Archive for January, 2008

No-Fly list circumvented by using middle name

A government program set up to remove innocent people from terrorism no-fly and watch lists has been ineffective and riddled with problems, travelers and congressional leaders say. The Department of Homeland Security's Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, or TRIP, was started almost a year ago to clear people routinely subjected to extra [...]

All blue-eyed humans have common ancestor

New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today. “Originally, we all had brown eyes”, said Professor Eiberg [...]

Ron Paul Is Right Again

Of course, Ron opposed the Bush administration's latest police-state powergrab. He said: "Mr. Speaker I rise in opposition to the extension of the Protect America Act of 2007 because the underlying legislation violates the US Constitution. "The misnamed Protect America Act allows the US government to monitor telephone calls and other electronic [...]

eBay: Sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers

This might be interesting. I'm eager to see the outcome of this. Upcoming Changes to Feedback changes in 2008 eBay’s Feedback system continues to evolve as community makeup and the online marketplace dynamics change. The eBay Feedback system was originally designed to provide a simple, honest, accurate record of the buyer's and [...]

ICANN Moves To Disable Domain Tasting

"Following Google's crackdown on 'domain tasters', ICANN has voted unanimously to eliminate the free period that many domain buyers have been taking advantage of. At the same meeting they also discussed Network Solutions' front running but took no action on it." Source ICANN's Release

Analog Spell Check

I was scribbling a note onto a piece of paper yesterday when I paused to think about the spelling of a word I was about to write. I haphazardly wrote the word incorrectly, expecting - for just a moment - that I could use spellcheck to fix it.

Interview with Sean Moss-Pultz, CEO of OpenMoko

Sean Moss-Pultz was kind enough to answer a few questions with fsckin w/ linux. He’s got some pretty interesting answers to questions plaguing geeks and non-geeks alike, such as the eternal debate on which is better - Ninjas or Pirates? Keep reading for some candid responses from the CEO of the company behind the Dash Express GPS device and [...]

Wal*Mart Doesn’t Like My ID

"I was at Wal*Mart recently with a few friends, and before we left one of my friends wanted to pick up some cigarettes. We went to the one lane where you could make such a purchase and the lady asked to see ALL of our IDs. Annoying and pointless, sure, but I didn’t mind showing her my ID. She claimed she was just following the rules, so it [...]

ZOMG!!1! Google Is Out To Get Us!

Queue the gasp! Google is out to get you! (more...)

The True Cost of SMS Messages

Here's a very good read from the Gthing science blog. Gets you thinking about the rates our mobile phone carriers charge us with. "I just found out that AT&T (A-fee&fee?) is raising their text message pricing. When I first signed up for AT&T 6 or so years ago it cost 10 cents to send an SMS message, and it was free to receive [...]

Google Bomb Success – Dangerous Cult

The Pirates Can’t Be Stopped

The following is a decent article about when "Ethan" hacked into the MediaDefender company, at the end of 2006... From: Ty Heath Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 7:02 p.m. To: it Subject: pm webserverThe 65.120.42.146 pm webserver has been compromised As a side note, please do not ever use the old passwords on anything. "The first time [...]

OpenOffice 3 has PDF import, native Aqua UI

  There’s been quite a bit of buzz recently after it was announced that OpenOffice 3 was due in September. It seems, however, most people still aren’t aware of what’s in store. We love OpenOffice.org, hereby referred to as OpenOffice like normal people do. We like the fact it does pretty much everything we need for [...]

Guiliani thinks you should have REAL ID to get online

Below is a video clip from the FL Republican debate voicing Rudy's position on a national ID card...

AlterNet: The End of Privacy

Honestly, I don't know how people still believe in a right to privacy over the web. The actual arteries of the net are based on land lines that are mostly owned and maintained by {gasp} Corporations! It's not like the wonderful feel good days when people dialed into their friendly neighborhood BBS to play LoRD. You can be traced, analyzed, and [...]

500,000 private Myspace pictures leaked and available for download

Sorry for the typical and tredy "myspace pic" above. This is an article from Wired Magazine. It might be the largest "security breach" in awhile but what on earth would anyone do with 17gb of random Myspace teenagers? A 17-gigabyte file purporting to contain more than half a million images lifted from private MySpace profiles has shown up on [...]

New Hampshire Primary: Sham Chain of Custody

This is how the Government secures your ballots. WOW. This is a must see.

Animated PNG in Firefox 3

Firefox 3 has support for Animated PNG: One of many new features added to Firefox 3 is the support of a new file format, the Animated PNG! Browsers have supported animated GIFs for more than a decade, but the GIF image format has a number of limitations and is overdue for replacement. The PNG image format is now widely accepted as a superior [...]

Linux Kernel 2.6.24 Released

The latest stable version of the Linux kernel 2.6.24 has just been released. Release notes below: http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/1/24/407  Date Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:17:19 -0800 (PST) From Linus Torvalds Subject Linux 2.6.24 The release is out there (both git trees and as tarballs/patches), and for the next week many kernel developers will [...]

Google to kill Domain Tasting

A confidential informant says Google will stop monetizing all domains if they are less then five days old. This potential new policy change by Google could stop all Domain Tasting in its tracks. The Add Grace Period (AGP) is a time period when registrars can delete a domain at no cost, but in this time frame a registrant could register millions of [...]