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Phoenix666 writes:

It's still illegal to manufacture firearms for others without a license.

A Sacramento, California man was sentenced Thursday to over three years in prison for unlawful manufacture of a firearm and one count of dealing firearms.

Last year, Daniel Crownshield, pleaded guilty to those counts in exchange for federal prosecutors dropping other charges. According to investigators, Crowninshield, known online as "Dr. Death," would sell unfinished AR-15 lower receivers, which customers would then pay for him to transform into fully machined lower receivers using a computer numerically controlled (CNC) mill. (In October 2014, Cody Wilson, of Austin, Texas, who has pioneered 3D-printed guns, began selling a CNC mill called "Ghost Gunner," designed to work specifically on the AR-15 lower.)

"In order to create the pretext that the individual in such a scenario was building his or her own firearm, the skilled machinist would often have the individual press a button or put his or her hands on a piece of machinery so that the individual could claim that the individual, rather than the machinist, made the firearm," the government claimed in its April 14 plea agreement.

So, if he taught a class in how to do it would he also then be a criminal?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica has a longer piece on how to build automated systems:

Depictions of the future in books and film are usually influenced by what's going on at the time, reflecting social malaise, impending armageddon, or economic anxieties. The robots in classic sci-fi usually resembled humans, as most authors assumed they would eventually assist us in the same tasks humans did.

Instead, however, today we find artificial intelligence doing some of our thinking for us, but it's more often solving problems that don't need intervention from self-contained humanoid robots. The promise of autonomous robots that matched our abilities has given way to a more specific focus on tasks that are fulfilled by armies of smaller bots controlled by machine learning and algorithms running in the cloud. Their scope is more complex, but a lot less dramatic than, say, Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot, or the replicants from Blade Runner.

Not so long ago Ars Technica looked at the uses of robotics in retail and the range of different approaches, from wheeling shelves around giant Amazon warehouses, to Domino's forthcoming airborne pizza drones. The response to that story was very positive, so we decided that we would follow up with another piece that dives even deeper into the world of automation. The first story focused on what is being done with automation; now we're going to look at how you build an automated system.

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takyon writes:

The ACLU has sued the San Diego Police Department, seeking the destruction of DNA samples collected from minors during a stop that was found to be unlawful:

Specifically targeting black children for unlawful DNA collection is a gross abuse of technology by law enforcement. But it's exactly what the San Diego Police Department is doing, according to a lawsuit just filed by the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties on behalf of one of the families affected. SDPD's actions, as alleged in the complaint, illustrate the severe and very real threats to privacy, civil liberties, and civil rights presented by granting law enforcement access to our DNA. SDPD must stop its discriminatory abuse of DNA collection technology.

According to the ACLU's complaint, on March 30, 2016, police officers stopped five African American minors as they were walking through a park in southeast San Diego. There was no legal basis for the stop. As an officer admitted at a hearing in June 2016, they stopped the boys simply because they were black and wearing blue on what the officers believed to be a gang "holiday."

Despite having no valid basis for the stop, and having determined that none of the boys had any gang affiliation or criminal record, the officers handcuffed at least some of the boys and searched all of their pockets. They found nothing but still proceeded to search the bag of one of the boys—P.D., a plaintiff in the ACLU's case. (It's standard to use minors' initials, rather than their full names, in court documents.) The officers found an unloaded revolver, which was lawfully registered to the father of one of the boys, and arrested P.D.

The officers told the other four boys that they could go free after submitting to a mouth swab. The officers had them sign a consent form, by which they "voluntarily" agreed to provide their DNA to the police for inclusion in SDPD's local DNA database. The officers then swabbed their cheeks and let them go.

P.D. was then told to sign the form as well. After he signed, the officers swabbed his cheek and transported him to the police department. The San Diego District Attorney filed numerous charges against P.D., but they were all dropped as a result of the illegal stop. The court did not, however, order the police to destroy either P.D.'s DNA sample or the DNA profile generated via his sample. The ACLU seeks destruction of the sample and profile, along with a permanent injunction "forbidding SDPD officers from obtaining DNA from minors without a judicial order, warrant, or parental consent."

