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Submission + - At Least 100,000 Private Snapchat Photos and Videos Released by Hackers (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by parallel_prankster
parallel_prankster writes: A giant database of intercepted Snapchat photos and videos has been released by hackers who have been collecting the files for years.Underground photo-trading chat rooms have been filled in recent weeks with hints that something big was coming. Thursday night it finally arrived: A third-party Snapchat client app has been collecting every single photo and video file sent through it for years, giving hackers access to a 13GB library of Snapchats that users thought had been deleted.Users of 4chan have downloaded the files and are creating a searchable database that will allow people to search the stolen images by Snapchat username.

Submission + - Snapchat Says Users Were Victimized By Their Use of Third-Party Apps (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Reports that the servers of photo messaging site Snapchat were hacked are being denied by the company, which is now is saying its users were instead victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps. Hackers on 4chan have said broke into the site and they're preparing to release 200,000 photos or videos in their own database that will be searchable by Snapchatter name. According to one report, the third-party Snapchat client app enabled access for years to the data that was supposed have been deleted. The hackers have said they have a 13GB photo library. For its part, Snapchat in a statement reiterated its Terms of Use Policy, that "expressly prohibits" third-party app use "because they compromise our users' security."

Submission + - Great Ted Talk about Privacy (ted.com)

Submitted by gurps_npc
gurps_npc writes: Glenn Greenwald gave a great TED talk about why privacy matters.

The basic argument he gave against the standard "Only bad people need to worry about privacy", is that we don't live in a black and white world, there are shades of gray. The absence of privacy forces everyone to avoid the gray area, resulting in a society conforming to it's culturally accepted behavior. Not only does this prevent totally legal actions that are too close to the gray line (i.e. taking pictures of your own children wearing bathing suits), but that it also prevents society from evolving and growing. That is, no one tries marijuana out of fear of getting caught, so no one ever realizes it is harmless and in fact has health benefits.

He points out that because shades of gray exist, EVERYONE has something to hide and requests you give him all your email addresses if you think you don't have something to hide. No one has ever taken him up on the offer.

Finally, he talks a bit about Snowden, providing some great thoughts on the controversy.

Submission + - Cold fusion reactor verified by third-party researchers 2

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: ExtremeTech reports that "Andrea Rossi's E-Cat — the device that purports to use cold fusion to generate massive amounts of cheap, green energy — has been verified by third-party researchers, according to a new 54-page report. The researchers observed a small E-Cat over 32 days, where it produced net energy of 1.5 megawatt-hours, or "far more than can be obtained from any known chemical sources in the small reactor volume." The researchers were also allowed to analyze the fuel before and after the 32-day run, noting that the isotopes in the spent fuel could only have been obtained by "nuclear reactions"..."

Comment Re:Or you could just... (Score 1) 43

Yes but - seems that the color would be more immersive.

My Dad simply put a small lamp with a "10W" nightlight bulb behind his TV that turns on/off through the aux power port on the TV box. The room is pretty dark - even during the day. So this light actually makes it more comfortable to watch TV. I did something similar in my house too.

A simple light - that changes color. That goes to 10. That cool DIY in the link - goes to 11.

Submission + - Google hires camel for desert Street View (cnn.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: t's given us robot cars and internet-enabled glasses — but when it came to creating a "Street View" of a desert, Google hit on a low-tech solution.

It hired a camel.

The beast has become the first animal to carry Google's Trekker camera, which is typically hoisted by humans to capture 360-degree images of destinations inaccessible to its Street View cars.

Google spokeswoman Monica Baz says the camel, reportedly named Raffia, was an apt way of documenting the beautiful shifting sands of Abu Dhabi's Liwa Oasis.

"With every environment and every location, we try to customize the capture and how we do it for that part of the environment," she told The National newspaper.

"In the case of Liwa we fashioned it in a way so that it goes on a camel so that it can capture imagery in the best, most authentic and least damaging way," Baz said.

The Liwa Oasis is a 100 kilometer-wide (62-mile) scenic desert, southeast of the city of Abu Dhabi that includes some of the world's biggest sand dunes.

Submission + - Multitasking Damages Your Brain And Career (forbes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: You’ve likely heard that multitasking is problematic, but new studies show that it kills your performance and may even damage your brain.

Research conducted at Stanford University found that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers also found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information cannot pay attention, recall information, or switch from one job to another as well as those who complete one task at a time.

A Special Skill?

But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers—those who multitask a lot and feel that it boosts their performance—were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower at switching from one task to another. Ouch.

Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance because your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once, your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.

Comment Re:Buy elsewhere (Score 1) 4

A couple of choices (been on both ends of this)
  1) hold back on monthly subscription/service fees
  2) threaten to sue (need to have proof that it is costing you money - angle is violation of contract)
  3) Escalate within your management - let the CTO/CEOs talk to each other.

Yeah - maybe you recommended them and you've learned since then. Don't hide it because somebody will find out soon enough. Be proactive and get internal help figuring out how to solve the problem. Always be professional - you can let them know you are unlikely to buy again but don't needle them on this point. Get a few demos from competitors in the meantime.

If you paid for something and didn't receive it - you have an out. However, if this was some optional component that they were going to develop - then your learning is for next time - get the full demo. I think you are unlikely to get money back to cover your costs - unless it is big (take the CA govt vs Oracle).

