Slashdot Mirror

New submitter bozman8 writes "Announced recently on social networking platform Twitter, Julian Assange has found a way to run for the Upper House of the Australian Senate, despite being detained under house arrest in Britain. Along with Julian's candidacy, WikiLeaks has announced that they are going to run a nominee against current Prime Minister Julia Gillard in her local electorate."

New submitter SandmanWAIX sends this excerpt from ABC.net.au: "Rupert Murdoch's media empire has made huge payouts to 37 phone-hacking victims, including actor Jude Law, singer Danii Minogue, and former British deputy prime minister John Prescott, their lawyers said. ... The company has set up a multi-million-pound compensation scheme for victims of phone hacking in a bid to avoid further costly civil lawsuits. ... It has also made a payout of 2 million pounds to the family of murdered British schoolgirl Milly Dowler, while Mr. Murdoch made a personal donation of 1 million pounds to charities chosen by her family.'"

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Australia's ABC News: "Bob Anderson, an Olympic swordsman who staged fights for films including the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogy, has died at the age of 89. ... Anderson donned Darth Vader's black helmet and fought light-saber battles in two of the three original Star Wars films, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but his role was not initially publicized." The accompanying video clips are great; I never thought about anyone being in the Vader suit besides David Prowse.

FatLittleMonkey writes "Anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd is using aerial drones to find and track factory ships used by Japanese whalers. The group claims the tactic shortened the Japanese whaling season last year by a month, saving 200 whales, and this year they've spotted the factory ship even earlier."

beaverdownunder writes "Julian Assange has won the right to submit an appeal of his extradition to Sweden on 'public interest' grounds. He now has two weeks to come up with a convincing argument for Britain's Supreme Court. From the article: 'The judges ruled that Mr Assange's case is of general public importance, but the Supreme Court could still refuse to hear his case. Mr Assange now has 14 days to formally lodge an appeal, meaning his stay in Britain, where he has been staying since his arrest in December last year, is certain to stretch into 2012.'"

xav_jones writes "The ABC is reporting that 'Australia's five major ISPs have revealed their plans to crack down on online piracy by sending warning notices to suspected illegal downloaders while assisting rights holders to pursue serial offenders through the courts.' The idea is that '[d]uring an 18-month trial, rights holders would send copyright infringement notices, including evidence of copyright infringement and the IP address involved, to ISPs who would then send "educational notices" to the internet users concerned.' Further action would entail that '[u]sers who are suspected of further copyright breaches would then receive up to three warning notices before rights holders are able to pursue court action.' This seems a gentler approach than other countries. Will it prove more effective and/or cost efficient?"

An anonymous reader writes with news of a plan from the Australian government to cut down on the number of kids who aren't vaccinated. The new scheme will deny family tax benefits to parents whose children don't pass immunization checks. Quoting: "The FTB supplement, worth $726 per child each year, will now only be paid once a child is fully immunized at these checks. Families are already required to have their child fully immunized to receive Child Care Benefit and the Child Care Rebate. Children will also be required for the first time to be vaccinated against meningococcal C, pneumococcal and chicken pox. Children will also be immunized against measles, mumps and rubella earlier, at 18 months instead of the current four years of age."

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's national airline QANTAS, famous for never having had a fatal crash, has been grounded effective immediately by its management. The grounding is in response to industrial action by union employees and has stranded passengers all over the world, with 108 planes grounded indefinitely. The Australian Government is seeking an urgent industrial relations hearing in a likely bid to suspend the industrial action and halt further damage to the Australian economy."

First time accepted submitter shocking writes "The Perth Mint has created a gold coin that is just over one tonne in weight and worth over 50 million AUD. From the article: 'A team of a dozen people have worked since late last year to create the coin which measures 80 centimeters wide and 12 centimeters deep, featuring a kangaroo on one side and the Queen's motif on the other.' Ron Paul eat your heart out!"

