Slashdot Mirror

Re: stopping ID cards, go to NO2ID.

PR will help but isn't nearly enough. Multiple electoral candidates from parties will help too.

We need to devolve power from the PM. He/she should not be allowed to exert undue influence over ministers and MPs - perhaps by no-one (including the electorate) knowing who the PM will be, thus voting purely on which candidate you trust. The elected MPs will subsequently vote for a PM, and perhaps several senior ministers.

The House of Lords should be able to set up courts to hold ministers accountable under existing behavioural guidelines.

I'd be tempted to try secret ballots too. The data could always be revealed just before the next election.

I'm not sure the PM's office should be able write legislation. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (never heard of it?) contains a clause which is equivalent to Hitler's Enabling Act ie instant dictatorship in the event of an emergency (Reichstag). I'm still not sure if the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill (since amended) is even worse.

Our Parliamentary Committee for the Constitution said that the National Identity Cards Bill should be renamed the National Identity Register and Identity Cards Bill. They were ignored and thus only now, once the legislation has been passed, do the public (and MPs) get to see the massive privacy implications.

Last time we had these kind of upstarts abusing the will of the people, we had a Civil War and chopped off the leader's head.

As far as I could understand by reading her blog, she was aiming to prove the concept of 100% undetectable malware.

The exploit has nothing to do with Vista in particular. It seems to exploit the Pacifica virtualization extensions in the newer models of AMD to create an on-the-fly VM. Here is the original author's blog:
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/

RTFA. "She also admitted that she had to perform the hack in higher privileged administrator mode rather than the lower privileged user account control."

There's also the description on her blog, which states, "I would like to make it clear, that the Blue Pill technology does not rely on any bug of the underlying operating system. I have implemented a working prototype for Vista x64, but I see no reasons why it should not be possible to port it to other operating systems, like Linux or BSD which can be run on x64 platform."

If you paid attention, you'd realize the real issue is that this enables malware that cannot be detected, even when the algorithm it uses is known.

I would like to make it clear, that the Blue Pill technology does not rely on any bug of the underlying operating system. I have implemented a working prototype for Vista x64, but I see no reasons why it should not be possible to port it to other operating systems, like Linux or BSD which can be run on x64 platform.

Fourth house...

Fifthhouse...

This fakery is getting a little ridiculous.

Just google "green helmet guy".

Is any information coming out of Hezbollah-controlled areas trustworthy? We've seen death tolls drop from 60 to 23 at Qana and from 40 to 1 at Houla:

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said Monday that one person was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Houla, not 40 as he had earlier reported.

...discussed here where you can buy stock in your favorite flu virus. Apparently it performs well in predicting flu outbreaks.

Even the ones that haven't been touched digitally are manipulated:
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Diplomacy/89 97.htm
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/milking-i t.html
This happens nearly every day, with a great many photos.

That's bull. Either Reuters editors are idiots and got pwned or Reuters is implicated in the fakery and anti-Israel propagandas. There are other manipulated photos or fake captions:
YNetNewsan F-16 dropping a defensive flare and a bomb, but the photographer thought the flare was a missile and cloned the bomb and the flare. This is just as bad a cloning job as the smoke one.
Powerline Blog: The same destroyed building was reported twice on Aug. 5 and Jul. 24.
Drinking from home: The same woman got her home flattened twice, on Jul. 22 and Aug. 5.
My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: A caption said a man was running from a bombed building during an overnight raid, except that the photo was taken during the day.

These are what we notice. How many others that got passed through because the fake job was done better? How would Reuter have managed to pass through these if they had vetted te photos?

Hours after PM Siniora took back the comment when he reported 40 civilians were killed and said instead that only one got killed, Reuters still reported Israel killing 40 civilians. They are not a news outlet, they are a propaganda machine.

In my youth, I naively believed in the BBC. Now I'm older, wiser and sadder, after seeing this blog. It's scary to realize that few people have the time, skills and access to see just how badly they're being duped.

