Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: VeriSign, Balance, Manifestation
Linux antivirus developers join Kaspersky Labs prostoalex writes "The Linux development team of Romania-based RAV AntiVirus, acquired this June by US-based Microsoft, joined Russia-based Kaspersky Labs. This transition took place after Microsoft confirmed there will be no Linux or Novell version of antivirus software. Kaspersky Labs now works on RAV Migration program for Unix/Linux users, since the company officials deem this market as one of the fastest-growing."
VeriSign must love attention. talon77 writes "Netsys is reporting that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Verisign due to their Sitefinder. It's about time."
And Anonymous Brave Guy writes "VeriSign are in legal trouble yet again, this time for handing over a domain name to a former employee of the former holder. Also some interesting tidbits in here about the impact of the sex.com case, the fact that since July domain names are regarded as property under U.S. law, and the idea that VeriSign might themselves be held accountable for punitive damages awarded against someone who takes over a domain name improperly."
Piling on, Anonymous submits: "Verisign seems to have issues with returning proper response packets for DNS queries on unused domains, so we thought we would give them a quick reminder in case they forgot what the right answer was. You can find pictures here. (This was on their building in Mountain View, and the signs said 'Verisign/Netsol, as if people didn't hate you enough already... How greedy/stupid are you? [Made with figlet/vim/a2ps/poster.c]')"
Update: 10/02 00:37 GMT by T : And (ooops!) this part got chopped off: "Note that the Verisign web search is powered by Inktomi for search and overture for ads, both of which are now owned by Yahoo. You can always vote with your dollars and your clicks."
Ohio uncappers peer at the ToS. Mike writes "Looks like Broadband Reports has posted a follow up to what happened to those Ohio Cable broadband users who had FBI agents confiscate their hardware for uncapping their modems (See original BBR story here, Slashdot story here). Looks like most of the offenders settled for fines and community service, but one took the case all the way, and eventually got it overturned because the cable company's AUP failed to clearly mention their legal stance on uncapping."
Thorn-in-side lessons, part IIXIIXV. jlechem writes "Lindows and Microsoft are at it again. Wired News is running a story about Lindows refusing to take down the settlement website reported on by Slashdot earlier. CEO Michael Robertsone stated 'Our plan is to continue to offer the MSfreePC service in spite of your threats. If required, we will be a voice in the courtroom defending a consumer's right to use technology and an online process to secure their settlement claims.'"
MPAA Scratches Oscar Screeners xstein writes "In a follow up to this story, the major studios have agreed to go along the MPAA's proposal to stop sending out screener tapes and DVDs to Academy members. The agreement would include MPAA's seven studio members, Disney, WB, Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and MGM, as well as their affiliates, which include New Line, Miramax, Focus Features and Sony Pictures Classics. Dreamworks, although not an MPAA member, also agreed to the ban. This move scratches a longstanding tradition, and is seen to hurt smaller, independent-minded movies distributed by MPAA members the most, though may allow truly independent studios such as Lions Gate to gain extra attention with their screener tapes. E! Online and Salon.com have the scoop."
Phantom Offices?
Ray B writes "On September 18th, Slashdot posted about an article on the Phantom video game console. Of particular note in the primary article investigating the Phantom's founder(s), was that the company did not even have physical offices.
Just four days later, the Phantom email Newsletter #2 is issued, with the first bit of news being:
"Infinium Labs recently signed a five-year lease on 10,000 sq. ft. of prime office space to locate its corporate offices in the Centre Pointe Building in downtown Sarasota, Florida. The Centre Pointe offices are in close proximity to many of the company's early investors, its corporate legal counsel and the industrial design firm that is developing the Phantom Game System(TM) prototypes"
Coincidence or damage control?"
Well, start with the Python then and work your way up. Wolfbone writes "A recent edition of 'Global Business,' a BBC World Service programme available here in RealAudio form, contains an admission that the BBC cannot afford to put it's entire archive online, contradicting an earlier Slashdot story and the BBC's own report. Even though it only has 11.56 Petabytes of the stuff, some of it recorded on wax cylinders, it would be too expensive, apparently, to keep their earlier promise. The rest of the programme is about the more general problems of long term archiving of data and how some organizations still don't trust digital electronic formats and prefer to stick with paper and microfiche."
Segway recall: in and out in 10 minutes! ptorrone writes "I got my Segway HT updated today, the 'recall' is a simple software update, it took 10 minutes and that was about it. To clarify what the recall is ...the HTs are not being sent back, Segway has people in each state of the USA and they update them. So far all owners have been notified and thousands have updated. The update makes it harder for people to ride after numerous low battery alerts (3 people out of 6,000 thought something else). Here are my pictures from the update procedure."
... What does banning screeners do to affect Indie filmmmakers?
Sorry if I'm being ignorant here, I'm not having a great day.
"Derp de derp."
The Library of Congress might fit the bill. Depends on how much of their archive is already digital.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Is it that hard for a "high technology" law firm to understand how DNS works?
A s/\"404\"/NXDOMAIN/g; would definitely improve their chances to win the law suit. ;-)
The actual complaint in the class action law suit has very serious confusion involving the technical issues surrounding the SiteFinder.
In the introduction, they discuss that the SiteFinder replaces what was previously done with 404 errors. However, as has been previously discussed many times here on SlashDot, 404 errors occur when the domain exists, but the requested document does not exist on the webserver hosting that domain (it is the webserver than returns the 404 HTTP error code). In actually, when a domain didn't exist, you would get an error stating "Could not find domain". The complaint even describes how, in the past, incorrectly typing a URL would give a 404 error (they use the typo "ssyncalot.com" as a typo of "syncalot.com"). This behaviour never occured.
Although I feel that legal action against Verisign is a good idea, the plaintiffs should perhaps organize their technical facts before appearing in court.
