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rob_on_earth writes:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/08/28/gimp_open_source_image_editor_forked_to_fix_problematic_name/

(Emphasis in original. --Ed.)

GIMP is a longstanding project, first announced in November 1995. The name was originally an acronym for General Image Manipulation Program but this was changed to GNU Image Manipulation Program.

The new fork springs from a discussion on Gitlab, where the source code is hosted. The discussion has been hidden but is available on web archives here. A topic titled "Consider renaming GIMP to a less offensive name," opened by developer Christopher Davis, stated:

I'd like to propose renaming GIMP, due to the baggage behind the name. The most modern and often used version of the word "gimp" is an ableist insult. This is also the colloquial usage of the word. In addition to the pain of the definition, there's also the marketability issue. Acronyms are difficult to remember, and they end up pronounced instead of read as their parts. "GIMP" does not give a hint towards the function of the app, and it's hard to market something that's either used as an insult or a sex reference.

[...] The subject of the suitability of the name is not new, and is enshrined in the official FAQ:

"I don't like the name GIMP. Will you change it?"

With all due respect, no. We've been using the name GIMP for more than 20 years and it's widely known ... on top of that, we feel that in the long run, sterilization of language will do more harm than good. ... Finally, if you still have strong feelings about the name "GIMP", you should feel free to promote the use of the long form GNU Image Manipulation Program or maintain your own releases of the software under a different name.

The Glimpse project is therefore entirely within the spirit of open source. "We believe free software should be accessible to everyone, and in this case a re-brand is both a desirable and very straightforward fix that could attract a whole new generation of users and contributors," says the About page.

Is now the time to accept that, to get GIMP into the mainstream, it needs a rename?

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Noted security researcher Bruce Schneier brings word of a recent paper noting deficiencies in the idea of a "trusted enclave" that will only run trustworthy code.

From the abstract to the paper on arXiv: "Practical Enclave Malware with Intel SGX."

Abstract: Modern CPU architectures offer strong isolation guarantees towards user applications in the form of enclaves. For instance, Intel's threat model for SGX assumes fully trusted enclaves, yet there is an ongoing debate on whether this threat model is realistic. In particular, it is unclear to what extent enclave malware could harm a system. In this work, we practically demonstrate the first enclave malware which fully and stealthily impersonates its host application. Together with poorly-deployed application isolation on personal computers, such malware can not only steal or encrypt documents for extortion, but also act on the user's behalf, e.g., sending phishing emails or mounting denial-of-service attacks. Our SGX-ROP attack uses new TSX-based memory-disclosure primitive and a write-anything-anywhere primitive to construct a code-reuse attack from within an enclave which is then inadvertently executed by the host application. With SGX-ROP, we bypass ASLR, stack canaries, and address sanitizer. We demonstrate that instead of protecting users from harm, SGX currently poses a security threat, facilitating so-called super-malware with ready-to-hit exploits. With our results, we seek to demystify the enclave malware threat and lay solid ground for future research on and defense against enclave malware.

The full paper is available as a pdf file.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow2718

Biohackers are pirating a cheap version of a million-dollar gene therapy (archive)

Citing the tremendous cost of new drugs, an international group of biohackers say they are creating a knock-off of a million-dollar gene therapy. The drug being copied is Glybera, a gene therapy that was the world's most expensive drug when it came on the market in Europe in 2015 with a $1 million per treatment price tag. Glybera was the first gene therapy ever approved to treat an inherited disease.

Now a band of independent and amateur biologists say they have engineered a prototype of a simpler, low-cost version of Glybera, and they plan to call on university and corporate scientists to help them check, improve, and test it on animals.

The group says it will start sharing the materials and describe their activities this weekend at Biohack the Planet, a conference in Las Vegas that hosts citizen scientists, journalists, and researchers for two days of presentations on body implants, biosafety, and hallucinogens. "This was developed in a shed in Mississippi, a warehouse in Florida, a bedroom in Indiana, and on a computer in Austria," says Gabriel Licina, a biohacker based in South Bend, Indiana. He says the prototype gene therapy cost less than $7,000 to create.

Experts briefed on the biohacking project were divided, with some calling it misguided and unlikely to work. Others say the excessive cost of genetic treatments has left patients without options and created an incentive to pirate genetic breakthroughs.

