Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday at Black Hat USA 2009, a talk entitled MD5 Chosen-Prefix Collisions on GPUs (whitepaper) (Both PDFs) presented an implementation written in assembly language for ATI video cards that achieves 1.6 billion MD5 hash/sec, or 2.2 billion MD5 hash/sec with reversing, on an ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2. This is faster than the much-publicized 1.4-1.9 billion hash/sec figure that was supposedly reached on a PlayStation 3 by Nick Breese at Black Hat Europe 2008 (he later noticed an error in his benchmarking tool). Compared to the cluster of 215 PlayStation 3s that was used to create a rogue CA in December 2008, Marc Bevand claimed a cluster of 12 machines with 24 video cards would be a bit faster, consume 5 times less power, and be 10 times cheaper."

str8edge sends word that Lance Davis, the CentOS project administrator who had mysteriously gone absent, has now returned and is working with the development team to get things back on track. From their announcement: "The CentOS Development team had a routine meeting today with Lance Davis in attendance. During the meeting a majority of issues were resolved immediately and a working agreement was reached with deadlines for remaining unresolved issues. There should be no impact to any CentOS users going forward. The CentOS project is now in control of the CentOS.org and CentOS.info domains and owns all trademarks, materials, and artwork in the CentOS distributions. We look forward to working with Lance to quickly complete all the agreed upon issues. More information will follow soon."

Svippy writes "As we discussed earlier, 20th Century Fox Television was attempting to recast Futurama. As it turns out, this was just part of a big negotiation ploy, and the original cast have now completed their deals to return with the show's new episodes. For those of you who did not follow the story, a chronology of the events and reactions from the cast members are available at Infosphere and Voice Actors in the News. Series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen said, 'We are thrilled to have our incredible cast back. The call has already gone out to the animators to put the mouths back on the characters.'"

suraj.sun writes with an update to the news from a few days ago about Apple pulling Google Voice apps for the iPhone. Their actions have raised the interest of the FCC, which is now beginning an investigation into the matter. "In a letter sent to Apple, the FCC asked the company why it turned down Google Voice for the iPhone and pulled several other Google Voice-related programs from the iPhone's only sanctioned online mart. The FCC also sent similar letters to both AT&T — Apple's exclusive carrier partner in the US — and Google, asking both firms to provide more information on the issue. The FCC's letter asked Apple whether it rejected Google Voice and dumped other applications on its own, or 'in consultation with AT&T,' and if the latter, to describe the conversations the partners had. In other questions, the FCC asked Apple whether AT&T has any role in the approval of iPhone applications, wants the company to explain how Google Voice differs from any other VoIP software that has been approved, and requested a list of all applications that have been rejected and why."

The Installer writes with news that Nintendo is seeing a significant financial downturn to match the general slowdown in the rest of the industry. "Sales of the once unstoppable Wii console have tumbled for the first time since its launch three years ago, sending the gaming giant's quarterly profit down 61 percent." Meanwhile, Sony is feeling the pain as well; the company sold 500,000 fewer PS3 consoles than in the previous quarter, and PSP sales saw an even bigger drop. Interestingly, Sony also revealed that the manufacturing cost of the PS3 has now dropped 70% since it was released. The drop in sales has caused the resurgence of rumors about console price cuts.

hugmeplz writes "The third annual Pwnie Awards took place last night at Black Hat in Las Vegas, and a full list of the winners has been posted. 'Most Epic Fail' honors went to the notorious Twitter/Google Apps hack from earlier this month that raised all sorts of questions about cloud computing security. Red Hat got skewered with the 'Mass 0wnage' award, also known as the 'Pwnie for Breaking the Internet,' for issuing a version of OpenSSH that left a backdoor open to hackers. The Linux development team earned 'Lamest Vendor Response' recognition for 'continually assuming that all kernel memory corruption bugs are only Denial-of-Service.' Naturally, Microsoft didn't slip past judges' eyes. Its vulnerability that enabled the Conficker worm to do its thing earned honors as the 'Most Overhyped Bug.' On the more positive side, the Pwnie Awards recognized security pros Wei Yongjun, sgrakkyu, Sebastian Kramer and Bernhard Mueller for accomplishments such as discovering bugs and demonstrating exploits. The Pwnie for Best Song went to Doctor Braid for his song Nice Report. Solar Designer snagged the Lifetime Achievement Award, for among other things, being the first to demonstrate heap buffer overflow exploitation, according to the Pwnie Awards Web site."

ADiamond writes "There is no Wi-Fi allergy. The English DJ claiming a Wi-Fi sensitivity, chronicled earlier, was a PR stunt to promote his new album. It would appear that the stunt was highly successful, appearing in multiple high-profile media outlets like The Sun, The Telegraph, and Fox News. The article at Ars goes on to discuss the evidence, or lack-thereof, of electromagnetic spectrum sensitivity."

