Slashdot Mirror
Domain: yahoo.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to yahoo.com.
Stories · 5,662
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Novell Acquires SELinux Alternative Immunix
G Money writes "Novell announced today that they acquired Immunix, a company the produces an alternative mandatory access control solution to SELinux using the LSM. For anyone who hasn't used both Immunix and SELinux, the difference between configuring them is like night and day. There's even a YaST module for configuration. (Disclaimer: I'm on the Defcon Immunix CTF team.)" -
Apple iTunes Hit With a New Critical Flaw
Jameson writes "Apple has released a new iTunes version to correct a security vulnerability reported by Mark Litchfield. FrSIRT and Secunia marked the flaw as "critical", because it can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system via maliciously-crafted MPEG4 file. iTunes 4.8 addresses this issue by improving the validation checks used when loading MPEG4 files." -
Meet Microsoft's Linux Lab Head Bill Hilf
morcego writes "Yahoo News has a very interesting interview with Bill Hilf, Microsoft's director of Microsoft's platform technology strategy group, who in turn works for Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy and Linux point man. From the interview: '"I am a non-Microsoft guy working at Microsoft," Hilf said.'" -
San Francisco Getting Stem Cell Agency HQ
karvind writes "San Francisco was chosen Friday as the headquarters for California's new stem cell agency, beating out San Diego, Sacramento and Emeryville. The stem cell institute was created in November after voters overwhelmingly approved a measure allowing the state to borrow $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem cell research. According to Yahoo, the plans call for a 17,000-square-foot office with a maximum of 50 employees who will help dole out nearly $300 million in research grants annually over 10 years." -
Associated Press Reviews OpenOffice
blacklily8 writes "Peter Svensson of the Associated Press has reviewed OpenOffice and declared it a Microsoft Office killer: 'Microsoft Corp. killed off the competition for office software suites and became a de facto monopoly in the area, with what result? The competition is back and, this time, it's free!' Svensson thinks the better Word/WordPerfect file conversion, ability to save as PDF, and new BASE database component make the beta a better candidate for success than the previous versions--and when the kinks get worked out, step back!" -
U.S. Government Issues Report on VoIP Security Holes
ranson writes "PC World is reporting on VoIP technology's threat of being manipulated by hackers, through call interception and DoS attacks on users' internet connections. While these threats are nothing new, the article cites an interesting government report on the topic, as well as its author, who believes a VoIP user's best protection is security by obscurity." -
CA Violent Games Bill Moves Forward
Reuters is reporting that the California bill banning the sale of violent video games to minors has made it out of committee. The law passed review by a 6-4 vote, and now goes on to the full Assembly. If it succeeds there it still needs to pass in the State Senate. From the article: "Game developers and console makers say laws restricting game sales are unnecessary because their industry is doing a good job stopping minors from buying "Mature"-rated games. However, the $10 billion industry expects bills restricting game sales to pass this year in Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina." -
Phishers Using Keystroke Loggers
Eh-Wire writes "Keystroke loggers are rapidly becoming the lure of choice for phishers. Their advantage is that they compromise information long before the information has a chance to be encrypted. " -
Apple Release Mega Patch to Fix 19 Flaws
maotx writes "Apple has released a mega-patch that fixes 19 flaws in Mac OS X v10.3.9. The updates include several fixes for remote and local root exploits. The change log can be found here. You can download the updates using the Software Update Program or directly from Apple Downloads." -
Al Gore to Receive Internet Achievement Award
whoever57 writes "The folks behind the Webby Awards want to 'set the record straight' regarding Al Gore's contributions to the Internet. They plan to give him a Lifetime Achievement award. 'It's just one of those instances someone did amazing work for three decades as congressman, senator and vice president and it got spun around into this political mess...'" -
SpaceX Awarded $100 Million Launch Contract
FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force has awarded a $100 million contract to SpaceX, an orbital rocket launch company which aims to 'increase the reliability and reduce the cost of access to space by a factor of ten.' The contract is for launch services on a recurring basis through 2010 on SpaceX's Falcon I rocket. The company has been mentioned previously on Slashdot. SpaceX was founded by former Paypal CEO Elon Musk, who was asked to testify before Congress last month on the future market for commercial spaceflight. Their Falcon I rocket recently completed structural qualification and initial test firings, and will be lifting off later this year at a per-launch price of $6 million. Their larger $16 million Falcon V rocket, designed to be able to carry people to orbit, are scheduled to launch next year." -
Free Alternatives to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0?
