2008-07-17

[Slashdot] Stories for 2008-07-18

======================================================================
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======================================================================

Slashdot Daily Newsletter

In this issue:
* MySQL Readies Release Candidate For 5.1
* Hack a Million Systems and Earn a Job
* Cuba Getting Internet Upstream Via Venezuela
* EU Proposes Retroactive Copyright Extension
* SCO Owes Novell $2.5 Million
* Spammers Choose GMail
* Linux's Security Through Obscurity
* Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story
* What Does It Take To Get a PC With XP?
* NASA Shuttle Replacement's Problems Are Worsening
* Firefox 3.0.1 Fixes 'Carpet Bombing' Issue
* A DIYer's Quick Guide To Cheap Wireless Extension
* Apple Climbs Into Third Place In U.S. PC Market
* Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You
* Rockets To Race Over Wisconsin Skies
* Liquid Mirror Telescopes Set For Magnetic Upgrade
* Schneier, UW Team Show Flaw In TrueCrypt Deniability
* Multiple Experts Try Defining "Cloud Computing"
* US ISPs Announce Anti-Child-Porn Agreement

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MySQL Readies Release Candidate For 5.1 |
| from the check-it-out dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 16, @20:21 (Databases) |
| http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/000200 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Anonymous Dolphin writes "MySQL has released plans for a final RC for the
[0]MySQL 5.1 server. Monty Widenius, the CTO and founder of MySQL, has
put up [1]a request for more feedback from the community. You can get
[2]the latest RC here. Please help with the testing of 5.1 and [3]report
your bugs here."

Discuss this story at:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/000200

Links:
0. http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/mysql-5.1-recap.html
1. http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/07/bugs-life.html
2. http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html
3. http://bugs.mysql.com/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Hack a Million Systems and Earn a Job |
| from the don't-hate-the-player-hate-the-game dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 16, @20:52 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/16/2230206 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "It has been a number of years since the
fantasy that [0]hackers will be offered a job by those who they hacked
was even a potential reality, but this might still be the case in New
Zealand. An 18-year-old hacker responsible for writing a number of
applications used by an online group called 'the A-Team' that allowed the
creation of a million-plus machine botnet and a range of credit card
fraud activities to take place, has walked free from court sans
conviction despite pleading guilty. And to top it all off, the NZ police
force were interested in talking to the hacker about working for them,
and 'several computer programming companies' were also [1]chasing him for
his skills."

Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/16/2230206

Links:
0. http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;351966581
1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/newzealand/2302732/Police-may-offer-18-year-old-computer-hacker-a-job.html


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Cuba Getting Internet Upstream Via Venezuela |
| from the welcome-to-the-80's dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 16, @23:06 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/16/2239236 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Seems like Cuba is working around the US
internet embargo by teaming up with Venezuela: A confidential contract
released yesterday on Wikileaks reveals [0]Cuba's plan to receive
internet upstream via an undersea cable to Venezuela, thus circumventing
the enduring embargo of the US, denying Cuba access to nearby American
undersea cables and overcoming the current limits of satellite-only
connectivity. The connection, to be delivered by CVG Telecom of
Venezuela, is to be completed by 2010 and will provide data, video as
well as voice service for both the public and governmental services."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/16/2239236

Links:
0. http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Cuba_to_work_around_US_embargo_via_undersea_cable_to_Venezuela


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| EU Proposes Retroactive Copyright Extension |
| from the nothing-lasts-forever dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 17, @03:14 (The Almighty Buc|
| http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/0226207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "EU Commissioner Charlie
McCreevy has unveiled a plan to [1]retroactively extend musical
copyrights by 45 years, which would make EU musical copyrights last 95
years total. Why? They're worried that musicians won't continue to
collect royalties when they retire and this will give them an additional
45 years during which they won't have to produce any new music. Perhaps
the only good point is that the retroactive extensions won't take effect
for any works which aren't marketed in the first year after the
extension. Additionally, while there are many non-musical retirees
wishing they could get paid for 95 years after they finish working,
McCreevy has not announced any new plans to help them."

