Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password


Site News

Join our Folding@Home team:
Main F@H site
Our team page


Funding Goal
For 6-month period:
2022-07-01 to 2022-12-31
(All amounts are estimated)
Base Goal:
$3500.00

Currently:
$438.92

12.5%

Covers transactions:
2022-07-02 10:17:28 ..
2022-10-05 12:33:58 UTC
(SPIDs: [1838..1866])
Last Update:
2022-10-05 14:04:11 UTC --fnord666

Support us: Subscribe Here
and buy SoylentNews Swag


We always have a place for talented people, visit the Get Involved section on the wiki to see how you can make SoylentNews better.

What was highest label on your first car speedometer?

  • 80 mph
  • 88 mph
  • 100 mph
  • 120 mph
  • 150 mph
  • it was in kph like civilized countries use you insensitive clod
  • Other (please specify in comments)

[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:45 | Votes:100

posted by Blackmoore on Thursday January 22 2015, @11:02PM   Printer-friendly
from the criminal-intent dept.

“You follow drugs, you get drug addicts and drug dealers. But you start to follow the money, and you don't know where the f*** it's gonna take you.”

This oft-cited wisdom comes from Detective Lester Freamon, a character in the classic HBO series The Wire, which tracked how an elite task force of (fictional) Baltimore cops used electronic surveillance to bring down criminal networks. But, the sentiment is ironic to a fault: if you keep following the money, it might take you right back to the police.

Asset forfeiture has long been a topic of controversy in law enforcement. Cops and prosecutors have had the power to seize property and cash from suspects before anyone has actually been convicted of a crime (usually narcotics-related). Then these law enforcement agencies have plugged a portion of that money (and money derived from auctioning of property) into their own budgets, allowing them to spend in ways that possibly would not have passed scrutiny during the formal appropriations process.

Critics note that asset forfeiture creates a perverse incentive for policing priorities: the more assets cops seize, the more money they get to spend. Satirist John Oliver characterized the practice as akin to “legalized robbery by law enforcement” in a must-watch segment on his show Last Week Tonight. News organizations, including New York Times, the New Yorker and the Washington Free Beacon have recently outlined abuses of the system.

[...]

The Washington Post has released its giant cache of Equitable Sharing Agreements from thousands of local law enforcement agencies around the country. We urge you to dig in, find your local cops, identify out how they’ve spend this money, and let the world know what you find.

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 22 2015, @09:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the !bofh dept.

The Linux Foundation announces

2014 was a big year for us in training. We launched a new ground-breaking certification program and released our wildly successful "Introduction to Linux" edX MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which had roughly 300,000 enrollees.

To build on that, we're excited to announce our first-ever self-paced course that builds on the MOOC and prepares candidates for the LFCS (Linux Foundation Certified SysAdmin) exam: "Essentials of System Administration."

[...]we've included a discounted LFCS exam with the course fee. [...] for a limited time, we're offering this course and certification bundle for $499--an additional $100 discount.

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 22 2015, @05:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the two-years-is-too-old dept.

net-security.org reports that Google is going to stop providing security patches for core components of Android prior to Kit-Kat. Jelly Bean, which is the last version before Kit-Kat is actually less than 2 years old. Note, this is only to core components, although the article did not get into details what that means. Basically Google's stance is they will back patch up to current version minus one.

Also, according to the article, one of Google's response was that Android is open-sourced and manufacturers are free to patch them. My view is that this actually further accentuate the fragmentation problem, a criticism that Android regularly gets from opposing user bases or competitors. In reality, from personal experience, most manufacturers are slow in supporting the latest version and vary very differently in terms of patch releases and support.

I don't have the statistics, but I would think there are still a large user base out there with pre-Kit-Kat phones. net-security.org quotes 930Million. What does the SN community think about this?

posted by janrinok on Thursday January 22 2015, @03:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the more-likely-than-flying-cars dept.

TheLink writes:

A story from CNet has previews of Microsoft's Hololens - an augmented reality product::

REDMOND, Wash. -- In the bowels of Building 92, hidden underneath the company's public visitor center in a secret series of labs, Microsoft let a few people try out what may be the most ambitious Windows device ever made: a holographic headset that aims to rival the most advanced virtual reality devices out there.

Microsoft's HoloLens is expected to run Windows 10 and apps -- holographic ones that will float in front of your line of vision and apps that can be run on phones, tablets, PCs and the Xbox One game console. With the holographic programs, Microsoft is trying to transform how we think about computing, productivity and communication. Just as VR rivals Oculus (owned by Facebook) and Google are trying to reimagine virtual experiences with their head-worn devices, Microsoft wants us to imagine a world without screens, where information merely floats in front of you.

"We're not talking about putting you into virtual worlds," HoloLens leader Alex Kipman said Wednesday during an event at Microsoft's headquarters here. "We're dreaming beyond virtual worlds, beyond screens, beyond pixels."

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7868251/microsoft-hololens-hologram-hands-on-experience
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-hands-on/

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @01:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the collect-it-all dept.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), an agency of the US Department of Justice, ran a program that collected virtually all data on international calls between the United States and certain countries. This was revealed in an affidavit by a DEA official in an export violations case which was made public January 15.

