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cosurgi writes:

I witnessed the events as they unfolded yesterday, I'll try to give as objective summary as possible. Here's what happened:

The bitcoin blocksize is currently limited to 1MB. Two out of five bitcoin developers who have access to repository are worried that this is not enough to compete with VISA (in the number of transactions processed per second). The dispute to increase the blocksize has been ongoing for months. The two developers suggested to use the bitcoin built-in voting process (which has been designed in it ages ago), where the voting goes as follows:

1. the software is updated in such a way that larger block sizes are not used unless 750 out of past 1000 blocks are mined by miners who in the blockheader say "yes to bigger blocksize".

2. If such blocks (which are still below 1MB, but simply have this "yes" vote) are not mined, then the status-quo remains and nothing happens.

Three other developers have blocked any commits, and dedicated themselves to maintain the even stronger status-quo, by simply disallowing such vote to proceed. The two other developers finally decided to publish a new bitcoin client, called bitcoin XT, which has only one small change that would allow such voting to proceed. The linked blogpost presents one side of this argument, honestly I couldn't find a blogpost that would present the opposing viewpoint. If someone here has a link to nice writeup done by the other side of this argument please let us know.

The bitcoin reddit got furious yesterday night (to the point of a civil war with moderators), when the top voted and most discussed thread "why is bitcoin forking?" was deleted by one of the moderators. Interesting to note, that it had 528 upvotes at the moment of deletion and currently it has 687 upvotes, and also googling for 'why is bitcoin forking' links to this deleted thread. Before it was deleted the discussion seemed reasonable, now it's just a Streisand effect about censorship and about how few influential people are trying to prevent the voting from happening.

What it means for regular bitcoin users? Here's how it goes:

1. If the voting rejects the larger blocksize then both bitcoin clients, 'bitcoin' and 'bitcoin XT' will work as normal on the same blockchain. And in fact nothing will happen, people will be able to choose which client to use and eventually the 'bitcoin XT' will lose its momentum, fade out and stop being used.

2. If the voting goes in favor of larger blocksize, then both bitcoin clients will start operating on two different blockchains. The 'bitcoin XT' blockchain will have 75% of hashing power (by the definition of how this vote is implemented), and the 'bitcoin' blockchain wil have the remaining 25% of hashing power. Shops and exchanges will run aghast in circles trying to protect from double spending by quickly upgrading their software to use the stronger 'bitcoin XT' blockchain. The weaker blockchain with only 25% hashing power will be susceptible to attacks. And whatever bitcoins you have right now will co-exist twice in each of those blockchains. You would be able to spend them in one of the blockchains and keep them for yourself in the other blockchain. People who have changed to 'bitcoin XT' client beforehand will be safe from whatever might happen with the weaker chain, since their clients work with both blockchains, until they acquire the voting 75% majority.

The voting process as it happens can be seen live on site that shows number of clients and mined blocks that opted for larger blocksize.

I know that perhaps I am not as objective as I wanted to be. I tried to present the facts only, if I failed, then blame me and correct me in the comments. Happy discussing!

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Reuters reports:

An Indonesian domestic passenger aircraft carrying 54 people lost contact with air traffic control on Sunday in the remote eastern Papua region, the National Search and Rescue Agency (BASARNAS) said. "Lost contact with plane," BASARNAS chief Bambang Soelystyo told Reuters by phone.

According to the official BASARNAS Twitter account, the aircraft belonging to Trigana Air Service was carrying 44 adult passengers, five crew and five children and infants.

[...] An AirAsia passenger jet crashed en route from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore last December, killing all 162 people on board. The crash prompted the government to introduce regulations aimed at improving safety.

BBC.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Breaking: Massive Explosions Rock China's Tianjin

At least two major explosions tore through Tianjin in eastern China on Wednesday night. According to Xinhua, the shockwaves from the blasts "were felt kilometers away" and shattered windows.

Chinese media reports indicated that the blasts occurred around 11:30 p.m. local time. People's Daily tweeted that the "quake" from the blast was "felt 10 km away." In a separate tweet, People's Daily cited the China Earthquake Network Center as saying that two explosions had occurred within 30 seconds, one magnitude 2.3 M_L (or Richter magnitude) and [the] other magnitude 2.9 M_L.

