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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

"exec" writes:

Microsoft's first cumulative update for Windows 10 - KB3081424 - is causing havoc for some users. How do I know this? Because I spent a good part of my Sunday morning dealing with it, that's how.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that the update puts affected systems into an endless crash loop. The update tries to install, gets to a certain point, fails, and then displays the unhelpful "We couldn't complete the updates, undoing the changes."

If it stopped there things wouldn't be too bad, but because Microsoft now forces updates onto Windows 10 users, the OS kept trying - and failing - to install the update, which in turn placed the system into a periodic crash/reboot loop that put quite a dent in my productivity.

To make matters worse, the tool that Microsoft released to hide or block toxic Windows 10 updates (as reported by my ZDNet colleague Ed Bott) didn't allow me to prevent this update from attempting to install. So I was forced to either abandon the machine until a fix was made available or try to fix it myself.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-cumulative-update-causes-reboot-loop-havoc-for-some-users/

Original Submission

Submitted from IRC.

takyon writes:

Scotland's rural affairs secretary has said that the country will ban the growing of genetically modified crops and opt out of allowing EU-approved GMOs such as MON 810 (corn with an added Bacillus thuringiensis gene):

Richard Lochhead said the Scottish government was not prepared to "gamble" with the future of the country's £14bn food and drink sector. He is to request that Scotland be excluded from any European consents for the cultivation of GM crops. But farming leaders said they were disappointed by the move. Under EU rules, GM crops must be formally authorised before they can be cultivated. An amendment came into force earlier this year which allows member states and devolved administrations to restrict or ban the cultivation of genetically modified organisms within their territory.

[...] Mr Lochhead added: "There is no evidence of significant demand for GM products by Scottish consumers and I am concerned that allowing GM crops to be grown in Scotland would damage our clean and green brand, thereby gambling with the future of our £14bn food and drink sector. Scottish food and drink is valued at home and abroad for its natural, high quality which often attracts a premium price, and I have heard directly from food and drink producers in other countries that are ditching GM because of a consumer backlash."

[...] The move has also been broadly welcomed by environment groups. But Scott Walker, chief executive of farming union NFU Scotland, said he was disappointed that the Scottish government had decided that no GM crops should ever be grown in Scotland. "Other countries are embracing biotechnology where appropriate and we should be open to doing the same here in Scotland," he said. "These crops could have a role in shaping sustainable agriculture at some point and at the same time protecting the environment which we all cherish in Scotland." Huw Jones, professor of molecular genetics at agricultural science group Rothamsted Research, said the announcement was a "sad day for science and a sad day for Scotland. He said that GM crops approved by the EU were "safe for humans, animals and the environment".

The European Parliament voted to give member states the ability to opt-out of allowing the cultivation of EU-approved GMOs in January.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The BBC reports that the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation is sharing hash lists with Google, Facebook, and Twitter to prevent the upload of child abuse imagery:

Web giants Google, Facebook and Twitter have joined forces with a British charity in a bid to remove millions of indecent child images from the net. In a UK first, anti-abuse organisation Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has begun sharing lists of indecent images, identified by unique "hash" codes. Wider use of the photo-tagging system could be a "game changer" in the fight against paedophiles, the charity said. Internet security experts said images on the "darknet" would not be detected.

The IWF, which works to take down indecent images of children, allocates to each picture it finds a "hash" - a unique code, sometimes referred to as a digital finger-print. By sharing "hash lists" of indecent pictures of children, Google, Facebook and Twitter will be able to stop those images from being uploaded to their sites.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Dogs capable of sniffing out cancer have been approved for use in a trial by the NHS (in the UK). The charity Medical Detection Dogs has gained approval from Milton Keynes University Hospital for further trials, after an initial study showed specially trained dogs can detect prostate tumours in urine in 93% of cases.