The bulk collection ended in September 2013, shortly after some details were revealed by Reuters, then more by the New York Times. The program had lasted nearly 15 years. DEA shared the database with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, IRS, Homeland Security, and intelligence agencies.

A Justice Department spokesman said [on January 16] that the DEA no longer collects the data and that "all of the information has been deleted."

The DEA program is separate from the National Security Agency's bulk data collection efforts, which were exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden and which officials said are aimed at thwarting terrorist attacks.

DEA Discloses Bulk Surveillance of Americans' International Phone Calls

Update (1/21[/]2014): The [American Civil Liberties Union] has filed a Freedom of Information Act request(PDF) demanding that the DEA and other federal agencies release further information to the public about this database.

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @11:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the evading-big-brother's-ever-present-eye dept.

Vice Media's Motherboard reports

[Beginning January 21], the Washington DC Public Library will teach residents how to use the internet anonymization tool Tor as part of a 10 day series designed to shed light on government surveillance, transparency, and personal privacy.

The series will open with a screening of The Internet's Own Boy, a documentary about Aaron Swartz, the brains behind RSS, Creative Commons, and an influential partner at Reddit who committed suicide while under a widely criticized [federal indictment for data theft].

There will also be marathon readings of George Orwell's 1984, a lesson in how to use the anonymity service Tor to protect your privacy online, a lecture about how to access government data online, a lecture about how to track campaign finances, internet safety classes for teens, and screenings of the Frontline documentary United States of Secrets, about the Edward Snowden leaks.

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @09:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the made-by-really-big-worms dept.

Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole (or space-time tunnel, have you seen "Interstellar?") and, if that were true, it would be "stable and navigable". This is the hypothesis put forward in a study published in Annals of Physics and conducted with the participation of SISSA in Trieste. The paper, the result of a collaboration between Indian, Italian and North American researchers, prompts scientists to re-think dark matter more accurately.

"If we combine the map of the dark matter in the Milky Way with the most recent Big Bang model to explain the universe and we hypothesize the existence of space-time tunnels, what we get is that our galaxy could really contain one of these tunnels, and that the tunnel could even be the size of the galaxy itself. But there's more", explains Paolo Salucci, astrophysicist of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) of Trieste and a dark matter expert. "We could even travel through this tunnel, since, based on our calculations, it could be navigable. Just like the one we've all seen in the recent film 'Interstellar'". Salucci is among the authors of the paper recently published in Annals of Physics.

http://phys.org/news/2015-01-theory-milky-galactic.html

[Source]: http://www.sissa.it/news/inside-big-wormhole

[Abstract]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003491614002395

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @08:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the baby-steps dept.

Karl Bode reports at TechDirt

Last month I noted how longtime domain registrar Tucows had decided to try and kick-start stagnant broadband competition by buying a small Virginia ISP by the name of Blue Ridge InternetWorks (BRI). Operating under the Ting brand name, the company said the goal was to bring a "shockingly human experience and fair, honest pricing" to a fixed-line residential broadband market all-too-often dominated by just one or two giant, apathetic players. Ting promised to offer 1 Gbps speeds at a sub-$100 price point, while at the same time promising to respect net neutrality.

Fast forward a month and Tucows/Ting have announced the company has struck another deal, this time to operate a municipal broadband network being built in Westminster, Maryland. Westminster began construction on the network last October with plans to serve roughly 9,000 homes and 500 businesses. I've confirmed with Ting that unlike many initiatives (including Google Fiber, who initially paid lip service to the idea then backtracked), this effort will be an open network, meaning additional ISPs will be able to come in and compete with Ting over the city owned-infrastructure.

[...]if the the United States broadband market is going to evolve beyond stale monopolies and duopolies, it's certainly not going to be a product of Congress or the incumbent ISPs politicians are beholden to — it's going to have to happen from the roots up, a handful of towns at a time. Regardless of the small scale of such efforts, as we've seen with Google Fiber, these builds at least open up a dialogue about the lack of competitive options, and inspire cities to demand more than the slow, over-priced, and badly supported services we've grown accustomed to.

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @06:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the bearing-gifts dept.

Bodhi is one of a tiny number of distros which use the Enlightenment desktop by default, the other that I can think of being Elive. ("Bodhi" is Sanscrit for "Enlightenment", BTW.) Bodhi is Ubuntu-based and was created by college student Jeff Hoogland.

Having completed grad school and entered the working world, Jeff found he was stretched a bit thin, so, in the Summer of 2014, he stepped away from the helm of his creation. As he revealed in his interview with Christine Hall earlier this month

My wife and I recently purchased our first home, our eleven month old son is happy and healthy, and we are expecting our second child this summer.

Christine now reports from FOSS Force

He posted a notice of his return to Bodhi yesterday on his blog, Thoughts on Technology.

"Today I am happy to share that I am returning [to Bodhi] in my full capacity as project manager/lead developer and I come bearing gifts!"

