Slashdot Mirror

Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.

University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge. HABITcky writes "The University of Wisconsin Security Challenge has ended after 38 hours, intermittent DoS attacks, 4000 ssh login attempts, a bandwidth spike of 30 Mbps, and 6 million logged ipfw events. During this time there were 'no successful access attempts, nor any claims of a successful attempt.' You may remember this challenge was proposed in response to the 'woefully misleading' ZDnet article, Mac OS X hacked under 30 minutes, which was previously discussed here on Slashdot."

Skeptics investigate cold fusion.smooth wombat writes "As a follow-up to a previous Slashdot posting, Purdue University is investigating the claims of Rusi Taleyarkhan who claimed in 2004 to have created nuclear fusion at room temperature. The investigation came about from complaints from colleagues who suspect something is amiss. Taleyarkhan, who used to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has, since working at Perdue, removed the equipment the co-workers were using to try and replicate the results, claimed results for experimental runs were positive for fusion despite the co-workers never seeing the raw data and opposed the publication of results which contradicted his findings."

More on DoD web filtering. timetrap writes "I work in a mobile combat communications unit, while I'm not in the sandbox right now, I can attest to the DoD policy on blocking web access. First of all when you are down range don't expect to even get DSL speeds from a satellite, we usually roll with about 256kbs for the data side of our trunk. So blocking sites is very important, otherwise 4 or 5 people could start streaming audio and pretty much knock down any legitimate use of the network. We filter websites with smartfilter and yes the military system admins in the IPO office will unblock any web site that isn't blocked by local policy (no pr0n, no streaming audio, no civilian web mail: both the hot and the g varieties, and no chat programs; although irc is used by the DoD) This is no Orwellian conspiracy, but quick and easy system administration; apply smartfilter: check! If you want to check the current smartfilter blocked sites goto: securecomputing and submit some sites to check." Slashdot's own Jamie took a look at Smartfilter back in '99 as a part of the Censorware project and it still remains a mysterious black box to this day. While some would advocate full disclosure using censorware still appears to be merely passing the buck.

AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger. mytrip writes to tell us that immediately following their $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth, AT&T plans on cutting about 10,000 jobs.

More child-proofing efforts for MySpace. conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthalin in which he describes measures MySpace and other similar sites should take to protect children. From the article: 'We're going to be suggesting some very specific measures that MySpace can take based on our conversations with MySpace as well as with other law enforcement authorities at the state and local levels. We've received hundreds of complaints from parents who are concerned about these issues, and we want to be sure that the measures we propose are technologically feasible and financially viable.'"

Why Windows Vista will Suck: a rebuttal. shrapnull writes "Hot on the heels of Extreme Tech's 'Why Windows Vista Won't Suck', Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has an alternate position posted on DesktopLinux, and sent to subscribers of Novell's 'Suse Linux Cool Solutions' newsletter."

Harvard researcher punished for reporting bugs. Guillermito writes "A story previously discussed came to a sad conclusion two weeks ago. The bottom line is this means that it is forbidden to use reverse engineering tools to find bugs in a software. You also have to prove that you own a valid license for each version of the tested software. To publish a proof of concept that contains a few dozens of copyrighted bytes is also forbidden. It's a nice precedent for any company selling a defective product."

Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill. Quadraginta writes "Earlier, denizens of Slashdot reacted to a story about a bill to be introduced to the New Jersey legislature that would require hosts of forums, bulletin boards and the like to keep track of the real identity of anonymous posters. Seems like there was a strong reaction all over. Assemblyman Biondi now appears to be backpedalling furiously. From a letter quoted after the link: 'I am getting inundated with responses which I will review and use to better educate myself on the implications of this bill. If, after reviewing all of the correspondence and the opinion of OLS, it turns out that the bill is, in fact, unworkable, I will certainly reconsider and withdraw it.'"

A followup on Chinese TLDs. nqz writes "In this story on ComputerWorld, ICANN and the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) both dispute a previous story discussing China's new top-level domains containing Chinese characters."

