wrexsoul - Slashdot User

IT and A National Security Letter Gag Order 468

Posted by Zonk on Friday March 23, 2007 @09:28AM from the land-that-i-love dept.

fstyke writes "An article in the Washington Post (anonymous for obvious reasons) describes the trauma the president of a small US IT company faces after receiving a National Security Letter. This is sent by the FBI demanding information (140000+ have been sent between 2003/2005 according to the article). Makes for an interesting read of the side effects of receiving such a letter and its requirements for the recipient to remain silent about even the fact he/she has received it.'The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand -- a context that the FBI still won't let me discuss publicly -- I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.'"

Is Computer Science Dead? 641

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @04:51AM from the pining-for-the-fjords dept.

warm sushi writes "An academic at the British Computing Society asks, Is computer science dead? Citing falling student enrollments and improved technology, British academic Neil McBride claims that off-the-shelf solutions are removing much of the demand for high-level development skills: 'As commercial software products have matured, it no longer makes sense for organizations to develop software from scratch. Accounting packages, enterprise resource packages, customer relationship management systems are the order of the day: stable, well-proven and easily available.' Is that quote laughable? Or has the software development industry stabilized to an off-the-self commodity?"

Comment Piracy and MMOs (Score 1) 224

by wrexsoul on Monday March 12, 2007 @06:02PM (#18323419) Attached to: Piracy Forced id's Hand To Multiplatform Gaming

> "You cannot pirate an MMO. Period", said Johsnon.

I'd like to point out that in a general sense this is correct in that in an MMO you can pirate or copy the software but cannot pirate the content that is in the server world. While that may be true, however, it is often possible to pirate whole MMOs in the sense of private servers running leaked server code and people connecting to these servers on cracked/modified clients. While these players cannot communicate with people playing the "legitimate game," it doesn't mean that they can't enjoy a "good enough" experience and not pay for it.

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