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canopic jug writes:

An SSD stored without power can start to lose data in as little as a single week on the shelf, depending on several factors. When most drives storage were mechanical, there was little chance of data loss or corruption so quickly as long as the environment in the storage enclosure maintained reasonable thresholds. The same is not true for SSDs and the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), which defines standards for the microelectronics industry including standards for SSDs, shows in a presentation that for every 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) rise in temperature beyond the optimal where the SSD is stored the data retention period is approximately halved.

In a presentation by Alvin Cox on JEDEC's website titled "JEDEC SSD Specifications Explained" [PDF warning], graphs on slide 27 show that for every 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) rise in temperature where the SSD is stored, the retention period is approximately halved. For example, if a client application SSD is stored at 25 degrees C (77 degrees F) it should last about 2 years on the shelf under optimal conditions. If that temperature goes up 5 degrees C, the storage standard drops to 1 year.

[...] When you receive a computer system for storage in legal hold, drive operating and ambient storage temperature are probably not the first things on tap to consider. You cannot control the materials that comprise the drive and the prior use of the drive. You can control the ambient temperature of the storage which will potentially aid in data retention. You can also ensure that power is supplied to the drives while in storage. More importantly, you can control how the actual data is retained.

[...] What started this look into SSDs? An imaging job of a laptop SSD left in storage for well over the 3-month minimum retention period quoted by the manufacturer of the drive before it was turned over to us. This drive had a large number of bad sectors identified during the imaging period. Not knowing the history, I did not consider the possibility of data loss due to the drive being in storage. Later, I learned that the drive was functioning well when it had been placed into storage. When returned to its owner a couple of months after the imaging, the system would not even recognize the drive as a valid boot device. Fortunately, the user data and files were preserved in the drive image that had been taken, thus there was no net loss.

Now imagine a situation in which an SSD was stored in legal hold where the data was no longer available for imaging, much less use in court. Ignorance of the technology is no excuse, and I am sure the opposing counsel would enjoy the opportunity to let the court know of the "negligent" evidence handling in the matter.

Ethanol-fueled's Hairy Palms writes:

The Independent reports:

Psychologist and professor emeritus at Stanford University Phillip Zimbardo (who led the team of researchers who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment) has made the warnings, which form a major part of his latest book, Man (Dis)Connected.

Zimbardo says (in this TED talk) there is a "crisis" amongst young men, a high number of whom are experiencing a "new form of addiction" to excessive use of pornography and video games. Citing the research he and his team conducted for the book, he says: "It begins to change brain function. It begins to change the reward centre of the brain, and produces a kind of excitement and addiction."

An article from Psychology Today, however, argues that there are no demonstrable scientific links between porn consumption and the disputed phenomenon called 'Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction.'

Could this problem be manifesting itself as the rise of the Hikikomori?

darkfeline writes in with an article from ArsTechnica:

It’s not just popular imagination: mosquitoes bite some people more than others. We don't really understand why, but a recent paper in PLOS One suggests that genes could play a role in the attraction.

We’ve known for a while that smell is at least a partial explanation for why some people are mosquito fodder while others return from the outdoors unscathed. A number of different studies have found that differences in body odor are related to interest from mosquitoes. What we don’t properly understand is what causes those differences in smell.

A widespread myth is that certain foods can repel or attract mosquitoes, but there’s no clear explanation for how diet could change attraction levels, write the authors of the new study. What evidence we have seems to lean away from food as a factor. This makes sense: if mosquitoes use smell to find a suitable meal, they’d evolve to sniff out stable smells, not smells that change with every meal.

takyon writes:

NASA has tested the Greased Lightning GL-10, a 10-motor drone which can take off vertically like a helicopter and fly efficiently like an airplane. They also envision a scaled-up version which could carry 1-4 people:

The GL-10 is currently in the design and testing phase. The initial thought was to develop a 20-foot wingspan (6.1 meters) aircraft powered by hybrid diesel/electric engines, but the team started with smaller versions for testing, built by rapid prototyping.

"We built 12 prototypes, starting with simple five-pound (2.3 kilograms) foam models and then 25-pound (11.3 kilograms), highly modified fiberglass hobby airplane kits all leading up to the 55-pound (24.9 kilograms), high quality, carbon fiber GL-10 built in our model shop by expert technicians, " said aerospace engineer David North.

"Each prototype helped us answer technical questions while keeping costs down. We did lose some of the early prototypes to 'hard landings' as we learned how to configure the flight control system. But we discovered something from each loss and were able to keep moving forward."