As for talking to your management, make sure you can word the conversation in terms of a business case. Talk about how this is costing the business money (with numbers), how the business isn't able to achieve some growth (holding you back).

Submission + - The Greatest Keyboard Ever Made

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Adi Robertson writes at The Verge that next year, IBM's Model M keyboard turns 30 but to many people, it’s still the only keyboard worth using. Introduced in 1985 as part of the IBM 3161 terminal, the Model M was initially called the "IBM Enhanced Keyboard." A PC-compatible version appeared the following spring, and it officially became standard with the IBM Personal System / 2 in 1987. The layout of the Model M has been around so long that today it’s simply taken for granted but the keyboard’s descendents have jettisoned one of the Model M’s most iconic features — "buckling springs," designed to provide auditory and tactile feedback to the keyboard operator. "Model M owners sometimes ruefully post stories of spouses and coworkers who can’t stand the incessant chatter. But fans say the springs’ resistance and their audible "click" make it clear when a keypress is registered, reducing errors," writes Robertson. "Maybe more importantly, typing on the Model M is a special, tangible experience. Much like on a typewriter, the sharp click gives every letter a physical presence."

According to Robertson, the Model M is an artifact from a time when high-end computing was still the province of industry, not pleasure. But while today's manufacturers have long since abandoned the concept of durability and longevity, refurbished Model M's are still available from aficionados like Brandon Ermita, a Princeton University IT manager who recovers them from supply depots and recycling centers and sells them through his site, ClickyKeyboards. "For the very few that still appreciate the tactile feel of a typewriter-based computer keyboard and can still appreciate the simplicity of black letters on white keys, one can still seek out and own an original IBM model M keyboard — a little piece of early computing history," says Ermita. As one Reddit user recently commented, "Those bastards are the ORIGINAL gaming keyboards. No matter how much you abuse it, you’ll die before it does."

Submission + - Jennifer Lawrence Speaks Out Against Hackers of Nude Photos

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The NY Daily News reports that Jennifer Lawrence has broken her silence on the massive celebrity nude photo leak speaking out about being a victim of hackers who released countless amounts of intimate images of her on the Internet. "It is not a scandal. It is a sex crime," Lawrence told Vanity Fair. "It is a sexual violation. It's disgusting. The law needs to be changed, and we need to change. That’s why these Web sites are responsible.” Lawrence revealed that the selfies were for her ex-boyfriend and "X-Men" co-star Nicholas Hoult's eyes only. "I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he's going to look at you," Lawrence explained voicing her anger toward the Web users who chose to view a very personal side of her life. "Anybody who looked at those pictures, you're perpetuating a sexual offense. You should cower with shame. Even people who I know and love say, 'Oh, yeah, I looked at the pictures.' I don't want to get mad, but at the same time I'm thinking, ‘I didn't tell you that you could look at my naked body.’"

Submission + - AMD Building New GPU Linux Kernel Driver To Unify With Catalyst Driver (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AMD is moving forward with their plans to develop a new open-source Linux driver model for their Radeon and FirePro graphics processors. Their unified Linux driver model is moving forward albeit slightly different compared to what was planned early this year as they're now developing a new "AMDGPU" kernel driver to power both the open and closed-source graphics components. This new driver model will also only apply to future generations of AMD GPUs, Catalyst is not being open-source but will be a self-contained user-space blob, and the DRM/libdrm/DDX components will be open-source and shared. This new model is more open-source friendly, places greater emphasis on their mainline kernel driver, and should help Catalyst support Mir and Wayland.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to deal with an unresponsive manufacturer who doesn't fix bugs 4

Submitted by moofo
moofo writes: I have a huge problems with a security appliance since it's installation. Namely, the VPN SSL client is causing a big problem on the majority of my remote clients.

The company acknowledged the bug, but they are jerking me around with no resolution in sight. I tried third-party clients, but I'm worried of using them since they are not distributed by the manufacturer and they require some maintenance to keep working properly.

I also talked to various executives at the company and besides giving me apologies, nothing good is coming my way.

It's been more than 2 years, this is causing me trouble and aggravation. Besides making my internal customers unhappy. There is less than one year left of my service contract.

How do you deal with a manufacturer who doesn't fix bugs in a reasonable time frame ?

Submission + - New positive independent report for Andrea Rossi's purported cold fusion device

Submitted by Solozerk
Solozerk writes: The so-called "energy catalyzer", a purported cold fusion reactor device alleged by its inventor Andrea Rossi to be a revolutionary new source of energy, was previously discussed on Slashdot. Now, a new report has been leaked that appears to independently verify those claims. The paper, "Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel", describes the evaluation of the device as positive, yielding a COP (Coefficient of Performance) of 3.6. Contrary to previous evaluations of the device, Andrea Rossi was apparently not involved in any way with this one; only providing the device itself.

Submission + - Seven Destiny Video Game Tactics That Translate To Cyber Security

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Why learn by grinding through dry security best practices when you can make education unique by mixing in a little geeky fun? Destiny – Bungie’s popular new MMOFPS video game – can teach you about network and information security. Learn how to become an Internet Guardian and fight the encroaching cyber Darkness with these seven tips.

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