The number of casualties is still unknown; Xinhua's official report (issued at around 3 a.m. local time) noted "at least 50" people injured, while the official Twitter account of People's Daily said a local hospital "has received 300-400 injured." No deaths have been confirmed as of this writing, but two firefighters have been reported missing.

Update: People's Daily is now reporting 13 dead.

There were conflicting reports as to the cause of the blast. Initial speculation suggested the cause was gas or oil-related, possibly connected to the liquid natural gas (LNG) terminal in Tianjin. By around 3 a.m. local time, official Chinese media sources were reporting that the explosion started at a warehouse in the Binhai New Area of Tianjin, where "dangerous goods" were being stored.

CCTV had the most specific information, citing the Tianjin Public Security Bureau as saying that the explosion occurred at the Tianjin Dongjiang Port Rui Hai International Logistics Co. Ltd, "which handles the transport of hazardous goods." Xing Zheming of CCTV America said the first explosion involved flammable materials; the second involved oil.

Update: People's Daily reports that a representative from Rui Hai is being questioned in connection with the explosion.

Original Submission

FrogBlast writes:

Google is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a new company called "Alphabet", to be run by Larry Page and Sergei Brin. Sundar Pichai will be CEO of Google, which will remain focused on its core of web-related products. Alphabet will serve as and umbrella for Google's now quite diverse projects, with a separate CEO for each. By way of example, the announcement cites a Life Sciences group, and a group called Calico which is focused on longevity.

All stock in Google will be converted to Alphabet stock, with the same rights and number of shares.

The announcement.

takyon: The Register, The New York Times, Wired, MarketWatch.

Original Submission

mendax writes:

What has been long suspect and almost expected since it was discovered last week has now been confirmed. The flaperon found on a beach on the French island of Réunion is definitely from that missing airliner:

Experts have determined that the aircraft part that washed up on the island of Réunion last week is definitely from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced in the early hours of Thursday (Wednesday afternoon Eastern time).

The part, known as a flaperon, was flown from Réunion, near Madagascar, to a laboratory in Toulouse, France, where Malaysian, Australian and French officials gathered on Wednesday to examine it, along with representatives from Boeing.

One mystery solved. Many more to go.

BBC.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Earlier this week we read about the German Public Prosecutor opening up a treason investigation.

Within hours, the investigation was halted. And now the public prosecutor lost his job over it.

Looks like this Slashdot commenter foresaw accurately what would happen, based on a very similar past incident:

Also at the BBC and Deutsche Welle.

Original Submission

janrinok writes with news of a report (by Michael McNally) concerning a critical defect in BIND:

https://www.isc.org/blogs/about-cve-2015-5477-an-error-in-handling-tkey-queries-can-cause-named-to-exit-with-a-require-assertion-failure/

As the security incident manager for this particular vulnerability notification, I'd like to say a little extra, beyond our official vulnerability disclosure about this critical defect in BIND [Wikipedia].

Many of our bugs are limited in scope or affect only users having a particular set of configuration choices. CVE-2015-5477 does not fall into that category. Almost all unpatched BIND servers are potentially vulnerable. We know of no configuration workarounds. Screening the offending packets with firewalls is likely to be difficult or impossible unless those devices understand DNS at a protocol level and may be problematic even then. And the fix for this defect is very localized to one specific area of the BIND code.

The practical effect of this is that this bug is difficult to defend against (except by patching, which is completely effective) and will not be particularly difficult to reverse-engineer. I have already been told by one expert that they have successfully reverse-engineered an attack kit from what has been divulged and from analyzing the code changes, and while I have complete confidence that the individual who told me this is not intending to use his kit in a malicious manner, there are others who will do so who may not be far behind. Please take steps to patch or download a secure version immediately.

This bug is designated "Critical" and it deserves that designation.

The existence of this bug was announced 'in-house' on 28 July but is announced publicly today. Apologies for releasing my own story [submission].