During a recent spring day the engineers took the GL-10 to test its wings at a military base about two hours away from NASA Langley. The remotely piloted plane has a 10-foot wingspan (3.05 meters), eight electric motors on the wings, two electric motors on the tail and weighs a maximum of 62 pounds (28.1 kilograms) at take off.

"During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again. So far we have done this on five flights," said Fredericks. "We were ecstatic. Now we're working on our second goal — to demonstrate that this concept is four times more aerodynamically efficient in cruise than a helicopter."

Here is a 4m45s video of a test flight.

takyon writes:

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) may be relaxing its hard-nosed approach to commercial drones. Amazon in particular recently complained that the FAA took so long to approve drone test flights that the approved hardware was already outdated.

The two biggest companies seeking to use drones for package delivery say U.S. regulators have suddenly become more receptive to their efforts, a potential boost to the chances of success for one of the burgeoning technology's most promising commercial uses. Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. say they have noticed the sharp shift in attitude in recent weeks on critical issues such as drone test flights.

In an apparent sign of the recent shift in attitude, the Federal Aviation Administration plans on Wednesday to announce an initiative to study drone flights beyond the sight of the operator, according to a person familiar with the agency's plans. The agency thus far has virtually banned such flights, including for research, and proposed rules earlier this year that would prohibit them.

"Honestly in the last two to three weeks, things have made a dramatic change," Dave Vos, head of Google's delivery-drone project, said Tuesday at a drone conference. "Three to four months ago, we were a little bit concerned about how much progress we could make here in the U.S., but... what we're seeing today is significant opportunity to work here in the U.S. with the FAA."

[More after the break...]

takyon writes:

Japanese manufacturer Fixstars is releasing a 6 terabyte 2.5" solid state drive in July. The drive uses 15nm MLC NAND. 1 TB and 3 TB models are also available, but only the pricing for the 1 TB model is known: $820. The drive is not particularly fast; it uses the 6 Gbps SATA 3 interface to achieve 540 and 520 MB/s sustained read and write speeds.

For comparison, the highest capacity 2.5" hard disk drive is currently Toshiba's 3 terabyte MQ03ABB300, which uses four 750 GB platters. The Fixstars SSD is 9.5 mm thick, while the Toshiba HDD is 15 mm thick.

It's about time to bring the HAMR down.

CoolHand writes:

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have made discoveries that may lead to better cancer treatment (including improved chemotherapy).

A method to help shorten the road to better cancer treatment has been developed by an international team of researchers. When DNA is damaged, several different proteins start pouring in to repair the damage; their types depend on the damage done. Up until now, it has been common practice to study one protein at a time, but by way of so-called mass spectrometry, researchers are now able to simultaneously see all the proteins that help repair damaged DNA.

[...]The article in Science describes chemotherapy-induced DNA damage, because the researchers wanted to relate their findings to the treatment of cancer. By using this method, Niels Mailand and his research team have discovered that two specific and hitherto un-described proteins play an important part in repairing damaged DNA.

“This new method enables us to quickly get an overview of the entire bag of proteins that are important in terms of repairing damaged DNA. In this process, we have discovered that the two proteins have a specific part to play and attract certain necessary elements to a given spot where DNA-repairs are taking place. In other words, this new technique allows us to put the puzzle together much quicker...”

Abstract of source article (which is paywalled) is here.

takyon writes:

On May 20, the Planetary Society will launch a tiny "citizen-funded" satellite that will test the unfolding of a 32 m² (344 ft²) solar sail. A solar sail uses radiation pressure from the Sun over a large surface area to propel a spacecraft. IKAROS was the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate the technology in space. While this month's mission is simply a test of the sail deployment, the main mission, LightSail-1, will launch high enough to actually test the sail as a means of propulsion:

LightSail-1's goal is to test if solar sails are a viable form of space transport. The theory will be tested by measuring if there is any increase in LightSail-1's orbital speed once the spacecraft is released at an altitude of 500 miles (800 km). The Planetary Society originally hoped to launch LightSail-1 in 2012, but in 2014 announced that it is scheduled for launch in April 2016.

An initial test launch of the LightSail spacecraft is scheduled for May 2015. This launch will deliver the satellite to an orbit low enough that atmospheric drag exceeds the thrust available from the light sail, but will allow a full checkout of the satellite's systems in advance of the main 2016 mission.

