The new Kindle Fire: rooted by playing an MP3

On one hand, it's cool that it can be (for now) rooted by playing an MP3. On the other, this could be a major infection vector. I would expect Amazon to patch this, but it's still interesting.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/12/10/1915234/kindle-touch-gets-worlds-simplest-jailbreak

More SOPA Fun

Senator Wyden (D/OR) is filing FOIA requests to get explanations from DHS/ICE on SOPA domain seizures. Specifically cited in the article is a domain, www.dajas1.com, which reviews hip hop music. The RIAA accused them of allowing downloads of pre-release music, when most of those pre-release tracks were provided by music industry executives. It's possible that some of the music was infringing, but it's definite that a lot of it was not. Wyden's issue is that the owner of a seized domain has the right to contest the seizure, but the court records were sealed and inaccessible to dajas1's owner and attorneys. It was finally returned to the owner last week, the Justice Department saying "the government concluded that the appropriate and just result was to decline to pursue judicial forfeiture."

Go Ron! I wish I lived in Oregon so I could vote for him.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/wyden-domain-seizure/


Two Congressional aides who worked on creating the SOPA legislation, have left Congress to work as lobbyists for the ??AA. "According to Politico, 'A pair of senior Hill aides at the center of a brewing battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley are packing their bags for K Street, where they’ll work for two of the entertainment lobby shops trying to influence their former colleagues in Congress on the very same issue. Allison Halataei, former deputy chief of staff and parliamentarian to House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and Lauren Pastarnack, a Republican who has served as a senior aide on the Senate Judiciary Committee, worked on online piracy bills that would push Internet companies like Google, Yahoo and Facebook to shut down websites that offer illegal copies of blockbuster films and chart-topping songs.' Techdirt adds, 'Pastarnack went to the MPAA where she'll be "director of government relations" and Halataei to the NMPA (music publishers and songwriters) where she'll be "chief liaison to Capitol Hill." The Politico article linked above notes that this kind of "revolving door" is all too common. It may not be directly corrupt, but to the public it sure feels corrupt.'""

Congressmen have a non-compete period of time before they can register as lobbyists, I guess the same is not true for aides.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/10/226238/two-sopa-writers-become-entertainment-lobbyists


Back to Wyden, "Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, have released a draft version of the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act and posted a copy at KeeptheWebOpen.com. The act is intended to be an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act."

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/11/12/08/2321227/draft-alternative-to-sopa-released

I have joined the iPhone Generation

Would that be the iGen? Or the Legion of iPhone Somethings?

Anyway, I like it. I got a 4S. I had planned on getting a 16 gig as I had been using an 8 gig iPod Touch, and I saved up to afford the 32 gig with minimal discomfort, and my wife gave me her credit card and bought me a 64 gig. Wow. Talk about space! I have a huge amount of music and podcasts, and needless to say my program collection has slowly been growing.

Things that I like:
Audio quality. I am blown away by the telephone audio quality! It's really amazing, even cell-to-cell conversations sound better than landlines. Of course it is probably more a reflection of the crappy phones that I've had in the past when I thought they were pretty good. I am truly gobsmacked at how good the audio is. And the audio for listening to music without external speakers or ear buds is also not too bad.

Speed. I had noticed that some programs were getting kind of slow starting on my iPod, like The Weather Channel and an RPN calculator program that I like. Now they open very fast. That's pretty sweet.

Ease of use. I haven't really had to look up anything to find out how to do something, but I've been using an iPod Touch for over two years, and the difference is whether one has a cell phone added in. Apparently custom ring tones is new to the 4S/iOS 5, so that's cool, though I haven't used it yet. I wanna get the Flint Phone ring tone. Apparently it's easy to create your own ring tones through Garage Band if you have a Mac, and I do.
( Read more... )