Slashdot Mirror

JediLow brings news that the judge who signed the order to take down WikiLeaks.org is now reconsidering his actions. Judge Jeffrey White ordered a new hearing to be held on Friday morning to answer further questions about the case[PDF]. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has responded harshly to the recent statement issued by the bank Julius Baer.

JediLow brings news that the judge who signed the order to take down WikiLeaks.org is now reconsidering his actions. Judge Jeffrey White ordered a new hearing to be held on Friday morning to answer further questions about the case[PDF]. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks has responded harshly to the recent statement issued by the bank Julius Baer.

An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"

Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is working on a new book, to be published next year, about the idea of "free" in the old and new economies. Wired is running a long excerpt from the book and some sidebars about the economics of giving away, e.g., CDs and directory assistance. Techdirt has a few quibbles about Anderson's ideas — mostly areas in which he may be shading the argument to sell more books — but mostly buys that the equations of economics continue to work when zeros are plugged in in judicious places.

Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is working on a new book, to be published next year, about the idea of "free" in the old and new economies. Wired is running a long excerpt from the book and some sidebars about the economics of giving away, e.g., CDs and directory assistance. Techdirt has a few quibbles about Anderson's ideas — mostly areas in which he may be shading the argument to sell more books — but mostly buys that the equations of economics continue to work when zeros are plugged in in judicious places.

Wired's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is working on a new book, to be published next year, about the idea of "free" in the old and new economies. Wired is running a long excerpt from the book and some sidebars about the economics of giving away, e.g., CDs and directory assistance. Techdirt has a few quibbles about Anderson's ideas — mostly areas in which he may be shading the argument to sell more books — but mostly buys that the equations of economics continue to work when zeros are plugged in in judicious places.

ozmanjusri brings us a Wired report on Apple's efforts to patent the multitouch gestures used on their laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The article discusses concerns over how this could affect the standardization of certain gestures in developing multitouch technology. We've previously discussed the patent applications themselves. Quoting Wired: "If Apple's patent applications are successful, other manufacturers may have no choice but to implement multitouch gestures of their own. The upshot: You might pinch to zoom on your phone, swirl your finger around to zoom on your notebook, and triple-tap to zoom on the web-browsing remote control in your home theater. That's an outcome many in the industry would like to avoid. Synaptics, a company that by most estimates supplies 65 to 70 percent of the notebook industry with its touchpad technology, is working on its own set of universal touch gestures that it hopes will become a standard. These gestures include scrolling by making a circular motion, moving pictures or documents with a flip of the finger, and zooming in or out by making, yes, a pinching gesture."

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has a clip of that RIAA training video produced with the NDAA for US prosecutors that was leaked to torrent sites a few days ago. It argues they should pursue piracy cases because it leads to bigger and badder wares, like handguns, drugs, terrorist orgs, and hardcore repeat offender criminals. It's kind of sad how far they're stretching to bring law enforcement into the matter."

eldavojohn writes "Are you one of the few who boarded the HD-DVD Titanic ship headed to the bottom of ocean to join BetaMax? Fret no longer, friend, simply convert those and pretend like you never invested in the wrong technology! All you need is a Windows machine with a fast processor, an HD-DVD drive, a Blu-Ray burner, 30GB of free disk space, at least, though 40GB or more is recommended and an internet connection to download the software! Or you can sit and be the crazy guy who continues to argue that HD-DVD is the superior technology whether it's true or not."

Wired has a great pictorial tour of their recent visit to Stanford University's linear accelerator, the longest in the world. The accelerator has been the vehicle upon which three Nobel Prizes were earned and a the next big project will boast an electron laser roughly 10 billion times more powerful than existing x-ray sources.

SoyChemist writes "Sociologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting have reported that China is making major investments in nanotechnology. Their aim is to 'leapfrog' past the United States in technological development by focusing on long-ranging scientific goals. So far, the Chinese government has poured about $400 million into the young field of research. Considering the low cost of equipment and labor over there, that is a very large sum of money, and China's investment is expected to 'rise considerably.'"

BotnetZombie writes "Wired has up an article/gallery with very impressive images from the nanoworlds around us, and little stories for each picture. Besides giving an inspiring insight into the world of very little things, images of this kind can help scientists in many fields get a better handle on their subjects."