An anonymous reader writes "A mainstream media outlet has published an article called 'The Case for Piracy. The writer shows how copyright has been hijacked by corporations and that publishers are their own worst enemies. 'One of the main reasons we all have anti-piracy slogans embedded in our brains is because the music industry chose to try and protect its existing market and revenue streams at all costs and marginalise and vilify those who didn't want to conform to the harsh new rules being set.' There's a lot in the article that Slashdot readers can relate to, and it's interesting that so many replies seem to agree with the author."

New submitter GumphMaster writes "In the latest edition of the Apple vs. Samsung patent fight, the ABC is reporting that Samsung has filed in Australian and Japanese courts seeking an injunction to halt sales of the iPhone 4S for alleged 3G patent violations. It remains to be seen whether Samsung has any better luck with the retaliatory strike in Australian and Japanese courts than it did with courts in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, I expect that Samsung will fail partly because of overseas precedent, but mostly because their patents are sane, technical and narrow in scope (unlike the patent-a-rectangle nature of the opposition). If this stupidity ever stops, then millions of dollars, euro, or Won that are being spent on lawyers might actually go into the innovation that patents are meant to promote. Who knows where that might lead?"

An anonymous reader writes "A north Queensland mining company has discovered one of the world's largest deposits of the rare earth, scandium, used in fuel cells."

brindafella writes with a link to an abstract at the journal Science that says "Scientists have obtained a DNA genomic sequence from a 100-year-old, voluntarily donated hair sample from a full-blood Australian Aboriginal man. [Analysis of the hair] shows 'Aboriginal Australians are descendants of an early human dispersal into eastern Asia, possibly 62,000 to 75,000 years ago. This dispersal is separate from the one that gave rise to modern Asians 25,000 to 38,000 years ago. ... [Their] findings support the hypothesis that present-day Aboriginal Australians descend from the earliest humans to occupy Australia, likely representing one of the oldest continuous populations outside Africa.' A news story gives more detail."

An anonymous reader writes "WikiLeaks complaining of a leak is hard to get one's head around. That it's suing The Guardian — its great ally — is even harder. That The Guardian did such a ridiculous thing to warrant litigation in the first place almost defies belief." Update: 09/01 04:59 GMT by S : Changed the first link to point to the statement on WikiLeaks' website. The Guardian has denied the allegations, saying, "Our book about WikiLeaks was published last February. It contained a password, but no details of the location of the files, and we were told it was a temporary password which would expire and be deleted in a matter of hours."

An anonymous reader writes "Media hysteria is once again blaming a real life massacre on violent video games. But looking at every single gaming reference in the Oslo killer's manifesto shows that such accusations are ridiculous. He played games to unwind from plotting and used them to mask his activities."

dotarray writes "In Adelaide today, the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General was again unable to reach a unanimous decision on the topic of whether or not Australia should have an R18+ rating for video games." Nonetheless, the committee has reached a decision in principle to allow such a rating, with only one Attorney General having abstained from today's vote.

dopeywan.kenobi writes "The Australian Law Reform Commission are conducting a review of the Australian Classification laws, the outcome of which will influence Australian internet filtering and/or the long awaited R18+ Video Game classification. Public submissions on the matter have been accepted since 20th May 2011 and will close on the 15th July 2011. From the article : '[A]s yet only 80 public submissions have been made — 80 per cent of them from people who believe in government intervention for the sake of child protection. Considering, the furious debates within Australia's technology communities, does this reflect the national balance?...'It's likely down to the media for failing to inform the public on the matter.' Having read the questionnaire, I can't help but wonder if their convoluted phrasing is contributing to reports that people are only partially completing the form without submitting." I wonder how much of it, too, is that people don't want to be tarred as favoring child pornography just because they're uncomfortable with by-domain censorship.

c0lo writes "After a brief spat where the notorious Anonymous hacking collective sniped at Lulzsec, the 'upstart' hacking collective, for crowing about low-rent Denial of Service attacks on the CIA and 4chan websites, the two groups have apparently teamed up in operation Anti-Sec. The operation's 'top priority is to steal and leak any classified government information, including email spools and documentation. Prime targets are banks and other high-ranking establishments. If they try to censor our progress, we will obliterate the censor with cannonfire anointed with lizard blood.' We can only predict that the following will be unpredictable: store canned food and flash batteries, change your eBanking password daily."