Slashdot tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including some favorable results from the University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge, skeptics investigate cold fusion claims, more on DoD web filtering, AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger, more child-proofing efforts for MySpace, Why Windows Vista Will Suck: a rebuttal, Harvard Professor punished for reporting bugs, Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill, and a followup on Chinese TLDs -- Read on for details.

University of Wisconsin's Mac OS X Challenge. HABITcky writes "The University of Wisconsin Security Challenge has ended after 38 hours, intermittent DoS attacks, 4000 ssh login attempts, a bandwidth spike of 30 Mbps, and 6 million logged ipfw events. During this time there were 'no successful access attempts, nor any claims of a successful attempt.' You may remember this challenge was proposed in response to the 'woefully misleading' ZDnet article, Mac OS X hacked under 30 minutes, which was previously discussed here on Slashdot."

Skeptics investigate cold fusion.smooth wombat writes "As a follow-up to a previous Slashdot posting, Purdue University is investigating the claims of Rusi Taleyarkhan who claimed in 2004 to have created nuclear fusion at room temperature. The investigation came about from complaints from colleagues who suspect something is amiss. Taleyarkhan, who used to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has, since working at Perdue, removed the equipment the co-workers were using to try and replicate the results, claimed results for experimental runs were positive for fusion despite the co-workers never seeing the raw data and opposed the publication of results which contradicted his findings."

More on DoD web filtering. timetrap writes "I work in a mobile combat communications unit, while I'm not in the sandbox right now, I can attest to the DoD policy on blocking web access. First of all when you are down range don't expect to even get DSL speeds from a satellite, we usually roll with about 256kbs for the data side of our trunk. So blocking sites is very important, otherwise 4 or 5 people could start streaming audio and pretty much knock down any legitimate use of the network. We filter websites with smartfilter and yes the military system admins in the IPO office will unblock any web site that isn't blocked by local policy (no pr0n, no streaming audio, no civilian web mail: both the hot and the g varieties, and no chat programs; although irc is used by the DoD) This is no Orwellian conspiracy, but quick and easy system administration; apply smartfilter: check! If you want to check the current smartfilter blocked sites goto: securecomputing and submit some sites to check." Slashdot's own Jamie took a look at Smartfilter back in '99 as a part of the Censorware project and it still remains a mysterious black box to this day. While some would advocate full disclosure using censorware still appears to be merely passing the buck.

AT&T cuts 10,000 jobs after BellSouth merger. mytrip writes to tell us that immediately following their $67 billion acquisition of BellSouth, AT&T plans on cutting about 10,000 jobs.

More child-proofing efforts for MySpace. conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthalin in which he describes measures MySpace and other similar sites should take to protect children. From the article: 'We're going to be suggesting some very specific measures that MySpace can take based on our conversations with MySpace as well as with other law enforcement authorities at the state and local levels. We've received hundreds of complaints from parents who are concerned about these issues, and we want to be sure that the measures we propose are technologically feasible and financially viable.'"

Why Windows Vista will Suck: a rebuttal. shrapnull writes "Hot on the heels of Extreme Tech's 'Why Windows Vista Won't Suck', Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has an alternate position posted on DesktopLinux, and sent to subscribers of Novell's 'Suse Linux Cool Solutions' newsletter."

Harvard researcher punished for reporting bugs. Guillermito writes "A story previously discussed came to a sad conclusion two weeks ago. The bottom line is this means that it is forbidden to use reverse engineering tools to find bugs in a software. You also have to prove that you own a valid license for each version of the tested software. To publish a proof of concept that contains a few dozens of copyrighted bytes is also forbidden. It's a nice precedent for any company selling a defective product."

