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Comment Re:No problem. (Score 1) 145

by bmimatt (#48681413) Attached to: Google and Apple Weaseling Out of "Do Not Track"

Your reasoning is very simplistic and flawed. Let me iterate over a few key issues with it.
I cannot predict what third party integrations a given site uses prior to visiting it. Even though I use a myriad of plugins that block third party origins, such as RequestPolicy, when I visit websites using googleapis and other $google_widgets, the content is not available, as it relies on Goog serving the content. There are multitude of other origins, such as *.amazonaws.com, without anything clearly identifying the content owner in the URL. Some of such sites are linked from /. articles every day. Including today's articles. Furthermore, there are sites that are completely unusable until you enable a dozen+ of 3-rd party origins and widgets. Are you suggesting I should stick to the few sites that do not attempt to feed my browsing data to the collectors? Maybe I'll just stick to my LAN and cut the cord? That would be 'safe', no?

Comment Re:No problem. (Score 3, Informative) 145

by bmimatt (#48681253) Attached to: Google and Apple Weaseling Out of "Do Not Track"

You are obviously clueless. The issue is cross-domain tracking, as in where someone uses one of the FB, Goog, or other 'widgets' or advertising integrations on their own site. Could be something as 'unrelated' as using Goog Analytics. You visit site X, the analytics code collects information about your visit and stores it on Goog servers. Then you visit site Y and code used to embed youtube video does the same. Rinse, Repeat.

Submission + - Home Depot Spent $43 Million On Data Breach In Just One Quarter (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Dealing with the fallout of one of the largest ever data breaches, Home Depot spent $43 million in its third quarter on investigations, providing identity theft protection services to consumers, increased call center staffing and other legal and professional services. The retailer said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that it expects $15 million of that cost will be reimbursed by a $100 million network security and privacy liability insurance policy.

Submission + - DragonFly BSD 4.0 released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the release page: Version 4 of DragonFly brings Haswell graphics support, 3D acceleration, and improved performance in extremely high-traffic networks. DragonFly now supports up to 256 CPUs, Haswell graphics (i915), concurrent pf operation, and a variety of other devices.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places? (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I live in a relatively large college town that's within easy driving distance of several major metropolitan centers. In many ways, the infrastructure around here is top-notch. The major exception is the electrical grid. Lightning storm? Power outage. Heavy winds? Power outage. Lots of rain? Power outage. Some areas around town are immune to this — like around the hospital, for obvious reasons. But others seem to lose power at the drop of hat. Why is this? If it were a tiny village or in the middle of nowhere, it would make sense to me. What problems do the utility companies face that they can't keep service steady? Do you face similar problems where you live? I'm not sure if it's just an investment issue or a technological one. It hasn't gotten better in the decade I've lived here, and I can imagine it will only get worse as the infrastructure ages.

Submission + - New Snowden Docs: GCHQ ties to Telcos gave Spies Global Surveillance Reach (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: According to a report in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the telecommunications company Cable & Wireless—now a subsidiary of Vodafone—“actively shaped and provided the most data to GCHQ surveillance programs and received millions of pounds in compensation.” The relationship was so extensive that a GCHQ employee was assigned to work full time at Cable & Wireless (referred to by the code name “Gerontic” in NSA documents) to manage cable-tap projects in February of 2009. By July of 2009, Cable & Wireless provided access to 29 out of the 63 cables on the list, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the data capacity available to surveillance programs.

Submission + - We are in the midst of the worst Ebola outbreak in human history (thebulletin.org)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: After four decades of confining Ebola outbreaks to small areas, experts acknowledged in an October 9 New England Journal of Medicine article that “we were wrong” about the scope of the current situation. At the present transmission rate, the number of Ebola cases in West Africa doubles every two to three weeks. Early diagnosis is the key to controlling the epidemic, but that's far easier said than done: 'And there are several complicating factors. For one thing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 60 percent of all Ebola patients remain undiagnosed in their communities.' A transmission rate below 1 is necessary to keep the outbreak under control (instead of the current rate of 1.5 to 2), and the authors detail what's in the works to help achieve early detection, which is crucial to reducing the current transmission rate.

Submission + - Number of billionaires globally doubles since start of financial crisis (westmeathexaminer.ie)

Submitted by monkeyFuzz
monkeyFuzz writes: According to the article, since the financial crisis began, the number of billionaires worldwide has more than doubled and interestingly enough apparently, if the world's three richest people were to spend $1m every single day each, it would take each one of them around 200 years to exhaust all of their wealth

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