p2pnet World Headlines: Feb 6, 2010
Neo-Nazi party given green light to target school children The Local
The neo-Nazi National Democratic Party will be allowed to distribute CDs outside schools with interviews and music by party members because authorities have no legal grounds to stop them, a report said Saturday. The Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons said the disc merely contained political opinions, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. The department therefore found no basis on which to ban the disc, the report quoted director Elke Monsen-Engberding as saying. The NPD is Germany’s leading far-right party. It promotes an anti-immigrant agenda and is considered by the country’s domestic intelligence agency to be a threat to the constitution.
Microsoft to patch 17-year-old computer bug BBC
A 17-year-old bug in Windows will be patched by Microsoft in its latest security update. The February update for Windows will close the loophole that dates from the time of the DOS operating system. First appearing in Windows NT 3.1, the vulnerability has been carried over into almost every version of Windows that has appeared since. The monthly security update will also tackle a further 25 holes in Windows, five of which are rated as “critical”. The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs.
Vodafone suspends employee over obscene Twitter Telegraph
The explicit update made disparaging reference to homosexuals and indicated that the author planned to spend their evening pursuing women.The tweet provoked dozens of complaints from other users of the micro-blogging site and was taken down within minutes of being posted this afternoon. Initial speculation suggested the @VodafoneUK account, which has more than 8,800 followers, had been hacked. But the firm later released a statement indicating the message was the work of a rogue member of staff.
Chinese Internet Video Rivals Join Forces On Copyright Issues China Tech News
According to local media reports, rival Chinese video websites Youku.com and Tudou.com have formed an alliance and jointly launched a new online video joint broadcast model, sharing the copyright of each other’s exclusive videos. The two parties said they hope to expand the cooperative range of this new model. Apart from the sharing of exclusive videos, they are looking forward to cooperating in areas surrounding copyright production. And as the beginning of their joint broadcast model, Youku.com and Tudou.com have exchanged two exclusive TV series, and they have the rights to resell and broadcast these videos.
Arctic ice melting faster than feared: study CBC
The head of the largest climate change study ever undertaken in Canada says the Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected. “It’s happening much faster than our most pessimistic projections,” said University of Manitoba Prof. David Barber, the lead investigator of the Circumpolar Flaw Lead study. A flaw lead is the term for open water between pack ice and coastal ice. The study aboard the Canadian Coast Guard research ship Amundsen began in July 2007 and involved 370 scientists from around the world.
Your Comments Are Safe With Us TechCrunch
[...] a post that was published on the Digital Inspiration blog hit Techmeme. The title of that post left little to the imagination: it read ‘TechCrunch Removes Reader Comments From All Older Blog Posts’. That allegation in itself is inaccurate, as is most of the rest of the article, so I felt compelled to respond quickly and offer our side of the story. Which, on a sidenote, we weren’t asked for by the person or people behind the blog (at least not to my knowledge). I’ll start with the part that checks out: yes, comments on older blog posts are not being displayed at the moment, although they are still stored in the database on our side. But no, we did not remove them because we were looking to decrease our page load time – although we’re constantly looking for ways to do so – and there’s no big search engine optimization conspiracy behind it either. This also has nothing to do with the fact that we actively moderate comments on posts around here – we’ve always welcomed civil discussion and that hasn’t changed. Criticism and disagreement is fine, but we want to keep the comment section a nice place to come for everyone, and those who keep that from happening – spammers, anonymous trolls directing personal attacks, etc. – will see their comments occasionally get moderated out of sight (read: deleted).
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
February, 2010
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February 6th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Hi jon,
Just wondering… what keeps happening to your donate button? i can’t afford much but i was going to donate and the button is gone. i used it last month but i had to use the one on a2f2a and it isn’t there now either :S
Anyway, I believe your website and others like it are important and that the work you do makes a difference so i wanted to contribute a little bit. thanks for the work you do here
Adam
February 6th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Hi Adam:
There’s a button here – http://www.p2pnet.net/story/34980
Sorry! And thanks …
Cheers!
February 7th, 2010 at 2:26 am
Re the Neo-Nazi story: Freedom of speech means standing up for the viewpoints you disagree with, too. Personally I really don’t like the idea of them handing out those CDs, but if we stop them, who’s to say someone won’t stop us?
February 7th, 2010 at 2:27 am
To put it more succinctly:
“If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don’t like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re in favor of freedom of speech, that means you’re in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise.” – Noam Chomsky
February 7th, 2010 at 12:42 pm
RE: Neo-Nazis:
Could be worse. They’re only allowed to distribute propaganda outside of school. That’s still better than the copyright cartel being allowed to teach their so-called “educational material” within a class setting.
February 7th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Thanks for the link
February 7th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
@ Adam:
Thanks for the contribution!
Cheers!
February 8th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Onion ring batters PM in online popularity
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Onion+ring+batters+online+popularity/2527219/story.html
A single onion ring — the crispy, golden-brown snack — has quickly overtaken Prime Minister Stephen Harper in online popularity.
A bizarre Facebook page started on Tuesday pitted an onion ring against the PM in a political showdown, asking the hard-hitting question: “Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Stephen Harper?”
With hundreds of members joining each minute, the group surpassed the prime minister’s fan count in just two days, garnering more than 63,000 fans by Friday afternoon — which is more than double Harper’s 30,074 fans.
And there we have it. An Onion ring would be voted in tomorrow over George W. Harper.