Discuss this story at:
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/0226207

Links:
0. http://www.eff.org/support
1. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080716-eu-caves-to-aging-rockers-wants-45-year-copyright-extension.html


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SCO Owes Novell $2.5 Million |
| from the please-die-already dept. |
| posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 17, @07:57 (The Courts) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/0238234 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

CrkHead writes "Groklaw has posted [0]Judge Kimball's ruling on SCO v
Novell. For those that have been following this saga, we finally get to
watch the house of cards start to fall. For those new to this story, it
started with SCO suing Novell and having all its motions decided in
summary judgement and went to trial only on Novell's counter claims.
Cheers to PJ for keeping us informed!"

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/0238234

Links:
0. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080716182233901


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Spammers Choose GMail |
| from the my-inbox-it-hurts dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @08:47 (Spam) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1239244 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]EdwardLAN writes "A study by Roaring Penguin has discovered that
during the past three weeks, the amount of [1]spam originating from Gmail
has risen sharply." My spam has been pretty ridiculously high for the
last few weeks, although I have no idea if this is part of it. It really
does seem like gmail's spam filters are declining these days.

Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1239244

Links:
0. http://www.allspammedup.com/
1. http://www.allspammedup.com/2008/07/spammers-choose-gmail/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Linux's Security Through Obscurity |
| from the we-all-do-it-sometimes dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @09:31 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1242220 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "The age-old [0]full disclosure debate has
been raging again, [1]this time in no other place than at the foundations
of the open-source flagship GNU/Linux operating system: within the Linux
kernel itself. It beggars belief, but even Linux creator, Linus Torvalds,
has [2]advocated against the sort of openness on which Linux has thrived,
arguing that security fixes to the kernel should be obscured in
changelogs, saying 'If it's not a very public security issue already, I
don't want a simple "git log + grep" to help find it.' Unfortunately,
it's not kernel exploit writers who need to grep the changelog in order
to find kernel vulnerabilities. On the contrary, it's downstream
distributors who rely on changelog information in order to decide when to
patch the kernels of their distributions, in order to keep their users
safe."

Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1242220

Links:
0. http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0111.html#1
1. http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/1114
2. http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2008/Jul/0276.html


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story |
| from the just-get-more-computers dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @10:19 (Movies) |
| http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1353235 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Denofgeek wrote in to tell us about their story where "Pixar's
supervising animator Angus MacLane gives an interesting interview about
the [0]technical challenges in bringing Wall-E to the screen. Plus he
squeezes in a bit on his love of Lego, too..."

Discuss this story at:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1353235

Links:
0. http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/86635/angus_maclane_of_pixar_the_den_of_geek_interview.html


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| What Does It Take To Get a PC With XP? |
| from the sell-your-soul-to-the-devil dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @11:04 (Windows) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1355224 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Christopher Null tried to buy a computer with
Windows XP pre-installed on it from the United States' nine biggest PC
makers. His findings: You can get one, but [0]be prepared to fib."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1355224

Links:
0. http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;1496591483


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NASA Shuttle Replacement's Problems Are Worsening |
| from the parts-is-parts dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @11:43 (NASA) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1415247 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]ausoleil noted that NASA's replacement for the shuttle, the Orion, is
[1]slipping behind schedule "'We're probably going to have to move our
target date,' NASA exploration chief Doug Cooke told The Associated Press
on Wednesday after [2]Nasawatch.com posted the [3]117-page internal
status report (PDF) on the moon program. The cost problems include an $80
million overrun on a motor system. The Orion spacecraft's design remains
too heavy for the proposed Ares 1 rocket. Software development, heat
shield testing and other complex work remain behind schedule or over
budget. There are dozens of such serious challenges, many of which are
'worsening.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1415247

Links:
0. mailto:charlesboyer@nc.rr.com
1. http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/NEWS02/807170329
2. http://www.nasawatch.com/
3. http://images.spaceref.com/news/2008/cxp.charts.pdf


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Firefox 3.0.1 Fixes 'Carpet Bombing' Issue |
| from the break-out-the-bug-spray dept. |
| posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 17, @12:29 (Mozilla) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1441213 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Firefox 3.0.1 was released today. It fixes
[0] 3 security vulnerabilities, including a [1]critical issue reported by
Billy Rios, Ben Turner, and Dan Veditz. The issue could be combined with
an issue in Apple's Safari browser to read data from the user's disk or
to execute arbitrary code. This issue was [2]previously discussed on
Slashdot. The release also fixes a remote code execution bug involving
the [3]CSS reference counter, reported by the Zero-Day Initiative ([4]previously
discussed on Slashdot here), as well as a Mac-only potential code
execution bug involving [5]GIF image rendering, reported by Drew Yao of
Apple Product Security."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1441213

