Researchers at Melbourne University have grown diamond particles 1/1000 of a millimetre on optical fibres which they can use to transmit single photons of light at a time. The diamonds are grown on the optical fibre by raining carbon molecules onto the tip of the fibre. They claim that by transmitting information in single photons, any interception of transmitted photons will be useless to the interceptor, and thus the message will be completely unhackable. Transmission speeds are currently slow — 120km/h — but are expected to speed up
Acting Immigration Minister Peter McGauran says an Australian woman who was deported by mistake four years ago is missing overseas. The woman’s case is one of a number Mr McGauran has referred to the inquiry investigating the detention of Cornelia Rau, who was kept in immigration detention for 10 months even though she is an Australian resident. Mr McGauran says a search is under way for the woman and says there might be other cases of the same severity
According to an US International Trade Commission report, Israel is among the world’s worst offenders when it comes to violation of intellectual property rights
Last month’s Cornell Copyright Debate of the Century (with EFF’s senior IP attorney, a copyfighting media scholar, and the legal heads of the MPAA, RIAA, Universal and Napster 2) is finally available online as a series of torrents in MP3 and Quicktime format, thanks to Allison Muri at the University of Saskatchewan — via BoingBoing
The US forced out a top human rights investigator at the United Nations, Egyptian-born law professor Cherif Bassiouni, just days he released a report criticising the US for committing human rights abuses. Cherif Bassiouni says, The US has done an enormous disservice to the cause of human rights in Afghanistan simply because they wanted somebody who was going to look the other way on what their practices were
New York State has gone on the attack against spyware and adware by filing a lawsuit [PDF] against a Los Angeles-based marketing company that allegedly installed invasive
software onto consumers’ computers without proper notice as part of free software downloads. In an announcement today, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said he had filed the lawsuit against Intermix Media, a 6-year-old Internet marketing company
Scientists have built a small nuclear fusion device triggered by changes in temperature. In a surprising feat of miniaturisation, scientists are reporting today that they have produced nuclear fusion — the same process that powers the sun — in a footlong cylinder just five inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller. While the technique is unlikely to lead to power generation, such a device could act as a portable source of neutrons for analysing materials and medical imaging, and perhaps even spacecraft propulsion — via Bruce Sterling
After more than sixty-years, a rare bird believed to have been extinct has been spotted in the Big Woods of Arkansas. A kayaker first reported seeing the ivory-billed woodpecker last year. Scientists have since spotted the bird several times and even caught it briefly on video — via BoingBoing
The retarded monkey boy has signed into law the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. A lawbreaker can land in jail for up to three years for distributing a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet. The MPAA’s president Dan Glickman applauded the move, stating he wanted to thank the congressional sponsors of this legislation for their strong advocacy for intellectual property rights
It seems that I missed a perfectly good, zombie virus story from a BBC skinned faux site. There is no justice in the world. It should be noted that, nearly a month on, people still haven’t noted the date it was published — via The Path of Now and Forever
This is the story of bitchchecker
(the hacker), a user who lost it because he thought he had been kicked of an IRC channel by Elch
. The hacker comes back on the channel threatening to hack and ruin Elch’s machine, and dares Elch to give his IP address. The address given was 127.0.0.1 [english]
Security researchers have discovered an attack aimed at would-be visitors to Google.com, one that attempts to download malicious programs onto the computers of people who simply mistype the search giant’s Web address. According to security specialist F-Secure, unsuspecting Web surfers may be bombarded with various types of Trojan horse threats, spyware and backdoors when they go to Googkle.com
. The scheme is meant to take advantage of sloppy or hurried typists, given that on most keyboards the letter k
key sits next to the l
needed to type Google
Telstra mobile phones were blacked out today following a power failure at a Sydney exchange and a cut cable near Newcastle
Tony Blair was told by the government’s most senior law officer in a confidential minute less than two weeks before the war that British participation in the American-led invasion of Iraq could be declared illegal. Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, spelt out to Mr Blair the dangers of Britain going to war without a second resolution. It is understood that he then went on to warn that British soldiers could be hauled before the International Criminal Court
Senator Eric Abetz has launched a free open source CMS for use by government departments and not-for-profit organisations. However, a leading IT lawyer and several software developers have claimed it isn’t really open source
A Jordanian man shot dead his divorced sister after seeing her photo on his friend’s camera-equipped mobile in the latest honour
killing in the kingdom. The unidentified man shot the 31-year-old mother twice in the head Sunday night and then turned himself in to police saying he committed the murder to cleanse his family’s honour
. The incident is the fifth example of a so-called honour killing in Jordan this year. Those found guilty usually face sentences of a maximum of one year in jail under Jordanian law — via BoingBoing
Thousands of the amphibians have died in recent days in a pond in Hamburg’s Altona district, with their bodies swelling to bursting point. The toads’ entrails are propelled for up to a metre, in scenes that have been likened to science fiction — via meta-roj blog
The French courts have banned DRM copy-protection on DVDs [english], because it is a consumer right to make a backup or to change formats — via BoingBoing
Under pressure from competing internet providers, Telstra will deliver its next generation ADSL2+ broadband service to the market at least eight months earlier than expected, according to sources close to the carrier
UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores. The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared with CDs — via BoingBoing
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