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward wrote in with a link to the launch of Windows 10:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9471/windows-10-launches-worldwide

Windows 10 gains a personal assistant in Cortana. What originally launched on Windows Phone has been brought to the PC, and it can now work across all of your Windows devices. One of the key benefits of Windows 10 over Windows 8 is that features like Cortana are easily discoverable. Cortana now lives in a search box right beside the start button, and it can keep track of your travel plans, set up reminders, and perform searches for you. Microsoft is also adding a new browser to Windows 10, with Microsoft Edge. Although based on Internet Explorer under the hood, huge chunks of code have been taken out to improve security, and the rendering and scripting engines have been optimized to make Edge one of the fastest browsers around. It adds support for new features like being able to markup web pages and share them, and Cortana is built in to provide contextual search results right in the page. It is a big step up from Internet Explorer in standards compliance, and while it’s not quite finished yet, Microsoft has promised to update it often through the Windows Store.

...

The built in Xbox app will support Game DVR, allowing you to record game sessions, edit them, and share them, all within the Xbox app. One of the coolest features coming is game streaming from an Xbox One to any Windows 10 PC, allowing you to use any PC or tablet as the display for the Xbox, as long as it is on the LAN.

Other links:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/microsoft/windows/11767674/Windows-10-launch-Microsoft-releases-new-operating-system.html
http://arstechnica.co.uk/information-technology/2015/07/windows-10-released-heres-how-to-download-it/

Update (JR) - Stories about the bugs are now coming in: here and here.

Original Submission

iwoloschin and an Anonymous Coward write:

FS tells me that Ars Technica reports that Dice is selling the Slashdot and Sourceforge sites. The company in their second quarter earnings announcements stated they have "not successfully leveraged the Slashdot user base to further Dice's digital recruitment business", and are planning to divest this business.

The report goes on to note that in spite of what the report calls "an incredibly loyal and passionate following of tech professionals," Slashdot and SourceForge aren't core to DHI's business and that DHI has partnered with KeyBanc Capital Markets to advise DHI on the sale. There is no buyer lined up yet.

The report also says that Slashdot Media (the aggregate of Slashdot and SourceForge) made $1.7 million in revenue for the second quarter and that it's estimated Slashdot Media will pull somewhere between $15 million and $16 million in revenue for fiscal 2015.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Josh Greenberg, 28-year-old cofounder of the shuttered music streaming service Grooveshark, has been found dead at his home in Gainesville, Florida. The Gainesville Sun reports:

Lori Greenberg, his mother, said Monday he had no health problems and she was told by police who investigated Sunday night that there was no evidence of foul play, injuries or drugs. She said her son was more relieved than depressed about the settlement that shut down Grooveshark on April 30 since it ended the lawsuit that had been hanging over his head. Several record companies had sued the online music streaming service over copyright violations. "He was excited about potential new things that he was going to start," she said.

[...] Greenberg and Sam Tarantino founded Grooveshark as 19-year-old freshmen at the University of Florida in March 2006. At its peak, the company had up to 40 million users a month and 145 employees, occupying most of the second floor of the Union Street Station in downtown Gainesville and a small office in New York City. Greenberg helped train other entrepreneurs and computer programmers to get their start in the tech industry through Grooveshark University classes, the Summer with the Sharks internship program and as a partner in the Founders Pad business incubator. He started MaidSuite with Student Maid founder Kristen Hadeed to provide an online scheduling application for cleaning companies and other service providers and recently helped start the Gainesville Dev Academy to offer computer programming training. He was a founding member of the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce's Gainesville Technology Council.

Previous reporting on Grooveshark:

April 27: Grooveshark Faces $736 Million in Copyright Damages
May 1: Grooveshark Shuts Down & Apologizes to the RIAA
May 10: Music Industry Kills Grooveshark, "Clone" Emerges
May 17: New Grooveshark Site Taken Down, Another One Pops Up

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has shut down a "major computer hacking forum" called Darkode. The Darkode site now displays a banner with a message from the FBI, Department of Justice, and many foreign police agencies.

U.S. authorities working with law enforcement partners abroad have shut down the Darkode online forum used by cybercriminals around the world and charged 12 people linked to the site, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.

U.S. Attorney David Hickton announced the charges in Pittsburgh and called Darkode "a cyber hornet's nest of criminal hackers."

"Of the roughly 800 criminal Internet forums worldwide, Darkode represented one of the gravest threats to the integrity of data on computers in the United States," he said.

