Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

"Error -41?" That's helpful.

As Bruce Schneier spent the past decade watching the growing rash of phishers, malware attacks, and identity theft, a new Internet threat has emerged that poses even greater risks, the security expert said. Unlike the security risks posed by criminals, the threat from government regulation and data hoarders such as Apple and Google are more insidious because they threaten to alter the fabric of the Internet itself. They're also different from traditional Internet threats because the perpetrators are shielded in a cloak of legitimacy. As a result, many people don't recognize that their personal information or fortunes are more susceptible to these new forces than they ever were to the Russian Business Network or other Internet gangsters.

I found this over at TechDirt, where they gave this comic a great new title, and provided a couple more worthwhile links. And hey -- it's The Oatmeal, good for an end of the week chuckle.

For almost three months, versions of three widely distributed open-source applications from Horde.org contained a backdoor that allowed attackers to remotely execute malicious PHP code on systems that ran the programs.

Apple has won another victory against HTC thanks to a new ruling by the International Trade Commission. On Friday afternoon, the ITC dismissed HTC's original patent complaint against Apple, upholding its initial ruling from October that said Apple had not violated HTC's patents in its implementation of iOS.

SCO and IBM have reached a stipulation [PDF] on how to go forward on reactivating the Utah litigation, and SCO has filed it in Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. Assuming it's signed by the judge, the Hon. Kevin Gross, in time for the April 23rd hearing now scheduled in Utah District Court in Salt Lake City before the Hon. Dee Benson on SCO's laughable motion to let only *it* go ahead and IBM not, I'd say it's game on. They've agreed IBM can proceed with its defenses and counterclaims. It was IBM that suggested in its opposition to SCO's motion that the best way forward was to ask the Bankruptcy Court to lift the stay on *both* parties, which is what the stipulation agrees to.

Cisco has appealed to the European Union's General Court, asking for the European Commission's approval of Microsoft's takeover of Skype to be made conditional. The network infrastructure company wants the EC to ensure "standards-based interoperability in the video calling space."

A German court ruled on Thursday that Motorola's smartphones infringe on an Apple patent that covers certain implementations of the iPhone's "slide-to-unlock" feature. Presiding Judge Dr. Peter Guntz of the Munich I Regional Court awarded Apple a permanent injunction it can enforce against the sale or distribution of Motorola's Android-based smartphones within the country.

In the world of consumer electronics, it's common for companies to create a range of products that are all variations on a theme, containing slightly faster processors or a bit more memory. These products serve two important functions for their producers: they put the price of entry within reach of more consumers, and they induce those with a bit more cash to take steps up the product ladder and purchase a more expensive version. However, a study that has just been released by the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that the companies that take this tack have to be careful about how they go about things. Creating a product range by crippling an existing product can work against the company if word filters out.

The webOS platform is built on top of Linux, but has a proprietary userspace stack. HP announced in December that it would open the platform's source code and continue developing it in collaboration with the open source software community. HP began publishing the code last month with the release of the Enyo JavaScript framework. The release of the browser today is another step forward for HP's webOS open source roadmap.

The letter in which the story was found, dated 5 September 1936, was donated by Hans Jahnke, son of Giorgio Joyce's second wife, Asta, to the Zurich James Joyce Foundation. The Foundation has called its publication an "outrage", stressing that it has not granted permission for the book's release.

"We have been completely overlooked and ignored. It's only common decency to ask the owner," said the Foundation's Fritz Senn. "We are outraged. We have had no hand in this unfair thing and feel not just ignored but cheated."

Although the published works of Joyce entered the public domain in Europe on 1 January this year, Senn says it has not yet been determined whether the non-published material is now out of copyright as well. "Copyright has been lifted only, we believe, from the published material. All the huge amount of non-published material we believe is still under copyright, so this is, we believe, an infringement of that," he said, adding that he is concerned the "very belligerent" Joyce estate might sue. "We haven't heard from them [but] what I'm afraid of is that with the large amount of copyright taken away from them, their remaining territory will be defended even more fiercely."