looper_man writes "I'm a hardware design engineer, and our tools have been migrating to Linux over the last years. I've been running Red Hat Linux 9.0 on our compute servers for a while now without a problem. The latest release of one of our CAD tools requires Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0, and will *not* run with RH9.0. I'm not very happy with the (yearly!) licensing fees that Red Hat wants for RHEL3.0, so I'm looking for alternatives. I plan on running one real RHEL3.0 server (for any OS/tool issues if I need to verify that the problem is real), and the rest of the machines running a RHEL3.0 clone. I've seen CentOS, TaoLinux, WhiteBox, and a few others. I don't have the time to spare to test these out, so I was looking for recommendations from the Slashdot masses. I need something that's stable, easy to install/maintain, and closely tracks RHEL3.0. Any words of wisdom?" -
iMacs Freshened with 2.0 GHz G5, Bluetooth, WiFi
amichalo writes "Apple has updated the popular consumer level Mac, the iMac G5. So better support the now standard Mac OS X Tiger, Apple has made significant improvements to all standard configurations including 512MB RAM, Radeon 9600 128MB graphics, and on 2.0 GHz models (17" and 20"), a slot-loading dual-layer 8x SuperDrive is standard. The 1.8 GHz 17" model includes a slot-loading Combo Drive. Also standard are Apple's AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi and Bluetooth. Pricing remains at $1300, $1500, and $1800 respectively for 1.8 GHz 17", 2.0 GHz 17", and 2.0 GHz 20", though 2.0 GHz models include additional upgraded features. These improvements are significant as this line has not seen a refresh in about a year and the upgrade to a Radeon 9600 graphics card will allow the new iMac to take better advantage of Tiger features such as Core Image, which is significant because the video card cannot be upgraded. Lastly, Apple is continuing the interactive chat and QuickTime support program for the iMac G5." -
Tracking Sex Offenders via GPS for Life
ecmcn writes "According to Yahoo! news, the governor of Florida just passed a bill that, along with increasing the jail time served for convicted sex offenders, requires them to be tracked for life via GPS. No technical details about the tracking, but it mentions "warning authorities when a sex offender is someplace he shouldn't be". Maybe they can get Google maps to add red zones around all of the restricted areas." -
AOL Treats Florida Emergency Alerts Mail As Spam
ScentCone writes "Florida's Indian River County has 4,200 subscribers to their e-mailed emergency alerts, which provide a heads-up on hurricanes, tornados, and other weather events. Subscribers like it, but if they're using AOL mailboxes, those alerts are being treated as spam. All of the subscribers get the mail blast as weather events unfold, and spam pattern detectors are being set off. The county emergency coordinator laments the resulting unreliability of the communication channel, and while few of us at this point think of cross-domain e-mail as reliably mission critical, the AOL-bound portion of a 4200-address blast doesn't seem like much in the spam scheme of things. My experience is that it doesn't take many receivers to mark mail as spam before the domain-wide filters lower some scoring threshold, and the pattern detectors kick in. How many of us run systems that include explicitly voluntary, opt-in e-mail subscription mechanisms which are then reported as spam by the subscribing recipients? This seems increasingly common, and even the whitelisting by smarter recipients doesn't fix it." -
U.S. Rejects Canadian Rejection of DMCA
P Starrson writes " Slashdot readers may recall that last month Canadian policy makers rejected the DMCA for Canada. Not so fast apparently -- the U.S. Trade Representative has released the annual Section 301 report which each year tells the rest of the world that they need stronger intellectual property protection. This year Canada is a particular target -- the U.S. plans to conduct a special review of Canadian policies and explicitly rejects Canada's rejection of the DMCA. A good summary on what this means from Canadian law professor Michael Geist." -
Viacom Launches Podcast-Only Radio Station
prostoalex writes "Figuring out it couldn't get any worse, Viacom is turning an underperforming talk radio station in San Francisco into podcasting central. KYOU Radio performed so poorly in the ratings that it would not even show up on the official Arbitron radio rankings for the city of San Francisco. Now the Web site of the station owned by $56.5 billion corporation features a hip young look and claims to be the Open Source Radio. Visitors can upload the podcasts of their own in MP3, AIFF, AVI or WMA formats (no OGG support by someone who's so accepting of open source)." -
High-Speed Trains in the US?
