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fork(2) writes:

SpaceNews reports that Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that Jeff Bezos and Neil deGrasse Tyson will join the Defense Innovation Advisory Board.

Carter has asked the board to identify private-sector practices that the Pentagon could adopt. A first round of recommendations is expected in October.

The full list of current board members is:

· Eric Schmidt, executive chairman, Alphabet Inc.

· Jeff Bezos, president, chairman and CEO, Amazon Inc.

· Adam Grant, professor, Wharton School of Business

· Danny Hillis, computer theorist & co-founder, Applied Inventions

· Reid Hoffman, co-founder, LinkedIn, and partner, Greylock Partners

· Walter Isaacson, president & CEO, Aspen Institute, former TIME magazine editor and Steve Jobs biographer

· Eric Lander, president and founding director, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

· Marne Levine, chief operating officer, Instagram

· J. Michael McQuade, senior vice president for science and technology, United Technologies

· William McRaven, chancellor, University of Texas System

· Milo Medin, vice president, Access Services, Google Capital

· Richard Murray, professor, California Institute of Technology

· Jennifer Pahlka, founder, Code for America

· Cass Sunstein, professor, Harvard Law School

Original Submission

takyon writes:

John Hinckley Jr, the man who tried to assassinate US President Ronald Reagan, is to be released from a psychiatric hospital next month after 35 years.

Mr Reagan and three others were injured in the shooting outside a hotel in Washington in March 1981.

Mr Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity but was sent for treatment to a Washington hospital.

Source: BBC News

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hinckley_Jr.

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/758283971092443136

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Believe it or not, but funding raised by the viral "Ice Bucket Challenge" has been credited for helping discover a gene that may cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS):

The Ice Bucket Challenge that went viral in 2014 has funded an important scientific gene discovery in the progressive neurodegenerative disease ALS, the ALS Association says. Scientists have identified a new gene contributing to the disease, NEK1.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has raised $115m (£87.7m) from people pouring cold water over themselves and posting the video on social media. It was criticised as a stunt, but has funded six research projects. Research by Project MinE, published in Nature Genetics [DOI: 10.1038/ng.3626], is the largest-ever study of inherited ALS, also known as motor neurone disease (MND). More than 80 researchers in 11 countries searched for ALS risk genes in families affected by the disease. "The sophisticated gene analysis that led to this finding was only possible because of the large number of ALS samples available," Lucie Bruijn of the ALS Association says. The identification of gene NEK1 means scientists can now develop a gene therapy treating it. Although only 10% of ALS patients have the inherited form, researchers believe that genetics contribute to a much larger percentage of cases.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

The RBS banking group has warned 1.3 million customers they could be charged negative interest rates if the Bank of England cuts base rates below zero.

The group, which includes NatWest, wrote to its business and commercial account holders about the potential changes, which mean they could lose money even when they are in credit.

The letter said: "Global interest rates remain at very low levels and in some markets are currently negative.

"Dependent on future market conditions, this could result in us charging on credit balances."

The Bank of England's base rate currently stands at the historically low rate of 0.5%, where it has been for more than seven years - and some economists believe it should be cut further to stimulate the economy.

Source: Sky News

From October 1st, the Dutch bank [ABN Amro] is adjusting its conditions to state that the bank can give negative interest rates to account holders with a business checking or -savings account, ANP reports.

Source: NL Times

Original Submission

mendax writes:

Here's an article that's guaranteed to get Soylent News blocked by the Great Firewall of China, assuming hasn't already happened. The New York Times reports:

China has ordered several of the country's most popular internet portals to halt much of their original news reporting, in a move that could confine an even larger share of the journalism in the country to Communist-controlled mouthpieces ahead of an important party meeting next year.

The profit-driven portals, several of which are listed on United States stock exchanges, have in recent years expanded their investigative teams to increase readership among China's more than 600 million internet users by scooping the staid state-owned news media on stories about subjects including industrial pollution, tainted milk powder and even police brutality.

But on Monday, several news organizations reported that the Beijing office of China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, ordered the websites of a number of the companies, including Sina, Sohu, NetEase and Phoenix, to shut down or "clean up" several of their most popular online news features.

It looks like China is moving back to a model not unlike what once existed in the Soviet Union, where "there was no izvestiya in Pravda, and no pravda in Izvestiya."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Europe's privacy body has reiterated its pro-privacy, anti-backdoor stance.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) Giovanni Buttarelli has long expressed the view that “privacy versus security” is a false dichotomy. In 2015, he told a conference in Brussels that “the objective of cyber-security may be misused to justify measures which weaken protection of [data protection] rights”.

He's now issued a much longer dissertation on the topic, the Preliminary EDPS Opinion on the review of the ePrivacy Directive, here (PDF).

The ePrivacy framework needs to be extended, the opinion states, it needs to be clarified, and it needs better enforcement.

The document also says the emergence of new services since the directive was first issued means it needs a thorough update. For example, Buttarelli's document states that there's a danger that new services erode privacy protections even though they're “functionally equivalent” to existing services.

