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walktalker · 27-10-01, 08:36 AM

Mitnick and Gates, TV Stars
The world's most infamous hacker and the coder of the world's most frequently hacked software will be making appearances on TV series this fall. Hacker Kevin Mitnick will be playing a CIA computer expert on an upcoming episode of ABC's hot spy thriller Alias and Microsoft Chief Software Engineer Bill Gates will appear in an episode of NBC's Emmy award-winning Frasier in November. Gates plays himself in the Frasier episode scheduled to air Nov. 13. Mitnick appears in the Oct. 28 episode of Alias, playing Agent Burnett, a computer-savvy CIA agent who hacks into the network of bad-guy organization SD-6. Both Mitnick and Alias Executive Producer J.J. Abrams think the irony inherent in Mitnick playing a CIA agent is funny.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,47918,00.html

The Oracle of National ID Cards
Larry Ellison once was the richest man in the world. Now, in some quarters, he's on his way to being one of the most reviled. The Oracle chief executive's impassioned pleas for a national ID card prompted one nonprofit group to dub him the "privacy villain of the week," and conservative and libertarian activists are outraged. This week at the National Press Club, Ellison talked up the need for better government identification -- backed by Oracle databases, of course -- for everyone. Too bad he wasn't there in person.
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47788,00.html

New Eno Music Gets 'Generative'
Brian Eno, the electronic and ambient music pioneer, thinks today's computer-crafted tunes are lame. With software like Acid, Logic, Cubase and ProTools, musicians now have on the desktop a seemingly limitless ability to cut up, affect, loop and rearrange sounds. Altering the tempo, pitch and feel of a beat has become almost as easy as changing the font in this sentence. But that's not necessarily a good thing, Eno said.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47670,00.html

Parallel Polar Light Shows
Astronomers for the first time have seen auroral light displays at both the North and South poles simultaneously. Using NASA's Polar spacecraft, scientists have confirmed a three-century-old theory that the northern and southern lights are mirror images of each other. The film of the northern lights and southern lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) was captured during a space weather storm on October 22.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47920,00.html

FAA May Start Using Scanner That Looks Inside the Body
A low-dose X-ray body scanner, first used at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to look for illegal drugs hidden inside the body, may someday be put to work at U.S. airports looking for weapons and explosives. The Conpass Body Scanner, manufactured by a Dutch company and distributed by a small company in Florida, is one of several devices being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration to enhance airport security.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Oct25.html

Slashdot seeks revenue through larger ads
Slashdot.org, the "news for nerds" Web site popular among software developers and Linux fans, said this week that it plans to use larger ads and offer a subscription service. When Slashdot increases ad sizes, it plans to introduce a subscription service for people who want to pay for an ad-free version. Jeff Bates, who runs the site, said Thursday that Slashdot will launch the new ads and subscription service early next year. The cost of the service has yet to be determined.
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02

Google mulls premium subscription services
Google is considering offering premium subscription services as a way of boosting its revenues. Niche searches of specialist publications, hi-tech industries and for medical information targeted at enterprise and academic clients are among the options on the table for the popular search engine firm, CNET reports, citing unnamed sources at the firm. Content aggregation sites, such as NewsNow.co.uk, have sold subscription services, but other search engines (such as AltaVista and Lycos) have adopted a "pay-for-placement" route, which Google has steered clear of.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22491.html

clock speed and beyond
For some people, buying a new computer system can be as tough as heading to auto row to pick out a new car. When you buy a car, you ask about fuel efficiency and horsepower but then hop on the freeway to see how much get-up-and-go the car really has. In the end, speed probably won't be your deciding factor. You'll want to see how it handles tight curves. You'll want to turn up the stereo to test the speakers, and you'll probably look around inside to see how accessible those cup holders are. It's a combination of things that makes a car a winner.
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premiu...egahertz25.htm

Consumer Technologies Make Startling Advances in Decade
When this column started in 1991, the average "IBM-compatible" PC had no sound card built in and could only beep. Most consumer models also had lousy video, lacked a built-in CD-ROM drive or mouse and came without a built-in modem to connect to the outside world. They were stand-alone devices, little islands that ran boxed software and -- 14 years after the first mass-market PC -- still too often required their owners to be do-it-yourself hobbyists. Modems mainly ran at a pitiful 2,400 bits per second, only a fraction of the speed of today's worst dial-up models, although costly 9,600-bps models were also available.
http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html

