Sunday, January 3, 2010
[Slashdot] Stories for 2010-01-04
Throughout its 18-year history, RSA Conference consistently attracts the
worlds best and brightest in the field, creating opportunities for Conference
attendees to learn about information securitys most important issues through
interactions with peers, luminaries and emerging and established companies.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/rsaconference
======================================================================
Slashdot Daily Newsletter
In this issue:
* New Zealand Cyber Spies Win New Powers
* Google Nexus One Hands-On, Video, and Impressions
* Google Sets Censorship Precedent In India
* Scambaiting Gets Comical; Internet Scammers All Dressed Up
* DC Sues AT&T For Unclaimed Phone Minutes
* 2016 Bug Hits Text Messages, Payment Processing
* VC Defends <em>Farmville</em>, Touts Virtual Tractor Sales
* Scientists Measure How Quickly Plant Genes Mutate
* Do IT Pros Abuse Their Power?
* Building Complex Circuits With Carbon Nanotubes
* Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data
* How Norway Fought Staph Infections
* Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards?
* Bono Hopes Content Tracking Will Help Media Moguls
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| New Zealand Cyber Spies Win New Powers |
| from the mmm-new-powers dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday January 02, @19:12 (Privacy) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/004246/New-Zealand-Cyber-Spies-Win-New-Powers |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
caeos writes "New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced
in New Zealand giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers
the [0]power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life. The
measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance
capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts,
email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social
networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand. The New Zealand
Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS or SIS) is an intelligence agency of
the New Zealand government."
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/004246
Links:
0. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3203448/NZs-cyber-spies-win-new-powers
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google Nexus One Hands-On, Video, and Impressions |
| from the there's-a-nap-for-that dept. |
| posted by timothy on Saturday January 02, @22:18 (Cellphones) |
| https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/015229/Google-Nexus-One-Hands-On-Video-and-Impre|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
wkurzius writes "Engadget has gotten their hands on a Nexus One and have
put their [0]first impressions up for the world to see, including whether
or not they think it's the 'be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone
eviscerator.' Their opinion? 'Not really.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/015229
Links:
0. http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/02/exclusive-google-nexus-one-hands-on-video-and-first-impressio/
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Google Sets Censorship Precedent In India |
| from the in-accordance-with-local-laws-and-privileges dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @01:27 (Censorship) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/0123216/Google-Sets-Censorship-Precedent-In-India |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
eldavojohn writes "Censorship varies from country to country but India,
home to a sixth of the world's population, appears to be [0]shaping up
much like China. Not far [1]behind everyone else, Google has
[2]increasingly censored websites with an incident where a very popular
[3]politician died and Google forcibly deleted and dissolved a group on
Orkut where offensive comments about the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh
were posted. An official from India's Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology said, 'If you are doing business here, you should
follow the local law, the sentiments of the people, the culture of the
country. If somebody starts abusing Lord Rama on a Web site, that could
start riots.' The lengthy opinion piece calls attention to the beginnings
of a definitive lack of free speech online for Indian citizens. A
spokeswoman for the 'Do No Evil' company explained, 'India does value
free speech and political speech. But they are weighing the harm of free
speech against violence in their streets.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/0123216
Links:
0. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/07/17/1732209/India-Joins-China-in-Censoring-Websites
1. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/12/30/0027217/Following-In-Bings-Footsteps-Yahoo-and-Flickr-Censor-Porn-In-India
2. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126239086161213013.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y._S._Rajasekhara_Reddy#Death
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scambaiting Gets Comical; Internet Scammers All Dressed Up |
| from the made-in-the-shadenfreude dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @04:40 (It's funny. Laugh.) |
| https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/076248/Scambaiting-Gets-Comical-Internet-|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Nurse Nasty writes "Scambaiting is a fun and relaxing full-contact email
sport. It's all about baiting Internet and email scammers into exposing
themselves and sharing that humiliation with the entire world. Recently I
[0]baited four different groups of Internet scammers into being comic
book action super-heroes, and then giving them their own 10-page graphic
novel. It's a bit of fun and eduction through entertainment." (Warning:
The comic contains a bit of naughty language.)
Discuss this story at:
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/076248
Links:
0. http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=177394
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| DC Sues AT&T For Unclaimed Phone Minutes |
| from the sheila-dixon's-mistake-was-subtlety dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @07:57 (The Courts) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/0631237/DC-Sues-ATampT-For-Unclaimed-Phone-Minutes |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Suki I submits news that Washington, D.C.'s attorney general has filed
suit (District of Columbia vs. AT&T Corp, Superior Court of the District
of Columbia), claiming the city has the right, through laws applying to
unclaimed property, to unused calling-card balances held in the name of
D.C. residents. "The suit claims that [0]AT&T should turn over unused
balances on the calling cards of consumers whose last known address was
in Washington, D.C. and have not used the calling card for three years.
