Slashdot Mirror

Kevin got the word out to us that FBI director Louis Freeh wants to require CellCos to provide the FBI with the location of mobile phone users without a court order or warrant, via a Congressional Appropriations bill. Very scary - Orwellian, as the article points out. The FBI says it would only use it when they suspect a felony is being committed, a human life is in danger, or a certain few other situations. It would also cost billions of dollars. Cavete magnum fratrem!

Keith Moore was the first reader to write in and announce that Des-2-II has officially been broken. And not by distributed.net. The winner was a custom $250k box. The controlling box supposedly ran Linux too. You can read an article at eff.org or The NY Times .

Well folks, its friday, and I'm ready for the weekend. And I'm gonna celebrate by cleaning out the submissions box. What follows is a fairly sizable list of quickies that have been built up over the last week or so. First off, Felix Finch sent us a link to IllusionWorks.com. It is exactly what you would expect. Kinda cool. Frank Berger sent us a link to a Chicken Conversion for Quake II. What a strange world we live. Oliver Fischer, the guy who was working on those Linux Keyboard Keys has updated his page with more information for anyone interested. Mike Roessing wrote a sort of zd parody. It's friday, you might enjoy reading such thing. Christopher Lee sent us a link to a NY Times Writeup on VA Research and Linux. Fict wrote in to tell us that the latest issue of Phrack is now online. Matthew Miller wrote in to say that Red Hat is selling, well, Red Hats like the one in their logo. Fict wrote in to send us a link to Denounce.com (uber cool fake news site) one MS buying Linux.

Ripley sent us a link to this Times article that requires registration (anyone have a different site that doesn't require this annoyance?) but talks about L0pht speaking in front of congress about what hackers really can do. Probability quite a reality check for a lot of folks.

David Cloud writes "Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" has won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. Read about it here " You can also read Hemos's review (written weeks ago!), and even order the book for yourself from our bookstore. And remember, if you buy the book, we get 25% of the cost. This forces us to dance joyfully in our underwear, you don't get to see this part, but it happens. Really. Oh, and that link up there requires a login.

Mike Martin writes "The NYTimes is running this story on the new Merced processor in which they question whether it has the potential to live up to its hype and whether the market demand will be there to support it. They compare its future to both the i432, a predecessor to the 8086 chip which flopped miserably, and the 8086, and give a brief history of the origins of the Merced design. "

Mike Martin writes "The NYTimes is running this story on the new Merced processor in which they question whether it has the potential to live up to its hype and whether the market demand will be there to support it. They compare its future to both the i432, a predecessor to the 8086 chip which flopped miserably, and the 8086, and give a brief history of the origins of the Merced design. "

Mike Martin writes "The New York Times has 2 articles about people lashing out against spammers. This article is about people who police Usenet groups, cancelling articles and threatening ISP's who harbor spammers with a Usenet death penalty. Also in the paper, Bigfoot Partners has won a court order against self declared spam king Sanford Wallace, requiring him to pay $10,000/day if he or anyone using his spamming software spams their customers. Read about it here. "

Wish I could get a court order to prevent the spam I have got so far this week. I'd love my own beowulf cluster.

Mike Martin writes "The New York Times has 2 articles about people lashing out against spammers. This article is about people who police Usenet groups, cancelling articles and threatening ISP's who harbor spammers with a Usenet death penalty. Also in the paper, Bigfoot Partners has won a court order against self declared spam king Sanford Wallace, requiring him to pay $10,000/day if he or anyone using his spamming software spams their customers. Read about it here. "

Wish I could get a court order to prevent the spam I have got so far this week. I'd love my own beowulf cluster.

Palm Computing Inc., makers of the PalmPilot, has filed suit against Microsoft and Casio in both Germany and Italy, for "reasons relating to rademark law". Palm claims Microsoft is imitating and trying to use their name to successfully promote their "PalmPC" platform.

Mike Martin wrote in to give everyone this story about Senator Hatch (Senate Judiciary Chair) and his recent speech which was called "Competition, Convergence, and the Microsoft Monopoly: The Future of the Digital Marketplace." If that doesn't sum it up, nothing will.