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200-Year-Old Cipher Finally Cracked (slashdot)

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:50:13 -0400

Attila Dimedici writes "A code expert just cracked a code used by a friend of Thomas Jefferson in a letter written to Jefferson some 200 years ago. This code is fairly easy to crack using a computer, but extremely difficult without one. I think it would have been much harder if the author had not included an indication as to what code algorithm he used in the letter accompanying the coded message."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

US Couple Gets Prison Time For Internet Obscenity (slashdot)

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:45:40 -0400

angry tapir writes "The husband and wife owners of a California company that distributed pornographic materials over the Internet have been each sentenced to one year and one day in prison. Extreme Associates and owners Robert Zicari, also known as Rob Black, 35, and his wife, Janet Romano, aka Lizzie Borden, 32, pleaded guilty in March to a felony charge of conspiracy to distribute obscene material through the mail and over the Internet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft Changing Users' Default Search Engine (slashdot)

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 07:15:32 -0400

BabyDuckHat writes "Cnet's Dennis O'Reilly caught "Windows Search Helper" trying to change his default Firefox search from Google to Bing. This isn't the first time the software company has been caught quietly changing user's preferences to benefit its own products."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hawking Says Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution (slashdot)

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:44:26 -0400

movesguy sends us to The Daily Galaxy for comments by Stephen Hawking about how humans are evolving in a different way than any species before us. Quoting: "'At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, 'an external transmission phase,' where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. 'But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage,' Hawking says, 'has grown enormously. Some people would use the term evolution only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VirtualBox 3.0: No More Booting Windows (linux today)

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:11:45 -0400

Linux Magazine: "VirtualBox 3.0, with its improved 3D support, can ensure that some users won't need to boot Windows even when gaming."