The Newspaper Shop -- Friday edition

[walktalker]

Week in review: Privacy in peril
Wal-Mart Stores shoppers can breathe easier knowing that an experimental wireless inventory control system won't be tracking them and their purchases from the store to their homes. Wal-Mart unexpectedly canceled testing for the system, ending one of the first and most closely watched efforts to bring controversial radio frequency identification technology to store shelves in the United States. A Wal-Mart representative said the retail giant would not conduct a planned trial of a so-called smart-shelf system with partner Gillette that was scheduled to begin last month at an outlet in a Boston suburb. Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology uses microchips to wirelessly transmit product serial numbers to a scanner without the need for human intervention. The technology is seen as an eventual successor to bar-code inventory tracking systems, promising to cut distribution costs for manufacturers and improve retailing margins.
http://news.com.com/2100-1083_3-1024...g=fd_lede2_hed

Researcher: Windows vulnerability remains
A class of attacks that allows a user to take control of any PC or server could leave computer systems in corporations and Internet cafes vulnerable to attack, a researcher says. Dubbed "shatter" attacks by the original discoverer, the class of security hacks uses the Windows messaging system to request that insecure but privileged applications run malicious code. The Windows messaging system is the medium through which applications and the Windows operating system communicate with each other. Oliver Lavery, an independent researcher and author of a paper published by security consultancy iDefense on Friday, said that Microsoft fixed the original flaw found but left the basic messaging system untouched. Applications that run with system privileges but don't follow Microsoft's recommended security practices allow the vulnerability to be exploited.
http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1025273.html?tag=fd_top

Open source targets Microsoft Exchange
A new open-source effort dubbed OpenGroupware.org has been launched with the explicit intent to create applications that compete with Microsoft Exchange server products. OpenGroupware.org is a sister project to OpenOffice.org, a community bent on developing open-source desktop applications that compete with Microsoft's dominant Office applications. The two groups identify themselves as separate but complementary and say they intend to work together to ensure interoperability.
http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-1024994.html?tag=fd_top

Judge: Violent-game law stifles speech
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Washington state law that would have prohibited selling some violent video games to minors, saying the measure appears to violate free-speech rights. The law, which was set to go into effect on July 27, would have fined retailers $500 for each game they sold to children under 17 that depicted violence against law-enforcement officials. In issuing a preliminary injunction that blocks the law on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik said the law was both overly broad and too narrowly targeted. He said the games contained complex plot lines, original scores and detailed artwork and deserved the same free speech protection as other types of media. Banning the games, he said, would raise broader free-speech concerns.
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-1025032.html?tag=fd_top

Torvalds wraps up current Linux core
Linus Torvalds has published the last release of the current Linux development kernel, clearing the way for work on the next version of the operating system core. Torvalds, who founded the Linux kernel project in the early 1990s, on Thursday finalized the 2.5.75 kernel, which he said would be the last in the series. The 2.5 kernel, a development project aimed at experimenting with new technologies, will be integrated into the 2.6 kernel for use in finished products. The developer, who recently took a position with the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL), said that work on a test version of the 2.6 kernel would now begin. "This is the last 2.5.x kernel, so take note," he wrote on a kernel-development mailing list. Torvalds added that he and developer Andrew Morton "are going to start a 'pre-2.6' series where getting patches in is going to be a lot harder."
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1024928.html?tag=fd_top

A royalties plan for file sharing
The Recording Industry Association of America has announced that it will soon bring its formidable legal forces to bear on the individuals who share copyrighted music files through the Internet. Starting as early as mid-August, it expects to file "thousands" of lawsuits against people who make large numbers of songs available on peer-to-peer networks. Its new strategy has many disadvantages and perils. The RIAA is right about three things. First, under current copyright law, the behavior of the file swappers is illegal. Second, partly (although only partly) as a result of the ubiquity of file swapping, the music industry is in crisis. CD sales continue to decline, record company revenue is falling at an accelerating pace, and many music retailers are going out of business. Third, among the groups threatened by this crisis are the creators of music -- the composers and performers.
http://news.com.com/2010-1071_3-1024...ml?tag=fd_nc_1

Five steps to master the digital domain
Digital photography has come a long way from where it was just a few years ago: Though light years from maturity, it's safely past the early-adopter stage. Turning digital now brings enormous creative power to the photographer, with far fewer early-generation problems. Cameras capture enough data to produce good-size prints—at the high end, extraordinary prints. Onboard processing power arms you against difficult light situations. Photo software and an inexpensive photo printer turn the PC into a desktop darkroom and print lab, minus the chemicals. Add a scanner and you can repair pre-digital photos as well, then save all your treasures by burning a photo archive to CD or DVD. Even the silver-halide purists, who are right that film retains advantages over digital — more data in the medium, richer tonal range in the print — concede that digital could fuel a renaissance in amateur photography. But to be a good digital photographer requires new hardware and software chops.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/compute...463201,00.html

High Street debut for net phones
Citizens of a leafy suburb on the outskirts of London will soon be able to report graffiti, broken streetlights and abandoned cars to the local council via kiosks in the street. The street-based information booths in the Surrey borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames allow citizens to ring the council's call centres directly. All calls made via the kiosks will be routed via the internet rather than over the traditional telephone network. The kiosk calling system is due to go live in August. Many local authorities have put kiosks on the streets to let citizens know about the range of services they offer. Some kiosks allow citizens to pay fines, book appointments, search for jobs, get directions or find out about their rights and benefits.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3058209.stm

