An anonymous reader writes "Hungary is drafting its new constitution on, believe it or not, an iPad. Jozsef Szajer, a Hungarian politician and member of the European Parliament, wrote an enthusiastic blog post last week detailing how he's using Apple's tablet device to flesh out Hungary's new constitution, the country's first since 1949. Not only is Szajer using the iPad to churn out new constitutional drafts, but he's also using it to review new draft proposals. Apparently all aspects of the new Hungarian constitution are being vetted via the iPad in one form or another."

G3ckoG33k writes "Fact-free science is not a joke; it is very much on the move, and it is quite possibly the most dangerous movement in centuries, for the entirety of mankind. One can say it began as counter-movement to Karl Popper's ground-breaking proposals in the early 20th century, which insisted that statements purporting to describe the reality should be made falsifiable. A few decades later, some critics of Popper said that statements need peer acceptance, which then makes also natural science a social phenomenon. Even later, in 1996, professor Alan Sokal submitted a famous article ridiculing the entire anti-science movement. Now New York Times has an article describing the latest chilling acts of the socially relativistic, postmodern loons. It is a chilling read, and they may be swinging both the political left and right. Have they been successful in transforming the world yet? How would we know?"

GrumpyBagpuss writes "We all know that the internet is supposed to route around damage, but currently eastern Libya is off the net because all their connectivity goes through Tripoli. How difficult would it to be to reconnect eastern Libya via a microwave link to Crete? It's less than 200km away, on the Libyan end there are mountains up to 850m and on Crete they're higher than 2000m. People have achieved distances of over 300km with simple WiFi equipment, but would it be possible to increase the bandwidth to handle a whole, or at least half a country? How would you connect the link at both ends? What other problems would there be? How many Pringles cans would we need?"

An anonymous reader writes "A report in p2pnet.net says a 'declaration for a temporary council in the Republic of Libya' has been published. The story quotes Alive in Libya, which says Mustafa Abdul Jaleel is the president, and Abdul Hafid Abdul Qader Ghoga is the deputy president and official spokesman. No other details are given."

inasity_rules writes "It seems using Facebook/Twitter to try overthrowing a corrupt government can backfire a bit, especially if they are expecting it. In Zimbabwe your Facebook posts can get you arrested. Probably for anything up to and including treason."

superglaze writes "The Business Software Alliance, a lobbying organisation representing the likes of Microsoft, Adobe and Apple, has laid into the UK's recently-adopted policy of mandating the use of open standards wherever possible in government IT systems.The policy describes open standards as being "publicly available at zero or low cost" and having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis" The BSA said this would "inadvertently reduce choice [and] hinder innovation", and even went so far as to claim open standards would lead to higher e-government costs, but open-source advocates say the policy reflects how much the European Interoperability Framework is weighted in favour of the proprietary software companies."

chargersfan420 writes "Ars Technica has sifted through the contents of the HBGary emails leaked last week in the attack by Anonymous and posted an interesting story about some of the things they were up to (which include rootkit development, selling rootkits to the private sector, and an entire list of 0-day exploits in a variety of OSes and other software, among a variety of other devious plans). Today they are reporting a democratic push for a congressional investigation of HBGary Federal."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "WikiLeaks and the Internet are among a record 241 nominations for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize that also includes Afghan rights advocate Sima Samar, the European Union, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, Russian rights group Memorial and its founder Svetlana Gannushkina. 'Looking at the long term, we can say interest in the prize is strong and growing along with the number of candidates,' says Geir Lundestad, a non-voting member of the Nobel panel. WikiLeaks grabbed the world's attention and angered a number of governments by publishing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, while pundits say the Internet or social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which have been used to help organize dissent in countries with oppressive governments, could be rewarded. Under the leadership of former Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland, the Nobel panel has not shied away from bold decisions — first picking Barack Obama just months after he became US president, and last year awarding the prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo."

tekgoblin writes "Looks like Sony is in some trouble in Europe. LG recently complained about Sony and filed a US patent dispute over their Blu-ray technology. Now they have been granted a preliminary injunction in the matter in Europe. This injunction prevents the PlayStation 3 from currently being imported to Europe. For at least the next 10 days, every PlayStation that is imported will be seized by government officials."

mangu writes "Iran said on Saturday it is removing the fuel from the reactor of a Russian-built nuclear power plant, a move seen as a big blow to its controversial nuclear program. The plant was first launched by the shah using contractors from Siemens. It was shelved after the Islamic revolution and it lay unfinished through the 1980s. In the early 1990s, Iran sought help for the project after being turned away by Siemens over nuclear proliferation concerns. In 1994, Russia agreed to complete the plant and provide the fuel, with the supply deal committing Iran to returning the spent fuel. The plant has faced hiccups even after its physical launch, with officials blaming the delays in generating electricity on a range of factors, including Bushehr's 'severe weather.' But they deny it was hit by the malicious Stuxent computer worm which struck industrial computers in Iran, although they acknowledge that the personal computers of some personnel at Bushehr were infected with it."

tripleevenfall writes "A court filing provides new details about the extraordinary measures Justice Department prosecutors are using to identify government leakers. Prosecutors obtained a suspect's telephone, credit and bank records. Lucy Dalglish, of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said, 'This tells us the Obama administration will do almost anything to figure out who is leaking government information.'"

