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Submission + - FCC Confirms Delay Of New Net Neutrality Rules Until 2015

Submitted by blottsie
blottsie writes: The Federal Communications Commission will abandon its earlier promise to make a decision on new net neutrality rules this year. Instead, FCC Press Secretary Kim Hart said, "there will not be a vote on open internet rules on the December meeting agenda. That would mean rules would now be finalized in 2015."

The FCC's confirmation of the delay came just as President Barack Obama launched a campaign to persuade the agency to reclassify broadband Internet service as a public utility.

Comment Ridiculous (Score 1) 1

by apraetor (#48338179) Attached to: Shady car dealers install secret GPS trackers.
That's a completely baseless accusation. The dealership basically requires that persons with bad credit must sign a form consenting to the GPS locators (and many dealers include ignition interlocks, too). That's perfectly legal. The GPS might have let the cops figure out where he was hiding, but it had nothing to do with how they actually identified him as a suspect; evidence was found linking him to the crime, then cops found out his vehicle had tracking, THEN the GPS was used to find him. I do, however, think that they should have to give you an in-car display that tells you how often the GPS has been activated -- to help prevent use of the GPS for purposes other than repossession or whatever.

Comment How is a fluff piece actual news? (Score 0) 35

by apraetor (#48314215) Attached to: Michelle Sleeper Creates 'Gaming, Comics, and Pop Culture Based Props'
There are countless people across the world making knock-off props (both theatrical AND nautical, as if you'd mistake the two...) and the quality can vary wildly. The stuff she shows in the video looks OK, but that just means she knows how to download a 3D model from the internet and print it. People who make really good copies of famous paintings are still artists, and it's only forgery if you try to pass off the dupe as original content; so while the question of whether she's stealing IP is in the air.. I guess she's an artist *if* she make the models herself, which isn't clarified in the video. Regardless, her products are derivative -- I would expect that she either had some novel take on prop-making, or made them from trash/scrap metal/something unique, or designed her own props from scratch instead of copying pop culture items, for her to be featured on /. -- and this "article" must have a reason for being posted which isn't apparent.

Submission + - Car thieves and insurers vote on keyless car security

Submitted by RockDoctor
RockDoctor writes: The BBC are reporting that Britain's car thieves, rapidly followed by Britain's car insurance companies, have been expressing their opinions on the security of keyless car entry and/or control systems. The thieves are happy to steal them (often using equipment intended for dealer maintenance of the vehicles) and in consequence the insurance companies are refusing to insure such vehicles (or to accept new policies on such vehicles) unless they are parked overnight in underground (or otherwise secured) car parks.

So, I guess I won't be considering buying one of those for another generation. If ever.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Unlimited Data Plan for Seniors? 1

Submitted by hejman08
hejman08 writes: I am having an issue with my grandmother who, like many of us, has discovered the wonders one can experience by browsing the internet while pooping. She is on her own plan through Verizon with 1GB of data, and she literally blows through it in 3 days or less every month, then complains about having nothing to do. They have WiFi at her senior center, but only in specific rooms, and she has bad ankles and knees so she wants to stay home. Internet service would cost 80 a month to add where she lives. What I am wondering, is if any of the genius slashdotters out there know of a plan that- regardless of cost of phone, which we could manage as a gift to her, once- would allow her to have at least 300 minutes, 250 texts, and truly unlimited data (as in none of that Unlimited* stuff that is out there where they drop you to caveman speeds within a gig of usage), all for the price of less than say, 65 a month? The big 4 carriers don't seem to have anything that would work for her.

Submission + - ISPs Violating Net Neutrality, Blocking Encryption And Putting Users At Risk (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: In July, VPN provider Golden Frog (creators of the VyprVPN service) debuted front and center in the debate over net neutrality. One of their customers, Colin Nederkoorn, published a video showing how switching to VyprVPN increased his network performance by a factor of 10 on Verizon while streaming Netflix. Now, Golden Frog has filed a brief with the FCC, discussing both this incident and another, more troubling problem for security advocates — the detection of ISPs performing man-in-the-middle attacks against their own customers. According to information cited in the briefing, one wireless provider was caught blocking the use of STARTTLS encryption. STARTTLS is used to encrypt traffic sent over SMTP — email, in other words. Because an email from Point A to Point Z may travel through a number of unsecured routers to reach its final destination, unencrypted email is intrinsically insecure. STARTTLS was developed to mitigate this problem. What Golden Frog documented was the interception and modification of multiple requests to begin using STARTTLS into an entirely different set of commands, thereby preventing the encrypted link from ever being established. The problem of overwritten encryption is potentially far more serious than an issue of Netflix throttling, even if the latter tapped consumer discontent more readily.

Submission + - Who's in charge during the Ebola crisis? (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Epidemics test the leadership skills of politicians and medical infrastructures, which is clear as this article goes through the different ways West African countries have dealt with the Ebola crisis. Now that fears are spreading about a US outbreak (highly unlikely, as this article points out), it may be time to look at the US medical infrastructure, which, of course, in many ways is far superior to those West African countries where the virus has spread. But there is an interesting twist to how disease outbreaks are handled in the US: 'The US Constitution—written approximately 100 years before the germ theory of disease was proven by French chemist Louis Pasteur and German physician Robert Koch—places responsibility for public health squarely on the shoulders of local and state political leaders...one could argue that the United States is hobbled by an outdated constitution in responding to epidemics. State and local jurisdictions vary tremendously in their public health capabilities.'

Submission + - NSA To Scientists: We Won't Tell You What We've Told You, That's Classified (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: One of the downsides to the news cycle is that no matter how big or hot a story is, something else inevitably comes along. The advent of ISIS and Ebola, combined with the passing of time, have pushed national security concerns out of the limelight — until, that is, someone at the NSA helps out by reminding us that yes, the agency still exists and yes, it still has some insane policies and restrictions. Earlier this year, the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the NSA. The group was seeking information it thought would be relatively low-key — what authorized information had been leaked to the media over the past 12 months? The NSA's response reads as follows: "The document responsive to your request has been reviewed by this Agency as required by the FOIA and has been found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526. The document is classified because its disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security." The NSA is insisting that it has the right to keep its lawful compliance and public disclosures secret not because the NSA is made of evil people but because the NSA has a knee-jerk preference and demand for secrecy. In a spy organization, that's understandable and admirable but it's precisely the opposite of what's needed to rebuild American's faith in the institution and it's judgment.

Comment Left out the key element (Score 1) 1

by apraetor (#48114961) Attached to: Sonic.net implements DNSSEC, performs MITM against customers.
Sonic.net is providing alternate DNS servers that don't implement the blacklist, so the fact they have blacklisted ones using a MITM isn't the real story; the really horrible part is that the blacklisting servers are DNSSEC, but Sonic.net makes a point of warning any would-be opt-outers that their uncensored servers do not support DNSSEC.

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