The gifts consisted of "reloaded" release candidates of the upcoming 3.0.0 version of Bodhi in both 32 and 64 bit versions.

"Over the past couple of weeks I have re-familiarized myself with what has been going on in the land of Enlightenment and cleaning up the Bodhi build scripts".

Related:
Bodhi Linux Bounces Back!

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @04:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the Let-me-put-my-glasses-on-so-I-can-hear-you-better dept.

[Editor's note: Synesthesia is "a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway."]

Nothing could be more intensely subjective or taken-for-granted than the ineffable way that each of us perceives the world. This is why many synaesthetes go through a lifetime without realising that their everyday sense experience is exceptional or strange. Those who do, report a moment of startled self-awareness when friends respond with an uncomprehending: ‘What do you mean, my name tastes of split-pea soup?’ Such eureka moments have grown increasingly common since the 1980s, when cognitive tests were first developed to judge the authenticity of the reports through to the mid-1990s, when brain scans and brain-wave measurements began tracking the physiology of synaesthesia’s various forms.

Writing in The Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia in 2013, Richard Cytowic, a neurologist and synaesthesia researcher at George Washington University, describes the ‘astonishment and enthusiasm’ reported by synaesthetes after tests validated that they weren’t ‘making it all up’.

http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/are-we-all-born-with-synaesthesia/

posted by martyb on Thursday January 22 2015, @02:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the Progressive-for-the-hackers dept.

An electronic dongle used to connect to the onboard diagnostic systems of more than two million cars and trucks contains few defenses against hacking, an omission that makes them vulnerable to wireless attacks that take control of a vehicle, according to published reports.

US-based Progressive Insurance said it has used the SnapShot device in more than two million vehicles since 2008. The dongle tracks users' driving to help determine if they qualify for lower rates. According to security researcher Corey Thuen, it performs no validation or signing of firmware updates, has no secure boot mechanism, no cellular communications authentication, and uses no secure communications protocols. SnapShot connects to the OBDII port of Thuen's 2013 Toyota Tundra pickup truck, according to Forbes ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/01/15/researcher-says-progressive-insurance-dongle-totally-insecure/ ). From there, it runs on the CANbus networks that control braking, park assist and steering, and other sensitive functions.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/01/wireless-device-in-two-million-cars-wide-open-to-hacking/

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 21 2015, @11:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the penguins-to-infinity-and-beyond dept.

ArduPilot is a versatile open source Arduino-based platform for controlling autonomous multicopters, helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and ground vehicles. Last week at linux.conf.au, Andrew Tridgell presented a talk on progress in porting ArduPilot to Linux, where he explained that the ArduPilot port is just part of a wider movement towards small autonomous vehicles running on the Linux.

The video talk is available here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/20/linuxconf_au_andrew_tridgell_ardupilot_linux/

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 21 2015, @09:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the at-least-it's-not-called-Syncopated-Sheep-or-Slutish-Saola dept.

Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu and Canonical, announced the release of their Linux distro intended to power internet things, connected devices and autonomous machines. The lightweight OS builds on Ubuntu's experience with desktop, server and phone distributions to provide extensible and versatile frameworks, transactional app installs and updates, along with a high level of security.

Snappy includes a repository that Brian Gerkey, CEO of the Open Source Robotics Foundation describes as an "app store for open robots”, as well as a substantial list of commercial and non-commercial partners.

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/01/20/ubuntu-core-on-internet-things/

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 21 2015, @07:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the balancing-convenience-and-risk dept.

Banks and payment services are in a constant fight to detect account fraud, employing sophisticated ways to detect abnormal activities. One of those ways is "fingerprinting" a Web browser, or analyzing its relatively unique software stamp.

Web browsers relay a variety of data to websites, including a computer's operating system, its time zone, language preference and version numbers for software plug-ins. When those parameters change, along with others such as an IP address, it may mean an account is being fraudulently accessed.

Called FraudFox VM, the software is a special version of Windows with a heavily modified version of the Firefox browser that runs on VMware's Workstation for Windows or VMware Fusion on OSX. It's for sale on Evolution, the successor to the Silk Road online contraband market, for 1.8 bitcoins, which is about US$390.

What FraudFox aims to do is make it faster and easier to change a browser's fingerprint to one that matches that of the victim whose account they're going to exploit, or simply mix up their own digital crumbs when browsing. It's not a new tool per se, and more advanced cybercriminals may already know the techniques, but FraudFox consolidates the functions.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2871926/this-tool-may-make-it-easier-for-thieves-to-empty-bank-accounts.html

posted by janrinok on Wednesday January 21 2015, @05:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the like-every-other-cracker? dept.

"Besides the NSA being in North Korean systems but not warning Sony about the attack, leaked documents indicate that the NSA covertly uses innocent victims’ infected PCs when hijacking botnets, secretly redirects blame to scapegoats as well as taps into 'unwitting data mules' to pass along exfiltrated information."

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2872292/nsa-secretly-uses-scapegoats-data-mules-and-innocent-victims-pcs-for-botnets.html