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Submission + - Kim Dotcom To Revive Megaupload; Claims Bitcoin Will Spike As A Result (fortune.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: The controversial entrepreneur Kim Dotcom said last month that he was preparing to relaunch Megaupload, the file-sharing site that U.S. and New Zealand authorities dramatically shut down in 2012, with bitcoins being involved in some way.

This system will be called Bitcache and Dotcom claimed its launch would send the bitcoin price soaring way above its current $575 value.

The launch of Megaupload 2.0 will take place on Jan. 20, 2017, he said, urging people to “buy bitcoin while cheap, like right now, trust me.” Bitcoin’s value fell sharply this week after a $72 million theft from the Hong Kong exchange Bitfinex, though it subsequently bounced back to a degree.

Crucially, Dotcom said the Bitcache system would overcome bitcoin’s scaling problems. “It eliminates all blockchain limitations,” he claimed.

Submission + - RIP John Ellenby, godfather of the modern laptop (nytimes.com)

Submitted by fragMasterFlash
fragMasterFlash writes: John Ellenby, a British-born computer engineer who played a critical role in paving the way for the laptop computer, died on Aug. 17 in San Francisco. He was 75.

Mr. Ellenby’s pioneering work came to fruition in the early 1980s, after he founded Grid Systems, a company in Mountain View, Calif. As chief executive, he assembled an engineering and design team that included the noted British-born industrial designer William Moggridge.

The team produced a clamshell computer with an orange electroluminescent flat-panel display that was introduced as the Compass. It went to market in 1982. The Compass is now widely acknowledged to have been far ahead of its time.

Submission + - Malibu Media stay lifted, motion to quash denied

Submitted by NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: In the federal court for the Eastern District of New York, where all Malibu Media cases have been stayed for the past year, the Court has lifted the stay and denied the motion to quash in the lead case, thus permitting all 84 cases to move forward. In his 28-page decision (PDF), Magistrate Judge Steven I. Locke accepted the representations of Malibu's expert, one Michael Patzer from a company called Excipio, that in detecting BitTorrent infringement he relies on "direct detection" rather than "indirect detection", and that it is "not possible" for there to be misidentification.

Submission + - Robert Heinlein Honored as Famous Missourian with Bust in State Capital

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The Joplin Globe reports that Missouri lawmakers have inducted science fiction writer Robert Heinlein to the Hall of Famous Missourians to a cheering crowd of fans who call themselves "Heinlein's children." State Rep. T.J. Berry says Heinlein encouraged others to "strive for the stars, for the moon" and "for what's next." Donors to the Heinlein Society and the Heinlein Prize Trust paid for a bronze bust of Heinlein, which will be displayed in the House Chamber at the Capitol where it will join 45 other Missourians honored with busts in the hall including Mark Twain, Dred Scott and Ginger Rogers, as well as more controversial Missourians such as Rush Limbaugh. In 2013 Missourians were asked to vote on who would go into the Hall. Heinlein received more than 10,000 votes. Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri on July 7, 1907 and grew up in Kansas City. "Our devotion to this man must seem odd to those outside of the science fiction field, with spaceships and ray guns and bug-eyed monsters," Heinlein Society President Keith Kato said. "But to Heinlein's children, the writing was only the beginning of doing."

Submission + - Adblock Plus Offers Workaround To block Facebook Ads Again 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, Facebook announced it will begin showing ads in desktop browsers “for people who currently use ad blocking software.” Adblock Plus, the most popular ad blocking tool with over 500 million downloads, responded the same day by calling the move “a dark path against user choice.” Today, just two days later, Adblock Plus is offering a workaround that users can implement themselves now, and which will automatically take effect for all users in “a couple of days.”

Submission + - DARPA wants to build very low frequency wireless systems (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Wireless transmitters that operate at very or ultra low frequencies (0.330 kHz) typically require some big antenna complexes to handle their communications. Scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said they are interested looking to eliminate that issue and develop smaller physical structures that could handle new long-distance communication applications.

Submission + - Advanced Espionage Hacking Platform on Par with Flame, Duqu (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: A state-sponsored APT platform on par with Equation, Flame and Duqu has been used since 2011 to spy on government agencies and other critical industries.

Known as ProjectSauron, or Strider, the platform has all the earmarks of advanced attackers who covet stealth, and rely on a mix of zero-day exploits and refined coding to exfiltrate sensitive data, even from air-gapped machines.

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab and Symantec today published separate reports on ProjectSauron, and said large-scale attacks have targeted government agencies, telecommunications firms, financial organizations, military and research centers in Russia, Iran, Rwanda, China, Sweden, Belgium and Italy. Campaigns were still active this year, said researchers at Kaspersky Lab.

While researchers still do not know how the attackers are infiltrating these critical networks, much of their activity on compromised networks has been uncovered.

The attack platform, for example, is modular framework called Remsec that once deployed allows for lateral movement, data theft and the injection of more attack code. To complicate detection and attribution, the attackers customize artifacts used in campaigns to each target, making them less useful as indicators of compromise, Kaspersky Lab said.

Submission + - GPS Under Attack as Crooks, Rogue Workers Wage Electronic War (nbcnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Once the province of hostile nations, electronic warfare has arrived with little fanfare on U.S. highways and byways.

Criminals, rogue employees and even otherwise law-abiding citizens are using illegal "jamming" devices to overpower GPS, cellphone and other electronic signals over localized areas. The devices are small and mobile — a common variety plugs into a vehicle's cigarette lighter — making it difficult for law enforcement to identify the culprits.

