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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The World Socialist Web Site reports

A report issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) July 4 finds what hundreds of millions of workers are experiencing in their daily lives: nearly a decade after the worst financial crash since the Great Depression of the 1930s, wages are stagnating and the benefits of economic "recovery" are going to the corporate elite.

The OECD countries--26 in Europe plus the United States, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and Turkey--accounted for more than 60 percent of world GDP in 2017. The grouping includes seven of the ten largest national economies, excluding only China, India, and Brazil.

The report begins with an editorial bearing the striking headline: "Wageless growth: Is this time different?" It points to the fact that the current economic "recovery" differs from previous rebounds from capitalist slumps because, despite lower unemployment rates and a record number of job vacancies in the euro area, the United States, and Australia, "wage growth is still missing in action".

The bulk of the 300-page document is devoted to drilling down into the figures detailing the paradox of "tight" labor markets and stagnant wages in country after country, as well as selected industry groups, but the basic conclusion appears early on: wages are being held down because of the lingering effects of the 2008 crash and the proliferation of low-wage and part-time jobs, particularly for those workers who were laid off in the worst years of the economic crisis.

The initial editorial states, "involuntary part-time employment has risen significantly in a number of countries since the crisis, and this has been accompanied by a deterioration in the relative earnings of part-time workers".

The report underscores the fact that the 2008 global financial crisis was used by the capitalist class and governments of every stripe around the world to accelerate the decades-long assault on the social position of the working class. In country after country, higher paid full-time positions with a modicum of job protection and health and pension benefits have increasingly been replaced with low-wage and precarious employment.

I think it's obvious that when government unemployment rate numbers are low but wages aren't rising, somebody is lying.

Original Submission

requerdanos writes:

The Seattle Times reports:

SAN FRANCISCO -- [At] Souvla, a Greek restaurant with a devoted following... there are no servers to wait on you here, or at the two other San Francisco locations that Souvla has added — or, increasingly, at other popular restaurants that have opened in the past two years.
[...]
Commercial rents have gone up. Labor costs have soared. And restaurant workers, many of them priced out by the expense of housing, have been moving away. Restaurateurs who say they can no longer find or afford servers are figuring out how to do without them. And so in this city of staggering wealth, you can eat like a gourmand, with real stemware and ceramic plates. But first, you’ll have to go get your silverware.
[...]
On July 1, the minimum wage in San Francisco [was increased to] $15 an hour, [and the city] requires employers with at least 20 workers to pay health-care costs... in addition to paid sick leave and parental leave.

Despite those benefits, many workers say they can’t afford to live here or to stay in the industry. And partly as a result of those benefits, restaurateurs say they can’t afford the workers who remain. A dishwasher can now make $18 or $19 an hour. And because of California labor laws, even tipped workers like servers earn at least the full minimum wage, unlike their peers in most other states.

The TL;DR might be summed up as "San Francisco, one of the first places to see a $15 an hour minimum wage, is reaping the rewards of the progress. By pricing low-wage workers right out of their jobs."

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

Maybe [the Hip-Hop duo] Insane Clown Posse isn't your thing, but if you're headed to a protest any time soon, you might want to consider that familiar black and white makeup.

Two years ago, a Georgetown Law report found that half of all American adults are recorded in police facial recognition databases. The databases are, according to the report, made up of "overwhelmingly...non-criminal entities" and are built on state driver's licenses, passports, and visa applications, giving the government the ability to track more than 117 million adults using unregulated software.

In 2016[1], the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told The Guardian that police in Maryland were using the software to identify protesters from photos and that the database is essentially racist, as it relies on mugshots--disproportionately taken of people of color--that remain in the system, even if the people in the photos weren't charged.

A study from last year found that increasingly intelligent software is even learning how to identify protesters who wear hats and use scarves to cover their faces. The software identifies key parts of a face and makes estimates so the software can recreate a covered face.

[...]Here's where the Juggalos come in.

mrpg writes:

US Declaration of Independence Labeled Hate Speech by Facebook Bots

Facebook's content-cleansing bots have flagged the United States Declaration of Independence as hate speech. The Liberty County Vindicator, a newspaper serving Liberty, Texas, posted "small bites" from the Declaration on its Facebook page in the leadup to the USA's Fourth of July Independence Day, "to make it a little easier to digest that short but formidable historic document."

[...] The incident highlights two things. Firstly, The Vindicator says the takedown was automated. As Facebook's pledged to clean up hate speech and fake news with automation, The Social Network™ clearly has work to do to get this right.

