If you can't reach all the infected
computers (by pushing your own virus?) you can't kill off this bot...
"A botnet that was crippled by
Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab last September is
spamming once again and experts have no recourse to stop it. The
Kelihos botnet only infected 45,000 or so computers but managed to
send out nearly 4 billion spam messages a day, promoting, among other
things, pornography, illegal pharmaceuticals and stock scams. But it
was temporarily
corralled last September after researchers used various technical
means to get the 45,000 or so infected computers to communicate with
a "sinkhole," or a computer they controlled."
[From the article:
Researchers knew that it would only be
a matter of time before its controller used the botnet's complex
infrastructure of proxy servers and communication nodes to regain
control.
Your body manufactures all sorts of
chemicals. Will OSHA want to inspect your adrenal gland?
"A
non-surgical procedure that treats joint pain involves removing stem
cells from a patient's blood and reinserting them into the joint.
The facility conducting these procedures resides in Colorado, but
because it orders equipment to perform the procedure from outside of
Colorado, the FDA
claims it must regulate this process and that it can classify
stem cells as a drug. This issue opens the
debate of what the FDA, or other regulatory bodies, may regulate
within each of our own bodies."
Quick: Name five activities with no
possible plausible effect on interstate commerce.
A carefully timed announcement: The
Copyright Corps rides again! I'm sure their thrilling theme music
would be playing in the background if there wasn't a question about
who owned the Copyright...
Feds
Seize 307 Sports-Related Domains Ahead of Super Sunday
Federal authorities said Thursday they
had seized and shuttered 307 domains, 16 allegedly engaged in
unauthorized live sports streaming and the remainder accused of
selling fake professional sports merchandise, including National
Football League paraphernalia.
The seizure, the biggest to date under
the Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown known as Operation
in Our Sites (.pdf), brings to more than 650 domains shuttered
since the program began in June 2010. The latest seizures, which
quietly began in October, were announced days ahead of Super Sunday
(Related) Because you never purchased
that music, you only rented it. But you can't sub-lease it either.
In fact, you have no rights what-so-ever. (Next year we're going to
introduce “Per Ear Pricing!” because you have no right to listen
with two ears when one will do the job)
Online
Market for Pre-Owned Digital Music Hangs in the Balance
The future of a one-of-a-kind website
enabling the online sale of pre-owned digital-music files is in the
hands of a federal judge.
ReDigi,
which opened in October, provides account holders with a
platform to buy and sell used MP3s that were purchased lawfully
through iTunes. The platform’s technology does not
support other music.
Among other points, the
case weighs the so-called first-sale doctrine, the legal theory that
people in lawful possession of copyright material have the right to
sell it.
A federal judge sided with that
principle in 2008, when it debunked UMG Recordings’ claim that it
retained
perpetual ownership of promotional CDs it releases before an
album’s debut. Last year, however, a different court ruled against
now-defunct
online service Zediva, which streamed movies to customers via
DVDs that Zediva had purchased.
Except if you cross the border? TSA is
expanding into bus & train travel. It could be important to know
what they can and can't do... Also, would this argument cover
smartphones and computers? (The answer here is yes!)
Federal
court – warrantless search of protestor’s video cam violated
Fourth Amendment
February 3, 2012 by Dissent
FourthAmendment.com
points to a recent news story out of Oregon that searching a videocam
without a warrant, even incident to an arrest, is a Fourth Amendment
violation. Bryan
Denson reports:
The rules of
engagement became clearer in Eugene’s U.S. District Court last
week, when a civil jury determined that a city police sergeant
violated an environmental activist’s constitutional protections
against illegal search and seizure during a 2009 leafletting campaign
outside a bank.
The eight-person
panel determined that Sgt. Bill Solesbee arrested environmentalist
Josh Schlossberg without probable cause and used excessive force.
But it was Solesbee’s next act that sent legal minds across Oregon
into hyperdrive: He seized the environmentalist’s video camera
without a warrant.
That’s
the electronic equivalent of police walking off with several file
cabinets of private papers without benefit of a judge’s
signature, said Lauren Regan, Schlossberg’s lawyer.
U.S. Magistrate
Judge Thomas Coffin ruled in a pretrial hearing in the Eugene case
that Solesbee violated Schlossberg’s Fourth Amendment rights by
searching the contents of his camera without a warrant. That ruling
marked the first time that a federal court in Oregon
weighed in on warrantless seizures of digital devices. [Where have
they been all these years? Bob]
Read more in The
Oregonian.
While this is a great decision for
privacy advocates, I note the court reached a
different conclusion than other federal courts confronted with
similar issues about whether devices are “containers” that can be
searched without a warrant if incident to an arrest. In
his opinion,
Magistrate Judge Coffin explains:
I find that
warrantless searches of such devices are not reasonable incident to a
valid arrest absent a showing that the search was
necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence, to ensure officer
safety, or that other exigent circumstances exist.3 I
further find that it is impractical to distinguish
between electronic devices–between a laptop and a traditional cell
phone or a smart phone and a camera, [YES! Bob] before an
officer decides whether to proceed with a search of the electronic
device incident to arrest. A rule requiring officers to distinguish
between electronic devices is impractical. It would require officers
to learn and memorize the capabilities of constantly changing
electronic devices. A primary goal in search and seizure law has
been to provide law enforcement with clear standards to follow. In
sum because an electronic device like a camera has a high expectation
of privacy in its contents, an officer may not review the contents as
a search incident to arrest. Instead, the officer must obtain a
warrant unless exigent circumstances exist. Donald, 335 at
455-56 (“Absent some grave emergency, the Fourth Amendment has
interposed a magistrate between the citizen and the police. This was
done not to shield criminals nor to make the home a safe haven for
illegal activities. It was done so that an objective mind might
weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law.”
)
Accordingly, I
find that Solesbee violated the Fourth Amendment when he viewed the
contents of plaintiff’s camera without first obtaining a warrant.
Mention software like this to anyone in
the US and you get that blank stare that tells me they have never
heard of such a thing. “It can't work here, [insert vendor name
here] told me so.”
Open
Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can’t
… Under the aegis of their
nonprofit, eHealth Nigeria,
Castle and Thompson have built a digital records system meant to
eventually serve healthcare facilities across the region, but it
doesn’t use the sort of specialized health care software in U.S. or
even everyday database software. There’s no Kaiser software. And
no Microsoft. The system is based on OpenMRS,
an open source health records system designed specifically for use in
underdeveloped regions.
First created in 2004, OpenMRS is now
used in countries
across the globe, including Rwanda, Mozambique, Haiti, India,
China, and the Phillipines.
