swatter - Slashdot User

Today's WikiLeaks News 312

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @01:56PM from the all-wrapped-into-one dept.

In today's episode of As WikiLeaks Turns we learn that WikiLeaks's main web site is back up less than 10 days after EveryDNS terminated the domain name over stability concerns. A 16-year-old Dutch boy suspected of being involved in the pro-WikiLeaks attacks on MasterCard and Visa has been arrested. But Dutch teenagers aren't the only Assange fans in the news. Many top journalists in Australia have sent a letter(PDF) to Prime Minister Julia Gillard today to express their support of WikiLeaks. The Sydney Police have written their own letter however to organizers of a pro-WikiLeaks rally saying that the police oppose a planned demonstration. Finally, special correspondent for The Times, Alexi Mostrous and freelance reporter Heather Brooke were given permission by the judge in the Julian Assange trial to post Twitter updates about the proceedings.

Bethesda Criticized Over Buggy Releases 397

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 09, 2010 @06:43AM from the and-don't-kill-off-patrick-stewart-at-the-beginning dept.

SSDNINJA writes "This editorial discusses the habit of Bethesda Softworks to release broken and buggy games with plans to just fix the problems later. Following a trend of similar issues coming up in their games, the author begs gamers to stop supporting buggy games and to spread the idea that games should be finished and quality controlled before release – not weeks after."

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 Passes Senate Panel 367

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 30, 2010 @09:45AM from the this-won't-end-well dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 passed a Senate panel, giving the president unprecedented power to issue a nation-wide blackout or restriction on websites without congressional approval. The bill, written by Sen. Jay Rockefeller [D-WV] and revised by Sen. Olympia Snow [R-ME], was drafted in an attempt to thwart internet-based terrorist threats, and gives the president this 'kill switch' without oversight or explanation. The bill is up for Senate vote."

ASCAP Starts To Act Like the RIAA 272

Posted by kdawson on Friday May 15, 2009 @10:41AM from the rebrand-as-ashattery dept.

Scott Lockwood writes "Below Average Dave, a Dr. Demento style parody artist, has been shut down by the ASCAP. This collective, acting as badly as the RIAA, is now attempting to ignore the 2 Live Crew Supreme Court decision that parodies are new derivative works. Just like the RIAA, ASCAP seems intent on misrepresents the law. If you know anyone who can help BA Dave in his plight, please contact him." This artist doesn't have the resources to fight the ASCAP, even though the law is pretty clearly on his side. Anyone at the EFF or the ACLU interested?

Dealing With ISPs That Use NXDomain Redirection? 264

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 13, 2009 @01:17PM from the looking-at-you-charter dept.

Vrtigo1 writes "I work for a small company that has about 50 staff on the road relying on VPN back to our office at any given time. Many ISPs have implemented NXDomain redirection services that hijack DNS traffic to show you sponsored links and other related ads when you mistype a domain name. These services are incompatible with most VPN software, since they prevent the computer from resolving internal hostnames. Large ISPs typically provide an opt-out on their sponsored links page that immediately opts you out of the DNS redirection, but I've noticed that some smaller ISPs and CLECs have opt-out links that don't actually appear to do anything. I don't have a good solution for employees using these ISPs, and our employees are getting frustrated because the problem is becoming more prevalent and we can't fix it for them. I've tried calling a few of these smaller ISPs for help, but it's been like talking to a wall. Manually changing DNS servers works temporarily, but the user can't resolve internal hostnames when they connect to the office LAN again. Have you had to deal with ISPs using non-standard DNS servers? What is your solution?"

Hackers Broke Into FAA Air Traffic Control Systems 124

Posted by CmdrTaco on Friday May 08, 2009 @03:21PM from the those-pesky-nigerian-royals dept.

PL/SQL Guy writes "Hackers have repeatedly broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week, and the FAA's increasing use of commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies as part of an effort to modernize the air traffic control systems poses a higher security risk to the systems than when they relied primarily on proprietary software, the report said. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at only 11 of hundreds of air traffic control facilities. In 2008, more than 870 cyber incident alerts were issued to the organization responsible for air traffic control operations and by the end of the year 17 percent (more than 150 incidents) had not been remediated, 'including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control' of operations computers, the report said."

