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Privacy

Submission + - Google Reader shares private data, ruins Christmas (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Felipe Hoffa
Felipe Hoffa writes: One week ago Google Reader's team decided showing your private data to all your GMail contacts. No need to opt-in, no way to opt-out. Complaints haven't been answered. Some users share their problems, including one family that won't be able to enjoy this Christmas due to this "feature". Will this start happening with all Google products?

You can check a summary of complaints or the whole thread.
Education

Submission + - OLPC a hit in remote Peruvian village (chicagotribune.com)

Submitted by
mrcgran
mrcgran writes: "Chicago Tribune is running a story about the effects of OLPC on a remote village in Peru: "Doubts about whether poor, rural children really can benefit from quirky little computers evaporate as quickly as the morning dew in this hilltop Andean village, where 50 primary school children got machines from the One Laptop Per Child project six months ago. At breakfast, they're already powering up the combination library/videocam/audio recorder/music maker/drawing kits. At night, they're dozing off in front of them — if they've managed to keep older siblings from waylaying the coveted machines. Peru made the single biggest order to date — more than 272,000 machines — in its quest to turn around a primary education system that the World Economic Forum recently ranked last among 131 countries surveyed." A detailed log has been kept and a youtube video is also available."
Space

Submission + - Palau looking into satellite power in next decade

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The island nation of Palau is looking into creating a satellite-to-ground power transmission system. The system will use low-orbit satellites to transmit power to a receiver in bursts, unlike some other plans which rely on geostationary satellites. The initial 1MW project is supposed to go online "as early as" 2012 for a cost of $0.8B. Time will tell if this is cost-effective compared to traditional solar or other sources of power.
Privacy

Submission + - Tens of Thousands of Adult Website Accounts Hacked (www.icwt.us) 3

Submitted by
Keith
Keith writes: "Tens of thousands — or maybe more — accounts to adult websites were recently declared compromised and apparently have been that way since sometime in October, 2007. The issue occurred when the NATS software used to track and manage sales and affiliate revenues was accessed by an intruder, who apparently discovered a list of admin passwords residing on an unsecured office server at Too Much Media, which makes and maintains NATS installations for adult companies. It would appear that Too Much Media knew of the exploit back in October, and rather than fixing the issue tried to bury it by threatening to sue anyone in the adult industry who talked about it."
Microsoft

Submission + - FSFE Supports Microsoft Antitrust Investigation (linuxelectrons.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: "Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to implement free and open industry standards," is the message of a letter by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. To help achieve this goal, FSFE offered its support for a possible antitrust investigation based on the complaint of Opera Software against Microsoft. The complaint was based on anti-competitive behaviour in the web browser market.

"Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market", FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter.
Networking

Submission + - Netgear introduces Linux based NAS devices (linuxdevices.com)

Submitted by drewmoney
drewmoney writes: A LinuxDevices.com article introduces several of Netgear's Linux based NAS devices. These come in a 1.5TB model, all the way up to a 4TB rackmount version. These are geared towards the professional home user, and small and medium businesses. Comes complete with the usual RAID features, file system access and a built in USB print server. All are controlled through a WebGUI and some even have SSH access.

Comment Re:Last Time (Score 1) 354

by Crispin Cowan (#21795258) Attached to: Circuit City Rewards Execs As Stock Tanks
I have found this trend quite puzzling. I have bought several major items from Circuit City, and I'm quite happy with the price and the service I received. OTOH, I have bought some items from Best Buy, always felt like I had been slimed, and it is quite clear from the parent's links that Best Buy engages in lots of sleazy marketing tactics. So why is it that America likes to shop at Best Buy, and not at Circuit City?
Mars

Chance for a Tunguska Sized Impact on Mars 184

Posted by Soulskill from the flying-rocks-that-will-not-kill-us dept.
Multiple users have written to tell us of an LA Times report that an asteroid may hit Mars on January 30th. The asteroid is roughly 160 feet across, and JPL-based researchers say that it will have a 1-in-75 chance of striking Mars. Those odds are very high for this type of event, and scientists are hoping to witness an impact of a similar scope to the Tunguska disaster. From the LA Times: "Because scientists have never observed an asteroid impact -- the closest thing being the 1994 collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter -- such a collision on Mars would produce a 'scientific bonanza,' Chesley said."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Vulnerability Numerology: Defective by Design?

Submitted by rdmreader
rdmreader writes: RDM has a point by point disassembly of why the security vulnerability story George Ou of ZDnet regularly rehashes is wrong. Ou condemns Linux and Mac OS X by tallying up reported flaws and comparing them against Microsoft's. What he doesn't note is that his source, Secunia, only lists what vendors and researchers report, selectively includes or excludes component software seemingly at random, and backhandedly claimed its data is evidence of what it now tells journalists they shouldn't report. Is Secunia presenting slanted information with the expectation it will be misused, or is it just bad journalism at ZDnet?

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