Slashdot Mirror

CDPatten writes "The Washington Times has an op-ed piece by two writers typically on opposing sides of the isle, Pat Schroeder and Bob Barr. The article is brief, but overwhelmingly opposes the Google Print service. From the article 'Not only is Google trying to rewrite copyright law, it is also crushing creativity ...Google envisions a world in which all content is free; and of course, it controls the portal through which Internet user's access that content. It would completely devalue everyone else's property and massively increase the value of its own.'. It sounds to me like they might be slightly peeved that Google is resuming the scanning.

kpwoodr writes "An interesting article at the Washington Times makes note of a recent satellite launch by the U.S. It seems we have put a jammer in space that will allow us to disrupt enemy communication systems at will. From the article: 'The U.S. military is bracing for future attacks in space, and the Air Force has deployed an electronic-warfare unit capable of jamming enemy satellites, the general in charge of space defenses says. "You can't go to war and win without space."'"

FleaPlus writes "The Washington Times and Space.com has an article on a plan for a low-cost shuttle replacement by t/Space, an organization whose team includes AirLaunch LLC and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. Instead of a one-size-fits-all craft, t/Space's plan is to build an air-launched four-person capsule termed the Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV), specialized for carrying people to and from low-Earth orbit. Once in orbit the CXV would dock with a separately-launched Crew Exploration Vehicle (likely built by Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman), which could be optimized for traveling between Earth orbit and the Moon. The CXV would also be able to dock with a space station or serve as a crew lifeboat. The group, which has already received some NASA funding, calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million, with a per-launch cost of $20 million (compared to ~$500 million per shuttle launch). Development would be done under a competitive fixed-price (instead of cost-plus) contract."

unassimilatible writes "The Washington Times reports that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are developing a database that will allow private companies to submit lists of individuals to be screened for a connection to terrorism. The database will eventually allow private-sector entities, such as operators of critical infrastructure facilities or organizers of large events, to submit a list of persons associated with those events to the U.S. government to be screened for any nexus to terrorism. All of this won't be cheap either; total terror-related IT spending by US federal and state governments will run past $100 billion in 2004. But don't feel left out Europeans, since the EU is considering a terror database as well, although France and UK are reluctant to share intel."

eegad writes "The Seattle PI reports on the upcoming first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva on December 10-12. 192 nations are involved in the effort to set some ground rules for the Internet (a little late, eh?) including ways to deal with spam, a possible "digital solidarity fund" to help developing nations, and discussion of UN regulation. The goal of this phase is to adopt a "Declaration of Principles" and "Plan of Action". Some countries plan on asking for a UN commission to study new ways of running the Internet aimed at the 2005 phase. The official website will provide coverage of the event. How come I wasn't invited?" The Washington Times also has a piece on it, as well. We had covered this a bit before.

Thanks to the Washington Times for their story revealing the CIA is developing a videogame aimed at helping its analysts think like terrorists. The agency is working with the Institute Of Creative Technologies, who helped the Army set up development of Full Spectrum Warrior, and according to the article: "The game will select a scenario that could involve analysts playing terrorist-cell leaders or members, a terrorist 'money mover' or a facilitator", or alternatively "a U.S. Customs agent, or even a cooperative or hostile neighbor living next to a terrorist", to help anti-terrorism workers "think outside the box."

apsmith writes "Former congressman and House Science chairman Robert S. Walker has written some rather striking conclusions about Chinese intentions in space over the next few years, based on information received for the recent Commisison on the Future of Aerospace. Walker is convinced the Chinese are going all-out for a permanent settlement on the Moon within 10 years; apparently some closer to the situation in Japan think the first landing will be in only 3-4 years. Meanwhile the Economist says IT people are starting to focus on space as the next high-tech venue. Fortunately, despite NASA's neglect, we do have a few private missions to the Moon in the works."

mesozoic writes "Wired is running a story about hackers publishing John Poindexter's personal information (like satellite photos of his home) to protest the proposed Total Information Awareness system. This is just too funny, and it may even raise a few more eyebrows among the national media."

cascino writes: "In one of the more bizarre (and intrusive) spinoffs of the Government's 'crackdown on terrorism,' Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have told Northwest Airlines security specialists that the agency is developing brain-monitoring devices in cooperation with a commercial firm, which it did not identify. Space technology would be adapted to receive and analyze brain-wave and heartbeat patterns, then feed that data into computerized programs 'to detect passengers who potentially might pose a threat,' according to briefing documents obtained by The Washington Times." This is the second story recently that gives me second thoughts about flying Northwest.