Barence writes "Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr. Justice Wilkie dismissed the review at the Royal Courts of Justice. The review had been assembled to determine whether the diagnosis of McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome had any bearing on the Home Office's original decision to extradite him to the US. Asperger's sufferers often exhibit obsessive behavior and social naivety, which McKinnon's lawyers have long offered as mitigation. His legal team now has 28 days to appeal the verdict, and his lawyer, Karen Todners, has indicated they may consider taking his case before the US Supreme Court. Last year we discussed a full profile of the hacker published by the BBC." Sophos's survey of 550 IT professionals found that 71% believe McKinnon should not be extradited.

Barence writes "Gary McKinnon has lost the judicial review of his case, dealing a potentially fatal blow to his hopes of avoiding extradition to the US. Lord Justice Stanley Burnton and Mr. Justice Wilkie dismissed the review at the Royal Courts of Justice. The review had been assembled to determine whether the diagnosis of McKinnon's Asperger's Syndrome had any bearing on the Home Office's original decision to extradite him to the US. Asperger's sufferers often exhibit obsessive behavior and social naivety, which McKinnon's lawyers have long offered as mitigation. His legal team now has 28 days to appeal the verdict, and his lawyer, Karen Todners, has indicated they may consider taking his case before the US Supreme Court. Last year we discussed a full profile of the hacker published by the BBC." Sophos's survey of 550 IT professionals found that 71% believe McKinnon should not be extradited.

rrohbeck writes "Today Amazon credited my card with $65.45. After ordering an Eee PC 1005 HA from amazon.com, I asked them for a refund for the cost of Windows XP via the 'Contact us' form. At first they told me to cancel any items on my order that I wanted a refund for, but after I explained that XP was pre-installed on the machine they got it. They asked what the cost of the OS was, and I answered that I had no idea but that Amazon UK refunded £40.00. Within a few hours I got a response saying 'I've requested a refund of $65.45 to your Visa card.' Somehow I doubt that Amazon will charge Asus or even Microsoft, but maybe they will one day if more people do this. Oh, and peeling off the 'Designed for Microsoft Windows XP' sticker is easy, too."

nlewis writes "Adobe has finally released updates for their Flash and Shockwave Players. These updates should, in theory, address the security issues outlined in this security bulletin. This issue has been mentioned here previously. Don't expect an update to the equally flawed Acrobat Reader until sometime tomorrow, though."

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister suggests that Wolfram Research's claim to copyright of results returned by the Wolfram Alpha engine could have significant ramifications for the software industry. 'While software companies routinely retain sole ownership of their software and license it to users, Wolfram Research has taken the additional step of claiming ownership of the output of the software itself,' McAllister writes, pointing out that it is 'at least theoretically possible to copyright works generated by machines.' And, under current copyright law, if any Wolfram claim to authorship of the output of its engine is upheld, by extension the same rules will apply to other information services in similar cases as well. In other words, 'If unique presentations based on software-based manipulation of mundane data are copyrightable, who retains what rights to the resulting works?'"

brothke writes "Imagine for a moment what his novels would read like if Dan Brown got his facts correct. The challenge Brown and similar authors face is to write a novel that is both compelling and faithful to the facts. In Tetraktys, author Ari Juels is able to weave an interesting and readable story, and stay faithful to the facts. While Brown seemingly lacks the scientific and academic background needed to write such fiction, Juels has a Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley and is currently the Chief Scientist and director at RSA Laboratories, the research division of RSA Security." Read below for the rest of Ben's review. Tetraktys author Ari Juels pages 351 publisher Emerald Bay Books rating Excellent debut novel by Ari Juels reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 978-0982283707 summary Intriguing cryptographic thriller The book, which might be the world's first cryptographic thriller, tells the story of Ambrose Jerusalem, a gifted computer security expert, still haunted by his father's death, a few months shy of his doctorate, who has a beautiful and loving girlfriend, and a bright future ahead of him. This is until the government gets involved and Jerusalem's plans are put on hold when the NSA asks him to join them to track down a strange and disturbing series of computer breaches.

Tetraktys, like similar thrillers, has its standard set of characters; from corrupt State Department and World Bank officials, a dashing protagonist with a long-suffering girlfriend, to mysterious and obscure terrorist groups. This terrorist group is in the book is comprised of followers of Pythagoras.

As to the title, a tetraktys is a triangular figure of ten points arranged in four rows, with one, two, three, and four points in each row. It is a mystical symbol and was most important to the followers of Pythagoras. While mainly known as the creator of the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras of Samos was an influential Greek mathematician and founder of the religious movement of Pythagoreanism. Those wanting more information can watch a video about the symbol.

As to the storyline, the NSA is trying to recruit Ambrose as they feel that the terrorists, who form a secret cult of followers of Pythagoras have broken the RSA public-key algorithm. Breaking RSA is something that is not expected for many decades, but if a revolution in factoring numbers were to occur sooner, RSA's demise could happen that much quicker. And if RSA was indeed broken by the antagonists, it would undermine the security of nearly every government and financial institution worldwide and create utter anarchy.

