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Data Storage

Facebook Puts 10,000 Blu-ray Discs In Low-Power Storage System 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the 2002-wants-its-backup-solution-back dept.
itwbennett writes "Facebook said last year that it was exploring Blu-ray for its data-center storage needs, and on Tuesday it showed a prototype system at the Open Compute Project summit meeting in San Jose, California. It designed the system to store data that hardly ever needs to be accessed, or for so-called 'cold storage' (think duplicates of users' photos and videos that it keeps for backup). The Blu-ray system reduces costs by 50% and energy use by 80% compared with its current cold-storage system, which uses hard disk drives, said Jay Parikh, Facebook's vice president of infrastructure engineering." It's a prototype, and they're also evaluating low power flash as another alternative to keeping seldom accessed data on hard drives.
Government

Congressmen Say Clapper Lied To Congress, Ask Obama To Remove Him 383

Posted by timothy from the put-your-hands-together dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "A group of six Congressmen have asked President Barack Obama to remove James Clapper as director of national intelligence as a result of his misstatements to Congress about the NSA's dragnet data-collection programs. The group, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said that Clapper's role as DNI 'is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs.' Clapper is the former head of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and has been DNI since 2010. In their letter to Obama, the group of Congressmen calling for his ouster said that he lied to Congress and should no longer be in office. 'The continued role of James Clapper as Director of National Intelligence is incompatible with the goal of restoring trust in our security programs and ensuring the highest level of transparency. Director Clapper continues to hold his position despite lying to Congress, under oath, about the existence of bulk data collection programs in March 2013. Asking Director Clapper, and other federal intelligence officials who misrepresented programs to Congress and the courts, to report to you on needed reforms and the future role of government surveillance is not a credible solution,' the letter from Issa, Ted Poe, Paul Broun, Doug Collins, Walter Jones and Alan Grayson says." "Misstatement," of course, being the favorite euphemism for "lie."

Comment Re:And so it begins... (Score 5, Interesting) 330

since bitcoin isn't a currency so much as it is a ledger where everything is tracked and traceable, it does not seem like the ideal venue for illegal transactions. The "paper trail" is going to be out there.

One article I recently read described Bitcoins as "prosecution futures". I think they might have been right.

Submission + - The arrest of the world's most successful Bitcoin drug trafficker (nytimes.com)

Submitted by tripleevenfall
tripleevenfall writes: The New York Times reports on the case of 29-year-old Ross Ulbricht, who was recently arrested for allegedly running a Tor hub for trading in illegal drugs called Silk Road, netting himself $80 million in Bitcoins. The article quotes Nicholas Weaver, researcher at the International Computer Science Institute, who says “I suspect that the online drug marketplace is a passing fad because it’s too traceable, too vulnerable to hacking. Once Bitcoins are converted to another currency, the government can subpoena the records of the exchange where the transaction took place and harvest all the information it needs. Bitcoin isn’t really a ‘coin’ as much as a distributed, public balance ledger, with every balance and transaction recorded.”

Hence Bitcoin’s wry new nickname in legal circles: “Prosecution Futures.”

Submission + - Microsoft Secretly Paid YouTubers To Praise Xbox One (huffingtonpost.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: According to a leaked copy of the full agreement, video creators were not allowed to say "anything negative or disparaging about Machinima, Xbox One, or any of its games." As Ars points out, the real issue with the campaign comes down to the fact that participants were also apparently prohibited from mentioning the promotional agreement, which would void payment.

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