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GlennC writes:

Are you in the market for access to a hacked server? Now, it appears there's a one-stop shop.

From Kaspersky Labs' Securelist https://securelist.com/blog/research/75027/xdedic-the-shady-world-of-hacked-servers-for-sale/
via the Voice of America news site http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-xdedic-hackers-market-sells-access-to-compromised-servers/3377619.html:

An online underground marketplace that sells access to hacked servers all over the world is a “hacker’s dream,” according to a cyber security firm.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab says the market, called xDedic, is selling access to more than 70,000 compromised government and corporate servers in more than 173 countries with the prices starting at a mere $6.

The one-time cost gives a malicious buyer access to all the data on the server and the possibility to use this access to launch further attacks.

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Gaaark writes:

Canada is hiring two new astronauts! Applications are being accepted on-line at: http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/default.asp, but you have to get your applications in quick — you have until August 15.

What exactly do Canadian astronauts do?

Canada's active astronauts are based at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Their work involves supporting space missions in progress and preparing for a future mission by taking extensive training. They return to Canada periodically to participate in various activities and encourage young Canadians to pursue their education in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/astronaut-future-1.3640041

I have not applied, but am guessing you have to be a Canadian resident to apply. (Only in Canada? Pity!)

Oh, to be 30 years younger and a whole lot smarter.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

In the weekly wrap-up at FOSS Force, Christine Hall mentions

Once upon a time, there was hope that Linux Standard Base would bring [...] write-once-and-install-on-any-distro capability to GNU/Linux.

[Canonical's Snap packages] are simple-to-install packages that do away with the need to find dependencies and such, as everything is built right in the Snap package. Up until now, Snaps could only be installed on Ubuntu, but Canonical announced [June 14] that snapd, the tool that allows them to be installed on Ubuntu, has been ported to other distros.

According to Ubuntu's announcement:

"Snaps now work natively on Arch, Debian, Fedora, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu. They are currently being validated on CentOS, Elementary, Gentoo, Mint, OpenSUSE, OpenWrt, and RHEL, and are easy to enable on other Linux distributions."

Another item she mentions on that page:

ExLight Linux Build 160612, a lightweight, 64-bit distro featuring the Enlightenment desktop, is ready to go and lighter than ever.

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frojack writes:

According to Courthouse News Service and many other sources, the government has folded its tent in the Prosecution of FedEX as a Co-Conspirator of illegal prescription drug delivery.

They really didn't have much choice once U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer weighed in:

Addressing the court briefly, Breyer said, "I'm quite familiar with this industry. I'm deeply concerned by tragic consequences caused by sales of toxic substances to individuals, including children, who have not had a direct consultation with a licensed physician"

But this case was "entirely different," Breyer said. "The court has been asked to determine if defendant should be held criminally liable as a co-conspirator. As a result of detailed opening statements by the government and defense and accepting factual assertions as uncontested, the court concludes the defendants are factually innocent. They did not have criminal intent."

Breyer emphasized that FedEx repeatedly offered to help the government, asking officials to identify a particular customer shipping illegal substances, so that it might stop picking up its packages.

The prosecution was always a novel approach. The feds knew exactly who was shipping the drugs and exactly where they were being shipped from, yet chose to go after a common carrier that was simply handling packages, and who was neither equipped nor legally allowed to decide which clients could get which drugs.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

[A known bug in the voting software used by the New South Wales Electoral Commission (NSWEC)] relates to extrapolation of voting patterns, a technique used in some Australian jurisdictions where a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system is used. Voters' second preference candidate can secure a vote if the first preference has already been elected to a chamber using proportional representation.

Counting votes under STV can be laborious, so some jurisdictions decide to just grab a random sample of votes and then use software to extrapolate results based on that sample.

[...] Researchers found an error in the NSWEC's software for counting randomly-selected votes.

The researchers aren't saying the software got the election wrong, rather that it mis-counted votes and therefore reduced candidates' chances to be elected based on the random samples of votes chosen in elections for the council in the town of Griffith. But it reduced the likelihood a long way: from 91 per cent to 10 per cent.

TechDirt picks up the story from there.

[Continues...]

takyon writes:

Dozens of U.S. diplomats have urged bombings of President Bashar Assad's forces in Syria in order to make him more likely to step down. The memo, sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, was not necessarily intended to be public, and was sent through a "dissent channel":

More than 50 U.S. State Department officials have signed an internal memo calling for a change in the way the United States approaches Syria — specifically, advocating military pressure on Bashar Assad's regime to push him toward the negotiating table.

