SoylentNews

martyb writes:

Docker is in Deep Trouble:

Docker, the technology, is the poster child for containers. But it appears Docker, the business, is in trouble. In a leaked memo, Docker CEO Rob Bearden praised workers -- despite the "uncertainty [which] brings with it significant challenges" and "persevering in spite of the lack of clarity we've had these past few weeks."

Lack of clarity about what? Sources close to the company say it's simple: Docker needs more money.

Indeed, Bearden opened by saying: "We have been engaging with investors to secure more financing to continue to execute on our strategy. I wanted to share a quick update on where we stand. We are currently in active negotiations with two investors and are working through final terms. We should be able to provide you a more complete update within the next couple of weeks."

Docker has already raised $272.9 million, but the company hasn't been profitable. It's[sic] venture-capitalist supporters -- ME Cloud Ventures, Benchmark, Coatue Management, Goldman Sachs, and Greylock Partners -- which have seen it through Series E financing, can't be happy, that after almost six-years, Docker still isn't close to an IPO.

While the previous CEO, Steve Singh, promised in May 2019 that Docker would be cash-flow positive by the end of this fiscal year, that appears not to have been the case. Otherwise, Docker wouldn't need to seek additional capital.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Several researchers working for the International Monetary Fund's Finance and Development section have written about concrete economic benefits provided by whales and their role in sequestration of atmospheric carbon. They advocate mindset recognizing the important function of oceanic ecosystems and marine life from whales and seabirds to phytoplankton. Restoring the whale populations to their pre-industrial numbers would help noticeably in mitigating climate change.

Wherever whales, the largest living things on earth, are found, so are populations of some of the smallest, phytoplankton. These microscopic creatures not only contribute at least 50 percent of all oxygen to our atmosphere, they do so by capturing about 37 billion metric tons of CO₂, an estimated 40 percent of all CO₂ produced. To put things in perspective, we calculate that this is equivalent to the amount of CO₂ captured by 1.70 trillion trees—four Amazon forests’ worth—or 70 times the amount absorbed by all the trees in the US Redwood National and State Parks each year. More phytoplankton means more carbon capture.

In recent years, scientists have discovered that whales have a multiplier effect of increasing phytoplankton production wherever they go. How? It turns out that whales’ waste products contain exactly the substances—notably iron and nitrogen—phytoplankton need to grow. Whales bring minerals up to the ocean surface through their vertical movement, called the “whale pump,” and through their migration across oceans, called the “whale conveyor belt.” Preliminary modeling and estimates indicate that this fertilizing activity adds significantly to phytoplankton growth in the areas whales frequent.

Earlier on SN:
We Can Tell Where a Whale has Travelled from the Themes in its Song (2019)
Oceans Warming 40% Faster than Previously Predicted (2019)
Japan Restarting Commercial Whaling, Ignoring Global Moratorium (2018)
Ocean Circulation in North Atlantic at its Weakest (2018)
How Cruise Ships Bring Agonising Death to Last Greek Whales (2018)
NOAA Halts Whale Disentanglement Efforts After Rescue Operation Death (2017)

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Ransomware Incident to Cost Danish Company a Whopping $95 Million:

After a month, hearing aid manufacturer Demant has yet to recover after the attack.

Demant, one of the world's largest manufacturers of hearing aids, expects to incur losses of up to $95 million following what appears to be a ransomware infection that hit the company at the start of the month.

[...] Demant's troubles began at the start of the month, on September 3, when in a short statement on its website, the company said it was shutting down its entire internal IT infrastructure following what it initially described as "a critical incident."

What really happened on the company's network, we'll never know, as Demant never revealed anything except that its "IT infrastructure was hit by cyber-crime."

Reports in Danish media[1, 2] pegged the incident as a ransomware attack, and it sure did look like one from the outside.

Per its own statements, all the company's infrastructure was impacted -- and impacted severely.

This included the company's ERP system, production and distribution facilities in Poland, production and service sites in Mexico, cochlear implants production sites in France, amplifier production site in Denmark, and its entire Asia-Pacific network.