Comet's death dive captured by satellite
A comet plunged into the sun on Tuesday and its death dive was captured by a NASA satellite. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft orbits about 1 million miles from Earth. Its mission is to monitor the sun. Scientists theorize that comets that buzz the sun are fragments of a huge comet, perhaps one spotted by ancient Greek astronomers. It's believed that the comet broke apart, producing a family of comets that astronomers call "sungrazers."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/1...met/index.html

Microwave beam weapon to disperse crowds
Tests of a controversial weapon that is designed to heat people's skin with a microwave beam have shown that it can disperse crowds. But critics are not convinced the system is safe. Last week, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico finished testing the system on human volunteers. The Air Force now wants to use this Active Denial Technology (ADT), which it says is non-lethal, for peacekeeping or riot control at "relatively long range" - possibly from low-flying aircraft.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991470

Maori take on hi-tech Lego toys
After challenging Danish company Lego to stop using Maori words for its hi-tech toys, New Zealand Maori are now planning to work with the company to draft guidelines on how to use traditional knowledge. Last week a Lego representative went to New Zealand to meet with the Maori, who had complained at Lego's use of Maori words in its Bionicle game. After deciding to stop using offending words in any further launches of the Bionicle range, Lego now wants to set out a code of conduct for the use of traditional knowledge in the manufacture of toys.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1619406.stm

The search for intelligent life at NASA
The bizarre constellation of events is prompting much soul-searching at NASA, as it looks back on an era marked by both notable accomplishments and striking failures. Successes during Mr Goldin's tenure include the mending of the Hubble Space Telescope, the dispatch of the Mars Pathfinder mission, which put the first craft on that planet's surface since the 1970s, the launching of several deep-space exploration probes and, most recently, the successful arrival of Mars Odyssey (see article). On the debit side, attempts to make cheaper reusable launch vehicles met with no success, and two missions to Mars that were supposed to follow the trail blazed by Mars Pathfinder were lost. Most disappointing of all has been the performance of Mr Goldin's most expensive achievement, the much-vaunted ISS. At a cost of $2½ billion a year (together with $3 billion a year for the shuttle programme, on which it is critically dependent), it is now an orbiting reproach.
http://www.economist.com/science/dis...tory_ID=832711

NJ Removes Chemical, Reservoir Data From State Web Sites
New Jersey has decommissioned Web databases detailing the state's reservoir system and hazardous chemical sites in an effort to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists. Loretta O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the databases were pulled "temporarily, for security reasons." The move comes just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed from its site risk management plans that detail steps communities should take in the event of a chemical disaster.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171567.html

Appeals Court Takes Stand On Domain-Name 'Confusion'
A U.S. appeals court has managed to support the application of a sometimes-controversial principle of trademark law in Internet "cybersquatting" cases at the same time that it denied victory to a company whose argument depended on that very issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit had been asked to look at the battle for Checkpoint.com waged by property-protection company Checkpoint Systems and network firewall vendor Check Point Software, the current holder of that Internet address.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171566.html

Pentagon Seeks Help On Denial Of Service Attacks
The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking information from technology vendors on how to defend against distributed denial of service attacks, according to a special notice published Thursday. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Operations (JTF-CNO) have invited vendors to submit an application to present "technologies or techniques that defend against increasingly prevalent Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks" according to the announcement at the Federal Business Opportunities site.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171562.html

Security Site Succumbs Again To Hackers
Proving that hackers can sometimes be masters of irony, a popular security news site has been defaced for the second time this week. Visitors to SecurityNewsPortal.com (SNP) Thursday night were greeted by a statement apparently from Marquis Grove, the non-profit site's operator. The attacker's message, which cleverly mimicked the style and format of an earlier announcement from Grove, said that German hacker-turned-entrepreneur Kim Schmitz had agreed to finance the site.
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171555.html