Links:
0. http://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox30.html#firefox3.0.1
1. http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2008/mfsa2008-35.html
2. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/21/1919223&tid=172
3. http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2008/mfsa2008-34.html
4. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/217205&tid=154
5. http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2008/mfsa2008-36.html


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A DIYer's Quick Guide To Cheap Wireless Extension |
| from the use-genuine-zip-loc-bags dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @13:17 (Communications) |
| http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1625254 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "This piece is described in one of the
comments on it as 'a little piece of genius'... and I have to agree!
Although Peter Cochrane seems a bit of a crack pot, the ways that he
comes up with to get [0]connected when he's out of range in the sticks
are pure genius and he makes them appear really simple! Think old
satellite dishes, USB dongles and plastic bags and you'd be on the right
tracks to upping wi-fi signal by 4 bars." A perfect excuse to link to one
of my favorite sites, if you want more details and photos on [1]similar
jury-rigged long-distance connections. However, your meterage may vary ���
I've found USB Wi-Fi devices to be pretty fickle under Linux, with some
distros working way better than others.

Discuss this story at:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1625254

Links:
0. http://networks.silicon.com/mobile/0,39024665,39259275,00.htm
1. http://www.usbwifi.orconhosting.net.nz/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Apple Climbs Into Third Place In U.S. PC Market |
| from the your-only-possible-choices-are-vista-and-os-x dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @14:03 (OS X) |
| http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1742257 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Tibor the Hun writes "According to Gartner and IDC, [0]Apple now has
between 7.8 and 8.5% of market share. While those numbers are not
astonishing, they are not insignificant, and their growth does not seem
to be slowing down. Will the pearly gates of acceptance open up for them
once they reach the magic 10%, and will that have a positive effect on
desktop Linux adoption? Hard to tell, but it's good to see that normal
people (not just us geeks) are choosing to go with a different OS, rather
than staying with the headache-inducing Windows."

Discuss this story at:
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1742257

Links:
0. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2325860,00.asp


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Logged In or Out, Facebook Is Watching You |
| from the damn-addictive-scrabulous-and-cute-iris-chang dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @14:50 (Social Networks) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1833212 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

kaos07 links to this ZDNet story, according to which "Researchers at
software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook
is [0]able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated
third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have
opted out of its controversial 'Beacon' tracking service. Responding to
privacy concerns, Facebook has since moved to reassure users that it only
tracks and publishes data about their purchases if they are both logged
in to Facebook and have opted-in to having this information listed on
their profile. But in 'extremely disconcerting' findings that directly
contradict these assurances, researchers at CA's Security Advisory
service have found that data about these transactions are sent to
Facebook regardless of a user's actions."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1833212

Links:
0. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Logged-in-or-out-Facebook-is-watching-you/0,130061744,339284281,00.htm


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Rockets To Race Over Wisconsin Skies |
| from the nitro-burnin'-funny-ships dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @15:43 (Space) |
| http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/1934207 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Iron Condor writes with a reminder that that the first race of the
[0]Rocket Racing League (last [1]mentioned here in April, after its
[2]2005 founding) is set to take place later this month at [3]Oshkosh
AirVenture 08. This race, says Iron Condor, "is exactly what it sounds
like: NASCAR 1000m above ground in rocket-propelled airplanes. Created by
[4]X-prize founder/CEO Peter Diamandis, this is 'the next evolution of
racing' (at least according to the [5]promo video, which is definitely
worth watching)..."