The bad photoshop work isn't really the story here. It's just what got him fired from Reuters. In one example and yet another, this photographer is acting more as a Hezbollah propaganda operative than a news photographer. He was responsible for one of the most used photos from Qana with the dead child being held up, and as recently as yesterday had a picture on Page 1 of the NYT of an injured Lebonese civilian. He's basically the Peter Parker of Lebanon. It's wouldn't be hard to get the best photos if you were working with the terrorists who control the region!

As peple have been pouring through recent Reuters photographs, a number of other discrepencies have arisen: Here's one http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/extre me-makeover-beirut-edition.html from Drinking From Home. 2 separate photographers sent in captioned photographs of a woman who's house "had just been destroyed". The only problem is, it the same woman and same house but the claimed airstrikes were 2 weeks apart.

I had submitted a story to slashdot - which is still pending. Google to open 1 trillion words at LDC in a 6 pack Monday August 07, @08:36AM Pending Was AOL provoked by Google's action ? LOL

It is too bad that this book couldn't have been based on version 4.2 coming out soon. There are some major new features in the upcoming release, most importantly (IMHO), QGraphicsView, the new canvas. http://doc.trolltech.com/4.2/qt4-2-intro.html

It also looks like they'll try to squeeze in some cool SVG related stuff. http://zrusin.blogspot.com/

Man, Qt simply pwns GTK

If I may be forgiven for answering my own question, I've obtained, and posted, a copy of the complaint. It accuses Lime Wire of fostering copyright infringement by discouraging what it termed "freeloaders".

Naturally, as with all Intel-based Macs, it will contain a special chip to implement DRM in hardware (remember the so-called Fritz chip that was proposed a few years ago.). See here for the proof, and here for some detail on the level of control that this "hobble" gives to Apple over your crippled machine.

You could think of it as an anti-piracy chip -- but that would be underestimating just how abusive the hardware is. Essentially, the chip allows Apple to verify that you are running software of which they approve, and to encrypt their code so that you cannot find out what your machine is going... as a bonus, it allows Apple to take Free software a "lock" it... preventing any modification that can still be used. This combination of features also has severe privacy issues -- not only does it allows for secret code, but also the secure identification of the machine (each chip has a unique serial number).

Face it: they sold you a brain-damaged machine. One that was actually designed to be defective and work against you.

I've placed RSS feeds in Opera 9.01 (Build 400) and in Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.6 in my knoppix remaster. Since this is a livecd linux, I wonder how these feeds, enabled by default to download the feed stories when the browsers start up, might be a security risk.
I'm only using feeds like FoxNews, Google News, Yahoo News, CNN News, and of course, Slashdot. There are 13 in Opera, and 9 in Firefox.
The user can quickly set up additional feeds, I am sure. These may link to sites that are not trusted, I suppose.

Here's my Blog.
I have more details there on RSS for the browsers in a livecd linux.

-- Rapidweather

I have a recording of a shortwave numbers station in Spanish here.

I just found a similar phenomenon over at Blogspot: http://encryptedthoughts.blogspot.com/

It seems to have been created in mid-July and there are only four posts at the moment. Also, the posts use letters (all 26), not numbers. I'm not an expert cryptanalyzer, but I do the little Cryptoquip puzzles in the newspaper, so I figured I'd at least frequency analyze the posts, but it turns out they all have completely flat distributions. So maybe they use one time pads too. Oh well, something for you more advanced armchair cryptanalyzers to play with anyway.

I think you should go for it, but I think you need to be more creative in how you approach this. Read about Kyle and how he traded one red paper clip for a house. There are a lot of folks who will want you to succeed (and I'm definitely one of them) some of whom maybe have more than you do, so if you come up with the creative angle and blog the hell out of it, create a meme people can love . . . you just might get what you wish for. And the launching pad is right here.

First thing I did when I read the article was to download the Limewire source code. I don't use Limewire at all, because I have my own CD collection nicely ripped. But RIAA: It's OPEN SOURCE! You cannot stop it. Go to http://toorg.blogspot.com/ to see how to stop piracy.

Morons.

As stated on Rutkowska's blog at http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2006/06/int roducing-blue-pill.html
"[...]I would like to make it clear, that the Blue Pill technology does not rely on any bug of the underlying operating system. I have implemented a working prototype for Vista x64, but I see no reasons why it should not be possible to port it to other operating systems, like Linux or BSD which can be run on x64 platform.[...]"