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cmn32480 writes:

https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquired-cliqz/

We are overjoyed to announce that the Ghostery extension and mobile browsers have been acquired by Cliqz, a German company owned by Mozilla and Hubert Burda Media that builds ground-breaking browser technologies to make the internet more private and easier to use.  Cliqz's marquee product is its desktop browser, whose built-in quick search and anti-tracking features empower users to quickly and safely explore the internet without sharing personal information or search queries with outside companies. This unique technology is powered by the Cliqz Human Web, a revolutionary way for a collective of users to contribute anonymous statistical data to improve the relevancy and safety of advanced Cliqz privacy features.  Ghostery proudly joins this state-of-the-art browser and the rest of the Cliqz product suite to set a new standard in privacy protection.  Additionally, as part of this acquisition, Ghostery and Cliqz will continue to work closely with our previous parent company, Evidon, to help the organization support its industry-leading Digital Governance solutions by continuing to provide the same aggregated tracker data that we have previously.

What does this mean for Ghostery users?

First, rest assured that Ghostery will remain an independent product and that the same passionate (and uncommonly attractive) product team committed to its success will be joining the Cliqz family as a subsidiary company.  Second, to put it simply, Ghostery is about to become smarter, more powerful, and easier to use.  The Cliqz anti-tracking technology is a truly revolutionary solution that uses algorithmic blocking that doesn't require a blocklist, a feature we will integrate into Ghostery as soon as we possibly can.  Third, we are making Ghostery immediately available on the Cliqz browser, so if you want to see this chocolate-and-peanut-butter relationship between algorithmic and blocklist anti-tracking in action, you can check it out right now.   Finally, Ghostery data collection will remain the same for all existing users, will be strengthened by Cliqz's best-in-class privacy practices, and will be done in accordance with Germany data privacy laws, the strictest in the world.  While data collection will remain the same, we have updated our privacy statements to reflect the change of ownership, which you can see here.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

A large research synthesis, published in one of the world's most influential scientific journals, has detected a decline in the amount of dissolved oxygen in oceans around the world — a long-predicted result of climate change that could have severe consequences for marine organisms if it continues.

The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature by oceanographer Sunke Schmidtko and two colleagues from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, found a decline of more than 2 percent in ocean oxygen content worldwide between 1960 and 2010.

The loss of ocean oxygen "has been assumed from models, and there have been lots of regional analysis that have shown local decline, but it has never been shown on the global scale, and never for the deep ocean," said Schmidtko, who conducted the research with Lothar Stramma and Martin Visbeck, also of GEOMAR.

Because oxygen in the global ocean is not evenly distributed, the 2 percent overall decline means there is a much larger decline in some areas of the ocean than others.

Moreover, the ocean already contains so-called oxygen minimum zones, generally found in the middle depths. The great fear is that their expansion upward, into habitats where fish and other organism thrive, will reduce the available habitat for marine organisms.

In shallower waters, meanwhile, the development of ocean "hypoxic" areas, or so-called "dead zones," may also be influenced in part by declining oxygen content overall.

On top of all of that, declining ocean oxygen can also worsen global warming in a feedback loop. In or near low oxygen areas of the oceans, microorganisms tend to produce nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Thus the new study "implies that production rates and efflux to the atmosphere of nitrous oxide ... will probably have increased."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/15/its-official-the-oceans-are-losing-oxygen-posing-growing-threats-to-marine-life/

Original Submission

n1 writes:

Samsung's heir apparent Lee Jae-yong has been placed under arrest in South Korea, accused of bribery and other charges. The case is linked to a scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geung-hye.

Samsung is accused of giving donations to non-profit foundations operated by Choi Soon-sil, a friend of Ms Park, in exchange for government favours. Mr Lee and the Samsung Group deny any wrongdoing.