Discuss this story at:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/1934207

Links:
0. http://www.rocketracingleague.com/
1. http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/15/0116215&tid=270
2. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/03/1624221&tid=160
3. http://www.airventure.org/
4. http://www.xprize.org/
5. http://www.rocketracingleague.com/media/videos/RRL-Video(Promo-edited).mov


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Liquid Mirror Telescopes Set For Magnetic Upgrade |
| from the calm-the-hubble-hubbub dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @16:36 (Space) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/2024204 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

[0]KentuckyFC writes "Liquid mirror telescopes start life as a puddle of
mercury in a bowl. Set the bowl spinning and the mercury spreads out in a
thin film giving the surface an almost perfect mirror finish. But these
telescopes have two important limitations. First, they can only point
straight up since tilting the mirror spills the mercury. And second, they
cannot be made adaptive to correct for any blurring introduced by the
Earth's atmosphere. But liquid mirror telescopes look set for an upgrade
thanks to the work of a group of Canadian researchers. [1]Their technique
is to change the shape of the liquid mirror using powerful electromagnets.
They use a ferromagnetic fluid of iron nanoparticles in oil instead of
mercury which is too dense to be easily manipulated in this way. The work
is just proof of principle at this stage but the idea is to use magnets
to correct for the usual range of optical aberrations that telescopes
have to deal with ([2]abstract). And also to allow a liquid telescope to
be tilted by using oil that is much more viscous than mercury and
correcting any periodic deformation in the fluid that tilting might
cause."

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/2024204

Links:
0. http://arxivblog.com/
1. http://arxivblog.com/?p=525
2. http://arxiv.org/abs/0807.2397


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Schneier, UW Team Show Flaw In TrueCrypt Deniability |
| from the can't-prove-that-you-didn't-not-not-write-that dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @17:29 (Privacy) |
| http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/2043248 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier and colleagues from the
University of Washington have [0]figured out a way to break the
deniability of TrueCrypt 5.1a's hidden files. What about the
[1]spanking-new TrueCrypt 6? Schneier says that 'The new version will
definitely close some of the leakages, but it's unlikely that it closed
all of them.' Meanwhile, PC World is reporting that the problems Schneier
and colleagues found are [2]bigger than just TrueCrypt. Among their
discoveries: Word auto-saves the contents of encrypted files to the
unencrypted portions of your disk, and this problem should apply to all
non-full disk encryption software. Their [3]research paper will appear at
[4]Usenix HotSec '08."

Discuss this story at:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/2043248

Links:
0. http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=159192
1. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/08/027220&tid=93
2. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148513/data_can_leak_from_partially_encrypted_disks.html
3. http://www.schneier.com/paper-truecrypt-dfs.pdf
4. http://www.usenix.org/events/hotsec08/cfp/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Multiple Experts Try Defining "Cloud Computing" |
| from the chance-of-haze-leading-to-fuzziness dept. |
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @18:23 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/2117221 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

jg21 writes "Even though IBM's Irving Wladawsky Berger reports a leading
analyst as having said recently that 'There is a clear [0]consensus that
there is no real consensus on what cloud computing is,' here are no fewer
than [1]twenty attempts at a definition of the infrastructural paradigm
shift that is sweeping across the Enterprise IT world ��� some of them
really quite good. From the article: 'Cloud computing is...the
user-friendly version of grid computing.' ([2]Trevor Doerksen) and 'Cloud
computing really is accessing resources and services needed to perform
functions with dynamically changing needs. An application or service
developer requests access from the cloud rather than a specific endpoint
or named resource.' ([3]Kevin Hartig)"

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/2117221

Links:
0. http://alwayson.goingon.com/permalink/post/28058
1. http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/read/612375_p.htm
2. http://blog.cybera.ca/2008/06/grid-computing-cloud-computing.html
3. http://khartig.wordpress.com/


+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| US ISPs Announce Anti-Child-Porn Agreement |
| from the little-timmy's-law-against-all-things-that-are-bad dept.|
| posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, @19:28 (The Internet) |
| http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/17/2243210 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

An anonymous reader writes "It seems that ISPs have [0]gathered together
with 45 attorney generals and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children (NCMEC) to form an agreement to crush child
pornography. What does that mean? Probably the same as it meant for
RoadRunner, Sprint, AT&T and Verizon customers ��� the end of the
newsgroups." Here's the [1]back-patting press-release from the various
parties who signed on (the National Cable & Telecommunications
Association, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and
the National Association of Attorneys General), though the actual text of
the agreement does not seem to have been made public.

Discuss this story at:
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=08/07/17/2243210

Links:
0. http://www.slyck.com/story1715_ISPs_Nationwide_Unite_in_Attack_against_Exploitation
1. http://www.ncta.com/ReleaseType/MediaRelease/Historic-Agreement-Will-Strengthen-the-Fight-Against-Child-Pornography.aspx

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