If you're one of the last hairy-nosed-wombats left in Australia things got a little worse for you today. Thanks to a new mathematical tool created by researchers from James Cook University and the University of Adelaide, the wombat has been classified as not worth saving. Co-author of the safe index Professor Corey Bradshaw says he doesn't think people should give up on saving extremely endangered animals but adds, "...if you take a strictly empirical view, things that are well below in numbering in the hundreds - white-footed rock rats, certain types of hare wallabies, a lot of the smaller mammals that have been really nailed by the feral predators like cats, and foxes - in some cases it is probably not worthwhile putting a lot of effort because there's just no chance."

EqualSlash writes "High-power laser pointers available for cheap are increasingly finding abuse as the ultimate long-distance weapons of pranksters and vandals. The Federal Aviation Administration says laser events aimed on planes have nearly doubled in the last year, leaping from 1,527 in 2009 to 2,836 in 2010. The highest number of incidents was reported at Los Angeles International Airport, which recorded 102 in 2010. Lasers pointed at cockpits can temporarily blind pilots, forcing them to give up control of an aircraft to their co-pilot or abort a take-off/landing. In March of 2008, unidentified individuals wielding four green laser pointers launched a coordinated attack on six incoming planes at Sydney Airport, which resulted in a ban on all laser pointers in the state of New South Wales."

beaverdownunder writes "Vodafone has confirmed it believes its secure customer database has been breached by an employee or dealer who has shared the access password, revealing the personal details of millions of customers... According to Fairfax newspapers, 'criminal groups are paying for the private information of some customers including home addresses and credit card details.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Major Australian retailers are running a print advertising campaign to get the government to decrease the amount where the Goods and Services tax (Australian sales tax) comes into effect for all online purchases. Currently, the tax free amount is at $1000 AUD for online purchases. The retailers, such as Target, Harvey Norman, David Jones, Myer and others, are lobbying through newspapers and are considering launching a television commercial. The print adverts are claiming that if the amount remains the same, Australian jobs will be lost and the economy will be harmed. This is facing a massive backlash from consumers, and the government's assistant treasurer said it was an action by stores to fix the issues affecting them."

dakameleon writes "Wikileaks has been booted from its Amazon hosting, and has now shifted to being hosted in Europe. Senator Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in a statement, 'This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the WikiLeaks website,' which raises the question whether this was requested by the government. Senator Lieberman said Amazon's decision to cut off WikiLeaks 'is the right decision and should set the standard for other companies WikiLeaks is using to distribute its illegally seized material.'"

SocResp writes "A chemical called n-hexane has been poisoning the nervous systems of Chinese workers who assemble touchscreen devices for Apple and other companies, an investigative journalist from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports. It's scary to think that people are being damaged to pursue high production rates. For companies with soaring profits and share prices, and elaborate product development and marketing, it seems they should be all the more culpable if they fail to take care of the production workers."

mask.of.sanity writes "An Australian high school has installed 'secure' fingerprint scanners for roll call for senior students, which savvy kids may be able to circumvent with sweets from their lunch box. The system replaces the school's traditional sign-in system with biometric readers that require senior students to have their fingerprints read to verify attendance. The school principal says the system is better than swipe cards because it stops truant kids getting their mates to sign-in for them. But using the Gummi Bear attack, students can make replicas of their own fingerprints from gelatin, the ingredient in Gummi Bears, to forge a replica finger. The attack worked against a bunch of scanners that detect electrical charges within the human body, since gelatin has virtually the same capacitance as a finger's skin."

schliz writes "An Australian cave system visited by 200,000 tourists a year is expanding its range of audio guides to support Klingon. Cave operators reportedly engaged the services of two 'Klingon scholars' from the US, following Star Trek's naming of a 'Sydney Class' Starship, the USS Jenolan."

neonsignal writes "Iconic Australian band Men at Work have been ordered to pay royalties for an instrumental riff in their song 'Down Under.' The notes were sampled from a well-known children's song 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree,' written in 1934 for a Girl Guide's Jamboree. The Justice found the claims of the copyright owner Larrikin to be excessive, but ordered the payment of royalties and a percentage of future profits. Let's hope the primary schools are up to date with their ARIA license fees!"

