California Working to Ban RFID Tagging of School Kids
California is working on a bill to ban RFID chipping kids.
Legislation approved Monday would prohibit public schools from requiring the implementation of radio-wave devices that broadcast students' personal identification and monitor their movement around campus — information the mechanical horrors could theoretically use to turn our children into livestock.
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.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]And You Wonder Why People Don’t Trust Microsoft
The Windows Updater is supposed to patch your system against critical flaws and exploits. To make things easier for normal users, there's an "Express Install" button where you don't have to review each update one at a time and can just trust Microsoft to install only the most security critical .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Customer Abuse, Microsoft, Scams - Ripoffs - Dirty Tricks, Windows UpdateWindows Vista Makes PC World’s Top 20 Most Annoying Products List
For it's incessant prompts to "allow or continue", it's terrible compatibility with older software, and for Aero not working on most machines even though Microsoft marketing always shows the Aero experience (which so many people don't actually get to see). PC World puts Vista as #8 on the top 20 most annoying tech products of all time.
.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Tags: Microsoft, Windows VistaWashington State Rejects REAL ID – That’s Four So Far.
According to the The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) newsletter, Washington state has also rejected REAL ID. More info on REAL ID and why it's bad here.
.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Tags: Big Brother, Congress, Real IDIn the DVD Encryption Wars, Hackers are Winning
From the "thank gosh the hackers are on our side" department, it appears that the encryption scheme used on HD DVDs has nearly been broken. The copy protection scheme is supposed to prevent pirates from making and distributing copies of movies, but it also prevents normal users from exercising their fair use rights.
.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Tags: DVD Encryption, Fair Use, HD DVDPutting Parental Fears In Perspective
For those who weren't paying attention, fears of child abduction and abuse are fairly overblown.
Although statistics show that rates of child abduction and sexual abuse have marched steadily downward since the early 1990s, fear of these crimes is at an all-time high. Even the panic-inducing Megan's Law Web site says stranger abduction is rare and .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Forced RFID Implantation Illegal in North Dakota
From the "don't forget we're people, not products" department, North Dakota is the second state to ban forced RFID implantation. However, even if this is a step in the right direction, does it do enough? It doesn't ban voluntary implantation and last I checked a lot of things that aren't really "voluntary" are treated such under law:
Tags: Big Brother, Big Business, RFID, RFID ImplantVista Activation Hacked for Real this Time?
It looks like there's a legitimate working hack for Vista that kills their bogus activation scheme. Microsoft is saying that they're not going to do anything about it yet because they don't know if it will become a wide exploit. But I think this commentor (from the source article) has it more correct:
They didn't think it .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]P2P Filesharing Speed Increase with SET
The article is here, but here's the basics:
Say your file is this string of letters:
aabbcc
And you try to download from the one guy in the world who has this file, but he goes offline before you finish it. With SET, they've developed a scheme where anyone with any kind of file that shares sections .... [Click here to read the rest of this post]
Tags: Cool, P2PMicrosoft Pulling XP to Force Vista Adoption
So companies don't want Vista? Well, we can fix that…. (hand rubbing and evil snicker).
Microsoft will stop allowing companies to install OEM versions of XP by the end of the year.
.... [Click here to read the rest of this post]Tags: Customer Abuse, Microsoft, Planned Obsolescence, Windows, Windows Vista