http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl News for nerds, stuff that matters en-us Copyright 1997-2009, Geeknet, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2009-12-25T00:13:04+00:00 Geeknet, Inc. help@slashdot.org Technology hourly 1 1970-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://a.fsdn.com/sd/topics/topicslashdot.gif http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl //slashdot.org/submission/1140010/Software-fraudster-fooled-CIA-into-terror-alert?from=rss The Register, citing this Playboy article, reports that a Nevada man named Dennis Montgomery was able in 2003 to connive his way into a position of respectabilty at the CIA on the basis of his company's claimed ability, using software, to "detect and decrypt 'barcodes' in broadcasts by Al Jazeera, the Qatari news station." Montgomery was CTO of Reno-based eTreppid Technologies, which produced bucketloads of data purported to represent "geographic coordinates and flight numbers." All of which, it seems, were hokum, finally debunked in cooperation with a branch of the French intelligence service — but not, says the article, before the fabricated information, chalked up to "credible sources," was used as justification to ground some international flights, and even evacuate New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. timothy 2009-12-25T00:11:53+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136772/Insurgent-Attacks-Follow-Mathematical-Pattern?from=rss Nature reports that data collected on the timing of attacks and number of casualties from more than 54,000 events across nine insurgent wars, including those fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2008 and in Sierra Leone between 1994 and 2003 suggests that insurgencies have a common underlying pattern that may allow the timing of attacks and the number of casualties to be predicted. By plotting the distribution of the frequency and size of events, the team found that insurgent wars follow an approximate power law, in which the frequency of attacks decreases with increasing attack size to the power of 2.5. That means that for any insurgent war, an attack with 10 casualties is 316 times more likely to occur than one with 100 casualties (316 is 10 to the power of 2.5). "We found that the way in which humans do insurgent wars — that is, the number of casualties and the timing of events — is universal," says team leader Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Miami in Florida. "This changes the way we think insurgency works." To explain what was driving this common pattern, the researchers created a mathematical model that assumes that insurgent groups form and fragment when they sense danger, and strike in well-timed bursts to maximize their media exposure. Johnson is now working to predict how the insurgency in Afghanistan might respond to the influx of foreign troops recently announced by US President Barack Obama. "We do observe a complicated pattern that has to do with the way humans do violence in some collective way," adds Johnson. pickens 2009-12-18T20:42:23+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137140/Climategate-spreads-to-Wikipedia?from=rss Some catnip to those who have long argued about administrator bias and groupthink in Wikipedia.Canada's National Post reports here and here that one of the objectives of those promoting Climate alarm was to control Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003 U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William Connolley, one of nine Realclimate.org team members, rewrote Wikipedia'½Â½Â(TM)s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling as well as working to erase the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period and infamous hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the team.According to the article Connolly created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles, removed more than 500 articles as an administrator and barred over 2000 Wikipedia contributors while rewarding those who supported his views. "In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement." sparkydevil 2009-12-19T16:51:55+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139526/Sceptical-climate-researcher-withholds-code?from=rss New Scientist is reporting that Nicola Scafetta, a physicist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina — whose work is often highlighted by climate-change sceptics, including US senator James Inhofe — is refusing to provide the software he used to other climate researchers attempting to replicate his results. Emails between Rasmus Benestad of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute in Oslo and Scafetta over the past week had Scaffetta repeatedly refusing to provide the code. "If you just disclose your code and data, then we will manage to get to the bottom of this," Benestad writes in one email. "I really do not understand why you are not able to write your own program to reproduce the calculations," responds Scafetta. xav_jones 2009-12-24T01:25:08+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139436/Voyager-Makes-an-Interstellar-Discovery?from=rss The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. azoblue 2009-12-23T20:10:06+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137134/Colliding-Auroras-Produce-Explosions-of?from=rss Another neat discovery from the lab of Larry Lyons at UCLA. As reported earlier on Slashdot, Lyons' group studies the dynamics of auroras. Their most recent discovery reveals for the first time the sequence of events leading to dramatic space-weather disturbances. Using a network of cameras deployed around the Arctic in support of NASA's THEMIS mission, they recorded over 200 instances of aurora's colliding, causing brillant displays of northern