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Submission + - Comcast's incompetence, lack of broadband competition force homeowner to sell 1

Submitted by BUL2294
BUL2294 writes: Consumerist has an article about a homeowner in Kitsap County, Washington who is unable to get broadband service. Due to inaccurate broadband availability websites, Comcast's corporate incompetence, CenturyLink's refusal to add new customers in his area, and Washington state's restrictions on municipal broadband, the owner may be left with no option but to sell his house 2 months after he bought it, since he works from home as a software developer.

To add insult to injury, BroadbandMaps.gov says he has 10 broadband options in his zip code, some of which are not applicable to his address, have exorbitant costs (e.g. wireless), or are for municipal providers that are prevented from doing business with him by state law. Yet, Comcast insists in filings that “the broadband marketplace is more competitive than ever,” which appear to be very carefully chosen words...

Submission + - New bill would repeal Patriot Act

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Two Congressmen have introduced legislation to repeal the Patriot Act as well as end all unconstitutional domestic spying by government agencies.

The article notes that there is bi-partisan support for “doing something” about the out-of-control surveillance of federal agencies like the National Security Agency. I agree. Expect something like this to get passed. Whether Obama will veto it is another question. Despite what he says (which no one should every believe), he likes the idea of prying into the lives of private citizens.

Comment Re:Randian Dumbfuckery (Score 2) 318

by Z00L00K (#49325359) Attached to: First Lawsuits Challenging FCC's New Net Neutrality Rules Arrive

The internet is the innovation/extension of the POTS systems, today more and more is VoIP instead of analog lines. So the progress of classifying the internet the same way is a natural development.

The problem with the analog lines is that they have come to an end on how much information they can carry. In addition to that the services offered on POTS lines will be entirely what the telecom operator decides that you can get and it won't work on another telecom operator. With the internet you get an open platform that you shall be able to run whatever service you prefer unless you are prevented by the ISP due to traffic shaping and other means.

The change from POTS to internet is similar to the change from horse&carriage to automobiles.

Submission + - Fighting the "War on Terror " by Banning Cash (mises.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: It was just a matter of time before Western governments used the trumped up "War on Terror" as an excuse to drastically ratchet up the very real war on the use of cash and personal privacy that they are waging against their own citizens.

Taking advantage of public anxiety in the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, France has taken the first step. It seems the terrorists involved partially financed these attacks by cash, as well as by consumer loans and the sale of counterfeit goods. What a shockeroo!

The terrorists used CASH to purchase some of the stuff they needed--no doubt these murderers were also shod and clothed and used cell phones, cars, and public sidewalks during the planning and execution of their mayhem. Why not restrict their use? A naked , barefoot terrorist without communications is surely less effective than a fully clothed and equipped one.

Despite the arrant absurdity of blaming cash and financial privacy for these crimes, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin brazenly stated that it was necessary to "fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy."

He then announced extreme and despotic measures to further restrict the use of cash by French residents and to spy on and pry into their financial affairs.

These measures, which will be implemented in September 2015, include:

Prohibiting French residents from making cash payments of more than 1,000 euros, down from the current limit of 3,000 euros.

Given the parlous state of the stagnating French economy the limit for foreign tourists on currency payments will remain higher, at 10,000 euros down from the current limit of 15,000 euros.

The threshold below which a French resident is free to convert euros into other currencies without having to show an identity card will be slashed from the current level of 8,000 euros to 1,000 euros.

In addition any cash deposit or withdrawal of more than 10,000 euros during a single month will be reported to the French anti-fraud and money laundering agency Tracfin.

French authorities will also have to be notified of any freight transfers within the EU exceeding 10,000 euros, including checks, pre-paid cards, or gold.

Submission + - MRIs show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts... (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by antdude
antdude writes: Ars Technica reported that "Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts. This is your brain after repeated security warnings. Any questions?

Ever feel your eyes glazing over when you see yet another security warning pop up on your monitor? In a first, scientists have used magnetic resonance imaging to measure a human brain's dramatic drop in attention that results when a computer user is subjected to just two security warnings in a short time..."

Submission + - LightEater malware attack places millions of unpatched BIOSes at risk (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Two minutes is all it takes to completely destroy a computer. In a presentation entitled "How many million BIOSes would you like to infect?" at security conference CanSecWest, security researchers Corey Kallenberg and Xeno Kovah revealed that even an unskilled person could use an implant called LightEater to infect a vulnerable system in mere moments.

The attack could be used to render a computer unusable, but it could also be used to steal passwords and intercept encrypted data. The problem affects motherboards from companies including Gigabyte, Acer, MSI, HP and Asus. It is exacerbated by manufactures reusing code across multiple UEFI BIOSes and places home users, businesses and governments at risk.

Submission + - DuckDuckGo Donates $100,000 Among Four FOSS Projects

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: As the search engine company's annual habit, DuckDuckGo has chosen to advance four open source projects by donating them. The primary focus this year was to support FOSS projects that bring privacy tools to anyone who needs them. $25,000 goes to The Freedom of the Press Foundation to support SecureDrop, which is an whistleblower submission used to securely accept documents from anonymous sources. Electronic Frontier Foundation was given $25,000 to support PrivacyBadger, which is a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking your surfing habits. Another $25,000 arrives at GPGTools to support GPG Suite, which is a software package for OS X that encrypts files or messages. Finally $25,000 was donated to Riseup to support Tails, which is a live operating system that aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.

Comment Ever since the advent of Max Headroom (Score 1) 2

Ever since the advent of Max Headroom I have come to realize that we live in a dystopian world, not only in a specific country but any randomly picked country. And it seems to have accelerated since the WTC attack in 2001 where governments throws anything as an excuse for "protection against terrorism" or if that doesn't work they go for the DMCA (or derivative thereof) alternative.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: In modern times how should we define a dystopian government? 2

Submitted by trippin_efnet
trippin_efnet writes: Wikipedia says dystopia is literally translated as "not-good place". In light of the many abuses of power we have seen come from world governments lately, how should we define whether or not we are approaching dystopia? Are we already there? This isn't a question about which political ideology got us here. The question is how far can a government push before it is common knowledge amongst all political ideologies to be a dystopia?

Submission + - People Who Use Firefox or Chrome Make Better Employees

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: In the world of Big Data, everything means something. Now Joe Pinsker reports that Cornerstone OnDemand, a company that sells software that helps employers recruit and retain workers, has found after analyzing data on about 50,000 people who took its 45-minute online job assessment, that people who took the test on a non-default browser, such as Firefox or Chrome, ended up staying at their jobs about 15 percent longer than those who stuck with Safari or Internet Explorer and performed better on the job as well. Chief Analytics Officer Michael Housman offered an explanation for the results in an interview with Freakonomics Radio. “I think that the fact that you took the time to install Firefox on your computer shows us something about you. It shows that you’re someone who is an informed consumer,” says Housman. “You’ve made an active choice to do something that wasn’t default.” But why would a company care about something as seemingly trivial as the browser a candidate chooses to use? "Call centers are estimated to suffer from a turnover rate of about 45 percent annually (PDF), and it can cost thousands of dollars to hire new employees," says Pinsker. "Because of that, companies are eager to find any proxy for talent and dedication that they can."

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