Assemblyman Biondi backpedals on NJ anonymous posting bill. Quadraginta writes "Earlier, denizens of Slashdot reacted to a story about a bill to be introduced to the New Jersey legislature that would require hosts of forums, bulletin boards and the like to keep track of the real identity of anonymous posters. Seems like there was a strong reaction all over. Assemblyman Biondi now appears to be backpedalling furiously. From a letter quoted after the link: 'I am getting inundated with responses which I will review and use to better educate myself on the implications of this bill. If, after reviewing all of the correspondence and the opinion of OLS, it turns out that the bill is, in fact, unworkable, I will certainly reconsider and withdraw it.'"

A followup on Chinese TLDs. nqz writes "In this story on ComputerWorld, ICANN and the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) both dispute a previous story discussing China's new top-level domains containing Chinese characters."

ninja_assault_kitten writes "ZDnet is running an article on how a Swedish Mac OS X enthusiast held a competition to prove how good security was on his new fully patched Mac Mini was. Unfortunately, 30 minutes after the competition began, a hacker known as 'gwerdna' had broken in and defaced the website, thus winning the contest. According to gwerdna, 'Mac OS X is easy pickings for bug finders. That said, it doesn't have the market share to really interest most serious bug finders.'." It's also worth noting a piece that says all the security news is much ado about nothing, in practical terms. The security contest also allowed people to have local access via SSH, so that had a lot to do with the crack.

mdeb writes "ZDNet Australia is running a story that claims Mac OS X 'contains unpatched security flaws of a type that were fixed on alternative operating systems more than a decade ago.' As an example, in August of last year, Apple patched the 'dsidentity' bug, which could easily have been exploited to grant a non-privileged user with admin rights the capability to create and remove 'root' user accounts."

An anonymous reader writes "Content management specialist Seth Gottlieb has written an easy to understand how-to on selecting an open source CMS. Gottlieb is also responsible for the whitepaper 'Content Management Problems and Open Source Solutions' which summarizes 15 open source projects and distinguishes between open source CMS and proprietary software selection."

daria42 writes "Samba creator Andrew Tridgell has officially released a technology preview of Samba 4 at the Linux.conf.au conference in New Zealand, ending a three-year wait for users. But wait before upgrading those servers. 'It may eat your cat,' says the Samba team in a statement, 'but is far more likely to choose to munch on your password database.'" From the article: "'Samba 4 supports the server-side of the Active Directory logon environment used by Windows 2000 and later, so we can do full domain join and domain logon operations with these clients,' the group said in a statement on its Web site, noting this feature was 'the main emphasis' for the new software."

daria42 writes "Although there are unofficial builds already available, Mozilla will release an official version of Firefox for Intel Mac OS X in March, developer Josh Aas says. There are only a couple of minor bugs to work through, such as Flash and Java support."

An anonymous reader writes "There's been a twist in the Sharman Networks vs record labels case in Australia. Lawyers for the music industry now claim that Sharman's attempt to block Australian IP addresses from accessing the Kazaa website doesn't comply with a court order. As such, they want Kazaa masterminds Nikki Hemming and Kevin Bermeister to go to jail term. The saga began in Feb 2004 and ZDNet Australia has a complete timeline."

An anonymous reader writes "There's been a twist in the Sharman Networks vs record labels case in Australia. Lawyers for the music industry now claim that Sharman's attempt to block Australian IP addresses from accessing the Kazaa website doesn't comply with a court order. As such, they want Kazaa masterminds Nikki Hemming and Kevin Bermeister to go to jail term. The saga began in Feb 2004 and ZDNet Australia has a complete timeline."

