Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Sony Blu-Ray, Phone Records, Korean Cloners
Mathew Bevan speaks out on McKinnon case. mrkuji writes "Ex military hacker Mathew Bevan AKA Kuji has released his comments and thoughts about the goings on of the McKinnon hacker extradition trial."
New Zealand revises their view of OSS. sam_vilain writes "As previously noted here on Slashdot, the New Zealand State Services Commission has some problems with open source software. The new version of their legal guidelines document for OSS in NZ government, however, is a breath of fresh air."
Korean cloners facing possible jail time. reporter writes "In a stunning conclusion to the saga of the Korean cloning scientist who fabricated his results, the Korean government wants to throw him in prison. The BBC reports, "The South Korean cloning scientist who faked his stem cell research has been charged with fraud and embezzlement. [...] Prosecutors claim he [, using grant funds,] bought a car and paid contributions to politicians and company officials who helped to arrange his grants. [...] The misuse of state funds carries a jail term of up to 10 years, while a violation of bio-ethics laws can mean up to three years in prison.'"
The fight for .xxx to continue? Robert writes "ICANN has played down the role that the conservative US government had in its decision to reject a plan to launch a porn-only internet domain, while the company backing the .xxx proposal said it was considering an appeal. From the article: 'Stuart Lawley, president of ICM, after spending at least two years and over $2m on campaigning for .xxx to be approved, told us he thought the deal was shot down for political reasons, and said he was weighing a response. [...] The reason people suspect that US concerns were key, and the reason that the media keeps harping on about it, is because ICANN's powers are granted under a contract with the US Department of Commerce. That contract ends in four months, and so far nobody seems to know what happens after it expires.'"
More details on the Diebold problem. An anonymous reader writes "SecurityFocus' Rob Lemos has published an article with many more details on the critical Diebold problems, implications for upcoming state elections next week, and quotes from key scientists who have detailed knowledge of how easily the flaws can be exploited." Relatedly eldavojohn writes "USA Today is reporting that Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has resigned. From the article: "The board of directors and Wally mutually agreed that his decision to resign at this time for personal reasons was in the best interest of all parties," said John Lauer, Diebold's non-executive chairman of the board."
Supreme Court sides with eBay in patent suit. theodp writes "In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sided with eBay in a fight over the use of its 'Buy It Now' feature, which will make it easier for companies to avoid court injunctions barring the continued use of technology after a patent infringement finding, such as the one used by Amazon against Barnes & Noble in the midst of the Christmas holiday season over its soon-to-be-reexamined 1-Click patent."
AT&T denied a closed hearing. guygee writes "According to the San Francisco Chronicle, AT&T has lost its '11th hour bid' to force closed hearings on unsealing critical documents in EFF's class-action lawsuit alleging AT&T's illegal transfer of its customer's telephone and Internet records and communications to the National Security Agency. According to the report, 'An AT&T lawyer sent a letter by fax to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker on Tuesday asking that the courtroom be closed during any discussion of its trade secrets or confidential information.' EFF is also reporting the breaking news on the case." Relatedly DarkAudit writes "A commissioner for the FCC wants an investigation into whether or not phone companies broke the law by handing over their records to the NSA."
Sony's Blu-Ray demo on the level. eaglebtc writes "Gearlog.com has retracted a previous accusation against Sony regarding their alleged use of a DVD+R instead of a Blu-Ray disc in a demonstration. In the original announcement, Gearlog.com claimed that Sony was using a DVD+R to demonstrate Blu-Ray technology, in an attempt to show that Sony was not ready to market the product."
good! he's a fraud and deserves punishment. Sounds like the prosecution has a lock case. Although I only think we're hearing about this because of all the political baggage stem cell research carries. There are plenty of people defrauding governments and companies worldwide.
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
Apparently, Lance was drunk during the event and thought he had some kind of big scoop when really he was too wasted to understand what was going on at the event.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
From Gearlogs "retraction" The fact is, Mr. Ulanoff, you thought you had a scoop and ran off to stick it in your blog. You did seem to think this was a "momentous discovery", at least that's what your actions suggest.
Be a man, admit you screwed up and move on.
Trolling is a art,
I took a look at their paper on F/OSS and I liked it. The people who wrote it really did an effort to understand the issues.