lights (See time 8:22 for such an example). elyons 2009-12-19T16:17:42+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139980/Really-misleading-ads-from-broadband-providers?from=rss From the I-really-wish-they-asked-me-before-getting-into-that-contract department: Gizmodo has put together a good compilation of the — seemingly almost criminally — misleading (largely plain wrong) advertising from our favorite local monopolies. My personal favorite is from At&t which states you need 3 mbps to use social networking sites like facebook (an accurate but still absurd requirement might be a something to effect of needing a multiple core processor if you allow of the javascript & flash to run on said sites) Bourdain 2009-12-24T20:37:24+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136934/Carriers-amp-Manufacturers-Are-Strangling-Androi?from=rss The Google Phone could be a ploy to upset the wireless industry, or it could be an expensive niche device. Either way, it'd be a bid to take Android back from the companies that seem hell-bent on destroying it. Read on to see how the Android's fragmented model is harming it and how Google could save it. loconet 2009-12-19T05:17:11+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1138922/Amazon-Kindle-proprietary-format-broken?from=rss The Register reports that the proprietary document format used by Amazon's Kindle and the Amazon online store have been successfully reverse engineered, allowing these DRM protected documents to be converted into the open MOBI format.Users of alternative E-book readers rejoice. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-23T01:47:16+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139780/All-GPLed-Code-Removed-from-MonoDevelop?from=rss A few days ago, Miguel de Icaza wrote on his blog that the whole MonoDevelop is now "free" of GPL-licensed code. "MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject;s Oxygene)." A move that may be seen as quite controversial. rysiek 2009-12-24T11:29:29+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139506/Cygwin-17-Released?from=rss The 1.7 branch of Cygwin, the Unix-like environment for Windows, has reached stable status after about 3 1/2 years of effort. Among many other changes, this release drops support for Windows 9x. Since the NT API and NT-based versions of Windows are more capable and somewhat less of a mismatch with POSIX (for instance, they include a security model), this has allowed for code path simplifications, better performance (particularly noticeable with pipe I/O), better security, and better POSIX compatibility. jensend 2009-12-24T00:23:19+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139926/Wikipedia-No-such-thing-as-Medieval-Warm-Period?from=rss In a manner startlingly reminiscent of Orwell's Memory Hole, Wikipedia's articles have been purged of most references to the Mideval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in order to bolster the current threat of Global Warming. According to The National Post "Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions."Read more: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/18/370719.aspx#ixzz0acuhm3RB zulux 2009-12-24T17:06:39+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139586/US-Patent-Office-Tightens-Software-Patents?from=rss A decision from a key panel at the Patent Office builds on last year's Bilski decision to place new limits on software patents. Just running some algorithm on a PC and claiming that you've built a patentable "machine" may not work any more. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-24T05:16:12+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137170/Where-are-the-Cheap-Thin-Clients?from=rss I am compelled by many aspects of desktop virtualization with one exception: the cost of the thin clients, which typically exceed that of a traditional box. I understand all of the benefits of desktop virtualization (and the downsides, thanks) but I'm very hung up on spending more for less. While there are some sub-$200 products out there, they all seem to cut corners (give me non-vaporware that will drive a 22" LCD at full resolution). I can PXE boot a home brew Atom-based thin client for $130 but I'd prefer to be able to buy something assembled. Am I missing something here? Anonymous Coward 2009-12-19T19:17:13+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136222/Ten-years-of-NET---did-Microsoft-deliver?from=rss Interesting snippet from this article from The Register: "If the goal of .NET was to see off Java, it was at least partially successful. Java did not die, but enterprise Java became mired in complexity, making .NET an easy sell as a more productive alternative. C# has steadily grown in popularity, and is now the first choice for most Windows development. ASP.NET has been a popular business web framework. The common language runtime has proved robust and flexible." The article also continues: "Job trend figures here show steadily increasing demand for C#, which is now mentioned in around 32 per cent of UK IT programming vacancies, ahead of Java at 26 per cent." cyclocommuter 2009-12-18T01:17:32+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136914/Chase-rips-off-charities-in-Facebook-Contest?from=rss As reported in the New York Times: Chase Community Giving of Chase Bank recently held a contest on Facebook in which users were encouraged to vote for their favorite charities. At the end of the contest, the 100 charities with the most votes would win $25,000 and advance to the next round to have a chance to win $1 million. Initially, the vote counts for each organization were made public, but two days before voting ended they were hidden, and the final totals have still not been released. While Chase had no official leader board during the voting, several