SoylentNews

takyon writes:

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has developed a voluntary program for certifying and labeling food that doesn't contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs):

The certification is the first of its kind and would be voluntary — and companies would have to pay for it. If approved, the foods could carry a "USDA Process Verified" label along with a claim that they are free of GMOs.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined the department's plan in a May 1 letter to employees, saying the certification was being done at the request of a "leading global company," which he did not identify. A copy of the letter was obtained by the Associated Press.

No government labels certify a food only as GMO-free. Many companies use a private label developed by a nonprofit group called the Non-GMO Project. The USDA organic label also certifies that foods are free of genetically modified ingredients, but many non-GMO foods aren't organic.

Vilsack said the USDA certification is being created through the department's Agriculture Marketing Service, which works with interested companies to certify the accuracy of the claims they are making on food packages, such as "humanely raised" or "no antibiotics ever."

"Recently, a leading global company asked AMS to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered so that the company could label the products as such," Vilsack wrote in the letter. "AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim."

[The Associated Press has the letter. I don't think they have released it.]

n1 writes:

Bloomberg reports:

Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state's nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean's e-mail recounting the conversation.

Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey's scientists. "I'm very approachable, and don't think I'm intimidating," Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. "I don't try to push anybody around."

Yet an e-mail obtained from the university by Bloomberg News via a public records request says Hamm used a blunt approach during a 90-minute meeting last year with the dean whose department includes the geological survey.

"Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed," wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the university's Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university. Hamm also expressed an interest in joining a search committee charged with finding a new director for the geological survey, according to Grillot's e-mail. And, the dean wrote, Hamm indicated that he would be "visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma."

"gewg_" writes:

The Japan Times reports:

[1063 plaintiffs, including lawmakers,] filed a lawsuit against the government on [May 15], seeking to halt Japan's involvement in 12-country talks on a Pacific Rim free trade agreement, which they called "unconstitutional".

[...]The lawsuit is led by Masahiko Yamada, 73, a lawyer who served as agriculture minister in 2010 as part of the Democratic Party of Japan government.

"The TPP could violate the Japanese right to get stable food supply, or the right to live, guaranteed by Article 25 of the nation's Constitution," Yamada, who abandoned his party in 2012 over then-Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's push to join the TPP talks, said [May 14] before the court filing.

The envisaged pact would benefit big corporations but would jeopardize the country's food safety and medical systems, and [would] destroy the domestic farm sector, according to the plaintiffs.

The litigation is another twist in efforts by Japan and the U.S., the top economies involved in the TPP, to expedite talks on the agreement that would cover about 40 percent of the world's commerce.

n1 writes:

El Reg reports:

The FBI has accused a security researcher of hacking into the entertainment system of a United Airlines plane mid-flight, before causing the aircraft to temporarily fly "sideways".

Infosec bod Chris Roberts allegedly made that audacious claim to Feds' special agent Mark Hurley, who subsequently applied for a search warrant to examine Roberts' seized electronic devices.

Thirteen items, including thumb drives, a MacBook Pro laptop and an iPad Air were confiscated from Roberts on 15 April this year, after the researcher exited a United Airline flight in Syracuse, New York, according to the Feds' affidavit (PDF).

Roberts, who founded One World Labs, has been quizzed twice by the FBI over the course of the past few months.

He apparently told the Feds that he had hacked into the inflight entertainment systems of Airbus and Boeing aircraft roughly 15 to 20 times between 2011 and 2014.

A story from the BBC has a different perspective on the situation:

Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University told the BBC he found it "difficult to believe" a passenger could access and manipulate flight control systems from a plug socket on an aircraft seat.

"Flight systems are typically kept physically separate, as are any safety critical systems," he said.

"I can imagine only that someone has misunderstood something in the conversation between the researcher and the FBI, someone is exaggerating to make a point, or, it is actually possible and the aircraft manufacturers have some urgent work to do."/blockquote

The researcher in question, Chris Roberts said on twitter, "There's a whole five years of stuff that the affidavit incorrectly compressed into 1 paragraph... lots to untangle".

n1 writes:

Ars Technica reports:

The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones.

While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act was snuck in under the radar as secondary legislation. According to Privacy International, "It appears no regulators, commissioners responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies, the Information Commissioner's Office, industry, NGOs or the public were notified or consulted about the proposed legislative changes... There was no public debate."

"gewg_" writes:

Ars Technica reports:

A Washington, DC appeals court ruled [May 15][1] that the Federal Aviation Administration did not overstep its authority when it allowed airline passengers to use electronic devices during takeoff and landing.

The Association of Flight Attendants had challenged the change, suing Michael Huerta, the administrator of the FAA, along with that agency.

However, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the FAA has always had the ability to change rules as it pleases. The FAA had determined that allowing phones, e-readers, and other devices were within its purview.

Since [it first permitted airlines to allow passengers to] use personal electronic devices (PEDs) [in] October 2013, the FAA has authorized 31 airlines to do so.

The meat of the issue is that FAA's Notice N8900 is not a legislative rule carrying "the force and effect of law".