The diplomats expressed their opposition to the current U.S. policy through a cable on the State Department's dissent channel — which exists for just that reason. But NPR's Michele Kelemen reports that it's unusual for so many officials to sign on to such a cable. "Secretary of State John Kerry says he respects the process and will study their views," Michele tells our Newscast unit.

"The cable reportedly calls for targeted military strikes against the Assad regime, something the Obama administration has been reluctant to do," she reports. "Such action would also put the U.S. on a collision course with Russia at a time that Moscow is backing the Assad regime — and working with Secretary Kerry on a cease-fire and a diplomatic path that has faltered."

The New York Times , which has seen a copy of the memo, reports that the diplomats say they aren't advocating a confrontation with Russia. But a credible military threat against Assad is necessary to pressure him to negotiate, the officials argue. "The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable. ... The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges," the cable says, according to the Times.

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aristarchus writes:

The Higher Education "Industry" takes another hit. US Department of Education recommends killing ACICS:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/16/education-department-recommends-eliminating-national-accreditor-many-profit-colleges

Recently, accreditation agencies have been insisting on accountability "metrics" to counter accusations of the "worthlessness" of higher education, with the usual neo-liberal assumption that privatization would result in greater efficiency. But it appears that the profit motive may only introduce corruption into academia.

Follow-up to the recent discussion of worthless Swedish Degrees.

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Gaaark writes:

NASA spacecraft barreling toward Jupiter for July 4 meetup http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nasa-jupiter-spacecraft-juno-1.3639422

The Juno spacecraft is bound for a Fourth of July encounter with Jupiter in the latest quest to study how the largest planet in the solar system formed and evolved: it will also study its many moons, and famous Great Red Spot.

The 'Great Red Spot', as you may know, is a storm that has 'raged' for about 350 years (that we know of): recently, though, it has begun to shrink.

See also:

• http://phys.org/news/2015-10-great-red-orange-pimpleis-jupiter.html
• https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/hubble-s-planetary-portrait-captures-new-changes-in-jupiter-s-great-red-spot
• NASA Mission Web Site

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Gaaark writes:

Sulphur dioxide detected with satellites using new technique developed at Environment Canada
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/so2-pollution-satellite-detection-1.3610537

Polluters can no longer hide their emissions of sulphur dioxide by failing to report them. Canadian researchers have found a way to detect that kind of pollution using satellites.

In doing so, they've uncovered some very big polluters: oil and gas plants in the Persian Gulf that hadn't been reporting their emissions. Those polluters may be responsible for six to 12 per cent of man-made emissions worldwide of sulphur dioxide.

Also:

Volcano surprise

"Initially, I think we maybe thought it wasn't working when we got these huge sources in the middle of the Pacific," McLinden recalled.

Those turned out to be volcanoes — the study found 75 of them emitting substantial amounts of sulphur dioxide, despite the fact that they were dormant and not erupting.

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takyon writes:

Somebody is claiming to have accessed Democratic National Committee servers by themselves, and has mocked an analysis by CrowdStrike, which said that two groups of Russian hackers broke into the DNC's servers:

A lone hacker claims to have been the person who broke into the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers, and has posted several files online as "proof." The hacker, going by the name Guccifer 2, created a new Wordpress blog Wednesday and posted several confidential files as well as a taunting rebuke to the security company, CrowdStrike, that the DNC called in to investigate the breach. He also claims to have sent "thousands of files and mails" to Wikileaks which he says will "publish them soon."

CrowdStrike had previously said the hack was carried out by two professional hacking teams with close ties to the Russian government.

In an update to its analysis, CrowdStrike says "Whether or not this posting is part of a Russian Intelligence disinformation campaign, we are exploring the documents' authenticity and origin. Regardless, these claims do nothing to lessen our findings relating to the Russian government's involvement, portions of which we have documented for the public and the greater security community."

Previously:
Russian Hackers Reportedly Compromised the Democratic National Committee's Network

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

When Michael Young, a British sociologist, coined the term meritocracy in 1958, it was in a dystopian satire. At the time, the world he imagined, in which intelligence fully determined who thrived and who languished, was understood to be predatory, pathological, far-fetched.

Today, however, we’ve almost finished installing such a system, and we have embraced the idea of a meritocracy with few reservations, even treating it as virtuous. That can’t be right. Smart people should feel entitled to make the most of their gift. But they should not reshape society so as to instate giftedness as a universal yardstick of human worth.