Anyone else want to weigh in on the fact that the NSA "phone-tapping scandal" is turning out to be a big flop for our vaunted mainstream media?
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
... that the 'Sony used a DVD+R for their BluRay Demo' meme will float into console fanboy lore, like the Toy Story claim...
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
If the phone companies say that they're not engaging in illegal activity, then I do not see why a mere journalism source has any place to claim otherwise. USA TODAY should print a retraction immediately.
If you cannot trust a telecom monopoly, then who can you trust?
Errr, I thought, the guy's resigned a second time?
No, indeed, it is not news. The 2005 date of the article is even embedded in the link. Halooooo Slashdot!!!
Doesn't anybody else think its a cheapshot to compare a Blu-ray movie to one on a single layer DVD? No commercial movies are that small anymore.
Have you ever stopped to think how much money can be made by the people who hold the organ duplicating stem cell cloning patents?
I have heard, conservatively, that the market value of this biotech intellectual property is worth more than 4 times the money spent on all electronics (Software, Mainframes, PCs, TVs, Radios, DVDs, calculators, etc. - all circuit based devices.)
With a few trillion dollars of revenue at stake, the leading competitor may be going to jail - for a long time.
That's a big win for Korea's competitors.
For anyone wanting real cures for real people -
perhaps the answers will be found here.
I can't help but wonder if this was mistake or an intentional attempt to boost HD-DVD sales by someone for stock reasons or something. The HD-DVD camp has been very shrill in decrying Blu-Ray the Beta of the new millennia, despite Blu-Ray's larger coalition of partners than its rival this time around and Blu-Ray's much larger storage (storage being a HUGE factor in Beta's demise). Beta did come out first, so the fit with HD-DVD is the more like Beta. HD-DVD is trying to claim a 2 month head start is insurmountable for Sony and Blu-Ray, but Beta had a least a year's head start on VHS.
I haven't seen any HD-DVD recorders yet. Do the HD-DVD notebooks have recorders or just players? Sony VIAO will come out with a read/write Blu-Ray in June I believe. If Blu-Ray is first with recorders that is the real race and death knell for HD-DVD.
Given the FUD form the HD-DVD camp I think they know that come June it is essentially all over for them. They will unload a few more players at or below cost. Brag about being first to market. then give up shortly after Christmas.
Letter To Iran
You don't have to have the entire movie on a single layer DVD to make a comparison. More than likely, they probably only burned the necessary footage for an A & B comparison.
So were these the same machines used to re-elect George Bush in 2004? Which states used Diebold devices then? I seem to remember some counties in Ohio did.
And no one remembered to tell Groklaw happy birthday--we're a day late, now :(
You know, I think that a significantly more secure machine could have been made using an XBox! It's absolutely a frightening indication of our priorities when the security of games is more important than the security of elections.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
The false story leads in an article; the retraction is hidden at the bottom of trash day. Nice.
Alright fine. Did you go to public school? The govenment's been having it's fix in. It isn't so much that I want the government to fix my brain, half as much as they'd quit pacifying everyone that the government says the brain is broken so that they would organize for a place at the work bargaining table. I'm not too crazy to get a job, it's that I'm a social pariah in a dying society. Read Les Miserables. Also, if the government didn't pacify the social outcasts, they'd have an uprising here to deal with as opposed to fighting wars in the middle east.
...when you can just spell out .org?
(OHH ARR GEE)
". They made the claim that the PS2 would put out graphics like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in real time."
Yeah, well it can't do tht either.
So what's your point?
Fast forward to last year, my girlfriend at the time was a self-employed contract graphic artist, bought music all the time, and criticised me on my stance. Her friends told her to use P2P software but she said that her computer was too important to put anything on there that might upset her work. Overall her and I sort of had this ongoing argument about it. Anyway one day I get a SMS from her, a big "Help Me". I got round to her house and her computer wouldn't boot into Windows. She's in a big panic, big job due the next day, it takes days to install all the software she needs to do her work, she's lost a bunch of work and her PC is stuffed.
In the end it was a big disaster, the job was screwed up and she lost a customer. A few weeks later I realised what the problem was, she was running Windows XP x64 and had put in a new Sony CD that had rootkitted her machine and overwrote some 64 bit drivers with some 32 bit drivers. PWN3D!!!! Explaining to her what happened was like the best argument win ever!! of course then we split, but it was worth it.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Oh larry.
