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Hugh Pickens writes:

Micah Lee writes at The Intercept that "coming up with a good passphrase by just thinking of one is incredibly hard, and if your adversary really is capable of one trillion guesses per second, you’ll probably do a bad job of it. It turns out humans are a species of patterns, and they are incapable of doing anything in a truly random fashion."

But there is a method for generating passphrases that are both impossible for even the most powerful attackers to guess, yet very possible for humans to memorize. First, grab a copy of the Diceware word list, which contains 7,776 English words — 37 pages for those of you printing at home. You’ll notice that next to each word is a five-digit number, with each digit being between 1 and 6. Now grab some six-sided dice (yes, actual real physical dice), and roll them several times, writing down the numbers that you get. You’ll need a total of five dice rolls to come up with each word in your passphrase. Using Diceware, you end up with passphrases that look like “cap liz donna demon self”, “bang vivo thread duct knob train”, and “brig alert rope welsh foss rang orb”. If you want a stronger passphrase you can use more words; if a weaker passphrase is ok for your purpose you can use less words. If you choose two words for your passphrase, there are 60,466,176 different potential passphrases. A five-word passphrase would be cracked in just under six months and a six-word passphrase would take 3,505 years, on average, at a trillion guesses a second.

I recommend that you write your new passphrase down on a piece of paper and carry it with you for as long as you need. Each time you need to type it, try typing it from memory first, but look at the paper if you need to. Assuming you type it a couple times a day, it shouldn’t take more than two or three days before you no longer need the paper, at which point you should destroy it.

"Simple, random passphrases, in other words, are just as good at protecting the next whistleblowing spy as they are at securing your laptop," concludes Lee. "It’s a shame that we live in a world where ordinary citizens need that level of protection, but as long as we do, the Diceware system makes it possible to get CIA-level protection without going through black ops training"

tt2884206 writes:

The Legal Workforce Act (LWA), introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), would mandate E-Verify for all new hires in the United States. E-Verify is a government program intended to discourage the hiring of illegal immigrants by enabling employers to verify the legal work status of all new employees.

The next step will be a national biometric identity card for all citizens and legal residents to aid workplace verification of immigration status. LWA creates “pilot authentication programs” based on “new technologies,” which will "combine E-Verify with our biometric information to create a more foolproof system." Such a system was proposed in 2010. Organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform already support it.

But mandatory E-Verify could soon morph into far more than a workplace regulation.

TLA writes:

In 1967, Project Icarus was developed at MIT as a graduate study to consider the possibility of dealing with a piece of space rock on a collision course with Earth. This project was the inspiration for the 1979 movie Meteor . The eponymous asteroid, 1566 Icarus, was known to be an Earth-crosser, with a solar periapse inside the orbit of Mercury (hence the name) and apoapse outside the orbit of Mars. This eccentricity makes it potentially vulnerable to perturbation — influence on its orbit by other bodies.

That aside, Icarus does already make close approaches to Earth; since its discovery in 1949, every 9, 19 or 28 years close approaches have varied between 15.1Gm (1996) and 6.4Gm (1968). This June 15, it will pass at 8Gm, or 21 times the distance to the Moon. Close approach distances for Icarus are pretty chaotic given that the asteroid is regularly perturbed by Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars (and to a lesser extent, Jupiter and Saturn as well) during its orbit.

A bit closer to "now", 2015 FW117 (a hunk of iron ~180m on its long axis) will pass 1.38Gm (3.6 Lunar distances) from Earth on 1 April. Just yesterday (28 March), 2015 FM118, a chip the size of a minibus, shaved the Pale Blue Dot at a range inside the Lunar orbit, 350Mm.

For the edification of those who read the tables linked and think we're all going to die in a horrible fireball, consider this: the Apollo that exploded over Chelyabinsk in 2013, injuring thousands with flying glass, was previously unknown and there was no prior warning of its approach. They say you don't hear the bullet that hits you. The same is (currently) true of asteroids.

The question is, given that we're already expending massive amounts of public and private money in detecting and tracking these things with everything from Mk.I Eyeball and binoculars to radio telescopes, along with Hubble in the few minutes it gets to cool its fins every now and then, what more can be done to a: find and track Near Earth Objects, and b: if necessary, do something about the ones that do pose a threat?