organizations were keeping track of projected winners. Those projections were almost identical to the final results, yet several organizations including Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists. They had been performing very well (some within the top 20) until the vote counters were removed. Chase Bank has so far refused to discuss the issue with the organizations. SSDP has released a press release here and is calling for a boycott. ssv03 2009-12-19T03:59:32+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139582/isoHunt-guilty-of-inducing-infringement?from=rss The MPAA has won a summary judgment against torrent indexing site isoHunt for inducing copyright infringement. Michael Geist notes that "[t]he judge ruled that the isoHunt case is little different from other U.S. cases such as Napster and Grokster, therefore concluding that there is no need to proceed to a full trial and granting Columbia Pictures request for summary judgment." Attorney Ben Sheffner, who worked on the case for Fox, explains some of the implications, noting that "the most significant ruling in the opinion was the court's holding that the DMCA's safe harbors are simply not available where inducement has been established." This case could have implications on other indexing sites, and creates a gap in the DMCA safe harbor provisions that could have far-reaching implications on other sites. roju 2009-12-24T05:04:16+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136998/Verizon-Defends-Doubling-of-Early-Termination-Fee?from=rss Verizon is defending its decision to double its Early Termination Fee from $175 to $350, after being called to account by the FCC. They claim that it's because it allows them to offer more expensive phones with a lower up-front cost and that, because they prorate the fee depending on how much of your contract is left, they still lose money. Apparently doing something about the Verizon customer service horror stories isn't as good a way to retain customers as telling them that they have to pay several hundred dollars to leave. Anonymous Coward 2009-12-19T08:30:36+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139482/Comcast-pays-for-blocking-large-file-transfers?from=rss Comcast Corp. has agreed to pay up to $16 million to settle a class-action lawsuit accusing the cable TV operator of delaying transfers of large movie and music files despite promises of unfettered Internet access. hessian 2009-12-23T22:36:48+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137390/When-Developers-Work-Late-Should-Manager-Stay?from=rss A veteran developer looks back — in irritation — at those times he had to work late, and his unskilled manager stayed too, just to look over his shoulder and add worry and fret to the process. Now that same developer, lo and behold, is a manager himself — and recently stayed late to ride herd over late-working developers. "And guess what? Yep, I hadnâât coded in years and never in the language he had to work with." Yet now he understood: his own butt was on the line so he was staying put. Still, does it really help developers to have management hovering in late evening, even if the boss handles pizza delivery? jammag 2009-12-20T15:59:33+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137142/Vimeo-sued-no-more-lip-dub-for-you?from=rss Music label EMI has sued Vimeo in federal court, charging that the site's emphasis on "original works" only extends to videos, and that it songs are widely used without a license. It also says that Vimeo staffers must know about the infringement... since they've been doing it themselves. USS_Natas 2009-12-19T16:59:13+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1137350/Prosecutors-Want-Open-Source-AIG-Investigation?from=rss As you may recall, the citizens of the US shelled out about $85 billion to bail out AIG and its creditors (Goldman Sachs in particular) last year. But as 80% owners of AIG, we still don't know what happened exactly. That may change. In an NYTimes Op-Ed, former prosecutors (including former NY governor Eliot Spitzer) are calling for the US Treasury to force to AIG release its treasure-trove of emails to the public before allowing AIG to "break free" of our control. As the prosecutors put it, "By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of "open source" investigation. Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story." Good idea? VValdo 2009-12-20T11:42:34+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1139956/FBI-issues-code-cracker-challenge?from=rss The FBI today posted a pictogram on its site and challenged code crackers to solve its mysteries. In the bureau's challenge it is using pictogram symbols based on Native American motifs. The challenge offers over 50 words to decipher. coondoggie 2009-12-24T18:29:36+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1138850/BBCs-plan-to-kick-freeopen-source-out-of-UK-TV?from=rss Generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts: the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts. But the BBC has tried to get around this, asking Ofcom for permission to encrypt the "metadata" on its broadcasts – including the assistive information used by deaf and blind people and the "tables" used by receivers to play back the video. As Ofcom gears up to a second consultation on the issue, there's one important question that the BBC must answer if the implications of this move are to be fully explored, namely: How can free/open source software co-exist with a plan to put DRM on broadcasts? bluec 2009-12-22T22:45:33+00:00 //slashdot.org/submission/1136248/Obama-Backs-New-Launcher-and-Bigger-NASA-Budget?from=rss President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the Moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft. coop0030 2009-12-18T02:26:38+00:00