18027604
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Amazon has denied reports that its European sites were brought down by a DoS attack by a hacker group sympathetic to Wikileaks cause. The retailer was a planned target for the attackers, called Anonymous. But Amazon said it was a hardware failure in its European data centre network that caused the half hour outage in Europe.
17982122
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A significant event took place yesterday: potentially the biggest software patent troll of all has finally woken from its slumbers: Today Intellectual Ventures enforced its rights and filed patent infringement complaints in the US District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security; dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and Flash memory; and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) industries. Intellectual Ventures was founded by Microsoft, Intel and a Seattle based lawfim.
17004188
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Microsoft has unwittingly admitted that OpenOffice.org is a rival, by launching a three-minute video of customers explaining why they switched to Microsoft Office from OpenOffice.org. Glyn Moody writes: "You don't compare a rival's product with your own if it is not comparable. And you don't make this kind of attack video unless you are really, really worried about the growing success of a competitor. [Microsoft] has now clearly announced that OpenOffice.org is a serious rival to Microsoft Office, and should be seriously considered by anyone using the latter."
15466660
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A plane crash that killed 154 people in 2008 might have been partly connected to the infection of an important ground safety system by malware, a Spanish newspaper has claimed.
14741684
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
The UK government has said it will not upgrade its departments computers from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 because it would not be 'cost-effective'. A recent online petition posted to Number10.gov.uk received 6,223 signatures that called for the “Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6” due to its alleged vulnerability to attack, and because it requires web developers to specially craft sites to support the browser. This raises the question, what is the cost of an upgrade compared to a massive security breach?
14616670
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Software on medical implants is not open to scrutiny by regulatory bodies. Glyn Moody writes: Software with the ability to harm as well as help us in the physical world needs to be open to scrutiny to minimise safety issues. Medical devices may be the most extreme manifestation of this, but with the move of embedded software into planes, cars and other large and not-so-large devices with potentially lethal side-effects, the need to inspect software there too becomes increasingly urgent." A new report 'Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices' from the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) points out that, as patients grow more reliant on computerized devices, the dependability of software is a life-or-death issue. "The need to address software vulnerability is especially pressing for Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs), which are commonly used by millions of patients to treat chronic heart conditions, epilepsy, diabetes, obesity, and even depression." Will making the source code free to scrutiny address the issue of faulty devices?
13701288
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A high-tech effort by BP, to slow the oil gushing from its ruptured well head, led to a large accident yesterday that forced the company to remove a vital containment cap for 10 hours.
13249914
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Foxconn, the manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell and HP, is on the verge of pulling out of China, after a spate of suicides. The CEO has accused workers of killing themselves for financial compensation, and the company has stopped suicide payments to suicide victims' families. Foxconn CEO also told investors that it is considering moving its production operations to Taiwan, and automating many parts of its business, in a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs.
12727692
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
In response to a comment on yesterday's blog, Simon Phipps writes about the old rivalry between Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). "I have been (and in plenty of ways still am) a critic of OSI, as well as a firm supporter and advocate of the FSF. I believe OSI should be a member organisation with a representative leadership. ... But the OSI still plays a very important and relevant role in the world of software freedom." For instance: Licence approvals have become a much more onerous process, with the emphasis on avoiding creation of new licences, updating old or flawed ones and encouraging the retirement of redundant ones. It would be great to see the stewards of some of the (in retrospect) incorrectly approved licences ask for their retirement.
11921036
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
When I first read the news that HP was buying Palm for $1.2 billion, my first reaction was that HP had lost its marbles (âÅ"cluelessâ was how I tweeted it.) Why, I wondered, did it need to pay $1.2 billion for a dying platform when it could have used the increasingly-popular Android for nothing (OK, it probably picked up a few useful patents, as well)? I also thought that it didn't have the resources to enter the extremely competitive area of smartphones.
11497066
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Open source software is everywhere these days. In particular, Linux is being used increasingly to power embedded systems of all kinds. That's good, but it's also a challenge, because the free software used in such products may not always be compliant with all the licences it is released under, notably the GNU GPL. For companies that sell such embedded systems using open source, it can be hard even finding out what exactly is inside, let alone whether it is compliant. Enter the new Binary Analysis Tool.
10468022
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Nearly 90 percent of IT workers in the UK have said a laptop in their organisation has been reported lost or stolen, new research has found. Sixty-one percent said that this then resulted in a data breach, according to the ‘2010 Human Factor in Laptop Encryption Study: United Kingdom', a report produced by the Ponemon Institute for Absolute Software.
9752818
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A Gmail user has filed a class-action lawsuit against Google, charging that the new Buzz social networking tool set violates the privacy rights of users.Link to Original Source
9610564
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Despite only being launched this week, spammers are already targeting Google Buzz, the search engine's social network.Link to Original Source
9317446
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
You know something big must be afoot when people start to get worked up over video compression standards. Basically, the issue is whether the current de facto standard, H.264, will continue to dominate this field, and if not, what might take over.Link to Original Source