An anonymous reader writes "Julia Gillard has been elected unopposed to the Labor leadership, seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decided not to contest this morning's leadership ballot. Ms. Gillard will now be sworn in as Australia's first female prime minister. Emerging from this morning's meeting, she said she felt 'very honored' and said she would be making a statement shortly. Treasurer Wayne Swan now steps up as deputy prime minister. He was also elected unopposed."

dov_0 writes "Following a successful patent challenge in the US, an action is underway in Australia to have patents on two breast cancer genes declared invalid."

daria42 writes "Those who thought the brouhaha over Google's scanning of Wi-Fi networks by its Street View cars was over (whether you believe it was deliberate or not) are destined to be disappointed. News comes from Australia over the weekend that the Australian government has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. The country's Attorney General, Robert McClelland, was quoted saying, 'Obviously I won't pre-empt the outcome of that investigation but they relate in substantial part to possible breaches of the Telecommunications Interception Act, which prevents people accessing electronic information other than for authorized purposes.'"

RobHart writes "ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Commission) has reported extensively on a bright spiraling light that was seen in Eastern Australia just before dawn. It has just broadcast a report from an Australian astronomer who has suggested that the light was probably the successful Falcon 9 launch, which would have been over Australia at that time on its launch trajectory." Update: 06/05 22:20 GMT by T : Setting aside the literal exhaust fumes, reader FleaPlus says, It's "interesting to look at the reactions from those in Congress who control the purse-strings for NASA (one of SpaceX's biggest customers). The successful launch was congratulated by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL and former astronaut) and Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-FL), both praised and criticized by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) due to the successful launch being a year later than previously predicted, and blasted by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) for merely replicating what 'NASA accomplished in 1964,' who added that the company's success 'must not be confused with progress for our nation's human spaceflight program.'"

Humunculus writes "Of more worldly issues, NASA's latest multimillion-dollar stratosphere-bound balloon launch has gone horribly wrong and crashed into a car, turning it over and narrowly missing two elderly people who were observing the launch. The payload fared worse, reportedly being smashed into a 'thousand pieces.'"

thelamecamel writes "According to the New South Wales state government, the Sydney Morning Herald, a local newspaper, attacked the government's 'website firewall security' for two days to research a recent story. The affected government minister said that the website was accessed 3,727 times, and that this is 'akin to 3,727 attempts to pick the lock of a secure office and take highly confidential documents.' The matter has been referred to the police, who are now investigating. But how did the paper 'hack' the website? They entered the unannounced URL. Security by obscurity at its finest."

A study at Queensland's James Cook University has proved that removing a band-aid quickly hurts less than taking it off slowly. Scientists found the pain involved with removal to be more of a psychological issue than a physical one. "It's fascinating that if you had a preconception that slow was going to be more painful in fact it was, so it also suggests that pain is not just what you perceive but what you think you will perceive when you get the painful stimulus," Researcher Dr Carl O'Kane said. The study also proved that researchers have an abundance of free time at the university.

