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Submission + - W3C incites 'Assassination of dissenters' as 'well within Process' 1

Submitted by FredAndrews
FredAndrews writes: In a dispute between the open web community and the W3C (directed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee), the W3C raises 'participants could very well resort to assassination of dissenters ... it would be well within Process.'. The W3C is supported in adding a DRM interface to the W3C web standards by the usual suspects: Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Netflix. Mozilla and the EFF are also active members of the W3C. Not one of these members has publicly distanced themselves from this position or condemned it. The 'dissenters' support security and privacy on the web, and the health of the open web and the web economy. The next time Mozilla stick their head up, ask them if they are still conspiring with the W3C which holds the 'Assassination' of these members of the open web community as 'within Process'. The next time the EFF stick their head up, ask them if the they are still conspiring with the W3C which holds the 'Assassination of dissenters' as 'within Process'.

Submission + - 1 in 4 Americans Don't Know Earth Orbits the Sun. Yes, Really. (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: Dear Science Communication Professionals: We have a problem. Earlier this month, the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham creationism “debate” received a disproportionate amount of press coverage. Considering that there really is no debate to be had when it comes to the science of evolution, for bad or for worse, Nye faced a hostile audience at the Creationist Museum in Kentucky. He hoped to score some scientific points against Ham’s literal translation of the Bible and his absurd assertion that the world was created in 6 days and that the universe is 6,000 years old. And then, today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) delivered news of a pretty shocking poll result: around one in four Americans (yes, that's 25 percent) are unaware that the Earth orbits the sun. Let’s repeat that: One in four Americans — that represents one quarter of the population — when asked probably the most basic question in science (except, perhaps, “Is the Earth flat?” Hint: No.), got the answer incorrect. Suddenly I realized why the Nye vs. Ham debate was so popular.

Submission + - Ubuntu To Switch From Upstart To Systemd (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Ubuntu Linux will switch from Upstart to systemd. The decision to change Ubuntu's init systems come just a few days after the Debian technical committee voted in favor of using systemd over Upstart or OpenRC in future versions of the open-source operating system.

Submission + - Ubuntu will switch to systemd, ditch Upstart (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth says that Ubuntu will switch to systemd ditching their own Upstart init system. The decision taken by the Debian technical committee, to use systemd, left Canonical with two choices — either user Upstart and patch things heavily against the upstream or adopt what Debian is choosing. One may wonder what would happen to Upstart which is used by Google in ChromeOS and some other projects such as Gentoo.

Submission + - Ubuntu to switch to systemd (markshuttleworth.com)

Submitted by GuerillaRadio
GuerillaRadio writes: Following the decision for Debian to switch to the systemd init system, Ubuntu founder and SABDFL Mark Shuttleworth has posted a blog entry indicating that Ubuntu will now follow in this decision. "Nevertheless, the decision is for systemd, and given that Ubuntu is quite centrally a member of the Debian family, that’s a decision we support. I will ask members of the Ubuntu community to help to implement this decision efficiently, bringing systemd into both Debian and Ubuntu safely and expeditiously."

Submission + - EU court of justice decides in favour of linking to copyrighted material (europa.eu)

Submitted by Bart Smit
Bart Smit writes: In a case brought by a Swedish newspaper against an aggregation site, the court decided for the defendant, making linking to copyrighted material legal in the EU. The reasoning was that offering the link does not open the copyrighted material to a new audience; the original copyright holder had already opened the material up to Internet users.

Submission + - Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Everything that the depositors and citizens of Cyprus had to live through, may be on the verge of going continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says." What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described as confiscation.

Submission + - Ohio's Trying To Stop Tesla From Selling Cars, Again 1

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Man the automotive dealer associations don't like Tesla. Remember that time the Ohio dealers attempted to block Tesla from selling its electric cars in in the Buckeye State. Now, it's happening again. The car dealers are once again pushing legislation that would keep Tesla from selling cars in Ohio. Senate Bill 260 would prohibit the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles from issuing car-dealer licenses to auto manufacturers. Since Tesla owns and operates its own network of "dealerships" (aka galleries), this would make it so the automaker couldn't acquire a car-dealer license. Section 11 of the bill lists "a manufacturer... applying for license to sell or lease new motor vehicles at retail" as one of the types of organization ineligible for a dealership license. On top of all this, the langauge isn't on the Senate floor as a standalone bill. No, it's inserted as an amendment to Senate Bill 137 which is an unrelated bill requiring Ohio drivers to move to the left while passing roadside maintenance vehicles. Is this yet another slimy tactic to try and undercut the new kid on the block?

Submission + - French journalist "hacks" govt by inputting correct URL, later fined $4,000+ (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: In 2012, French blogger, activist, and businessman Olivier Laurelli sat down at his computer. It automatically connected to his VPN on boot (he owns a small security services company, called Toonux, which was providing a connection via a Panamanian IP address) and began surfing the Web.