As Firefox downloads pass the 200 million mark, people are talking about how its security features stack up against IE7 and protect against malware.

Protect against malware? They're bundling with it!

I've had the Samsung ML-1740 for a few years now. Only needed to replace the toner once. Crystal-clear printing (b&w) (no color -- who really needs that?). Toner is around $80. Expect to find the printer on sale for $99 at your local electronics megastore, or $149 regularly.

I've gone through (no joke) about 10 different [ink|bubble|dot-matrix] printers and the Samsung printer is MUCH better than anything else. Even the more expensive Lexmark laser printers don't have anything on Samsung.

Oh, but this is for home use. For office use, it's a bit slow.

Best thing about it? You don't need to install any crazy drivers. Just plain vanilla Windows print screens. Nothing that talks to you while it's printing or stays eternally in your tray.

Here is a ZDNet Review], my personal review, and their specifications.

Rather than be disappointed he discloses the vulnerabilities he is working on.

i noticed some traffice from this site It is amazing...some jackass puts Matt Damons name into IMDB and everyone suddenly believes it is true...it might be true...who the hell knows

more info here http://stxifaq.blogspot.com/
and the main site http://stxi.blogspot.com/

I will post this as a 'coward' but this is Tony P, I run the Star Trek XI Report

i noticed some traffice from this site It is amazing...some jackass puts Matt Damons name into IMDB and everyone suddenly believes it is true...it might be true...who the hell knows

more info here http://stxifaq.blogspot.com/
and the main site http://stxi.blogspot.com/

I will post this as a 'coward' but this is Tony P, I run the Star Trek XI Report

No roles have been confirmed for Star Trek XI, nor is there any credible information definitely pointing to any actor or actress in any part in the movie. There have been a number of rumors and some well-sourced speculation, however. - Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_XI#Cast

There's also this. http://stxi.blogspot.com/2006/07/taking-red-pen-to -imdb-entry-for-trek.html

Samba includes a SMB client AND server for free; OSX (desktop edition, at least) has a bundled client, but no server.

Wrong.

Apache/php/perl/etc have been ported, but seem to run most smoothly on linux.

I don't know why you'd say that, as Apache and Perl come installed by default on OS X. (I don't know about PHP, I wouldn't use that heap of crap if you paid me.) There are nice 1-click installers for Rails too.

As far as user apps, well, the Gimp still seems to be designed for linux.

Yup. That's why I paid $30 for a copy of Photoshop Elements, which blows away The GIMP for usability and has all the functionality I need. Frankly, I wish there was something to compare with Elements on Linux. I use the GIMP, but every time I do it does something weird and inexplicable.

iMovie only lets you save to Quicktime (ugh), and Windows Movie Maker to Windows Media.

False. What you apparently missed is that when you save to QuickTime from iMovie, it's not saving to QuickTime file format—it's saving to the QuickTime multimedia subsystem. From there you can set your output format to anything you like. Hence iMovie can save to MPEG-4 with H.264, DivX, 3ivX, MPEG-1, DV files, whatever the hell you like.

I don't care if iMovie can turn junk footage into pure gold - what good is it if I can only save to a proprietary format?

QuickTime file format is the basis of the MPEG-4 file format. Maybe MPEG-4 is "proprietary", but it's the closest thing to a usable open standard that exists in the world of video. The QuickTime and MPEG-4 formats are both open documented specifications.

I can't open Quicktime movies in any of my windows software for further editing, and I can't open Windows Media in any of my OSX software for further editing.

If your Windows software is so crap that it can't open QuickTime, it presumably isn't one of the well-known movie editing packages like Adobe Premier, which is built on QuickTime for Windows. In which case, export from iMovie to whatever format your software needs. To use Windows Media on OS X, you simply need to install the Flip4Mac WMV QuickTime codec plugins, which you can download from Microsoft's web site. Then you can drag-drop your WMV video straight into iMovie.

As for apps that noone on Windows/OSX seem to use, netpbm is a good example. They are command-line utilities that let you convert image formats, rescale, rotate, crop, etc.

