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Comment Re:Automated sorting of mail and metadata? (Score 1) 66

by causality (#49537733) Attached to: New Privacy Concerns About US Program That Can Track Snail Mail

The USPS has been using automated systems of sorting mail for decades. It's why mail across town goes to a consolidated center (perhaps halfway across the state) first for sorting into carrier routes and has been for decades.

That Homeland Security want to capture this information - which has long been determined to accessible (the original pen-trace) isn't surprising at all.

And they only have to photograph/image the ones that the machines can't read. It's only surprising to people who drink the conservative kool-aide that government can't do anything right.

There are four things government is in a position to do better than anyone else: military defense, law enforcement, public works, and the erosion of liberty.
Facebook

Facebook's "Hello" Tells You Who's Calling Before You Pick Up 78

Posted by samzenpus from the who-is-it? dept.
Mark Wilson writes: When you receive a call you'll usually see the number of the caller, but this may not be helpful in identifying them before you decide whether to pick up. Facebook's answer to this problem is Hello. This new app comes from the Facebook Messenger team and aims to tell you more about the person getting in touch with you even if you don't have their number saved in your address book. Currently available for Android, the dialer app also allows for the blocking of calls from individuals.
Security

New Javascript Attack Lets Websites Spy On the CPU's Cache 134

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Bruce Upbin at Forbes reports on a new and insidious way for a malicious website to spy on a computer. Any computer running a late-model Intel microprocessor and a Web browser using HTML5 (i.e., 80% of all PCs in the world) is vulnerable to this attack. The exploit, which the researchers are calling "the spy in the sandbox," is a form of side-channel attack. Side channel attacks were previously used to break into cars, steal encryption keys and ride the subway for free, but this is the first time they're targeted at innocent web users. The attack requires little in the way of cost or time on the part of the attacker; there's nothing to install and no need to break into hardened systems. All a hacker has to do is lure a victim to an untrusted web page with content controlled by the attacker.

Comment Not XKCD, but oblig PowerNap reference (Score 1) 407

by Walking The Walk (#49527285) Attached to: Using Adderall In the Office To Get Ahead
Sounds like we'll end up in the situation described in Power Nap, where everyone takes sleep supplements to stay awake. Except poor Drew, who's allergic to them, hence providing the story's initial premise.

In some ways the idea of sleep supplements is very enticing, as we could do a lot more if our bodies didn't need to rest for at least 1/3 of each day. Misusing Adderall is along a similar vein, where the purpose is to stay productive and keep your mind sharp for longer than is usually possible. If there were no negative effects this would become a common practice and acceptable, rather than an addiction that needs to be treated.

Comment wow, great (Score 1) 114

by eyenot (#49505003) Attached to: DIA Polygraph Countermeasure Case Files Leaked

it's so awesome seeing these old-timey side show barkers peddling snake oil from their wagons.

"my goodsh are the REEEAAL goodsh!"

"no god damnit he's a liar, he sells poison!"

"snake oil is the best poison money can buy!"

"see that, he's just after your money!"

"you heard it here first, folks, he's giving his away for FREE!"

"no wait a minute!"

Comment ponderous (Score 1) 350

I have a phone with an FM receiver active (it uses the headphone cord as an antenna) and this thread got me wondering about things like emergency radio, "scanners", etc. I ended up finding some old threads in other forums with people who found that this phone model's FM rx is in a chip that also has tx capability. But Broadcom doesn't want to share the pin outs and it looks like the threads all died. HTC EVO 4G if anybody's interested. This is along the lines of transmitting for a number of meters, of course, not for communication at a distance.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most cell phones don't have the power supply to transmit FM broadcast band several miles away, let alone the antenna. And if you can't reach across several miles then what is the emergency purpose of the FM rx/tx capability? Anybody nearby is probably going to be similarly affected by said disaster. If you're worried about being separated from loved ones during a tumult, then you're probably going to want to be able to scan for them over a large area.

I'm just not sure what the argument is for having a bunch of underpowered FM rx/tx going on in the middle of a disaster.

Now, if you really want this to go through, what you have to do is find a disaster where all of the following can be clearly shown to be true:

a) numerous people died
b) there was an internet or mobile outage or lack of signal
c) it can be shown that the lack of internet or mobile outage of lack of signal contributed to the untimely deaths
d) it can be shown that a little FM rx/tx would have saved their lives

Just one such occurrence could actually get you want you want. No company likes to be the actual literal bad guy, and these dormant rx and tx capabilities would start showing up a lot more often.

Still I don't think it will get any better than walkie-talkie across a few dozen meters.

Let's say there's a rescue team after you and you need to transmit your location details. If they're that close, you can yell. If you're under a bunch of debris, you're not transmitting very well any way. If you're thinking triangulation and mapping a bunch of blips of potential victims, well they already have GPS operating.

I'm just not seeing the point.

Comment Re:Is banishment legal? (Score 1) 271

by causality (#49498253) Attached to: Gyrocopter Pilot Appears In Court; Judge Bans Him From D.C.

Well, the constitution does say any American citizen has free travel between areas within the US. So if I was this guy, I'd sue the federal court. Fun fact, because it's a federal issue, he's constitutionally promised a jury of at least 6 people if the suit is for more than $20. At that point, it really doesn't matter what the federal judge says, it's the jury. And since the US is a country of "letter of the law", the federal government is going to have a hell of a time defending this action when the constitution explicitly prohibits it.