A good part of the book centers on the cult of Pythagoras. Its followers believe that truth and reality can only be understood via their system of numbers. The NSA needs Jerusalem's assistance as he is one of the few people who have the mathematical, classical and philosophical background to help them. It is he who ultimately connects the dots that the Pythagoreans have left, which leads to the books dramatic conclusion.

The book is a most enjoyable read and one is hard pressed to put it down once they start reading it. The reader gets a good understanding of who Pythagoras was and his worldview via Juels weaving of Pythagorean philosophy into the storyline.

While the book is not autobiographical, there are many similarities between Ambrose Jerusalem and Ari Juels. From identical initials, to their lives in events in Berkeley and Cambridge, to RSA and more.

For a first book of fiction, Tetraktys is a great read. As a novelist, Juels style approaches that of Umberto Eco, in that he weaves numerous areas of thought into an integrated story. Like Eco's works, Tetraktys has an arcane historical figure as part of it storyline, and an intricate plot that takes the reader on many, and some unexpected, turns. While not as complex and difficult to read as Eco, Tetraktys is a remarkable work of fiction for someone with a doctorate in computer science, not literature.

The book though does have some gaps, but that could be expected for a first novel. The reader is never sure what the Pythagoreans are really after or why they have resurfaced, and one of the characters is killed, for reasons that are not apparent. Readers who want more information can visit the Tetraktys web site.

As to the book's protagonist, Ambrose Jerusalem is to Juels what Jack Ryan is to Tom Clancy, meaning that his adventures are just beginning, and that is a good thing.

For those interested in a cryptographic thriller, Tetraktys is an enjoyable read. The book interlaces Greek philosophy, mathematics, and modern crime into a cogent theme that is a compelling read. And if the exploits of Ambrose Jerusalem continue, we may have found the successor to Umberto Eco.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

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

brothke writes "Imagine for a moment what his novels would read like if Dan Brown got his facts correct. The challenge Brown and similar authors face is to write a novel that is both compelling and faithful to the facts. In Tetraktys, author Ari Juels is able to weave an interesting and readable story, and stay faithful to the facts. While Brown seemingly lacks the scientific and academic background needed to write such fiction, Juels has a Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley and is currently the Chief Scientist and director at RSA Laboratories, the research division of RSA Security." Read below for the rest of Ben's review. Tetraktys author Ari Juels pages 351 publisher Emerald Bay Books rating Excellent debut novel by Ari Juels reviewer Ben Rothke ISBN 978-0982283707 summary Intriguing cryptographic thriller The book, which might be the world's first cryptographic thriller, tells the story of Ambrose Jerusalem, a gifted computer security expert, still haunted by his father's death, a few months shy of his doctorate, who has a beautiful and loving girlfriend, and a bright future ahead of him. This is until the government gets involved and Jerusalem's plans are put on hold when the NSA asks him to join them to track down a strange and disturbing series of computer breaches.

Tetraktys, like similar thrillers, has its standard set of characters; from corrupt State Department and World Bank officials, a dashing protagonist with a long-suffering girlfriend, to mysterious and obscure terrorist groups. This terrorist group is in the book is comprised of followers of Pythagoras.

As to the title, a tetraktys is a triangular figure of ten points arranged in four rows, with one, two, three, and four points in each row. It is a mystical symbol and was most important to the followers of Pythagoras. While mainly known as the creator of the Pythagorean theorem, Pythagoras of Samos was an influential Greek mathematician and founder of the religious movement of Pythagoreanism. Those wanting more information can watch a video about the symbol.

As to the storyline, the NSA is trying to recruit Ambrose as they feel that the terrorists, who form a secret cult of followers of Pythagoras have broken the RSA public-key algorithm. Breaking RSA is something that is not expected for many decades, but if a revolution in factoring numbers were to occur sooner, RSA's demise could happen that much quicker. And if RSA was indeed broken by the antagonists, it would undermine the security of nearly every government and financial institution worldwide and create utter anarchy.

A good part of the book centers on the cult of Pythagoras. Its followers believe that truth and reality can only be understood via their system of numbers. The NSA needs Jerusalem's assistance as he is one of the few people who have the mathematical, classical and philosophical background to help them. It is he who ultimately connects the dots that the Pythagoreans have left, which leads to the books dramatic conclusion.

The book is a most enjoyable read and one is hard pressed to put it down once they start reading it. The reader gets a good understanding of who Pythagoras was and his worldview via Juels weaving of Pythagorean philosophy into the storyline.

While the book is not autobiographical, there are many similarities between Ambrose Jerusalem and Ari Juels. From identical initials, to their lives in events in Berkeley and Cambridge, to RSA and more.

For a first book of fiction, Tetraktys is a great read. As a novelist, Juels style approaches that of Umberto Eco, in that he weaves numerous areas of thought into an integrated story. Like Eco's works, Tetraktys has an arcane historical figure as part of it storyline, and an intricate plot that takes the reader on many, and some unexpected, turns. While not as complex and difficult to read as Eco, Tetraktys is a remarkable work of fiction for someone with a doctorate in computer science, not literature.

