A collection of stories tagged 'network' from Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/ Copyright 2006 RoomforMilk.com. RoomforMilk is not affiliated with Slashdot.org. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 07:21:55 EST Oblong Industries, a startup based in LA has unveiled g-speak, an operational version of the notable interface from Minority Report. One of Oblong's founders served as science and technology adviser for the film; the interface was an extension of his doctoral work at the MIT Media Lab. Oblong calls g-speak a 'spatial operating environment' and adds that 'the SOE's combination of gestural i/o, recombinant networking, and real-world pixels brings the first major step in computer interface since 1984.'" The video shown on Oblong's front page is an impressive demo.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26300 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3ai48z0e-sY/article.pl Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:05:01 EST Timothy B. Lee (no relation to Tim Berners-Lee), a frequent contributor to Ars Technica and Techdirt, has recently written 'The Durable Internet,' a paper published by the libertarian-leaning CATO institute. In it, Lee argues that because a neutral network works better than a non-neutral one, the Internet's open-ended architecture is not likely to vanish, despite the fears of net neutrality proponents, (and despite the wishes of net neutrality opponents.) For that reason, perhaps network neutrality legislation isn't necessary — or even desirable — from an open-networks perspective. In addition to the paper, Network Performance Daily has an interview and podcast with Tim Lee, and Lee addresses counter-arguments with a blog posting for Technology Liberation Front."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26291 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yhsiDqaFE-4/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:05:01 EST Blue's News pointed out a report about a study sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation which found that online gaming and social networking are beneficial to children, teaching them basic technical skills and how to communicate in the Information Age. The study was conducted over a period of three years, with researchers interviewing hundreds of children and monitoring thousands of hours of online time. The full white paper (PDF) is also available. "For a minority of children, the casual use of social media served as a springboard to them gaining technological expertise — labeled in the study as 'geeking out,' the researchers said. By asking friends or getting help from people met through online groups, some children learned to adjust the software code underpinning some of the video games they played, edit videos and fix computer hardware. Given that the use of social media serves as inspiration to learning, schools should abandon their hostility and support children when they want to learn some skills more sophisticated than simply designing their Facebook page, the study said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26290 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/VWNTA0S9dR4/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 14:05:01 EST Bell Canada Inc. will not have to suspend its practice of "shaping" traffic on the Internet after a group of companies that resell access to Bell's network complained their customers were also being negatively affected. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission today released a decision that denied the Canadian Association of Internet Providers' request that Bell be ordered to cease its application of the practice to its wholesale customers."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26287 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/-B7CyE6VEwY/article.pl Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:05:01 EST NASA has successfully tested the first deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million miles from Earth. The store-and-forward protocol was designed by NASA in consultation with Vint Cerf. Here's a discussion from last July before the test began."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26241 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/wqH8M3f9FUE/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:05:01 EST A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world's spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. "The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to... Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they'd report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo's demise isn't likely to last."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26240 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/K1ZZFDRpou0/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:05:01 EST CSMatt points with this excerpt from the EFF's page: "Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law in Tennessee that says: "Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall: [...] [R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year." While the entertainment industry failed to get "hard" requirements for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee (and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover, the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny — in the cost review attached to the Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware, and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26228 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/mh3uDNa1wV0/article.pl Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:05:03 EST Programmers are finding themselves increasingly drawn to the Mac as a development platform, in large part due to Apple's decision to move to Intel chips and to embrace virtualization of other OSes, which has turned Mac OS X into a flexible tool for development, InfoWorld reports. The explosion of interest in smartphone development is helping the trend, with iPhone development lock-in to the Mac environment the chief motivating factor for Apple as a platform of choice for mobile development. Yet for many, the Mac remains sluggish and poorly tuned for development, with developers citing its virtual memory system's poor performance in paging data in and out of memory and likening use of the default-network file system, AFS, to engaging oneself with 'some kind of passive-aggressive torture.' What remains unclear is whether Apple will lend an ear to this new wave of Mac-based development or continue to develop products that lock out uses programmers expect."