28742991
submission
concertina226 writes:
The Swedish Supreme Court will not hear an appeal from the founders of The Pirate Bay against prison sentences and fines imposed by the Swedish Court of Appeals, the court said on Wednesday.
Over a year ago, the Court of Appeals sentenced Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström to 10 months, eight months and four months of jail time, respectively. The court also said they must collectively pay a 46 million kronor (£4.3 million) fine.
28573947
submission
sweetpea86 writes:
Cloud providers based in the European market could turn the fear, uncertainty and doubt around data protection and the US Patriot Act to their advantage, according to Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum. The only way that European companies can absolutely guarantee that their data doesn’t end up in the hands of US authorities is by choosing a provider that not only has a data centre within their jurisdiction, but is also owned by an organisation based in that jurisdiction.
24408346
submission
superapecommando writes:
Simon Phipps, former head of open source at Sun and LibreOffice backer looks at a tempestuous year for the OpenOffice fork.
"Once framed as an impetuous fork, LibreOffice has become the standard-bearer for the former OpenOffice community," he says. "It's far from perfect, of course. New open source projects never are and volunteer projects lack the corporate resources to make it look otherwise. But I have no doubt that it's working."
23985540
submission
superapecommando writes:
With the benefit of hindsight, IT experts are claiming that technical countermeasures at Swiss bank UBS could have stopped rogue trader Kweku Adoboli running up a $2 billion loss.
19757386
submission
Krystalo writes:
isoHunt is still fighting its legal battle with the MPAA. In the latest episode, the torrent website filed a reply brief to the US Court of Appeals in which it suggests that Google, and not IsoHunt, is the largest BitTorrent search engine on the Internet.
19478658
submission
rifles only writes:
Firmware built into many solid state drives (SSDs) to improve their storage efficiency could be making forensic analysis at a later date by police forces and intelligence agencies almost impossible to carry out to legally safe standards, Australian researchers have discovered.
They found that SSDs start wiping themselves within minutes after a quick format (or a file delete or full format) and can even do so when disconnected from a PC and rigged up to a hardware blocker.
19244998
submission
arcticstoat writes:
As you may remember, a recent study claimed that just 100 users were responsible for downloading 75% of BitTorrent content, and were doing it for money, raising a lot of questions about the study. How do you profit from seeding, and how can the same 100 users be responsible for 75% of downloading and 66% of uploading. The details of the study are clarified in interview with one of the key researchers, showing that the study's actual statistic is that 66% of the original seeds indexed on the Pirate Bay come from just 100 users, and these seeds then go on to account for 75% of downloads. The interview also details how it's possible for this small number of seeders to make a profit from seeding, via embedding links to their own indexing sites in the filenames and bundled TXT files, which then get money from advertising if downloaders decide to visit the site, assured of quality downloads. Meanwhile, other ways of profiting include 'premium' registered accounts.
19208242
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
The London Stock Exchange has successfully set into live trading a new matching engine based on Novell SUSE Linux technology, following successful last-step setup procedures on Saturday.
The move has been billed as one of the LSE's most significant technological developments since the increasing prevalence of electronic trading led to the closure of the traditional exchange floor in 1986.
LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet has insisted that the exchange, once a monopoly, will deliver record speed and stable trading in order to fight back against the fast erosion of its dominant marketshare by specialist electronic rivals.
18997506
submission
iDuck writes:
When Wolfire Games released their animal martial arts games, 'Lugaru HD', on the Mac App store, shortly after they could be forgiven for thinking they were seeing double. A counterfeit version of the software is currently available on the app store at a much lower price point under the name 'Lugaru'. The best bit: as yet Apple have not responded to Wolfire's emails to rectify the situation. Whilst the source to the game was GPLed, "the license made it very clear that the authors retained all rights to the assets, characters, and everything else aside from the code itself".
18473420
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
BP's monitoring IT systems on the failed Deepwater Horizon oil rig relied too heavily on engineers following complex data for long periods of time, instead of providing automatic warning alerts.
That is a key verdict of the Oil Spill Commission, the authority tasked by US President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico disaster. It also criticised decisions...
17722228
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
BP ignored the advice of safety critical software in an attempt to save time before the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a presentation slide prepared by US investigators.
The slide in question briefly appeared on the Oil Spill Commission’s website in error, but was quickly retracted.
Advanced cement modelling software, provided by BP’s cement contractor Halliburton, had highlighted serious stability concerns with the well...
17489096
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
Advanced modelling software analysed the cementing conditions for BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well as unstable, days before the blast that killed 11 oil rig workers and let millions of barrels of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.
Halliburton, the company that carried out the cement job, used its own modelling software called OptiCem, to support arguments that more stability...
17314954
submission
Lanxon writes:
A prototype for an electric vehicle — code named Urbee — is the first to have its entire body built with a 3D printer, reports Wired. Stratasys and Winnipeg engineering group Kor Ecologic have partnered to create the electric/liquid fuel hybrid, which can deliver more than 200 miles per gallon on the motorway and 100 miles per gallon in the city.
17105006
submission
eldavojohn writes:
The ACLU has recently identified Network Neutrality a key free speech issue and said in a lengthy PDF report: 'Freedom of expression isn't worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free. And the Internet is without doubt the primary place where Americans exercise their right to free expression. It's a newspaper, an entertainment medium, a reference work, a therapist's office, a soapbox, a debating stand. It is the closest thing ever invented to a true "free market" of ideas.' The report then goes on to argue that ISPs have incentive and capability of interfering with internet traffic. And not only that but the argument that it is only 'theoretical' are bogus given they list ten high profile cases of it actually happening. If the ACLU can successfully argue that Net Neutrality is a First Amendment Issue then it might not matter what businesses (who fall on either side of the issue) want the government to do.
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."
