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Submission + - Sourceforge staff takes over a user's account and wraps their software installer (arstechnica.com) 11

An anonymous reader writes: Sourceforge staff took over the account of the GIMP-for-Windows maintainer claiming it was abandoned and used this opportunity to wrap the installer in crapware. Quoting Ars:

SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.


Submission + - A Tool for Analyzing H-1B Visa Applications Reveals Tech Salary Secrets (ieee.org)

Tekla Perry writes: "The golden age of engineers is not over," says a French software engineer who developed a tool for mining U.S. Department of Labor visa application data, but, he says, salaries appear to be leveling off. Indeed, salary inflation for software engineers and other technical professionals at Google and Facebook has slowed dramatically, according to his database, and Airbnb and Dropbox pay is down a little, though Netflix pay is through the roof. The data also shows that some large companies appear to be playing games with titles to deflate salaries, and Microsoft is finally offering technology professionals comparable salaries to Apple and Google. There's a lot more to be discovered in this interactive database, and researchers are getting ready to mine it.

Submission + - SF Says AdWare Bundled with Gimp Is Intentional (google.com) 5

tresf writes: In response to a Google+ post from the Gimp project claiming that "[Sourceforge] is now distributing an ads-enabled installer of GIMP", Sourceforge had this response:

In cases where a project is no longer actively being maintained, SourceForge has in some cases established a mirror of releases that are hosted elsewhere. This was done for GIMP-Win.

Editor's note: Gimp is actively being maintained and the definition of "mirror" is quite misleading here as a modified binary is no longer a verbatim copy. Download statistics for Gimp on Windows show SourceForge as offering over 1,000 downloads per day of the Gimp software. In an official response to this incident, the official Gimp project team reminds users to use official download methods. Slashdotters may remember the last time news like this surfaced (2013) when the Gimp team decided to move downloads from SourceForge to their own FTP service.

Therefore, we remind you again that GIMP only provides builds for Windows via its official Downloads page.

Note: SourceForge and Slashdot share a corporate parent.

Submission + - SourceForge wraps open source software in adware

An anonymous reader writes: "SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements."

Submission + - IRS cut its cybersecurity staff by 11% over four years (computerworld.com)

dcblogs writes: The Internal Revenue Service, which disclosed this week the breach of 100,000 taxpayer accounts, has been steadily reducing the size of its internal cybersecurity staff as it increases its security spending. In 2011, the IRS employed 410 people in its cybersecurity organization, but by 2014 the headcount had fallen to 363 people. In 2012, the IRS earmarked $129 million for cybersecurity, which rose to $141.5 million last year, an increase of approximately 9.7%. This increase in spending, coupled with the reduction in headcount, is an indicator of outsourcing, said Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute. Paller sees risks in that strategy. "Each organization moves at a different pace toward a point at which they have outsourced so much that the insiders do little more than manage contracts, and lose their technical expertise and ability to manage technical contractors effectively," he said.

Comment Hikvision and "Why are you doing it that way" (Score 1) 263

HikVision are not my favorite camera to use and prefer Axis or a ton of others, but they all do the same job.

What is with needing FTP?

You should have the corporate site web page that pulls up an image from the HikVision IP camera. That camera is password protected and will only pay attention to the web site or your programming IP address. Could do live feed or update on whatever schedule you want.

It sounds like the main chef wants to hand-write the menu and doesn't want to do it any other way, and you are compensating for it.

Comment Surveys are likely blocked by people like us (Score 1) 119

If I were Facebook, I'd put the surveys on an a server like advertising.facebook.com. That way they wouldn't put surveys to the people using advertising blocking proxies.

Don't survey the people that would likely give results you don't want. Then you can change the wording so Mom and Pop generate the answer you'd like.

Comment Re:Relying on third party wifi inspires confidence (Score 1) 135

I can see how they could do it, but the implications are creepy.

They could have an app or query my phone. It'd reply with my GPS position and that the signal strength to 4 towers by name/ID. Enough tags like that, they can identify the towers in 3D space and go from there.

Enough tags like that and location can be found just from tower information.

Comment Re:Perspectives (Score 1) 782

Okay, I'll bite on this one. Thank you for posting, Gellenburg.

I've had to go through hoops to get information to a customer and had to run around/through the IT department blocking my email. We had a time crunch, and it wasn't that sensitive of information, but policies were preventing me from sending, and we couldn't wait for IT to change rights to permit me to send this data. Sending ZIP files, for instance, was unpacked and scanned and blocked if the contents were funny. I used an unexpected archive format (my own).

I can easily see where you could detect the file names or database footprint of, say, a payroll database file. How good would your system be at finding the same data exported to spreadsheet format first?

Without compromising your system, what have you detected, and what couldn't you detect?

Thanks

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