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26215 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/5f9UqUs5X48/article.pl Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:05:01 EST lobo235 writes to tell us that a new underground data center designed by Sweden's largest ISP is fit for a classic supervillain, complete with greenhouses, waterfalls, German submarine engines, simulated daylight and can withstand a hit from a hydrogen bomb. "'Rather than just concentrating on technical hardware we decided to put humans in focus,' he said. 'Of course, the security, power, cooling, network, etc, are all top notch, but the people designing data centers often (always!) forget about the humans that are supposed to work with the stuff.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26170 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/NejnysT_ydQ/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 19:05:14 EST An anonymous reader points out a story on the Irish Times that says "the Irish government is looking for ways to combat 'cyber-bullying' after data indicated that a significant percentage of young children are subjected to this kind of abuse via their mobile phone and popular social network accounts. The industry has been asked to come up with solutions for this problem and a government office is due to publish a guide on the issue in the near future. Surely this is a problem faced by children in all developed countries these days." Add "for the children" to the list of reasons to track the Web-site habits of mobile web users in Ireland.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26154 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/0qX9RPiJxh4/article.pl Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:05:02 EST My company is considering implementing a formal remote access policy (and agreement for staff to sign) for users who access our network from home via VPN.Does anyone out there have any suggestions as to what this policy/agreement should contain? Anyone have their own corporate policy that I can 'borrow' from? This is the first time I've come across anyone wanting a formal policy for this & online searches haven't been very helpful. My thanks oh great /. readers :)"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26120 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/B0GaL7DSJyQ/article.pl Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:05:37 EST In a predictable move, TDS Telecom has filed an appeal after its complaint against Monticello, Minnesota's new fiber network was tossed by a county judge in early October. As you may remember, the city decided to build its own fiber-optic network after the telco made it clear they wouldn't build it because it wouldn't be economically feasible for them. TDS Telecom then changed its mind and sued the city for unfair competition."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26045 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dRpwI8tWzdE/article.pl Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:05:01 EST I work for a small manufacturing company as a SysAdmin. My boss is a DBA. We are the only IT employees. He recently decided to record hours spent on his projects and then evaluate how much time the databases he writes save the employees. Then he translates that into a $ figure. He's asking me to do something similar but I'm kinda at a loss. It seems most of the stuff I do is preventative, IE care and feeding of servers and network infrastructure in addition to all the break fix stuff I do for the user base with their desktops. When in this position what do you folks usually do?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/26027 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/sRUUMbUknC0/article.pl Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:05:02 EST Last night around 11pm all the major networks announced that Senator Barack Obama had won the election. Soon after Senator McCain conceded. There were no crazy partisan court hearings, just a simple election. This is your chance to talk about it and what it means for the future of our nation.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25978 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/U-rWCf2mm7Y/article.pl Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:05:03 EST I'm looking to integrate some highly critical solutions into what would essentially be a remote, moving datacenter. No operators will be allowed at the site, and we may be able to have a high-speed INMARSAT data link. As a backup, we're planning to have multiple redundant low-speed Iridium data links. Essentially, we're looking to be able to power up/down and reboot some computers, and be able to start/stop some programs. We're willing to write the terminal interfaces necessary for our programs, and possibly do the remote desktop thing with some of our 3rd-party programs. But what is out there that would give us this type of access, work robustly over a high-latency, low-bandwidth stream, and would be tolerant to intermittent network outages? Please hold the pick 2 of the 3 jokes, I know they're contradictory goals; I'm looking for a compromise here! These boxes would regrettably nearly all be running Windows (with some VxWorks). Does anyone out there remember those days, and have any solutions that they preferred?" Read on for a few more details of this reader's requirements.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25968 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/gdzPNyotm4s/article.pl Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:05:12 EST News sites and political blogs are expecting extraordinary traffic tonight as Americans track results of the Presidential election, and are scaling their infrastructure to meet the challenge. Yahoo anticipates its Election Night traffic may be three times the volume seen in 2004, when it had 80 million page views on Election Day and 142 million more visits the following day. Hosting companies say customers have been ordering extra servers and load balancing services, while content delivery networks are also expecting a busy night. Will traffic approach record levels? Akamai's Net Usage Index, which tracks traffic to its customer news sites, is one metric to watch."