Your trolls are funny, but not unexpected from somebody who takes blogging seriously.
The first line of the article begins with a false premise, and incorrectly reflects the amended law as of any time since 1978, claiming that what was written in 1968 was the correct interpretation of a document written 150 years, before communication could possibly involve anything more than direct than person-to-person or written correspondence.
The Omnibus... act was amended in 1978 to specifically remove the language which places the President's authority over all other concerns. Check out the current version of 18 USC 2511, and specifically the MISC2 section at the end, which outlines the changes to the statute through all amendments. The 1978 amendmeent, in fact, was the same one that overrode the portions of Omnibus... to reflect the details of the FISA legislation passed in the same year, which granted specific powers, to be exercised via specific procedures, with regards to electronic surveillance.
In particular, the "constitutional power" verbage was removed as overreaching, and 2 (e) and (f) were added to reflect the ability of the Federal government to conduct electronic and other surveillance of foreign communications on foreign communications networks granted by FISA. In no way, shape, or form does the collection of data regarding my phone usage fall under those terms, no matter how many degrees of separation from Al-Qaeda I am via Kevin Bacon.
If you want to be a strict Federalist interpretist of the Constitution, you better send your women back to the kitchen and keep your negroes in line...can't have them out, you know, voting and owning property.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/200 6/05/more_on_ebay_v.html
Wow, you really are totally batshit.
For detailed info on the hardware and software used by NSA at the AT&T central switching centers see my journal.
...
The evidence from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's suit against AT&T indicates that the pen-register (phone call records) and call-graph analysis is really just the tip of the iceberg. The equipment that the NSA installed in AT&T's main switching and routing centers is known, it is made by Naurus Inc.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Especially when the master of FUD is behind HD DVD...
Yeah, 'cos if there's one news site we can REALLY trust, it's Prisonplanet, the site that resulted from Alex Jones' realization that there's an awful lot of money to be made selling paranoia to tin foil hats. Tons of unresearched rumors presented as facts without any opportunity for critique. I know that a lot of crap makes it onto Slashdot but at least informed people get the opportunity to debunk it in the comments.
Godwin's Law should apply to any post that uses Prisonplanet as a source. It's about as credible as Timecube or David Icke.
Thanks for that link! Want to do something about it? The referenced article states:
Some googling found this link: U.S. Code collection: 78m. Periodical and other reports and the referenced section of the code states:
(emphasis: mine.)As I see it, these telecom companies could have been authorized to lie to the SEC, their shareholders, and the general public about their participation in this. How much will it take for people to realize what is going on... and do something about it? How about people contact the congressional members who are responsible for monitoring these activities? Wikipedia lists the members of these organizations and provides some background: Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives and Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate
AT&T has lost its '11th hour bid' to force closed hearings on unsealing critical documents
First, why the hell didn't the EFF go public with their evidence first? Depending on the outcome of the case, we might never know whether they stumbled onto something "real", or just something trivial that the NSA could hypothetically abuse under a combination of unlikely circumstances.
But aside from that...
How exactly does the evidence remain under seal in an open court? Do all parties involved use vague allusions and a lot of wink-wink-nudge-nudge to refer to the evidence without revealing anything about it to the public? Do spectators swear not to reveal anything they see or hear (yeah, that would work - until about 30 seconds after the end of the first session)? Do the MiB use their magic flashing memory eraser any time someone mentions a detail under seal?
So goddamned sick of all the secrets and lies. Who wants to join me in pushing for a constitutional amendment banning the use of secrecy or any form of "classified" designation (perhaps with a nonrenewable two-week-maximum exception for situations where revealing such information would directly threaten American lives)? Time to let these arrogant twats know who they work for!
In tomorrows news, FCC commissioner resigns after phone records of calls to his mistress were leaked by the NSA.
ok, this just doesnt make any bloodly sence.... making a single domain for the slew of porn sites would make blocking them a painless task. One would think that the far right would love that idea.
If you are concerned about the legitimacy of our democratic system it is worth looking at John Conyer's report on the irregulaties in Ohio's results - including three references to Diebold.
It's about 100 pages long, covers a range of issues, including the machines, and is very objective.