Original Submission

[Seconding-Ed note: This story is likely to be contentious. In the interests of helping set the tone, I would like to start off by quoting H.L. Mencken:

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Further, this quote which has appeared in various phrasings and attributions:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

To mind's eye, I must be willing to accept against my own words and actions any that I would wish to see imposed upon another. --martyb]

YouTube Restores Far-Right Channels After Appeal

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

The channels of two prominent far-right YouTubers have been re-instated after the video-sharing site said it made a mistake in removing them. Initially, YouTube gave no reason for changing its decision and just said it had made a "wrong call". Later, it said that while many people found the channels "deeply offensive", they had not broken its rules. The decision came days after YouTube's chief executive said YouTube had to be open to hosting "controversial" ideas.

YouTube removed several channels and accounts this week, claiming they had broken its hate speech policies. Among them was a channel run by white nationalist Martin Sellner and an anonymous British YouTuber known as The Iconoclast. Mr Sellner was reportedly in contact with the man who allegedly carried out the Christchurch mosque shootings in March this year that killed 51 people. Austrian police are investigating his links to the attack. He denies any involvement in the shooting.

Both men protested about the closure of their YouTube channels on social media. They shared information sent to them from YouTube, which said they had "repeatedly" broken its guidelines. On Thursday, YouTube reversed its decision and reinstated the two channels. Several other far-right channels that YouTube banned this week remain unavailable.

An explanation for the change of heart came on Friday. Farshad Shadloo, YouTube's global product policy communications lead, said that after a "thorough review" it had decided that the channels had not broken its rules. "We realise that many may find the viewpoints expressed in these channels deeply offensive," he said. Mr Shadloo added that YouTube had recently updated the way it handled "hateful content".

Earlier this week YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki wrote in a letter to video-makers that YouTube must remain an "open platform". She said the desire to welcome all kinds of views had to be balanced against a "responsibility to protect the community".

"A commitment to openness is not easy. It sometimes means leaving up content that is outside the mainstream, controversial or even offensive," she said. "Hearing a broad range of perspectives ultimately makes us a stronger and more informed society," she claimed.

'I am Talking Directly to You': US Attorney Delivers Powerful Rebuke to White Nationalists

aristarchus writes:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

ABC News:

The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio on Thursday announced new federal charges against a self-avowed white nationalist accused of threatening to commit an attack on a local Jewish community center. James Reardon, who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was arrested last week after authorities said he posted the threat on Instagram. U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said Reardon has now been charged with one count of making threats as authorities continue their investigation into Reardon and whether he my have any accomplices.

Of course, not so much that, but what Herdman said after that.

"I am talking directly to you," Herdman said at a news conference announcing the charges. "The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice."

Herdman continued, evoking the sacrifices made by U.S. service members in World War II against Nazism, as well as those who marched for civil rights throughout U.S. history.

"Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail - you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones," Herdman said. "You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred. Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard."

"The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn't guarantee you a receptive audience," Herdman added.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Security shop Egress studied 4,856 personal data breach reports collected from the UK Information Commissioner's Office, and found that in 60 per cent of the incidents, someone within the affected biz was at fault.

Further breaking down human error, it was found that 43 per cent of the data leaks were caused by incorrect disclosure, such as someone sending a file to the wrong person or the wrong file to the right person or persons. For example, 20 per cent of the exposures were caused by faxing a file to the wrong person, and 18 per cent were caused by typing the wrong address into an email field or failing to use bcc and exposing every recipient.

[...] In other words, the biggest threat to your company's data security is you or a colleague. For every exotic APT operation that gets reported, there are four companies done in by someone fat-fingering a fax machine or clicking the wrong file to attach to an email.

"All too often, organizations fixate on external threats, while the biggest cause of breaches remains the fallibility of people and an inherent inability of employees to send emails to the right person," Egress CEO Tony Pepper said of the findings.

[...] None of this is to say that admins should neglect external security entirely. A quick perusal of the California Attorney General's disclosure list shows that four of the five most recently reported data leaks, including the massive Capital One theft, were in fact down to third-party hackers or malware infections. ®

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The battle over how to classify ride-hail drivers in California has intensified, with neither side backing down. After a caravan of drivers protested across the state earlier this week, Uber and Lyft began widely circulating online petitions on Wednesday. The companies' goal: Get people to join them in defeating Assembly Bill 5 as it's currently written before it becomes law.

If passed, the California state bill could allow for ride-hail drivers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors, their current status.