Phoenix666 writes:

Researchers based in China have created light-emitting fibers that can be woven into fabric:

The team, based in China, worked with polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs). Like many other light-emitting devices, PLECs have a structure that is composed of two metal electrodes connected to a thin organic layer that acts as a semiconductor. Because PLECs have mobile ions incorporated into the semiconductor, they have many benefits compared to other light-emitting diodes (LEDs): low operating voltage, high efficiency in converting electrons to photons, and high power efficiency. PLECs are also a good option because they do not require the use of metals that are sensitive to air and they can be used on rougher surfaces; these characteristics make them suitable for large-scale manufacturing.

I have been waiting for meta-materials to deliver my chameleon cloak, but perhaps something like these will work too.

Phoenix666 writes:

BBC reports Design Works is exploring cell phones whose casings are composites of grass clippings and resin:

The phone's casing - which is integrated into the phone - is made from recycled resin and specially treated grass clippings.

"This creates a composite material, like carbon fibre", says Mr Miles, which can be used as an alternative to plastic injection moulding.

Mr Miles was originally commissioned to make the phone as a one-off by O2 Recycle, a division of the mobile phone giant, to highlight the value of recycling.

But the team at Design Works was surprised at the success of the proof-of-concept, and are now investigating whether the technique can be used on a mass scale.

It is reckoned that fewer than 25% of unused phones are recycled in the UK.

What's the best second-life for used cell phones other Soylentils have heard of? Do you have a particular 'worthy-cause' for your old phones?

JNCF writes:

It appears that whatever entity controls the "Great Firewall of China" is using malicious ECMAScript to launch a distributed denial of service attack on Github. The ECMAScript is being delivered through advertisements served by Baidu, which are on many non-Chinese websites. Baidu is denying any involvement, and it seems like the ECMAScript is probably being injected as the advertisements leave China's firewall.

The attack was originally attempting to target the repositories of two specific users; one is Great Fire (which aims to help users circumvent the Chinese government's firewall) and the other is CN-NY Times (an uncensored Chinese version of the New York Times). Since Github is only available through https, this effectively turned into a general attack on the website. It is unclear whether the specific pages were targeted despite being behind https due to technical ignorance on the part of the attackers, or as a way of sending a message.

More to follow:

number6 writes:

RapidShare [wikipedia.org] was a German/Swiss company which pioneered the online file-hosting service model. During its lifetime, the company's reputation spanned fame and infamy in equal measure; many internet activities and communities today -legal and illegal- were influenced by RapidShare's methods.

words from torrentfreak.com (10 Feb 2015):

RapidShare, once the most popular file-hosting service in the Internet, has announced that it will shut down next month. The company doesn’t cite a reason for the surprising shutdown, but losing the majority of its users in recent years after the implementation of tough anti-piracy measures is likely to be connected.

Founded in 2002, Swiss-based RapidShare was one of the first and most popular one-click file-hosting services on the Internet. Like most sites of this nature, RapidShare was frequently used by people to share copyright-infringing material. It was a relationship that got the company into trouble on various occasions.

RapidShare fought many legal battles with entertainment companies seeking to hold the company liable for the actions of its users, and to top it off the site was called out by the U.S. Government as a "notorious market". Hoping to clear up its image the company made tremendous efforts to cooperate with copyright holders and limit copyright infringements. Among other things, the company adopted one of the most restrictive sharing policies while (re)branding itself as a personal cloud storage service.

More down the page:

An Anonymous Coward writes:

In an article from Scientific American there is a call for more research into the link between the colonies of bacteria in your gut and Autism.

Autism is primarily a disorder of the brain, but research suggests that as many as nine out of 10 individuals with the condition also suffer from gastrointestinal problems such as inflammatory bowel disease and “leaky gut.” The latter condition occurs when the intestines become excessively permeable and leak their contents into the bloodstream. Scientists have long wondered whether the composition of bacteria in the intestines, known as the gut microbiome, might be abnormal in people with autism and drive some of these symptoms. Now a spate of new studies supports this notion and suggests that restoring proper microbial balance could alleviate some of the disorder's behavioral symptoms.

Arizona State University has already been doing this research, and has published a study [abstract] that shows there is a possible link between the gut bacteria and autism.

GI complications in children with ASD may contribute to the severity of the disorder. One study (10) found a strong correlation between GI symptoms and autism severity in a group of 58 children with ASD, consistent with the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and Environment (CHARGE) study (7). Abdominal pain, constipation, and/or diarrhoea are unpleasant and likely to produce frustration, decreased ability to concentrate on tasks, behavior problems, and possibly aggression and self-abuse, especially in children unable to communicate their discomfort. These problems also result in a decreased ability to learn toilet training, leading to increased frustration for the child and their parents/caregivers. However, given many recent studies that have linked the gut with the brain (11–13), there is also the intriguing possibility that correlations between ASD and GI symptoms may not alone be driven by discomfort, but rather by differences in function of the microbiota, such as the metabolites that they produce, that may affect neuronal processes.