For example, he writes, VoIP services should afford users the same privacy protection as traditional phone services, as should mobile messaging apps.

Likewise, he highlights the risk that the Internet of Things erodes privacy because the directive doesn't pay enough attention to machine-to-machine communications.

On encryption, Buttarelli is unequivocal:

The prohibition on backdoors would be universal, the EDPS writes: encryption providers, communication service providers, and “all other organisations (at all levels of the supply chain)” should be prohibited from “allowing or facilitating” backdoors.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Those guys behind "Futurama", know the future. Like totally! The Buggalo half cow, half insect exist! Though not in a black and white pattern, but they make milk! Here is the proof: "The case for cockroach milk: The next superfood?".

My daughter is scared!

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Indian astronomers have recently conducted spectrographic observations of long-period Comet Lovejoy to study its gas emission. They found that this comet showcases an asymmetric behavior at perihelion and an increase in the activity during the post-perihelion phase. The findings were detailed in a paper published July 22 on the arXiv pre-print server.

Comet Lovejoy, formally designated C/2014 Q2, is an Oort cloud comet, discovered by Terry Lovejoy in August 2014. Its perihelion was on January 30, 2015 at a heliocentric distance of 1.29 AU, offering astronomers an excellent opportunity to observe its activity—in particular, the emission of numerous organic molecules in gas.

The scientists, led by Kumar Venkataramani of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, utilized the LISA spectrograph to obtain spectra of the comet. LISA is a low-resolution, high luminosity spectrograph, designed for the spectroscopic study of faint and extended objects. The instrument is installed on the 0.5 m telescope at the Mount Abu Infra-Red Observatory (MIRO), Mount Abu, India.

The observation campaign lasted from January to May 2015. It covered the period during which the comet's heliocentric distance varied from 1.29 AU, just prior to perihelion, to around 2.05 AU post perihelion. The spectra obtained by the researchers show strong molecular emission bands of diatomic carbon, tricarbon, cyanide, amidogen, hydridocarbon and neutral oxygen.

"Various molecular emission lines like C2, C3, CN, NH2, CH, O were clearly seen in the comet spectrum throughout this range. The most prominent of them being the C2 molecule, which was quite dominant throughout the time that we have followed the comet. Apart from the C2 emission band, those of CN and C3 were also quite prominent," the scientist wrote in the paper.

When a cold icy body like the Comet Lovejoy passes by the sun near perihelion, its ices start sublimating, releasing a mixture of gas and dust, which form the coma. Studying these emissions is crucial for scientists as comets could hold the key to our understanding of the solar system's evolution and the origin of life in the universe. Therefore, the abundance of volatile material in comets is the target of many scientific studies that seek to reveal the secrets of planet formation and demonstrate the conditions that occurred when our solar system was born.

Optical Spectroscopy of Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) from MIRO

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Millions of low-cost wireless keyboards are susceptible to a vulnerability that reveals private data to hackers in clear text.

The vulnerability – dubbed KeySniffer – creates a means for hackers to remotely “sniff” all the keystrokes of wireless keyboards from eight manufacturers from distances up to 100 metres away.

“When we purchase a wireless keyboard we reasonably expect that the manufacturer has designed and built security into the core of the product,” said Bastille Research Team member Marc Newlin, responsible for the KeySniffer discovery. “Unfortunately, we tested keyboards from 12 manufacturers and were disappointed to find that eight manufacturers (two thirds) were susceptible to the KeySniffer hack.”

The keyboard manufacturers affected by KeySniffer include: Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, Kensington, Insignia, Radio Shack, Anker, General Electric, and EagleTec. Vulnerable keyboards are always transmitting, whether or not the user is typing. Consequently, a hacker can scan for vulnerable devices at any time. A complete list of affected devices can be found here.

Wireless keyboards have been the focus of security concerns before. In 2010, the KeyKeriki team exposed weak XOR encryption in certain Microsoft wireless keyboards. Last year Samy Kamkar’s KeySweeper exploited Microsoft’s vulnerabilities. Both of those took advantage of shortcomings in Microsoft’s encryption.

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

CBC Reports that Canadian torrent site isoHunt has settled with the Music Industry, agreeing to pay $66 Million in damages.

isoHunt founder Gary Fung and isoHunt have agreed in a consent order filed with the Supreme Court of B.C., that they infringed on the copyright of a group of 27 Canadian and international record companies.

They have also agreed to pay $55 million in damages, $10 million in aggravated damages and $1 million in legal costs to settle the lawsuit filed by the music industry in 2010.

The Music Industry commented:

"Music companies in Canada stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the fight against illegitimate sites that distribute massive volumes of creative works without compensation to creators," said Graham Henderson, president and CEO of Music Canada, an industry group that represents Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada, in a statement announcing the settlements.

