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FCC plans to make Twitter, mobile networks disaster proof | 186 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Andy Greenberg's Forbes article on Weev
Authored by: Tolerance on Thursday, November 22 2012 @ 11:28 PM EST
Recall the current newspick, Andy Greenberg's Forbes article?
It concerned the conviction of a 'hacker' (Auernheimer by name or "Weev" by handle) - and how this conviction sets a terrible precedent.
... as he faces possible prison time, the information security community is now arguing that Auernheimer’s conviction sets a precedent that could dangerously restrict free speech and behavior online. If merely visiting an unrestricted web page to copy an email address counts as unauthorized access, the legal line between intrusive hacking and testing websites for vulnerabilities–or merely visiting a website at all–could be blurred.

Like Kim (Schmitz) "Dotcom" and Megaupload's bust for copyright infringement (or inducement thereof) this is not a very sympathetic victim. The larrikin background of either perp doesn't help their cases, but Auernheimer's conviction does in fact seem like a power grab by the FBI and CIA, except for one inconvenient fact: unlike Dotcom, Auernheimer plead guilty.
What induced him to do so is a matter for speculation, but can I observe before we all go completely nuts that once the guilty plea was entered, the judge had no choice but to convict?

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Grumpy old man

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

HP’s $8.8 Billion Writedown
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 12:46 AM EST

The Newpick article is titled Oracle’s Ellison Vindicated in Autonomy PR Flap by HP’s $8.8 Billion Writedown. I have been following this and am amazed that HP showed so much incompetence. I remember when they announced the purchase of Autonomy, saying how they are going to reinvent themselves as services company, just like IBM did so successfully. However, I don't think "reinventing yourself" is quite so easy as going out and buying a seriously over-priced services company. I think they must have seen the writing on the wall about where their PC business was headed and got desperate to park their money anywhere but in a business dependent on Microsoft.

Anyhow, HP is playing this up like they got scammed, even though they performed due diligence before buying Autonomy. HP says the books were cooked, though the accountants found nothing amiss. The former director of Autonomy says the value was there, but HP mismanaged the company. HP sure look like fools, whatever happened.

This all reminds me of Microsoft's big 6 billion dollar write down they announced just 4 months ago. At least in that case, they had hung on to the online ad agency aQuantive Inc for several years before writing it off.

Companies are getting too big these days, when they reach the point where they can throw away billions of dollars so easily. 6 billion here, 8 billion there, that's some pretty serious money. If all those dollars were laid out end to end they would stretch from here to the moon and back nearly three times. (14^9 x 6.14 inches long)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

EU Parliament rejects UN Web control
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 06:20 AM EST
The newspick made some mistakes, regarding the party membership of the drafters.
Falkvinge himself wrote:
<blockquote>The resolution, which was passed with a large majority,
included Members of European Parliament (MEPs) from all major party groups, and
the Pirate Party’s Amelia Andersdotter had been playing a central role in its
drafting, together with MEPs Marietje Schaake and Judith Sargentini from the
Netherlands, Sabine Verheyen and Petra Kammerevert from Germany, Ivailo Kalfin
from Bulgaria, and Catherine Trautmann from France.</blockquote>
Only Amelia Andersdotter is a Pirate Party member. Marietje Schaake is member of
Democraten 66 (progressive liberals), Judith Sargentini is member of Groen Links
(Green party), Sabine Verheyen is a Christian Democrat , Petra Kammerevert a
social democrat, etc.
This initiative was taken by MEP's from all factions of the European
parliament.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple, Tesla Completely Embarrass Microsoft
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 10:09 AM EST
Obligatory link

So if they have copied edges and corners, will Apple sue them? Should be fun....

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Onion - "Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought." heh
Authored by: SilverWave on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 12:46 PM EST
The Onion, titled "Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought."

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

FCC plans to make Twitter, mobile networks disaster proof
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 05:18 PM EST

Here's my suggestion as an excellent start:

    Stop allowing entrenched Corporations the ability to prevent new business from growing!
Consider OLPC - this was a laptop specifically designed to allow it to network with other local laptops forming an inherent grid of those computing devices in an area where communication infrastructure is missing.

Now look back at the history of what Microsoft and Intel tried to do to put the OLPC out of business. Look to the potential of patents that are being used - not competitively, but anti-competitively.

In short:

    Let people build - safely - on knowledge, develop new ideas and share those ideas with others!
But... this is the FCC - and they do have limited power, so I don't think my suggestion will go far even though the FCC itself could look into mobile patents and open their eyes to the real damage being done. Real damage based on a lot of patents that should not have even been granted in the first place because they break the very exchange patents are supposed to be granted for:
    To disseminate knowledge of the invention to the public!
Instead, they take existing knowledge already available to the public and lock that away.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Privacy Watchdog Seeks ‘Urgent’ Details of Facebook Changes
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, November 23 2012 @ 10:43 PM EST
Newspick

I notice the "urgent" is in quotes as if that is some kind of special clarification. I think it's too late for urgency, the Irish deputy data-protection commissioner missed the boat when FB first started accepting public accounts. One reason I don't go near Facebook is that they have thus far failed to tell their users the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth about personal data access and the particular form of privacy that FB practises. The "changes" AFAICT are simply to remind users how fragile a FB profile really is, to remind them that the internet makes them stupid, and perhaps FB think the "changes" may cause them less future hassle in this department. In which case I've got a bridge for sale that Messrs Zuckerberg or Davis may be interested in.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Linux saves over €10 millions for Munich alone
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Saturday, November 24 2012 @ 03:21 AM EST
www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-brings-over- EUR10-million-savings-for-Munich-1755802.html:
"Over €10 million (approximately £8 million or $12.8 million) has been saved by the city of Munich, thanks to its development and use of the city's own Linux platform. The calculation of savings follows a question by the city council's independent Free Voters (Freie Wähler) group, which led to Munich's municipal LiMux project presenting a comparative budget calculation at the meeting of the city council's IT committee on Wednesday. The calculation compares the current overall cost of the LiMux migration with that of two technologically equivalent Windows scenarios: Windows with Microsoft Office and Windows with OpenOffice. Reportedly, savings amount to over €10 million.
€10 million in savings is about USD 10 million in savings, for a single city! Given the economy of the EU, this may mean something for the future.




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IMANAL


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[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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