Disney has announced that they are going to take another stab at showing us the "House of the Future". The 5000-square-foot house will appear normal from the outside but will house gadgets like lights and thermostats that automatically adjust when someone enters the room and countertops that can identify food placed on it and suggest recipes. "Millions of Disneyland visitors lined up a half-century ago to catch a glimpse of the future: a home teeming with mind-blowing gadgets such as handsfree phones, wall-sized televisions, plastic chairs, and electric razors and toothbrushes. [...] The $15 million home is a collaboration of The Walt Disney Co., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., software maker LifeWare and homebuilder Taylor Morrison. Visitors will experience the look of tomorrow by watching Disney actors playing a family of four preparing for a trip to China."

An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports that the two-star general in charge of the US Air Force's new Cyber Command is looking for hacker-types to beef up its cadre of cyber warriors — no heavy lifting required. 'We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future,' General William Lord says. 'So if they can't run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they fit in.' The Cyber Command is the Air Force's first new Major Command since the early 1990s. Its purpose is to be able to win an electronic war with China and other potential adversaries."

whoever57 writes "The Hans Reiser trial has been underway for some time now, the prosecution is moving towards the end of its case. For those interested, not only in the outcome of the trial, but a detailed description of the trial, including some insights into police methods, two reporters are live-blogging. One report is by Henry K. Lee for the San Francisco Chronicle and the other is by David Kravets and published by Wired"

A new startup, Credentica, hopes to offer the ability for you to perform secure transactions using the smallest amount of personal information possible. Their goal is to both protect privacy and enhance security, which they hope will be a mutually inclusive process. "The technique employs secure multi-party computation, a branch of cryptography that can calculate meaningful answers about secret information by knowing only some non-revealing clues about that secret. The underlying theory was demonstrated in 1982 by Andrew Yao in the so-called Millionaire's Problem [...] U-Prove employs an ID token, a special kind of digital certificate that allows for minimal selective disclosure. The tokens can store all kinds of information, but users can disclose only the minimum amount of data required in any given transaction. They leave no unwanted data trails and permit both anonymity and pseudonymity."

javipas notes a Wired piece summarizing a two-part interview with Linus Torvalds that's up at linux-foundation.org (part 1, part 2). In the second part the creator of the Linux kernel gives his view on the limited success of Linux on the desktop. "I have never, ever cared about really anything but the Linux desktop... The desktop is also the thing where people get really upset if something changes, so it's really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows... better is worse if it's different."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has a good review of all the recent undersea cable cuts and why it's suspicious, but unlikely to be a conspiracy. So far, there are only four cut cables (the 'fifth' was weeks ago) in two different locations. Of course, a cable is damaged once every three days, on average, and there are 25 ships that do nothing but repair them. While the timing and locations are a little odd, Iran has been online the whole time, even if some of their routers weren't, and none of the conspiracy theories really add up. In a recent interview, TeleGeography Analyst Eric Schoonover said, 'I think that this is more along the lines of coincidence.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the FBI sought approval to use its custom spyware program, CIPAV, from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in terrorism or spying investigations. Affidavits prepared for the court are among 3,000 pages of documents gathered, but not yet released, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wired. The FBI hasn't answered any questions about its use of the CIPAV since the program's existence became widely known in July. The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none."

An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the FBI sought approval to use its custom spyware program, CIPAV, from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in terrorism or spying investigations. Affidavits prepared for the court are among 3,000 pages of documents gathered, but not yet released, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wired. The FBI hasn't answered any questions about its use of the CIPAV since the program's existence became widely known in July. The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none."

An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the FBI sought approval to use its custom spyware program, CIPAV, from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in terrorism or spying investigations. Affidavits prepared for the court are among 3,000 pages of documents gathered, but not yet released, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Wired. The FBI hasn't answered any questions about its use of the CIPAV since the program's existence became widely known in July. The FISC is generally regarded as a rubber stamp; it approved over 4,000 surveillance requests in 2005 and 2006[PDF], rejecting none."

dhavleak writes "Wired has an article from Bruce Schneier on the intersection of security technologies and vendor lock-ins in IT. 'With enough lock-in, a company can protect its market share even as it reduces customer service, raises prices, refuses to innovate and otherwise abuses its customer base. It should be no surprise that this sounds like pretty much every experience you've had with IT companies: Once the industry discovered lock-in, everyone started figuring out how to get as much of it as they can.'"

