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doggdot.usHow Do You Manage Your SD Card Library?txmadman writes "Like a lot of my colleagues and all of my three children, I have several SD , mini-SD, and micro-SD cards for various purposes: cameras, cell phones, my laptop, etc. These things are handy to have around, offer easy and significant storage, but are very easily lost. We have also have run into some instances where it wasn"t clear whose SD card was whose, and have also started to see a need for a storage mechanism. I have seen SD card "wallets" and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one. So: How do you manage and keep track of your SD cards?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Oprah Sued For Infringing "Touch and Feel" PatentI Don"t Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Oprah Winfrey, or to be more precise, Oprah"s Book Club, is being sued by the inventor/patent attorney Scott C. Harris for infringing upon his patent for "Enhancing Touch and Feel on the Internet." So Oprah"s Book Club is now one of many people and entities being sued over this patent because they allow people to view part, but not all, of a book online before purchasing it. Mr. Harris also sued Google Books for infringing upon this patent. He actually was fired from his position as partner at Fish & Richardson for that, because Google is a client of that law firm and they had conflict of interest rules to uphold." It would be entertaining to see Oprah give very wide and mainstream publicity to the abuses enabled by our current patent system.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Obama Picks RIAA's Favorite Lawyer For Top DoJ PostThe Recording Industry of America"s favorite courtroom lawyer, Tom Perrelli, who has sued individual file swappers in multiple federal courts, is President-elect Barack Obama"s choice for the third in line at the Justice Department. CNet"s Declam McCullagh explores the background of the man who won the RIAA"s lucrative business for his DC law firm: "An article on his law firm"s Web site says that Perrelli represented SoundExchange before the Copyright Royalty Board — and obtained a 250 percent increase in the royalty rate for music played over the Internet by companies like AOL and Yahoo," not to mention Pandora and Radio Paradise. NewYorkCountryLawyer adds, "Certainly this does not bode well for CowboyNeal"s being appointed Copyright Czar."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Phishing Is a Minimum-Wage Jobrohitm918 writes "A study by Microsoft Research concludes that phishers make very little (PDF): "...low-skill jobs pay like low-skill jobs, whether the activity is legal or not." They also find that the Gartner numbers that everyone quotes ($3.2B/year etc) are rubbish, off by a factor of 50. "Even though it harvests "free money," phishing generates total revenue equal to the total costs incurred by the actors. Each participant earns, on average, only as much as he would have made in the opportunities he gave up elsewhere. As the total phishing effort increases the total phishing revenue declines: the harder individual phishers try the worse their collective situation gets. As a consequence, increasing effort is a sign of failure rather than of success.""
Read more of this story at Slashdot. A Peek At DHS's Files On Youkenblakely writes "We"ve known for a while that the Department of Homeland Security was collecting travel records on those who cross US borders, but now you can see it for yourself. A Freedom of Information Act request got this blogger a look at DHS"s file on his travels. Pretty comprehensive — all the way down to the IP address of the host he used to make a reservation."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Researchers Hack Intel's VProsnydeq writes "Security researchers from Invisible Things Lab have created software that can "compromise the integrity" of software loaded using Intel"s vPro Trusted Execution Technology, which is supposed to help protect software from being seen or tampered with by other programs on the machine. The researchers say they have created a two-stage attack, with the first stage exploiting a bug in Intel"s system software. The second stage relies on a design flaw in the TXT technology itself (PDF). The researchers plan to give more details on their work at the Black Hat DC security conference next month."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. State Secrets Defense Rejected In Wiretapping Caseknifeyspooney writes in with an Ars Technica report that a federal judge has issued a strong rebuke to government lawyers attempting to invoke the "state secrets" defense to quash a lawsuit over warrantless wiretapping. This is not the high-profile case the EFF is bringing against the NSA; instead the case is being pursued by an Islamic charity that knows it had been wiretapped. "At times, a note of irritation crept into [Judge] Walker"s even, judicial language. At one point, he described the government"s argument as "without merit," and characterized another as "circular." He also seemed impatient with the Justice Department"s refusal to provide any classified documents addressing Al Haramain"s specific claims for review in chambers. "It appears... that defendants believe they can prevent the court from taking any action under 1806(f) by simply declining to act," wrote Walker."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Groklaw Shifts Gears, Now Stressing Preservationdan of the north notes a change of direction at Groklaw. Pamela Jones (PJ) writes: "I think we need to use this time to perfect our work and ensure Groklaw"s preservation. It will require shutting down the daily articles and News Picks, at least for the forseeable future, but I"m convinced it"s important to do it. One of the core purposes of Groklaw has always been to create a reliable record for historians and law schools to use our materials to teach and inform. ... I choose to make sure our work as fully reliable, comprehensive and, to the degree humanly possible, permanent. ... Groklaw"s collection of materials is really valuable. I"d like to ensure that it survives. ... We"ve covered the SCO litigations since May of 2003, and it"s the only complete record of this important phase in IT history."
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