demondawn asks: "Countries around the world are researching and adopting high-speed rail systems, but the U.S. seems to be behind the bandwagon. How do Americans feel about the adoption of a high-speed rail system in the U.S.? How do people in nations that have already adopted high-speed rail feel about their services? And how about tourists who have travelled either to or from the U.S. feel about public transportation around the world?" -
The SCO Trial Through A New Lens
An anonymous reader writes "On Yahoo! News they've got an article by Paul Murphy entitled, SCO, IBM and Outcomes-Based Circular Reasoning. Murphy claims to be 'a 20-year veteran of the I.T. consulting industry, specializing in Unix and Unix-related management issues'. He writes, 'By itself this was a straightforward contractual dispute that could, and should, have been settled quickly and easily.' And that, 'Although SCO hasn't formulated its complaint in this way, I believe it could meet these, or similar, requirements quite easily and therefore has every reason to be confident that the court will eventually enforce its stop-use order against IBM.' He also goes on to insult Linux advocates by stating that, 'the position being run up the flagpole by what Stalin famously called "useful idiots" is first that the lawsuit itself is no longer a real issue and secondly that its consequences have been generally positive.'" -
NASA Ponders Postponing Launch until July
BitFluid writes "According to Sun-Sentinel.com, NASA is considering postponing its Return to Flight shuttle launch because of 'ongoing concern about possible ice buildup on a liquid oxygen propellant line.' Apparently, that stuff turns into debris on launch, a risk they need time to investigate. If delayed, the target launch window becomes July 13 through July 31." -
Wal-Mart Parody Site Censored by DMCA
davidwr writes "Wal-Mart used the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to temporarily shut down a university student's parody of the Wal-Mart Foundation." The story's details are also available via BusinessWeek. From the article: "Papasian launched the Web site April 16 for an art class at Carnegie Mellon University called 'Parasitic Media.' The class teaches students about the political uses of satire in the media. He acknowledged using Wal-Mart's graphics on his Web site but said he believed he could use the images as part of a parody." -
Turning a PC into a Firewire-Based SAN?
Rachovenov asks: "So I've finally plunked down the money for one of those new, shiny Powerbooks, but they don't have much storage. My old PC is just sitting here with 2 identical 250 gig disks spinning away and an empty firewire port. There's even a hardware RAID controller in there somewhere. So why not use it as a low cost RAID 1 array for the Powerbook when I'm at home? Has anyone done this? How could I make it so that Mac OS X just sees it as a couple of Firewire drives?" -
Bush Signs a New Fair-Use Bill
BostonGunNut writes "Today President Bush signed a bill that gives legal protection to companies that provide software that can automatically filter specific content from DVDs for personal use. This bill, called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, allows companies to provide filtering software without being sued into oblivion by Hollywood. The legislation also allows the Library of Congress to save and protect old movies and home videos that might otherwise be lost." -
Apple Updates Power Mac Line
Phreck writes "Apple has announced an upgrade to its Power Mac line today. The new Power Macs all feature dual G5 processors, 512 MB RAM, and dual-layer 16x SuperDrives. On the low end is the dual 2.0GHz with 160GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The mid-range includes dual 2.3GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The top-end system has dual 2.7GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9650. The processors are not the dual-core variety as has been rumored for weeks now." -
The Planet's Most Moronic Hacker
RawGutts writes "This is the story of "bitchchecker" (the hacker) a user who lost it because he thought he had been kicked of an IRC channel by "Elch". The hacker comes back on the channel threatening to hack and ruin Elch's machine, and dares Elch to give his IP address. The address given was 127.0.0.1. " -
Software V-Chip for PC Games?