Nobody uses them because you can do the exact same thing with Graphic Converter, PhotoShop or QuickTime, script using AppleScript, and not have to actually write the code. But netpbm and ImageMagick are available for OS X if you'd rather do batch image processing the hard way. (I speak as someone who's done batch processing with ImageMagick and with GraphicConverter.)

I'm not sure how to track down all the dependencies on OSX, or whether Apple made any modifications before compiling.

So download the latest netpbm from DarwinPorts.

Write to your French greengrocer! Write to your Congressman - mention MEEEeee. KopyrightKrusader! Stop the copchip remote. The EFF has more. Bitchslap!

He has a lot of um, issues - this parody nailed it:

ALERRRT! Listen up: this seems suspicious: The copyright maximialists the RIAA - the guys who want to put a chip implant in my brain - and the Library of Congress sez they've done a deal where you can swap as many MP3s as you want. K3WL! Yes? No?! BASTARDS! Or... maybeee!?!

The boy needs sedatives, and he needs to get laid.

Hi there,
I was interested in this as well, as I currently work on making my screencasts as accessible as possible. However, according to my quick test, this "accessible google search" does not favor sites/pages that are Section 508 or W3C compliant.

http://conficio.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-offers -search-for-blind.html

So who gets it right? The US government or Google? Should we test now for Google ranking instead?

I can't say I'm happy that Google does invent another standard here. I wished they would simply test for what is out there and agreed upon as well as mandated by US and UK governments. It is hard enough to make this happen. We don't need more confusion in this sector.

There was another very good story written about Wikipedia in the Jul 31, 2006 issue of the New Yorker. It's titled 'Know it All' and is written by Stacy Schiff. You can find it here. The history of Wikipedia is delved into at depth. Many epistemological questions are raised. The main point Stacy made was that perhaps the dynamic, self-correcting nature of Wikipedia, notwithstanding all of its deficiences, is the best encyclopedia for the dynamic nature of the modern world we live in.

--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/

The report on the click-fraud investigation around Google (PDF, I'm afraid) has a lot of good information regarding this. It goes into the different payment models possible for online advertising, and makes a good case for the usefulness of each of them — as it points out, Pay-Per-Click is a good model for many advertisers provided it works, which is why there's an onus on cracking down on fraud.

If advertisers think that the ads working, they will pay the right price for them — if fraud is prevalent, it reduces demand and makes price (and value) of ads go down. So in a way, the advertisers are determining what the ads are worth to them and paying accordingly, in as practical a way as possible without just letting them name their price after-the-fact ("zero dollars, please!").

Image Recognition: Cellphone Transaction - Image Xmit - Scan Confirmation A tested, new technology capability enters the North America marketplace. A technology that has had great success in Europe in the facilitation of transactions on-the-fly has arrived in the form of a scanner that can read images off of a cellphone LCD screen. Using a special two-dimensional image/symbology, a selling party is able to confirm/identify who the purchasing party is to allow a completion of any type of transaction or access. Story Here>> http://symblogogy.blogspot.com/2006/06/cellphone-t ransaction-image-xmit-scan.html Questions?>> maxine_log@yahoo.com

old news, lots of competitors - lots of vapourware.

Best site for the info is at http://theponderingprimate.blogspot.com/

he has pretty much the most comprehensive overview of this space.

Cheers,
Dean
www.collins.net.pr/blog

Article about bad advertising in gaming mags

Honestly, where do they come up with this crap? I work in advertising, and from my perspective I really have to wonder who had the final say over the copy in this...it really is laughable.

a possible new bird flu strain spurs contemporary panic

Only because the media keeps telling us we should be worried. Personally, I'm not worrying, and neither is anybody that I know in meatspace.

Same old, same old.

We are specifically adding coverage of the Shawn Hogan case. http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2006 /08/recording-industry-vs-people-initiates.html

Just to let you know that selected litigation documents in Shawn Hogan's case will be made available online here

And that's a fact. Even if you got all 1.3 billion tons/year which ORNL believes might ultimately be available (after years of reforming to make it possible), you'd only get enough alcohol to replace about 65% of US gasoline consumption. That leaves nothing for diesel, heating oil, jet fuel, LPG, chemicals, or other fuels like coal and natural gas.