An East Texas patent case that has attracted the attention of the technology world came to a screeching halt Thursday as the jury ruled that the key patent in the case is invalid. Eolas, a patent troll that has been shaking down technology companies for the better part of a decade, now faces the prospect of losing the patent.

Michael Doyle, a low-profile Chicago biologist, claims that it was actually he and two co-inventors who invented—and patented—the "interactive web" before anyone else, while they were employed by the University of California back in 1993. Doyle argues that a program he created at the UC’s San Francisco campus, which allowed doctors to view embryos over the nascent World Wide Web, was the first program that allowed users to interact with images inside of a Web browser window. The defendants hotly contest that, saying that it was programs like Pei-Yuan Wei's pioneering Viola that first offered this functionality.

Today, Doyle and his lawyers say he’s owed royalty payments for the use of a stunning array of modern Web technologies. Watching online video, having a "search suggestion" pop up in a search bar, or even rotating an image of a sweater you might want to buy on an online shopping site—all are said to infringe on the idea-space of Doyle and his company, Eolas Technologies.

The Fail Recap. Have you kept up with all the fail going on here? Let me recap: No one can watch the sketch as part of the episode NBC/Universal provided for free on broadcast TV, because it’s been cut. No one can share an authorized version of the sketch, because NBC/Universal hasn’t yet provided one Those paying for Hulu Plus can’t even view the clip through one of NBC/Universal’s authorized channels. Media outlets wanting to write about it, not having an authorized version, effectively said screw it, we’ll link to an unauthorized one. One of those media outlets was owned by Time Warner, a major opponent of online piracy. Another of those media outlets was owned by NBC/Universal, so effectively helped promote piracy of NBC/Universal’s own content.

When Microsoft first revealed that the Explorer file manager would be outfitted with a ribbon-style toolbar in Windows 8, responses were loud, passionate, and frequently negative. The company recently described changes that it has made to Windows 8's Explorer in response to the feedback. These include some small modifications to the ribbon experience along with some other refinements of Explorer's new features. Though the changes themselves have been welcomed, the continued hostility toward Explorer's redesign remains.

I know this isn't, strictly speaking, a Linux/FOSS story -- but Gosh! Doesn't this story sound awfully familiar? Perhaps this will make some of us feel just a little better about some recent trends, Or not. - Bernard

Microsoft's complaint against Barnes & Noble's Android-based Nook devices has been narrowed down to just three patents, with the US International Trade Commission having to decide whether Nook devices infringe on several patented methods of interacting with and downloading electronic documents. Barnes & Noble is also asking the ITC to declare the patents invalid because they cover obvious and trivial functionality.

An old legal aphorism says, "If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table." After reading the latest salvo in the P2P porn copyright wars, it's clear that some poor table has been abused horrifically. The craziness comes from the most recent filing in a Hard Drive Productions case against nearly 1,500 "Doe" defendants accused of sharing one of the company's films online. The case, filed in DC, follows the familiar pattern: sue anonymous Internet users in some random federal court, use the case to obtain subpoenas, unearth the identity of the Internet users, and send them "settlement letters" offering to save them from litigation if they would just pay a few thousand dollars. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has contributed to many of these cases, arguing—sometimes successfully, sometimes, not—that such cases are an abuse of the judicial process...

Microsoft may have scored an early victory in its legal tussle with Barnes and Noble. The two companies are engaged in parallel battles, one via the Department of Justice, another via United States International Trade Commission. In March 2011, Microsoft accused Barnes & Noble of patent infringement with its NOOK and NOOK Color products[/he] in retaliation, Barnes & Noble made a broad complaint claiming that Microsoft is being an abusive monopoly and that the patents are in any case irrelevant. That antitrust complaint looks likely to be rejected by the ITC, a decision that favors Microsoft.

On this episode of Spark: Argonauts, Creative Hubs, and The War On Computing . Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00)..