Laurelli, who goes by the alias “Bluetouff” in most circles (including on Ars Technica), is something of a presence among the French tech-savvy community. Besides managing Toonux, he also co-founded the French-language activist news site Reflets.info, which describes itself as a “community project to connect journalists and computer networking specialists.” As such, Laurelli initiated a Google search on other subjects, but what he stumbled on was perhaps more interesting: a link that led to 7.7 Gb of internal documents from the French National Agency for Food Safety, Environment, and Labor (the acronym is ANSES in French).

Although the documents were openly indexed by Google, Laurelli would soon be in the French government’s crosshairs for publishing them. He eventually faced criminal charges, though he was later acquitted of those. However, a separate government agency pursued a civil appeal. And last Tuesday, a French appeals court fined Laurelli 3,000 Euros (or a little over $4,000), meaning he likely made one of the more expensive Google searches to date.

Submission + - October 2015: The End of the Swipe-and-Sign Credit Cards in USA (wsj.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: US banks and merchants are shifting to a more secure way of authorizing credit card transactions in which customers will enter a personal identification number (PIN) at checkout instead of signing a receipt.

The US is the last major market in the world using the signature system, which is part of the reason why a disproportionate amount of credit card fraud happens here. The change is especially relevant given the massive fraud perpetrated against customers of Target in the fall. During a Congressional hearing last week, Target CFO John Mulligan said the company is accelerating the $100 million effort to switch to the so-called "chip and pin" system.

The change won't happen all at once. Banks must issue cards with microprocessors and merchants need the right equipment to process the so-called "chip and PIN transactions," which is likely to happen gradually. But Visa, American Express, and MasterCard have announced that banks and merchants that have not adopted the technology for face-to-face transactions by October 2015 will be liable for fraudulent purchases. That's a strong incentive to get up to date. The new system will also prepare merchants and banks to transition to contactless payments in the near future.

Submission + - Bill Gates Spends First Day Back at MS Failing To Install Windows 8.Reverts to 7 (newyorker.com) 1

Submitted by JeffClune
JeffClune writes: Bill Gates’s first day at work in the newly created role of technology adviser got off to a rocky start yesterday as the Microsoft founder struggled for hours to install the Windows 8.1 upgrade.

The installation hit a snag early on, sources said, when Mr. Gates repeatedly received an error message informing him that his PC ran into a problem that it could not handle and needed to restart.

After failing to install the upgrade by lunchtime, Mr. Gates summoned the new Microsoft C.E.O. Satya Nadella, who attempted to help him with the installation, but with no success.

While the two men worked behind closed doors, one source described the situation as “tense.”

“Bill is usually a pretty calm guy, so it was weird to hear some of that language coming out of his mouth,” the source said.

A Microsoft spokesman said only that Mr. Gates’s first day in his new job had been “a learning experience” and that, for the immediate future, he would go back to running Windows 7.

Submission + - Slashdot forces a beta site by default

Submitted by kelk1
kelk1 writes: As a poor submitter found out (https://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/02/05/2328224/html5-app-for-panasonic-tvs-rejected---jquery-is-a-hack), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org) suddenly forced a preview of its beta site without any warning on all its viewers.

Judging by the comments, the feedback was immediate and clearly negative.

I cannot speak for the forum moderation side, but my reaction to the front page was an knee jerk: "Oh no!, not another portal full of noise I cannot speed-read through." Text and hyperlinks are what we need, please, and as little graphics as possible. Think lynx, thank you.

Submission + - Judge orders professor removed from no-fly list (seattletimes.com) 1

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: In a followup to Slashdot's previous article, a federal judge has ordered Rahinah Ibrahim removed from the U.S. government's no-fly list.

Rahinah Ibrahim eventually won the no-fly list ruling after her daughter, a US citizen, was prevented from returning to the country to testify at the trial.

Here's hoping this is the first of many successful challenges to the no-fly list.

Submission + - Judge Says You Can Warn Others About Speed Traps

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Speeding is against the law, and yes, even going 5 mph over the speed limit is breaking the law. But everyone does it, right? You do it, your friends do it, heck, your grandmother does it. But what about when you see a cop? Some cops are ticketing people for notifying fellow motorists about speed traps. In Florida, Ryan Kintner simply flashed his high-beams to warning oncoming cars that there was a cop ahead. He was given a ticket for doing so. He went to court to fight the ticket, and a judge ruled that flashing lights are the equivalent of free speech, thus he had every right to flash his lights to warn oncoming cars. So what have we learned here? Basically, if you are a good Samaritan, flash your lights and warn oncoming traffic of speed traps, because this is America ,and we are allowed freedom of speech.

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