The book though does have some gaps, but that could be expected for a first novel. The reader is never sure what the Pythagoreans are really after or why they have resurfaced, and one of the characters is killed, for reasons that are not apparent. Readers who want more information can visit the Tetraktys web site.

As to the book's protagonist, Ambrose Jerusalem is to Juels what Jack Ryan is to Tom Clancy, meaning that his adventures are just beginning, and that is a good thing.

For those interested in a cryptographic thriller, Tetraktys is an enjoyable read. The book interlaces Greek philosophy, mathematics, and modern crime into a cogent theme that is a compelling read. And if the exploits of Ambrose Jerusalem continue, we may have found the successor to Umberto Eco.

Ben Rothke is the author of Computer Security: 20 Things Every Employee Should Know.

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

frenchbedroom writes "The ongoing Debconf 9 meeting in Cáceres, Spain has brought a significant change to Debian's project management. The Debian project will now freeze development in December of every odd year, which means we can expect a new Debian release in the spring of every even year, starting with 'Squeeze' in 2010. Until now, development freezing was decided by the Debian release team. From the announcement: 'The project chose December as a suitable freeze date since spring releases proved successful for the releases of Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (codenamed "Etch") and Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("Lenny"). Time-based freezes will allow the Debian Project to blend the predictability of time based releases with its well established policy of feature based releases. The new freeze policy will provide better predictability of releases for users of the Debian distribution, and also allow Debian developers to do better long-term planning. A two-year release cycle will give more time for disruptive changes, reducing inconveniences caused for users. Having predictable freezes should also reduce overall freeze time.' We previously discussed talks between Canonical and the Debian release team about fixed freeze dates."

BuR4N writes with news that 10 US movie companies have filed a suit in Swedish civil court seeking to shut down The Pirate Bay and impose a fine on its three former operators, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Peter Sunde, as well as the site's bandwidth supplier. Speaking to TorrentFreak, Sunde said, "It's another day in the whole soap opera of TPB. They're suing us in Stockholm where none of us live. They're suing us over something which we don't own. I think the most funny part of the whole suit is that they just write: 'Reservella is a company run by Fredrik Neij' — out of 40 pages of paper that's all they have to say, and it's so wrong. They have no paperwork to back it up." Meanwhile, plans for The Pirate Bay to be sold to Global Gaming X seem to have stalled.

Over the past few weeks, the cellphone industry has been criticized on a variety of subjects, from distracted driving to handset exclusivity deals to everything else that's shady within the industry. Verizon's CEO has now responded, addressing what he claims are "myths" about standard practices. Reader DJRumpy points out that the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights has been calling for an investigation into whether competition is being stifled through many of these practices, "including possible text messaging price fixing and questionable roaming arrangements." Apparently the new antitrust chief is hitting resistance from within the government over the aggressive inquiries into this and other major industries. However, a small victory was achieved the other day when the National Telecommunications and Information Administration "told incumbent carriers that they'll have to prove their cases just like everyone else if they want to challenge broadband grant proposals from smaller players." There is also legislation in the works that would require states to impose a ban on text messaging while driving or lose a significant portion of their federal highway funding.

As we discussed in June, China has been working on plans to impose further restrictions on the games that can be sold or publicized within its borders. The Chinese government has now begun implementing those plans, starting with games that involve gangs, saying, "These games encourage people to deceive, loot and kill, and glorify gangsters' lives. It has a bad influence on youngsters." According to a Xinhua news agency, "The ministry ordered its law enforcement bodies to step up oversight and harshly punish those sites that continue to run such games."

icebike writes "In our recent discussion of the phenomenon of noctilucent clouds, there was some suggestions that these might be the product of global warming due to moisture being lofted high into the atmosphere. It now appears that these clouds are simply the product of Shuttle launches. In a story about the Tunguska blast, Science News says: 'Each launch of a space shuttle, which burns a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel, pumps about 300 metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere at altitudes between 100 and 115 kilometers. Soon after the January 16, 2003, launch of the shuttle Columbia, a liftoff that took place just after the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, noctilucent clouds appeared over Antarctica. Similarly, a widespread display of the night-shining clouds showed up over Alaska two days after the shuttle Endeavour blasted off on August 8, 2007. Previous studies show that in both instances those clouds included material from the shuttle plumes.' So, man-made after all?"

suraj.sun updates us on the Netflix Prize now that the competition has officially closed. We discussed the new leader with one day to go in the contest: The Ensemble, taking the lead from long-time leader BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, the first contestant to submit an entry that broke the 10% barrier. In the contest's final day, BellKor re-took the lead with 20 minutes to go, then The Ensemble apparently pulled a Michael Phelps with 4 minutes to go, squeaking ahead by 0.01%. At least so the leaderboard claims — but those numbers are posted by the competing teams. The NY Times reports that an official winner will not be named until September — Netflix needs that much time to pore through the complex entries and read the code. Netflix contacted BellKor on Sunday to tell them the team remained in first place; The Ensemble has had no such notification.