It is hoped canine testing could help show up inaccuracies in the traditional Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test, used to determine if men need a biopsy. The test has a high "false positive" rate, and many men are unnecessarily referred for the invasive procedure. Iqbal Anjum, a consultant urologist at the hospital, said the study was "an extremely exciting prospect".

He added: "Over the years there have been many anecdotal reports suggesting that dogs may be able to detect cancer based on the tumour's odour. It is assumed that volatile molecules associated with the tumour would be released into the person's urine, making samples easy to collect and test."

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/08/cancer-detecting-dogs-nhs-trial-milton-keynes-prostate

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

From Yahoo News:

A man was gravely wounded in a gun battle with police in Ferguson, Missouri on Sunday night after a day of peaceful rallies to mark the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white officer one year ago. Several volleys of gunshots rang out as police in riot gear tried to disperse demonstrators blocking traffic and smashing storefront windows along a street that was a flashpoint of last year's unrest in the St. Louis suburb after Michael Brown, 18, was slain. Police later said the gunfire began with two groups of agitators apparently shooting at each other.

http://news.yahoo.com/ferguson-protests-mostly-peaceful-anniversary-brown-shooting-015555407.html

...

Anniversary commemorations had begun hours earlier with a peaceful march through the St. Louis suburb. The scene changed dramatically after dark. Dozens of protesters converged on West Florissant Avenue, which bore the brunt of last summer's rioting, and chanted: "Shut it down" in the midst of a severe thunderstorm.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Foxconn, the Taiwanese manufacturer of Apple and Xiaomi smartphones as well as Samsung tablets, plans to spend $5 billion on new factories and development in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Maharashtra will provide 1,500 acres of land for Foxconn on which facilities will be constructed over the next 5 years. Foxconn says that the development will provide 50,000 jobs, short of the "million job opportunities" it promised in July:

India was chosen for an R&D role because of the skills of local workers, but the move to India is motivated by other factors too. One is undoubtedly the "Make in India" policy India's government is using to lure manufacturers to the nation and to improve local manufacturing practices. Make in India is both an economic development policy and a way for India to point out that there are easy ways to access its growing domestic market.

Wage growth in China may be another factor in Foxconn's thinking, as may China's increasing preference for joint ventures on its soil. Beijing's military posturing in the South China Sea also has diplomatic types pondering the wisdom of having all one's manufacturing eggs in a Middle Kingdom basket. Indian facilities may be a few more sea-days from the USA, but aren't horribly out of the way.

Previously: Foxconn to Hire 1 Million People in India by 2020

Original Submission

Arthur T. Knackerbracket serves up the following:

Original URL: http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/08/tomorrow-nasa-astronauts-will-finally-eat-fresh-microgravity-grown-veggies/

Tomorrow, NASA astronauts will finally eat fresh, microgravity-grown veggies

On the menu tomorrow, August 10, at the International Space Station, Expedition 44 crew members will do something mankind has never before done—eat "fresh food grown in the microgravity environment of space" while in space.

This weekend NASA announced this small milestone as part of its ongoing plant experiment, Veg-01.The initiative aims to study "the in-orbit function and performance of the plant growth facility and its rooting 'pillows,' which contain the seeds." Monday isn't the first time anyone will study or taste some of the "Outredgeous" red romaine lettuce being grown on the ISS (as Engadget notes, the first batch of Veg-01 crop was sent back for study), but NASA has never before kept the crop in orbit for consumption. The organization notes this ability to create sustainable food is an important ingredient in the organization's long term plans to reach Mars.

Original Submission

So, I've recently revived my gaming streak, and for as long as I've gamed, I've always enjoyed interacting with others. As such, I'm curious what games SN folks play. I've been strongly tempted to setup a Minecraft server for SoylentNews, but I don't really want to put in the effort if no one else is interested in playing. So, here's my simple question for the community; what games do you play, and would you want to play on an SN hosted server?