At this moment, there's an office somewhere in Waggener Edstrom with its lights on and a fresh pot of coffee. Microsoft's PR firm is racking its brains working on strategy and tactics for their phone calls tomorrow. As of right now, hundreds of thousands of wormy Microsoft machines are throwing packets at the Bush White House (and missing -- see below). Bill Gates really, really doesn't want Sunday papers editorializing about how shoddy and dangerous his security flaws are. Will billg be the hero or the goat? Slashdot, in its fine tradition of laughing in the face of overworked netadmins, is running a contest. Walk a mile in Waggener Edstrom's shoes, predict the Times's headlines, and win yourself a T-shirt.

Waggener's goal is to minimize the PR damage that the worm will cause. This is potentially a very damaging story for them. Not so much because it underscores the dangers of an insecure, monocultural environment monopolizing our vital networks. Not even because of the embarrassing and ironic nature of the worm. More because it involves a hot button political topic -- Bush and, allegedly, China -- which the average reader will be interested in and might even almost understand.

So what's their battle plan?

Well, first Waggener will try to predict the yield. Our guesstimates as of right now, 11:36 PM EDT Thursday evening, are that it's a dud -- whitehouse.gov is still accessible and my IRC server hasn't gone down. This is probably because whitehouse.gov simply sidestepped its IP address (the stupid worm author hardcoded it instead of using DNS): White House dodges Web worm.

But at least 196,000 machines were infected. You'd think something would happen. Maybe a router will crash and Delaware will fall off the map. Who knows?

Second, Waggener will have an overall strategy. This might range from overhyping the potential danger ("turn off your computers! prepare for Armageddon! oh it didn't happen -- we saved you") to distraction with trivia ("we are pleased with the judges' verdict last week. look over there!"). How will the firm modify our reality?

Third, Waggener will use different approaches on different audiences. Reporters from different tech publications will talk to different handlers, and hear different things. Keep in mind which way these publications lean when you predict what their reactions will be.

Here's the contest. OSDN will be giving away four Slashdot T-shirts (or some other ThinkGeek shirt) to the four readers who most accurately predict newspaper headlines about the "Red Code" worm.

The newspapers of record we're using are the Washington Times and the New York Times. The categories are:

Headline on the Washington Times news story, Saturday morning
(label it: "WT News") Headline on the New York Times news story, Saturday morning
(label it: "NYT News") Title of the Washington Times editorial, Sunday morning
(label it: "WT Ed") Title of the New York Times editorial, Sunday morning
(label it: "NYT Ed")

Type up four guesses and submit them in a comment below. If your guess for any of the four is the closest in its category, you win a T-shirt!

For example, if our contest had been to predict headlines about global warming on July 19, and you'd said:

"WT News: Bush Visits Europe, Says Many Words Correctly
NYT News: Bush Promises Called Into Question
WT Ed: Good News on Global Warming
NYT Ed: Clueless on Global Warming"

...then you'd win, because you guessed the NYT editorial title correctly.

So put on your corporate-PR "spinning" caps, get out there and make us proud!

The Small Print:

1. Top headline only, you don't have to predict subheads or whatever.
2. In case of two stories/headlines, we pick the biggest one, our discretion.
3. Up to four guesses to a post, one for each headline (post early, post often, but slow down cowboy!).
4. One T-shirt to a person.
5. Ties go to the f1rst p0st.
6. No posts after the paper's out, of course (print or electronic, whichever's first) - first edition print is the goal.
7. No OSDN/VA Linux employees or relatives eligible.
8. You must either be logged in when you post or include one email address in your comment; email is how we'll contact you for your snail-mail address. Spamarmor it if you like, as long as we can read it.
9. If for some crazy, absurd reason one of the papers doesn't run a story/editorial about this at all, we'll go looking for a "similar" paper's story/editorial and pick its headline. We're thinking L.A. Times, Wall Street Journal, that kind of thing. If the papers actually run stories today (Friday), well, darnit that wasn't much of a contest was it? We'll still look for editorials on Sunday.
10. All judges' judgments are final.

gaijin|dog writes "According to this article in the Washington Times, China has said that Internet warfare should be equated to combat operations for air, land and sea forces. Communications, transportation, finance, electrical power networks and other critical services in the US are listed as likely targets. Kinda scary considering the resources China could use against us." My personal opinion: this article is a dizzy mix of fact and scare-mongering. But you ought to read it for yourself and make up your own mind how valid it is.

gaijin|dog writes "According to this article in the Washington Times, China has said that Internet warfare should be equated to combat operations for air, land and sea forces. Communications, transportation, finance, electrical power networks and other critical services in the US are listed as likely targets. Kinda scary considering the resources China could use against us." My personal opinion: this article is a dizzy mix of fact and scare-mongering. But you ought to read it for yourself and make up your own mind how valid it is.

Salgak1 writes wrote in to send us Washington Times Article about Rep. Tom Bliley (R-VA) introducing a bill to make an electronic signature legally equivalent to one done on paper. Here is The Bill. Seems Sen. Abraham (R-Mich) introduced a similar bill in the Senate. (Full Text