M&Mâs World Headlines: Feb 4, 2009
Newsdemon Provides Free Access to Humor Newsgroup Newsdemon
Newsdemon.com has announced it will begin offering free access to the Usenet newsgroup rec.funny.humor. The newsgroup will have exclusive free access provided by the premium Usenet provider in a continuing effort to grow awareness of the vast variety of topics Usenet represents. Click on the link to find out how to access it for free.
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Apple faces two more iPhone 3G speed lawsuits Macworld
Apple and AT&T Mobility are facing two new lawsuits claiming the speed and infrastructure of the 3G network is insufficient. The lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court of the Southern District of Florida and in the United States District Court Eastern District of Texas Sherman Division this week.
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Man takes on Italy, Vatican in daughter’s euthanasia case Agence France-Presse
* Court rules woman in coma can die * Government says euthanasia is illegal * Vatican says it is murder
THE father of an Italian woman who has been in a coma for 17 years defied the Vatican and Italy’s centre-right Government, moving her to a private clinic where a feeding tube keeping her alive will be removed.
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Nokia Multimedia Player ‘.m3u’ File Heap Buffer Overflow Remote Vulnerability Security Focus
Nokia Multimedia Player is prone to a heap-based buffer-overflow vulnerability because it fails to perform adequate boundary checks on user-supplied input.Successfully exploiting this issue may allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code in the context of the application. Failed exploit attempts will cause denial-of-service conditions. Nokia Multimedia Player 1.1 is vulnerable; other versions may also be affected. No known solution or fix.
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Hackers break into AT&T e-mail accounts MySanAntonio
Hackers broke into AT&T Inc.`s Worldnet e-mail accounts that use easy-to-guess user passwords, a spokesman confirmed Tuesday. The hackers took over a few hundred accounts and began sending out large amounts of spam during the past three weeks, said Mike Barger, AT&T spokesman. AT&T disabled those accounts. AT&T also sent notices to all of its 600,000 e-mail customers notifying them to strengthen their passwords to a complex password by Feb. 15 to better protect their account.
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Chemicals used in shampoos to get toxic label CTV
The federal government plans to add two silicon-based chemicals, which are found in shampoo, soap, antiperspirant and hundreds of other personal-care products, to its toxic chemicals list after tests showed they pose a danger to wildlife. The Canadian tests are part of a government review of about 200 substances that have been flagged since recent studies suggested they may have harmful effects on humans or wildlife.
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Radioactive material found at water treatment plant CTV
City [of Ottawa] officials confirm a batch of sludge from the city’s east-end treatment plant contains a low level of radioactivity. A special hazardous waste team is now on-site trying to find the source of the radioactivity.
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Cybersecurity contractor warns of virus on own network The Register
SRA International, a government contractor that provides cybersecurity and privacy services, has warned its employees their personal information may have been stolen after hackers planted a virus on its computer network. The malware was installed on the same network that stored employees’ personal data including names, addresses, dates of birth, health information, and social security numbers, according to a letter (PDF) filed with Maryland’s Office of Attorney General. Information might also include personal employee details included in security position questionnaires.
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Brewer to turn beer suds into car fuel CNet
The inventor of the EFuel100 MicroFueler home ethanol maker has signed on Sierra Nevada Brewing to make ethanol from beer dregs. E-Fuel on Tuesday said that the beer company will start testing EFuel’s refrigerator-sized portable ethanol refineries in the second quarter of this year using discarded beer yeast as a feedstock for ethanol.
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MySpace: 90,000 Sex Offenders Removed From Site ABC
About 90,000 sex offenders have been identified and removed from the social networking Web site MySpace, company and law enforcement officials said Tuesday. The number was nearly double what MySpace officials originally estimated last year, said North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who along with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has led efforts to make social networking Web sites safer for young users. Cooper said he wasn’t surprised by the updated numbers, and demanded that MySpace and rival online networking site Facebook â which claim to have more than 280 million users combined â do more to protect children and teenagers.