More news later on

27-10-01, 08:36 AM	#2
walktalker The local newspaper man Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Montreal Posts: 2,036	Mitnick and Gates, TV Stars The world's most infamous hacker and the coder of the world's most frequently hacked software will be making appearances on TV series this fall. Hacker Kevin Mitnick will be playing a CIA computer expert on an upcoming episode of ABC's hot spy thriller Alias and Microsoft Chief Software Engineer Bill Gates will appear in an episode of NBC's Emmy award-winning Frasier in November. Gates plays himself in the Frasier episode scheduled to air Nov. 13. Mitnick appears in the Oct. 28 episode of Alias, playing Agent Burnett, a computer-savvy CIA agent who hacks into the network of bad-guy organization SD-6. Both Mitnick and Alias Executive Producer J.J. Abrams think the irony inherent in Mitnick playing a CIA agent is funny. http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,47918,00.html The Oracle of National ID Cards Larry Ellison once was the richest man in the world. Now, in some quarters, he's on his way to being one of the most reviled. The Oracle chief executive's impassioned pleas for a national ID card prompted one nonprofit group to dub him the "privacy villain of the week," and conservative and libertarian activists are outraged. This week at the National Press Club, Ellison talked up the need for better government identification -- backed by Oracle databases, of course -- for everyone. Too bad he wasn't there in person. http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47788,00.html New Eno Music Gets 'Generative' Brian Eno, the electronic and ambient music pioneer, thinks today's computer-crafted tunes are lame. With software like Acid, Logic, Cubase and ProTools, musicians now have on the desktop a seemingly limitless ability to cut up, affect, loop and rearrange sounds. Altering the tempo, pitch and feel of a beat has become almost as easy as changing the font in this sentence. But that's not necessarily a good thing, Eno said. http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47670,00.html Parallel Polar Light Shows Astronomers for the first time have seen auroral light displays at both the North and South poles simultaneously. Using NASA's Polar spacecraft, scientists have confirmed a three-century-old theory that the northern and southern lights are mirror images of each other. The film of the northern lights and southern lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis) was captured during a space weather storm on October 22. http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,47920,00.html FAA May Start Using Scanner That Looks Inside the Body A low-dose X-ray body scanner, first used at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to look for illegal drugs hidden inside the body, may someday be put to work at U.S. airports looking for weapons and explosives. The Conpass Body Scanner, manufactured by a Dutch company and distributed by a small company in Florida, is one of several devices being considered by the Federal Aviation Administration to enhance airport security. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2001Oct25.html Slashdot seeks revenue through larger ads Slashdot.org, the "news for nerds" Web site popular among software developers and Linux fans, said this week that it plans to use larger ads and offer a subscription service. When Slashdot increases ad sizes, it plans to introduce a subscription service for people who want to pay for an ad-free version. Jeff Bates, who runs the site, said Thursday that Slashdot will launch the new ads and subscription service early next year. The cost of the service has yet to be determined. http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/ne...kpt=zdnnp1tp02 Google mulls premium subscription services Google is considering offering premium subscription services as a way of boosting its revenues. Niche searches of specialist publications, hi-tech industries and for medical information targeted at enterprise and academic clients are among the options on the table for the popular search engine firm, CNET reports, citing unnamed sources at the firm. Content aggregation sites, such as NewsNow.co.uk, have sold subscription services, but other search engines (such as AltaVista and Lycos) have adopted a "pay-for-placement" route, which Google has steered clear of. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22491.html clock speed and beyond For some people, buying a new computer system can be as tough as heading to auto row to pick out a new car. When you buy a car, you ask about fuel efficiency and horsepower but then hop on the freeway to see how much get-up-and-go the car really has. In the end, speed probably won't be your deciding factor. You'll want to see how it handles tight curves. You'll want to turn up the stereo to test the speakers, and you'll probably look around inside to see how accessible those cup holders are. It's a combination of things that makes a car a winner. http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premiu...egahertz25.htm Consumer Technologies Make Startling Advances in Decade When this column started in 1991, the average "IBM-compatible" PC had no sound card built in and could only beep. Most consumer models also had lousy video, lacked a built-in CD-ROM drive or mouse and came without a built-in modem to connect to the outside world. They were stand-alone devices, little islands that ran boxed software and -- 14 years after the first mass-market PC -- still too often required their owners to be do-it-yourself hobbyists. Modems mainly ran at a pitiful 2,400 bits per second, only a fraction of the speed of today's worst dial-up models, although costly 9,600-bps models were also available. http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html Comet's death dive captured by satellite A comet plunged into the sun on Tuesday and its death dive was captured by a NASA satellite. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft orbits about 1 million miles from Earth. Its mission is to monitor the sun. Scientists theorize that comets that buzz the sun are fragments of a huge comet, perhaps one spotted by ancient Greek astronomers. It's believed that the comet broke apart, producing a family of comets that astronomers call "sungrazers." http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/1...met/index.html Microwave beam weapon to disperse crowds Tests of a controversial weapon that is designed to heat people's skin with a microwave beam have shown that it can disperse crowds. But critics are not convinced the system is safe. Last week, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in New Mexico finished testing the system on human volunteers. The Air Force now wants to use this Active Denial Technology (ADT), which it says is non-lethal, for peacekeeping or riot control at "relatively long range" - possibly from low-flying aircraft. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991470 Maori take on hi-tech Lego toys After challenging Danish company Lego to stop using Maori words for its hi-tech toys, New Zealand Maori are now planning to work with the company to draft guidelines on how to use traditional knowledge. Last week a Lego representative went to New Zealand to meet with the Maori, who had complained at Lego's use of Maori words in its Bionicle game. After deciding to stop using offending words in any further launches of the Bionicle range, Lego now wants to set out a code of conduct for the use of traditional knowledge in the manufacture of toys. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1619406.stm The search for intelligent life at NASA The bizarre constellation of events is prompting much soul-searching at NASA, as it looks back on an era marked by both notable accomplishments and striking failures. Successes during Mr Goldin's tenure include the mending of the Hubble Space Telescope, the dispatch of the Mars Pathfinder mission, which put the first craft on that planet's surface since the 1970s, the launching of several deep-space exploration probes and, most recently, the successful arrival of Mars Odyssey (see article). On the debit side, attempts to make cheaper reusable launch vehicles met with no success, and two missions to Mars that were supposed to follow the trail blazed by Mars Pathfinder were lost. Most disappointing of all has been the performance of Mr Goldin's most expensive achievement, the much-vaunted ISS. At a cost of $2½ billion a year (together with $3 billion a year for the shuttle programme, on which it is critically dependent), it is now an orbiting reproach. http://www.economist.com/science/dis...tory_ID=832711 NJ Removes Chemical, Reservoir Data From State Web Sites New Jersey has decommissioned Web databases detailing the state's reservoir system and hazardous chemical sites in an effort to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists. Loretta O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the databases were pulled "temporarily, for security reasons." The move comes just days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency removed from its site risk management plans that detail steps communities should take in the event of a chemical disaster. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171567.html Appeals Court Takes Stand On Domain-Name 'Confusion' A U.S. appeals court has managed to support the application of a sometimes-controversial principle of trademark law in Internet "cybersquatting" cases at the same time that it denied victory to a company whose argument depended on that very issue. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit had been asked to look at the battle for Checkpoint.com waged by property-protection company Checkpoint Systems and network firewall vendor Check Point Software, the current holder of that Internet address. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171566.html Pentagon Seeks Help On Denial Of Service Attacks The U.S. Department of Defense is seeking information from technology vendors on how to defend against distributed denial of service attacks, according to a special notice published Thursday. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Joint Task Force for Computer Network Operations (JTF-CNO) have invited vendors to submit an application to present "technologies or techniques that defend against increasingly prevalent Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks" according to the announcement at the Federal Business Opportunities site. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171562.html Security Site Succumbs Again To Hackers Proving that hackers can sometimes be masters of irony, a popular security news site has been defaced for the second time this week. Visitors to SecurityNewsPortal.com (SNP) Thursday night were greeted by a statement apparently from Marquis Grove, the non-profit site's operator. The attacker's message, which cleverly mimicked the style and format of an earlier announcement from Grove, said that German hacker-turned-entrepreneur Kim Schmitz had agreed to finance the site. http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/171555.html More news later on __________________ This post was sponsored by Netcoco, who wants cookies, cookies, cookies and, you guessed it, more cookies