Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Submission Summary: 0 pending, 11 declined, 7 accepted (18 total, 38.89% accepted)

Submission + - Drone aircraft nearly brings down passenger airplane (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: A German drone aircraft was within meters of bringing down a passenger aircraft with 100 people on board. The link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335122/Terrifying-video-captures-moment-German-drone-missed-Afghan-plane-carrying-100-passengers-just-metre.html shows stills from onboard the drone. The incident had been hushed up for nine years, and is creating waves in Germany now the footage has been leaked out.
Censorship

Submission + - UN to debate taxing internet data (cnet.com)

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: In an effort to get ever more taxes for doing absolutely nothing, the United Nations are to consider a European proposal to tax the internet based on data that gets sent. The proposal is designed to get money from large bandwidth users like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Netflix. Smaller companies that have high bandwidth would be forced off the internet due to the taxes.

The proposed measure is also claimed to be an effective tool for censorship as companies will just block access to countries to limit the amount of taxes they pay for data.
Privacy

Submission + - UK plans more spying of people on the internet under "terrorism" pretext 1

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: In vogue with other countries cracking down on freedom and democracy on the internet as discussed in Slashdot recently, the UK is joining in with plans to track all phone calls, text messages, email traffic and websites visited online, all to be stored in vast databases under new Government anti-terror plans. As reported in The Telegraph.

Security services will have access to information about who has been communicating with each other on social networking sites such as Facebook, direct messages between subscribers on Twitter would also be stored, as well as communications between players in online video games.

The scheme is a revised version of a plan drawn up by the ex-Labour government which would have created a central database of all the information. The idea later dropped in favour of requiring communications providers to store the details at the taxpayers’ expense.
Businesses

Submission + - UK consumers to pay for "online piracy"

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: An article in The Times states that UK consumers will be hit with an estimated of £500m ($800m US) bill to tackle online "piracy". The dinosaur record and film industries have managed to convince the government to bypass all laws, and get consumers to pay for the record and film industries perceived losses. Meanwhile the record and film industries have refused to move with the times, and change their business models. Other businesses have adapted and been successful in changing their businesses, but the film and record industries refuse to do so, taking the easy way out of protecting their cartels.

Surely the record and film industries should be the ones paying to chase up their perceived losses, not adding another stealth tax to all consumers.
The Internet

Submission + - UK propose broadband expansion + music / film tax 1

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: First the tech illiterates in the UK government want to extend broadband internet connections to every home, whether it makes sense or not, then at the same time they propose a £20 per year (approx $29US) broadband tax which they claim will pay the record and film industries for their failed business models. Coincidence the two proposals are linked? And why should people be forced to pay for the failed film and music industries?
The Internet

Submission + - Network Solutions target sub-domains for adverts

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: The register reports that customers have found that their defunct or forgotten about sub-domains have been taken over by Network Solutions to send users to advert pages. After going through a 59k word user agreement, you can find the following text:

You also agree that any domain name directory, sub-directory, file name or path (e.g.) that does not resolve to an active web page on your Web site being hosted by Network Solutions, may be used by Network Solutions to place a "parking" page, "under construction" page, or other temporary page that may include promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions' Web site,
Privacy

Submission + - FBI want access to UK's identity data register

Submitted by Wowsers
Wowsers writes: Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists. The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" — the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy. Original article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/humanrights/story/0,,2241005,00.html

Slashdot Top Deals

Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. - Alan Turing

Close