An anonymous reader writes "The algorithm used by the Sober worm to 'communicate' with its author has been cracked. According to F-Secure, it can now calculate the exact URLs the worm would check on a particular day. Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, explained that the virus author has not used a constant URL because authorities would easily be able to block it. From the article: "Sober has been using an algorithm to create pseudorandom URLs which will change based on dates. Ninety nine percent of the URLs simply don't exist...however, the virus author can precalculate the URL for any date, and when he wants to run something on all the infected machines, he just registers the right URL, uploads his program and BANG! It's run globally on hundreds of thousands of machines," Hyppönen said. Sober is expected to launch itself again on January 5, 2006."

daria42 writes "Symantec today said it will slowly move towards supplying its consumer applications online as services." From the article: "Sykes also said there was the possibility that tiny pieces of an application or a single virus scan could be resold by organisations such as online banks, which may choose to ensure their customers are not infected with a virus or spyware before they log on to their account ... This could be paid for by the customer using their credit card or by adding it to their mobile phone bill by sending a text message, said Sykes, who warned that banks could decide not to provide access to anyone with an infected computer."

daria42 writes "A developer has added tabbed browsing of e-mail messages to Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client, mimicking one of the most popular features of the Firefox and Opera Web browsers." From the article: "It is unlikely the feature will be found in Mozilla's imminent release of Thunderbird 1.5 -- currently in testing -- but software developer Myk Melez has put test versions of Thunderbird online with the tabbed browsing feature included. However, there are doubts over the suitability of these downloads for production use as they are based on bleeding-edge 'unofficial' code. "

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has published a review of 8 antispyware products from Computer Associates, Lavasoft, McAfee, Microsoft, PC Tools, Symantec, Trend Micro and Webroot. Check out the Editor's Choice. Interesting winner ...." I've used quite a number of these scanners on and on & off basis, and I think the reality is that you if you are truly to clean a machine out, you're going to need to use like three - five of these. Each of them captures a certain area, but none are the One Ring or anything.

An anonymous reader writes "Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Federal Court orders in Australia yesterday. Sharman Networks, the owner of Kazaa, was ordered by the courts to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search terms -- primarily artist and song names. The search terms are also to be supplied by record companies. The directive follows the record companies' court victory in September against individuals and organizations associated with Kazaa."

An anonymous reader writes "Eminem, Madonna and Kylie Minogue are just some of the popular artists whose songs are to be blocked from being illegally distributed on the peer-to-peer network Kazaa following Federal Court orders in Australia yesterday. Sharman Networks, the owner of Kazaa, was ordered by the courts to modify the file-sharing software to block a list of search terms -- primarily artist and song names. The search terms are also to be supplied by record companies. The directive follows the record companies' court victory in September against individuals and organizations associated with Kazaa."

An anonymous reader writes "The search giant has moved to fix a problem in Google Base which didn't properly block pornographic material in their search results. According to Google, the filter was broken for 'some period of time' but the company didn't elaborate. Nathan Weinberg could have been one of the first to report the incident on his blog, Inside Google, writing: 'Holy crap, there is a lot of porn at Google Base! Looks like, just like Google Images, Google Base could become a huge source of porn, and eventually a place where porn will be sold. I even noticed some movie reviews.'" They've also recently corrected a problem with their search appliance. geo_2677 wrote to mention a Securityfocus.com article discussing the rapid patching of the Google search boxes in response to a vulnerability.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has posted a top 10 list of things you need to know about Visual Studio 2005 Team System. From the article: Everybody talks about collaborative development tools, and heaven knows you can't surf the major developers' for 10 minutes without getting hit by banners trumpeting the latest. We can't fault Microsoft for wanting a piece of that action; but we need more than just a collaborative environment."

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has some interesting pictures of Google's new London office which is incidentally looking to boost its 200-man headcount. Also, a Doodle 4 Google contest was held in conjunction with the office opening for schoolchildren."