If LightSail-1 is successful, then the Planetary Society will execute two more solar sail projects with more complex goals. LightSail-2's goal will be to collect scientific data and improve solar sailing control. LightSail-3's goal would be to travel to the L1 Lagrangian point. There, it would be used to detect geomagnetic storms on the Sun, which can damage power and communication systems on Earth and orbiting spacecraft. Such detection will provide earlier warnings of potential power failures.

takyon writes:

It's not just governments and law enforcement agencies that are advocating the use of license plate readers, as The Intercept's Lee Fang reports:

As privacy advocates battle to rein in the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), they're going up against another industry that benefits from this mass surveillance: lenders and debt collectors. [...] In Rhode Island, for instance, state Rep. Larry Valencia and state Sen. Gayle Goldin proposed bills in 2014 to prohibit the sale or trade of data collected by ALPRs, and to mandate that the state destroy records after one year.

I filed a records request and found two letters in opposition. One letter came from the[sic] Steven G. O'Donnell, on behalf of the Rhode Island State Police, arguing that law enforcement should be able to come up with its own internal procedures to govern the use of ALPRs. The other letter came from Danielle Fagre Arlow, senior vice president to the American Financial Services Association (AFSA), a trade group for consumer lending companies, some of which target the subprime market.

"Our particular interest in the bill," Arlow wrote, "is the negative impact it would have on ALPR’s valuable role in our industry – the ability to identify and recover vehicles associated with owners who have defaulted on their loans and are not responding to good-faith efforts to contact them." Arlow opposed the bill's restrictions on "how long data can be kept because access to historical data is important in determining where hard-to-find vehicles are likely located."

AFSA lobbied against several similar bills as they were proposed around the country. In Massachussetts, the group lobbied against a bill designed to destroy ALPR records after 90 days. AFSA argued that such a regime is unfair because "ALPR systems work best when they are used to string together the historical locations of vehicles."

[...] According to the ACLU of Rhode Island, the ALPR privacy bill died last session — notably, the bill failed after the consumer lending lobbyists voiced their opposition.

Unofficial Secrets is a newly launched and more frequently updated blog from First Look Media/The Intercept.

Related stories:

DHS Wants a National License Plate Tracking System
Ars Technica Obtains Large Dataset of Oakland Police Department License Plate Scans
Watch Out for "Automated Vehicle Occupancy Detection"

Hugh Pickens writes:

USA Today reports that under the watchful eyes of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea says it has conducted an underwater test-firing of a submarine ballistic missile. Kim called the missile a "world-level strategic weapon" and an "eye-opening success." Although American officials had suspected North Korea was developing such a missile system, the country had not previously claimed to have conducted a test launching. The test, if confirmed, would pose a new challenge to the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan, which have been trying to build missile defense capabilities to guard against potential North Korean missile attacks.

The news of a successful test-fire was most likely a surprise to South Korean military officials, who have privately told reporters that they believed it would take years for the North to develop such a submarine-launched ballistic missile. "North Korea's development of a submarine-launched missile capability would eventually expand Pyongyang's threat to South Korea, Japan and U.S. bases in East Asia" says Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. "Submarines carrying land-attack missiles would be challenging to locate and track, would be mobile assets able to attack from any direction, and could operate at significant distances from the Korean peninsula."

See also: BBC, Reuters, The Guardian, Washington Post.

AnonTechie writes:

In the near future, you may hear about the appointment of a Chief Internet of Things (IoT) Officer. Before you roll your eyes and chortle at the thought of another chief-of-something, consider the problem.

First, companies are beginning to make and implement smart, connected, data-producing products. That can be anything—automobiles, assembly line robots, washing machines and even coffee makers. This data can be used in predictive analytics to avoid product failures, as well as to schedule maintenance around when a product actually needs it. These products, mechanical and electronic, will likely get ongoing software updates.

Second, connected products are now part of a broader system. Or as Michael Porter, a Harvard economist, pointed out at this week's ThingWorx conference, you aren't just selling a tractor, you are selling a tractor that is becoming part of a smart farm, a system. Things have to be able to work together.

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2919702/it-careers/all-hail-the-next-big-job-the-chief-iot-officer.html

Hugh Pickens writes:

George Haikalis writes in the NYT that last week, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey put off, yet again, deciding between two proposals for a nearly $4 billion project to rehabilitate the dilapidated Central Terminal Building at La Guardia Airport. But piling billions of taxpayer dollars into upgrading La Guardia, which has been likened to an experience “in a third world country," won’t solve its fundamental problems. "It can’t easily expand," says Haikalis. "Its two runways and four terminals are surrounded on three sides by water, making landing difficult and hazardous. Parking is a nightmare."