"AB 5 may lead to hundreds of thousands of California Lyft drivers out of work," Lyft's petition reads. "As a result, passengers could wait longer for rides or risk losing reliable access to rideshare altogether."

Uber issued similar warnings in its petition and said, "Forcing all drivers to become employees could drastically change the rideshare experience as you've come to know it, and would limit Uber's ability to connect you with the dependable rides you've come to expect."

Uber and Lyft drivers are now classified as independent contractors, sometimes referred to as gig-workers, which means they don't get benefits including Social Security, health insurance, paid sick days and overtime. Many drivers say this system has led to exploitation. They say they've seen lower pay, higher costs and longer working hours as the cost of living has risen over the years.

Advocates for AB 5 call the ride-hailing companies' petitions a "misinformation campaign" and "dishonest." Mobile Workers Alliance and Gig Workers Rising, which have been organizing drivers around AB 5, say the bill is about workers' rights.

"Both of these companies are doing what looks like a very desperate last-ditch effort to try to get their customer base to go against drivers' rights," said Coral Itzcalli, spokeswoman for Mobile Workers Alliance. "The scheme of independent contractors is what companies have used for decades. What it does is saddle the cost of the business on the average worker."

"Anonymous Cow" writes:

https://www.thetechie.xyz/2019/08/peloton-files-for-ipo.html

Shortly after confidentially filing for an IPO, Peloton has publicly filed for that, with an S-1 filing unveiled less than 24 hours ago. Peloton is seeking to raise $500 million on the Nasdaq stock exchange, intending to trade under the ticker "PTON". According to its S-1 filing, New York-based Peloton recorded $915 million in revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. This is up more than 100% from $435 million in the previous year (2018), and $219 million in 2017.

However, Peloton isn't profitable, with $246 million in losses in the fiscal year ended June 2019. In 2018, the company recorded [a significantly lower] $48 million in losses, compared to a much higher $163 million loss in 2017. Sales of Peloton's connected fitness products account for a bulk of its revenue. In fiscal 2019, Peloton recorded $719 million in revenue from sales of fitness products, with $181 million coming from subscriptions and $15 million from "other" sources.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Mike Masnick, usually editor for Techdirt, has written an essay on a technological approach to preserving free speech online in spite of the direction things have been heading in regards to locked-in platforms. He proposes moving back to an Internet where protocols dominate.

This article proposes an entirely different approach—one that might seem counterintuitive but might actually provide for a workable plan that enables more free speech, while minimizing the impact of trolling, hateful speech, and large-scale disinformation efforts. As a bonus, it also might help the users of these platforms regain control of their privacy. And to top it all off, it could even provide an entirely new revenue stream for these platforms.

That approach: build protocols, not platforms.

To be clear, this is an approach that would bring us back to the way the internet used to be. The early internet involved many different protocols—instructions and standards that anyone could then use to build a compatible interface. Email used SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). Chat was done over IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Usenet served as a distributed discussion system using NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol). The World Wide Web itself was its own protocol: HyperText Transfer Protocol, or HTTP.

In the past few decades, however, rather than building new protocols, the internet has grown up around controlled platforms that are privately owned. These can function in ways that appear similar to the earlier protocols, but they are controlled by a single entity. This has happened for a variety of reasons. Obviously, a single entity controlling a platform can then profit off of it. In addition, having a single entity can often mean that new features, upgrades, bug fixes, and the like can be rolled out much more quickly, in ways that would increase the user base.

Earlier on SN:
Re-decentralizing the World-Wide Web (2019)
Decentralized Sharing (2014)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Is there a solution to bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics? One answer may be found by studying the world's largest and most brutal army, new University of Otago microbiology research shows.

In fact that army—bacteria-attacking viruses known as phages—outnumber bacteria nearly ten-fold, making them the most abundant biological entity on earth. They are intricately adapted to invading, weakening and controlling their targets, then keeping them alive long enough to feed off them and use them to breed.

To defend themselves from the phage invasion, bacteria have developed "CRISPR" defense systems—immune systems within the bacteria. But the phages have their own weapon, called "anti-CRISPR," which blocks these bacterial defenses.

The Otago study's lead author, Ph.D. student Nils Birkholz, of the University's Department of Microbiology and Immunology, says the new research shows phages use a special protein to control the production of the anti-CRISPR when they invade a bacteria.

