MediaDefender Attacks Revision3

You may have already know Revision3 experienced problems over the Memorial Day weekend due to a denial of service attack. But this turned out to be not your run of the mill DOS attack. Usually the IP addresses of the computers sending the DOS request packets sent are spoofed, masked to where it is difficult or impossible to tell where they originated. Not this time.
As Jim Louderback explains in his excellent, highly detailed blog post, it turns out the vast majority of request packets came from none other than MediaDefender. The same MediaDefender involved in setting up a fake movie download site that was nothing more than an entrapment scheme. The same MediaDefender that exists for the sole purpose of attempting to disrupt illegal file sharing on P2P networks, particularly BitTorrent, on the behalf of numerous big name studios. There's just one problem with this (ok, there are actually several, but for now we'll focus on this one): P2P networks can be and are used for legitimate, legal activities such as people distributing their own content. Open source software is also distributed over P2P.
Jim and Kevin (and their backers) over at Revision3 aren't going to take too kindly to another company disrupting their business. After all it's shenanigans, MediaDefender may finally be in some trouble as the FBI are reportedly looking into the matter. Denial of service attacks are illegal according to the Economic Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

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Indy Sets Box Office Record After All

Counting worldwide box office receipts, Indiana Jones captured moviegoers over the Memorial Day weekend, raking in a record-setting $311 million. For a while there was some concern over how well the fourth film in the Indiana Jones franchise would do when early numbers seemed less than impressive.
The film was released officially on a Thursday, which is somewhat unusual, and meant some theaters started showing it on midnight Wednesday. Even so, numbers coming in late Friday concerned Paramount over how well the film would end up doing over the entire weekend.
Reportedly families went in droves to catch "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," the first film in the franchise in 19 years. Nearly a third of the domestic audience was made up of parents with their children, said Rob Moore, president of Paramount Worldwide Distribution.

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Phoenix Probe Lands Successfully On Mars

Despite the success of NASA's Spirit and Opportunity missions, directors remained anxious today over the first-ever landing of a probe near Mars' north pole to find signs of life. The Mars Phoenix Lander was wrapping up its 296-day, 422 million-mile journey with about a 50-50 chance of a successful touchdown, NASA officials said. The landing -- dubbed the "seven minutes of terror" -- was a nerve-wracking experience for mission managers, who have witnessed the failure of similar missions.

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Faceparty Institutes 'Logan's Run' Policy

In an effort to cut down on sex offenders using their site, up-and-coming networking site Faceparty.com has instituted a policy that reminds some of the 70s film 'Logan's Run.' The site has deleted what it describes as "a huge number of accounts" of its users over the age of 36.
Um, what? "We understand that only a minority of older users are sex offenders, but you must understand that we cannot tell which," the company says in a bizarre explanation of the deletion of users’ accounts. "New [British] government legislation means we need to check older users on the sex offenders list," the company notice continues.
"This legislation is based upon checking email addresses against a government provided list. Faceparty has never insisted on validated email addresses and can therefore not participate in this new scheme."
So I suppose their response is to assume members over the age of 36 are sex offenders. A quick look at the site leaves me the impression that it's an amateurish MySpace imitator and those of us over 36 are probably just as well off being deleted.

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Netflix Set-Top Box Released

Today Netflix introduced its Roku set-top box that allows subscribers with high speed internet to stream movies right to their TVs. The small box, the size of five CD cases stacked together, comes with a remote control, costs $99, and there is no additional cost for watching movies on it for any user on a $9 plan or more.
Before you go out into the streets proclaiming the end of rental stores or the DVD itself, let me mention the drawbacks. Although there are component and HDMI connections on the device, it is not HD. It streams video at 480p, roughly DVD quality. You evidently cannot browse and select movies directly from the device. You already have to have added the movie to your queue in order to watch it over the Roku box. It also can only stream movies that have the 'instant watch' option indicated.
This is the biggest drawback to the device, because although Netflix boasts some 60,000 titles, only about 10,000 have the instant watch option. This is due to the fact that, unlike DVD, Netflix must negotiate rights with each movie studio to stream their content over the service. If you look at the titles available for instant watch, there are notable omissions. Popular recent releases like National Treasure 2, Untraceable, I Am Legend, The Golden Compass and others are not found.
This is reportedly the first of several planned set-top devices Netflix plans to produce.

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Wii Fit Hits Stores Today

Nintendo's Wii Fit hits U.S. stores today promising to be the latest exercise fad to draw weight-conscious Americans to Nintendo's Wii console. Wii Fit allows you to break a sweat in front of your TV to 40 fitness activities including strength training, aerobics, yoga, skiing, and snowboarding. The game's activities all take place on a small balance board that can sense when you are leaning forward, backward, to the side or even crouching.The mini-games are the most enjoyable part of Wii Fit — games that Nintendo claims will help you work on your aerobic strength and balance. Much like Wii Sports, you import your Mii avatar into the Wii Fit and then use the Balance Board to have it do things like go skiing, or twirl hula hoops or perform a dance routine.
What fun!

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Universe Suddenly Twice As Bright

The universe is twice as bright as it appears, astronomers now suggest. The light bulb went on when they calculated that dust blocks about the half the light emitted from stars and galaxies. Astronomers have known about interstellar dust for a while, but they haven't been able to quantify just how much light it blocks. Now a team of researchers has studied a catalog of galaxies and found that dust shields roughly 50 percent of their light.

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