the current Linux kernel (and previous versions) for 64-bit systems can be exploited to escalate privileges. For instance, attackers can break into a system and exploit a hole in the web server to get complete root (also known as superuser) rights or permissions for a victim's system.

According to a report, the problem occurs because the 32-bit call emulation layer does not check whether the call is truly in the Syscall table. Ben Hawkes, who discovered the problem, says the vulnerability can be exploited to execute arbitrary code with kernel rights. An exploit (direct download of source code) is already in circulation; in a test conducted by The H's associates at heise Security on 64-bit Ubuntu 10.04, it opened a shell with root rights.

The kernel developers have remedied the flaw in the repository, and Linux distributors will probably soon publish new kernels to close the hole. Until then, switching off 32-bit ELF support solves the problem if you can do without this function. For instructions, see: "Workaround for Ac1db1tch3z exploit".

Hawkes says the vulnerability was discovered and remedied back in 2007, but at some point in 2008 kernel developers apparently removed the patch, reintroducing the vulnerability. The older exploit apparently only needed slight modifications to work with the new hole.

 
Image

Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178

Posted by samzenpus from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.
Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.
NASA

The Sun Unleashes Coronal Mass Ejection At Earth 220

Posted by Soulskill from the return-fire dept.
astroengine writes "Yesterday morning, at 08:55 UT, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a C3-class flare erupt inside a sunspot cluster. 100,000 kilometers away, deep within the solar atmosphere (the corona), an extended magnetic field filled with cool plasma forming a dark ribbon across the face of the sun (a feature known as a 'filament') erupted at the exact same time. It seems very likely that both eruptions were connected after a powerful shock wave produced by the flare destabilized the filament, causing the eruption. A second solar observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, then spotted a huge coronal mass ejection blast into space, straight in the direction of Earth. Solar physicists have calculated that this magnetic bubble filled with energetic particles should hit Earth on August 3, so look out for some intense aurorae — a solar storm is coming."
Image

Man Wants to Donate His Heart Before He Dies 456

Posted by samzenpus from the cart-before-the-horse dept.
Gary Phebus wants to donate his heart, lungs, and liver. The problem is he wants to donate them before he dies. Gary was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in 2008. Phebus says he'd like to be able to donate his organs before they deteriorate, and doesn't consider his request suicide because he's "dead anyway."

Comment Re:Ummm... (Score 1) 289

by remmy1978 (#32841864) Attached to: The Proton Just Got Smaller

No... a liter is a liter, no matter what the size of the protons. You're actually getting 4% more protons than you thought, as they're smaller in size and you thus need more of them to get a liter.

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