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Bug

Xerox Photocopiers Randomly Alter Numbers, Says German Researcher 290

Posted by timothy from the we-think-you-meant-9 dept.
First time accepted submitter sal_park writes "According to a report from German computer scientist D. Kriesel, some Xerox WorkCentre copiers and scanners may alter numbers that appear in scanned documents. Having analyzed the output of two such devices, the Xerox WorkCentre 7535 and 7556, Kriesel found that "patches of the pixel data are randomly replaced in a very subtle and dangerous way": in particular, some numbers appearing in a document may be replaced by other numbers when it is scanned."
Star Wars Prequels

Star Wars City Doomed By Sand Dunes 166

Posted by samzenpus from the and-nothing-was-lost dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The buildings and set of the fictional city Mos Espa are set to be swallowed by migrating sand dunes in the Tunisian desert. From the article: 'Ralph Lorenz, from Johns Hopkins University, US, together with Jason Barnes, from the University of Idaho, and Nabil Gasmi, of the University of Sousse, Tunisia, visited the Mos Espa site in 2009, and noted that part of a nearby set used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had already been overrun. Using satellite images of the site, they were able to determine the speed of dune movement, which is approaching the buildings once inhabited by such luminaries as Anakin, his slave owner Watto, and rival podracer Sebulba.'"
United States

Rise of the Warrior Cop: How America's Police Forces Became Militarized 835

Posted by Soulskill from the i-blame-the-first-rambo-movie dept.
FuzzNugget writes "An awakening piece in the Wall Street Journal paints a grim picture of how America's police departments went from community officers walking the beat to full-on, militarized SWAT operations breaking down the doors of non-violent offenders. From the article: 'In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred [raids] a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005, there were approximately 50,000 raids.' It goes on to detail examples of aggressive, SWAT-style raids on non-violent offenders and how many have ended in unnecessary deaths. Last year, after a Utah man's home was raided for having 16 small marijuana plants, nearly 300 bullets in total were fired (most of them by the police) in the ensuing gunfight, the homeowner believing he was a victim of a home invasion by criminals. The U.S. military veteran later hanged himself in his jail cell while the prosecution sought the death sentence for the murder of one officer he believed to be an criminal assailant. In 2006, a man in Virginia was shot and killed after an undercover detective overheard the man discussing bets on college football games with buddies in a bar. The 38-year-old optometrist had no criminal record and no history of violence. The reports range from incredulous to outrageous; from the raid on the Gibson guitar factory for violation of conservational law, to the infiltration of a bar where underage youth were believed to be drinking, to the Tibetan monks who were apprehended by police in full SWAT gear for overstaying their visas on a peace mission. Then there's the one about the woman who was subject to a raid for failing to pay her student loan bills. It's a small wonder why few respect police anymore. SWAT-style raids aren't just for defense against similarly-armed criminals anymore; it's now a standard ops intimidation tactic. How much bloodshed will it take for America to realize such a disproportionate response is unwarranted and disastrous?"
Privacy

Automated Plate Readers Let Police Collect Millions of Records On Drivers 276

Posted by timothy from the carry-on-citizens dept.
schwit1 writes with a report on just how extensive always-on license plate logging has gotten. The article focuses on California; how different is your state? "In San Diego, 13 federal and local law enforcement agencies have compiled more than 36 million license-plate scans in a regional database since 2010 with the help of federal homeland security grants. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the database. Unlike the Northern California database, which retains the data for between one and two years, the San Diego system retains license-plate information indefinitely. Can we get plate with code to delete the database?"

Comment Re:it would be easy to gather the evidence (Score -1, Redundant) 666

by Yahma (#44079913) Attached to: Security Researcher Attacked While At Conference
Nerd rage rape fantasy? Give me a break... if someone tried to rape/kill you, the first thing you do is go report it to the police. The fact she didn't file a police report and instead decided to "blog" about it is very odd. I'm not saying it didn't happen; however, why not file a police report if things happened as reported on her blog?

Comment Re:The B-Ark? (Score 1) 128

by Yahma (#44040079) Attached to: UnGrounded: British Airways Attempts to Bottle Some Startup Spirit
Why is it sexist when that is what most women respond to? In the fashion industry, it has been established that women are more interested, spend more time, effort and money on fashion than men do. Just as men are more interested, spend more time, effort and money on engineering/science. Where is the parallel effort to get men to design new fashions and reward them with smartphones, power tools and 3D printers?
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
GNOME

GNOME 3.8 Released Featuring New "Classic" Mode 267

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the extend-freely dept.
Hot on the heels of the Gtk+ 3.8 release comes GNOME 3.8. There are a few general UI improvements, but the highlight for many is the new Classic mode that replaces fallback. Instead of using code based on the old GNOME panel, Classic emulates the feel of GNOME 2 through Shell extensions (just like Linux Mint's Cinnamon interface). From the release notes: "Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions."

Comment Re:Put simply; yes (Score 1) 759

by Yahma (#43260641) Attached to: Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon?

Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

Having said that, yes, the best response is to shut the fuck up and only respond with "Yes m'am" or "No ma'm", if any only if spoken to.

Comment Re:What the hell (Score 1) 759

by Yahma (#43260581) Attached to: Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon?
Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting fucked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. You have nothing to feel guilty about.

Comment Re:This is what I posted on her blog (Score 2) 759

by Yahma (#43258161) Attached to: Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon?

Her intentions are very suspect to begin with. There has been lots of speculation that career goals were her motive. Not to mention, she (apparently) has no remorse over getting a person (in this case a male) fired for her very unsubstantiated claims of "abuse".

Either she is a neo-feminist who has it out for males, or is just totally unaware of how society (and the real-world work). In the real world, sometimes people's feelings do get hurt. Launching a witch hunt against 1/2 the population because her feelings were hurt was not the proper way to deal with it.

I'm sure I'll be modded down as a male chauvinist pig for this post. So be it. The reality of life is, you can't have someone there to watch over every social interaction you have. Sometimes you need to stand up for yourself (man or woman) and just tell the other person to fuck off.

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