Initially they rapidly ramp up anti-CRISPR production, conquering the bacteria's defense system. Then, with the bacteria beaten, the phages use the protein to switch off anti-CRISPR production, ensuring the bacteria survives—conquered, but alive.

That makes sense, Mr Birkholz says, as phages, like all viruses, are not just conquerors but hijackers that reproduce inside living hosts.

"We know from previous research that too much anti-CRISPR production can be bad for the cell and an important question was how anti-CRISPR abundance is controlled. This has now been answered by our research.

"Our results suggest that right after infection, the phage produces a large enough anti-CRISPR quantity to inhibit bacterial defense, but then turns down production to avoid any negative side effects.

[...] The research paper, called "The autoregulator Aca2 mediates anti-CRISPR repression" and published in Nucleic Acids Research this month, was written by Nils Birkholz, Robert D. Fagerlund, Leah M. Smith, Simon A. Jackson and Peter C. Fineran.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Earlier this month, Ohio became the latest of several state and local governments in the United States to stop law-enforcement officers from using facial-recognition databases. The move followed reports that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had been scanning millions of photos in state driver’s licence databases, data that could be used to target and deport undocumented immigrants. Researchers at Georgetown University in Washington DC used public-record requests to reveal this previously secret operation, which was running without the consent of individuals or authorization from state or federal lawmakers.

It is not the only such project. Customs and Border Protection is using something similar at airports, creating a record of every passenger’s departure. The technology giant Amazon is building partnerships with more than 200 police departments to promote its Ring home-security cameras across the United States. Amazon gets ongoing access to video footage; police get kickbacks on technology products.

Facial-recognition technology is not ready for this kind of deployment, nor are governments ready to keep it from causing harm. Stronger regulatory safeguards are urgently needed, and so is a wider public debate about the impact it is already having. Comprehensive legislation must guarantee restrictions on its use, as well as transparency, due process and other basic rights. Until those safeguards are in place, we need a moratorium on the use of this technology in public spaces.

There is little evidence that biometric technology can identify suspects quickly or in real time. No peer-reviewed studies have shown convincing data that the technology has sufficient accuracy to meet the US constitutional standards of due process, probable cause and equal protection that are required for searches and arrests.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

Book publishers sue Audible to stop new speech-to-text feature

Seven of the nation's top book publishers sued Amazon subsidiary Audible on Friday, asking federal courts to block the company from releasing a new feature called Audible Captions that's due out next month. The technology does exactly what it sounds like: display text captions on the screen of your phone or tablet as the corresponding words are read in the audio file.

The publishers argue that this is straight-up copyright infringement. In their view, the law gives them the right to control the distribution of their books in different formats. Audio is a different format from text, they reason, so Audible needs a separate license.

This would be a slam-dunk argument if Audible were generating PDFs of entire books and distributing them to customers alongside the audio files. But what Audible is actually doing is subtly different—in a way that could provide the company with firm legal ground to stand on.

The caption feature "is not and was never intended to be a book," Audible explained in an online statement following the lawsuit. "Listeners cannot read at their own pace or flip through pages as they could with a print book or eBook." Instead, the purpose is to allow "listeners to follow along with a few lines of machine-generated text as they listen to the audio performance."

"We disagree with the claims that this violates any rights and look forward to working with publishers and members of the professional creative community to help them better understand the educational and accessibility benefits of this innovation," Audible added.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Levels of methane—the second biggest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide—have spiked in the atmosphere in the past decade. And a study says fracking in North America could be partly to blame.

The gas is linked to climate change, as well as ground-level ozone levels that can harm agriculture. It can also trigger a range of health problems, including chest pains, as well as reducing lung function and worsening conditions such as bronchitis, emphysema and asthma.

[...] For the new study, Howarth looked at existing research on the levels of certain carbon isotopes of atmospheric methane to find a potential source, and created an equation to investigate the link.

Methane is a compound made up of carbon and hydrogen. While methane released in the late 20th century was enriched with the carbon isotope 13C, Howarth highlights methane released in recent years features lower levels. That's because the methane in shale gas has depleted levels of the isotope when compared with conventional natural gas or fossil fuels such as coal, he explained.

This lead Howarth to conclude: "The commercialization of shale gas and oil in the 21st century has dramatically increased global methane emissions."

[...] This could help the commitment of the Paris Agreement be met.