[...] Prosecutors accused Mr Lee of giving donations worth 41bn won ($36m;£29m) to organisations linked to Ms Park's close friend Ms Choi. They alleged this was done to win government support for a big restructuring of Samsung that would help a smooth leadership transition in favour of Mr Lee, who is standing in as chairman for his ill father, Lee Kun-hee.

The controversial merger required support from the national pension fund - the allegation is that this support was granted in return for the donations.

Source: BBC

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NASA is collaborating with Zooniverse to allow the public to search WISE data for "nearby" rogue planets, brown dwarfs, and Planet Nine:

NASA is inviting the public to help search for possible undiscovered worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in neighboring interstellar space. A new website, called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, lets everyone participate in the search by viewing brief movies made from images captured by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. The movies highlight objects that have gradually moved across the sky.

"There are just over four light-years between Neptune and Proxima Centauri, the nearest star, and much of this vast territory is unexplored," said lead researcher Marc Kuchner, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Because there's so little sunlight, even large objects in that region barely shine in visible light. But by looking in the infrared, WISE may have imaged objects we otherwise would have missed."

Backyard Worlds: Planet 9.

Previously: No Evidence for 'Planet X', says NASA - "[No] object the size of Saturn or larger exists out to a distance of 10,000 astronomical units (AU), and no object larger than Jupiter exists out to 26,000 AU."
NASA's WISE Spacecraft Discovers Most Luminous Galaxy in Universe
NASA's NEOWISE Mission Finds 72 Additional Near-Earth Objects
Two New Kuiper Belt Objects Boost the Case for "Planet Nine"
The Mysterious 'Planet Nine' Might be Causing the Whole Solar System to Wobble

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Disney researchers have created a system for wirelessly transmitting power:

Quasistatic Cavity Resonance for Ubiquitous Wireless Power Transfer (open, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169045) (DX)

Wireless power delivery has the potential to seamlessly power our electrical devices as easily as data is transmitted through the air. However, existing solutions are limited to near contact distances and do not provide the geometric freedom to enable automatic and un-aided charging. We introduce quasistatic cavity resonance (QSCR), which can enable purpose-built structures, such as cabinets, rooms, and warehouses, to generate quasistatic magnetic fields that safely deliver kilowatts of power to mobile receivers contained nearly anywhere within. A theoretical model of a quasistatic cavity resonator is derived, and field distributions along with power transfer efficiency are validated against measured results. An experimental demonstration shows that a 54 m³ QSCR room can deliver power to small coil receivers in nearly any position with 40% to 95% efficiency. Finally, a detailed safety analysis shows that up to 1900 watts can be transmitted to a coil receiver enabling safe and ubiquitous wireless power.

Also at Disney Research and NBF.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has won a CRISPR-Cas9 patent fight against University of California Berkeley, but UC Berkeley expects to be awarded a broader patent anyway:

The CRISPR patent fight appears to be over, at least for the moment. A ruling by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board found no "interference" in patents awarded to Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The loser, pending appeals, is the University of California, and the much-heralded biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who, along with Emmanuelle Charpentier, in 2012 published a groundbreaking paper showing how to exploit a natural bacterial gene-editing system known as CRISPR. The patent office determined that Zhang's later innovations, which used CRISPR to edit mammalian cells, were not simply elaborations of what Doudna and Charpentier had already discovered.

In a teleconference with reporters Wednesday, Doudna did not sound deterred by the ruling, saying she will press forward with her own patent application based on the earlier work. "Our patent will likely be issued," she said. She explained that her patent would cover the use of CRISPR in all cells, while the Zhang patent would more narrowly cover applications of CRISPR in plant and animal ("eukaryotic") cells. She drew an unusual analogy: "They will have a patent on green tennis balls. We will get a patent on all tennis balls." Such a situation could potentially make attractive some kind of settlement between the institutions and the inventors to distribute the money from CRISPR licenses.

UC Berkeley statement. Also at STAT, Science Magazine , The Mercury News , and The New York Times .

