Slashdot Mirror
Domain: washingtontimes.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to washingtontimes.com.
Stories · 74
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The Technology Keeping Information Flowing in Iran
Death Metal writes "Iranians seeking to share videos and other eyewitness accounts of the demonstrations that have roiled their country since disputed elections two weeks ago are using an Internet encryption program originally developed by and for the US Navy. Designed a decade ago to secure Internet communications between US ships at sea, The Onion Router, or TOR, has become one of the most important proxies in Iran for gaining access to Web sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook." A related story was submitted anonymously about the efforts of hactivists to keep the information flowing inside the data-locked nation. -
Obama To Get Secure BlackBerry 8830
CWmike writes "President Barack Obama is set to receive a high-security BlackBerry 8830 soon, The Washington Times reported today. The device is said to be in the final stages of development at the National Security Agency, which will check that its encryption software meets federal standards. It might not be ready for months. It was reported that Obama will be able to send text and e-mail messages and make phone calls on the device, but only to those with the secure software loaded on their own devices. The list includes First Lady Michelle Obama and top aides. The security software is made by Genesis Key, whose CEO, Steven Garrett, is quoted as saying: 'We're going to put his BlackBerry back in his hand.' The Sectera Edge was pegged in January by analysts as the top device choice because of its reputation for secure data communications when used by other federal workers. And there are many reasons why Obama might have been told 'no' on his BlackBerry. But Obama may wish he had chosen a Sectera if BlackBerry has more outage problems like its latest last week, which meant no mobile e-mail for hours across the US." -
Obama Staffers Followed Palin's Email Lead On Inauguration Day
theodp writes "Using Yahoo's free e-mail service to conduct government business was good enough for Sarah Palin. And now the Washington Times reports that Obama staffers turned to Gmail on Inauguration Day to conduct their business. Those wishing to contact members of the incoming Obama administration were instructed to contact staffers at wh.LASTNAME@gmail.com until official White House e-mail addresses became available." -
DHS Official Considered Shock Collars For Air Travelers
"The Washington Times is reporting that the DHS wants to replace your boarding pass with a GPS-enabled shock bracelet. Plans for the device include subduing passengers remotely as well as onboard interrogation. There's even a promotional video." Perhaps Paul Ruwaldt (the official named in this story) has been watching "The Coneheads" a bit too much, or not actually flying enough. Expressing interest is not quite the same as ordering mass quantities, but it's scary enough. -
US Satellites Dodging Chinese Missile Debris
GSGKT writes "Today's Washington Times runs a story about the increasing problem with space junk orbiting the earth. Debris from the anti-satellite missile test by the Chinese military last year threatens the integrity of more than 800 operating satellites, half of them belonging to the US. Two orbiting U.S. spacecraft were forced to change course to avoid being damaged soon after the incident. Air Force Brig. Gen. Ted Kresge, director of air, space and information operations at the Air Force Space Command in Colorado, estimates that "essentially (Chinese anti-satellite tests) increase the amount of space debris orbiting the Earth by about 20 percent", and the debris might threaten spacecraft for up to 100 years." -
Homeland Security Tests Snoop Computer System
Parallax Blue writes "The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security has developed and is testing a new computer system called ADVISE (Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement) that collects and analyzes personal information on US citizens. Relevant data 'can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.' The program apparently uses the same process as the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, which was aborted in 2003 due to privacy concerns." -
This Rare Friday the 13th
Juha-Matti Laurio writes to point out a Washington Times story about how special this particular Friday the 13th is. The digits in the numerical notation for the date add up to 13 — whether you write it in the US or the European form. From the article: "The phenomenon hasn't happened in 476 years, said Heinrich Hemme, a physicist at Germany's University of Aachen who crunched the numbers to find that the double-whammy last occurred Jan. 13, 1520." -
Ameritrade Customer Data Lost
Rollie Hawk writes "Continuing the recent trend of customer data blunders in the news, Ameritrade has announced the loss of the personal data of up to 200,000 customers. The suspected cause is a routing error, but not the network kind. The online discount broker admitted that a backup tape of customer account data from 2000 to 2003 has been misplaced. They claim the cause is an error on the part of a shipping company. The tape was identified as missing in February, soon after being shipped. According to spokeswoman Donna Kush, nothing suspicious has been reported. Further blaming the shipping company, she explained that "this was not an Ameritrade Systems issue or a compromise of our technology. This was related to a third party vendor." It's doubtful that current and former customers with exploited information will care how this occurred. She further claimed that Ameritrade "has every reason to believe" that the tape has either been destroyed or is being held by the shipper. There's no word yet on how they arrived at this conclusion." -
First Successful Cell Transplant Cures Diabetes
Iphtashu Fitz writes "A few months ago the 50th anniversary of the first organ transplant was celebrated. Over those 50 years surgeons have learned how to sucessfully transplant many organs and other body parts. Now it seems that Japanese surgeons have added yet another successful transplant to the list, having recently transplanted insulin-generating cells, known as Islets of Langerhans from a mother to her diabetic daughter. Three months after the surgery both mother and daughter appear to be completely healthy. Although the daughter no longer needs insulin she still needs to take powerful drugs to keep her immune system from rejecting the new cells. Researchers also still don't know if this procedure would work in many people with type 1 diabetes since in many of those cases their own immune system has destroyed their Islet cells." -
China Tightens Rules For Educational BBSs
An anonymous reader writes "China is tightening control over online BBS run by colleges and universities. Educational institutions in China have received direct orders from the Chinese Ministry of Education requiring their BBSs to take actions including access limitation and registering users by their real identities, as well as strict content censorship. The admin team of the BBS of Nanjing University has refused to obey the order and has been dismissed." -
Former CIA Head Calls for Limiting Access to the Internet
GMill writes "Former CIA head George Tenet has called for limiting access to the internet to only those who take security seriously and that the industry should 'lead the way' in restricting access. Somehow I don't think that this is a call to ban Microsoft products from the internet. What exactly does he want?" -
Ion-Propulsion Craft Reaches The Moon
Rollie Hawk writes "It ain't warp speed, but it's exciting new technology at work! The European Space Agency put an ion-propelled rocket into lunar orbit today. While not much horsepower is generated, this method of propulsion could be ideal for travel in near-weightless space as it does not require any combustion to occur." -
President Bush Flip-flopping on Gay Rights Issue?