Companies usually recover after data breaches within days; however, Demant took weeks, is still recovering assets today, and expects to take two more weeks to recover in full. This pattern of destruction that takes months to recover from is usually encountered during ransomware infections only.

[...] These business upheavals have been a disaster for the company's bottom line. In a message to its investors, Demant said it expects to lose somewhere between $80 million and $95 million.

The sum would have been higher, but the company expects to cash in a $14.6 million cyber insurance policy.

Most of the losses have come from lost sales and the company not being able to fulfill orders. The actual cost of recovering and rebuilding its IT infrastructure were only around $7.3 million, a small sum compared to the grand total.

How many Soylentils have discovered a security vulnerability in your own company's code and succeeded in persuading management to provide sufficient time and resources to address them?

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

Reuters, BBC report on the resignation of Rep congressman Chris Collins before the enquiry into insiders trading

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chris Collins, a Republican U.S. congressman from New York state, resigned on Monday ahead of his expected guilty plea in a criminal insider trading case.

A senior Democratic aide speaking on condition of anonymity said Monday that the office of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had received Collins' letter of resignation, and that it would become effective Tuesday.

Collins, 69, is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal that day to enter his guilty plea, court records show. Collins' son, Cameron Collins, and another man, Stephen Zarsky, are also scheduled to plead guilty in the case on Thursday.

Chris Collins, an early supporter of President Donald Trump, represents New York's 27th Congressional District, which includes areas surrounding Buffalo and Rochester. He won reelection last November, three months after he was criminally charged.

BBC

He was arrested by the FBI last August after prosecutors alleged that he alerted his son to a failed drug trial, allowing him to divest and avoid more than $500,000 (£406,000) in losses.

Prosecutors allege that he called his son in June 2017 after receiving an email during the congressional picnic at the White House, informing him of the failed drug trial results involving Innate Immunotherapeutics, a company in which his son owned thousands of shares.

abc.net.au

Mr Collins immediately told the trial failure news to his son, who in turn told his fiance, Lauren Zarsky, and her parents, Dorothy and Stephen Zarsky, prosecutors allege.
...
Prosecutors said the congressman was "virtually precluded" from trading, in part because he already faced a congressional ethics probe over Innate.

However, prosecutors said others used the insider information to avoid more than $768,000 in losses when Innate's share price plunged 92 per cent after news of the drug's failure became public.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria spread by washing machine

Transmission to newborns via beanies and socks

"The Klebsiella oxytoca type was clearly identified in the detergent drawer and on the door seal of a washing machine in the basement, which was used to launder the hand-knitted socks and beanies of the babies on the ward," says Prof. Dr. Dr. Martin Exner, Director of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at the University Hospital Bonn. The bacteria were passed on to the newborns via the clothing.

After the washing machine was removed, no further colonization of the premature babies was detected. "This clearly demonstrates that we found the Klebsiella source", Schmithausen concludes. "This is a special case." Hospitals normally use special washing machines and laundry processes that wash at high temperatures and with disinfectants, or designated laundries handle the washing externally. On the neonatal ward, however, the case that occurred some time ago involved a standard washing machine. "We decided to investigate this case in order to draw attention to possible problems with resistant bacteria that are now advancing into the domestic environment," says Schmithausen.

Studies have already shown that antibiotic-resistant bacteria can take hold in washing machines. "However, we have proven for the first time that a washing machine can also spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria to humans," said Prof. Exner.

This result also has consequences for the domestic environment. For environmental reasons, the trend in conventional household machines is towards lower temperatures of well below 60°C (140°F). According to the researchers, this is in principle a very positive development because it saves energy and protects the climate.

However, if elderly people requiring nursing care with open wounds or bladder catheters or younger people with suppurating injuries or infections lived in the household, laundry should be washed at higher temperatures, such as 60°C (140°F), to avoid the transmission of dangerous pathogens. This is a growing challenge for hygienists, as the number of people receiving nursing care from family members is constantly increasing.