63N1U5 writes "CBS news is reporting that SMARTGUARD software is releasing a new application that will allow parents to control their children's PC gaming, a-la the V-Chip for television. The new software, called WallFly, uses the ESRB ratings database to determine if a game can be launched by the current PC user, based on the parents' preferences. Parents can also use this software to set limits on when and for how long their children can play PC games." -
Open Robotics Debuts at Penguicon 3.0
thgreatoz writes "While attending Penguicon 3.0 in Novi, MI, I came across an interesting project. Matt Switlik of Swittech aims to do for robotics what the GPL did for Open Source Software - a completely open robotics platform. Dubbed the Open Robotics Peripheral Platform, or O.R.P.P, Switlik and his partner Jason Hunt have taken a completely modular approach to robotics, with the goal of making robot development as easy as homegrowing a PC. Will we see fleets of ORPP robots plowing our streets and mowing our lawns in the future?" -
Traffic Studied Using Computer-Linked Cars
mprindle writes "Yahoo News has an AP article about a system that links individual cars to analyze traffic patterns, which allows the drivers to avoid traffic jams and accidents. This system is part of the 'smart highway' initiatives. The data from the car is sent to a central server and from that data traffic patterns in a 40 mile radius. According to the article this technology is less expensive than using poll mounted antennas or ground sensors." -
XBox 360 MTV Ad and Possible Images
hollismb writes "A teaser commercial for the upcoming unveiling of the XBOX 360 on MTV had been released on the internet, and you can watch it here. In addition, an image was released on OurColony yesterday, that many feel my be a partial image of what the new console will look like. If true, this seems to go against the white console report from a couple weeks ago." There are even more possible photos available via a Voodoo Extreme post. -
Preventing Epidemics with STEM
Anonymous Coward writes "IBM has released a Linux based technology enabling spatiotemporal modeling of infectious agents across the United States, providing scientists and public health officials with a powerful tool for understanding, and potentially preventing, the spread of infectious diseases. The new STEM technology provides Geographic Information System (GIS) data for every county in the United States supplied by TIGER files." -
Custom Motherboards?
Druegan asks: "I've been rooting around on the net lately checking out all the latest and greatest in new PC parts, plotting out the design for my next build. I'm finding lots of neat stuff, but I can never seem to find a main board that has just the right combination of features. Therefore, I want to Ask Slashdot: Is there any way your esteemed readership knows as to how a person might get a main board custom made?" "I don't know how practical this is, BUT I'm looking for a mainboard that supports a dual processor configuration for the AMD64 FX 55 processor, built around the nVidia nForce 4 chipset. I'd like two full x16 PCI-express slots with support for the nVidia SLI, as well as room for at least 2gb of dual channel DDR, and SATA Raid support. I also am looking to be able to overclock the bejeesus out of the whole mess.
This is only a test case, but there currently is no such mainboard available. I'd like to know if there is some way to get one custom built though, even if it is ridiculously expensive.. (yes, this might fall into the 'more-money-than-brains' dept.)