eldavojohn writes "Certainly one of the most important steps in adopting a protocol is a working open source example of it. Well, google has open sourced an implementation of the wave protocol for those of you curious about Google's new collaboration and conversation platform. It's been reviewed, skewered and called 'Anti-Web' but now's your chance to see a Java implementation of it. The article lists it as still rapidly evolving so it might not be prudent to buy into it yet. Any thumbs up or thumbs down from actual users of the new protocol?"

eldavojohn writes "Certainly one of the most important steps in adopting a protocol is a working open source example of it. Well, google has open sourced an implementation of the wave protocol for those of you curious about Google's new collaboration and conversation platform. It's been reviewed, skewered and called 'Anti-Web' but now's your chance to see a Java implementation of it. The article lists it as still rapidly evolving so it might not be prudent to buy into it yet. Any thumbs up or thumbs down from actual users of the new protocol?"

eldavojohn writes "Certainly one of the most important steps in adopting a protocol is a working open source example of it. Well, google has open sourced an implementation of the wave protocol for those of you curious about Google's new collaboration and conversation platform. It's been reviewed, skewered and called 'Anti-Web' but now's your chance to see a Java implementation of it. The article lists it as still rapidly evolving so it might not be prudent to buy into it yet. Any thumbs up or thumbs down from actual users of the new protocol?"

eldavojohn writes "Certainly one of the most important steps in adopting a protocol is a working open source example of it. Well, google has open sourced an implementation of the wave protocol for those of you curious about Google's new collaboration and conversation platform. It's been reviewed, skewered and called 'Anti-Web' but now's your chance to see a Java implementation of it. The article lists it as still rapidly evolving so it might not be prudent to buy into it yet. Any thumbs up or thumbs down from actual users of the new protocol?"

Arguendo writes "A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Blackboard Inc.'s patent on a learning management system is invalid in light of the inventors' own prior software product. We have previously discussed the patent and Blackboard's trial court victory against Desire2Learn. It's not completely over, but this is almost certainly the death knell for Blackboard's patent. If so inclined, you may read the appellate court's decision here (PDF) or on scribd."

Arguendo writes "A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Blackboard Inc.'s patent on a learning management system is invalid in light of the inventors' own prior software product. We have previously discussed the patent and Blackboard's trial court victory against Desire2Learn. It's not completely over, but this is almost certainly the death knell for Blackboard's patent. If so inclined, you may read the appellate court's decision here (PDF) or on scribd."

After Microsoft donated driver code to the Linux kernel under the GPLv2, stories surfaced that they had done so under duress of already being in violation of the GPL. Microsoft quickly denied that any GPL violation was a driver for their decision to donate the code; the company's senior director of platform strategy, Sam Ramji, said at the time: "Microsoft's decision was not based on any perceived obligations tied to the GPLv2 license." Now the Software Freedom Law Center confirms that Microsoft was indeed in violation of the GPLv2 when it distributed its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components without providing source code. Community members led by Greg Kroah-Hartman contacted the company and coached them through the process of getting compliant. Microsoft now says that they had already been on the path for several months toward releasing the software under GPLv2 before Kroah-Hartman got in touch.

After Microsoft donated driver code to the Linux kernel under the GPLv2, stories surfaced that they had done so under duress of already being in violation of the GPL. Microsoft quickly denied that any GPL violation was a driver for their decision to donate the code; the company's senior director of platform strategy, Sam Ramji, said at the time: "Microsoft's decision was not based on any perceived obligations tied to the GPLv2 license." Now the Software Freedom Law Center confirms that Microsoft was indeed in violation of the GPLv2 when it distributed its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components without providing source code. Community members led by Greg Kroah-Hartman contacted the company and coached them through the process of getting compliant. Microsoft now says that they had already been on the path for several months toward releasing the software under GPLv2 before Kroah-Hartman got in touch.

Ubisoft recently revealed that their game sales have seen a 50% drop over the past quarter, blaming the overall market slowdown and piracy (particularly on the DS) for the low numbers. They also announced that four of their games, including Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2, would be delayed until 2010. The company's CEO, Yves Guillemot, now says they are working on a new anti-piracy tool that should be ready by the end of 2009. He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.

path0$ writes "British Ex-DJ Steve Miller claims that his Wi-Fi allergy is making his life one big misery , forcing him to live in an iron-clad home far from any neighbors. According to the article, more and more people are suffering from an allergy like his. The only positive side to this is that at least Miller didn't think of suing anybody yet, like these people did, who claim to suffer from the same condition and were mentioned in a Slashdot article in 2008."