Ricarda M. Schmithausen, et. al. The washing machine as a reservoir for transmission of extended spectrum beta-lactamase (CTX-M-15)-producing Klebsiella oxytoca ST201 in newborns, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, DOI: 10.1128/AEM.01435-19. Full PDF

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Linux to get Kernel 'Lockdown' Feature:

After years of countless reviews, discussions, and code rewrites, Linus Torvalds approved on Saturday a new security feature for the Linux kernel, named "lockdown."

The new feature will ship as a LSM (Linux Security Module) in the soon-to-be-released Linux kernel 5.4 branch, where it will be turned off by default; usage being optional due to the risk of breaking existing systems.

[...] The new feature's primary function will be to strengthen the divide between userland processes and kernel code by preventing even the root account from interacting with kernel code -- something that it's been able to do, by design, until now.

[...] "The lockdown module is intended to allow for kernels to be locked down early in [the] boot [process]," said Matthew Garrett, the Google engineer who proposed the feature a few years back.

"When enabled, various pieces of kernel functionality are restricted," said Linus Torvalds, Linux kernel creator, and the one who put the final stamp of approval on the module yesterday.

This includes restricting access to kernel features that may allow arbitrary code execution via code supplied by userland processes; blocking processes from writing or reading /dev/mem and /dev/kmem memory; block access to opening /dev/port to prevent raw port access; enforcing kernel module signatures; and many more others, detailed here.

[...] The new module will support two lockdown modes, namely "integrity" and "confidentiality." Each is unique, and restricts access to different kernel functionality.

"If set to integrity, kernel features that allow userland to modify the running kernel are disabled," said Torvalds.

"If set to confidentiality, kernel features that allow userland to extract confidential information from the kernel are also disabled."

If necessary, additional lockdown modes can also be added on top, but this will require an external patch, on top of the lockdown LSM.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From TechDirt: Top Oracle Lawyer Attempting to Gaslight Entire Software Community: Insists APIs are Executable:

Last week, the Solicitor General of the White House weighed in on Google's request for the Supreme Court to overturn the Federal Circuit's ridiculously confused ruling in the Oracle/Google case concerning the copyrightability of APIs (and whether or not repurposing them is fair use). Not surprisingly, as the Solicitor General has been siding with Oracle all along, it suggests that the Supreme Court not hear the case. Of course, it does so by completely misrepresenting what's at stake in the case -- pretending that this is about whether or not software source code is copyright-eligible

[...] Except... that's not what this case is about. Even remotely. Literally no one denies that software source code is subject to copyright. The question is whether or not an Application Programming Interface -- an API -- is subject to copyright. As we've been saying from the beginning, the most frustrating thing about this entire case is that you have non-technically savvy lawyers and judges simply refusing to comprehend that an API is not software. It's not executable code. It's not "source code" for software. An API is a set of specifications for allowing the access of data, an application, or service. It's a "method of operation," which is simply not subject to copyright law. Indeed, back in 1996, the Supreme Court ruled in Lotus v. Borland that a user interface to a computer program is not subject to copyright under Section 102(b) as the interface is a "method of operation."

Whew! At least the .h files in C/C++ would never be considered an API and are thus safe.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

In January, WhatsApp reduced the limit for forwarding content to five users or groups at a time. The feature had been trialled in India last year, in the wake of violence fuelled by rumours spread via the messaging service.

While the researchers didn't have access to private communications, they ran simulations based on the data they gathered from public groups to test the effect of forwarding limits on the spread of content.

They found that the five-forward limit slowed the spread of content by one order of magnitude. For example, if a piece of content would ordinarily take five days to reach an entire network, the limit would slow the spread to 50 days.

This would give fact checkers far more time to verify the truth of a piece of content, says Benevenuto.

But this delay depended on the virality of the content – how likely users are to share an image after seeing it. For highly viral content, the limits weren't effective in preventing it from quickly reaching a large portion of the network.