RIAA About to Transform? 217

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday February 27, 2009 @06:29PM from the and-i'll-form-the-head dept.

It has been reported for a while that the RIAA was suffering some cutbacks and dwindling support, but techdirt is reporting that the cuts may be even deeper than most originally suspected. Who knew suing potential customers would ruin your business? "I'm sure some will somehow 'blame piracy' for this turn of events, but it's hard to see how that's even remotely the issue. The real issue is that the RIAA has basically managed to run one of the dumbest, most self-defeating strategies over the last decade. Rather than helping major record labels adjust to the changing market, it continually, repeatedly and publicly destroyed its own reputation and the reputation of the labels — each time shrinking their potential market by blaming the very people they should have been working to turn into customers."

Comment Re:Obviously not (Score 1) 868

by swatter on Wednesday August 13, 2008 @02:33PM (#24588621) Attached to: Are US Voters Informed Enough About Science?

Science says that it is highly unlikely that anyone can walk through walls, or walk on water, or ...

Hmmmm ... Maybe you should be a bit more careful about making such claims. Some 30 years ago, while I was at the U of Wisconsin (which is on the shore of a good-size lake), I watched a small group of people experimenting with and demoing equipment that quite literally implemented "walking on water". They're generally called "water shoes" or "pontoon shoes".

Yeah that's how Jesus did it too. It's all there in John 6:19--21:

19 When therefore they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they behold Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the boat: and they were afraid.

20 But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid and make room for my holy inflatable clown shoes, for they are large and do leak a bit.

21 They were willing therefore to receive him into the boat: and straightway the boat was at the land whither they were going.

Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) Now GPL 226

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday June 23, 2008 @02:51PM from the yet-another-convert dept.

melios writes "In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has released its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community. Source code, design documentation, and test suites for AdvFS are available on SourceForge."

Submission + - FISA Bill Vote Today, With Telco Immunity

Submitted by

Bimo_Dude

on Friday June 20, 2008 @06:48AM

Bimo_Dude writes: "Today (June 20), Steny Hoyer in bringing to the house floor the latest FISA bill (PDF), which includes retroactive immunity for the telcos. The bill also is very weak on judicial review, allowing the telcos to use a letter from the president as a "get out of liability free" card. Here are comments from the ACLU and the EFF.FTA:

"The agreement extends the government's ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while effectively providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecom firms. They face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers' privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.""

Submission + - Judge: White House Must Answer for Missing Tapes (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Saturday April 26, 2008 @11:56AM

Lucas123 writes: "A District Court judge has ordered the Executive Office of the President to tell the court by May 5 whether any e-mail server backup tapes were kept for a period from March to October 2003 to cover controversial issues such as reasons for starting the war in Iraq, the release of a former CIA operative's name and the U.S. Department of Justice's actions. The White House has been working for months trying to fend off a lawsuit filed last May in federal court in Washington by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. The judge cited what he called an apparent contradiction by White House CIO Theresa Payton as to whether backup tapes had been preserved. He also recommended that White House employees be ordered to turn over any flash drives or other portable media that may contain e-mails."

What We Know About the FBI's CIPAV Spyware 207

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday August 01, 2007 @12:42PM from the i-always-feel-like-somebody's-watching-me dept.

StonyandCher writes "What is CIPAV? CIPAV stands for 'Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier'; a lengthy term for powerful spyware the Federal Bureau of Investigation can bring to bear on web-based crime. It was used last month in a case where someone was emailing bomb threats regularly to a Washington high school. An affidavit by an FBI agent revealed some of the workings of CIPAV. 'According to the court filing, this is [some of] what the CIPAV collects from the infected computer: IP address, Media Access Control address for the network card, List of open TCP and UDP ports, List of running programs ... Last visited URL. Once that initial inventory is conducted, the CIPAV slips into the background and silently monitors all outbound communication, logging every IP address to which the computer connects, and time and date stamping each.' In a Computerworld article, the author attempts to dissect CIPAV's purpose and raises a number of questions such as: What happens to the data the CIPAV collects? Does the CIPAV capture keystrokes? Can the CIPAV spread on its own to other computers, either purposefully or by accident? Does it erase itself after its job is done?"

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