As the July 31st deadline for The Matrix Online's closure looms, Gamer Limit is running a story discussing the game's shortcomings, as well as some of the decisions that led to its failure. Quoting: "I honestly thought the writers must have absolutely hated the remaining cast of The Matrix Trilogy or something, because they constantly seemed to go out of their way to phase out existing characters in favor of newer ones. The cast overall basically made me, as a player, feel distant from the main storyline and made the entire game feel like a Matrix side story instead of the continuation it was meant to be. ... When MxO first launched there was an entire team dedicated to playing the game as Agents and other key characters as a means to further in-game events and directly interact with players, giving players the feeling that they truly were making a difference. After the SOE buyout of the game the LESIG team was reduced to playing minor characters before eventually being phased out and replaced with a Live Event Team (LET) comprised purely of volunteers."

Not many days ago, we mentioned ZDNet's interview with Nicholas Negroponte, in which Negroponte had some harsh things to say about Sugar and its connection to the slower-than-hoped uptake of the XO. Ivan Krstic (formerly head of the OLPC's security innovative subsystem) responded to Negroponte's claims, which he says are "nonsense." Among other things, he mentions that Sugar "was the name for the new learning-oriented graphical interface that OLPC was building, but it was also the name for the entire XO operating system, one tiny part of which was Sugar the GUI, and the rest of which was mostly Fedora Linux."

Julie188 writes "Opera Software is, as expected, preening over the forthcoming browser ballot box feature in Windows 7. It will put the Opera name in front of millions of users who probably never heard of it. But that's not the only reason Opera is gloating. CTO Håkon Wium Lie feels that today's decision will force Microsoft to make Internet Explorer do a better job of supporting standards, particularly the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Lie would also like to see Apple and Linux makers follow suit with browser ballot boxes of their own."

Hugh Pickens writes "Last Sunday, an object, probably a comet that nobody saw coming, plowed into Jupiter's colorful cloud tops, splashing up debris and leaving a black eye the size of the Pacific Ocean — the second time in 15 years that this had happened, after Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell apart and its pieces crashed into Jupiter in 1994, leaving Earth-size marks that persisted up to a year. 'Better Jupiter than Earth,' say astronomers who think that part of what makes Earth such a nice place to live is that Jupiter acts as a gravitational shield, deflecting incoming space junk away from the inner solar system where it could do to humans what an asteroid apparently did for the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. 'If anything like that had hit the Earth it would have been curtains for us, so we can feel very happy that Jupiter is doing its vacuum-cleaner job and hoovering up all these large pieces before they come for us,' says Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, who first noticed the mark on Jupiter. But others say the warm and fuzzy image of the King of Planets as father-protector may not be entirely accurate. In 1770, Comet Lexell whizzed by the earth, missing us by a cosmic whisker after passing close to Jupiter. The comet made two passes around the Sun and in 1779 again passed very close to Jupiter, which then threw it back out of the solar system."

brajesh writes "The Netflix Prize, an algorithm competition to improve the Netflix Cinematch recommendation system by more than 10%, has a new leader — The Ensemble — just one day before the competition ends. The 30-day race to the end was kicked off after BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos submitted the first entry to break the 10% barrier, with the results showing a 10.08% improvement. The Ensemble, made up of three teams who chose to join forces ('Grand Prize Team,' 'Opera Solutions' and 'Vandelay United), has managed to overtake BellKor with a score of 10.09% — an improvement of .01% over the former leaders. From the article on Techcrunch: 'The competition will end [today], so teams still have a little bit of time left to make their last-second submissions, but things are looking good for The Ensemble. This has to be absolutely brutal for team BellKor.'"

christian.einfeldt writes "The LinuxTech.net blog points out that Linux notebooks are currently selling quite well on Amazon's list in Germany. The blog includes screenshots showing the Linux Asus and Aspire notebooks in positions 2 and 4, respectively, on that list. These machines are not netbooks, but full notebooks, albeit on the moderate to low side regarding price and performance. That LinuxTech.net blog was dated 23 July 2009, and the Asus machine is still holding second place more than one day later, while the Acer machine slipped to fifth position, despite the volatile nature of Amazon bestseller lists. While these two data points are just snapshots in time, they are consistent with other data showing that Microsoft itself attributes some of its recent weak earnings to surging sales of low-end notebooks, as well as data showing that the Linux-powered and Unix-powered computers topped Amazon's sales charts in all categories for 2007. If there is to ever be a 'year of desktop (or laptop) Linux', it won't happen all at once, but will creep up in ways similar to what we are seeing now."

Hugh Pickens writes "In the aftermath of Microsoft's recent decision to contribute 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community, Christopher Smart of Linux Magazine talked to Linus Torvalds and asked if the code was something he would be happy to include, even though it's from Microsoft. 'Oh, I'm a big believer in "technology over politics." I don't care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don't have to worry about licensing etc. issues,' says Torvalds. 'I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other people and companies out.' Smart asked Torvalds if Microsoft was contributing the code to benefit the Linux community or Microsoft. 'I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all open source code gets written! We all "scratch our own itches." It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved. It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to some degree,' says Torvalds. 'So complaining about the fact that Microsoft picked a selfish area to work on is just silly. Of course they picked an area that helps them. That's the point of open source — the ability to make the code better for your particular needs, whoever the "your" in question happens to be.'"