I'd just like to build the system to see how it'd work." -
Concert to be Performed from Beyond the Grave
rtphokie writes "Raleigh, NC based Zenph Studios is hosting a live concert performed by two piano virtuosi long since dead. Zenph developed software which digitally transcribes performances even from the scratchy recordings. A more faithful transcription of timing, key and pedal pressure is achieved using Yamaha's high resolution version of MIDI." -
Apollo 13 Engineers to be Honored
sconeu writes "Yahoo! News is carrying a story that the engineers who helped save the crew of Apollo 13 will be honored by GlobalSpec. The article mentions the jury rigged air scrubbers, and gives duct tape its due." Here is our coverage of the 35th anniversary. -
Two Versions of XBox360 Confirmed?
63N1U5 writes "Sources close to Microsoft tell GamesIndustry.biz that the company plans to ship two versions of the new XBox console. The premium version of the console will include a hard drive, and could possibly ship with a version of Microsoft's WebTV installed." We've been reporting on this since the end of last year but it's nice to have some firmer details. -
Firms Get Away with Selling Untested DRAM
peppytech75 writes "Melanie Hollands in IT Manager's Journal reports that 'In recent months, some Asian DRAM memory manufacturers have been getting away with selling untested ("UTT") DRAMs. Disturbingly, the practice seems to be getting traction at the lower portion of the module business. This is being done mostly by Taiwanese DRAM makers, who are undercutting the tier-1 guys by selling untested and unmarked parts.' What's the solution here? Or is there an actual solution to what amounts to pirate companies issuing counterfeit parts?" (IT Manager's Journal, like Slashdot, is part of OSTG.) -
Verizon's DSL Gets Naked
Ant writes "According to Broadband Reports' news story, Verizon today announced they are now offering 'naked DSL' service (DSL without mandatory local service) in the Northeast. CBS/Marketwatch indicates Northeast customers (ex-NYNEX and Bell Atlantic) can cut or switch their local service with no penalty, starting today. The company insists the move will be national in time, but gave no timeline for when naked DSL would be available elsewhere. Verizon had promised this in May of last year, but then seemingly backtracked." -
Dell Still Intel Only
wyckedone writes "Dell Computers has no plans to offer the new dual-core AMD Opteron even though it has been proven that "Opteron's integrated memory controller and multiple Hypertransport interconnects help it outperform Intel's Xeon processor on many benchmarks, especially those that measure the performance of memory-intensive applications.". HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems have all announced that they are going to release servers based on the new AMD chip. Why not offer customers an alternative that has better performance instead of risking the lose of those customers to another vendor that does? Intel has no plans to release a dual-core Xeon until 2006." -
Best Motherboard for a Large Memory System?
kimanaw writes "Due to a particular infrastructure need, and increasing OS support for 64 bitness, I'm looking into building a large memory server box (at least 16 gigs, possibly up to 64 gigs, probably config'ed into a big ramdisk). I only need a single CPU, and just minimal disk; most prebuilt systems w/ large memory seem to focus on more CPus and big RAID, all of which (over)inflate the pricetag. I've searched several websites (including Tom's Hardware), and I've googled, but can't seem to locate any commercially available AMD MBs supporting more than 4 sticks of RAM, or 4 gigs. Have any Slashdotters built a big-RAM server? Any pointers, hints, and tips much appreciated." -
The SCO Boomerang and the Strength of Linux
karvind writes "PJ of Groklaw has written an insightful article on benefits flowing from SCO's litigation: GPL stands up in court, the community bonded more tightly than ever, encouraged increased support for FOSS and last but not the least heightened awareness of the benefits of using GNU/Linux systems. Article is also on Yahoo and NewsFactor." -
Running a Website from Your Prison Cell
Eh-Wire writes "Although prisoners Internet access is highly restricted, this hasn't prevented many inmates from getting around the restrictions with the judicious use of phone and snail-mail privileges to network with friends, relatives, activists, and associates to provide content to their websites. Some use their websites to badger witnesses and prosecuters, while others plead their case or phish for pen-pals. Some have successfully challenged their convictions through their websites, which complicates efforts by authorities to silence them. Websites domiciled outside of the respective jurisdictions further complicate the issue. Yahoo News has additional commentary on this controversial subject." -