From what I've seen most of the world does things quarter or one tenth assed. I do things two thirds assed and I look good by comparison. ;-)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
How about some references to back that up? I find no mention of Danaher being a contributor to the Democrats. In fact, the news I read said that the way these machines were configured favored Bush. Also, I recall reading quite a bit more about problems with Diebold than Danaher.
Danaher used to be known as Shooptronics, and I found searching on Shooptronics to be more relevant, as there are evidently several companies called Danaher that have nothing to do with voting. I suspect Faux News (or wherever you got this information) disengenously noted that "Danaher" donated to the Democrats, without noting that it was a different Danaher.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I believe I read the idea somewhere else on slashdot, but why not simply restrict port servers to a special port? Then browsers could simply have an option to not allow sites using that port to send them a page. I do believe this would be significantly easier to impliment than .xxx, and would allow porn sites to keep thier domains. Of course my understanding of ports and thier functions might restrict me from seeing the problems with such a solution, or that this solution is simply too good to actualy become a law could easily prevent this from happening.
This guy had a real story right under his friggin nose and chose to go for the HOME RUN instead of a tipple. Sony did not fake this demo TOTALLY but it was still a VERY UNFAIR DEMO. DVD+R has half the capacity of a normal DVD, so when the Sony rep said that they used a burned DVD to get the content the same so they could have an apples to apples comparison with a Blu-Ray disc they were full of s*$t. They used a burned DVD to make the Blu-Ray demo look better, and to make people think that "wow normal DVD looks like crap". Next time don't get so excited, post the actual news, because im sure that would have been just as interesting to the readers and we would be discussing the fact that Sony was using DVD+R to compare to Blu-Ray discs instead of discussing how much of an idiot you are.
And because of this *huge* capitalist "profits" cost, this research should be publically funded (by the world) and then open sourced to the world, gratis, so then it can go into mass production once the tech is good enough to help billions of people. I say pay the researchers handsomely (perhaps a very large cash prize, like the various challenges), then set up publically operated non profit production facilities all over. This is just too important to leave to the usual gang of black suited greedsters to hold over the heads of suffering people who could be helped. Just like, for another timely example, avian flu research, it would be near total immoral to withold-keep expensive for some huge multi trillion dollar ransom-any good breakthroughs in a treatment or potential universal vaccine if the feared human to human deal broke out bigtime. Here's the capitalist scenario:
..well, it's feudalism gussied up with corporate jets instead of royal carriages is all.
"Sure, we here at bigpharmco got an avian flu cure pill..hmm, it's patented, trademarked, copyrighted, and seekrit..you understand, why we spent a lot of cash on this baby...capitalism you know..nuthin personal...just biznezz.. that'll be one million *per pill*, take it or leave it".
That's what capitalism is. I would have to say..I couldn't support that at all....and would certainly not want to be those folks underwriters in such a situation either.... because they would be cruisin for a bruisin real quick like from..ohh, say, a few billion annoyed people who don't have a megalarge laying around in the spare cash poker coin jar.
If governments can emminent domain seize some property to build some rich tards new screw-U-mart or a golf course or sports stadium "for the common good", then they sure as heck can emminent domain seize critical-emphasis on critical- medical research intellectual "property", but do it with care and fairness and generous recompensation, but NOT to the tune of a global mass transference of all or most of the wealth. That's nuts..insane, e-vile and stuff.
I don't see creating a new class of global health patent overlords who literally get to decide who lives or dies is such a hot idea. We need to think this through again, are we as a species ready to go to the next step in societal evolution, or are we going to just stick with
We need to finally decide that healthcare for humans should be shared, the knowledege shared, and have it done at the best possible low cost so that it CAN be shared.
> if the government didn't pacify the social outcasts, they'd have an uprising here to deal with as opposed to fighting wars in the middle east.
yeah, you pretend like you and your underclass have any power.
Historically, groups that have had uprisings have been depended on by those in power i.e., workers, members of occupied states with valuable resources, etc. Social outcasts do not have power. They don't have anything to offer civilized society. They could be bulldozed the ground if not for the compassion of the powerful.
You should be thankful. And on another site, like FARK, where you would fit in.
I'd rather be dead.
More precisely, if I'm really that useless to them, then they should quit beating around the bush and take me (and others like me) out.