The research into this is ongoing, but it is not a new theory (as pointed out in this 2005 article in the Journal of Medical Microbiology), and may lead to a better understanding of how autism effects the body, and how changes in the body may effect autism.

Phoenix666 writes:

A Judean date palm — a variety that was wiped out in the 6th century — has been grown from a 2,000 year-old seed found in an archeological excavation ten years ago, and is now reproducing:

Talk about perseverance, not to mention the mastery of nature’s design when it comes to plants. Decades ago a 2,000-year-old seed was plucked from an archaeological excavation near the Dead Sea. After many years lingering in a researcher's drawer in Tel Aviv, Elaine Solowey, director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies at Kibbutz Ketura in Israel, decided to give germination a go. Ten years later, and “Methuselah” (why don’t all plants have names?) is thriving. And not only thriving, but reproducing. Mazel tov!

Methuselah is a Judean date palm, a variety that was wiped out sometime in the 6th century, making the lonely male long the only one of its kind. Genetic testing reveal that Methuselah is closely related to an ancient variety of date palm from Egypt called Hayany – which corresponds with the legend indicating that dates came to Israel with the Exodus, Solowey says.

No word on the nutrition and flavor of its dates, but it's a good argument for projects like the Global Seed Vault.

tonyPick writes:

According to the BBC UK Safari users can sue Google for working around Safari's Privacy Settings in a UK court.

Google has lost a Court of Appeal bid to stop consumers having the right to sue in the UK over alleged misuse of privacy settings.

A group of users claim that Google bypassed security settings on the Safari browser to install tracking cookies on their computers in order to target them with advertising.

...

The landmark case potentially opens the door to litigation from the millions of Britons who used Apple computers, iPhones, iPods and iPads during the relevant period, summer 2011 to spring 2012, said Jonathan Hawker who represents the Google Action Group, a not-for-profit company set up to manage claims against the internet giant for breach of privacy.

Also covered at Ars Technica and CNet.

Phoenix666 writes:

Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) producers must be feeling the heat from electric vehicles (EVs) --enter the deltawing car, "half the weight, half the fuel, half the horsepower, all the speed.":

The Deltawing currently only exists as a race car, one that was designed under the mantra “half the weight, half the fuel, half the horsepower, all the speed.” But Panoz (a Georgia-based low-volume car company from the man who invented the nicotine patch) wants to make road-going Deltawings, saying that you don’t need 300 horsepower to go fast; 1.4 L and 138 horsepower should be enough. Oh, and it’ll get 57 mpg combined.

The concept originally appeared when IndyCar requested proposals for a new car for its series. The Deltawing promised speeds would be as fast as ever—about 230 mph at Indianapolis—with just 300 horsepower. An idea too radical for Indianapolis found a more welcoming reception in Le Mans, France, becoming a cult favorite. Viewed from above, it’s obvious why it’s called a Deltawing; the front track (the width between the front wheels) is tiny compared to the rear, with a pair of skinny tires that look far too small to go around corners quickly. Three quarters of the car’s weight is over the rear wheels, and there’s much less of that weight to begin with.

...

Panoz isn’t the only company who think the Deltawing is a good idea. Last year, Nissan revealed the Bladeglider concept car, built to the same idea.

Two items of news from Australia which mirror similar stories from other countries in the West.

Australian legislation to counter piracy finally released

Fluffeh writes:

Kept under wraps until this morning [Mar 26], the site-blocking elements of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015 are likely to please rights holders with their significant reach. The bill, which is set to cost telcos about $130,000 a year, contains no cap on the number of websites rights holders can request a judge to block in a single injunction.

Critics of the regime are likely to argue that having no cap on the scheme could result in what happened in India, where a number of legitimate websites were blocked, including Google services, when a judge agreed to block some 472 websites. An updated judgement fixed the error. But it appears consumers and rights groups won't be able to apply to a court to revoke blocks, as they are not listed as one of the types of parties that can do this.

The competition watchdog, the ACCC, and the communications regulator, the ACMA, are the only people envisaged by the government to be able to apply to revoke a block other than the people behind a blocked site, an internet service provider asked to block it, or a rights holder.

Mandatory Data Retention Becomes Law in Australia

takyon writes:

The Australian Parliament has passed a series of amendments to the country's Telecommunications Interception and Access Act 1979, requiring "telecommunications service providers to retain for two years telecommunications data (not content) prescribed by regulations". The Coalition government and Labor party joined forces to pass the laws, ignoring a number of last-minute amendments from the Greens and other senators.