An anonymous reader passes along news that an Australian senator, Nick Xenophon, has denounced the Church of Scientology as "a criminal organization" from the floor of Parliament. "Senator Xenophon used a speech in Parliament last night to raise allegations of widespread criminal conduct within the church, saying he had received letters from former followers detailing claims of abuse, false imprisonment, and forced abortion. He says he has passed on the letters to the police and is calling for a Senate inquiry into the religion and its tax-exempt status." It wasn't that long ago that the CoS was calling for Net censorship in Australia; a month later the organization was convicted of fraud in France.

benz001 writes "The Minister who has pushed the ridiculous broadband filter plan has at least won a few brownie points with yesterday's press conference, in which he promised to force Telstra to split its network and wholesale businesses. Australia's largest ISP, and the country's main infrastructure owner, will be given a chance to implement the structural separation voluntarily; if it does not, the Government will step in with legislation. Here is the Minister's official press release." And speaking of the filtering program, reader smash writes "After several years of debate and electioneering, some statistics on the Australian national web filtering effort have been disclosed. Apparently, the typical Aussie web surfer is 70 times more likely to win the national lotto than stumble across a blocked page. Additionally, despite the claim that the main aim of the filter is to block child pornography, only 313 of the 977 total sites blocked is on the basis of child porn. At $40M AU so far in taxpayers funds, the cost so far is around $40,900 per blocked URL. Government efficiency at work..."

goran72 sends along the story of the world's oldest living organism, a shrub that grows in Tasmania and reproduces only by cloning. Tasmanian scientists have cloned Lomatia tasmanica as part of a battle to save it from a deadly fungus. From the RTBG's press release (which seems to load slowly in the US):"The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens [RTBG] is working towards securing the future of a rare and ancient Tasmanian native plant... Lomatia tasmanica, commonly known as King's Lomatia, is critically endangered with less than 500 plants growing in the wild in a tiny pocket of Tasmania's isolated south west. The RTBG has been propagating the plant from cuttings since 1994... 'Fossil leaves of the plant found in the south west were dated at 43,600 years old and given that the species is a clone, it is possibly the oldest living plant in the world,' [Botanist Natalie Tapson] said."

definate writes "Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a stormwater drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Slashdot worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia's 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of 'Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a stormwater drain, really need help, OMG!'. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."

An anonymous reader writes "Biologists have discovered that a species of Australian pigeon has a secret way of alerting fellow birds to predators — a 'whistle' emitted by flapping wings when the bird takes off in alarm. The crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) is well known for the abrupt metallic-sounding whistle that it makes on takeoff. Many birds have the ability to make vocal cries to alert other members of their flock, but this is the first study to show that flight noise can also serve as an alarm call."

An anonymous Coward writes "West Australian Police tasered a man while arresting him for sniffing petrol, and managed to set fire to him in the process. Details seem to be scanty so far, but I trust the audience here to do the maths as to whether the ignition source was the taser itself."

An anonymous reader writes "There was a television program in Australia last week about Matthew Walker's visual battery-less two-factor authentication system called PassWindow. Essentially, you hold the clear plastic window up to the apparently random pattern on the screen of your computer, revealing a one-time PIN to type in for authentication. The plastic window has many advantages: difficult to copy or view over the shoulder, etc. Because there is no electronics, chip or battery, the PassWindow is extremely cheap to manufacture, giving it a big advantage over other two-factor authentication systems. However, I don't know about the security of the system. The apparently random pattern of lines in the PassWindow is analogous to a one-time pad, using a different subset of the one-time pad every time a PIN is needed. Is this a useful level of security for logging in to a bank account?"

nemesisrocks writes "The New South Wales government is set to begin testing a device that will limit the speed of drivers because 'excessive speed is one of the primary ways that people are killed while driving.' Located on the dashboard, it senses a driver's speed with the use of GPS. If the speed of a car goes over the posted legal limit, a warning sounds. If the driver ignores the warning, the device eventually cuts all power to the car because a cut-off switch has been installed between the accelerator and the engine." The Times Online reports that the same system will be tested in the UK this summer for use in taxis and buses.

