Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "Canadian ISP Rogers has updated its privacy policy to reflect last month's Supreme Court of Canada Spencer decision. That decision ruled that there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in subscriber information. Canada's largest cable ISP will now require a warrant for law enforcement access to basic subscriber information, a policy that effectively kills the Canadian government's efforts to expand the disclosures through voluntary means."

davecb writes "Prenda Law has commenced three defamation, libel and conspiracy suits against: defense lawyers, defendants and all the blogger and commentators at 'Die Troll Die' and 'Fight Copyright Trolls'. The suits, in different state courts, each attempt to identify anyone who has criticized Prenda, fine them $200,000 each for stating their opinions, and prohibit them from ever criticizing Prenda again."

davecb writes "Rick Falkvinge reports today that the Swedish Pirate Party has laid charges against at least Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal before the Finansinspektionen for refusing to pass on money owed to WikiLeaks. The overseer of bank licenses notes (in translation) that 'The law states, that if there aren't legal grounds to deny a payment service, then it must be processed.'"

davecb writes "Pity the poor filesystem designer: they just want to know when their data is safe, but the disks and drivers try so hard to make I/O 'easy' that it ends up being stupidly hard. Marshall Kirk McKusick writes about the difficulties in making the systems work nicely together: 'In the real world, many of the drives targeted to the desktop market do not implement the NCQ specification. To ensure reliability, the system must either disable the write cache on the disk or issue a cache-flush request after every metadata update, log update (for journaling file systems), or fsync system call. Both of these techniques lead to noticeable performance degradation, so they are often disabled, putting file systems at risk if the power fails. Systems for which both speed and reliability are important should not use ATA disks. Rather, they should use drives that implement Fibre Channel, SCSI, or SATA with support for NCQ.'"

macwhizkid writes "I'm traveling to Canada for a week in July with youth group, and need a way to post blog updates on the trip and send back photos. I'll be staying on an island accessible only by boat, so a hard-wired connection is out of the question. I have a Verizon voice + data plan, and I've heard all the horror stories of multi-thousand dollar international data roaming charges. What I'd like to do is get 1-2 GB of data (5 GB would be great) to use on a Canadian provider's network for a reasonable fee (say, less than $100 total) as a wireless hotspot set-up. I have both a CDMA iPhone and a GSM iPad, so I really just need a micro-SIM or a way to register the IMIE. It appears that both Rogers and Bell offer 'pay as you go' data plans (Rogers has a particularly attractive iPad option), but there are conflicting reports as to whether a U.S. credit card can be used to buy service. I can't believe I'm the first U.S. citizen to want mobile data in Canada. So, has anyone done this successfully? Is there another option I'm not considering?"

macwhizkid writes "I'm traveling to Canada for a week in July with youth group, and need a way to post blog updates on the trip and send back photos. I'll be staying on an island accessible only by boat, so a hard-wired connection is out of the question. I have a Verizon voice + data plan, and I've heard all the horror stories of multi-thousand dollar international data roaming charges. What I'd like to do is get 1-2 GB of data (5 GB would be great) to use on a Canadian provider's network for a reasonable fee (say, less than $100 total) as a wireless hotspot set-up. I have both a CDMA iPhone and a GSM iPad, so I really just need a micro-SIM or a way to register the IMIE. It appears that both Rogers and Bell offer 'pay as you go' data plans (Rogers has a particularly attractive iPad option), but there are conflicting reports as to whether a U.S. credit card can be used to buy service. I can't believe I'm the first U.S. citizen to want mobile data in Canada. So, has anyone done this successfully? Is there another option I'm not considering?"

Normally I try to avoid posting straight business news, but I think that these 3 stories combine to something meaningful. Muleguy noted Microsoft is laying off 5,000, Mspangler reports that Intel is cutting 5-6k, while nonyabidness afraid4myjob submitted that IBM Layoffs have begun with no number, but estimates as high as 16,000.