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25963 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4aFxT9yl1vI/article.pl Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:05:14 EST The Air Force is fed up with a seemingly endless barrage of attacks on its computer networks from stealthy adversaries whose motives and even locations are unclear. So now the service is looking to restore its advantage on the virtual battlefield by doing nothing less than the rewriting the 'laws of cyberspace.'" I'm sure that'll work out really well for them.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25948 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/HfaTdfGGlu8/article.pl Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:05:09 EST An anonymous reader asks "What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?" This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on, when, in a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25921 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/G99jwlV-zgg/article.pl Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:05:08 EDT The Internet will mark an infamous anniversary Sunday, when the Morris worm turns 20. Considered the first major attack on the 'Net, Morris served as a wake-up call about the risk of software bugs, and it set the stage for network security to become an important area of computer science. It was also the first time many non-techies heard of the 'Net, as the mainstream media covered the story extensively." Reader maximus1 contributes a brief ITWorld story about Robert Morris himself.Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25901 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/A6hVxnEF7rI/article.pl Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:05:14 EDT For anyone curious about what the legal department in a free software organisation does, I spent some time with my co-worker in FSFE and have put a summary online with the status of the main projects: developing a legal network, producing documentation, GPL enforcement, copyright consolidation, and training courses."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25900 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/qX9m_HZJC-o/article.pl Fri, 31 Oct 2008 17:05:11 EDT Gamasutra is running an article discussing the influence of games and gamers on the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. The connection, while minor, is continuing to strengthen, from allowing people to register to vote through their consoles, to in-game advertising, to games about and involving the candidates. However, it may still be an uphill climb as media-sharing becomes easier. From Gamasutra: "There are reasons games have grown slowly compared to other technologies for political outreach. The most important one is also the most obvious: since 2004, online video and social networks have become the big thing, as blogs were four years ago. Instead of urging voters to 'play my game,' as Loftus and I surmised, candidates urged their constituents to 'watch my video.' Online video became the political totem of 2008, from James Kotecki's dorm room interviews to CNN's YouTube debates."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25891 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ZusfWtPDelI/article.pl Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:05:11 EDT Bang on target, the new version of Ubuntu Linux is available for our downloading pleasure. Amongst various changes it sports updates to the installer, improved networking, and a new 'Mobile USB' version geared towards the blossoming netbook market. Grab a copy from the Ubuntu website, and check out Linux Format's hands-on look at the Ibex."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25876 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9srz5twyDbo/article.pl Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:05:06 EDT Companies should not dismiss staff who use social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo at work as merely time-wasters, a Demos study suggests. Attempts to control employees' use of such software could damage firms in the long run by limiting the way staff communicate, the think tank said."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25865 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/wcUY1Z-nlHg/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:05:02 EDT A couple of years ago, we dumped our cable TV, and don't have much luck getting old-fashioned broadcast where we live. That's fine — we can download or netflix almost anything we want to see, and it is great not to pay the Comcast tax every month. Problem is, now I want to watch the election live, complete with talking heads, pundits, glitzy graphics and all the rest, rather than reading about it on a website. So, is there any way to download network TV / CNN / MSNBC in real time — I don't mind paying. And yes, we could visit friends, but ideally our kids would watch the first part and then go to bed — and a sitter would be expensive if we have to wait until late for the result."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25851 http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/eiti8TaSm6I/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:05:24 EDT A couple of years ago, we dumped our cable TV, and don't have much luck getting old-fashioned broadcast where we live. That's fine — we can download or netflix almost anything we want to see, and it is great not to pay the Comcast tax every month. Problem is, now I want to watch the election live, complete with talking heads, pundits, glitzy graphics and all the rest, rather than reading about it on a website. So, is there any way to download network TV / CNN / MSNBC in real time — I don't mind paying. And yes, we could visit friends, but ideally our kids would watch the first part and then go to bed — and a sitter would be expensive if we have to wait until late for the result."Read more of this story at Slashdot. http://www.roomformilk.com/launch/25848 http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/eiti8TaSm6I/article.pl Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:05:09 EDT