SoylentNews

FakeBeldin writes:

Another novel application of the All Writs Act is to require suspects to decrypt their hard disks. Refusing to comply landed one suspect in jail without trial. He's been in there for 7 months already.

To me this seems to be a gross perversion of justice. Guilty until proven innocent? I haven't read the All Writs Act, but somehow being detained for 7 months without trial seems like it shouldn't be within the scope of any law -- irrespective of the alleged crime. (Yes, I'm aware of Guantanamo Bay.)

PS: Concerning the alleged crime (child pornography), keep in mind:

Original Submission

n1 writes:

If academic discoveries turn out to be wrong, one drug company wants its money back.

That's the tough-minded proposal floated today by the chief medical officer of Merck & Co., one of the world's 10 largest drug companies, as a way to fix the "reproducibility crisis," or how many, if not most, published scientific reports turn out to be incorrect.

Michael Rosenblatt, Merck's executive vice president and chief medical officer, said bad results from academic labs caused pharmaceutical companies to waste millions and "threatens the entire biomedical research enterprise."

[...] Back in 2012, the biotechnology company Amgen dropped a bomb on academic science when it said it found only six of 53 "landmark" cancer papers stood up to efforts to reproduce the results of promising new research. Other studies that drug companies say can't be replicated include one that found a cancer drug might treat Alzheimer's and another that showed a particular gene was linked to diabetes in mice.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Since early April, literally tons of fish have been found dead off the coast of Vietnam. Investigators are focusing on the waste pipeline of a multi-billion dollar steel plant owned by Formosa Plastics. Formosa Plastics has denied responsibility but that claim was undermined when a spokesman said that Vietnam "need(s) to choose whether to catch fish and shrimp or to build a state-of-the-art steel mill." It has also been reported that Formosa Plastics imported 300 tons of toxic chemicals intended to clean the pipeline but did not declare them to the Vietnam Environment Administration.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Matt Edman, a former volunteer Tor developer, created malware used in Operation Torpedo, and has assisted the U.S. government in its case against Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht:

How does the U.S. government beat Tor, the anonymity software used by millions of people around the world? By hiring someone with experience on the inside. A former Tor Project developer created malware for the Federal Bureau of Investigation that allowed agents to unmask users of the anonymity software.

Matt Edman is a cybersecurity expert who worked as a part-time employee at Tor Project, the nonprofit that builds Tor software and maintains the network, almost a decade ago. Since then, he's developed potent malware used by law enforcement to unmask Tor users. It's been wielded in multiple investigations by federal law-enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies in several high-profile cases.

"It has come to our attention that Matt Edman, who worked with the Tor Project until 2009, subsequently was employed by a defense contractor working for the FBI to develop anti-Tor malware," the Tor Project confirmed in a statement after being contacted by the Daily Dot.

Original Submission

JNCF writes:

RT reports that a German nuclear power plant in Bavaria has been infected with malware, including W32.Ramnit and Conficker. The company that runs the plant (RWE) claims that the malware is not a danger.

Several computer viruses have been detected in a German nuclear power plant in Bavaria, the station operator said. The malware can steal login credentials and allow a remote attacker to access the cracked computer.

The incident took place at Gundremmingen plant about 100km from Munich.

"In Gundremmingen nuclear power plant so-called office-malware has been found during ... testing work in Unit B," a statement released by the power plant said.

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) was immediately informed.

The statement initially didn't mention what kind of malware was involved, only saying this software has been "known for a few years" and is designed to make "an unwanted connection to the internet."

Later, RWE, a German electric utilities company that runs the plant, confirmed to Reuters the viruses include "W32.Ramnit" and "Conficker". They were found in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualization software.

The worms were also found in at least 18 removable data drives, mainly in USB sticks and office computers maintained separately from the plant system, the company added.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

The activist talks to Popular Science about digital naïveté

Edward Snowden: There have been a tremendous number of changes that have happened, and not just on the Internet. It has changed our culture, it has changed our laws, it's changed the way our courts decide issues, its changed the way people consider what the Internet means to the them, what their communication security means to them.

The Internet as a technological development has reached within the walls of every home. Even if you don't use it, even if you don't have a smart phone, even if you don't have a laptop or an Internet connection or a phone line, your information is handled by tax authorities, by health providers and hospitals, and all of that routes over the Internet.

This is both a force for tremendous good but it is something that can be abused. It can be abused by small time actors and criminals. It can also be abused by states. And this is what we really learned in 2013. During an arrest, police traditionally have had the ability to search anything they find on your person — if you had a note in your pocket, they could read it. But now we all carry smartphones on us, and smartphones don't just have this piece of ID, or your shopping list, or your Metrocard. Your entire life now fits in your pocket. And it was not until after 2013 that the courts were forced to confront this decision.

http://www.popsci.com/edward-snowden-internet-is-broken

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Celestial writes:

Comcast, the largest ISP in the U.S.A., will raise its Internet data cap to 1 terabyte by June 2016.