Don Wolf writes "Computer forensics is a rapidly growing discipline and an even faster growing business. Whether it's the natural progression of technological science pertaining to crime or perhaps the digression of a few elite information security professionals, computer forensics is every so slowly gaining credibility in the otherwise PhD dominated field of criminal science. Computer evidence continues to be showcased in some of the most high-profile and controversial court cases in history, from the murder case of Lasie Peterson to the multi-billion dollar Enron scandal. Whether society will allow it or not, computer forensics geeks will play pivotal roles in the prevalence of justice." Keep reading for the rest of Don's review. Windows Forensic Analysis DVD Toolkit author Harlan Carvey pages 416 publisher Syngress rating 9 reviewer Don Wolf ISBN 9781597491563 summary Incident Response and Cybercrime Investigation Secrets While on the road to computer forensic enlightenment I realized early on that many parallels existed between computer forensics and incident response. A number of great authors have published books on incident response, one of which is a gentleman by the name of Harlan Carvey. So when a friendly but cleverly personalized bookstore email rolled in with Harlan's newest book showcased, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what he's been up to.

The book titled "Windows Forensic Analysis", takes a hands-on and in-depth approach to forensic discovery of Windows systems. Some may scoff at the mere suggestion that a point-and-click operating system necessitates the granular analysis of forensics, but make no mistake, beyond Windows' simplicity are numerous complex elements, sometimes cryptic, and many undocumented.

Always looking for a tip here and there, I found more Windows forensics tips here than I have anywhere else. While I've read only about half-a-dozen books on operating system forensics, this one stands out because the material is clearly drawn from the author's experience which, in my opinion, lends real credibility to the book. Granted, technical books are always reviewed for accuracy and truthfulness, but this one carries its own weight with the sheer amount of tips and real-life sidebars. No hash tables, no unnecessary screen dumps, and certainly no reprinted Microsoft documentation. The author does a great job on footnoting and includes plenty of links to additional information. Additionally, there are sections dedicated for FAQ's, as well as "tools and traps".

Having read the book through, I can tell you it flows well from chapter to chapter and continues to draw you in, somewhat unusual for a technical reference — when was the last time you were drawn into a textbook? I'm not sure how one decides to organize the chapters, but I suspect it was not a random decision. Looking back I can see that there is a logical order to the chapter sequence, perhaps suggesting an order in which to forensically process a Windows computer. The book starts with 'live' response, followed by memory analysis, registry analysis, file analysis, and finally rootkit detection — analysis in order of volatility I suppose.

I've heard a lot of praise regarding this books chapter on registry analysis, some claiming it to be worth the price of the book alone. Don't be mislead to believe that it is the crux or single focus of the book, it's not. In my opinion the reason the chapter stands out is because most forensics analysts I've met aren't particularly strong in the area of registry analysis and therefore may find the chapter a revelation. It's true, the chapter is strong and offers exceptional insight, however, I found the book to be almost equally weighted chapter by chapter.

I personally found the chapter regarding memory analysis to be a stand-out. RAM has the potential to store a ton of evidence, however, it's always been viewed as extremely volatile. Not only is it likely to be flushed with a power-cycle, but it's also susceptible to be purged simply through the normal actions of a computer user, or in our case, forensic analysts. I was happy to see a good section on the pros and cons of dumping the many different areas of physical memory. The author proves that there is life after a reboot and demonstrates how to recover at least partial RAM contents from various areas.

Overall there is plenty of theory, plenty of technique, and plenty of command-line examples. On the subject of command-line examples, the author provides a great collection of scripts and examples on the accompanying DVD. The examples all appear to work as describe, a rarity given the many possible computer configurations, just the same the author is thoughtful enough to point out possible exceptions and explanations when there is an opportunity for a particular command or technique to fail.

If I can quote a comment made by one of my associates, he said "The book provided more than just tips and techniques, it provides food for thought and helps one develop their own personal approach to Windows forensics". I totally agree. Furthermore, I found that while I learned a few new things, I also finished the book with lots of questions in mind. Is that a shortcoming of the book? No. Based on the detailed coverage of the book, I was able to identify my own shortcomings and areas I need to explore further. If you want to pursue Windows forensics and already have a good understanding of the principals and ethics of computer forensics, I highly suggest starting with this book.