I've detailed all of that in my own open letter to Vinod Khosla. Supporting information is all over my blog.

This can only lead to disaster when the salvation that people have been waiting for, fails to arrive (like the Ghost Dance). What's scary is that Khosla has to know this... but he's still pushing it as hard as he can. I can only think that he intends to clean up from the misery of the American public.

If you think Khosla isn't blowing smoke, tell me where we'd get the biomass and what kind of yield is required. Otherwise, shut up.

For those not familiar with it, The Ergosphere is an excellent blog that tackles energy related issues from an analytical/scientific/empirical point of view, neatly cutting through any associated hype. Definitely recommended for anyone with an enviro-geek mindset. :-)

As a teaser, here's the conclusion to the article, after a lengthy analysis, complete with verifiable stats:

In my less than humble opinion, the powers-that-be are promoting ethanol because it serves up subsidies to various interests while not threatening the status quo (oil companies). If you can make an end-run around those interests, you could improve the environment, the economy and the prospects of the average American while making a huge pile of money. Isn't that better than just being a shill for GM, the corn farmers and ADM?

Well, belief that a human embryo IS a human has to be either naive or religious ("the embryo has the same soul as the grown-up human has or will have")

It doesn't matter whether it is "naive" or "religious". What matters is that it is a vile insult to every adult self-aware being to be told that an undifferentiated clump of cells is so much better than him that his rights somehow trump those of the adult.

The Clinton haircut incident is made up (beyond the basics that he did have a haircut on Air Force One at LAX). http://politus.blogspot.com/2004/04/debunked-clint ons-haircut-at-lax.html

As a matter of interest, which public and legal forum would you suggest that the people of Lebanon chose?

Sure, Canadian police are angels and never do anything wrong. For example, spraying photographers with pepper spray or arresting photographers at a rally or slapping a handcuffed woman Etc. Etc.

http://ariya.blogspot.com/2006/07/eiffel-in-perfec tion.html Obviously, this is a work in progress and not quite the same as native support for Corel documents, but it's worht mentioning.

If you read this, you'll get it. The trade associations for the computer and internet industries explained it eloquently. Your analogy is right on the money, so maybe you do get it. Your disbelief that that could be the law is lovely, but if you read the Fonovisa decision, you should get it: this is really happening. This is really the law if it doesn't get shot down in the courts.

Lest you continue to think what I said, about how the RIAA is rewriting copyright law in such a way as to destroy the internet as we know it, is "hyperbole", why don't you read the court's decision in Fonovisa v. Alvarez, which came down just the other day?

There you will see the kind of nonsense the RIAA is feeding judges who have "incomplete understanding" of technology... and how the judges are actually buying it.

My friend, it takes money to fight this stuff.

And if the technology community doesn't get behind the RIAA victims, it will be a bloodbath that will affect everyone -- not just p2p music file sharers.

Meanwhile, I am gratified to say that the technology community is getting behind these folks.

The "Defective by Design" campaign of the Free Software Foundation has launched a fundraising drive to help the RIAA victims.

And the U.S. Internet Industry Association and Computer & Communications Industry filed an amicus brief in Elektra v. Barker.

So there is hope.

Lest you continue to think what I said, about how the RIAA is rewriting copyright law in such a way as to destroy the internet as we know it, is "hyperbole", why don't you read the court's decision in Fonovisa v. Alvarez, which came down just the other day?

There you will see the kind of nonsense the RIAA is feeding judges who have "incomplete understanding" of technology... and how the judges are actually buying it.

My friend, it takes money to fight this stuff.

And if the technology community doesn't get behind the RIAA victims, it will be a bloodbath that will affect everyone -- not just p2p music file sharers.

Meanwhile, I am gratified to say that the technology community is getting behind these folks.

The "Defective by Design" campaign of the Free Software Foundation has launched a fundraising drive to help the RIAA victims.

And the U.S. Internet Industry Association and Computer & Communications Industry filed an amicus brief in Elektra v. Barker.

So there is hope.