archive
index
gp originals
google i
google ii
celebrating porn
idiot voters
| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| More Australian madness -- e-mail forwarding illegal |
| 3:44:58 am mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in legal / source Telegraph 60 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Australians have been warned that it is now illegal for them to forward e-mail from others without the original author's permission, on the grounds that it is violating the author's copyright. Violators may face up to 5 years in jail or fined up to $60,000 Australian. (Link via Ars Technica.) |
| Update: The Australian government denies that they will prosecute for people forwarding old e-mail jokes or office gossip, but will only do so for unauthorized forwarding of "original literary works". |
 |
| The Internet's Public Enema #1 |
| 8:16:21 am mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in internet / source Salon 106 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| A great article on Rotten.com, the controversial (and popular) site that shows all sorts of morbid and disgusting material such as "[A] photo of a man whose face was blown off when he bit on a blasting cap. A picture of a Chinese man apparently eating a fried human fetus. The messy expulsions from a Japanese orange juice enema. A bestial image involving a penis and a large fish. Chris Farley's bloated, purple corpse. The charred cadaver of a burn victim. A Filipino man whose body is completely covered with pustulate tumors. Pornographic World War II propaganda." |
| As the article discusses this has become a perfect test case for freedom of speech on the internet. Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out, "Almost by definition the people who carry the standard for the First Amendment are the ones who have unpopular speech; after all, we wouldn't need a First Amendment for popular speech." |
|
| Asynchronous chips = next big thing? |
| 8:50:31 am mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in inventions / source NY Times 116 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| An overview of Ivan Sutherland and his work on asynchronous chips (i.e., chips that don't require an internal clock). He and his team at Sun Microsystems claim to have made major breakthroughs that "will lead to a paradigm shift in modern computer design." |
| Given that his papers will be presented at a conference next week, we won't have to wait long to see if this is hype or for real. |
| read 1 comment |
|
| Price scamming on the internet |
| 9:29:39 am mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source ZDNet 237 hits / 3 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Online retailers are experiencing electronic ripoffs as unscrupulous customers alter the prices in their "shopping carts" prior to checkout. From the article: "For example, a major PC manufacturer sells a sleek new laptop for $1,600, but [security consultant] Weigle knows how to manipulate the company's shopping cart software code to change the price to $1.60. It's so easy, even novices can alter prices, she said." The article goes on to explain how to do this. |
| Now that the details have been published, I wonder how many newbies will attempt to commit fraud with this technique. |
| read 3 comments |
|
| Hacking TiVo and Replay |
| 12:24:16 pm mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source Washington Post 90 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| As the new TiVo and Replay digital television recorders become more popular, clever hackers have started sharing ways to make unofficial enhancements such as increasing the hard drive capacity. The TiVo is especially popular with hackers because it uses Linux as the operating system, whereas the Replay uses a proprietary OS. |
| The article also includes links to the useful Replay FAQ and the TiVo Hacker FAQ. |
|
| Mitnick on identity theft |
| 1:20:25 pm mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in security / source Register 124 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Kevin Mitnick has written a great essay on identity theft and what should be done to prevent it. He correctly points out that the answer should be stronger security measures to authenticate users, rather than banning the publishing of personal data like social security numbers which is already out there. |
| Best quote: "My mother's maiden name is not a password; my social security number is not a PIN." |
|
| Blood substitutes |
| 4:25:19 pm mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in medicine / source NY Times 46 hits / 0 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Scientists at Biopure believe they are getting very close to developing a workable substitute for human blood for use in transfusions. Given both the shortage of blood donors as well as justified concerns about AIDS and other blood-borne diseases, this could be a major medical breakthrough. |
| They still have to prove to the FDA's satisfaction that their cow-derived product won't transmit the prions that cause "mad cow disease". But if they can conclusively establish that, they'll make billions. |
|
| Nupedia and Project Gutenberg Directors Answer |
| 6:37:31 pm mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in internet / source Slashdot 40 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Slashdot has an excellent double interview with our friend Jimmy Wales of Nupedia (and Bomis) and Michael Hart of the Gutenberg Project on online publishing and copyrights. |
| I was especially interested to see Hartman's list of top currently copyrighted works that he would most like to see put into the public domain for inclusion into Project Gutenberg -- Atlas Shrugged, Dandelion Wine, and The Man in the White Suit. |
|
| Canadian plans offshore Napster clone |
| 8:58:55 pm mst / 5 March 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source CNet 105 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| A 21-year old Canadian entrepreneur says that he plans on establishing a Napster clone with OpenNap on the island mini-"nation" of Sealand, located just off the coast of England. |
| That would give Sealand and HavenCo all sorts of publicity! |
|