You can purchase Windows Forensic Analysis DVD Toolkit from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Kaneda2112 writes "A story in the Globe And Mail points out that the Canada Revenue Agency is now trolling eBay Canada for high volume sellers — looking to make sure eBay's biggest users are accurately reporting their income. They've successfully gotten a court order for the names, addresses, and other personal information for that website's biggest users. 'Canadians spend about $5-billion online each year and eBay is by far the largest electronic marketplace, accounting for about a quarter of the total sales. The site was visited by nearly 11 million Canadians in August, according to company figures. The CRA said in court filings that it is targeting people who qualified for eBay's PowerSeller program in 2004 and 2005. Only top eBay sellers can qualify for the program, which provides benefits to members. Those benefits include prioritized customer service, special promotions and sales tips.'"

mikey_man380 writes "Reuters reports that some original Edison light bulbs and extremely important scientific documents will be auctioned off in the UK. The box of original light bulbs used in court by Edison to defend his patent rights will be up for auction in the United Kingdom. Other important historical items to be included in the auction are Albert Einstein's first scientific essay, a first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and an alchemical manuscript by Isaac Newton."

elzurawka wrote to mention a BBC article discussing Microsoft's boost in profits as a result of an upswing in PC demand. From the article: "The company announced record revenue of $39.79bn for the fiscal year ending on 30 June, an 8% increase over the $36.84 billion reported last year. The main drivers of sales for Microsoft's Windows, Office and Server software products - PC makers and Asian component manufacturers - have reported healthy demand for PCs."

swight1701 writes "Criminals posing as legitimate businesses have accessed critical personal data stored by ChoicePoint Inc., a firm that maintains databases of background information on virtually every U.S. citizen. The incident involves a wide swath of consumer data, including names, addresses, Social Security numbers, credit reports and other information. ChoicePoint notified between 30,000 and 35,000 consumers in California that their personal data may have been accessed by "unauthorized third parties." No obvious notice appears to be on their website."

SishGupta writes "Load Testing Gmail - fillmybox@gmail.com A few weeks ago, Kevin Rose of the The Screen Savers decided to load test Google's new email service, Gmail. He asked everyone to email him their favourite 5MB attachments to 'fillmybox@gmail.com.' The test Gmail account is now 102% maxed out. You can read about the test and the results at Kevin Rose.com (his weblog)."

indyV writes "Most of you probably remember the Contiki OS which previously have been used to Internet-enable both the Commodore 64 and the 8-bit Atari. This video shows the brand new Apple II Contiki port in action, booting up on an Apple IIe and surfing to www.apple2.org. The network connection was made with a specially crafted Ethernet adapter."

Evangelion writes "According to the Globe and Mail, gourmet coffees (Starbucks, Second Cup, etc) apparently have lots more caffeine than their non-gourmet competitors. One jumbo (20-oz) contains an entire day's worth of C8H10N4O2." Remember, for best effect, drink it through the day, not all at once.

Evangelion quotes from a NY Press story about Plum Island: "'Located just two miles off the tip of Long Island and six miles from the Connecticut coastline, Plum Island is home to a Bio-Safety Level 4 (BSL-4) research facility... During the fifth month of [an Engineer's] strike, a three-hour power outage renewed public interest in the island... Without power, the air filtration systems are inoperable. Without power, decontamination procedures break down. Without power, the seals in the pressurized airlock doors start to deflate. According to one report, workers were desperately sealing the doors with duct tape...'"

Jeff writes "The process of Port Knocking is a way to allow only people who know the "secret knock" access to a certain port on a system. For example, if I wanted to connect via SSH to a server, I could build a backdoor on the server that does not directly listen on port 22 (or any port for that matter) until it detects connection attempts to closed ports 1026,1027,1029,1034,1026,1044 and 1035 in that sequence within 5 seconds, then listens on port 22 for a connection within 10 seconds. The web site explains it in some detail, and there is even an experimental perl implementation of it that is available for download. I can't think of any easy ways you could get around a system using this security method - let alone even know that a system is implementing it. Another article on port knocking is here."

DocUi writes "The Baltimore Sun is reporting about how a man, upset with his roommates playing videogames late at night, decided to take it out on their Xbox using a gun. He stormed into their living room and fired a round into the offending game console. However, 'The 9mm gunshot did not penetrate the system and did not injure anyone at the scene, police said', although it 'disabled' the machine."

