What are they actually looking for? A student reported that TSA confiscated his laptops (personal and business) when he was boarding a domestic flight. Perhaps a more complete article on the 9 million ways to avoid carrying anything of interest to the government would be useful? We could copy it from any terrorist guidebook...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/1551246&from=rss

Securing Your Notebook Against US Customs

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 15, @12:21PM from the best-interests-at-heart dept.

Nethemas the Great points out a piece from Bruce Schneier running in the UK's Guardian newspaper with some tips for international travelers on securing notebook computers for border crossings. A taste of the brief article: "Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can take your computer and download its entire contents, or keep it for several days. ... Encrypting your entire hard drive, something you should certainly do for security in case your computer is lost or stolen, won't work here. The border agent is likely to start this whole process with a 'please type in your password.' Of course you can refuse, but the agent can search you further, detain you longer, refuse you entry into the country and otherwise ruin your day."

This should be throwing gasoline on the “Network Neutrality” debate, but it seems to be kept rather low key. I wonder when it will explode?

http://techdirt.com/articles/20080515/1756281127.shtml

Latest Study Confirms Cox Traffic Shaping; Comcast Misleading Again

from the sounds-familiar dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting various news reports claiming the "news" that Cox is traffic shaping just like Comcast is -- but that's hardly news. We had a story about that last November. What is a bit more interesting out of the same study (though, not very surprising) is the news that Comcast has been less than forthright in explaining what it's doing. While Comcast denied any traffic shaping for the longest time, when it finally 'fessed up (just a bit) it said that it only used traffic shaping during peak hours. However, the research suggests otherwise. After testing a bunch of users at various times, this new study found no noticeable difference in blockages based on time.

What did you expect, software modeled on Neville Chamberlain?

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/1654235&from=rss

Air Force Aims for Control of 'Any and All' Computers

Journal written by Jeremiah Cornelius (137) and posted by timothy on Thursday May 15, @01:40PM

from the we'd-rather-kill-them-off-by-peaceful-means dept.

Noah Shachtman on Wired.com's Danger Room reports that Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for 'Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement.' 'Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access,' a request for proposals notes, 'to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms ... any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware.' This isn't just some computer science study, mind you; 'research efforts under this program are expected to result in complete functional capabilities.' The Air Force has already announced their desire to manage an offensive BotNet, comprised of unwitting participatory computers. How long before they slip a root kit on you?

Tools & Techniques (or perhaps Toys for Techies)

http://www.cnet.com/8301-13880_1-9945662-68.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Workers'Edge

A Windows utility that control freaks will love

Posted by Dennis O'Reilly May 16, 2008 12:01 AM PDT

... For a limited time, the Vista version of the program costs $30, and the XP version is priced at $20. You can try either one 15 times for free. That's plenty to determine whether the utilities are worth the investment. If you're the type of person who likes to have total control over your system settings, you'll likely consider those prices a bargain.

Pinpoint control over hardware, software, Web browsing

Here's a partial list of the settings you can change via the utilities:

—Disable USB storage devices

—Disable CD burning and auto-run

—Prevent writing to USB storage devices

—Disable the Windows key

—Disable file downloads in IE

—Disable password caching

—Disable Registry editing tools

—Restrict access to Windows Update

—Disable Control Panel

—Control access to Windows' appearance settings

—Limit the applications users can run

—Restrict access to Taskbar and Start Menu Properties

—Disable Recent Documents history, or clear the list on exit

—Disable System Restore, or restrict access to System Restore settings