[...] "If we can stop pouring methane into the atmosphere, it will dissipate. It goes away pretty quickly, compared to carbon dioxide. It's the low-hanging fruit to slow global warming."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

I happened upon a couple stories that, though factually accurate, prey on people's inability to comprehend big numbers so as to paint things to be far more dangerous than they really are. Can you say "click bait sensationalism!" Further, being forewarned of what might soon be in the public zeitgeist, we can be prepared to dispel the fears and encourage a state of reasonableness.

NASA Asteroid Tracker: 2,133-Foot Hazardous NEO Is Headed Towards Earth:

NASA is closely monitoring a potentially hazardous asteroid that is expected to dangerously approach Earth a month from now. According to the agency's Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), the approaching asteroid is almost twice as big as the Empire State Building.

The asteroid has been identified by CNEOS as 467317 (2000 QW7). According to the agency's database, the asteroid is currently traveling at a speed of around 14,400 miles per hour. It has an estimated diameter of around 2,133 feet. Given its size, the space rock is almost as big as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which is known as the tallest manmade structure in the world.

According to CNEOS, 467317 (2000 QW7) is expected to fly close to Earth on Sept. 14 at 7:54 pm EDT. During its approach, the asteroid will be about 0.03564 astronomical units or around 3.3 million miles from the planet's center.

The other story is NASA Detects Planet-Killer Asteroid That Might Hit Earth Next Year:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

When we think about environmental problems, images of industrial pollution or car exhaust come to mind—not dinner. In reality, the food sector poses one of the largest threats to our planet.

Food waste occurs at all stages of the food cycle: when farmers leave unharvested crops to rot in fields because it is not profitable to harvest them; when inappropriate storage and handling causes food to spoil; when retailers turn away 'ugly' produce; and when confusing date labels cause consumers to discard food that is still safe to eat. Food waste at each of these stages contributes to 40 percent of all food produced in the U.S. going uneaten—a fact made paradoxical given that one in six people in the U.S. faces food insecurity.

Agriculture accounts for up to 80 percent of freshwater consumption in the U.S. To produce 8 ounces of strawberries, it takes about 10 gallons of water, whereas six ounces of steak requires an exorbitant 674 gallons of water!

Given that agriculture takes up 50 percent of land area in the U.S., proper water management matters greatly as droughts will continue to exacerbate water scarcity. California, often referred to as America's breadbasket, is already vulnerable to drought, and as climate change intensifies, these droughts will only last longer and happen more frequently.

When we waste food, we are also wasting the fuel required to transport it. Transporting food from farms to consumer households consumes 10 percent of the total U.S. energy budget.

The impact of food waste ripples into other issues, too, including municipal solid waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Uneaten food comprises the largest category of municipal solid waste reaching U.S. landfills, and it accounts for 23 percent of U.S. methane emissions, since methane is a byproduct of its decomposition.

[...] Confusing date labels cause a large portion of food waste. In the absence of federal standards, food manufacturers and retailers decide on labels and cut-off dates based on their own market standards. Consequently, American consumers find diverse and inconsistent food date labels in grocery stores. Various items read 'sell by', 'use by', 'best by', and/or 'enjoy by', and their meanings vary from product to product.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Despite years of legal battles and months of protests by Native Hawaiian opponents, the international coalition that wants to build the world's largest telescope in Hawaii insists that the islands' highest peak—Mauna Kea—is the best place for their $1.4 billion instrument.

But just barely.

Thirty Meter Telescope officials acknowledge that their backup site atop a peak on the Spanish Canary island of La Palma is a comparable observatory location, and that it wouldn't cost more money or take extra time to build it there.

There's also no significant opposition to putting the telescope on La Palma like there is in Hawaii, where some Native Hawaiians consider the mountain sacred and have blocked trucks from hauling construction equipment to Mauna Kea's summit for more than a month.

But Hawaii has advantages that scientists say make it slightly better: higher altitude, cooler temperatures, and rare star-gazing moments that will allow the cutting-edge telescope to reach its full potential.

"Every once in a while at Mauna Kea, you get one of those magic nights," said University of California, Santa Cruz astronomy and astrophysics professor Michael Bolte, a Thirty Meter Telescope board member. "When the air is super stable above the site, you get images that you simply couldn't get anyplace else."

Bolte, who has used existing Mauna Kea telescopes, said those "magic" Hawaii nights could hold discoveries that might be missed in La Palma.

[...] But John Mather, an astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on the Big Bang theory, says there are other ways to get that data.