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GUI

Will W3C Accept DRM For Webfonts? 315

Posted by timothy from the magic-8-ball-time dept.
dotne writes "Microsoft has submitted Embedded OpenType (EOT) to W3C and a slimy campaign for EOT has been launched. EOT is a DRM layer on top of normal TrueType/Opentype files; EOT ties a font file to a certain web page or site and prevents reuse by other pages/sites. Microsoft's IE has supported EOT for years, but it has largely been ignored due to the clumsiness of having to regenerate font files when a page changes. Now that other browsers are moving to support normal TrueType and OpenType on the web (Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Prince), W3C is faced with a question: should they bless Microsoft's EOT for use on the web? Or, should they encourage normal font files on the web and help break Microsoft's forgotten monopoly?"
Security

Adobe Flash Ads Launching Clipboard Hijack Attacks 353

Posted by kdawson from the poisoning-the-ad-pool dept.
bullyBEEF writes "Malicious hackers are using booby-trapped Flash banner ads to hijack clipboards for use in rogue security software attacks. In the Web attacks, which affect Mac, Windows, and Linux users running Firefox, IE, and Safari, bad guys are seizing control of the machine's clipboard (probably using the Flash command setClipboard) and inserting a hard-to-delete URL that points to a fake anti-virus program. A number of legitimate sites have been seen to host ads carrying the attack — including Newsweek, Digg, and MSNBC.com. Researcher Aviv Raff offers a harmless demo of how it's done."
Image

Young Michael Phelps 1

Posted by samzenpus from the train-hard dept.
Here we have a young Michael Phelps and the man he would pull through the water while training.
Security

EFF To Appeal Court Order Vs. Subway Hack Demo 189

Posted by kdawson from the tell-no-one dept.
snydeq sends along InfoWorld coverage of the EFF's plans to appeal a US District Court order that kept three MIT students from presenting detailed flaws in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority e-ticketing system at Defcon. And an anonymous reader points out that the MBTA, in addition to triggering the Streisand Effect, released in open court more information on vulnerabilities (PDF) than the students had any intention of presenting. See Exhibit 1 to this court filing.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Copyright advocacy group violates copyright (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by
word munger
word munger writes: "Commercial scholarly publishers are beginning to get afraid of the open access movement. They've hired a high-priced consultant to help them sway public opinion in favor of copyright restrictions on taxpayer-funded research. Funny thing is, their own website contains several copyright violations. It seems they pulled their images directly from the Getty Images website — watermark and all — without paying for their use! Clearly their agenda is simply to make using copyrighted materials inconvenient and expensive for everyone but THEMSELVES."
United States

Submission + - Torrentspy.com disables searching for U.S. IPs

Submitted by dr_strang
dr_strang writes: Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent searches for IPs that originate in the United States. Instead of a results page, users are directed to this page, which states:
Torrentspy Acts to Protect Privacy
Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws.
Data Storage

Submission + - Laptop/Server data synchronization 1

Submitted by gbr
gbr writes: I've been trying to automatically synchronize data between a laptop and a server. When the laptop is connected to the network, I want all writes to automatically propagate across to the server. When the laptop is disconnected I want the laptop user to continue working with the local data. When the laptop is reconnected, I want the data to automatically re-sync.

The issue is, the data on the server may have changed as well, which needs to propagate back to the laptop. The data doesn't contain anything too special, no database tables etc. It does contain binary data such as executables and word processing documents. I've looked at ChironFS, Unison file sync, and drbd. ChironFS needs a manual rebuild if a connection fails, and the user needs to know which machine contains the correct data. Unison requires the user to initiate the synchronization process manually every time, and drbd is just not meant for the job at hand.

How do you automatically, and invisibly to the user (except in the case of conflicts), synchronize between a laptop and a server?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Teen hacks $84 million porn filter in 30 minutes

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tom Wood, a Year 10 Australian student has cracked the federal government's $84-million Internet porn filter in just 30 minutes. He can deactivate the filter in several clicks in such a way that the software's icon is not deleted which will make his parents believe the filter is still working. Tom says it is a matter of time before some computer-savvy kid puts the bypass on the Internet for others to use.
Windows

Submission + - Vista poor network performance caused by MP3s (2cpu.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over the past months since Vista's release, there has been no doubt about the reduced level of network performance offered compared to Windows XP. However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have apparently discovered an unexplained connection with audio resulting in an approximate 10% cap of total network throughput. Whenever any audio is being sent to a sound card, network performance is drastically reduced instantly. As soon as the audio is stopped, the throughput begins to climb to its expected speed. It's a tough one for users — what do you pick? Sound or speed? So much for multi-tasking.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - DMCA means you cannot delete files on your own PC (wired.com)

Submitted by
DragonHawk
DragonHawk writes: "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, "All I did was erase files or registry keys." Says a lawyer: "It may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power." So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we cannot delete things on our computers. Time to buy stock in Seagate."
Communications

Skype Blames Microsoft Patch Tuesday for Outage 286

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the ddos-ing-yourself dept.
brajesh writes to tell us that Skype has blamed its outage over the last week on Microsoft's Patch Tuesday. Apparently the huge numbers of computers rebooting (and the resulting flood of login requests) revealed a problem with the network allocation algorithm resulting in a couple days of downtime. Skype further stressed that there was no malicious activity and user security was never in any danger.
The Internet

Submission + - How much are ad servers slowing down the internet? 2

Submitted by vipermac
vipermac writes: Most the times I have a problem with a web page loading slow (or freezing temporarily), I look down at the status bar and see that it is waiting on an ad server, google analytics, or the like. It seems to me on popular web sites the bottle neck is overwhelmingly on the ad servers now and not on the servers of the main web site itself. In my opinion it seems we need a better model for serving ads or else these services need to add more servers/bandwidth. Are there any studies on the delay that 3rd party ad servers are creating, or any new models that are being introduced to serve ads?
Editorial

Journal Journal: Employee and customer problems come up, some of us are both?

Journal by rzrzedg

I am an employee for one of the largest banks in the country, recently when calling as a customer I had a chance to butt heads with customer service. When I returned to work the next day my manager and unit manager had received details about the conversation, and a screen shot of my account details. Most of us support our companies by using the service we help to provide, but what do you all do when those situations come into conflict. I am moving my accounts away but what legal options are t
Security

Submission + - Ubuntu Servers HACKED! (ubuntu.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Ubuntu had to shutdown 5 of 8 production servers that are sponsored by Canonical, when they started attacking other systems. Canonical blames the community, saying they were community hosted, and were poorly maintained. However, kernel upgrades couldn't be done because of poor backwards compatibility with the very hardware that Canonical had sponsored! While people point fingers at each other it is pretty clear that both sides are equally to blame, the community administrators for practicing bad security practices, such as using unencrypted FTP transfers with accounts, not properly maintaining the system. However Canonical should have been well aware of what they are hosting. The question remains, if any of the files distributed to users have been compromised. A major blow for Canonical though who are attempting to enter the business market with Ubuntu Server."
Displays

Submission + - 3D Animations in Mid-Air Using Plasma Balls (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Japanese boffins are now making animations by creating small plasma balls in mid-air. The technology doesn't use vapor or strange gases, just lasers to heat up oxygen and nitrogen molecules: up to 1,000 brilliant dots per second, which makes smooth motion possible. They could be used as street signs, advertising or to create giant plasma monsters to destroy entire cities. Maybe.

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