[1] The entire page is behind scripts.

Appalbarry writes:

I go back on the 'net to the days of Mosaic, and earlier on Usenet and BBSs. I'm feeling pretty nostalgic, but also saddened. Between the crooks, the government, and fun loving pranksters it seems that there is no corner of the 'net that can be considered truly secure. I now routinely assume that nothing I do is safe.

I remember when the 'net was 90% thoughtful discussion, it was about web pages, pure HTML, and the content that they served up.

Now it seems as if no forum is safe from endless idiotic, threatening, and increasingly offensive trolls and bullies. Many good smart people just refuse to participate. In its early days the whole idea behind the 'net was the free sharing of information. Now you find things behind paywalls, registration pages, or removed after threats from lawyers.

Each week seems to bring another attempt by government or business to regulate the 'net, both what you can put on-line, and what you can look at. Add to that the many geographic blocks and other restrictions that keep out some of the people, some of the time. We rely on multiple layers of flash and java and other technology, each requiring some special software to make it work on your computer. Inevitably stuff breaks.

It was only a decade or so back that the very idea of marketing on the 'net was considered ridiculous. Now we're buried alive with ads, pop-ups, and stupid YouTube ads in front of every video - unless you want to pay them to remove them.

Increasingly using the 'net feels like more of a chore than a pleasure, and I can't see it improving. Is the Internet broken beyond repair?

Hugh Pickens writes:

For the past year Nathaniel Popper has been working on a book about the history of Bitcoin and writes in the NYT that it is hard to avoid being drawn in by the almost mystical riddle of Satoshi Nakamoto’s identity. Popper has his own candidate for founder of Bitcoin, a reclusive American man of Hungarian descent named Nick Szabo. Szabo worked in a loosely organized group of digital privacy activists who over decades laid the foundation for Bitcoin and created many parts that later went into the virtual currency. Bitcoin was not a bolt out of the blue, as is sometimes assumed, but was instead built on the ideas of multiple people over several decades. Several experiments in digital cash circulated on the Cypherpunk lists in the 1990s. Adam Back, a British researcher, created an algorithm called hashcash that later became a central component of Bitcoin. Another, called b money, was designed by an intensely private computer engineer named Wei Dai.

It may be impossible to prove Satoshi’s identity until the person or people behind Bitcoin’s curtain decide to come forward and prove ownership of Satoshi’s old electronic accounts and at this point, the creator’s identity is no longer important to Bitcoin’s future. Since Satoshi stopped contributing to the project in 2011, most of the open-source code has been rewritten by a group of programmers whose identities are known. According to Popper whoever it is, the real Satoshi Nakamoto has many good reasons for wanting to stay anonymous. Perhaps the most obvious is potential danger. Satoshi Nakamoto most likely collected nearly a million Bitcoins during the system’s first year. Given that each Bitcoin is now worth about $240, the stash could be worth more than $200 million. That could make Satoshi a target. "With his modest clothes and unassuming manner, Mr. Szabo could be the kind of person who could have a fortune and not spend any of it," concludes Popper, "or even throw away the keys to the bank."

[ Editor's note: The "b money" link does not appear to work. ]

Normally, when I make a post on SoylentNews, it's to talk about some exciting new feature, our future, or something similar.

Unfortunately though, on rare occasions, I have to make announcements like this one. Sometime between May 12-13th, one of our email accounts was breached. The account ("test1") was left over from go live, over a year and half ago, and had a very weak password protecting it. We believe that an automated password guesser was able to find and access the account. Once breached, the account was used to send a significant amount of spam until we deleted the affected account on the 14th May 2015.

As a result of the compromise, several spam services have blacklisted our mail server; we're currently working to try and get ourselves cleared whenever we become aware of one of these blocks. We do not believe any user information or sensitive data was compromised; the account in question was simply a virtual dovecot account with no corresponding UNIX account attached to it.

mechanicjay was primarily responsible for handling this and cleaning up the mess, and I wish to personally thank him and the rest of the sysops team for their handling of this issue. We are looking at taking steps to prevent a reoccurence such as using fail2ban and the like. Unfortunately, most IDS systems like fail2ban are incompatible with IPv6 which we use extensively internally within our network.

A sysops meeting is being scheduled to discuss this and other changes we're making to the infrastructure.

I will update this article (or post a new one) with additional information should it become available,
NCommander

frojack writes:

The Register has a eminently readable explanation of why big banks are considered too big to fail, and get government bailouts after mismanaging their financial situations.

We seem to rage every time this happens, Let them go Bankrupt! seems the cry from the man in the street.

But that is a juvenile approach which will hurt far more people than those few officers miss-managing the bank or its funds. Banks don't have funds. Its all your funds. And if the bank fails, you mostly get nothing.

The article explains just what banks are (for those of you who slept through Econ 101), and what they are not. Its worth a read! And don't skip the comments section on the article. Many posters had no problem with bailing out the banks, but railed against bank management officers who rarely or never face any serious charges.