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists have always thought that archosauromorpha, an animal group that includes crocodiles, birds and dinosaurs, reproduced only by laying eggs. But now, paleontologists have uncovered a 250-million-year-old fossil of a strange long-necked marine reptile with an embryo inside, demonstrating live birth in archosauromorphs for the first time and forcing a rethink of reproductive evolution.

Researchers at the University of Bristol and the Hefei University of Technology in China actually discovered the embryonic specimen a few years ago. Sitting inside the belly of a marine dinosaur-relative called Dinocephalosaurus that thrived in the South China sea during the Middle Triassic period, the team suspected at first that it might have been the creature's last meal.

Further examination led to the conclusion that it is in fact an embryo. It rests inside the rib cage of the fossilized mother and faces forward, whereas eaten animals will typically face backward after the predator swallows them head-first to help them down the hatch. Another helpful tidbit of evidence backing up the team's theory was the fact that the swallowed reptile is the same species as the mother.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Following an initial report that Microsoft's Patch/Update Tuesday would be delayed comes the notice that it will actually be postponed. Oh, and there is a zero-day SMB exploit currently in the wild for which Microsoft intended to release a patch last Tuesday. That fix, and all the others scheduled for February, have been postponed to be released on March's Patch Tuesday.

Here are some stories that lay things out:

• Microsoft cancels February Patch Tuesday despite 0-day in wild | Ars Technica
• Microsoft shelves all February security updates | Computerworld
• Microsoft's monthlong patch delay could pose risks | Computerworld
• February 2017 security update release – MSRC

Many businesses have regular processes in place to test and roll out patches on their systems; how has this postponement affected you?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

In an interview with Variety, the Motion Picture Association of America's CEO Chris Dodd spoke out about the growing popularity of Kodi open source media player:

While torrent sites have been a thorn in the side of the MPAA for more than a decade, there's a new kid on the block. Speaking at the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd cited the growing use of the Kodi platform for piracy, describing the problem as the "$64,000 question."

[...] Legal battles over the misuse of the platform are ongoing, mainly in the UK and the Netherlands, where test cases have the ability to clarify the legal position, at least for sellers of so-called "fully loaded" devices. Interestingly, up until now, the MPAA has stayed almost completely quiet, despite a dramatic rise in the use of Kodi for illicit streaming. Yesterday, however, the silence was broken.

In an interview with Variety during the Berlin Film Festival, MPAA chief Chris Dodd described the Kodi-with-addons situation as "new-generation piracy". "The $64,000 question is what can be done about such illegal use of the Kodi platform," Dodd said.

While $64,000 is a tempting offer, responding to that particular question with a working solution will take much more than that. Indeed, one might argue that dealing with it in any meaningful way will be almost impossible.

First of all, Kodi is open source and has been since its inception in 2002. As a result, trying to target the software itself would be like stuffing toothpaste back in a tube. It's out there, it isn't coming back, and pissing off countless developers is extremely ill-advised. Secondly, the people behind Kodi have done absolutely nothing wrong. Their software is entirely legal and if their public statements are to be believed, they're as sick of piracy as the entertainment companies are. The third problem is how Kodi itself works. While to the uninitiated it looks like one platform, a fully-modded 'pirate' Kodi setup can contain many third-party addons, each capable of aggregating content from dozens or even hundreds of sites. Not even the mighty MPAA can shut them all down, and even if it could, more would reappear later. It's the ultimate game of whac-a-mole.

Previously: XBMC Is Getting a New Name: "Kodi"
Middlesbrough Trader Prosecuted for Selling Streaming Boxes Preloaded With Kodi
Five Arrests in 'Fully Loaded' Kodi Streaming Box Raids

[Ed Note: This is the same Chris Dodd who served 30 years as a US Senator from Connecticut. Probably best known for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Snap Inc., the maker of the Snapchat messaging app, has valued itself at between $19.5 to $22.3 billion. If that seems outrageous, note that it's actually less than previously expected:

The company, which filed for an initial public offering earlier this month, was widely expected to be valued at between $20 billion and $25 billion. However it said on Thursday it was targeting a valuation between $19.5 billion and $22.3 billion, ahead of an investor roadshow due to start on Monday in London.