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that has upset some in the GOP, George Bush has suddenly declared his support for civil unions for gay ane lesbian couples. Will such a move help or hurt him this late in the game?" -
Brazil Successfully Launches Its First Rocket To Space
thatshortkid writes "The Washington Times is reporting on Brazil's first successful space launch. Since it is closer to the equator, the task of getting up to space is easier, meaning much more cargo room over fuel. Hello commercial launch market! With this development, along with China's expanding space program, India making moves to space, and our own homegrown (ok, still growing) private space industry, where does this put NASA? Does it take a load off of them to pursue bigger endeavors, or will NASA slowly decline in relevance?" -
Laser Injures Delta Pilot's Eye
stormfish writes "The Washington Times is reporting that laser light from an unknown source injured a pilot's eye as he was flying a Boeing 737 from Dallas to Salt Lake City. A 5 milliwatt laser pointer is strong enough to damage a person's eye, and stronger laser's are not that hard to come by. Unfortunately, having pilots wear colored laser safety glasses would be impractical as that would make it impossible to interpret the colored symbols on paper maps and cockpit displays." -
DoubleClick Hit by DDoS Attack
YetAnotherName writes "The Washington Times is reporting that everyone's most beloved online advertising distributor, DoubleClick, was subject to a DoS attack crippling the company's DNS servers, and preventing up to 75% of advertising from making it to web pages and surfers' eyes." -
DoubleClick Hit by DDoS Attack
YetAnotherName writes "The Washington Times is reporting that everyone's most beloved online advertising distributor, DoubleClick, was subject to a DoS attack crippling the company's DNS servers, and preventing up to 75% of advertising from making it to web pages and surfers' eyes." -
Microsoft Wins $3.95 Million from Spammer
LehiNephi writes "A Washington, D.C. judge fined Daniel Khoshnood, a major spammer, for pretending to be Microsoft in order to attract customers. Specifically, he registered windowsupdate.com (not to be confused with windowsupdate.microsoft.com), then sent out mass email encouraging users to download a toolbar from that website. Although the suit was not specifically about spamming, the mass emails (and subsequent complaints) were what caught Microsoft's attention. So far, Microsoft's campaign against spam has netted them $54 million from six judgments, one dismissal, four settlements, and two bankruptcies. The article doesn't mention whether the toolbar actually lived up to its claims of automatically applying security patches." -
Virus Creators Sharing More Code
arpy writes "The Washington Times is carrying a report on a 5% increase in publicly available virus code in 2003 (based on a Symantec report). There are now about seven versions of MyDoom, and at least 14 each of Netsky and Beagle. Explains why my email account is overloaded with these little bastards. PC World is reporting changes in the countries that virus are originating from: Australia shot from 14th place to 5th over the last six months of 2003! The source of these stories seems to be the March 2004 Symantec Internet Security Threat Report." (This last requires registration to download.) -
Officials secretly RFID'd at Internet Summit
ewoudenberg writes "A Washington Times article reports that researchers managed to gain entrance to the Internet and technology conference in Switzerland last week only to discover that the summit's badges contained undisclosed RFID chips. The badges were handed out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents and other high-level officials from 174 countries, including the United States." -
Microsoft to Launch MSN Music Service in 2004
securitas writes "SmartMoney.com reports that a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed plans to launch an online music download service in 2004 via the MSN Web site. The story was first reported in the Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required). Microsoft may undercut the per-song prices of competitors Apple iTunes and Roxio Napster. A reliable source is cited as saying that Microsoft has been in talks with major music companies and a post for a senior-level marketing position for the service was added to Microsoft's recruiting site last week. Observers expect that the company will use Windows or the bundled Windows Media Player to gain a competitive advantage over other services that require a software download to use them. Interestingly, in this May 2003 analysis piece about Apple's iTunes Microsoft denied any plans to launch a music download service. More at CNet." -
Asia's Space Race: China vs. India
securitas writes "London-based military historian and commentator Gwynne Dyer writes about Asia's developing space race with plans from China and India to land people on the Moon, previously mentioned on Slashdot in China's case. In April India announced it will send an unmanned probe to the Moon by 2005 and a manned mission by 2015. Critics say it's a waste of time and money for India to pursue the goal. Meanwhile, Russian space experts are quietly helping China in what is seen as a growing alliance and a somewhat alarmist op-ed piece from the Washington Times worries about China's 21st century space dominance and monopolization of strategic resources like H3, used in nuclear fusion." -
US & Russia Pencil in Mars Launch by 2018
snilloc writes "The Washington Times is reporting that the US and Russia (and the Europeans are mentioned too) are planning for an eventual manned Mars trip. Suggested launch years are 2014 or 2018. The article discusses unmanned probes at greater length than the manned plans, but check out the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment. (Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)" -
US & Russia Pencil in Mars Launch by 2018
snilloc writes "The Washington Times is reporting that the US and Russia (and the Europeans are mentioned too) are planning for an eventual manned Mars trip. Suggested launch years are 2014 or 2018. The article discusses unmanned probes at greater length than the manned plans, but check out the Russian isolation experiment where 6 people will spend 500 days in a simulated spacecraft environment. (Sounds like a good reality TV show to me.)"