The Justice Department said the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Pittsburgh led the investigation, known as Operation Shrouded Horizon. It included authorities from Europol and 20 countries in Europe and Latin America and included Israel, Nigeria and Australia.

12 individuals have been charged:

• Johan Anders Gudmunds, aka Mafi aka Crim aka Synthet!c, 27, of Sollebrunn, Sweden.
• Morgan C. Culbertson, aka Android, 20, of Pittsburgh.
• Eric L. Crocker, aka Phastman, 39, of Binghamton, New York.
• Naveed Ahmed, aka Nav aka semaph0re, 27, of Tampa, Florida.
• Phillip R. Fleitz, aka Strife, 31, of Indianapolis.
• Dewayne Watts, aka m3t4lh34d aka metal, 28, of Hernando, Florida.
• Murtaza Saifuddin, aka rzor, 29, of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.
• Daniel Placek, aka Nocen aka Loki aka Juggernaut aka M1rr0r, 27, of Glendale, Wisconsin.
• Matjaz Skorjanc, aka iserdo aka serdo, 28, of Maribor, Slovenia.
• Florencio Carro Ruiz, aka NeTK aka Netkairo, 36, of Vizcaya, Spain.
• Mentor Leniqi, aka Iceman, 34, of Gurisnica, Slovenia.
• Rory Stephen Guidry, aka k@exploit.im, of Opelousas, Louisiana.

As of this morning, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has flown by Pluto. Early images (here and here) are the best glimpses we have had of the dwarf planet. More detailed pictures are expected to be released this afternoon and over the next 16 months.

Update: New Horizons is expected to call home at 8:53 PM EDT.

Update: Contact with New Horizons re-established! Telemetry download has begun.

Update: New Horizons team unveils its first findings from the Pluto flypast – that briefing is on Wednesday at 3pm ET [sic] (8pm BST/Thursday 5am AEST) [updated at 14:59 UTC 15 July]

takyon writes:

According to the White House:

After many months [Ed: years?] of principled diplomacy, the P5+1 -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, Russia and Germany -- along with the European Union, have achieved a long-term comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran that will verifiably prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and ensure that Iran's nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful going forward.

Reported at BBC, NYT, Reuters, and everywhere else. President Obama spoke about the deal for 15 minutes this morning.

The deal has been praised by Syrian President Bashar Assad and slammed by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Text of the "Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."

Horse With Stripes writes:

The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time and several other news sources are reporting that Ellen Pao is resigning as CEO of Reddit. Pao will be replaced by Steve Huffman, a Reddit co-founder and its first CEO.

Pao has had a stormy and controversial stint as interim chief executive officer of Reddit which culminated in a mass user protest in recent weeks, as previously reported on SN.

takyon writes:

Hacking Team has issued a statement confirming that its code and zero-day software vulnerabilities were leaked:

It is now apparent that a major threat exists because of the posting by cyber criminals of HackingTeam proprietary software on the Internet the night of July 6. HackingTeam's investigation has determined that sufficient code was released to permit anyone to deploy the software against any target of their choice.

Before the attack, HackingTeam could control who had access to the technology which was sold exclusively to governments and government agencies. Now, because of the work of criminals, that ability to control who uses the technology has been lost. Terrorists, extortionists and others can deploy this technology at will if they have the technical ability to do so.

Adobe has patched a security bug in flash, and Microsoft is working on a vulnerable kernel driver. Discussed at The Register and Motherboard.

The Intercept has detailed Hacking Team's demonstration to a Bangladesh "death squad," the use of Hacking Team software by the DEA to spy on all Colombian ISPs from the U.S. embassy in Bogota, and more. In one email, CEO David Vincenzetti unwittingly predicts the current fallout while warning employees not to leak the company's secrets: "Imagine this: a leak on WikiLeaks showing YOU explaining the evilest technology on earth! :-)" he wrote. "You will be demonized by our dearest friends the activists, and normal people will point their fingers at you."

Privacy International's Deputy Director Eric King has called the leaks "the equivalents of the Edward Snowden leaks for the surveillance industry." Nevertheless, Hacking Team plans to continue its operations. PhineasFisher, a hacker who penetrated Hacking Team's competitor Gamma International last year and leaked 40 GB of internal data, has claimed responsibility for this hack.