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takyon writes:

There has been a shakeup at the media giant Viacom:

Media mogul Sumner Redstone has moved to replace five board members of Viacom Inc., including the chairman and CEO whom he has considered a surrogate son. A statement from Redstone's National Amusements, Inc. – Viacom's parent company – said simply that the five were "removed" and replaced with five others who have "deep experience in corporate governance of public companies."

But in an interview with All Things Considered, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik compared the Viacom shakeup to a "Shakespearean drama." David explains:

You've got Sumner Redstone, he's now 93 years old... he's the figure who assembled Viacom and also the CBS corporation. His protégé, his lawyer for many years, his advisor and counselor for three decades — kind of a surrogate son — Philippe Dauman, is the CEO and chairman of Viacom. And he's tossed him off, not only now off the Viacom board but also National Amusements, which is Redstone's holding company through which he controls both Viacom and CBS. This is a battle that's pitted Dauman, in a sense, against the daughter, the long-estranged daughter of Sumner Redstone, who has in recent years reconciled with the media mogul. And so you see a surrogate son and a once-estranged daughter battling for control of the future of this media empire.

Also at CNNMoney and Reuters.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

CIA director John Brennan told US senators they shouldn't worry about mandatory encryption backdoors hurting American businesses.

And that's because, according to Brennan, there's no one else for people to turn to: if they don't want to use US-based technology because it's been forced to use weakened cryptography, they'll be out of luck because non-American solutions are simply "theoretical."

[...] Brennan said this was needed to counter the ability of terrorists to coordinate their actions using encrypted communications. The director denied that forcing American companies to backdoor their security systems would cause any commercial problems.

[...] "So although you are right that there's the theoretical ability of foreign companies to have those encryption capabilities available to others, I do believe that this country and its private sector are integral to addressing these issues."

We don't think the CIA man has been paying attention, to put it generously. A study in February found there are 865 encryption products in use around the world supplied by developers in 55 countries. About a third of these packages came from the US, with Germany, the UK and Canada the next biggest suppliers.

Nevertheless, Brennan is right that the bulk of commercial encryption products in use by enterprises are supplied by American firms. The word he missed is "now."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Robots have already invaded the operating room in some hospitals, but in Belgium they will soon be taking on the potentially more difficult task -- for robots, at least -- of greeting patients and giving them directions.

The Citadelle regional hospital in Liège and the Damiaan general hospital in Ostend will be working with Zora Robotics to test patients' reactions to robot receptionists in the coming months.

Zora already has experience programming the diminutive humanoid robot Nao to act as a chatty companion for the elderly, offering it as a form of therapy for those with dementia.

Now the Belgian company is working with Nao's newer, bigger sibling, Pepper. Both were developed by French robotics company Aldebaran, now owned by Japanese Internet conglomerate SoftBank.

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Bloomberg reports:

U.S. prosecutors have abandoned their case against Angelo Mozilo, a pioneer of the risky subprime mortgages that fueled the financial crisis, after a two-year quest to bring a civil suit against him.

The Justice Department sent a letter informing Mozilo, the co-founder of Countrywide Financial Corp., that it isn’t moving ahead with any action against him, according to people familiar with the matter. That effectively ends nearly a decade of U.S. scrutiny of a man who became a face of risky lending practices and later an emblem of the government’s mixed success in holding individuals accountable.

[...] Countrywide, which was bought by Bank of America Corp. in 2008, originated more than $408 billion of worth of loans in 2007, at the height of the housing market. Many of them went to poorly vetted and risky borrowers, the Justice Department has said.

[...] The closure of the Mozilo case comes weeks after a federal appeals court reversed a 2013 Firrea ruling against Bank of America and Rebecca Mairone, the only executive of a major U.S. bank to be found liable for their part in the mortgage crisis.

[...] The Justice Department claimed the bank and Countrywide generated thousands of defective loans and sold them to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now under government control. Countrywide sold the loans to boost revenue in the tightening credit market in mid-2007, according to the government. The program became known as the High Speed Swim Lane, or HSSL -- later nicknamed The Hustle.

A three-panel appeals panel in New York ruled in May that prosecutors failed to prove Mairone, and Bank of America, defrauded the government.

The New York Times reported in May:

During the trial, in October 2013, federal prosecutors accused Ms. Mairone of overseeing the high-speed lane program that pushed through loans to unqualified buyers and ultimately failed, causing more than $1 billion in losses. The faster that employees originated loans, the higher their bonuses, according to testimony.

The appeals court ruled that Countrywide’s contracts with Fannie and Freddie may have including false statements. But even “intentional” contract breaches did not constitute fraud on the part of the mortgage lender, the ruling said.

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