I'm tempted to make any gaming-related things be a subscriber perk, as an attempt to both increase subscriber benefits, and make such a target harder to grief. Not sure if it's a great idea, so I'd love to get feedback below.

cmn32480 writes:

As you are all aware, we are in the middle of the dog days of summer. We get it, people are busy with work, family, and a plethora of other things. Some of our (volunteer) staff need a break too, so we are looking for a few good people, be they man, woman, child, animal, mineral or vegetable, to join our ranks and help spread the workload.

There are a number of ways to help out:

• Join us on our webchat IRC or, if you are new to IRC (I was only a year ago), check here for some tips on getting connected.
• Email mrcoolbp (or if you are sick of that guy any other staff member like janrinok will do; "nickname@soylentnews.org" works for any of us)
• Read the wiki page on "Getting Involved"

One thing that this site needs more than anything else to thrive is submissions.

We greatly appreciate all of our submitters. The submission queue is the lifeblood of SoylentNews, when it is empty, there is nothing to read, learn from, and argue about.

Takyon, Hugh Pickens, Phoenix666, and Arthur T. Knackerbracket come immediately to mind as people that we see submissions from a lot, and they present great submissions. However, consider that just one article a week from 25% of our registered users would give us more material than we can use, and yield a far greater variety of viewpoints, opinions, and stories. When you find something interesting, submit a story. Take a quick peek at our Submission Guidelines for some insight into best practices.

"But what do I submit?". Check out the RSSbot logs. Scroll down to 'today' and check out the links. This bot simply posts stories from various relevant sources in real-time by scraping RSS feeds (you can refresh the page and get more up-to-date stories).

A well crafted summary is preferred, but not an absolute necessity. Your summary doesn't have to be elaborate. It could be a copy/paste of the first paragraph or two from the article, but please, be sure to give us the link where you are getting the material.

I can only speak for myself, but I find the time spent working on SoylentNews and hanging around on IRC generally pretty relaxing. It is fun for me, and I appreciate that the community is an interesting place with people from many places, industries, and walks of life. It is a place where I come to learn, and read things I would otherwise never see.

Thanks to you all for helping build a great community, and we hope to see many new faces over the coming months.

--cmn32480

Original Submission

mhajicek shared news about a Def Con presentation:

"Thanks to an 'end of life' vulnerability, almost anyone can kill you off digitally; you could virtually kill off a boss-from-hell or an ex. Imagine the nightmare of trying to get an official ID then. The virtual birthing process is even easier to exploit, according to Chris Rock's 'I will kill you & birth you' presentation at Def Con 23."

The presentation goes on to describe how to acquire a doctor's identifying information, register on a state's Electronic Death Registration System, fill out a death certificate, register to become a funeral director, and then complete the death certificate documents.

There are many possible motivations for 'virtually killing' someone: financial gain, exacting revenge, and hindering someone else:

[More after the break.]

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

From Computerworld:

In late 2008, a worm called Conficker began infecting millions of computers, startling the computer security community into action.

Conficker's quick spread was so alarming that an organization was formed called the Conficker Working Group that was tasked with stopping the botnet and finding its creators.

Many countries also formed their own groups that worked with Internet service providers to remove infections from users' computers. But seven years later, there are still about 1 million computers around the world infected with the malware despite the years-long cleanup effort.

Researchers in the Netherlands have analyzed those efforts and tried to figure out what went right and wrong in order to guide future botnet-fighting efforts. Their research paper will be presented next week at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C.

"These people that [have computers which] remain infected -- they might remain infected forever," said Hadi Asghari, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Hadi Asghari, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology.

In December 2008, Microsoft patched the vulnerability in Windows XP used by Conficker that allowed remote files to be executed if file-sharing was enabled. But Conficker's worm capabilities made it surprisingly resilient, and it continued to infect computers even when researchers took over the botnet's command-and-control system.

