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Windows 10 is Installing Office Web Apps Without Asking Permission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Windows 10 is installing Office web apps without asking permission:

Mandatory Windows 10 updates aren't new, but the latest example is raising a few hackles. ZDNet, The Verge and users are reporting that Windows 10 is force-restarting PCs to install links to Office web apps that launch in Edge, including in the Start menu. And despite initial reports, this isn't limited to Insider members — people using standard Windows 10 releases have seen the change as well.

The apps take up no storage or other resources. Until now, though, installing Office web apps was optional. Windows isn't asking for your permission, let alone informing you of what's about to happen. Microsoft is potentially disrupting work or other important tasks to promote its online productivity suite.

We've asked Microsoft for comment.

Microsoft Just Force Restarted My Windows PC Again to Install More Unwanted Apps

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Microsoft just force restarted my Windows PC again to install more unwanted apps:

Windows 10 restarted my computer without permission yet again — to install unsolicited web app versions of Microsoft Office, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook on my computer.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Smile!

3TB of clips from hacked home security cameras posted online:

As of 2019, there were over 770 million security cameras around the world, and when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, in total, there are over 28 billion IoT devices currently connected to the Internet.

While security cameras play a vital role in remotely monitoring children, the elderly, and pets, etc., they are also a lucrative target for cybercriminals especially when a huge number of these devices are known to be vulnerable and exposed to public access.

Keeping that in mind; it has been reported that cybercriminals were able to hack thousands of home Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, record live footage, and upload them on explicit and x-rated websites.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

10,000-year-old footprints show journey of squirmy toddler and caregiver:

More than 10,000 years ago on the playa of what is now New Mexico, a woman on a journey set down the toddler she was carrying on her hip, readjusted, then picked up the child and set off again.

[...] During the journey, the adult — probably a woman, though possibly an adolescent male — came in close proximity to a giant sloth and a woolly mammoth, the trackway reveals.

[...] "It's giving us these amazing snapshots in time," said Sally Reynolds, a paleontologist at Bournemouth University in the U.K. and the senior author of a new paper on the tracks published online ahead of its print publication in the December issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

[...] Excavations revealed fossilized footprints just below the loose white gypsum sand. These tracks were originally made on wet ground. As the water evaporated, it left behind the minerals dolomite and calcite, which created rocky molds of the footprints.

The tracks run north/northwest in a straight line in one direction before disappearing into the dunes. Next to them are the remains of the return south/southwest return journey, which appears to have been made by the same person, judging by the size of the footprints and the stride length.

Along the way, the adult tracks are sometimes accompanied by the footprints of a child under 3 years old. Northbound, the adult tracks are a little asymmetrical, evocative of a woman holding a child on one hip. At times, the child's footprints appear, perhaps during rest breaks when the adult put the squirmy toddler down. There are no child footprints on the return southbound journey, suggesting that perhaps the trip was taken in order to drop off the child somewhere.

Journal Reference:
Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Daniel Odess, et al. Walking in mud: Remarkable Pleistocene human trackways from White Sands National Park (New Mexico), Quaternary Science Reviews (DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106610)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement

"The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including 'but not limited to' seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit."

[...] A company put an end user license agreement (EULA) on a bag of grapes: "The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including 'but not limited to' seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit," read the EULA

[...] This kind of warning against reproduction is something we're used to with digital products like video games, but is jarring to see spread to the world of consumer produce.

[...] In the broader world of agriculture, however, there's actually quite a lot of precedent for this. And patented seeds with specific restrictions is a constant sore point for farmers. Agriculture giant Monsanto has patented a whole host of proprietary seeds that are weed- and insect-resistant, and threatens to sue farmers who harvest and replant them from year-to-year. In fact, the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.

[...] The grape situation is a little bit different. With Monsanto's seeds, farmers are purchasing them directly from the manufacturer (or a licensed seller). With Cotton Candy grapes, an end-user (uhh, grape eater) did not plant or grow the seeds and is merely purchasing the fruit at the store. They are not purchasing the grapes (and thus the seeds) directly from the manufacturer or the farmer who grew them, they are buying it from a grocery store. The seeds have thus been re-sold several times.