/<en
yea, they really showed verisign didnt they!
be nice, or we will tape MORE paper up over your logo, so that people wont know where you work!
that just screams obey.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
I couldn't help but notice the quote from John Weglian, chief of the special units division of the prosecutor's office, when explaing why he is coming down so hard on modem uncappers. Cyber crime is potentially very damaging to society. We are taking a firm position on that type of criminal activity.
Uh, yea. I guess that is why they are putting virtually no effort into stopping the blatantly criminal spam and viruses that are spewed out every day by the millions. Besides, law enforcement is so busy protecting companies... err I mean society... from uncappers.
Wasn't there talk a while back about watermarking each DVD sent to the screeners, so they could track who leaked it?
For preventative maintenance, they could have set up a DRM solution that depended on a screener's private key.
They could have embedded the video on a BSD or Linux boot CD with an encrypted FS, so they'd have the DMCA on their side.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Oh God, how embarrassing are those NXDOMAIN signs! I live around 3 minutes from Middlefield and Ellis, and I drive by there everyday. I didn't see this "protest".
Maybe, instead of using a dot-matrix printer, which made the letters almost invisible, they should have used a simple Sharpie pen. It would have been so much more visible. And maybe they should have used something else other than their obscure, stupid choice of words.
I wish I could see this entire debacle unfold:
1) Nerds spend hours thinking about a clever way of protesting
2) Nerds dig out their old dot matrix printer and print out their clever sign
3) Nerds put up sign outside of one of Verisign's buildings, not the HQ
4) Nerds take pictures thinking about how clever they are, and scamper off
5) Security guard comes by, sees sign, has no idea what it means, and throws sign in the trash.
It has zero impact, and makes these nerds look like such losers
I'm just thinking, if a few high volume websites were to include links to a 1-pixel GIF at bogus randomly generated domains, wouldn't sitefinder crumble, and zero the value of any collected statistics on domain name typos.
I think this would be much more entertaining than lawsuits or BIND hacks...
jeff
you should surround that system with a fork/forget, and add a timeout to the wget (or use curl with "-m #") so that you don't spawn off too many. (make sure to reap children in the spawning loop).
I'm sure a machine on a broadband connection could spawn 40 requests in the time it takes one to reply.
Finally, you should really consider not using the bare URLs in the request because all you really do is hammer your local DNS server.
instead, make fake requests DIRECTLY to sitefinder-idn.verisign.com. To see what the request ends up looking like, run wget with headers turned on with one of those fake queries.
Then duplicate the request but substitute that static IP address. Your ISP won't think you're DoS'ing their DNS.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
If ignorance of the law is no excuse, then neither is ignorance by the Law.
... how about some basic common sense? It's just unbelievable. How on EARTH could anyone believe that 23 individuals could appropriate a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS of bandwidth over cable modems in such a short period? It's not like they were tapping into an OC3 or a major fiber trunk. One would have every right to expect the cops to have at least asked for some evidence that an actual crime was committed! I am truly staggered. Okay, a cable company behaved in an unethical and/or criminal manner (insert sincere expression of surprise here) but the fact that a bunch of supposedly professional "police officers" were so easily taken in is, well, disappointing.
... arrests? Seizures? FELONY CHARGES? My God. People speeding in cars who run red lights and might actually kill someone are given more respect. Gang-bangers that shoot people dead in the street can get better treatment! What were these cops thinking? Were they thinking?
I'm amazed at the complete and total lack of technological prowess exhibited by the law enforcement officials in the Buckeye case. Law enfarcement is closer to the mark. Hell, forget the computer skills
Somebody higher up in the cops' food chain should have said "WTF? Slap their wrists, say you're sorry, and send these guys home." This is called oversight, and it is supposed to prevent such egregious abuses. I imagine it would probably have been more than sufficient to deter any future "abberrant" behavior. But
Law enforcement purports to protect us from wrongdoing and frequently does, but this level of irrationality by government officials is just unnerving. I mean, what kind of judge signed the warrants that (I presume) were presented during these raids? Whoever he (or she) was ought to turn in his (or her) robes immediately, and go work in a computer store for a few months and learn a few useful facts before returning to the bench. I would further venture to guess that there are many judges who would benefit from such training. My apologies to any judges in the Slashdot audience, but considering how many poor technology decisions I've seen handed down by the Judiciary lately I feel justified in my opinion. It is no longer enough to simply understand the Law: one must have a good grasp of scientific and engineering principles as well, and a basic understanding of such terms as "bandwidth" probably wouldn't hurt!
The sad truth is that merely being accused of a crime in this country is punitive in and of itself. The sadder truth is the increasing number of individuals and corporations who abuse that fact for fun, profit, or as a means of intimidation. This reminds me of some older cases involving the Bell System where publicly-available documents that were accessed by crackers were arbitrarily valued at tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was done solely and deliberately to exceed legal minimums on financial damage to enable law enforcement to take action. This kind of behavior is unethical as hell, and should be illegal in and of itself, if it isn't already.
And I'll further say this: the rest of the nation's cable companies had better start distancing themselves from the Buckeye debacle. If they're smart, they'll indemnify their users from such actions, and limit their own recourse to termination of services, in writing. For most people, broadband is an expensive luxury, yet one that most have felt safe in using (viruses, trojans, hackers and spyware notwithstanding.) At least, we weren't afraid of the service provider itself.
If the public perception of broadband shifts to one of fear and anxiety (we're already well-past loathing) users will simply put that disposable income into some other avenue of entertainment. If that comes to pass they won't need to worry about bandwidth caps: they'll be out of business, and then were would I get my MP3s?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
pshaw.
(I always wanted a good use for that word.)
Quoth he
"It's all academic anyway..."