Patchw0rk F0g writes "From Europe, we jump to la belle province of Quebec for the latest test of broadband internet over power lines (Real Player stream available.) Seems the utility is already utilizing the system to control traffic lights and such, and is exploring the possibilities of offering a cheaper service to consumers to compete with DSL/cable/satellite. Lower prices? I'm all for it... but I live in TORONTO!"

derrickoswald writes "John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk, has posted The Digital Imprimatur, a monograph on technologies such as the Trusted Computing initiative. Some of the prognostications and conclusions reached may not be palatable to Slashdot readers."

the web writes "By now, the whole world has heard of Infinium Labs and their infamous Phantom Game Console, but what do we really know about what could be the next big gaming console or the people bringing it to market? At this point, we know little beyond what they've been willing to share. We haven't seen the console outside of a few 3D renderings, we haven't seen the facility where they claim beta units are being built, and we haven't seen the Infinium Labs base of operations." Our own Roblimo has found some reality to the Phantom console.

mszeto writes "For all those gadget lovers out there, here is a neat one. It's the worlds smallest printer[ed. note: no it isn't], and is Bluetooth enabled. Rub it over the page to print! Here are some more articles about it:"

nado writes "There's a new article on Chessbase.com which has GM John Nunn showing you his chess-orientated PC upgrade to a double Xeon system, with some Fritz benchmarks." Elsewhere in the article, John Nunn discusses the unique computer needs for chess computation: "One of the problems with currently available processors is that they are not particularly well suited to the integer calculations used for chess. A Pentium 4 will be slower at chess than a Pentium 3 of an equivalent clock speed."

Apple Core sent a link to an article running in Australia about Apple fighting for their name with some little telco called Apple Communications. Well, they were called that. Now they are Green.

NeoCode writes "There were rumours and speculations first. Now it looks like its a done deal. Harry Knowles, of AintItCool.com has reports on an animated version of Star Wars set after AOTC but before episode 3. This series is produced by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack). The cartoons will be a series of short films. Could this infuse Star Wars with a new life or is this just another merchandising plot? Nevertheless, this could be quite interesting." Yeah look what good Ewoks & Droids did for the SW universe ;)

Jim Norton writes "This article is just a reminder that AMD is just as guilty as Intel in supporting TCPA / Palladium. AMD has announced that Opteron will be compatible with the Palladium Initiative and that AMD is part of the 'Trusted Computing Alliance'."

Mark0 writes "In an article on MacCentral we read 'CryptoHeaven beefs up Mac OS X support'. This is great news for the Mac OS X community as there aren't many competing applications for the new platform. CryptoHeaven seems to be leading the secure email sector and also provides instant messaging and file storage!" You can never have too much security! Well, OK, you can, but CryptoHeaven looks kinda neat.

Jim Norton writes "This announcement from nVidia states that their Cg compiler technology for 3D applications will be Open Source and available under a free, unrestrictive license. The ETA for this is in August and will be available here." The linked company release says it will be under "a nonrestrictive, free license," but does not give further details. BSD?

robinw writes: "Hominids is the latest novel by the accomplished Canadian science-fiction writer, Robert J. Sawyer. It is also the first book in a trilogy which he calls The Neanderthal Parallax. While far from his best offering, Hominids is consistent with the quality we've grown to expect from Mr. Sawyer, and is a worthwhile addition to any science fiction fan's library." Hominids: The Neanderthal Parallax author Robert J. Sawyer pages 448 publisher Doherty, Tom Associates, LLC rating 8 reviewer Robin Ward ISBN 0-312-87692-0 summary When worlds collide, and one of them is full of Neanderthals ... The book is centered on the Many-Universes Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. In layman's terms, for every possible decision that can be made, the universe branches out into many universes, one for each possibility. All decisions are therefore dealt with in some form, and the universes are identical except for the choice that has been taken one way or the other. Normally, the interpretation states that the parallel universes cannot communicate, but in the novel a failed experiment in Quantum Computing suddenly brings two such Universes together. The first is our modern day society, and the second is a parallel universe where Neanderthals and mammoths prospered while we perished.

The story of the two universes, and their interactions are told in parallel. After the failed experiment, a Neanderthal named Ponter finds himself in rural Ontario, in the world famous Sudbury Neutrino observatory. Back in the Neanderthal universe, his partner Adikor is blamed for his absence, and is put through an extensive trial.

Sawyer has obviously done his research. The alternate version of Earth where the Neanderthals exist is amazingly well thought out. Everything from the social ramifications of an enhanced sense of smell to the 1984-esque communicators that monitor everything the Neanderthals do is integrated into the story perfectly.