Red Grapes? Or Green Grapes? Not unlike the color choices of Soylent.
_{See Also, patenting recipies: [1], [2]}

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Strangely Behaving Red Supergiant Betelgeuse Smaller and Closer Than First Thought:

"It's normally one of the brightest stars in the sky, but we've observed two drops in the brightness of Betelgeuse since late 2019," [Dr. Meridith Joyce from The Australian National University (ANU)] said.

[...] "We know the first dimming event involved a dust cloud. We found the second smaller event was likely due to the pulsations of the star."

[...] According to co-author Dr. Shing-Chi Leung from The University of Tokyo, the analysis "confirmed that pressure waves — essentially, sound waves-were the cause of Betelgeuse's pulsation."

"It's burning helium in its core at the moment, which means it's nowhere near exploding," Dr. Joyce said.

[...] Co-author Dr. László Molnár from the Konkoly Observatory?in Budapest says the study also revealed how big Betelgeuse is, and its distance from Earth.

"The actual physical size of Betelgeuse has been a bit of a mystery — earlier studies suggested it could be bigger than the orbit of Jupiter. Our results say Betelgeuse only extends out to two thirds of that, with a radius 750 times the radius of the sun," Dr. Molnár said.

"Once we had the physical size of the star, we were able to determine the distance from Earth. Our results show it's a mere 530 light years from us — 25 percent closer than previously thought."

The good news is Betelgeuse is still too far from Earth for the eventual explosion to have a significant impact here.

Journal Reference:
Meridith Joyce, Shing-Chi Leung, László Molnár, et al. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: New Mass and Distance Estimates for Betelgeuse through Combined Evolutionary, Asteroseismic, and Hydrodynamic Simulations with MESA - IOPscience, The Astrophysical Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abb8db)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Touch-and-go: US spacecraft sampling asteroid for return:

After almost two years circling an ancient asteroid hundreds of millions of miles away, a NASA spacecraft this week will attempt to descend to the treacherous, boulder-packed surface and snatch a handful of rubble.

The drama unfolds Tuesday as the U.S. takes its first crack at collecting asteroid samples for return to Earth, a feat accomplished so far only by Japan.

Brimming with names inspired by Egyptian mythology, the Osiris-Rex mission is looking to bring back at least 2 ounces (60 grams) worth of asteroid Bennu, the biggest otherworldly haul from beyond the moon.

The van-sized spacecraft is aiming for the relatively flat middle of a tennis court-sized crater named Nightingale—a spot comparable to a few parking places here on Earth. Boulders as big as buildings loom over the targeted touchdown zone.

[...] Once it drops out of its half-mile-high (0.75 kilometer-high) orbit around Bennu, the spacecraft will take a deliberate four hours to make it all the way down, to just above the surface.

Then the action cranks up when Osiris-Rex's 11-foot (3.4-meter) arm reaches out and touches Bennu. Contact should last five to 10 seconds, just long enough to shoot out pressurized nitrogen gas and suck up the churned dirt and gravel. Programmed in advance, the spacecraft will operate autonomously during the unprecedented touch-and-go maneuver. With an 18-minute lag in radio communication each way, ground controllers for spacecraft builder Lockheed Martin near Denver can't intervene.

If the first attempt doesn't work, Osiris-Rex can try again. Any collected samples won't reach Earth until 2023.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Enterprise Solutions Provider 'Software AG' Hit by Clop Ransomware:

German enterprise solutions giant Software AG revealed last week that it had been targeted by cybercriminals with the Clop ransomware.

[...] The company said its helpdesk services and internal communications were impacted, but claimed that cloud-based services were not affected and that it found no evidence of customer information being compromised.

However, in an update shared on October 8, the company said the malware had not been fully contained and it had found evidence that the attackers did in fact download data from servers and employee notebooks.

Researchers at MalwareHunterTeam said on Saturday that the attack involved the Clop ransomware, and they noticed what appeared to be a new feature — the use of wevtutil.exe to clear event logs. They also noted that the sample that hit Software AG checked for the presence of McAfee software and attempted to uninstall it, but it's unclear if the attackers somehow learned that the target was using McAfee products or if this functionality was added to the malware for a different target.

[...] Screenshots posted by the hackers show that they have obtained tens of gigabytes of data representing more than one million files. They appear to have obtained passport copies, invoices, and emails.