Special efforts by individual countries to control Conficker's spread, such as in Finland, helped keep a check on it, Asghari said. Some other advanced countries, including Norway and Sweden, did not have Conficker remediation programs but still managed to keep it under control, he said.

Researchers are still monitoring Conficker-infected computers since they took over control of the botnet years ago. Asghari said his team saw more than 1 million IP addresses of infected machines calling home to a sinkhole for instructions, but it's difficult to figure out what type of machines those are and why they may still be infected.

Asghari said it's likely many computers are probably running Windows XP without automatic updates installed. It's also possible that some of them may be rarely updated or abandoned embedded systems.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

According to Engadget:

The Food and Drug Administration "strongly encourages" hospitals to stop using Hospira's Symbiq Infusion System, because it's vulnerable to cyberattacks that would allow a third party to remotely control dosages delivered via the computerized pumps. Unauthorized users are able to access the Symbiq system through connected hospital networks, according to the FDA and the Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team. ICS-CERT reported the vulnerability on July 21st and the FDA released its own safety alert on Friday, July 31st. Thankfully, there are no reported incidences of the Symbiq system being hacked.

Hospira no longer sells the Symbiq system anymore, but it's still available via third-party vendors. Spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/05/terracotta_vpn_rsa_research/

Terracotta: The Chinese VPN that hides Beijing's hackers with pwned biz

The company, which RSA codenamed 'Terracotta VPN', claims to have 1500 mostly-Windows nodes from 300 organisations distributed across China, the US, and South Korea.

Of those, 1095 are found in China, 572 in the US, two in Britain, and one in Australia.

Lead RSA researcher Kent Backman, together with Alex Cox, Steven Sipes, Ahmed Sonbol, and others from the incident response and labs teams published the findings in the paper Terracotta VPN: Enabler of Advanced Threat Anonymity [PDF] to be presented at the BlackHat conference in Las Vegas this week.

Advanced attack groups including Deep Panda have used the illicit infrastructure. Hacked organisations powering the network include an unnamed Fortune 500 hotel chain, US Federal Government contractors, a US county Government, universities in Taiwan and Singapore, and scores of small businesses.

"This report by RSA Research may represent the first exposure of a PRC-based VPN operation that maliciously, efficiently and rapidly enlists vulnerable servers around the world," the researchers wrote.

"It is the first time RSA Research has seen DeepPanda and other similar APT (advanced persistent threat) actors using such networks for anonymisation and obfuscation."

The team posits that Terracotta would save significant cash hosting servers on the internet rather than juggling some 300 international transactions a month.

None of the hacked businesses used hardware firewalls to protect internet-facing servers.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

http://www.itworld.com/article/2956675/hardware/a-new-tool-for-pricing-used-it-

An electronics recycler has created an IT products database representing 9,000 manufacturers and 11 million equipment models. The products range from consumer to business equipment, such as network storage devices, routers, switches, as well as servers, PCs and office machines.

The database, called the Sage BlueBook, was launched this week in beta and will remain free to use. It will give prices based on condition, including non-working. It is but the latest option available to people and businesses trying to maximize the value of used electronics.

Houghton said the system scrapes data from a variety of wholesale and retail sources, including eBay and Amazon Trade-In. The "real magic," however, comes in cleaning the data to get valid model information that can be matched with transaction activity and product condition, he said. "The BlueBook tells you if the offer price is good or not," Houghton said.

Houghton sees a connection between sustainability and old electronics. "The real dream here is to eliminate the throw-away mentality for the used stuff. There is value in most used electronics," he said. Good pricing data, he reasoned, helps keep equipment in circulation.

"The transparency issue over the cost has always been a sore point for CIOs," Daoud said. There is "very little trust" in the secondary market for used electronics.

One of the problems with electronics is the velocity of price changes. For instance, an asset may have a certain value just up until the time that a new OS is released that changes hardware requirements. What will be difficult is tracking prices over time, Daoud said.

Original Submission