When you look at it this way, the federal "Stress Tests", and Forced Closures (over 500 since 1998) imposed on US banks, large and small, was the right course of action when combine with holding our collecting noses and bailing out the big ones.

Its too bad the stress tests, measuring a bank's ability to withstand withdrawals, loan defaults, and deposit slow-downs from unemployed depositors, weren't imposed far earlier. Local and national Banks have learned at least part of the lesson, and are closing money losing branches at a record rate, in favor of ATMs and digital services.

"gewg_" writes:

Common Dreams reports:

Now that official debate has begun, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants to pass Fast Track bill before Memorial Day.

[...] The U.S. Senate on [May 14] approved a motion to begin debate on the Fast Track authority President Barack Obama needs to advance controversial trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The measure passed 65-33.

Senate Democrats blocked the first attempt to proceed on the trade legislation on Tuesday, but backtracked in the wake of further negotiations--and intense pressure from the White House.

Boing Boing warns URGENT: Senate backtracks on TPP fasttrack--call Congress to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership

TPP is a treaty negotiated under extraordinary secrecy--Members of Congress were threatened with jail for discussing its contents--and virtually everything we know about it comes from leaks. One thing we do know is that it contains a provision to let multinational corporations sue governments for passing environmental and labor laws that undermine their profits (similar provisions in other treaties have been used by tobacco companies to sue the Australian government over a law mandating plain packaging for cigarettes). We also know that TPP hardens the worst elements of US copyright, trumping Congress's right to review the term of copyright and the scope of the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA (these are the rules that allowed John Deere to claim that farmers don't own their tractors, because of the copyrights in the software in their engines).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation needs your help to contact your Congresscritter to block this. TPP is a fragile monster, and it can really only pass if the Congress abdicates its legislative authority and lets the President make up laws and legal obligations without Congressional input. The Republican Congress--and many Democrats--is vulnerable to messages from voters opposing the extension of these powers to the President.

Related: Fast-Track Trade Measure Fails Key Test Vote In Senate

Hugh Pickens writes:

Jamie Doward reports at The Guardian that according to a recent study in the UK, the effect of banning mobile phones from school premises adds up to the equivalent of an extra week’s schooling over a pupil’s academic year with the test scores of students aged 16 improved by 6.4% after schools banned mobile phones, “We found that not only did student achievement improve, but also that low-achieving and low-income students gained the most. We found the impact of banning phones for these students was equivalent to an additional hour a week in school, or to increasing the school year by five days." In the UK, more than 90% of teenagers own a mobile phone; in the US, just under three quarters have one. In a survey conducted in 2001, no school banned mobiles. By 2007, this had risen to 50%, and by 2012 some 98% of schools either did not allow phones on school premises or required them to be handed in at the beginning of the day. But some schools are starting to allow limited use of the devices. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has lifted a 10-year ban on phones on school premises, with the city’s chancellor of schools stating that it would reduce inequality.

The research was carried out at Birmingham, London, Leicester and Manchester schools before and after bans were introduced (PDF). It factored in characteristics such as gender, eligibility for free school meals, special educational needs status and prior educational attainment. “Technological advancements are commonly viewed as increasing productivity,” write Louis-Philippe Beland and Richard Murphy. “Modern technology is used in the classroom to engage students and improve performance. There are, however, potential drawbacks as well, as they could lead to distractions.”

"gewg_" writes:

AlterNet reports:

Illinois governor Bruce Rauner watched his anti-union bill called, "Right-To-Work", die a swift, cruel death in the House [May 14]. [...] The the tally [PDF] was 0 yes votes, 72 no votes, and 37 voting present.

Fun with math: The Illinois House has 118 members.

A handful of Republicans went for a walk during the vote, not publicly falling on one side or another.

Source: Chicago Sun Times

darkfeline writes:

In a new game of whack-a-mole, Ars Technica is reporting that Grooveshark is live once again, despite the seizure of the Grooveshark.io

Just a few days after illegal music-streaming service Grooveshark apologized and shut down, a mysterious person identified only as "Shark" reconstituted the site at Grooveshark.io.

In response, the major record labels appear to have obtained a temporary restraining order wresting away that domain name. According to Torrentfreak, the labels filed a lawsuit under seal in New York federal court. The site reports that US District Judge Deborah Batts issued a seizure order "directed at the site’s operators, hosting providers, and domain registrar NameCheap."

[...] Meanwhile, a true game of whac-a-mole appears to have begun, with the team behind the new Grooveshark telling Torrentfreak that they have simply moved their website to grooveshark.vc.

"The harder you come at us, the stronger we’ll fight, and now after this hit we’re more determined than ever to keep Grooveshark alive and kicking," the site's anonymous operator said.

cmn32480 writes:

In a not so serious interview (video) from the International Space Station on space.com, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti gives a sit through of how to use the most private of facilities on the ISS.

The biggest complaint from the folks on the ISS is that the fan used for sucking the poo and the pee into the containers provided is too loud, and everybody knows when you are going.

Howard Wolowicz would be proud.