NJVil - Slashdot User

Submission + - U.S. House says the Internet is terrorist threat

Submitted by

GayBliss

on Tuesday November 27, 2007 @07:18PM

GayBliss writes: "The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 1955) last month, by a vote of 404 to 6, that defines the Internet as a terrorist tool that Congress needs to develop and implement methods to combat. The first 3 "findings" pretty much sums it up:

`The Congress finds the following:

`(1) The development and implementation of methods and processes that can be utilized to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence in the United States is critical to combating domestic terrorism.

`(2) The promotion of violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence exists in the United States and poses a threat to homeland security.

`(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

The bill now moves to the Senate for a vote. So where do you suppose they are going with this? Should we wait around to find out, or is it time to call your congressman?"

Submission + - Japan to start fingerprinting foreigners again

Submitted by

rabiddeity

on Sunday November 18, 2007 @10:03PM

rabiddeity writes: "If you're planning to visit Japan sometime in the near future, you may want to reconsider. Last year, Japan's parliament passed a measure requiring foreigners to submit their fingerprints when entering the country. The measures, which apply to all foreigners over 16 regardless of visa status, take effect tomorrow. The worst part: the fingerprints are stored in a national database for an "unspecified time", and will be made available to both domestic police and foreign governments."

Submission + - FBI Doesn't Tell Courts About Bogus Evidence

Submitted by dprovine on Sunday November 18, 2007 @07:54PM

dprovine writes: According to a joint investigation by series of articles in The Washington Post and 60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in 2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court. Does anyone at the Justice Department even care about what effect this will have on how the public in general (and juries in particular) regards the trustworthiness of FBI testimony?

Submission + - Comcast targets unlicensed anime torrents (animesuki.com) 3

Submitted by

SailorSpork

on Saturday November 17, 2007 @01:19PM

SailorSpork writes: "According to the linked thread on the forums of AnimeSuki, a popular anime bittorent index site, Comcast has begun sending DCMA letters to customers downloading unlicensed (meaning that no english language company has the rights to) fan-subtitled anime shows via bittorrent. The letters are claiming that the copyright holder or an authorized agent are making the infringement claims, though usually these requests are also sent to the site itself rather that individual downloaders.

My question is have they really been in contact with Japanese anime companies, or is this another scare tactic by Comcast to try and reduce the bandwidth use of their heavier customers now that their previous tactics have come under legal fire?"

Submission + - FCC Planning Rules to Open Cable Market (nytimes.com)

Submitted by quanticle on Saturday November 10, 2007 @12:02AM

quanticle writes: According to the New York Times, the FCC is planning to unveil new regulations for the cable market that will lower barriers to entry for independent programmers.

The rules would be aimed at stopping the growth of existing cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner, while seeking to encourage more small companies to get into the field. Also, earlier this month, the FCC struck down the practice of having exclusive contracts between cable providers and apartment owners.

All in all, this looks like a welcome infusion of competition into an otherwise stagnant market. The impact that this will have on the network neutrality debate is unclear.

Submission + - Australian On-Line Poll Based Senator, Dangerous?

Submitted by exeme on Monday October 15, 2007 @06:29AM

exeme writes: The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority.

The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state.

It's a new and interesting idea, but is giving the unwashed masses the chance to vote on party positions in this way a wise idea or something fraught with danger?

Submission + - First Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Li 2

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Thursday October 11, 2007 @10:29PM

walterbyrd writes: "According to the blog post on groklaw: IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state — Texas."

Submission + - AT&T issues formal 'censorship' mea culpa

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:05PM

netbuzz writes: "AT&T this evening has issued new terms of use language that it hopes will cap a firestorm of protest over the original version that appeared to give the company freedom to pull the plug on anyone who had the temerity to criticize AT&T or its affiliates. Whether you believed that threat to be real or overblown, the new language would seem to put the issue to rest.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20460"

Submission + - Mom blasts Ballmer over kid's crappy Vista OS (computerworld.com) 6

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @04:57PM

Lucas123 writes: "While on stage at a Gartner's ITxpo conference today, Ballmer got an ear-full from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who said after installing Vista on her daughter's computer she decided only two days later to switch back to XP because Vista was so difficult. Ballmer defended Vista saying: "Your daughter saw a lot of value"; to which the mother replied: "She's 13." Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and "for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well." Says the mother: "Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me.""