Second, The Vindicator wrote that "... the removal of this morning's post puts The Vindicator in a quandary about whether to continue with posting the final two parts of the Declaration scheduled for tomorrow and Wednesday. Should Facebook find anything in them offensive, The Vindicator could lose its Facebook page." [...] Which shows, again, that Facebook's decisions can change the fate of a business. And now those decisions are being made by tone-deaf robots.

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An Anonymous Dog writes:

[...] The cartoon symbolizes an understanding of Internet privacy that stresses the ability of users to send and receive messages in general anonymity. Lawrence Lessig suggests "no one knows" because Internet protocols do not force users to identify themselves; although local access points such as a user's university may, this information is privately held by the local access point and is not an intrinsic part of the Internet transaction.

It also shows how Internet communication is liberated from familiar constraints. Sociologist Sherry Turkle elaborates: "You can be whoever you want to be. You can completely redefine yourself if you want. You don't have to worry about the slots other people put you in as much. They don't look at your body and make assumptions. They don't hear your accent and make assumptions. All they see are your words."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you're_a_dog

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

The developers of Gentoo Linux have revealed how it was possible for its GitHub organization account to be hacked: someone deduced an admin's password – and perhaps that admin ought not to have had access to the repos anyway.

The distro's wiki has added a page describing the SNAFU. It describes the root cause of the cockup as follows:

The attacker gained access to a password of an organization administrator. Evidence collected suggests a password scheme where disclosure on one site made it easy to guess passwords for unrelated webpages.

Original link: Gentoo GitHub repo hack made possible by these 3 rookie mistakes

Another link: Gentoo Linux Github Organization repo hack was down to a series of security mistakes

Gentoo report: Project:Infrastructure/Incident Reports/2018-06-28 Github

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

A recent study conducted by academics from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK has revealed that almost two-thirds of second-hand memory cards still contain remnants of personal data from previous owners.

[...] The research team says the analysis process consisted of creating a bit-by-bit image of the card and then using freely available software to see if they could recover any data from the card.

Their efforts were successful and worrisome at the same time, as the team says it managed to recover data from the memory cards, including intimate photos, selfies, passport copies, contact lists, navigation files, pornography, resumes, browsing history, identification numbers, and other personal documents.

Source: Two-Thirds of Second-Hand Memory Cards Contain Data From Previous Owners

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

Physicists in China just broke a new record by achieving quantum entanglement with 18 qubits, surpassing the previous record of 10. This significant breakthrough puts us one big step closer to realizing large-scale quantum computing.

It's hard to find a stranger, more exotic phenomenon than quantum entanglement — the idea that two entangled particles, or qubits, can influence each other's state instantly even when they're light-years apart.

Even if you separate entangled particles by billions of miles, changing one particle will induce a change in the other. This information appears to be transmitted instantaneously, with no violation of the classical speed of light because there's no "movement" through space.

Source: China breaks quantum entanglement record at 18 qubits

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

Details and public exploit code have been published online for a severe vulnerability affecting Hewlett Packard Integrated Lights-Out 4 (HP iLO 4) servers.

HP iLO devices are extremely popular among small and large enterprises alike. iLO cards can be embedded in regular computers. They have a separate Ethernet network connection and run a proprietary embedded server management technology that provides out-of-band management features, allowing sysadmins to manage computers from afar.

iLO cards allow sysadmins to install firmware remotely, reset servers, provide access to a remote console, read logs, and more.

Source: You Can Bypass Authentication on HPE iLO4 Servers With 29 "A" Characters

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

A former employee of NSO Group, a company that sells zero-days and powerful spyware products to governments around the world, has been arrested and charged in Israel for stealing some of the company's products and attempting to sell it on the Dark Web for $50 million.

Israeli officials did not release the man's name, but the arrest took place last month, on June 5, according to local news outlets who broke the story.

[...] The NSO Group is a controversial company because besides selling its zero-days and spyware to government agencies in democratic states, they've also sold it to abusive regimes. The Citizen Lab team at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto have been tracking many of the cases where NSO's spyware —mainly Pegasus— was abused by governments in recent years.

Source: Former NSO Employee Arrested After Attempting to Sell Spyware for $50 Million

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for BoyceMagooglyMonkey

Four academics from the Technical University in Dresden, Germany (TU Dresden) have created an app that detects and masks the hidden dot patterns that laser color printers secretly hide on all printed documents.

[...] In a press release published two weeks ago, the TU Dresden researchers said they created and released DEDA to ensure that citizens have full freedom of speech.