Bleeping Computer has learned from the Clop payment page associated with Software AG that the attackers have asked for more than 2,000 bitcoin, which is roughly $23 million.

(Emphasis retained from original.)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Japan reportedly decides to release treated Fukushima water into the sea:

Japan will release more than a million tons of treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea in a decades-long operation, reports said Friday, despite strong opposition from environmentalists, local fishermen and farmers. The release of the water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, is likely to start in 2022 at the earliest, said national dailies the Nikkei, the Yomiuri, and other local media.

The decision ends years of debate over how to dispose of the liquid that includes water used to cool the power station after it was hit by a massive tsunami in 2011.

[...] There are around 1.23 million tons of waste water stored in tanks at the facility, according to plant operator TEPCO, which also declined to comment on the reports.

[...] Environmental activists have expressed strong opposition to the proposals, and fishermen and farmers have voiced fear that consumers will shun seafood and produce from the region.

[...] A decision has been getting increasingly urgent as space to store the water -- which also includes groundwater and rain that seeps daily into the plant -- is running out.

Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed by an extensive filtration process -- but one remains, tritium. It can't be removed with existing technology.

[...] Tritium is only harmful to humans in very large doses, experts say. The International Atomic Energy Agency argues that properly filtered water could be diluted with seawater and then safely released into the ocean.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

New Smallest Time Measurement: How Long It Takes a Photon to Cross a Hydrogen Molecule

[Atomic] physicists at Goethe University led by Professor Reinhard Dörner have calculated a process that is shorter than femtoseconds for the first time ever: the measurement of how long it takes for a photon to cross a hydrogen molecule.

This is the shortest timespan that has ever been measured and amounts to about 247 zeptoseconds (a trillionth of a billionth of a second, or 10^-21 seconds). To achieve this, the scientists irradiated a hydrogen molecule with X-rays from the X-ray laser source PETRA III at the Hamburg accelerator facility DESY. They set it up so that one photon was sufficient to eject both electrons out of the hydrogen molecule.

The scientists then calculated the interference pattern of the first ejected electron using the COLTRIMS reaction microscope. This apparatus was developed partially by Dörner and it makes the super speedy reaction processes in atoms and molecules visible.

Zeptosecond birth time delay in molecular photoionization (DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9318) (DX)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-announce&m=160303500224235&w=2

October 18, 2020.

We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 6.8. This day marks the OpenBSD project's 25th anniversary. As we celebrate our 49th release, we remain proud of OpenBSD's record of more than twenty years with only two remote holes in the default install.

As in our previous releases, 6.8 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system:

• New/extended platforms[...]
• Improvements to time measurements, mostly in the kernel[...]
• Various kernel improvements[...]
• Various new userland features[...]
• Various bugfixes and tweaks in userland[...]
• Improved hardware support and driver bugfixes, including[...]
• New or improved network hardware support[...]
• Added or improved wireless network drivers[...]
• New arm64 and armv7 hardware support and bugfixes, including[...]
• IEEE 802.11 wireless stack improvements and bugfixes[...]
• Generic network stack improvements and bugfixes[...]
• Installer improvements[...]
• Improvements in the FFS2 filesystem[...]
• Security improvements[...]
• Routing daemons and other userland network improvements[...]
• ipsec(4) (and related userland programs) improvements and bugfixes[...]
• tmux(1) improvements and bug fixes[...]
• VMM/VMD and ldom/sparc64 virtualization improvements
• OpenSMTPD 6.8.0
• LibreSSL 3.2.2
• OpenSSH 8.4
• Ports and packages

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

The Orionid meteor shower peaks this week! Here's what to expect.

This year,

Orionid visibility extends from Oct. 16 to Oct. 26, with peak activity of perhaps 15 to 30 meteors per hour coming on the morning of Oct. 21. Step outside before sunrise on any of these mornings and if you catch sight of a meteor, there's about a 75% chance that it likely is a byproduct of Halley's Comet. The very last Orionid stragglers usually appear sometime in early to mid-November.