PlainBlack writes "Possibility isn't limited by technology. And it's certainly not limited by human imagination. What makes something impossible is the lack of cold, hard, cash. Wired blog takes a look at 10 science fiction technologies we could build, if they weren't so expensive. 'New York-L.A. Maglev Express - Cost: $70bn (Based on established construction costs). At $70bn, it's tantalizingly affordable by the standards of this roundup: a train that could beat airliners from one side of the country to the other. Many agree that Maglev has enormous potential. Bite-sized examples are in operation all over the world. Birmingham, England, had the first in the 1980s, though the promise of airliner-like speeds on land is still unrealized. The British system sped along at a pathetic 26MPH and was designed to get air travelers to the planes, not to outrun them.'"

An anonymous reader writes "After 32 rounds, the FCC has raised more than $18.8 billion in its 700-MHz auction, well surpassing its own early estimates of attracting between $10-15 billion in offers. That's undoubtedly good news for the agency. Since the auction began on Jan. 24, both the FCC and wireless experts have expressed ongoing concerns about meeting those estimates. Once the auction was underway, those worries were compounded by a shaky economic forecast and the possibility of a looming recession."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "On February 5, 1897, 111 years ago today, the Indiana legislature very nearly passed a bill 'introducing a new mathematical truth,' that would have erroneously established pi as the ratio 'five-fourths to four' or 3.2. The story explaining the rationale behind the bill and how they were prevented from legislating it when a real mathematician intervened is quite interesting, because the man who discovered the 'new mathematical truth' wanted to charge royalties, which could have made pi the first form of irrational property."

Geoffrey.landis writes "The administration announced plans to withdraw its support from FutureGen. FutureGen was a project to develop a low CO2-emission electrical power plant, supported by an alliance of a dozen or so coal companies and utilities from around the world. The new plant would have captured carbon dioxide produced by combustion and pumped it deep underground, to avoid releasing greenhouse-gas into the atmosphere. It had been intended as a prototype for next generation clean-coal plants worldwide. Originally budgeted at about a billion dollars, the estimated cost had "ballooned" to $1.8 billion, according to U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman."

The Byelorussian Hatter writes "Wired, presumably bored to death of Cellphones, Zunes, MairBook Nacs and what-have-you, looks back at the elegant inventions of a less civilized age. 'The Turk was a chess player concealed in a table packed with cogs and gears, contrived to give the appearance of a mighty chess-playing machine. Atop the table, an articulated automaton would be seen to make the moves determined by the master within. One of the 18th and 19th century's many illustrious hoaxes, the Turk is perhaps the greatest gadget that wasn't.'"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Apparently, the participants in the U.S. 'Cyber Storm' war games are familiar with the Kobayashi Maru, because some of them tried to cheat by hacking the games themselves. They also prepare for some very interesting scenarios. Among other things, the organizers are worried about having too many people on the 'No Fly' list show up at an airport, finding 'mystery liquids' in the subway, and having bloggers reveal the classified location of railcars with hazardous materials. The Department of Homeland Security has already analyzed the results of the games, and plans to hold 'Cyber Storm 2' in March."

Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Techdirt columnist, Timothy Lee, hit the metaphoric nail on the head, claiming that e-Voting undermines the public perception of election fairness - even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. 'In a well-designed voting system, voters shouldn't have to take anyone's actions on faith. The entire process should be simple and transparent, so that anyone can observe it and verify that it was carried out correctly. The complexity and opacity of e-voting machines makes effective public scrutiny impossible, and so it's a bad idea even in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing.' Add to this the possibility technical faults, conflicts of interest and evidence of tampering, how long before the US vote is viewed as an electronic pantomime?"

dnormant writes in with a note about QTrax, a 5-year-old startup that just announced deals with all the major labels to provide free, ad-supported music downloads. The new wrinkle is that, though the free tracks come encumbered with Windows Media DRM, QTrax claims that they will be playable soon on iPods. Wired's assumption is that the company is on the verge of a deal with Apple to allow use of its FairPlay DRM in place of Microsoft's. (Apple hasn't licensed FairPlay to anyone so far.) The AP coverage of the story assumes that QTrax has found a way around FairPlay on the iPod, and if so, that its solution will break the next time Apple updates iTunes.

gnick writes to mention Wired is reporting that an Illinois startup is claiming they can make ethanol from most any organic material for around $1/gallon. Coskata, backed by General Motors and several other investors, uses a process that is bacteria based instead of some of the other available methods. The bacteria processes organic material that is fed into the reactor and secretes ethanol as a waste product.

Martin writes "We all heard about the MySpace vulnerability that allowed everyone to access pictures that have been set to private at MySpace. That vulnerability got closed down pretty fast. Unfortunately though (for MySpace) someone did use an automated script to run over 44,000 profiles that downloaded all private pictures which resulted in a 17 Gigabyte zip file with more than 560,000 pictures. The zip file is now showing up on popular torrent sites across the net."

Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired: "Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists say would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years."

hackingbear writes "Wired is reporting that researchers have created the longest synthetic genome to date by threading together four long strands of DNA. 'Leading synthetic biologists said with the new work, published Thursday in the journal Science, the first synthetic life could be just months away — if it hasn't been created already. [...] The ability to synthesize longer DNA strands for less money parallels the history of genetic sequencing, where the price of sequencing a human genome has dropped from hundreds of millions of dollars to about $10,000. Just a few years ago, synthesizing a piece of DNA with 5,000 rungs in its helix, known as base-pairs, was impossible. Venter's new synthetic genome is 582,000 base-pairs.' As a programmer, I'm most excited by the possibility of a new platform and the programming jobs that will be created by it."

A columnist for Wired has an interesting look at how telecommunications are actually making it more interesting to reside in populated areas instead of allowing the complete disregard for distance. "Technology makes it more fun and more profitable to live and work close to the people who matter most to your life and work. Harvard economist Ed Glaeser, an expert on city economies, argues that communications technology and face-to-face interactions are complements like salt and pepper, rather than substitutes like butter and margarine. Paradoxically, your cell phone, email, and Facebook networks are making it more attractive to meet people in the flesh."

arbitraryaardvark writes "NASA's Messenger probe flew past Mercury at a distance of 125 miles. The spacecraft took hundreds of pictures during the pass, updating photos from the now 30-year-old Mariner mission. According to an article at the International Business Times, the probe will eventually settle into orbit around Mercury in 2011. 'The images obtained by the $446 million MESSENGER mission (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) this week contain some of those unexplored areas. One image released Saturday was taken after Messenger made its closest approach to Mercury last week. In the photos released this week, scientists have observed unexplored cratered areas of the planet. On Monday, Messenger made its closest approach to Mercury yet, aiming for new discoveries. Among its goals is to discover if Mercury has ice water in its polar craters and to complete the mapping of the whole planet.' Meanwhile here on Earth, a joint EU/Japan probe with an ion drive is set to head towards Mercury sometime in 2013."

Brad Eleven writes "The AP reports that the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has invoked executive privilege to justify withholding information in its response to a lawsuit. The state of California is challenging the agency's decision to block their attempt to curb the emissions from new cars and trucks. In response, the EPA has delivered documents requested by the Freedom of Information Act for the discovery phase of the lawsuit — but the documents are heavily redacted. That is, the agency has revealed that it did spend many hours meeting to discuss the issue, but refuses to divulge the details or the outcomes of the meetings. Among the examples cited, 16 pages of a 43-page Powerpoint presentation are completely blank except for the page titles. An EPA spokesperson used language similar to other recent claims of executive privilege, citing 'the chilling effect that would occur if agency employees believed their frank and honest opinions and analysis expressed as part of assessing California's waiver request were to be disclosed in a broad setting.'"

russoc4 writes "Most people who play the United States Army's freeware FPS sit through training simulations so that they may be able to get into the action and rack up some kills. The medic skills learned in the training allow you to heal teammates in the game, but it seems that they also apply in real life situations. According to Wired and the America's Army forums, 'a North Carolina man who saw an SUV flip and roll on a highway last November was able to provide medical aid to the victims with skills he learned from the America's Army.'" See? We learn things from videogames! Feign Death works sometimes, too.

BotnetZombie writes "Wired tells the quite sad but very interesting stories of Chris McKinstry and Pushpinder Singh. Initially self-educated, both had the idea to create huge fact databases from which AI agents could feed, hoping to eventually have something that could reason at a human level or better. McKinstry leveraged the dotcom era to grow his database. Singh had the backing of MIT, where he eventually got his PhD and had been offered a position as a professor alongside his mentor, Marvin Minsky. Sadly, personal life was more troublesome for them, and the story ends in a tragic way.