Their reasons are tied to the fact that while hidden printer dots pose no inconvenience to regular users, they are a danger for whistleblowers, persons who sometimes leak crucial documents revealing appalling abuses of power.

Source: App Masks Hidden Printer Tracking Dots to Keep Whistleblowers Safe

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The World Health Organization has proposed a behavioral addiction pathology for excessive video-game playing but not for the equivalent obsessiveness applied to smartphones. Maybe the problem is in the economy and industry lobbying more than the mind.

Forget the choice between gaming disorder and smartphone disorder, maybe it's productive to think of both, in part at least, as an invitation to pursue better consumer rights and protections rather than to proliferate more mental disorders. But the nuance of socioeconomics can't hold a candle to the terror of morbidity. To observe that gaming (or tech, or work, or tanning) has some concerning transactional issues isn't as sexy as saying that gaming is going to suck your children in to the maw of imminent harm. "Mental illness sounds scarier than consumer protections," Ferguson laments. "But people want scary."

From The Atlantic : Why Is There a 'Gaming Disorder' But No 'Smartphone Disorder?'

Earlier on SN :
World Health Organization Officially Lists "Gaming Disorder" in ICD (2018)
World Health Organization Will Recognize "Gaming Disorder" (2017)
Wired for Gaming: Brain Differences in Compulsive Video Game Players (2016)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Europe's biggest research fund cracks down on 'ethics dumping': The practice of conducting ethically dubious research in foreign countries is under fresh scrutiny.

Ethics dumping — doing research deemed unethical in a scientist's home country in a foreign setting with laxer ethical rules — will be rooted out in research funded by the European Union, officials announced last week.

Applications to the EU's €80-billion (US$93-billion) Horizon 2020 research fund will face fresh levels of scrutiny to make sure that research practices deemed unethical in Europe are not exported to other parts of the world. Wolfgang Burtscher, the European Commission's deputy director-general for research, made the announcement at the European Parliament in Brussels on 29 June.

Burtscher said that a new code of conduct developed to curb ethics dumping will soon be applied to all EU-funded research projects. That means applicants will be referred to the code when they submit their proposals, and ethics committees will use the document when considering grant applications.

Isidoros Karatzas, whose office is in charge of ethics review in the European Commission, calls ethics dumping "a real threat to the quality of science" and compares it to research misconduct. "What is important is that it does not take place, and that our researchers have the knowledge and awareness not to allow it to happen," he adds.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Cory Doctorow has written a column in which he analyzes the motives for Facebook as an example of surveillance capitalism. With the enormous trove of personal data — both raw and interpreted — whole populations can be used for blackmail, identity theft, and political manipulation. The profit margins are small however and he likens the process to recovering oil from used, oily rags.

It's as though Mark Zuckerberg woke up one morning and realized that the oily rags he'd been accumulating in his garage could be refined for an extremely low-grade, low-value crude oil. No one would pay very much for this oil, but there were a lot of oily rags, and provided no one asked him to pay for the inevitable horrific fires that would result from filling the world's garages with oily rags, he could turn a tidy profit.

[...] That's because dossiers on billions of people hold the power to wreak almost unimaginable harm, and yet, each dossier brings in just a few dollars a year. For commercial surveillance to be cost effective, it has to socialize all the risks associated with mass surveillance and privatize all the gains.

[...] Facebook doesn't have a mind-control problem, it has a corruption problem. Cambridge Analytica didn't convince decent people to become racists; they convinced racists to become voters.

From Locus : Cory Doctorow: Zuck's Empire of Oily Rags

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Surrey makes breakthrough in perovskite solar cell technology

Perovskite based cells are widely viewed as the next generation of solar cells, offering similar power conversion efficiency (PCE) performance, but at a much lower cost than the market dominant crystalline silicon based solar cells.

In a study published by Science [DOI: 10.1126/science.aap9282] [DX], a team of researchers from Peking University and the Universities of Surrey, Oxford and Cambridge detail a new way to reduce an unwanted process called non-radiative recombination, where energy and efficiency is lost in perovskite solar cells.

The team created a technique called Solution-Process Secondary growth (SSG) which increased the voltage of inverted perovskite solar cells by 100 millivolts, reaching a high of 1.21 volts without compromising the quality of the solar cell or the electrical current flowing through a device. They tested the technique on a device which recorded a PCE of 20.9 per cent, the highest certified PCE for inverted perovskite solar cells ever recorded.

Original Submission