As the world changes and the Internet evolves, so do we. That's why we are making a major change to our Internet data trials and moving to a terabyte data plan in all of our trial markets.

A terabyte is an enormous amount of data. It's far more than most of our customers will ever use in a month. Today, more than 99 percent of our customers do not come close to using a terabyte. Our typical customer uses only about 60 gigabytes of data in a month – that's far less than a terabyte (in fact, 940 gigabytes less), or less than six percent of a terabyte.

For those that want or need more than a terabyte of data per month, you will be able to pay Comcast an additional $50 per month for unlimited data.

On a personal note, I checked my data usage between April 1st and April 25th, and I used approximately 470 GBs. That's with a household of three people, one of whom barely uses the Internet at all.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

The State Department said Monday that the Obama administration never promised "no boots on the ground" in Syria, despite nearly two years' worth of reassurances from President Obama that say otherwise.

State Department spokesman John Kirby categorically denied that Obama vowed not to send U.S. forces to Syria to fight the ISIS, which led to a heated exchange between Kirby and Associated Press reporter Matt Lee.

"For months and months and months, the mantra from the president and everyone else in the administration has been 'no boots on the ground,' and now–" Lee said before Kirby cut him off.

"No, that is not true," Kirby said.

Source: Washington Free Beacon

Despite repeated promises to the contrary, US troops are in Syria, and the Pentagon has sent 250 more. But the State Department says those American soldiers wearing boots in Syria aren't actually "boots on the ground."

President Barack Obama confirmed plans to dramatically increase the American troop presence in Syria by deploying an additional 250 personnel, bringing the total to 300. He said the troops would help drive out Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

[...] "You guys are getting way wrapped around the actual on the phrase 'boots on the ground'," Kirby added later, noting that, among other things American pilots are flying combat missions above Iraq and Syria.

Lee took up the mantle of questioning once again.

"Why didn't the administration come out and say, 'There will be no large-scale combat' instead of saying 'no boots on the ground'?" Lee asked. "These people, unless they're not wearing boots, are boots on the ground!"

"Listen, on this point, I totally agree with you," Kirby replied. "They are wearing boots, and they are on the ground. But that doesn't mean that they are in large-scale ground combat operations!"

Source: RT

Original Submission

MichaelDavidCrawford writes:

Vancouver, Washington school's email system hacked by student.

A Skyview high school student has been expelled after hacking into the accounts of three teachers then using them to send a quarter-million emails, many of which had the subject "Make America Great Again". The load on the system was such that email was very slow for all users of the system.

While discipline is appropriate for such a sophomoric stunt, I feel it is inappropriate to expel the student. More appropriate in my opinion would be community service.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has recommended against the approval of Sarepta's eteplirsen, a drug intended to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Two other experimental DMD drugs have already been rejected. The recommendation came despite the emotional testimony of children who had apparently seen improvements due to the experimental treatment. Representative Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. also spoke on behalf of a constituent with DMD. However, concerns were raised about the small sample size of the trial:

"I am very sorry to say that approval of eteplirsen based on today's data would set a dangerously low bar for all drugs in the future," said Gottschalk, a senior fellow at the National Center for Health Research, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. "Treatments for rare diseases can be proven on small samples, but not based on 12 patients in a poorly designed study with ambiguous results. These boys and their families deserve better."

The problem, FDA scientists said earlier in the day, is that, due to its small size and design, the study Sarepta submitted to the agency cannot prove that eteplirsen deserves credit for the boys' ability to remain on their feet. Although the company says dozens more boys are now taking the drug, its case with the FDA rests on only the study involving the 12 boys in the orange t-shirts. Except for the first 24 weeks, all of the boys in that study have been taking the drug. With no long-term placebo group, Sarepta chose to compare them to untreated boys from a registry of DMD patients. These types of studies tend to have more favorable results than studies that randomly assign participants to the active treatment or a placebo, Dr. Robert Temple, deputy director of the FDA office that evaluates nervous system drugs, told the advisory committee.

The advisory panel's 7-3 recommendation (with three abstentions) is not the final word on eteplirsen, but the FDA generally follows such recommendations. Sarepta's shares plummeted on the news.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

UK Home Secretary Theresa May has argued that the UK should remain in the European Union, but should leave the European Convention on Human Rights:

Brexit would harm the UK's snooping apparatus, Home Secretary Theresa May argued in a speech today, suggesting we probably ought to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) instead. Speaking at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers this morning, the snooping-obsessed Home Secretary presented the many surveillance benefits that the European Union provides to Blighty's security efforts as one of the main reasons for remaining in the EU.