There is very little action to be found in the novel, but it remains exciting nonetheless. Personally, I was fascinated with the dialogue Sawyer presents between the character Mary Vaughan and Ponter the Neanderthal. Although I believe that Sawyer has a love for humanity and our technological prowess, he uses the conversations between the human and the Neanderthal as a way of exposing some of our atrocities in the thousands of years that have passed since we developed intelligence. You have to admire the honesty of the character Mary for willingly exposing things in our past that we'd rather forget, but towards the end of the book it almost becomes too much. In fact, I had a hard time believing that Ponter had anything good to say about us at all to his fellow Neanderthals.

The lack of privacy that the Neanderthal society lives with might be of particular interest to the Slashdot crowd. All Neanderthals are required to wear a communicator implant in their arm that transmits everything they do to a central recording center. Interestingly enough, Sawyer argues in favor of such technology, saying that it virtually eliminates crime (who would murder someone knowing fully well that it could be played back by the authorities?) and that we don't really have any privacy anyway. In fact, the book begins with a quote to that effect.

Sawyer's writing is simple and to the point. He has a way of explaining complicated concepts without being overly confusing or long and drawn out. The 400+ page novel is actually a fairly quick read. Unlike some oth-er authors that I'm familiar with, you don't have to go back and re-read passages to find details you might have missed. Don't get me wrong - although the book is easily digested, it manages to inspire. Also, despite the fact that this is the first novel in a series of three, it stands very well on its own. In fact, had I not known that there were two more novels dealing with the same characters being released over the next year or so, I would have been completely satisfied.

Hominids comes highly recommended. If you're at all interested in hard-SF, you owe it to yourself to head down to the bookstore and check it out.

You can purchase Hominids from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then hit the submission page.

Morgahastu writes "Byte.com has a great article about open meta tools and open software in general: "After more than 10 years of open-software development in the scientific community, open software now holds a preeminent place in the operation of the computing community. The three products I have written about simply scratch the surface of the powerful tools available. OpenLDAP and OAI both enable a wide variety of sharing and automated access.""

newell98 asks: "Given the rise in popularity of water cooling systems for home computers, I was wondering how many slashdotters have played with the idea of cooling their system with liquid nitrogen? Lots of super-comps use them (or used to at least), and I'm curious about who's played with the idea of taking home computing to the same level?" The thing to remember about Liquid Nitrogen is that this stuff is generally not safe for home use. It must be stored and used with care or serious injury can result. I think this is why not-too-many people use such in overclocking. Water is by far more easier to obtain and is harmless to boot. Now, after saying all that, have any of you tried using liquid nitrogen in cooling a home or garage-built computer rig? What kind of safety precautions did you take, and how well did your cooling system work?

jeremyd writes: "Major Canadian broadband provider plans to charge heavy users higher monthly access fees as high as $80 per month. Read the article here from the Globe and Mail. If only the world would protest. What's the point of high speed broadband access if you can't use it to full potential without having to start selling organs to pay the bills?"

rikkards asks: "I have just started as a contractor for a government office and am doing this through a recruiter. Said recruiter is saying I may want to incorporate myself. I am wondering if it is really a good thing. I am not sure whether or not I want to stay as a contractor for the rest of my career. The money is decent coin (for today but maybe not 2 years ago). Does anyone have any pros/cons on doing this? If I do it soon the recruiter will do it for me."

Egonis writes: "Revisiting Darwin's theories, and why, exactly he chose to research his theories. And the shocking truth is that Charles Darwin was really a gardener. ;)"

Murf-Dawg writes: "I found this article about 'ice worms' by linking from some information on a National Geographic Channel site. Seems like an x-files plot almost... Ice Worms that live in glaciers right around (and below apparently) freezing... Anybody know anything about them? I can't believe anything can live that cold . They say the research could help with organ and tissue storage." And on a related note, Egonis writes "In a world first, researchers in Canada have successfully transplanted the frozen ovaries and Fallopian tubes of rats, raising the possibility donor hearts and kidneys could also be preserved in suspended animation for years."

nilstar writes: "Rogers Cable wants to dump (slow) WebTV and move to linux based boxes to connect all the major appliances in your home: stereo, tv, computer, etc. via broadband using rogers@home in a service called "triple play". Will this really happen after MS invested C$600 in Rogers? Here is the press release. As the article here on the star says: 'Rogers Cable Inc. will begin testing a new service next month that turns all the communications, computing and entertainment devices in a home into a high-speed smorgasbord of interactive experiences."' Why do I bet these would only be useful with one company's cable service?