The lower valuation range reflected initial investor feedback, as well as Snap's aim to ensure there is sufficient demand for shares of the company that it trades up on its first day in public market.

Investors have been poring over the filing for Snap's upcoming IPO to assess whether the still-unprofitable company will be the next Facebook Inc, which has figured out how to make money from its social media platform, or if it will be more like Twitter Inc, which is struggling to achieve the same goal.

You want to be a Facebook, not a Twitter.

S-1/A for Snap Inc.

Previously: Goodbye Snapchat, Hello Snap Inc
The Company Formerly Known as Snapchat may be Worth $25 Billion
Lawsuit Against Snapchat Dismissed

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Google may have sent the tired castle analogy of network security's soft center protected by a tough exterior out to pasture for good.

On Tuesday at RSA Conference, Google shared the seven-year journey of its internal BeyondCorp rollout where it affirms trust based on what it knows about its users and devices connecting to its networks. And all of this is done at the expense—or lack thereof—of firewalls and traditional network security gear.

Director of security Heather Adkins said the company's security engineers had their Eureka moment seven years ago, envisioning a world without walls and daring to challenge the assumption that existing walls were working as advertised.

"We acknowledged that we had to identify [users] because of their device, and had to move all authentication to the device," Adkins said.

Google, probably quicker than most enterprises, understood how mobility was going to change productivity and employee satisfaction. It also knew that connecting to corporate resources living behind the firewall via a VPN wasn't a longterm solution, especially for those connecting on low-speed mobile networks where reliability quickly became an issue.

The solution was to flip the problem on its head and treat every network as untrusted, and grant access to services based on what was known about users and their device. All access to services, Adkins said, must then be authenticated, authorized and on encrypted connections.

"This was the mission six years ago, to work successfully from untrusted networks without the use of a VPN," Adkins said.

Source: https://threatpost.com/no-firewalls-no-problem-for-google/123748/

Original Submission

Two of SoylentNews' staff submitted stories noting our three-year anniversary; one a site summary of where we are and a summary of what we've done, and the other a detailed presentation of the very early days and how SoylentNews got started.

Three Whole Years -- Thanks to You!

martyb writes:

Three years ago, today, SoylentNews announced its presence to the world. Much has happened along the way of our providing a place for a community to grow and to engage in discussion.

It started as a fork of five-year-old, open-sourced code which had suffered under benign neglect. Perl, Apache, MySQL, and other products had continued on. So we had to deal with dependencies on unsupported and back-level versions of code. A great deal of effort went into bringing the site up-to-date with current versions of that base. See below for mechanicjay's illuminating first-hand account of how that all got started.

[Continues...]

Phoenix666 writes:

Getting around on a bicycle can be an excellent way to clean up our daily commutes and errand runs, but sometimes you need a little bit of a boost, which is where electric bikes come in. And sometimes you need a little more space to haul groceries and gear with you, which is where cargo bikes come in. Combine the two, and you've got an efficient and fun way to not only get from point A to point B, but to also get the shopping home in a single trip without having to stack boxes and bags on your rear rack until you're wobbling your way precariously down the road (been there, done that).

The capital of Norway, Oslo, is looking to get more of its citizens out of their cars and onto bikes, and more specifically, onto a set of wheels that is made to haul more than just a single person, in the form of grants covering part of the cost of an electric cargo bike. Last year, the city council offered residents a financial incentive toward buying an electric bike, up to 20% of the purchase price of an e-bike, capped at 5000 kroner (about $600). Now that effort has been extended a bit into an electric cargo bike grant program, which will cover part of the cost of purchase of one of these electric workhorses.

Is it the cost of cargo bikes that keeps people from buying them, or the lack of secure parking in city apartment buildings?

Original Submission