Video Game Sales Up 32% in March
Reuters is reporting that video game sales were up 32% in March. The story attributes the increase in sales to improved console supplies, Gran Turismo 4, and some handheld Sony is hawking. From the article: "Citing figures from market researchers NPD Group, analysts also said Sony Corp.'s new PlayStation Portable handheld gaming unit sold 620,000 units of hardware in the month and 1.1 million pieces of software. The PSP was released on March 24." -
America's Not So Up to Speed
indiejade writes "According to The Broadband Life, the U.S. has quite a way to go before catching up to countries such as South Korea, Japan and even Canada when it comes to percentage of the population enjoying high-speed internet access. 'In 2000, the U.S. ranked third in Net users connecting at high-speed among the top-30 world economies. The next year it fell to fourth. Now it's 11th,' the article said." Commentary on this is also available at Foreign Affairs and The New York Times. -
Yahoo R&D Chief Joins MSN Search
sriram_2001 writes "In a major hiring coup, the MSN Search blog announced that Yahoo's head of Research and Development, Dr.Gary William Flake has now joined MSN. According to Oshoma Momoh, General Manager, MSN Search, Dr.Flake will be 'responsible for bridging the innovation happening between Microsoft Research and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, web search, desktop search and monetization engine.' Dr.Flake is also the first person to be directly hired as a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, an elite group that has Dave Cutler and Anders Hejlsberg among other luminaries" -
Slashback: Pie, Election, Alarm
Slashback this evening with another batch of updates and responses to previous Slashdot posts, including: how Firefox users can avoid post-cookie Web tracking (for now), more on open-source graphics drivers, and an alarm clock that sounds perfect for annoying a spouse. Read on for the details.Does he feel like Reese Witherspoon? Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier writes "After many years of trying, Branden Robinson has finally won the Debian Project Leader election. Linux Magazine has an in-depth interview with Robinson about his plans as DPL, the problems that face Debian, and what it's like to finally win the election."
(We mentioned Robinson's election a few days ago.)
In lieu of perfection, fixability is a good start. gyardley writes "After discovering that a company called United Virtualities was making use of Flash's Local Shared Objects to silently restore my deleted cookies, I decided to combat this marketer behavior with a Firefox extension.
Objection 0.1 adds a 'Local Shared Objects' line to Firefox's Options > Privacy panel, allowing you to delete them as easily as you'd delete cookies. It's still pretty rudimentary - all or nothing deletion, working on Windows only - but Slashdotters are more than welcome to improve it. Since Local Shared Objects have the same functionality as cookies, we need the same amount of control over them as we do over cookies - and built into the browser, not tucked away in some obscure Macromedia page."
Sure, come on in, there's still some punch and snacks left, I think. orv writes "The Unichrome project has issued a response to VIA's recent open source announcement covered on Slashdot.
The response (and further comment) clarifies the current Unichrome driver situation and whilst welcoming VIA's move suggests that VIA should become more involved in existing open source projects rather than simply issuing repeated grand sounding press releases. The Unichrome project has provided and supported a full open source driver, including MPEG support, for the Unichrome and Unichrome Pro chipsets for the past two years."
But this implies that 'perky' is the desired state. dhalsim2 writes "Yahoo reports of a Smart Alarm Clock Set for Perky Wakeups. On the heels of Clocky comes this new alarm clock that will monitor a sleeper's brain waves to determine the best time to wake him up. The device uses a microprocessor within a headband that wirelessly transmits brainwaves to the clock. When the person is in a light sleep and is likely to wake up 'perky,' the alarm will go off. Brain wave monitoring? Sounds a lot like Plankton's Plan Z."