"Thousands of Canadian creators, our creative industries, and their employees are directly harmed by these activities. This settlement is a step forward towards providing consumers with a marketplace in which legitimate online music services can thrive."

Fung's own statement can be found at medium.com

In my time with isoHunt for 11 years, I've fought 2 lawsuits. One from Hollywood studios in the US and one from CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Ass.), aka. Music Canada. During this time, up to isoHunt's shutdown in 2013, I promised that I'd protect isoHunt users' rights and privacy in not disclosing any user data such as email and IP addresses in legal discovery from plaintiffs, which might be used for trolling and extortion.

Original Submission

Celestial writes:

To the shock of no one, Windows 10 users who upgrade to the Anniversary Update (scheduled for release next week), will not be able to disable Cortana using the settings.

If you compare the start menu settings of Cortana of the current version of Windows (version 1511) with those of the Anniversary Update (version 1607) you will notice that Cortana's off switch is no longer available (thanks Ian Paul @PC World for spotting that)

Cortana, the digital assistant that Microsoft touts as one of the major features of Windows 10 supports interaction via touch, typing, ink and voice.

Microsoft integrated Cortana deeply with the native search functionality of Windows 10. While linked to search, Windows 10 users may turn off Cortana currently to use search without it. While you might have to turn off web searches on Windows 10 as well, doing so ensured that you got search functionality that matched those of previous versions of Windows.

Windows users who turned off Cortana had two main reasons for it: either they did not need Cortana functionality, or they did not want it because of privacy implications.

[...] It is still possible to turn off Cortana, but not by using the preferences. The policy to disable Cortana is still available and you may use it to turn off Cortana on the device.

Please note that the Group Policy Editor is only available in professional versions of Windows 10. Most notably, it is not available in Windows 10 Home.

The linked article goes into detail on how to disable Cortana using the Registry in Windows 10 Home, and Group Policy Editor in Windows 10 Pro. However, Microsoft no longer makes disabling Cortana anywhere near as easy as it was.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A pair of researchers from Northwestern University are working on a framework to let users identify misbehaving Tor nodes.

In a brief paper presented to last week's Privacy Enhancing Technologies symposium in Germany, they suggest their proof-of-concept worked, turning up 110 snooping relays on Tor. Northwestern University's Amirali Sanatinia and Guevara Noubir made the discovery on a 72-day run of their toolkit starting in February.

The problem centres around hidden services, which are meant to protect users by keeping traffic on the Tor network. That protects users against attacks that match entry-node traffic to exit-node traffic, because there's no exit node.

However, as CloudFlare-supported research found last year, the Hidden Service Directory (HSDir) then becomes an attack vector.

That's what Sanatinia and Noubir went to work on in this brief paper. They describe “honey onions” (honions) that they reckon “expose when a Tor relay with HSDir capability has been modified to snoop into the hidden services that it currently hosts”.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Amazon.com will be testing the delivery of parcels using small drones in the U.K. in a deal with the government that will allow it to try out new modes of operation such as beyond line of sight flights.

The online retailer, which announced in December 2013 that it planned to use drones for the delivery of parcels, has been stymied by regulations in the U.S., where its futuristic Prime Air delivery system has yet to take off.

[...] The deal with a cross-government team backed by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) will give the company far more flexibility, allowing it to test beyond line of sight operations in rural and suburban areas. Amazon will also work on sensors that will ensure that drones can identify and avoid obstacles, and test flights where a single-person can operate multiple highly-automated drones, Amazon said Monday.

[...] Amazon has previously warned that regulations in the U.S. would drive more of its research and development on drones to other countries. It is already testing drones in the U.K., Canada and the Netherlands.

With the new agreement, it would appear that the U.K. may get delivery by drones faster than the U.S. The tests by Amazon will guide policy and future approach in the area, CAA said.

Original Submission

fork(2) writes:

According to Gizmodo, engadget, and TechnoBuffalo (and a host of others), TechCrunch has been breached by the elite hacking group ourMine.

From engadget:

Yet again, rather than being a bona fide hack, this seems to be a relatively simple case of gaining access via poor password practices. The group appears to have entered the site's CMS (content management system) via a writer's account. It's likely, although not sure, that the account in question used the same password across multiple services. OurMine published an article under the writer's name, put banners at the top of the site, and, as is par for course for the group, encouraged the owner of the account to write in to retrieve their accounts.

Because of the limited nature of the "hack," TechCrunch was able to quickly roll back the changes OurMine made to its site. The erroneous post was deleted within minutes, and the banners and other accoutrements added to its homepage were removed soon after. While TechCrunch says it's still looking into exactly what happened, it seems the situation is under control for now.

TechnoBuffalo adds:

OurMine has made its name recently by attacking high-profile targets ranging from Pokemon GO servers to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and PlayStation exec Shuhei Yoshida.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The FDA claims that people can always add more salt to their food, which is true, but they ignore that salt changes how food is cooked and adding salt to the surface of food affects taste differently than when it is evenly distributed.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=197193

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_salt

Original Submission