There are precedents for replacing airports close to the center city with modern, more outlying airports. Hong Kong and Denver are two examples; Berlin will soon follow suit. With the consolidation of the major United States airlines and the sluggishness in the global economy, the much larger Kennedy and Newark airports could accommodate La Guardia’s passenger load, by adding more frequent service and using larger aircraft, if the F.A.A. were to lift the caps on the number of flights allowed there. Kennedy, with its two sets of parallel runways, could handle many more flights, particularly as new air-traffic control technology is introduced in the next few years. The money budgeted for the La Guardia upgrades would be better used to create a long-proposed one-ride express-rail link between Manhattan and J.F.K., by reviving a long-disused, 3.5-mile stretch of track in central Queens and completing the modernization of the terminals at Kennedy. "By avoiding the costly replacement of outmoded terminals at La Guardia and by creating a new express rail link and upgrading terminals at Kennedy, the increased economic activity could more than make up for the lost jobs," concludes Haikalis. "New York’s importance to America’s economy demands a first world vision to shutter this third world airport."

sigma writes:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-07/jade-helm-15-prompts-texas-takeover-conspiracy/6452810

A paper published last year found that around half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory, and that many popular conspiracy theories are differentiated along ideological dimensions. Having said that, their research was pre-Snowden revelations, so many of the conspiracy theories may have been well founded.

Even so, the hysteria surrounding Operation Jade Helm 15 seems unusually shrill, with Chuck Norris (ex fake Texas Ranger) urging Texans not to believe government reassurances that it is just an exercise, and Governor Greg Abbott ordering the National Guard to monitor the US military's activities.

So what do Soylentils think? Will conservative Texas, in the words of Freedom Fighter 2127 on YouTube be, "The first state, according to our military source, these are not just drills. Texas will be the first state to be under martial law"?

There are plenty of people willing to point out the lunacy of the conspiracy theorists. Of course, Jon Stewart is one:

"There is no Texas takeover," Stewart said. "The United States government already controls Texas — since like the 1840s. And you left and then you came back. Just borrow a textbook from a neighboring state. It's all in there.

frojack writes:

We have all read about the seizure of computers and cell phones by Customs and Border Protection officers when people cross into the US from other countries. Some have sarcastically called the the region within 50 miles of the border a Constitution Free Zone, as the 4th Amendment doesn't seem to apply there.

Today The Associated Press is reporting that one US District Court Judge is putting the brakes on this practice by suppressing any evidence from such a search.

This search had all the ear marks of a case of Parallel Construction, as the seizure and search of the laptop "was supported by so little suspicion of ongoing or imminent criminal activity" and "was so invasive of Kim's privacy," according to the Judge. The laptop in question was transported 150 miles from Kim's port of entry, and was held indefinitely.

The search of the laptop went beyond routine border inspection. The Justice Department claimed that Kim was suspected of conspiracy to buy US navigation technology, but apparently did not have enough evidence for a warrant. Instead, the warrant-less border crossing seizure was used as a ruse to gather additional evidence,

In spring 2013, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government should have reasonable suspicion before conducting a comprehensive search of an electronic device.

CoolHand writes:

This Daily Beast article titled "The Nerds Who Won World War II" details a book describing the influence of great technical minds in winning WWII for the alllies.

In Engineers of Victory: The Problem Solvers Who Turned the Tide in the Second World War, historian, international security authority, and Yale professor Paul Kennedy turns on their heads many standard notions about how the Allies won.

Kennedy dwells lovingly on the eccentric scientists, naval officers, and others who outfitted the British Admiralty unit called the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development, locally known as Wheezers and Dodgers. Men brought up on H.G. Wells and Jules Verne science fiction set their minds to solving the convoy crisis. They studied where the U-boats preyed on ships and convinced the air services to add an extra fuel tank to extend aircraft coverage enough to close the North Atlantic gap. They came up with the U-boat-killer shipboard multiple-grenade launcher called the Hedgehog, for its spiked look, as a supplement to less effective depth charges and tinkered with other weaponry to reach the deep-diving subs. Add to that the development of cavity magnetrons: escort ships and aircraft began to carry these small microwave radars enabling them to spot and chase down wolfpacks lurking in wait for the convoys, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

Although nerds have definitely gotten some widely publicized credit, especially for encryption, in films such as Enigma, is it enough? Should other nerd archetypes like engineers be receiving more credit in media with regards to WWII?