An anonymous reader writes "Google has revealed a new project aimed at the scientific community. Called Palimpsest, the site research.google.com will play host to 'terabytes of open-source scientific datasets'. It was originally previewed for scientists last August . 'Building on the company's acquisition of the data visualization technology, Trendalyzer, from the oft-lauded, TED presenting Gapminder team, Google will also be offering algorithms for the examination and probing of the information. The new site will have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Animals use pheromones to attract each other for sex, and warn each other of danger. Now, Wired reports, military researchers are working to harness the 'human fear' pheromone to create a scent of terror. The pheromone could lead to smell-based terrorist sensors, and new weapons that rely on 'contagious' stress."

sjbe sends in an old story with a poetic justice ending. Almost a year ago Chris Soghoian blogged about multiple security holes exposing visitors to a TSA site to possible identity theft. Wired and others picked up the story and the TSA took down the insecure site and fixed the problems. On Friday the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report (PDF; HTML summary) finding that the TSA contractor, Desyne Web Services, had received a no-bid contract for the faulty site from a former employee who was then a TSA project manager. TSA has taken no action to sanction the responsible parties for the vulnerabilities. The poetic justice is that Soghoian had been investigated for 6 months by the FBI and TSA because he pointed out a vulnerability in the US air transport system; no charges were ever filed.

palegray.net noted a wired story about an industry trend towards watermarking and away from DRM. It says "With all of the Big Four record labels now jettisoning digital rights management, music fans have every reason to rejoice. But consumer advocates are singing a note of caution, as the music industry experiments with digital-watermarking technology as a DRM substitute. Watermarking offers copyright protection by letting a company track music that finds its way to illegal peer-to-peer networks. At its most precise, a watermark could encode a unique serial number that a music company could match to the original purchaser. So far, though, labels say they won't do that: Warner and EMI have not embraced watermarking at all, while Sony's and Universal's DRM-free lineups contain "anonymous" watermarks that won't trace to an individual." Here is a Technical discussion on AudioBox and PSU.edu's Abstract Index

rambilly brings us a story from Wired about the origin and development of the iPhone. From the article: "Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple's top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple's boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn't just buggy, it flat-out didn't work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, 'We don't have a product yet.' The effect was even more terrifying than one of Jobs' trademark tantrums. When the Apple chief screamed at his staff, it was scary but familiar. This time, his relative calm was unnerving. 'It was one of the few times at Apple when I got a chill,' says someone who was in the meeting."

DancingFountain writes "If you have taken a college chemistry class, you may have seen this fantastic demonstration. When two clear liquids are mixed, they immediately turn yellow, and then undulate back and forth between blue-black and yellow in a mesmerizing display. Wired Science explains that the reaction, which was developed by two high school science teachers, has been rigorously studied but not fully explained."

apolloose noted Bruce Schneier's latest entry on Wired where he talks about insecured wifi networks, and suggests that you Steal this WiFi. Basically, since insecure WiFi is everywhere, why not? You're helping make the world a little better for someone else.

fermion writes "Wired asserts that the iPhone blew up the wireless industry. This article argues that because Apple demanded the opportunity to control their own phone, and ATT née Cingular agreed, other companies are opening up the networks, and Google now has the opportunity to make Android a reality. There are other tidbits. Allegedly Verizon turned Jobs down without even listening to his pitch, a decision they may well regret now that they are hemorrhaging customers. Also, that Motorola and the networks were responsible for the fiasco dubbed the ROKR, something which I believe given how damaged the American version of the RAZR was compared to international version. It also estimates that the iPhone cost upward of $150 million to design, and earns Apple about $200 profit per phone."

SoyChemist writes "Last week, the FDA approved a test that can check for twelve viruses at once. The device is made by Luminex which has a long history of building instruments that can check for almost anything — bacteria, viruses, antibodies, disease genes. In this case, doctors can simply swab their patient's nose or throat then send the sample to a lab where the viral genetic material is copied and stuck down to color-coated beads. Each type of bead recognizes a different virus. A scanner reads off which beads have DNA on them — thus identifying the pathogens. The new test can detect several types of influenza, but not H5N1, and is the first system approved to detect human metapneumovirus. It is a good step towards taking the guesswork out of medicine, which is desperately needed since viral infections are extraordinarily hard to diagnose, and antiviral medications like Tamiflu only work on some types of virus."

SoyChemist writes "Last week, the FDA approved a test that can check for twelve viruses at once. The device is made by Luminex which has a long history of building instruments that can check for almost anything — bacteria, viruses, antibodies, disease genes. In this case, doctors can simply swab their patient's nose or throat then send the sample to a lab where the viral genetic material is copied and stuck down to color-coated beads. Each type of bead recognizes a different virus. A scanner reads off which beads have DNA on them — thus identifying the pathogens. The new test can detect several types of influenza, but not H5N1, and is the first system approved to detect human metapneumovirus. It is a good step towards taking the guesswork out of medicine, which is desperately needed since viral infections are extraordinarily hard to diagnose, and antiviral medications like Tamiflu only work on some types of virus."