The Register reports that Attorney-General George Brandis continues to misrepresent the data retention requirement:

Brandis told ABC Radio's AM program this morning that “nothing is different to the way it has been for the last 20 years or so”. Yet Telstra recently told a Parliamentary Committee that it doesn't record IP addresses or missed call records for users of its mobile networks. So Telstra is clearly being asked to do something new.

The AM interview we've linked to above is worth a listen because Brandis, six months into the metadata debate, still can't speak with authority on the subject. He jitters and struggles to articulate his position. At times he makes little sense, such as when asked why we need metadata retention when there are so many alternative communications media for ne'er-do-wells to use. His response is that criminals always break the law and will continue to do so despite the new legislation.

Left unsettled is the cost of metadata retention to ISPs, which recently led them to write an open letter to George Brandis. One report suggests a cost of AU$3.98 per subscriber per year.

Phoenix666 writes:

As if graphene needed any more strange and wonderful properties to recommend its study, it has been shown that sandwiching water between two layers of graphene causes the water to form ice at room temperature:

An international team of scientists recently discovered some intriguing structural characteristics of water confined in graphene nanocapillaries. In these studies, the researchers deposited a graphene monolayer on a small grid, added a small amount of water, and then covered it with another monolayer of graphene. This sample was left overnight to allow excess water to evaporate, eventually bringing the graphene layers together so that only a small amount of adsorbed water remained between them. The water left behind showed some unusual structural properties.

[...] The water molecules formed layers with square lattices where each molecule interacted with the four molecules surrounding it, forming hydrogen bonds at 90° angles. This square lattice symmetry, which they also saw assembled into bilayers and trilayers, is strikingly different from the normal three-dimensional arrangement in ice, where hydrogen bonds exhibit a bond angle of approximately 109°. The researchers found that this lattice structure could be produced even after certain variables had been changed, including the capillary width, applied pressure, and rigidity of the graphene sheets.

Fascinating stuff. Wouldn't it be wonderful to mine it from the air and spin it into sheets and ropes and anything at all?

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica is reporting on new regulations to limit region-based restrictions in the European Union:

At the heart of the European Union lies the Single Market—the possibility for people to buy and sell goods and services anywhere in the EU. So it is ironic that the European sector least constrained by geography—the digital market—is also the least unified. To remedy that situation, the European Commission has announced its Digital Single Market Strategy, which addresses three main areas.

The first is "Better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services" and includes two of the thorniest issues: geo-blocking and copyright. As the EU's strategy notes, "too many Europeans cannot use online services that are available in other EU countries, often without any justification; or they are re-routed to a local store with different prices. Such discrimination cannot exist in a Single Market."

There is strong resistance to removing geo-blocking, particularly from copyright companies that have traditionally sold rights on a national basis and which therefore want geo-blocking to enforce that fragmentation. The Pirate Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Julia Reda, quoted a fellow MEP justifying geo-blocking as follows: "I can’t buy Finnish bread in any German supermarket or bakery. Far too few people here would buy it, so the market doesn't offer it to me. And you don’t see me demanding that the European Commission bloody-well make that product available to me."

Julia Reda responded to those who defend geo-blocking by actually buying Finnish bread online without incident or issue.

The European Union's Digital Single Market Strategy covers several other areas, including Telecom/network investment and management, copyright reform, and future goals for a single EU digital market.

As an American, it's hard to believe government could possibly work on behalf of voters, so let's see if this initiative can make it into law. But it is an enticing idea.

Phoenix666 writes:

George Mason University engineering students have designed a hand-held infrasonic extinguisher to snuff out fires without chemicals or water:

When Seth Robertson and Viet Tran from George Mason University hatched their senior project plan, there were plenty of raised eyebrows. But the doubters no doubt ate their words when the two engineering students debuted their creation: a fire extinguisher that successfully puts out flames with sound waves.

Their initial idea was to employ high-pitched tones, but as it turned out, low-frequency sounds were the ticket, "like the thump-thump bass in hip-hop," Tran told the Washington Post.

By hitting fire with the low-frequency sound waves in the 30 to 60 hertz range, the device separates oxygen from fuel. “The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting,” Tran said.

Conventional fire extinguishers typically employ water or chemicals which cause damage that compounds the havoc wrought by the fire itself; by comparison, a sound-based extinguisher would be great. The article does not specify how many decibels the extinguisher projects or the frequency used, but let's hope its range doesn't drop into the 17Hz range or even the 5-9Hz range.