Chinese activists evade web controls
Chinese dissidents say that despite the government's best efforts to stop them, they are successfully using the internet to spread their messages ever more widely through the world's most populous country.
"The more they do to block it, the more people want to get online," said Liu Xiaobo, who spent years in detention after leading a hunger strike in 1989 in support of the student democracy protesters on Tiananmen Square.
The government needs the internet as an integral part of China's economic opening up, but consistently tries to block anything it dislikes, stepping up its efforts during major events such as the National Party Congress, he said.
Although some subjects are still taboo, many of these internet discussions, bulletin boards and petitions have given birth to grassroots groups. Sometimes they succeed in having their causes taken up in the mainstream media, and even changing government policy.
Comcast targets bandwidth 'abusers'
By all accounts, George Nussbaum demands a lot from his Internet connection. He streams video and transfers large files from his office. His family downloads movie trailers and his stepson listens to and buys music online.
Nussbaum subscribes to his cable TV provider's high-speed Internet service, which, he thought, was built for such high-bandwidth activities. Then, in November, he got a letter from the provider, Comcast Corp., ordering him to dial down his usage or face service termination.
Nussbaum, who at first had no idea how many gigabytes he consumed, was willing to cut back. He called to find out by how much, but customer service had no answer. Then he asked how much he used. Again, Comcast wouldn't provide a number.
Lindows offers software for free over P2P
Linux software seller Lindows.com announced it plans to distribute its LindowsLive operating system for free via peer-to-peer networks.
LindowsLive allows people to run a Linux-based operating system from a CD, without installing it on their computer. The product previously retailed for $29.95 and was also sold over the Internet in a form that could be burned to a CD.
Lindows has a running legal battle with Microsoft over the name of the company, which the software behemoth claimed infringes on a Microsoft trademark. The two companies also have sparred over MSFreePC.com, a Web site set up by Lindows that offered to process customer claims from the settlement of a California class-action suit against the software giant. Earlier this month, a judge ruled against the Web site, forcing it to be shuttered.
E-Vote Still Flawed, Experts Say
Computer security experts hired to hack electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold Election Systems found that flaws in the machines could result in malicious insiders or outsiders stealing an election.
William Arbaugh, a University of Maryland assistant professor of computer science who participated in the test, graded the system an "F," "with the possibility of raising it to a 'C' with extra credit -- that is, if they follow the recommendations we gave them."
"I was really surprised with the totality of the problems we found. Just about everywhere we looked we found them," Arbaugh said.
Diebold President Bob Urosevich said in the release that the Raba Technologies report confirmed "the accuracy and security of Maryland's voting procedures and our voting systems as they exist today."
"They took a study that was highly critical of them and claimed victory. I don't understand the continuous need to insist that things are OK," said Avi Rubin, director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University and author of an earlier report critical of the Diebold system.
P2P companies say they can't filter
Responding to sharp criticism from legislators, a group of file-swapping companies told Congress that they have no ability to block copyrighted files or child pornography from their networks.
Graham and a quartet of other legislators sent a letter to P2P United's member companies last November, asking for assurances that the file-swapping companies would attempt to stop illegal material from being traded through their networks.
A company called Audible Magic, which installs song-recognition software inside Internet service provider networks, with the promise of identifying and blocking trades of copyrighted songs, demonstrated its software to members of Congress and the press in Washington D.C.
'CtrlAltDelete' Inventor Restarts Career
David Bradley spent five minutes writing the computer code that has bailed out the world's PC users for decades.
The result was one of the most well-known key combinations around: CtrlAltDelete. It forces obstinate computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands.
"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said.
Gates didn't laugh. The key combination also is used when software, such as Microsoft's Windows operating system, fails.
MyDoom virus declared worst ever
It's only two days old and still growing, but at least one security firm is ready to crown the MyDoom virus as the worst ever.
Finnish security software and services company F-Secure made the coronation late Wednesday, declaring the MyDoom the fastest-spreading worm ever and "the worst e-mail worm incident in virus history" in a letter research director Mikko Hypponen wrote.
Other security companies had evaluations almost as dire. MessageLabs, which screens e-mail, said it had intercepted more than 3.4 million copies of MyDoom, which infected one 1 of every 12 messages, at its peak. That compares with a total of 33 million infections and a peak rate of 1 in 17 for SoBig.F. MyDoom had already climbed to No. 5 on MessageLabs' list of the all-time most active viruses, surpassing previous annoyances such as SirCam.
F-Secure estimated that the worm was accounting for 20 percent to 30 percent of worldwide e-mail traffic Wednesday, putting it well ahead of previous nasties, such as the SoBig.F worm.
Needed: An RIAA for Porn
A California publisher of a pornographic magazine and website sued Visa, MasterCard and other financial institutions Wednesday, saying they facilitated the illegal sale of pirated sex images flooding the Internet.
"The defendants in this case ... are knowingly providing crucial transactional support services for the sale of millions of stolen photos and film clips worth billions of dollars that belong to Perfect 10 and third-parties," the suit reads.
The publisher of Perfect 10, Norman Zada, said in an interview that he had lost $29 million since setting up his business in 1996, including $8 million on legal fees. He said the problem was that he was spending thousands of dollars for nude photography sessions while many Internet sites were stealing his and other images.
SCO is like a "cornered rat," says Linus
In an email interview with BusinessWeek, open source hero Linus Torvalds describes how he went back to check the code he wrote a dozen years ago and which SCO claims is its copyright.
"For some of the files they claim copyright ownership on I went back 12 years in the archives to see their original form, and the fact is, I was a young guy at university in '91, and I [made] mistakes that I simply wouldn't [make] anymore, and that are clear signs of beginner [programming]. And those mistakes show how the code wasn't copied," he told the mag.
"Basically," he says, "SCO's arguments are just too wrong to even discuss rationally. He adds: "They're a cornered rat, and quite frankly, I think they have rabies to boot. I'd rather not get too close to them."
Homer Simpson let loose on US nuclear facility
Homer Simpson has apparently relinquished his post at Springfield nuclear plant to take up a new position with US Energy Department's Pantex plant in Texas.
Our suspicions are aroused because the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has reported that workers at the Amarillo complex nearly totalled the Lone Star State twice while dismantling old nuclear warheads.
In the first incident, highly-skilled operatives inadvertently drilled into the warhead's core, provoking a full-scale evacuation of Pantex. They later made a second Chernobylesque blunder by bodging a highly-explosive warhead part back together with tape.
Had they subsequently dropped the component, the likely outcome would have been a "violent reaction", with "potentially unacceptable consequences", as safety board chairman John T. Conway rather conservatively put it.