Smart grid technology is a hot issue on Capitol Hill, but some are raising questions about the idea. In recent days we've discussed the smart grid's potential exposure to worm attacks, consumers' unreadiness for the idea, and whether the whole concept may need a rethink. A Congressional hearing on Thursday surfaced another reason for caution: the smart grid's vulnerability to EMP. "Electromagnetic Pulse" refers to the damage caused in electrical circuits and systems when a nuclear explosive goes off nearby. The electric grid as it's currently constituted is vulnerable to EMP; the further down the road we go towards a smart grid, the more vulnerable it will become. "It makes a great equalizer for small nations looking to stand up to military Goliaths, argues Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Rep.-Md.), a former research scientist and engineer who has worked in the past on projects for NASA and the military. All one needs to wreak some serious EMP damage, he charges, is a sea-worthy steamer, $100,000 to buy a scud-missile launcher, and a crude nuclear weapon. Then fling the device high into the air and detonate its warhead. Such a system might not paralyze the entire United States, he concedes. 'But you could shut down all of New England. And if you missed by 100 miles, it's as good as a bulls eye.'"

Smart grid technology is a hot issue on Capitol Hill, but some are raising questions about the idea. In recent days we've discussed the smart grid's potential exposure to worm attacks, consumers' unreadiness for the idea, and whether the whole concept may need a rethink. A Congressional hearing on Thursday surfaced another reason for caution: the smart grid's vulnerability to EMP. "Electromagnetic Pulse" refers to the damage caused in electrical circuits and systems when a nuclear explosive goes off nearby. The electric grid as it's currently constituted is vulnerable to EMP; the further down the road we go towards a smart grid, the more vulnerable it will become. "It makes a great equalizer for small nations looking to stand up to military Goliaths, argues Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Rep.-Md.), a former research scientist and engineer who has worked in the past on projects for NASA and the military. All one needs to wreak some serious EMP damage, he charges, is a sea-worthy steamer, $100,000 to buy a scud-missile launcher, and a crude nuclear weapon. Then fling the device high into the air and detonate its warhead. Such a system might not paralyze the entire United States, he concedes. 'But you could shut down all of New England. And if you missed by 100 miles, it's as good as a bulls eye.'"

Smart grid technology is a hot issue on Capitol Hill, but some are raising questions about the idea. In recent days we've discussed the smart grid's potential exposure to worm attacks, consumers' unreadiness for the idea, and whether the whole concept may need a rethink. A Congressional hearing on Thursday surfaced another reason for caution: the smart grid's vulnerability to EMP. "Electromagnetic Pulse" refers to the damage caused in electrical circuits and systems when a nuclear explosive goes off nearby. The electric grid as it's currently constituted is vulnerable to EMP; the further down the road we go towards a smart grid, the more vulnerable it will become. "It makes a great equalizer for small nations looking to stand up to military Goliaths, argues Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (Rep.-Md.), a former research scientist and engineer who has worked in the past on projects for NASA and the military. All one needs to wreak some serious EMP damage, he charges, is a sea-worthy steamer, $100,000 to buy a scud-missile launcher, and a crude nuclear weapon. Then fling the device high into the air and detonate its warhead. Such a system might not paralyze the entire United States, he concedes. 'But you could shut down all of New England. And if you missed by 100 miles, it's as good as a bulls eye.'"

BearRanger writes "Calibration of new systems in the Hubble Space Telescope (installed in May by Shuttle Atlantis astronauts) were interrupted to take pictures of the new 'scar' near the south pole of Jupiter. The scar is believed to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid or small comet with the gas giant, which we discussed last Sunday. Hubble's return to service will be delayed by this interruption, but NASA says that rare events such as this warrant the delay. This is only the second recorded impact of an object with Jupiter."

gollum123 writes "David Pogue of the NYTimes wonders why Congress is worrying about exclusive handset contracts when there are more significant things that are broken, unfair, and anti-competitive in the American cellphone industry. He lists text messaging fees, double billing, handset subsidies, international call rates, and 'airtime-eating instructions' among the major problems not being addressed by Congress. 'Right now, the cell carriers spend about $6 billion a year on advertising. Why doesn't it occur to them that they'd attract a heck of a lot more customers by making them happy instead of miserable? By being less greedy and obnoxious? By doing what every other industry does: try to please customers instead of entrap and bilk them? But no. Apparently, persuading cell carriers to treat their customers decently would take an act of Congress.'"

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether Scheme, a dialect of Lisp taught as part of many first-year CS curricula and considered by some to be the 'latin of programming,' is really the best first language for a young programmer. As he sees it, the essentially write-only Scheme requires you to bore down into the source code just to figure out what a Scheme program is trying to do — excellent for teaching programming but 'lousy for a 15-year-old trying to figure out how to make a computer do stuff on his own.' And though the 'hacker ethic' may in fact be harming today's developers, McAllister still suggests we encourage the young to 'develop the innate curiosity and love of programming that lies at the heart of any really brilliant programmer' by simply encouraging them to fool around with whatever produces the most gratifying results. After all, as Jeff Atwood puts it, 'what we do is craftmanship, not engineering,' and inventing effective software solutions takes insight, inspiration, deduction, and often a sprinkling of luck. 'If that means coding in Visual Basic, so be it. Scheme can come later.'"