And experts say the threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) — the critical space-based navigational, positional and timing network — is escalating as potentially more destructive "spoofing" devices become readily available.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How do you get locked out of Microsoft "support"?

Submitted by shanen
shanen writes: How do you get locked out of Microsoft "support"? Is there any way to get back in?

My little meta-problem of the day is being locked out of Microsoft's so-called support. The email part (on outlook.live.com) works as usual, but every attempt to access the support part returns "Something went wrong and we can't sign you in right now. Please try again later." It's a black hole page with no links or options or suggestions. Once you get there, you are dead to Microsoft. Whenever I try to go to Microsoft support, that's all I've seen for several weeks now. (It may have begun months before that, but I'm glad when I forget ugly details. Dealing with Microsoft support has always been ugly.)

Returning to the original problem (of the month), the Start button is broken on one of my Windows 10 machines. Left click is dead. Fairly well known problem, but none of the solutions from non-Microsoft webpages has fixed it. If I ever had mod points, I'd mod you up for the solution, but all I can do is ask nicely.

In general, Windows 10 seems to be a good thing--but I don't really know how much it is abusing my personal information and privacy. The abusive relationship with Microsoft support is clearly the same, bad as it ever was. I really wish we actually had some good choices rather than having to search for the least bad or least evil options. There is a slightly adversarial relationship between buyers and sellers, but these years it is downright hostile. (Adversarial negotiations can still be win-win, but hostile negotiations are always lose-lose.)

Submission + - Google Says Its Self-Driving Cars Can Learn Cyclists' (consumerist.com)

Submitted by iouarty
iouarty writes: From cars that squeeze cyclists out of their lanes to vehicles that fail to see when a biker is turning, people traveling on two wheels have many complaints with those traveling on four wheels. Cyclists might be happier to ride alongside self-driving vehicles in the future, as Google says its driverless cars can not only recognize their hand signals, but can understand them, remember them, and then reference those signals in the future.


“Our sensors can detect a cyclist's' hand signals as an indication of an intention to make a turn or shift over,” Google says in its June 2016 self-driving cars report [PDF]. “Cyclists often make hand signals far in advance of a turn, and our software is designed to remember previous signals from a rider so it can better anticipate a rider's turn down the road.”


Google's cars are also learning how to detect other tricky situations with bikes, like if a cyclist is passing a car whose driver has stepped into the street.


“For example, when our sensors detect a parallel-parked car with an open door near a cyclist, our car is programmed to slow down or nudge over to give the rider enough space to move towards the center of the lane and avoid the door,” Google says.


Unlike many humans, Google's car sounds like it's intent on being polite, and will even cede the entire lane to a two-wheeler in some cases:


“We also aim to give cyclists ample buffer room when we pass, and our cars won't squeeze by when cyclists take the center of the lane,” Google explains, “even if there's technically enough space.”


This is an important step because while autonomous vehicles of the future will likely be able to communicate with and interpret other cars' movements using sensors, radar, and other tools, cars will also have to deal with cyclists and pedestrians along its way. For example, a car standing at stop sign without a driver will need to understand what it means when a human waves it forward like they would with a car driven by a human.


This isn't the first company to teach its self-driving cars about cyclists, Re/code notes, as Mercedes had a concept car that it said could understand human gestures.

Submission + - Sensor-loaded toothbrush maps your mouth for a route t (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Keys of Cars
Keys of Cars writes: The recently-announced ONVI Prophix toothbrush has a built-in camera that lets users stream video from inside their mouth as they brush. Philips doesn't go that far with its new brush, but has instead kitted it out with sensors that track brushing on a 3D mouth-map to encourage thorough oral care...
Continue Reading Sensor-loaded toothbrush maps your mouth for a route to cleaner teeth





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Submission + - Why Tech Support Is (Purposely) Unbearable

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Getting caught in a tech support loop — waiting on hold, interacting with automated systems, talking to people reading from unhelpful scripts and then finding yourself on hold yet again — is a peculiar kind of aggravation that mental health experts say can provoke rage in even the most mild-mannered person. Now Kate Murphy writes at the NYT that just as you suspected, companies are aware of the torture they are putting you through as 92 percent of customer service managers say their agents could be more effective and 74 percent say their company procedures prevented agents from providing satisfactory experiences. “Don’t think companies haven’t studied how far they can take things in providing the minimal level of service,” says Justin Robbins, who was once a tech support agent himself and now oversees research and editorial at ICMI. “Some organizations have even monetized it by intentionally engineering it so you have to wait an hour at least to speak to someone in support, and while you are on hold, you’re hearing messages like, ‘If you’d like premium support, call this number and for a fee, we will get to you immediately.’”

Mental health experts say there are ways to get better tech support or maybe just make it more bearable. First, do whatever it takes to control your temper. Take a deep breath. Count to 10. Losing your stack at a consumer support agent is not going to get your problem resolved any faster and being negative in your dealings with others can quickly paint you as a complainer no one wants to work with. Don’t bother demanding to speak to a supervisor, either. You’re just going to get transferred to another agent who has been alerted ahead of time that you have come unhinged. To get better service by phone, dial the prompt designated for “sales” or “to place an order,” which almost always gets you an onshore agent, while tech support is usually offshore with the associated language difficulties. Finally customer support experts recommended using social media, like tweeting or sending a Facebook message, to contact a company instead of calling. You are likely to get a quicker response, not only because fewer people try that channel but also because your use of social media shows that you know how to vent your frustration to a wider audience if your needs are not met.

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