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+
... 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.
What seems more likely.... that the NSA tried to strong arm Qwest and when that failed decided not to try and get information from the other telecoms or the other telecoms are lying about not handing over our information? Qwest has no reason to lie while the other companies have 200 billion reasons to do so.
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.
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.
Then is the president of the united states lying in his statements that they are keeping a database of numbers called? Or is he just misinformed about what civil liberties his administration is currently disregarding?
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
The companies waited 5 days before even starting to try to tell us the story was false.
With carefully worded statements that avoid coming out and saying what the AT&T case already shows, that the NSA has built snooping into the phone system. Verizon came out and said that "the NSA program" is highly classified and so it can't comment on it. BUT we are not giving them phone records. OK, what ARE you giving them?
I'd give about as much creedence to these denials as Enron saying they aren't manipulating the energy market in California.
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?
No, since calling the story a "big flop" is your opinion. Come back when you know the difference between a fact and an opinion, and we'll reconsider your brilliant and insightful analysis.
Oh wow, weeks later they're insisting they weren't involved? I wonder why they didn't notice earlier... wait what? The judge declined a closed court hearing and is looking less and less like a republican stooge? Oh shit! They promised our involvement would never be made public! Quick, get the PR department on full spin! We did not have information exchange with that NSA agent!
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.
While it's true that I did not check the drive of the second AR laptop, I thought both laptops were showing the same thing and saw no need to investigate the second seemingly duplicate setup.
Yeah, we can't have journalists wasting any of their time doing things like investigating facts. Why would they have two identical setups side-by-side anyway? Wouldn't that warrant some kind of further study? As the original poster implied, Ulanoff saw no need to investigate further because he was too excited at having "caught" Sony doing something bad. Can we get Ulanoff a job at one of the major newspapers, or possibly in the Bush administration? Seems like he'd fit right in with those groups since they're pretty good at doing half-assed work and pushing their agendas.
If this was Sony's big coming-out party for Blu-Ray I could understand this having been a big deal in the first place, but it wasn't -- it was just a party for the 10th anniversary of the Vaio line. All this was was another excuse for the anti-Sony Fanboys to have yet another opportunity to bash Sony. I'm less than thrilled over the price of the PS3 and some of Sony's other moves, but this is ridiculous.
Something tells me that was the plan all along.
"Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
I think you've got it exactly right.
If HD-DVD can get a $200 player into stores by Chistmas and Sony is far behind and the PS3 is a no-show they have a chance.
But as a consumer of these discs, mainly through NetFlix, I'm all for BluRay, both for its non-scratch coating and so I can get an entire Season of '24' in HD on one disc. There, NetFlix just got 6 times more convenient. That's important.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Seems like he'd fit right in with those groups since they're pretty good at doing half-assed work and pushing their agendas.
Hate to break this to you, but upon closer scrutiny, you'll find that a disturbingly large portion of the world does things half-assed. You usually only notice how bad it is when you happen to be well-versed in a particular subject or if, as mentioned above, you scrutinize someone's work or findings.
This guy's the limit!