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217937-whatsapp-restrictions-slow-the-spread-of-fake-news-but-dont-stop-it/

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

Meet the makers of modular – TechCrunch

When Dieter Döpfer, the founder of music instrument manufacturer Doepfer, decided to launch a brand new modular synthesiser system in 1995, no one could have predicted what would follow. Today, his “Eurorack” format supports an ecosystem of hundreds of manufacturers that have collectively produced thousands of compatible modules used by famous musicians, such as Radiohead, Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin, and hobbyists alike.

Fuelled by passion not venture capital, most companies in the Eurorack space are neither startups nor established OEMs. Instead – and quite remarkably – the industry remains a long tail of boutique manufacturers, with some of the best-sellers still operating as one-person shops. Inspired by technology that is almost half a century old, and intentionally designed not to scale, these businesses might well be considered the anti-Crunch.

“My happiness is based on developing, not on the amount of sales,” one Eurorack maker told me, after I promised not to name his company for fear of generating too many new orders. “Of course I really appreciate if someone decides to purchase some modules, then I know my work makes sense, but the current sales amount ensures I have enough time for developing”.

He said that increased sales would lead to less time spent working on new designs and more time assembling modules and answering emails explaining why a particular item is currently out of stock. One solution would be to take on an employee or two but the associated bureaucracy would also be an unwelcome distraction.

“That’s not what I like [doing],” he said, comparing it to a friend who owned a single coffee shop and was happy making great coffee and fine desserts, but had subsequently expanded to three coffee shops and is now unhappy. “He’s thinking about selling two of his coffee shops to get his happiness back. More money does not ensure more happiness,” said the Eurorack maker.

It’s the kind of an existential crisis many founders find themselves facing after a company grows to a certain size, but for the makers of modular the reason for existing is often clear from the start. This is certainly true of Döpfer’s own story.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for FatPhil

315 Billion-Tonne[*] Iceberg Breaks off Antarctica:

The Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica has just produced its biggest iceberg in more than 50 years.

The calved block covers 1,636 sq km in area[**] - a little smaller than Scotland's Isle of Skye - and is called D28.

The scale of the berg means it will have to be monitored and tracked because it could in future pose a hazard to shipping.

Not since the early 1960s has Amery calved a bigger iceberg. That was a whopping 9,000 sq km in area.

Amery is the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, and is a key drainage channel for the east of the continent.

[...] The Scripps researcher [Prof Helen Fricker from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography] stressed that there was no link between this event and climate change. Satellite data since the 1990s has shown that Amery is roughly in balance with its surroundings, despite experiencing strong surface melt in summer.

"While there is much to be concerned about in Antarctica, there is no cause for alarm yet for this particular ice shelf," Prof Fricker added.

[*] Tonne:

The tonne [...] non-SI unit, symbol: t), commonly referred to as the metric ton in the United States and Canada, is a non-SI metric unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms or one megagram (symbol: Mg). It is equivalent to approximately 2,204.6 pounds, 1.102 short tons (US) or 0.984 long tons (UK). Although not part of the SI, the tonne is accepted for use with SI units and prefixes by the International Committee for Weights and Measures.

The tonne is derived from the mass of one cubic metre of pure water; at 4°C one thousand litres of pure water has an absolute mass of one tonne.

[**] 1636 sq. km is approximately 630 sq. miles. By comparison, the District of Columbia is 177 sq. km (68.3 sq. miles) and Rhode Island (the smallest state in the United States) is 4,001 sq. km (1,544 sq. miles). reference

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

Police raid "bulletproof" hosting company run out of former NATO bunker

German officials have shut down a criminal web hosting service that was operating out of a former NATO bunker, according to a report from The Associated Press.

According to the report, investigators tracked down a Dutch man who bought the bunker, based in western Germany, in 2013. The man had allegedly converted the bunker into a so-called "bulletproof" web hosting service, which was then used by illicit marketplaces for weed, synthetic drugs, and hacking tools. Investigators also reportedly linked the hosting service to a botnet attack on Deutsche Telekom.

