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Google

Submission + - Senator Tells Apple and Google to "Curb your spy planes" (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by mk1004
mk1004 writes: US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has written both companies regarding their use of "military-grade spy planes." The Senator claims concerns ranging from voyeurism to terrorism. Suggested protections: Warn when areas are going to be imaged, give property
Network

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to Evacuate a Network (shambhalamountain.org)

Submitted by
gpowers
gpowers writes: "I am the IT Manager for Shambhala Mountain Center, near Red Feather Lakes, Colorado. We are in the pre-evacuation area for the High Park Fire. What is the best way to load 50+ workstations, 6 servers, IP phones, networking gear, printers and wireless equipment into a 17-foot U-Haul? We have limited packing supplies. We also need to spend as much time as possible working with the fire crew on fire risk mitigation."
Iphone

Apple Releases IOS 4.3 Beta To Developers 101

Posted by samzenpus from the taking-it-for-a-test-drive dept.
m2pc writes "Apple has just released iOS 4.3 beta to developers. New features include: Developer access to AirPlay API, Four and Five-finger gestures, and the return of the hardware orientation lock for iPad, a feature that upset many when Apple suddenly removed this feature with no software option to re-enable it. Also interesting to note is the lack of mention of the Mobile Hotspot feature rumored to be included in 4.3 for all iOS devices by the Verizon announcement yesterday."
The Military

Scientists Turn T-Shirts Into Body Armor 213

Posted by timothy from the will-stick-with-the-regular-kind-for-now dept.
separsons writes "Scientists at the University of South Carolina recently transformed ordinary T-shirts into bulletproof armor. By splicing cotton with boron, the third hardest material on the planet, scientists created a shirt that was super elastic but also strong enough to deflect bullets. Xiaodong Li, lead researcher on the project, says the same tech may eventually be used to create lightweight, fuel-efficient cars and aircrafts."
Cellphones

Owners Smash iPhones To Get Upgrades, Says Insurance Company 406

Posted by timothy from the dog-ate-it dept.
markass530 writes "An iPhone insurance carrier says that four in six claims are suspicious, and is worse when a new model appears on the market. 'Supercover Insurance is alleging that many iPhone owners are deliberately smashing their devices and filing false claims in order to upgrade to the latest model. The gadget insurance company told Sky News Sunday that it saw a 50-percent rise in claims during the month Apple launched the latest version, the iPhone 3GS.'"

Comment Re:I laugh ... (Score 1) 163

by ZenJabba1 (#27765705) Attached to: Australian Gov't Offers $560k Cryptographic Protocol For Free

It's a fantastic thing, this is a standards process that the Australian Government is going to implement across the agencies, and once its certified with CC for example, external parties will place trust in the process.

Basically the government is saying "we are not in the business of selling this technology, we like it, please use it and sell it back to us"
Security

Submission + - Critical .mdb flaw Found - Microsoft may Never fix (beskerming.com) 4

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "When independent security researcher cocoruder found a critical bug with the JET engine, via the .mdb (Access) file format, he reported it to Microsoft, but Microsoft's response came as a surprise to him — it appears that Microsoft are not inclined to fix a critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability with a data technology that is at the heart of a large number of essential business and hobby applications.

Where should vendors be required to draw the line when supporting deprecated file formats and technology? In this case, leaving a serious vulnerability active in a deprecated technology could have serious effects if an exploit were to target it, but it is a matter of finding the right balance of security and usability such that Microsoft's users are not exposed to too great a danger for continuing to use Microsoft products."
Censorship

NZ MPs Outlaw Satire of Parliament 282

Posted by kdawson from the head-and-shoulders-only dept.
mernil writes "New Zealand's Parliament has voted itself far-reaching powers to control satire and ridicule of MPs in Parliament, attracting a storm of media and academic criticism. The new standing orders, voted in last month, concern the use of images of Parliamentary debates, and make it a contempt of Parliament for broadcasters or anyone else to use footage of the chamber for 'satire, ridicule or denigration.' The new rules are actually more liberal than the previous ones, but the threat of felony contempt is new."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Our ATM is broken, so you go to jail? (myway.com)

Submitted by Actually, I do RTFA
Actually, I do RTFA writes: A short while ago, slashdot featured an article about possible criminal prosecution for people who took advantage of faulty slot machine software. At the time, many people drew an analogy to an ATM that dispensed too much money. Well, apparently, that too may result in criminal charges. Interestingly, although they suspect that someone may have tampered with the ATM, they are considering charging anyone who withdrew money from the ATM.

This also provides an interesting rejoinder to 'if they can build a secure ATM, why cannot Diebold build a secure electronic voting machine.'
The Courts

Submission + - Court: Web contracts can't be changed w/o notice (computerworld.com)

Submitted by RZG
RZG writes: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled on July 18th that contracts posted online cannot be updated without notifying users. "Parties to a contract have no obligation to check the terms on a periodic basis to learn whether they have been changed by the other side", the court wrote. This ruling has consequences for many online businesses, who took for granted their right to do this. (See for example item 19 in Google's Terms of Service)

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