Survey sees tech divide on data disasters
Business and information technology executives at U.S. companies have very different views about how prepared they are for a disaster, according to a survey to be released Monday. The survey, sponsored by data storage giant EMC, found that only 14 percent of senior business executives felt their important data is very vulnerable to being lost in the event of a disaster, compared to 52 percent of senior IT executives. U.S. business and tech leaders also differ on how long it would take to resume normal business operations if a disaster struck, according to the survey. Only 9 percent of business executives say they would need three days or more to resume, compared to 23 percent of technology executives. The survey was conducted by RoperASW, a marketing research and consulting firm. It polled 274 executives at major U.S. corporations and other large organizations.
http://news.com.com/2100-1009_3-1025121.html?tag=cd_mh

IBM, Adobe boost digital signatures
IBM has announced a partnership with software maker Adobe Systems on Thursday to boost security in documents created with Adobe's Acrobat software. Forms and other documents created in the portable document format (PDF) used by Acrobat will be able to tap into the security chip included on all recent IBM desktop and notebook PCs. Among other purposes, IBM's "embedded security subsystem" can be used to store the electronic signature data, providing an extra level of security over more typical systems that store signatures on a PC's hard drive. "The fundamental value of that security chip is that it can be used to create a secure repository on that PC to protect any kind of information...including digital signatures," said Stacy Cannady, product manager for client security at IBM.
http://news.com.com/2100-1046_3-1024363.html?tag=cd_mh

The Super Power Issue: 8 Super Powers
For decades, young horndogs have been duped into buying X-ray specs, little more than plastic frames with shapely silhouettes painted on the lenses. The next generation of tweens may be luckier, thanks to the sonic flashlight, invented by Carnegie Mellon engineer George Stetten. This handheld scanner uses ultrasound to penetrate barriers. Unlike older devices, it doesn't require a bulky monitor; the image is displayed on a 2-inch mirror that surrounds the device's tip. The only downside is that, because ultrasound doesn't travel well through air, the scanner must be pressed up against an object or surface. A miniature version could someday send images not to a tiny display but straight to the user's eyeballs.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...ic=&topic_set=

Web Porn Pushers in Patent Fight
Executives at Acacia Media Technologies say they've got patents on streaming, downloading and just about every other form of delivering movies and sounds electronically. Now the firm is enforcing its legal claim -- by going after Internet porn pushers. Twenty-one blue content providers are actively grappling with Acacia in U.S. District Court. Several firms have agreed to settle rather than risk a lengthy, possibly crippling legal battle. Just last week, adult webmaster affiliate house CECash.com, agreed to license Acacia's patents. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. But, generally, Acacia has been asking for 1 to 2 percent of a company's gross revenues in return for calling off the wing-tipped attack dogs.
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59598,00.html

Hijacked Windows PCs Spread Porn
Close to 2,000 Windows-based PCs with high-speed Internet connections have been hijacked by a stealth program and are being used to send ads for pornography, computer security experts said on Friday. It is unknown exactly how the Trojan program is spreading to victim computers around the world, whose owners most likely have no idea what is happening, said Richard M. Smith, a security consultant in Boston. Security provider Network Associates rated the Trojan a low risk since it did not appear to be more widespread and was not harming the victim computers. Trojan programs are typically spread via e-mail viruses and can also sneak onto computers through Web browsers when surfing, Smith said. The Trojan, dubbed "Migmaf" for "migrant Mafia," turns the victim computer into a proxy server that serves as a sort of middleman between people clicking on porn e-mail spam or website links, according to Smith.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,59608,00.html

GM vaccine for peanut allergy shows promise
A new vaccine based on genetically modified peanut proteins could protect people with peanut allergies from developing a life-threatening allergic response, suggests a new study. Researchers successfully used the vaccine in mice, and human trials could begin within a year, they say. Many allergies such as hayfever are treated through desensitization - that is, allergic people are exposed repeatedly to the allergen, and eventually their immune systems learn not to overreact to its presence. But because peanut allergy is potentially fatal, doctors have not been willing to risk this approach with peanuts. The US team altered the allergenic proteins in peanuts in such a way that they could be recognized by the immune system without provoking a life-threatening reaction. They used the altered proteins to build up a tolerance in the mice's immune systems which carried over to natural unaltered peanut proteins.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993930

Ancient planet discovery challenges planet-formation ideas
The discovery of a planet nearly three times older than any previously known, reported at a NASA briefing on Thursday, means that planets may be far more common than expected. It could also force a reversal of the prevailing view on how planets and solar systems are born. The antique planet, dubbed "Methuselah" after a biblical patriarch who lived to the grand old age of 969, is located in a globular star cluster called M4. The cluster is composed of stars that formed barely a billion years after the big bang, or nearly 13 billion years ago. The Earth and the rest of the solar system, by contrast, are only 4.5 billion years old, and all of the more than 100 planets discovered in recent years around nearby stars are of comparable age.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993932

[multi]

Electronic signatures can eliminate the need for creating a paper version of a document, allowing for faster and more efficient transmission of data. Businesses and governments are likely to be leery of using electronic signatures...

hmmm

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by multi
hmmm

electronic sigs are what the riaa uses to get those quickie subpoenas.

from an april wir

"Not to worry continued the judge, because there are built-in safeguards to prevent anyone from improperly receiving subpoenas. And they are? Well said the judge, to send out "a subpoena, one must identify the material claimed to be infringing” and state that the target doesn’t have permission form the copyright holder to use the material in question. And you must - get this - provide “a physical or electronic signature.”

these are the "safeguards that will will protect your privacy".

feel better now?

- js.