24th March 2008 Archive

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Of laptops and US border searches

Feds seek unfettered access

Recently, I was going through an airport with my shoes, coat, jacket, and belt off as well as with my carry-on bag, briefcase, and laptop all separated for easy inspection. I was heading through security at the Washington D.C., Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, or "National" as we locals call it. As I passed …

Policing 24 Mar 2008, 09:02
The secret to evolutionary code

Book extract, part one Emergent Design: basic principles

The idea of building simple code that's easy to maintain generates debate at both a philosophical and a practical level. What to we mean by "simple", how do you get there – use a model with comments or just an economy of code - and, importantly, who the hell built this mess? That kind of stuff. Technology veteran Scott Bain's …

Software 24 Mar 2008, 10:02
Verizon makes nice with P2P

We can help ISPs turn internet into big TV set

From an ISP’s point of view, P2P traffic can appear to be exceptionally daunting. If they choose to block it, as some have accused almost all of the major US ISPs of doing, then their networks would become ghost networks, with virtually no traffic in sight. But if they embrace it, their networks are fast moving crazy places, …

Data Networking 24 Mar 2008, 11:02
ICO queries Heathrow T5's huge fingerprint ~~scam~~ scan

National security now wholly funded by shopping

The government, the British Airports Authority and the Information Commissioner's Office are arguing over fingerprinting at Heathrow's new Terminal 5, which is due to open on Thursday. T5 is to use a 'count them all in, count them all out' biometric system to log entry and exit to the departure lounge, but the ICO thinks the …

Government 24 Mar 2008, 14:31
DARPA funds Sun's optical chip chatter magic

$44m mulligan

Well, well, well, Sun Microsystems worked DARPA over for some SPARC funding after all. The server maker today celebrated a $44m contract to produce optical chip-to-chip connections technology for the Defense Department's R&D unit. The official line on this arrangement has Sun taking $44.29m over five and a half years to …

Servers 24 Mar 2008, 17:45
Yahoo! outsources! India's! giant! supercomputer!

14,000 Pig-powered processors

Yahoo! will start leasing computer scientists some quality time with the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world, courtesy of India-based Computational Research Laboratories (CRL). Under the agreement announced today, Yahoo! will make available CRL's enormous system to Indian academic institutions so long as they make use of …

Servers 24 Mar 2008, 19:13
Enraged AT&T spam filter eats legitimate mail

Aims too high to please

Finding fewer emails in your AT&T spam folder? It may be a mixed blessing. AT&T appears to have implemented new spam filters that are catching legitimate emails - but provide no warning to the intended recipients. Over the past week, internet service providers, individual email senders and customers of AT&T-controlled email …

Spam 24 Mar 2008, 19:30
Mozilla CEO blasts Apple for putting security of the internet at risk

'Really. That's the issue. Not market share'

Steve Jobs is using Apple Software Update to slip his Safari browser onto Windows machines. And Mozilla CEO John Lilly is peeved. Presumably, Lilly is peeved because Safari browsers on Windows machines would eat into the market share of Mozilla's very own Firefox browser. But Lilly says he's peeved for different reasons. He …

Channel Register 24 Mar 2008, 19:54
Marathon ships He-Man virtual machine protector

Power of Grayskull results in everRun VM

What happens when my physical machine collapses? That's what a lot of virtualization newcomers wonder about while considering the prospect of stacking tons of applications on a single, physical box. Virtualization players such as VMware and Symantec/Veritas have addressed these concerns through HA (high availability) packages …

Virtualization 24 Mar 2008, 21:44
DOJ blesses XM/Sirius marriage

Smacks lips at a la carte menu

The US Department of Justice today is giving a nod of approval to the merger between satellite radio companies XM and Sirius, more than a year after the deal was first announced. Although the merger still requires approval from the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC is unlikely to go against the Justice Department's …

Financial News 24 Mar 2008, 22:54