The AP reports that seven people were arrested at a restaurant near Frankfurt in connection with the investigation, which also included raids that stretched across the Netherlands, Poland, and Luxembourg. Another six people are under investigation, according to the report, and authorities believe all of them are accessories to crimes related to drug distribution and counterfeiting money.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

Court says Tesla and Musk's tweet violated labor laws

Tesla broke labor laws by interfering with legitimate union organizing, among other things, California administrative law judge Amita Baman Tracy has ruled. The automaker apparently committed a number of violations against the National Labor Relations Act in 2017 and 2018, the court decided regarding the complaints filed by the United Auto Workers union. According to Bloomberg and Reuters, one of the violations cited in the filing is a tweet by company chief Elon Musk. In the tweet, he said that there's nothing stopping its car plant employees from organizing, but he also asked: "[W]hy pay union dues [and] give up stock options for nothing[?]"

Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018

Musk's statement was a response to someone asking about the reports that came out last year accusing Tesla of having poor workplace safety and of having an anti-union management. The court said the tweet amounts to threatening employees that they'd be giving up company-paid stock options if they join a union.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Under the right circumstances, Gaussian blurring can make an image seem more clearly defined. [DZL] demonstrates exactly this with a lightweight and compact Gaussian interpolation routine to make the low-resolution thermal sensor data display much better on a small OLED.

[...] used an MLX90640 sensor to create a DIY thermal imager with a small OLED display, but since the sensor is relatively low-resolution at 32×24, displaying the data directly looks awfully blocky. Gaussian interpolation to improve the display looks really good, but it turns out that the full Gaussian interpolation isn’t a trivial calculation write on your own. Since [DZL] wanted to implement it on a microcontroller, the lightweight implementation was born. The project page walks through the details of Gaussian interpolation and how some effective shortcuts were made, so be sure to give it a look.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Researchers have built a new tool to study molecules using a laser, a crystal and light detectors. This new technology will reveal the structures of molecules with increased detail and specificity.

"We live in the molecular world where most things around us are made of molecules: air, foods, drinks, clothes, cells and more. Studying molecules with our new technique could be used in medicine, pharmacy, chemistry, or other fields," said Associate Professor Takuro Ideguchi from the University of Tokyo Institute for Photon Science and Technology.

The new technique combines two current technologies into a unique system called complementary vibrational spectroscopy. All molecules have very small, distinctive vibrations caused by the movement of the atoms' nuclei. Tools called spectrometers detect how those vibrations cause molecules to absorb or scatter light waves. Current spectroscopy techniques are limited by the type of light that they can measure.

The new complementary vibrational spectrometer designed by researchers in Japan can measure a wider spectrum of light, combining the more limited spectra of two other tools, called infrared absorption and Raman scattering spectrometers. Combining the two spectroscopy techniques gives researchers different and complementary information about molecular vibrations.

"We questioned the 'common sense' of this field and developed something new. Raman and infrared spectra can now be measured simultaneously," said Ideguchi.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for FatPhil

Plan to Crush Native Mosquito Population With Gene-Edited Strain Fails

Even the best laid plans can go awry—and one public health initiative in Brazil is a case in point. The project in question involved releasing an army of gene-edited mosquitoes into the wild in order to stop the spread of vector-borne diseases, from yellow fever and dengue to the Zika virus. But instead of depleting the population, the experiment may have made the mosquitoes even stronger.

It was thought that by short-circuiting certain parts of the insect's DNA, researchers could squash the target population's size without affecting its genetics. This is a plan being put to the test in various regions plagued by the disease-riddled bugs—apparently with varying levels of success.

In the case in Brazil, researchers edited strains of Aedes aegypti with a defective gene to limit their fertility—or at the very least ensure any offspring produced would be too weak to progress into adulthood and reproduce themselves. According to researchers writing in Scientific Reports, this particular strain (OX513A) has previously resulted in declines of native Ae. aegypti by 85 percent.

And so, in the largest project of its kind to date, approximately 450,000 male Ae. aegypti OX513A were released every week, starting from June 2013 and ending in September 2015. This weekly event took place at sites across the city of Jacobina in the Brazilian state of Bahia. Theoretically—and if things had gone to plan—levels of disease-carrying mosquitoes in the area should have plummeted afterwards. This was not the case.

Original Submission