Skype has come under scrutiny from the NSA and FBI since its PC-to-PC calls are encrypted using AES encryption. This is the same encryption used by the US Government for many things. So, why is it national security
when the Government encrypts its communications and assumed criminal activity
when private citizens follow suit? — via digg
It appears that one of the largest eDonkey2000 communities is no more. Often occupied by over 1 million eDonkey2000 users spread over several servers, Razorback2 is often regarded as the very lifeblood of this network. It is being reported the Federal Belgian Police have raided and seized Razorback2’s servers. In addition, it is suspected the administrator of Razorback2 is currently in custody — via digg
A plague of identity theft is afflicting South Korea’s online gamers, with almost a quarter of a million cases reported. Many of the stolen identities are being used in gaming farms in China as part of a $1 billion a year black market in cash and items from online games. In the farms, ranks of low-paid workers work 14-hour shifts performing repetitive tasks in online games in order to generate gold and other valuable items. These items can then be sold to players overseas
Broadband customers of Australia’s largest ISPs — Telstra, Optus and iiNet — can use peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as BitTorrent and Kazaa without being throttled by their ISP, at least for now
Google has formally rejected the US Justice Department’s subpoena of data, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users’ searches and its own trade secrets. Responding to a motion by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose web search data was impractical
Apple appears to have invoked the DMCA to stop the dissemination of methods allowing Mac OSX to run on chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The chatter at the OSx86 Project was stifled Friday after the forum was served with a notice under the DMCA and Win2osx.net, another web site that hosts discussions related to getting Mac OSX onto chips with the x86 instruction set, was also down
The City of Chicago wants to blanket its streets and neighbourhoods with a wireless Internet signal, granting residents and visitors access to the Web wherever they are — on streets, in homes, offices and shopping malls. Chicago’s chief information officer said that the city will invite technology companies to submit proposals this spring on how to build and offer citywide wireless broadband [BugMeNot]
Paul Dell builds web sites. So, he has had a URL stating as much: dellwebsites.com. Somehow, Dell, the giant computer vendor thinks that people would be confused by that is and is suing for 100,000 Euros in damages — via digg
Amazon is in advanced talks with the four global music companies about a digital-music service that could be launched as soon as this summer. It would feature Amazon-branded portable music players, designed and built for the retailer, and a subscription service that would deeply discount and preload those devices with songs
Telstra is likely to proceed with its next generation broadband network regardless of the regulatory outcome it receives, an analyst says. Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst Christian Guerra said broadband was critical to Telstra’s future and Australia’s largest telco could not afford to abandon the fibre to the node (FTTN) rollout altogether
Microsoft will close the book on its appallingly bad FrontPage web design programme with the release of Office 2007, formerly known as Office 12, late this year
The latest definitions file for Microsoft’s Anti-Spyware beta flags Symantec’s Norton Antivirus products as a password-stealing trojan and prompts users to delete portions of the programme. Users who follow the instructions lose their installation of Norton, requiring delicate Windows registry edits and a complete removal/reinstall of Norton. Microsoft’s support forum is quickly filling up with complaints about this problem, many from businesses that have been pretty hard hit. This should be a cautionary tale about deploying beta products in production environments
A blind UC Berkeley student is suing Target, saying the retailer is violating the civil rights of those who cannot see because its web site is inaccessible to them — via digg
The Firefox memory leak is not a bug. It’s a feature. The feature
is how the pages are cached in a tabbed environment. To improve performance when navigating (studies show that 39% of all page navigations are renavigations to pages visited less than 10 pages ago, usually using the back button), Firefox 1.5 implements a Back-Forward cache that retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab. This is a lot of data. If you have a lot of tabs, Firefox’s memory usage can climb dramatically. It’s a trade-off. What you get out of it is faster performance as you navigate the web
Several companies are developing electronically controlled lenses to provide enhanced vision. Thanks to technologies created for astronomical telescopes and spy satellites, aberrometers can map a person’s eye with extreme accuracy. Lasers bounce off the back of the eyeball, and structures in the eye scatter the resulting beam of light
A team of New York physicists has confirmed that a tabletop contraption made at UCLA does in fact generate nuclear fusion at room temperatures, using pairs of crystals and a small tank of deuterium. But unlike less reliable reports back in the 1980s, there’s no talk this time of producing endless supplies of power. Rather, the technology could lead to ultra-portable x-ray machines and even a wearable device that could provide safe, continuous cancer treatment — via Science Blog
It appears that Eddie, the retarded UFO navigator, wasn’t allowed to play with the big boys. While his mates were off creating a rather nifty crop circle (KMZ) in Billingley, Yorkshire, Eddie was booted a couple of fields over and left to his own devices (KMZ). Feel free to make up your own wacky explanation
The French courts have ruled that using peer-to-peer networks (P2P), providing you are doing so for personal rather than commercial reasons, is legal. The decision comes just as the French Parliament meets to discuss whether internet users should pay a voluntary tax or surcharge of €5 a month to use P2P networks. The decision was actually made back in December but has only just been made public
Authorities are seeking a burglar who allegedly took the time to make coffee, cook and eat meals, take showers, pick out a change of clothes, watch television and check his e-mail while inside three rural Washington County homes this month
The US Justice Department asked a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behaviour and now e-mail surveillance has been approved
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