'AT&T's prepaid calling cards must be treated as unclaimed property under
district law,' the attorney general's office said in a statement. ...
[That sum] represents some 5 to 20 percent of the total balances
purchased by consumers who use the calling cards. States and
municipalities have often similarly used unclaimed property laws, known
as escheat laws, to claim ownership of unused retail gift card balances."
Suki I links also to [1]Reason Magazine's coverage.
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/0631237
Links:
0. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BU3NF20091231
1. http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/03/dc-to-att-all-your-unused-minu
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2016 Bug Hits Text Messages, Payment Processing |
| from the y2k16-has-more-characters-than-2016 dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, @09:01 (Bug) |
| https://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/1312209/2016-Bug-Hits-Text-Messages-Payment-Proces|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "It seems some systems are suffering from a
Y2K16 bug. When 2009 ticked over to 2010, some Australian EFTPOS machines
[0]skipped to the year 2016. Coincidentally, some Windows Mobile users
are also having issues with their new year SMSes [1]coming from 2016.
What function could cause this kind of error?"
Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/1312209
Links:
0. http://www.smh.com.au/business/businesses-stung-by-boq-computer-bug-20100103-lmys.html
1. http://www.wmexperts.com/y2016-sms-bug
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| VC Defends <em>Farmville</em>, Touts Virtual Tractor Sales |
| from the see-the-economy-is-fine dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, @10:07 (It's funny. Laugh.) |
| https://games.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/1319257/VC-Defends-Farmville-Touts-Virtual-Tracto|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
theodp writes "In a blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson gives his
thoughts on [0]ripe areas for tech investment in 2010 ��� mobile, gaming,
new forms of commerce/currency, Cloud platforms/APIs, education and
energy/environment. Asked to comment on [1]scams and social gaming (he is
an investor in Zynga), Wilson [2]defended Zynga's Farmville: 'Zynga makes
almost all of its revenue on virtual goods. I said in my etsy/san telmo
post the other day that [3]more tractors are sold every day in Farmville
than are sold in the US every year. That's where the money is in social
gaming. The [4]"scammy ads" thing is total red herring that everyone got
excited about but is almost entirely irrelevant.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/1319257
Links:
0. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/01/areas-of-interest.html
1. http://slashdot.org/story/09/11/01/1421253/Scams-and-Social-Gaming
2. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/01/areas-of-interest.html#comment-27827553
3. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/12/thinking-about-etsy-in-the-san-telmo-markets.html
4. http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/11/12/0512235/emMafia-Warsem-CEO-Brags-About-Scamming-Users
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Scientists Measure How Quickly Plant Genes Mutate |
| from the starting-countdown-to-triffid-massacre dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, @11:11 (Biotech) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/1420226/Scientists-Measure-How-Quickly-Plant-Ge|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
eldavojohn writes "A [0]recent study puts observed numbers on genome
mutations in plants. This kind of research is [1]becoming more popular in
understanding evolution. The research 'followed all genetic changes in
five lines of the mustard relative Arabidopsis thaliana that occurred
during 30 generations. In the genome of the final generation they then
searched for differences to the genome of the original ancestor.' A
single generation has about a one in 140 million chance of mutating any
letter of the genome (which has about 120 million base pairs). Sound like
bad odds? From the article, 'if one starts to consider that they occur in
the genomes of every member of a species, it becomes clear how fluid the
genome is: In a collection of only 60 million Arabidopsis plants, each
letter in the genome is changed, on average, once. For an organism that
produces thousands of seeds in each generation, 60 million is not such a
big number at all.' The academic paper is available in Science, though
seeing more than [2]the abstract requires a subscription."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/1420226
Links:
0. http://www.physorg.com/news181467990.html
1. http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/18/1947238/Observing-Evolution-Over-40000-Generations
2. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;327/5961/92
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Do IT Pros Abuse Their Power? |
| from the hahahaha-yes dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, @12:15 (IT) |
| https://ask.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/160220/Do-IT-Pros-Abuse-Their-Power |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
An anonymous reader writes "I have noticed that many airports and
hospitals I've visited have some kind of internet usage policy in place.
Some use software similar to [0]Websense, which effectively blocks sites
based on blacklisting them by category. A commonly used blacklist
prevents users from accessing 'forums or discussion boards,' yet I find
that often these networks allow users to access sites like Fark,
Slashdot, Digg and other message boards that appeal to the technical
culture one might find in the IT world. In your experience, do IT
administrators abuse their supervisory powers? Has there ever been a
backlash from users or management for doing so?"
