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Submission + - US Nuclear Plants Rely on By-product of China, Russia's Nuclear Weapons (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: Close to 13 percent of energy in the U.S. is being produced by nuclear power plants that rely on Lithium-7, which is needed to cool the reactors. Yet, the supply of Lithium-7 may soon be cut. Lithium-7 is a by-product of Lithium-6, which is used in nuclear weapons programs, and the only suppliers of Lithium-7 are China and Russia since the United States halted production in 1963. A report from the Government Accountability Office states that brokers of Lithium-7 told researchers that both China and Russia recently told them they were either having trouble obtaining it, or there were no supplies to sell. A post on Rep. Dan Maffei's (D-NY) website reads, 'Whether this was a temporary disruption or a pattern of future supply shortages is still unclear, but the potential of future Lithium-7 supply problems is apparent.'

Submission + - Torvalds: SteamOS will "really help" Linux on desktop (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: Linus Torvalds has welcomed the arrival of Valve’s Linux-based platform, SteamOS, and said it could boost Linux on desktops. The Linux creator praised Valve's "vision" and suggested its momentum would force other manufacturers to take Linux seriously — especially if game developers start to ditch Windows. Should SteamOS gain traction among gamers and developers, that could force more hardware manufacturers to extend driver support beyond Windows.

That's a sore point for Torvalds, who slammed Nvidia last year for failing to support open-source driver development for its graphics chips. Now that SteamOS is on the way, Nvidia has opened up to the Linux community, something Torvalds predicts is a sign of things to come. "I’m not just saying it’ll help us get traction with the graphics guys," he said. "It’ll also force different distributors to realise if this is how Steam is going, they need to do the same thing because they can’t afford to be different in this respect. They want people to play games on their platform too."

Submission + - Court Rules Probable-Cause Warrant Required for GPS Trackers (wired.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: An appellate court has finally supplied an answer to an open question left dangling by the Supreme Court in 2012: Do law enforcement agencies need a probable-cause warrant to affix a GPS tracker to a target’s vehicle? The justices said the government’s statement “wags the dog rather vigorously,” noting that the primary reason for a search cannot be to generate evidence for law enforcement purposes. They also noted that “Generally speaking, a warrantless search is not rendered reasonable merely because probable cause existed that would have justified the issuance of a warrant.” The justices also rejected the government’s argument that obtaining a warrant would impede the ability of law enforcement to investigate crimes.

Comment Pros and cons of cooperating (Score 2) 871

by jjp9999 (#45061009) Attached to: Bennett Haselton's Response To That "Don't Talk to Cops" Video

I've never been interrogated, but once when I was 20 there was a string of robberies in my neighborhood and apparently the small-town neighborhood called in two detectives from New York to investigate (it was a pretty wealthy neighborhood in New Jersey). They pulled me over on my bike at like 2 in the morning and started questioning me (trying to do the good cop, bad cop). When they asked to search my backpack, I told them I didn't think they had probable cause. Then I told them that if they weren't going to arrest me I was going to go home, so I left and they couldn't do anything about it.

I didn't do anything wrong. My belief was that it's important that every person upholds their rights, otherwise we risk losing them. But my refusal to cooperate apparently started an in-depth investigation on me. I was told by a guy who had been arrested that police showed him a picture of me on my way to work and asked him what they knew about me. If I had done something wrong, they probably would have found it.

It's fine to not cooperate with the police, but take note that if you refuse to cooperate it will make them suspicious of you.

On that note, by brother is a sheriff. He tells me that police will usually let you off if you're honest with them, since so few people are honest with them. I've gotten off for speeding on multiple occasions by just being honest with the police.

Submission + - Cyberattacks Hide Chinese Spies Inside US Companies (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by BioTitan
BioTitan writes: The advanced cyberattacks coming out of China may also be covering the tracks of insider spies. If an insider steals information from a network, hackers will launch a cyberattack against the same network to make it look like it was stolen by the cyberattack and prevent an investigation that could catch the spy. Jarrett Kolthoff, president of SpearTip and a former special agent in U.S. Army counterintelligence, told Epoch Times the technique is standard operation in Chinese espionage. He said they’ll 'use other means as a ruse to make it show that the information was collected through maybe zero-day malware, or through some other means or methodology, so that the bad insider is never identified and that insider can continue to collect.' Gang Liu, a former vice president at Morgan Stanley and a former leader of China’s Tienanmen Square student movement, explained it simply. He said the thinking in Chinese espionage is if you want to steal something, 'just put someone else’s fingerprints on it, and they’ll chase someone else.'