An anonymous reader writes "A secondhand dealer in Britain has been given the green light by Microsoft to resell software licenses from insolvent or downsizing companies, ZDNet is reporting. The reseller, Disclic, is legally allowed to sell the licenses at a discounted rate of between 20 percent to 50 percent, much lower than Microsoft's resellers. Partners of the software giant have expressed unhappiness over the issue as it undercuts their business. "I've never heard the like, and I am stunned," said Gordon Davies, the commercial director of Microsoft reseller Compusys. "This is clearly going to take away revenue from the channel and from Microsoft," he said."

daria42 writes "An e-mail memo sent from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to top execs at Microsoft has been leaked, revealing the executive wants his company to hurriedly change its focus and start to tap online advertising and services as new revenue sources. In the e-mail, Gates cites another, earlier memo, sent from MS exec Ray Ozzie, in which Ozzie also warns MS of the importance of focusing on the online medium. 'It's clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk,' Ozzie wrote. 'We must respond quickly and decisively. We should've been leaders with all our web properties in harnessing the potential of Ajax, following our pioneering work in OWA (Outlook Web Access),' he continued. 'We knew search would be important, but through Google's focus they've gained a tremendously strong position.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Notorious hacker turned security consultant Kevin Mitnick touches on a myriad of issues ranging from law enforcement to Microsoft in a short interview with ZDNet. My favorite part is when he's asked if in his mind, Microsoft is a leader and the rest are still catching up. Mitnick answers: 'I am waiting for a case where a software maker gets sued for releasing buggy code, but they will probably cover their ass with the long license agreements that nobody ever reads.'"

daria42 writes "Business intelligence specialist Business Objects is the latest software maker to join the Eclipse Foundation, and says it will move several products onto the open source platform -- but it's not yet saying which. 'We won't fight it, we'll embrace it,' said one of the company's executives in Sydney last week, talking about the open source software model. 'One of the reasons we've chosen to go with the Eclipse platform, rather than any of the other open source types,' she said, 'is that [Eclipse] actually has a model where vendors can sell value-added products into it, but still provide the service components.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Combining desktop search and the Google Sidebar, Google Desktop 2 is now available for download. Dozens of new third-party sidebar panels are now available, Google said. Also launched was Google Desktop for Enterprise (free)."

daria42 writes "In a press conference this morning, Bill Gates said Microsoft plans to launch Internet-based complements to its core products, dubbed 'Windows Live' and 'Office Live'. Windows Live is a set of Internet-based personal services, such as e-mail, blogging and instant messaging. It will be primarily supported by advertising and be separate from the operating system itself. Office Live will come in both ad-based and subscription versions that augment MS' Office suite. The programs won't replace the paid software but instead seem aimed at diminishing Google's ad revenue. Windows Live already appears to have 'gone live' in a preview format on the web."

daria42 writes "ITunes Australia has finally gone live, after more than a year of waiting. Apple is holding a press conference in Sydney this morning to officially launch the service to the media, but the store has already opened. Like the Japanese ITunes store, it looks like Sony-BMG is not participating."

daria42 writes "It looks extremely likely that the iTunes music store will launch (finally) in Australia next week. Apple confirmed that its vice president of iTunes Eddie Cue, and vice president of iPod product marketing Greg Joswiak will be flying down under for a press conference on Tuesday morning. Cue has been prominent in a number of launches around the globe of the online music store, which is now available in around 20 countries worldwide. Australians have been waiting for the launch for more than a year now. It is believed Sony's Australian division wanted to block the launch."

ficken writes "Web browser pioneer Marc Andreessen recently announced his prediction that PHP will be more popular than Java for building web-based applications." From the article: "Wooing programmers is nothing new in the computing industry, where players constantly jockey to establish their products as an essential foundation. Indeed, many credit Microsoft's success to its highly regarded programming tools, which make it easier for developers to write software that run on Windows. PHP has caught on widely. About 22 million Web sites employ it, and useage is steadily increasing. About 450 programmers have privileges to approve changes to the software. Major companies that employ PHP include Yahoo, Lufthansa and Deutsche Telekom's T-Online." Meanwhilie, Piersky writes "Zend has announced its rival to .NET and J2EE, with the Zend PHP Framework. In a press release, they stated that it will be 'A Web application framework which will standardize the way PHP applications are built. The Zend PHP Framework will accelerate and improve the development and deployment of mission-critical PHP Web applications'. This will for part of Zend's PHP Collaboration Project"

An anonymous reader writes "Urgent shipments of medicine and goods for the holiday season have been turned away by customs officials due to a massive computer problem. The initial budget for the system upgrade was said to be A$80 million but has since blown out to A$250 million. Customs officials and the government have been forced to admit that they might actually have to revert to the old system if things don't improve. One cargo user said on national TV that he used to process 300 orders daily but the new system is so complex and unusable, he's happy if he can manage 100 orders per day. The system failure is expected to have a massive impact especially on the retail sector this Christmas."