An anonymous submitter wrote: "Disturbing reports have come out of Zimbabwe about how a professor who regularly held gatherings to discuss different news topics and social issues, was arrested, charged with treason and tortured for having the audacity to gather the regular group of about 45 people who discuss these things, and showing them some BBC and Al Jazeera news clips about the uprising in Egypt and Tunisia." Quote from the article: "Under dictator Robert Mugabe, watching internet videos in Zimbabwe can be a capital offense, it would seem. The videos included BBC World News and Al-Jazeera clips, which Gwisai had downloaded from Kubatana, a web-based activist group in Zimbabwe."

Texas State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst has proposed a measure that would allow any law enforcement agency that has custody of an illegal immigrant to take the illegal to "the office of a U.S. Senator or Representative" and leaving them there. From the article: "The measure doesn't specify what the Senator or Congressman is supposed to do with the illegal immigrant, but calls on the law enforcement agency to 'maintain a record of each illegal immigrant released or discharged who is not transferred to the custody of the Untied States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.'" I'm not sure Kolkhorst understands what might happen if the bill passes. Illegals have already taken over our much sought after picking vegetables for a pittance jobs. What if they start doing staffer work for $20 a day?

angry tapir writes with this excerpt from TechWorld: "The pro-Iran hacktivist group that defaced the Baidu and Twitter Web sites a year ago has hit another target: the US Government's Voice of America news site. Voice of America was knocked offline temporarily after hackers were able to change the organization's DNS (Domain Name System) settings, redirecting Web traffic hitting Voice of America sites to another site controlled by the hackers."

intellitech tips news of a study examining the Gulf of Mexico sea floor in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Marine scientists have found a thick layer of oil, and say it has devastated life there. "Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia. Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries. She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012. ... 'The impact on the benthos was devastating,' she told BBC News. 'Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans — all of those were substantially impacted — and by impacted, I mean essentially killed. Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn't see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They're typically everywhere, and we saw none.'"

AuMatar writes "According to the Seattle Times, the King Conservation District is going to allow online voting to combat chronic low turnouts. You can already view the voting portal. As a citizen of WA seriously concerned with politics, anything that completely removes a paper trail like this scares me. Luckily, this is probably the least important election in the state. I wonder if anyone will hack the election so 300% of voters vote for Firefly or Stephen Colbert or something."

An anonymous reader writes "As protests rage across the Middle East, in particular gaining strength in Libya, Djibouti, Iraq, Bahrain, and Yemen over the past two days, Libya has taken the lead role in blocking internet access to its citizens. Residents of Tripoli, Libya are reporting wide-spread internet blockage for most sites, and access to circumvention tools like OperaTor and VPN is also being blocked."

An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous is now recognised as a serious force to be taken seriously, but its activities aren't confined to mass global protests, as the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is discovering, according to p2pnet. Says the Examiner, 'Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church is infamous for their "Love Crusades," obnoxious displays of insensitivity and homophobia at the funerals of fallen American soldiers. The controversial if monotone message of the "Love Crusade" seems to be to blame everything that is wrong in the world on homosexuality. The crusades are part of a hate-based mission started in Kansas by the WBC and Fred Phelps.' In an open letter on AnonNews, 'We, the collective super-consciousness known as ANONYMOUS – the Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People – have long heard you issue your venomous statements of hatred, and we have witnessed your flagrant and absurd displays of inimitable bigotry and intolerant fanaticism,' says Anonymous, stating 'Should you ignore this warning, you will meet with the vicious retaliatory arm of ANONYMOUS.'"

thecarchik writes with news of an analysis published in Energy Policy by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California-Davis. "There are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources, said author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor, saying it is only a question of 'whether we have the societal and political will.' During this decade, the two 'fuels of the future' will be electricity and gasoline. Beyond that, we can't project."

An anonymous reader writes "Soon I'll be moving to one of the hot, culturally restrictive countries which has recently been in the news ... and which monitors and filters web traffic. ISPs and cellular providers are both owned by the government. Needless to say, I'm concerned about privacy and am even posting to my fellow Slashdotters as an anonymous coward. Which smart phones are the best for a) encrypted storage, and b) encrypted transmission? I'm not worried about encrypting SMSs or traditional voice traffic, but I would like all IP traffic as secure as possible. Setting up a server in my less restrictive home country is an option. What storage encryption and transmission encryption would you recommend for that situation? I'm willing to buy yet another device, if necessary. (No, I won't get a SatPhone.) I currently have a Nokia N900 running Maemo5 and another device running Symbian S60v3. I was hoping to have a secure OS like BackTrack running on the N900, but it looks like the software was never totally ported for the device."