Blighty currently trades its citizens' data with other countries in return for accessing other nations' through subscriptions to the European Criminal Records Information System, as well as sharing them through the network of Financial Intelligence Units, the Prisoner Transfer Framework, the SIS II, Joint Investigation Teams, and to Prüm. May said these are "all agreements that enable law enforcement agencies to co-operate and share information with one another in the fight against cross-border crime and terrorism."

[...] The ECHR was principally drafted by a former British Home Secretary and Tory MP, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, who had been one of the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials. Under both the ECHR and the EU's laws, Britain's snooping powers have been found to be unlawful.

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray notes:

Basic human rights are under greater attack in the UK than in any other member state. We have more communications surveillance, more video surveillance, more organised government informers under "Prevent" and more secret police per head of population than either Russia or Turkey.

[...] Tories are now prepared openly to argue that we should refuse to accept basic human rights protections which Russia and Turkey accept. To resile from the Convention would result in our being booted out of the Council of Europe and put in the same category as Belarus.

[...] The Council of Europe remains an extremely valuable body for controlling East-West tensions – now as important a role as ever – and keeping a dialogue going, on a footing of equality, on questions of security and rights all across Europe.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A new image processing technique has been applied to satellite photos of Mars, including ones taken of the European Space Agency's failed Beagle 2 lander. The processing has revealed a more definitive shape of the lander, which touched down in 2003. The photos, taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), were analyzed using a "Super-Resolution Restoration" (SRR) technique by researchers from the University College London. The technique uses images taken from multiple angles and improved the resolution to about 5cm per pixel. The researchers also applied it to scenes involving the Curiosity and Spirit rovers, and anticipate using it to improve future Mars imagery:

The two scientists are now talking with Esa about using the technique to find a safe landing site for the agency's 2018 ExoMars rover; they are also keen to see it used on pictures from the new orbiting camera Europe has just sent to the Red Planet called CaSSIS.

SRR is though a very computation-heavy approach. Using it on stacks to produce an image 2,000 pixels by 1,000 pixels can take three days on the MSSL Imaging Group's 14-blade (224-core) linux cluster. This should improve with time, and one driver could well be the desire to use super-resolution restoration on Earth-observation images.

A novel method for surface exploration: Super-resolution restoration of Mars repeat-pass orbital imagery (DOI: 10.1016/j.pss.2015.11.010)

Original Submission

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

John Romero and Adrian Carmack, two of the founders of id Software, have teamed up to Kickstart a new game project:

John Romero and fellow id Software co-founder Adrian Carmack proudly announce BLACKROOM™, a visceral, varied and violent shooter that harkens back to classic FPS play with a mixture of exploration, speed, and intense, weaponized combat. Use fast, skillful movement to dodge enemy attacks, circle-strafe your foes, and rule the air as you rocket jump in the single- and multiplayer modes. BLACKROOM launches with unique multiplayer maps and robust modding support for the community to make diabolical creations of their own design - Coming Winter 2018 to WIN and MAC!

Okay, my interest is piqued. Maybe not handing out money piqued, but piqued nonetheless. What do you lot think? Can an old-school style shooter with modern features compete with its more modern, team-play-centric siblings?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

After declaring bankruptcy in 2013, Fisker Automotive may be coming back with a new electric car:

Three years after hybrid sports car manufacturer Fisker Automotive laid off the majority of its workforce, the company is back in business with a new Chinese owner and plans to unveil a luxury electric car this summer.

Renamed Karma Automotive, the electric car maker has moved from Finland to California and is working on a new car to be named the Revero, according to The Wall Street Journal . Chief marketing officer Jim Taylor was vague on the exact timing, saying only that the car will be announced in July or August, and orders will begin later this year.

"If you manufacture all kinds of hype then fail to deliver on time, it undermines your credibility," Taylor told the Journal. "We are being careful about making promises [because] things happen in car development."

The caution is understandable given the company's history. Its original car, the $100,000 Karma plug-in hybrid, won praise from celebrity customers and a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy to offset development costs. But the loan was frozen due to delays in launching the car, and Fisker laid off 75 percent of its workforce to avoid bankruptcy.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

Swift, the global financial network that banks use to transfer billions of dollars every day, has warned its customers it is aware of "a number of recent cyber incidents" where attackers had sent fraudulent messages over its system.

The disclosure came as law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere investigated the cyber theft of US$81m (£55.9m) from the Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve. Swift has acknowledged the scheme involved altering Swift software on Bangladesh Bank's computers to hide evidence of fraudulent transfers.

Monday's statement from Swift marked the first acknowledgement that the Bangladesh Bank attack was not an isolated incident but one of several recent criminal schemes that aimed to take advantage of the global messaging platform used by some 11,000 financial institutions.

Source: The Guardian

Original Submission