Slashdot Mirror

BaltikaTroika writes "A Canadian university has banned wi-fi, since the university President sees a possible link between electric and magnetic fields and brain tumors. According to the head of the university, "the jury's out on this one, I'm not going to put in place what is potential chronic exposure for our students." Is anybody outside of this university's administration concerned about this?"

FrenchyinOntario writes "IBM reports that while "regular" phishing is declining the black hats are now engaging in targeted spear phishing to glean as much information about a specific identity as they can for all the usual cybercrime reasons. It concerns authorities because the usual suspects - criminal and terrorist organizations - will want to take advantage of this, but the chilling part is how your identity will now be dependent on multiple institutions protecting your personal information, as opposed to eBay, PayPal, your bank, etc."

Frenchy in Ontario writes "An Ontario university researcher is devising ways to help law enforcement agencies better pinpoint likely criminal behavior in e-mails. His theory is that people who are "up to something" are more likely to write differently than people who aren't - either by avoiding using certain words at all that could be flagged for possible criminal context (like "bombed) or to examine patterns that might indicate criminal activity - like several people e-mailing one person but not each other, which is how some criminal networks operate. There's also an interesting paragraph on why Enron's emails aren't as valuable as you might think for this sort of work."

securitas writes "ITBusiness has an interview from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference where Bill Gates says 'You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems.' Instead he suggests that users acquire and properly configure firewalls and make sure that they keep their software patches up-to-date. Considering that Microsoft says it is focused on security, the comments from the Chief Software Architect aren't inspiring, especially beacuse the underlying attitude seems to contradict the idea of well-written, secure code. What kind of message does that send to the developers who work for Gates?"

securitas writes "ITBusiness has an interview from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference where Bill Gates says 'You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems.' Instead he suggests that users acquire and properly configure firewalls and make sure that they keep their software patches up-to-date. Considering that Microsoft says it is focused on security, the comments from the Chief Software Architect aren't inspiring, especially beacuse the underlying attitude seems to contradict the idea of well-written, secure code. What kind of message does that send to the developers who work for Gates?"

Slashback is packed tonight with updates and clarifications on several fronts: read on below for, among other things, BitTorrent download stats after the recent Red Hat 9 release, the BSA's questionable statistical methods when it comes to calculating incentives and losses in the source-secret software world, and (can you believe?) yet another way to assemble an eerie pulsing light fixture.

Click on through for some impressive graphs ... . bramcohen writes "Since RedHat 9 got /.'ed last week there have been over ten thousand complete downloads using BitTorrent. Initial traffic got very high, transferring over a gibibit a second. All throughout the BitTorrent servers, run by volunteers using stock tools, held up just fine. Meanwhile downloads from RedHat Network, only available to subscribers, transferred at a crawl. The third Animatrix also got quite a few downloads. Thanks to everyone who left their downloaders running, and David Stutz and Eike Frost for setting things up."

If you exaggerate enough the first time, subsequent revisions sound like concessions. Russell McOrmond writes "An article in ITBusiness.ca includes references to the methodology of the BSA studies, and how it confuses Free/Libre and Open Source Software with piracy. There are some related articles talking about CAAST/BSA on my work weblog from the past."

Tap, Tap, Tap. feagle814 writes "Recently, I saw a question on Ask Slashdot that intrigued me. The person was asking for ideas relating to building your own glowing and color-changing ball. Being the kind of person to take such a general request for comments and turn it into a personal reason for living, I quickly skimmed the description on ThinkGeek and came up with these requirements for my project:

1. It must meet the generic description of the Ambient Orb,
2. It must cost less than $50 to make,
3. It must be wireless, with at least a 30-foot range, and
4. It must be controllable by home computer.

After much deliberation, I came up with the following solution. I've included pictures and instructions, as well as a recounting of my experiences."

Not just a simulation. Olmy's Jart writes "This is a followup to yesterday's article on "Samba Exploit Discovered, Fixed". Digital Defense has posted an apology to the Samba Team for posting a complete live working exploit (not even a mere "proof of concept", but a zero day rooter) on their site for this vulnerability. The exploit has been taken down, for what that's worth now. This is being reported in an article on ZDNet AU. Digital Defense now claims that this was done without the approval of their management."

Funny, CompUSA is finally selling duplicators, too. Unominous Coward writes "According to this article, the man who planned to install CD copying machines around Australia has withdrawn from the idea. Not surprisingly, this was after a lawsuit by the music industry."

Anyone who would like to buy me one is free to do so. prostoalex writes "Sharp Zaurus deal is back at Home Shopping Network. Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 is $199, but a coupon code HSN4897 knocks the price down by 15%. With standard shipping the order comes to around $173."

We need both more Korean food and more Korean electronics. Jo "directhex" Shields writes "HEXUS.net has completed its extensive messing around with GamePark's GP32 Handheld, which recieved a mention a couple of days ago on Slashdot (and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it).

It should help to clear up a few myths about what the unit is, what it tries to do, and what it succeeds at doing. Read the review, and pass mighty Slashdot Judgement."

McGarnacle writes "Looks like our friends at Sun have opened the first Linux training centers at the headquarters of a Belleville, Ontario firm: beONix Technology. Now there's a worthwhile summer activity for the kids :)"

kidlinux writes "The Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access (CCFDA) composed of businesses like HP, Apple, Best Buy, and Costco may consider pulling recordable media products like mp3 players, digital cameras, and associated media if a recording industry backed media levy is ratified. From the article "if the proposed levy is approved MP3 players such as Creative Labs's Nomad, RCA's Lyra, and Apple's Ipod will increase $112 or more on average". Blank CDs will go up from $50 (on which we already pay $21 in levies) to $88 dollars per pack of 100. The media levies have been getting worse and worse here. Personally, I think sales of above mentioned items will speak for themselves, however, the CCFDA's website has contacts for the Government of Canada's representatives - contact them with your objections!"