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Internet Explorer market share continues to fall BuzzNewsRoom
The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft`s Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month. Internet Explorer now has 67.55 percent of global browser market share, a drop of over seven percentage points in a year, according to figures from Web metrics company Net Applications, released Monday. Mozilla`s Firefox browser, meanwhile, has gained market share in the same time frame, climbing over three percentage points to 21.53 percent.
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$36 Million Virtual Reality Game to Train US Soldiers io9
The Pentagon has just given the U.S. Office of Naval Research $36 million for what it calls a “futuristic” experiment in training soldiers to deal with terrorists by using immersive virtual reality scenarios.
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AFF Petition: CA – Say No to Biometrics in California Driver’s Licenses EFF
Last month the California DMV — without notifying the public — sent a letter to the state Joint Legislative Budget Committee requesting that biometric information be recorded for California driver’s licenses and ID cards. Unless the committee actively rejects the DMV’s request by February 11, the DMV will be free to begin implementing the biometric technology. Moreover, in the midst of a severe state budget crisis, the DMV wants an extra $63 million over 5 years to implement the system. Implementing biometric technology would impact the privacy of millions of Californians. This proposal requires real legislative, public, and expert review, and should not escape public questioning because of an obscure, rushed exception to the ordinary budget process. Defend your privacy by contacting the Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and encouraging him to reject the DMV’s attempt to implement its new biometrics proposal without genuine public scrutiny. Sign and send the E-petition.
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The EFF Wants to Help You: YouTube’s January Fair Use Massacre EFF
This is what it’s come to. Teenagers singing “Winter Wonderland” being censored off YouTube. Fair use has always been at risk on YouTube, thanks to abusive DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright owners (sometimes carelessly, sometimes not). But in the past several weeks, two things have made things much worse for those who want to sing a song, post an a capella tribute, or set machinima to music. If Warner Music Group took down your video, ask yourself if your video is (1) noncommercial (i.e., no commercial advertisements or YouTube Partner videos) and (2) includes substantial original material contributed by you (i.e., no verbatim copies of Warner music videos). If so, and you’d like to counternotice but are afraid of getting sued, we’d like to hear from you. We can’t promise to take every case, but neither will we stand by and watch semi-automated takedowns trample fair use.
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Senior judges attack US over ‘torture evidence suppression’ UK Telegraph
The judges were dealing with a case which centred on a British suspected terrorist and allegations that he was tortured. The judges decided not to release evidence of the alleged torture because the US had threatened to withdraw cooperation over terrorist intelligence and “the public of the United Kingdom would be put at risk”. “The ruling implies that torture has taken place in the Mohamed case, that British agencies may have been complicit, and further, that the United States Government has threatened our High Courts that if it releases this information, the US Government will withdraw its intelligence cooperation with the United Kingdom.
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Nun, 72, Mugged UK Telegraph
A nun has described the moment she was mugged by a hooded robber while she was dressed in her full habit. Sister Lorna, 72, was just yards from the door of her convent when the robber stole her handbag in broad daylight. But the man, in his 20s, only escaped with an umbrella and a bus timetable because Sister Lorna had hidden her purse, which contained £12 for the collection, in her habit. Sister Lorna, who once worked as a missionary nurse in South Africa, said of the robber: “I just feel sorry for him and wish this chap no ill-feeling. “What I find the saddest part of all this is that the man who mugged me was probably the sort of person I try and help.”
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The Pirate Bay Maps Out its Tracker Connections Torrent Freak
The Pirate Bay has just released a Google powered map of the tracker connections per country. The map is only the start of a much larger project that will cover more detailed statistics on the trackers` users. However, it already reveals some interesting data.
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Government of Canada Launches RFI on Open Source Software Michael Geist
The Goverment of Canada has launched a Request For Information on open source software.
February , 2009
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