The best time to watch begins from about 1 or 2 a.m. local daylight time until the first light of dawn (at around 5:45 a.m.), when Orion stands highest above the southern horizon. The higher in the sky Orion is, the more meteors appear all over the sky. The Orionids are one of just a handful of known meteor showers that can be observed equally well from both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Orionid meteors are normally dim and not well seen from urban locations, so it's suggested that you find a safe rural location to see the best Orionid activity.

The Orionid meteor shower is an annual occurrence comprised of detritus from Haley's comet. With the moon only a slender crescent this will be a good year to watch them.

The name refers to the fact that the meteors radiate from just above Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion.

Previous Coverage
Orionid Meteor Shower (2015)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Engineer Creates Real-Life 'Star Wars' Lightsaber That Can Slice Through Metal:

Engineer and YouTube personality James Hobson has finally done what so many movie nerds before him have dreamed about: He created a functional — and potentially deadly — lightsaber fit for a real Jedi.

[...] "Well, theories say that plasma is best held in a beam by a magnetic field, which, scientifically, checks out," he continues. "The issue is producing a strong enough electromagnetic field to contain a blade, well the lightsaber would have to be quite literally built inside a box coated in electromagnets, which turns it into a kind of useless science project."

In order to capture a beam of plasma, Hobson and his teammates, Dave Bonhoff, Ian Hillier and Darryl Sherk, employed the principle of "laminar flow" — combining liquified petroleum gas, or propane, with oxygen and sending them through "laminar nozzles," a specialized tool for engineers, which generates a highly concentrated flow of gas to create a plasma beam, according to Hobson.

[...] The result is a near-replica of a lightsaber that projects and retracts on command, and burns at 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to slice through steel.

[...] And it's got a price tag to match its heat level: Just one of those laminar nozzles can cost some $4,000.

Just wait until Elon Not-A-Flamethrower Musk tries to out-do this!

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Eel effects: fears after release of exotic species into New York lake:

New York state and city wildlife officials say it is too soon to know what effect a dump of exotic eels into a lake in a park in Brooklyn last month will have on local species – but it could become a major problem.

[...] The illegal release became a curiosity on social media, but the dumping of exotic animals in urban parks is nothing new. Across the US, non-native birds, turtles, fish and lizards have settled into, and often disturbed, local ecosystems. New Yorkers free thousands of non-native animals every year. Many abandoned pets quickly die but others can survive, reproduce and cause lasting harm.

Based on photos taken by bystanders, officials identified the eels in Prospect Park as swamp eels native to south-east Asia, which have been found in at least eight US states. Once introduced, often after being purchased at live fish markets, the eels eat almost anything including plants, insects, crustaceans, frogs, turtles and other fish. In Brooklyn, they could prey upon or compete with the park's native species for however long they survive, said Katrina Toal, deputy director of the New York City parks department's wildlife unit.

But there are no plans to eradicate the eels, which are nocturnal and spend most of their time burrowed in the sediment of lakes, rivers and marshes.

"This kind of species is a little tricky. They're well hidden," Toal said. "We're not going to go out there and try to trap any of them."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://9to5linux.com/systemrescuecd-changes-its-name-to-systemrescue-after-more-than-16-years

Due to the name change, SystemRescue now also has a new website address at https://www.system-rescue.org, where you can learn everything there is to know about this distro and also to download the latest release.

The full list of packages included in version 7.00 can be found here. The system rescue and recovery distro remains based on the famous Arch Linux distribution, it's available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, and ships with the latest Xfce 4.14 desktop environment by default.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

This is what "war in space" probably would look like in the near future:

The creation of the US Space Force has conjured up all manner of fanciful notions about combat in space. Will military satellites act like X-wings and Tie Fighters, zipping around and shooting at one another? Or perhaps will larger ships akin to the USS Enterprise fire photon torpedoes at enemy warbirds?

Hardly. But even those with more realistic expectations for what could happen if nations went to war in space—perhaps satellites using orbital kinetic weapons to attack other satellites?—may not fully appreciate the physics of space combat. That's the conclusion of a new report that investigates what is physically and practically possible when it comes to space combat.

Published by The Aerospace Corporation, The Physics of Space War: How Orbital Dynamics Constrain Space-to-Space Engagements lays out several basic concepts that are likely to govern any space combat for the foreseeable future. All of the physical constraints suggest battles will need to be planned far in advance.

Original Submission