An anonymous reader writes "Urgent shipments of medicine and goods for the holiday season have been turned away by customs officials due to a massive computer problem. The initial budget for the system upgrade was said to be A$80 million but has since blown out to A$250 million. Customs officials and the government have been forced to admit that they might actually have to revert to the old system if things don't improve. One cargo user said on national TV that he used to process 300 orders daily but the new system is so complex and unusable, he's happy if he can manage 100 orders per day. The system failure is expected to have a massive impact especially on the retail sector this Christmas."

daria42 writes "The much-hyped Flock, a new browser based on Mozilla Firefox and integrating features like RSS feeds, blogging tools, the del.icio.us social bookmarking and Flickr photo sharing services has just launched a public developer preview to the world. Flock is being driven by a team of developers being led by Bart Decrem, a well-known open source developer who co-founded the ill-fated Eazel project back in 1999 and has been involved with both the Mozilla and GNOME foundations. On his blog this week he says Flock won't be forking the Firefox codebase."

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNET Microsoft is going to be keynoting the Australian Unix and Open Systems Users Group conference. From the article: '"Don't be put off by Chris' Microsoft badge -- he is actually a long time Unix hacker," the user group said today in a statement updating users on presentations at the conference ... Green, Microsoft's local Unix Interoperability and High Performance Computing specialist, will update the conference on his company's "Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems."'"

An anonymous reader writes "Once again Symantec has spouted FUD about Mac OS X ... perhaps in an attempt to make more money as Microsoft pushes its own security products? A commentary on the issue entitled "Symantec 'scare tactics' don't rattle Mac users" says Symantec's latest Internet Security Threat Report continues to voice concern for the security and stability of the Mac operating system, Mac OS X in particular. However, there isn't proper evidence to back this claim. Also from the story, readers are asked: Do Mac users think they are immune to security problems or is Symantec and others fishing for a new revenue stream? Do you think Apple should start following Microsoft's model by rating vulnerabilities and patches?"

An anonymous reader writes "The OSS/developer community at large is paying more attention to the trademark issue, especially since Linus Torvalds bid to trademark the name 'Linux' in Australia failed recently. Branden Robinson, Debian's project leader, says the current trademark policy needs updating to ensure it has the appropriate level of protection against legal challenges. Robinson said there are various questions that project members must address when deciding how to change the policy. These include whether Debian Linux should have a trademark at all, and whether the trademark can be used to penalize those who 'prey upon' the community."

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has posted an FAQ on Office 12, plus a quick preview of Office 12 pre-Beta 1. From the review: Microsoft Office 12.0 pre-Beta 1 drastically revamps the interface layouts of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. More than a year before the final product will hit the shelves, a pre-beta version of Microsoft Office 12.0 is revealing radical interface changes and user paradigm shifts that recall the overly ambitious Microsoft Office 97 update of the past."