Sure thing. All it will cost him is his life savings plus whatever debt he incurs.
Education

LA Schools Seeking Refund Over Botched iPad Plan 325

Posted by Soulskill from the good-luck-with-that dept.
A reader sends news that Los Angeles Unified School District is asking Apple for a refund of the district's effort to equip students with iPads. The project was budgeted at around $1.3 billion to equip its 650,000 students, though only about 120,000 iPads have been purchased so far. After the program went bad, the FBI launched an investigation into their procurement practices. The iPads weren't standalone education devices — they were supposed to work in conjunction with another device carrying curriculum from a company named Pearson. But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs, and they want their money back. Lawyers for the local Board of Education are looking into litigation options. They've also notified Apple and Pearson they won't pay for any new products or services.
Iphone

Chess Grandmaster Used iPhone To Cheat During Tournament 237

Posted by Soulskill from the there's-an-app-for-that dept.
A reader sends this quote from the Washington Post: Gaioz Nigalidze's rise through the ranks of professional chess began in 2007, the year the first iPhone was released. In hindsight, the timing might not be coincidental. On Saturday, Nigalidze, the 25-year-old reigning Georgian champion, was competing in the 17th annual Dubai Open Chess Tournament when his opponent spotted something strange. "Nigalidze would promptly reply to my moves and then literally run to the toilet," Armenian grandmaster Tigran Petrosian said. "I noticed that he would always visit the same toilet partition, which was strange, since two other partitions weren't occupied." Petrosian complained to the officials. After Nigalidze left the bathroom once more, officials inspected the interior and say they found an iPhone wrapped in toilet paper and hidden behind the toilet. "When confronted, Nigalidze denied he owned the device," according to the tournament's Web site. "But officials opened the smart device and found it was logged into a social networking site under Nigalidze's account. They also found his game being analyzed in one of the chess applications." Nigalidze was expelled from the tournament, which is still ongoing and features more than 70 grandmasters from 43 countries competing for a first-place prize of $12,000. The Georgian's career is now under a microscope. His two national titles are under suspicion.
Television

In New Zealand, a Legal Battle Looms Over Streaming TV 106

Posted by timothy from the why-consider-this-pen-your-honor dept.
SpacemanukBEJY.53u writes After a threat from a law firm, two New Zealand ISPs have withdrawn services that let their customers navigate to content sites outside the country that world normally be geo-blocked. Using VPNs or other services to access content restricted by region isn't specifically outlawed in either New Zealand or in neighboring Australia, but it appears the entertainment industry is prepared to go to court to try and argue that such services can violate copyright law. Intellectual property experts said the situation in New Zealand, if it goes to court, could result in the first test case over the legality of skirting regional restrictions.
Businesses

Kludgey Electronic Health Records Are Becoming Fodder For Malpractice Suits 184

Posted by timothy from the so-it-says-here-you-were-born-in-1709 dept.
Lucas123 writes The inherent issues that come with highly complex and kludgey electronic medical records — and for the healthcare professionals required to use them — hasn't been lost on lawyers, who see the potential for millions of dollars in judgments for plaintiffs suing for medical negligence or malpractice. Work flows that require a dozen or more mouse clicks to input even basic patient information has prompted healthcare workers to seek short cuts, such as cutting and pasting from previous visits, a practice that can also include the duplication of old vital sign data, or other critical information, such as a patient's age. While the malpractice suits have to date focused on care providers, they'll soon target EMR vendors, according to Keith Klein, a medical doctor and professor of medicine at UCLA. Klein has been called as an expert witness for more than 350 state or federal medical malpractice cases and he's seen a marked rise in plaintiff attorney's using EMRs as evidence that healthcare workers fell short of their responsibility for proper care. In one such case, a judge awarded more than $7.5 million when a patient suffered permanent kidney damage, and even though physicians hadn't neglected the patient, the complexity of the EMR was responsible for them missing uric kidney stone. The EMR was ore than 3,000 pages in length and included massive amounts of duplicated information, something that's not uncommon.
Crime

Allegation: Lottery Official Hacked RNG To Score Winning Ticket 342

Posted by timothy from the his-number-was-up dept.
A reader writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica about what may be the most movie-worthy real-life crime story of the year so far: Eddie Raymond Tipton, 51, may have inserted a thumbdrive into a highly locked-down computer that's supposed to generate the random numbers used to determine lottery winners, The Des Moines Register reported, citing court documents filed by prosecutors. At the time, Tipton was the information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, and he was later videotaped purchasing a Hot Lotto ticket that went on to fetch the winning $14.3 million payout.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said there is evidence to support the theory Tipton used his privileged position inside the lottery association to enter a locked room that housed the random number generating computers and
infect them with software that allowed him to control the winning numbers. The room was enclosed in glass, could only be entered by two people at a time, and was monitored by a video camera. To prevent outside attacks, the computers aren't connected to the Internet. Prosecutors said Tipton entered the so-called draw room on November 20, 2010, ostensibly to change the time on the computers. The cameras on that date recorded only one second per minute rather than running continuously like normal.

"Four of the five individuals who have access to control the camera's settings will testify they did not change the cameras' recording instructions," prosecutors wrote. "The fifth person is defendant. It is a reasonable deduction to infer that defendant tampered with the camera equipment to have an opportunity to insert a thumbdrive into the RNG tower without detection."

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