SlashNOT

Squid writes: As part of their continuing Trustworthy Computing Initiative, Microsoft announced Thursday that they will release a 100% secure version of Windows in early 2003. The new version, tentatively named Windows XS, “provides a completely secure environment by eliminating vulnerable and unreliable components such as network connections, modems, and keyboards,” according to the press release.

The new Windows will also include a sophisticated screen-blanking feature to protect against TEMPEST attacks. It will be priced higher than standard Windows versions, and is designed for organizations that require highly secure computing, such as banks and the RIAA.

Captain Shenanigan writes: Inspired by the high-altitude high-speed WLAN mapping of Delta Farce but lacking an airplane, San Diego etherpunks Billy-Bob and Hans go low and slow to map out unsecured wireless access points. Not having a car (and aware that the sidewalk thing has been done) the duo plunge into the sewers instead, looking for places to scam free Internet access. An excerpt of their travelogue follows: Read the rest of this entry »

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III has urged Congress to enact a law making it illegal to “mistype, misspell, or obfuscate any word in the English language in an e-mail message”. According to Mueller, “poor spelling and typos are dramatically imparing the efforts of our brave automated Internet wiretapping technologies such as Carnivore. Carnivore can’t pick up every possible permutation or misspelling of a word. For example, it will miss ‘missle’, ‘bom’, ‘explosevs’, ‘nukular’ and ‘divice’. When we looked at the processing cost of soundexing every word and comparing soundex codes to our ‘triggers’, we realized it would be much easier to simply make misspelling illegal. This will certainly stop all the 31ite h@NO_SPAMx0rs from browsing for pr0n.” The directory also mentioned that he’d like to see legislation on criminalizing heavy Arabic accents over the telephone as well.

Matthew writes: People for the Ethical Distribution of Linux (PEDL) have announced Green Linux, which they claim is 100% cruelty free, as well as made from 100% recycled UNIX. “For the first time, open source afficionados can combine their love of Linux with their love of being not cruel. We’ve taken the ethical dilemma out of running Linux” says a PEDL spokesperson.

“What we’ve done is remove the paper, the CD-R media, and emacs, and then recycled all that old UNIX code into a new operating system. It’s surprising that nobody has done this before.” said a PEDL spokesperson. When reminded that numerous Linux and BSD distributions are only available online,and that they too are basically recycled UNIX, the spokesperson noted that “they still have emacs.”
Feturing ads with nude women-who-you-might-think-could-realistically-be-seen-with-a-geek covering themselves with nothing but titanium powerbooks, the new distribution will be available only via download, to avoid paper packaging materials and the exploitative processes required to make CD media in third world countries.

mstrebe writes: Apple computer is currently filming a switch add featuring Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

“I finally just got sick of the whole damned thing.” says Gates, noticably tired in the ad. “I mean, I don’t know how many times I tried to tell these guys what I wanted, and they just kept coming out with hackneyed crap. Last week, I was trying to install a smartcard infrastructure around the house–what an unbelievable pain in the ass that was. Windows Me? Are you kidding! Sure, it looks a bit more like Aqua, but you can tell it’s still Windows underneath. I just wanted something that works, you know, and is made out of titanium. Besides, they totally go with Melinda’s interior decorating, and the only purpose I have for a computer is to burn DVDs of the kids.”

Microsoft PR people are at a complete loss to explain Bill’s appearance in the commercial, noting that he has become ‘distant’ as of late, and had been lingering in front of the local Apple store while walking through the mall.

Squid writes: For years the computer industry has followed Moore’s law, which states that the number of transistors per inch on an integrated circuit - and thus, the speed of a computer - doubles every 18 months. Now, the US Senate has overwhelmingly voted to repeal Moore’s Law.

This is great news for Intel and other chip makers, whose progress has always been limited by Moore’s law. It’s also great news for Microsoft and other makers of slow, bloated software. “With Moore’s Law out of the way, we’ll be able to quadruple the size of the Windows XP codebase within the next year,” says a Microsoft source.

Moore’s Law has been on the books since proposed by Intel chairman Gordon E. Moore in 1965. Congress is hoping that this move will revitalize the computer industry. Rumor has it the laws of physics are next on the agenda.

Squid writes: First there were banner ads, then pop-up ads. Now, According to an article, the latest fad is “sneak-up” ads. “The ad appears right in the middle of content, disguised as ordinary text - there’s no way to avoid it!,” according to the perpetrators. I hope no respectable sites allow these intruCongratulations! You’ve won a free vacation! Click here for more!sive ads. Enough is enough.

Bender writes: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) today filed a petition with the Los Angeles Times demanding that the newspaper immediately stop using the derogatory term ‘Killer Bees’ in reference to Africanized honeybees, characterized by their aggressive defense of their hives. Read on for more… Read the rest of this entry »

Capt. Tako writes: British Telecom filed suit today against Logitech and Microsoft today, asserting that those companies not only violated their trademark rights to the letters “B” and “T” by releasing “various devices” that include the two letters, but also induced billions of computer users to infringe BT’s rights by creating devices that allow users to add those two letters to other trademarks.

“It’s quite clear to us that if these ‘key boards’ didn’t contain the letters “B” and “T”, then computer users wouldn’t be unknowingly including our trademarked letters in their own trademark applications. The monir inconvenience of not being able to utilize the full alphabet on a computer is no justification for infringing our strong historical rights to “B” and “T”.

Those historical roots go back pretty far. BT is an outgrowth of the original “British Telegraph” when predated the QWERTY keyboard layout, and British Telegraph is decended from the Havershirefordhamington-upon-avon fishery, which predates middle English when the letters “B” and “T” were first incorporated into English. It is this length of history which give BT’s claim merit.

Capt. Tako writes: The new movie www.geocities.com/members/~jason/feardotorg/feardotorgindex.html opens this week in theaters nationwide. In this movie, a series of deaths arouses the suspicion of police detective Richard Stallman, who suspects that they may have something to do with a website called www.geocities.com/members/~jason/feardotorg/feardotorgindex.html.
After the second major killing in as many decades in sleepy Hollowton CT, Detective Stallman relizes that both victims have cookies on their hard drive from adserver.ads360.com. This chilling piece of evidence leads detective Stallman to realize that both victims actually died of stroke while attempting to close all the popup ads that appeared while visiting www.geocities.com/members/~jason/feardotorg/feardotorgindex.html. PLOT Spoiler: There’s no plot.