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has posted an FAQ on Office 12, plus a quick preview of Office 12 pre-Beta 1. From the review: Microsoft Office 12.0 pre-Beta 1 drastically revamps the interface layouts of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. More than a year before the final product will hit the shelves, a pre-beta version of Microsoft Office 12.0 is revealing radical interface changes and user paradigm shifts that recall the overly ambitious Microsoft Office 97 update of the past."

daria42 writes "Linus Torvalds' bid to have the word 'Linux' trademarked in Australia has failed, with the local intellectual property regulator sending his lawyer a vitriolic letter deriding efforts to provide evidence the trademark application was legitimate. In the letter, the regulator points out that information from Wikipedia and Google used by the lawyer to support the trademark application is simply not effective in making the case for a trademark to be registered."

daria42 writes "It looks like the Debian Common Core Alliance announced a while ago is going to make good on its promises: the project has released its first code this week. The release consists of a base installation of Debian 3.1 with the Linux Standard Base and security updates attached. But the project also looks like it has attracted some criticism from within the Debian developer community - with a spoof Web site having already been set up to poke fun at the Alliance."

An anonymous reader writes "The tiny state of Tasmania in Australia has kicked off the country's first commercial powerline broadband trial. The service is capable of providing Internet connectivity of up to 12Mbps but during trials, it will be limited to 4Mbps. Costs will range from $12 (A$15) to $67 (A$80) per month for speeds between 256Kbps and 4Mbps. Powerline broadband has received wide support from leading vendors including Intel, Motorola and Cisco Systems -- all of whom support an organisation called the HomePlug Powerline Alliance."

An anonymous reader writes "The tiny state of Tasmania in Australia has kicked off the country's first commercial powerline broadband trial. The service is capable of providing Internet connectivity of up to 12Mbps but during trials, it will be limited to 4Mbps. Costs will range from $12 (A$15) to $67 (A$80) per month for speeds between 256Kbps and 4Mbps. Powerline broadband has received wide support from leading vendors including Intel, Motorola and Cisco Systems -- all of whom support an organisation called the HomePlug Powerline Alliance."

An anonymous reader writes "The IT security manager of the University of Otago, New Zealand, has been educating his OS X users in security best-practices. According to Mark Borrie, many Mac users believe they were immune to security problems -- a trap many Mac fans seem to have fallen into. He said around 40 percent of the computers at the uni are Macs. "On the security side of things I reckon the Mac community has yet to wake up to security. They think they are immune and typically have this idea that they can do whatever they want on their Macintosh and run what they like," said Borrie. "If I can get our Mac users up to speed and say 'you are not immune' -- so when [the malware] hits, hopefully we will be pretty safe," he said. "We want to be ready for the first big Macintosh virus -- because it will come. Some day, somebody will say 'I am going to create a headline and write a virus for Mac'," said Borrie."

daria42 writes "It looks like Sun's famous Dynamic Tracing tool - one of the best features in Solaris 10 - is getting ported to FreeBSD. Sun open-sourced the code back in January and it has been picked up by FreeBSD developer Devon O'Dell. The tool provides insanely great advanced performance analysis and debugging features for server software. Good to see some result come out of the Sun open-sourcing process." From the article: "O'Dell told ZDNet Australia the aim of the project -- which commenced a month ago -- was that all scripts and applications that utilised DTrace under its native Solaris environment should be able to run in FreeBSD with no changes. While FreeBSD's existing ktrace function was similar to DTrace, it was limited in scope, according to O'Dell. 'FreeBSD implements a somewhat similar facility for dynamically instrumenting syscalls for any given application,' he said."

daria42 writes "Although the company behind Kazaa has already vowed to launch an appeal of yesterday's decision that it had breached music industry copyright, it now appears likely any such appeal will have to wait until early 2006. The music industry seems to think it'll be able to get billions of dollars in damages out of the company, Sharman Networks, although the amount has yet to be decided - and who knows if they can pay." From the article: "Sharman Networks is expected to lodge its request for leave to appeal before the deadline of three weeks from yesterday's decision expires. Sharman's lawyer, Mary Still, reiterated through a spokesperson today the company's position last night that it would 'appeal those parts of the decision where we were not successful' remained unchanged."

daria42 writes "Although the company behind Kazaa has already vowed to launch an appeal of yesterday's decision that it had breached music industry copyright, it now appears likely any such appeal will have to wait until early 2006. The music industry seems to think it'll be able to get billions of dollars in damages out of the company, Sharman Networks, although the amount has yet to be decided - and who knows if they can pay." From the article: "Sharman Networks is expected to lodge its request for leave to appeal before the deadline of three weeks from yesterday's decision expires. Sharman's lawyer, Mary Still, reiterated through a spokesperson today the company's position last night that it would 'appeal those parts of the decision where we were not successful' remained unchanged."