Discuss this story at:
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/160220
Links:
0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websense
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Building Complex Circuits With Carbon Nanotubes |
| from the series-of-nanotubes dept. |
| posted by Soulskill on Sunday January 03, @13:21 (Science) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/1721253/Building-Complex-Circuits-With-Carbon-N|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Lorien_the_first_one writes "MIT's Technology Review reports that
[0]carbon nanotubes are being used to fabricate complex circuits. From
the article, 'The first three-dimensional carbon nanotube circuits, made
by researchers at Stanford University, could be an important step in
making nanotube computers that could be faster and use less power than
today's silicon chips. Such a computer is still at least 10 years off,
but the Stanford work shows it is possible to make stacked circuits using
carbon nanotubes. Stacked circuits cram more processing power in a given
area, and also do a better job dissipating waste heat.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/1721253
Links:
0. http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24236/page1/
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ideas For Exploiting NASA's SRTM Data |
| from the this-is-just-the-1000-foot-view dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @14:27 (Earth) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/199219/Ideas-For-Exploiting-NASAs-SRTM-Data |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
MaxTardiveau writes with an excerpt from an article where the pictures
are worth clicking through for: "Ten years ago, in February 2000, NASA
mapped the entire world in eleven days. It's true: the mission was called
the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), and over the course of
eleven days, it used a big radar attached to the space shuttle to get
elevation data from the vast majority of solid Earth; practically all
land between 60 degrees North and 56 degrees South was included, with a
resolution of 30 meters (90 feet). Over 9 terabytes of data were
captured. It then took two years to process that data and make it usable
(and it is still being refined to this day). This data is freely
available to anyone, and the number of possible applications is almost
infinite. It's been used in GIS, cartography, environmental planning,
weather modeling (weather patterns are enormously influenced by the
topography), flight simulators, Google Earth, and the list goes on. In
this short article, I would like to give you a quick tour of the [0]kinds
of things this data can reveal. My hope is to get you thinking about what
else could be done with this incredible resource."
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/199219
Links:
0. http://integrity-logic.com/Blog/?p=30
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| How Norway Fought Staph Infections |
| from the they-fired-adrian-monk dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @15:32 (Biotech) |
| https://science.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/2018247/How-Norway-Fought-Staph-Infections |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
eldavojohn writes "Studies are showing that [0]Norway's dirtiest
hospitals are actually cleaner than most other countries', and the reason
for this is that Norwegians stopped taking antibiotics. A number of
factors like paid sick leave and now restrictions on advertising for
drugs make Norway an anomaly when it comes to diseases like
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). A Norwegian doctor
explains, 'We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We
tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel
better.' Norway is the most MRSA free country in the world. In a country
like Japan, where 17,000 die from MRSA every year, 'doctors overprescribe
antibiotics because they are given financial incentives to push drugs on
patients.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/2018247
Links:
0. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091231/ap_on_re_us/when_drugs_stop_working_norway_s_answer
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Is Early Childhood Education Technology Moving Backwards? |
| from the but-moore-didn't-say-anything-about-this dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @16:37 (Education) |
| https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/2110216/Is-Early-Childhood-Education-Technolog|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
theodp writes "Four decades ago, the NSF-sponsored [0]PLATO Elementary
Reading Curriculum Project (pdf) provided Illinois schoolchildren with
reading lessons and e-versions of [1]beloved children's books that
exploited networked, touch-sensitive 8.5"x8.5" bit-mapped plasma screens,
color images, and audio. Last week, [2]the Today Show promoted the
TeacherMate ��� a $100 gadget that's teaching Illinois schoolchildren to
read and do math using its [3]2.5" screen and old-school U-D-L-R cursor
keys ��� as a revolution in education. Has early childhood education
managed to defy Moore's Law?"
Discuss this story at:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/2110216
Links:
0. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/35/4a/13.pdf
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_My_Mother%3F
2. http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977968756&grpId=3659174697244816
3. http://www.innovationsforlearning.org/ecom/buy.php
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bono Hopes Content Tracking Will Help Media Moguls |
| from the for-the-chilldren-of-northern-ireland dept. |
| posted by timothy on Sunday January 03, @17:46 (Media) |
| https://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/01/03/2241248/Bono-Hopes-Content-Tracking-Will-Help-Media|
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[0]Khalid Baheyeldin writes "In his New York Times op-ed column, Irish
singer Bono, otherwise noted for his [1]humanitarian efforts [2]expressed
dismay at losses music artists incur from internet downloads. He notes
that 'we know from America's noble effort to stop child pornography, not
to mention China's ignoble effort to suppress online dissent, that it's
perfectly possible to track content.' He then goes on to wonder 'perhaps
movie moguls will succeed where musicians and their moguls have failed so
far, and rally America to defend the most creative economy in the world,
where music, film, TV and video games help to account for nearly 4
percent of gross domestic product.'"
Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10/01/03/2241248
Links:
0. http://baheyeldin.com/
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bono#Humanitarian_work
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/opinion/03bono.html
Copyright 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.. All rights reserved.
======================================================================
You have received this message because you subscribed to it
on Slashdot. To stop receiving this and other
messages from Slashdot, or to add more messages
or change your preferences, please go to your user page.
http://slashdot.org/my/messages
You can log in and change your preferences from there.