Submission + - BlackBerry Confirms 4,500 Job Cuts, Warns of $950 Million Loss (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today BlackBerry announced that it expects its quarterly net operating losses to be somewhere between $950 million and $995 million. It also confirmed earlier reports that it would be cutting 4,500 jobs, roughly 40% of its total workforce. 'The loss is mainly the result of a write-off of unsold BlackBerry phones, as well as $72 million in restructuring charges. The company said that it would discontinue two of the six phones it currently offers.' According to the press release BlackBerry is going to 'refocus on enterprise and prosumer market.' 'The failure of the BlackBerry 10 line of phones quickly led to speculation that the company, like Palm before it, would be broken apart and perhaps gradually disappear, at best lingering as little more than a brand name.'

Submission + - US killer robot policy: Full speed ahead (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Princeton's Mark Gubrud has an excellent piece on the United States killer robot policy. In 2012, without much fanfare, the US announced the world's first openly declared national policy for killer robots. That policy has been widely misperceived as one of caution, according to Gubrud: 'A careful reading of the directive finds that it lists some broad and imprecise criteria and requires senior officials to certify that these criteria have been met if systems are intended to target and kill people by machine decision alone. But it fully supports developing, testing, and using the technology, without delay. Far from applying the brakes, the policy in effect overrides longstanding resistance within the military, establishes a framework for managing legal, ethical, and technical concerns, and signals to developers and vendors that the Pentagon is serious about autonomous weapons.' Excellent read.

Submission + - USAF almost nuked North Carolina in 1961 – declassified document (theguardian.com) 1

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.

Submission + - Can Conscious Intention Affect Quantum Events? (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: The role of consciousness in quantum measurement has been debated since the early days of quantum mechanics, but few experiments have been done that actively test the role of conscious intent in the process. Dean Radin and colleagues performed a series of experiments that tested whether attempts to mentally influence a quantum measurement would make a difference in the interference pattern in a double-slit apparatus. Participants were indeed able to do so—the effects are highly statistically significant, demonstrating that conscious intent can influence interference patterns, and thus quantum events. Furthermore, participants with meditation experience were particularly good at creating the effect, while those without meditation experience did not influence the measurements, on average.

Submission + - Anonymous: Without the media we would cease to exist (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Anonymous is a difficult concept to grasp. It is a group which exists almost exclusively online. It has no specific goal. It has no set membership. It has no leaders. It has no hierarchy. Yet it has been named one of Times Most Influential in 2012 and has become front page news around the world. However, as a prominent UK member of Anonymous tells IBTimes UK, without this media interest the group simply wouldn't exist. “A lot of the power of Anonymous comes from what the media grants it. If the media paid slightly more attention to more important issues, or less sensationalist [stories] they would probably pay Anonymous a lot less attention.”

Submission + - Chinese Telecom Leverages Firefox for Image of Privacy (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by BioTitan
BioTitan writes: The U.S. House Intelligence Committee warned last year that doing business with Chinese telecoms ZTE and Huawei can threaten a company and its users—both in terms of privacy and intellectual property. The concern was that both companies have internal committees run by the Chinese government, and neither would explain the function of those committees. Yet, with the new ZTE Open Firefox OS phone, ZTE has dodged criticism through the established credibility of Firefox. A Mozilla spokesperson told Epoch Times they are aware of the warnings, saying "We will continue to keep the cautions articulated by the Committee in mind when we evaluate all of our mobile ecosystem partners. If we learn of specific information that would impact Firefox OS we will respond accordingly."

Submission + - Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years (wsj.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Pfc. Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison Wednesday, the culmination of a trial that posed tough questions about the balance between government secrecy and national security.

Pfc. Manning was facing a maximum 90-year sentence. The prosecution had asked for 60 years and the defense no more than 25.

After an eight-week court-martial, Pfc. Manning was convicted in July of espionage for downloading volumes of classified military and diplomatic information that he handed to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks for public release. The presiding judge, Col. Denise Lind, rejected the U.S. government's most serious charge—aiding the enemy—which could have led to a much harsher sentence.

Pfc. Manning, 25 years old, won international notice after his May 2010 arrest at a U.S. military base in Iraq. Supporters, including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, hailed Pfc. Manning as a heroic whistleblower who risked his own freedom in an attempt to rouse opposition to American foreign policy and its "war on terror."

The prosecution cast Pfc. Manning as a low-level military analyst who recklessly released classified information that could be used against American troops and their allies around the world.

During the court-martial, Pfc. Manning defended his decision to release the information as an effort to spark a broad debate about American foreign policy. Last week, in a final appeal for leniency, he issued a public apology and cast himself as a misguided young soldier who didn't realize that his actions would hurt the U.S.

"I look back on my decisions and wonder how on earth could I, a junior analyst, possibly believe I could change the world for the better," he told the judge

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