Thursday, December 22, 2011

SOPA bans Tor, the US Navy's censorship-busting technology

.:Boing:.

Tor, the censorship-busting technology developed by the US Navy and promoted by the State Department as part of the solution to allowing for free communications in repressive regimes, is likely illegal technology under the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA makes provision for punishing Americans who contribute expertise to projects that can be used to defeat its censorship regime, and Tor fits the bill.

"I worry that it is vague enough, and the intention to prevent tunneling around court-ordered restrictions clear enough, that courts will bend over backwards to find a violation," says Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in intellectual property law.

Smith's anti-circumvention language appears designed to target software such as MAFIAAFire, the Firefox add-on that bypassed domain seizures, and ThePirateBay Dancing and Tamer Rizk's DeSOPA add-ons, which take a similar approach. (As CNET reported in May, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has tried, unsuccessfully so far, to remove MAFIAAFire from the Web.)

But Smith worded SOPA broadly enough that the anti-circumvention language isn't limited to Firefox add-ons. In an echo of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention section, SOPA targets anyone who "knowingly and willfully provides or offers to provide a product or service designed or marketed by such entity...for the circumvention or bypassing" of a Justice Department-erected blockade.

How SOPA's 'circumvention' ban could put a target on Tor (Thanks, James!)

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Find All the Hackintosh-Compatible Parts You Need with This Buyer's Guide [Hackintosh]

.:Lifehacker:.
We've looked at how to find the right parts for a hackintosh on your own, but now hackintosh expert tonymacx86 has posted a comprehensive list of builds and parts for creating Intel-based machines of all kinds. It includes a quite a few sample builds as well as a very helpful, long list of compatible graphics cards. More »


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JTP


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With all White Space logged, 'Wi-Fi on steroids' can finally launch

.:BetaNews:.


The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday approved the first database of all the unused wireless frequencies known as "white spaces" in the United States and has given the green light to the first hardware that will use them.

White space, or the wireless spectrum that was freed from the transition from analog to digital television, would be available to use without requiring a wireless license, similar to the way wi-fi works today. The problem, of course, is that the wireless frequencies that fall in this white space varies from market to market. This is why the database was required.

The database was collected by Spectrum Bridge Inc, who the FCC and Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) appointed in the beginning of 2011.

"With today's approval of the first TV white spaces database and device, we are taking an important step towards enabling a new wave of wireless innovation," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement on Thursday. "Unleashing white spaces spectrum has the potential to exceed even the many billions of dollars in economic benefit from Wi-Fi, the last significant release of unlicensed spectrum, and drive private investment and job creation."

To utilize the white space in a particular area, devices must query this database to find out which channels are unoccupied by authorized radio services, and the first official White Space test deployment will be Wilmington North Carolina, the city which three years ago became the first digital television "transition" market.

The hardware used in this market will be supplied by KTS Wireless, whose KTS TV bands device is the first approved for white space broadband data applications.

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JTP


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Shield Yourself From Credit Card Skimmers

.:Consumerist:.

Since you never know for sure whether or not there's a skimmer device on credit card readers you use, any swipe potentially puts you at risk of identity theft. The best you can do is to avoid explicitly dangerous situations.

Savings.com suggest the following advice to keep your credit card info out of the hands of identity thieves:

* Look out for the abnormal. If you're at a familiar place and the card reader on the counter behaves differently in any way, cancel the transaction and ask the clerk to swipe it with the reader behind the counter.

* Be suspicious of self-checkout lanes. Since these machines aren't as closely monitored by workers, there's a better chance a thief has manipulated it. Your odds of exposure are still minimal, but those looking to be extra careful should consider shying away from self-checkout lanes.

* Select the "credit" rather than "debit" option. If you're going to be defrauded, it's better that the thief charge the money to you rather than take it directly out of your account. Credit transactions usually give you more leeway to fix fraudulent transactions.

Also, don't forget to stay on top of your charges online to make sure nothing fishy sneaks past you.

4 Ways to Protect Yourself against Credit Card Skimming [Savings.com]

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JTP


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Thursday, December 15, 2011

How to enable the root user

Amplify’d from support.apple.com

How to enable the root user


OS X Lion



  1. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences....

  2. From the View menu choose Users & Groups.

  3. Click the lock and authenticate as an administrator account.

  4. Click Login Options....

  5. Click the "Edit..." or "Join..." button at the bottom right.

  6. Click the "Open Directory Utility..." button.

  7. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.

  8. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.

  9. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.

  10. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.



Mac OS X v10.6.x



  1. From the Apple menu choose System Preferences....

  2. From the View menu choose Accounts.

  3. Click on the lock and authenticate with an administrator account.

  4. Click Login Options....

  5. Click the "Edit..." or "Join..." button at the bottom right.

  6. Click the "Open Directory Utility..." button.

  7. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.

  8. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.

  9. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.

  10. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.


Note: If you are troubleshooting an issue that prevents you from logging in as an administrator, follow the steps in this article to enable the root user.


Mac OS X v10.5.x



  1. From the Finder's Go menu, choose Utilities.

  2. Open Directory Utility.

  3. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.

  4. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.

  5. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.

  6. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.
Read more at support.apple.com
 

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