An anonymous reader writes "More than 10 percent of the 90-odd organisations which received a letter asking them to relinquish any legal claim to the 'Linux' name have agreed to do so. Jeremy Malcolm, the lawyer who's leading the charge on behalf of Linux Mark Institute, described the response and favorable, saying: "Not all of the recipients were using Linux as part of their business of product/service names. He added that one of the purposes of sending the letter out in the first place was to discern which organisations might use the name for commercial gain."

daria42 writes "It looks like Adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 is suing Google to stop the search engine giant from using images of models in the images part of its search engine. The publisher has alleged Google is in breach of its copyright by displaying more than 3,000 photos." From the article: "Perfect 10 first became aware of Google serving up text links to other Web sites that allegedly carried copyright images of Perfect 10 models back in 2001, Zada said in an interview on Thursday. The company then sent notices to Google, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, asking the search giant to discontinue linking to the other sites." Additionally, with users writing to mention that that Google has changed their 10 Things statement recently, yet another article comparing them to Microsoft was bound to turn up. From the Sydney Herald article: "The question is whether the young upstarts who have built a hugely profitable business on Google's anti-corporate image are on the way to following Gates's path from bright young turk to monopolistic behemoth." Update: 08/26 13:27 GMT by Z : xmas2003 points out that the requested injunction is part of the suit Perfect 10 brought against Google last November, which we have previously reported on.

daria42 writes "Responding to the concerns of developers and backflipping on a previous policy in the process, Miro, the commercial company which owns the copyright to the GPL'd Mambo content management system has decided to assign all intellectual property rights to the Mambo Foundation, which it created to manage the CMS. The company has been at the centre of a storm of controversy previously reported here on Slashdot, which has seen the core developers of the CMS fork the project."

An anonymous reader writes "Australian winemaker De Bortoli is a firm believer in Linux. CIO Bill Robertson says he's 'bemused by any notion that Linux is poorly supported in the enterprise since he has never had any trouble finding support for De Bortoli's open-source systems', and says that those IT managers having trouble simply 'aren't looking hard enough.' There are also some other good case studies here -- telecommuncations provider TransACT, online hotel booking service Wotif, engineering contractor Coates and investment and funds management group Aviva."

An anonymous reader writes "According to a ZDNet report, authorities in Australia are investigating Google and a few other search engines for possible breach of the country's online gambling laws. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits advertising of gambling services on Web sites where 'it is likely that the majority of that site's users are physically present in Australia'. Banned services include online casino-style gaming services such as roulette, poker, craps, online poker machines and blackjack. Breaching the Act carries a maximum penalty of AU$220,000 ($168,000) per day for individuals and AU$1.1 million ($843,000) per day for corporations."

daria42 writes "It looks as if the $7 million Microsoft won from spam king Scott Richter won't go into a Swiss bank account and never be seen again after all. The company plans to dedicate a cool $5 mil to helping law enforcement agencies address computer-related crimes. Another $1 million will go to New York State to "expand computer-related skills training for youths and adults", with the rest being flagged to pay Microsoft's legal costs."

s0u1d13r writes "ZDNet Australia posted a special article from Oracle's CSO regarding the treatment and publishing of exploits and vulnerabilities by security researchers. From the article: 'There's a myth about security researchers that goes like this: Vendors are made up of indifferent slugs who wouldn't fix security vulnerabilities quickly -- if at all -- if it weren't for noble security researchers using the threat of public disclosure to force them to act.' An interesting read from the perspective of one of the largest software vendors accused of ignoring vulnerabilities by software researchers."