Submission + - Canadian Mint claims IP rights to words "one c 1

Submitted by knorthern knight on Monday October 08, 2007 @05:44PM

knorthern knight writes: A weird intersection of copyright/trademark with Canadian politics. Short background. Various Canadian cities and municipalities have launched a publicity/lobbying campaign seeking a fixed take from the GST (Goods and Services Tax, a national Canadian sales tax similar to European VAT). The amount sought is 1 cent for each dollar of the purchase price. This is summarized by the slogan "One Cent of the GST NOW". Acoording to this press release, the Royal Canadian Mint (the federal agency that prints Canadian paper currency and stamps Canadian coins) has demanded royalties for use of the phrase "one cent", and the image of the Canadian penny. The Royal Canadian Mint, a corporation of the federal government, has now demanded that the City of Toronto pay $47,680 for the public education campaign. Included in this amount is a request for $10,000 for the use of the words "one cent" in the campaign website address (www.onecentnow.ca) and the campaign email address (onecentnow@toronto.ca), and an additional $10,000 for the use of the words "one cent" in the campaign phone number (416-ONE CENT). The remaining $27,680 has been assessed against the City for the use of the image of the Canadian penny in printed materials such as pins and posters.

Submission + - Change Google Background Color To Save Energy?

Submitted by i_like_spam on Thursday July 26, 2007 @04:44PM

i_like_spam writes: Recent commentary at Nature Climate Change describes an on-going debate about the energy savings associated with the background colors used by high-traffic websites such as Google and the NYTimes. A back of the envelope calculation has suggested energy savings of 750 Megawatt hours per year if Google switched their background from white to black. In response, a new version of Google called Blackle was created. However, other calculations by the Wall Street Journal suggest minimal energy savings. Who is right in this debate? Should web designers also consider potential energy savings when choosing colors for their sites?

Submission + - Wikipedia corrects Enciclopaedia Britannica (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by

javipas

on Monday July 23, 2007 @08:27AM

javipas writes: "Despite all the controversy about Wikipedia's work model, no one can argue the potential of a project that has demonstrated the usefulness of the "wisdom of crowds" concept. And that wisdom has been able to detect several mistakes on one of the most relevant references on human knowledge: the Enciclopaedia Britannica. All kind of data has been spotted as wrong, such as the birthdate of Bill Clinton or the definition of NP problems in Mathematics."

Submission + - Senate Majority Leader Takes on File Sharing (insidehighered.com)

Submitted by on Monday July 23, 2007 @06:03AM

An anonymous reader writes: Colleges are up in arms — and entertainment industry is ecstatic — over Sen. Harry Reid's plan to crack down on file sharing by students. Floor votes could be imminent.

Submission + - No OLPCs for Cuba. Ever.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 28, 2007 @05:31AM

An anonymous reader writes: In a move going largely unnoticed by the developers the OLPC project now requires all submissions to the project to be hosted in the RedHat Fedora project.

While not seeming like a big deal, the implications are interesting. First, contributors have to sign the Fedora Project Individual Contributor License Agreement. By being forced to submit contributions to the Fedora repository they automatically fall under the provisions of US export law. So, no OLPC for Cuba, Syria and the likes. Ever.

But at least the OLPC project will build a nice business for RedHat The software borrows from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, with about 95 per cent of the code overlapping.

Submission + - Judge Deals Blow to RIAA

Submitted by jcgam69 on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @04:57PM

jcgam69 writes: A federal judge in New Mexico has put the brakes on the RIAA's lawsuit train, at least in the US District Court for New Mexico. The case in question is part of the RIAA's campaign against file-sharing on college campuses and names "Does 1-16," who allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using the University of New Mexico's network. In a ruling issued last month but disclosed today by file-sharing attorney Ray Beckerman, Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia denied the RIAA's motion to engage in discovery. This means that the RIAA will not be able to easily get subpoenas to obtain identifying information from the University.

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