Jeremy A. Hansen writes "NIST just announced their selections for algorithms going to the second round of the SHA-3 competition. Quoting: 'NIST received 64 SHA-3 candidate hash function submissions and accepted 51 first round candidates as meeting our minimum acceptance criteria. We have now selected 14 second round candidates to continue in the competition. Information about the second round candidate algorithms will be available here. We were pleased by the amount and quality of the cryptanalysis we received on the first round candidates, and more than a little amazed by the ingenuity of some of the attacks. ... In selecting this set of second round candidates we tried to include only algorithms that we thought had a chance of being selected as SHA-3. We were willing to extrapolate higher performance for conservative designs with apparently large safety factors, but comparatively unforgiving of aggressive designs that were broken, or nearly broken during the course of the review. We were more willing to accept disquieting properties of the hash function if the designer had apparently anticipated them, than if they were discovered during the review period, even if there were apparent fixes. We were generally alarmed by attacks on compression functions that seemed unanticipated by the submitters.'"

Necroloth and other readers sent in the story of Witricity's latest demo at the TED Global conference in Oxford, UK. The company is developing a system that can deliver power to devices without the need for wires. The idea is not new — electrical pioneers Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla assumed that power would be delivered wirelessly. The BBC quotes the inventor behind Witricity's tech as saying that Tesla and Edison "...couldn't imagine dragging this vast infrastructure of metallic wires across every continent." eWeek Europe notes some hurdles the technology must overcome: "The 2007 experiment it is based on had an efficiency of only around 45 percent, but [Witricity's CEO] promised power delivered wirelessly would start out 15 percent more expensive than wires, and improve on that." Intel has also demonstrated wireless charging.

AnonymousIslander writes "The Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Province of British Columbia has ruled that electronic scanning of driver's licenses (and similar forms of ID) as a condition of entering a bar or nightclub is a violation of BC's Personal Information Privacy Act. The decision (PDF), while dealing with one specific club, will still have ramifications across the entire province. It is not known if the nightclub in question will attempt to appeal the decision in court. A similar decision was reached last year in Alberta. The system in question is known as BarWatch, and has been the target of criticism by many for a number of years. Despite this, a number of bars/nightclubs and restaurants in communities across Canada have installed similar systems, and just days before this decision came down there were calls for the expansion of BarWatch in Victoria to cover restaurants and other establishments serving the post-bar crowds." Similar systems are in use across the US, as we have discussed.

An anonymous reader sends in coverage from Ars Technica of Microsoft's capitulation to the EU, after European regulators requested that Redmond bundle multiple browsers on new PCs. "Microsoft has decided that the last thing it needs in this economy is some combination of the following: fines, legal bills, and a delay of Windows 7. It has offered to adopt the European Union's preferred solution for browser competition: a browser selector screen at startup."

theodp writes "On Tuesday, the USPTO granted Microsoft a patent for 'Email Emotiflags' despite ample evidence of a circa-1996 Lotus Notes precedent called Mood Stamps — sender-chosen emoticons that appear next to inbox messages. Among those seemingly aware of the existence of Mood Stamps is Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who appears to have fielded questions about the feature while at Lotus. While simply Googling for 'Email Emotiflags' would have turned up evidence of this prior art (including a Slashdot discussion), the USPTO came up empty after instead going with the more-upscale Google Scholar and patent databases for its search effort. Think we can count on Ozzie to do the right thing and give the USPTO a heads-up?"

think_nix writes "Karoo, an ISP in Hull, in the UK, is disconnecting subscribers without warning if they file-share, or are even suspected of file-sharing. Karoo is the only ISP in the area. Copyright owners are working with the ISP helping them identify and report suspected filesharers using their services. In order to get service restored, subscribers have to go to Karoo's office and sign a form admitting guilt and promising not to do it again. The article states that some subscribers have had their access cut off for more than two years." Update: 07/24 16:29 GMT by KD : The Register is reporting that Karoo has relented and has changed its policy. A spokesman said: "It is evident that we have been exceeding the expectation of copyright owners..."

Back in February, the US Court of Appeals shot down a California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Shortly thereafter, State Senator Leland Yee petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the case. Now, along with California's Psychiatric and Psychological Associations, Yee has filed an amicus curiae brief with Court that elaborates on the reasoning behind the law. Within the brief (PDF) are some interesting quotes: "Parents can read a book, watch a movie or listen to a CD to discern if it is appropriate for their child. These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery. ... Notably, extended play has been observed to depress activity in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls executive thought and function, produces intentionality and the ability to plan sequences of action, and is the seat of self-reflection, discipline and self-control." The video game industry has filed its own amicus brief to dispute Yee's claims.