Combat Wombat brings news that the legal battle between the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organisation (CSIRO) and a host of major tech corporations has come to end, with a large settlement going to the CSIRO. The fight was over a patent on wireless LAN technology, which already earned the CSIRO a victory in court over Buffalo Technology and a settlement with Hewlett-Packard. The remaining 13 companies, which include Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Nintendo, have now chosen to settle as well. "[The CSIRO] will use the money won from a Wi-Fi technology patent battle to fund further research. ... It is unclear how much money has flowed to the CSIRO, but experts say the technology would be worth billions of dollars if royalties were paid on an ongoing basis."

suolumark writes "The CSIRO has won what could be a landmark settlement from Hewlett Packard over the use of patented wireless technology. The settlement ended HP's involvement in a four-year lawsuit brought by the CSIRO on a group of technology companies, in which the organisation was seeking royalties for wi-fi technology that is used extensively on laptops and computers worldwide. CSIRO spokesman Luw Morgan earlier said legal action was continuing against 13 companies: Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo."

suolumark writes "The CSIRO has won what could be a landmark settlement from Hewlett Packard over the use of patented wireless technology. The settlement ended HP's involvement in a four-year lawsuit brought by the CSIRO on a group of technology companies, in which the organisation was seeking royalties for wi-fi technology that is used extensively on laptops and computers worldwide. CSIRO spokesman Luw Morgan earlier said legal action was continuing against 13 companies: Intel, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin, SMC, Accton, 3-Com, Buffalo, Microsoft and Nintendo."

An anonymous reader writes "The NSW government of Australia has quietly introduced new police powers for covert home searches and covert hacking of computers. The suspect may not be notified of the covert activity for up to three years. These new powers are similar to those given to the UK police earlier this year. The new warrants can only be issued in the Supreme Court for suspected serious offences punishable by at least seven years jail — which includes computer crime offences."

Creative Paper attracted worldwide interest for its paper made of kangaroo droppings in 2005. Well it's been four years and the best and brightest at Creative Paper haven't been sitting on their laurels. What's their great new idea? They have now launched a kind of paper made from wombat poo. Scat-obsessed Darren Simpson from Creative Paper says the paper is green or gold depending on the time of year the droppings are harvested. The wombat paper will be unveiled at an international paper conference in Burnie, Australia later this month.

Creative Paper attracted worldwide interest for its paper made of kangaroo droppings in 2005. Well it's been four years and the best and brightest at Creative Paper haven't been sitting on their laurels. What's their great new idea? They have now launched a kind of paper made from wombat poo. Scat-obsessed Darren Simpson from Creative Paper says the paper is green or gold depending on the time of year the droppings are harvested. The wombat paper will be unveiled at an international paper conference in Burnie, Australia later this month.

Hugh Pickens writes "NASA and the European Space Agency are expected later this week to settle an ongoing debate on whether to send a robotic mission to Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Titan. Both are difficult places to get to — a mission to either would cost several billion dollars/euros to build and execute — and both have become alluring targets in the quest to learn whether Earth alone supports life. On the one hand, Europa is believed to have liquid oceans beneath its frozen crust which (on Earth at least) are a source of life-supporting chemistry. Scientists would like to scan Europa's surface for bits of material that may have seeped up from beneath the ice. 'Imagine if there were microbes entrained in material that has exuded onto the surface of Europa and they've been sitting there for maybe three million years,' says planetary scientist Dr. Brad Dalton. On the other hand, Titan has two enticing features in the search for life: liquids on the surface, and a thick atmosphere that can be used to slow down a spacecraft and help put it into orbit. Titan's surface water is locked into the crust as ice, but scientists suspect there may be a subsurface ocean where water mingles with ammonia. The mission will not get to the launch pad before 2020. 'It's unfortunate that there has to be a decision,' says NASA/JPL astrobiologist Dr. Kevin Hand. 'It's important to go to both. They are both such amazing and tantalizing worlds in terms of finding life.'"

hopejr writes "The Federal Opposition says it is not surprised the Government's mandatory internet filtering trial has been delayed. The trial, which was meant to begin today, has been postponed until mid-January 2009 and the internet service providers (ISPs) who will participate will be announced at the same time. ISPs iiNet and Optus both said yesterday they had not heard anything about their applications to participate in the trial, and doubted the Government would meet its own deadline."