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Xbox360 Name Confirmed
63N1U5 writes "GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that British sources have confirmed that the next generation Xbox will be named Xbox360. Also included are details of the design features of the console, including a concave shape and platinum white finish." -
Labs Scramble to Destroy Deadly Flu Samples
An anonymous reader submits "According to this Yahoo! news story, a deadly strain of the Flu virus was mistakenly sent out to thousands of labs, mostly in the U.S., as samples for routine testing. The samples were sent starting last year, but the rush to destroy them began shortly after the WHO raised an alert last Friday following its discovery by the National Microbial Laboratory Canada on March 26. It was not immediately clear why the 1957 pandemic strain, which killed between 1 million and 4 million people -- was in the proficiency test kits routinely sent to labs." -
Offshored Identity Theft
Travoltus writes "The threat of increased misuse of consumer personal data by offshore criminals was first made publicly known with the UCSF Pakistani medical transcriber scandal. Then, in a logical progression of events, it was discovered that foreign criminal interests were offering money to offshored call center workers to surrender consumer data. Now that threat has been realized: Offshored call center staffers at Mphasis BPO have allegedly stolen £200,000 using United States customers' personal information. It is believed that Indian police reacted swiftly to catch the thieves, but only £12,000 has been recovered so far, and it is not really known who orchestrated this theft or where the rest of that money is now. It is also unknown as of yet how much of a mess this has created for the U.S. citizens who were victimized. Let's hope that the people whose information was stolen don't have to go through what other identity theft victims have to endure, to clean up their good name." -
Microsoft Researchers on Stopping Spam
TheBackBencher writes "Scientific American today has a very interesting article about "Stopping Spam" by Joshua Goodman, David Hackerman and Robert Rounthwaite from Microsoft Research. They talk about different types of spam -- spam with emails, spam on IMs, spamlinks on web pages and image based spam. They mention different techniques for spam filtering mainly fingerprinting matching techniques, n grams model, naive bayesian approach, optical character recognition, challenge/response systems and Human Interacted Proofs (HIP) in a very lucid style. They however do not mention fingerprinting approach of using Nilsimsa Hash to tackle addition of random words by spammers in emails or hypertextus interruptus technique used by spammers of splitting words using HTML comments, pairs of zero width tags, or bogus tags. Also, Spam-Research is reporting the SplitFit Technique that Spammers are using to fool Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard." -
Microsoft Researchers on Stopping Spam
TheBackBencher writes "Scientific American today has a very interesting article about "Stopping Spam" by Joshua Goodman, David Hackerman and Robert Rounthwaite from Microsoft Research. They talk about different types of spam -- spam with emails, spam on IMs, spamlinks on web pages and image based spam. They mention different techniques for spam filtering mainly fingerprinting matching techniques, n grams model, naive bayesian approach, optical character recognition, challenge/response systems and Human Interacted Proofs (HIP) in a very lucid style. They however do not mention fingerprinting approach of using Nilsimsa Hash to tackle addition of random words by spammers in emails or hypertextus interruptus technique used by spammers of splitting words using HTML comments, pairs of zero width tags, or bogus tags. Also, Spam-Research is reporting the SplitFit Technique that Spammers are using to fool Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard." -
Remote-Controlled Flies
Rollie Hawk writes "This could be a huge development for the ultra-lazy (and ultra-stinky, for that matter). It seems that Yale scientists have managed to engineer a remote control system for flies. According to their study (recently featured in Cell), specific neurons can be stimulated by lasers to control basic functions in fruit flies such as jumping, walking, and flying. The study, of course, was performed with wider ranging applications in mind than bringing new meaning to the saying, "Shew, fly!" The overall goal was to determine whether isolated-neuron stimulation could be used to control basic motor activities and even more complex behavior. Everyone since the days of Mary Shelly has obviously known that there are connections between electrical current and muscle movement. What makes this study unique is that it does not use traditional electrodes, which lack the single-neuron specificity of lasers. Eventually, this could lead to mappings that will give humans knowledge and possibly control over not only complex movements but less-than desirable mental functions such as aggression and overeating."
