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KDE

Kubuntu 15.04 Will Be Based On KDE5 45

jones_supa writes Kubuntu Vivid is the development name for what will be released in April next year as Kubuntu 15.04. The exciting news is that following some discussion and some wavering, the Kubuntu team will be switching to Plasma 5 by default. They claim that it has shown itself as a solid and reliable platform and it's time to show it off to the world. There are some bits which are missing from Plasma 5 which are planned to be filled in over the next six months. As another technical detail, Debian git is now used to store the packaging in a Kubuntu branch, so hopefully it will be easier to share updates.

Fiber Optics In Antarctica Will Monitor Ice Sheet Melting 92

sciencehabit writes: Earth is rapidly being wired with fiber-optic cables — inexpensive, flexible strands of silicon dioxide that have revolutionized telecommunications. They've already crisscrossed the planet's oceans, linking every continent but one: Antarctica. Now, fiber optics has arrived at the continent, but to measure ice sheet temperatures rather than carry telecommunication signals. A team of scientists using an innovative fiber-optic cable–based technology has measured temperature changes within and below the ice over 14 months. This technology, they say, offers a powerful new tool to observe and quantify melting at the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Comment Re:Maybe a Mini (Score 1) 355

Well, depending on your application (and I'm assuming here it's not too demanding if you're using a mini as a server), you could always stick an external HDD and schedule Carbon Copy Cloner to dupe the boot drive over every now and then and the data portion rather more often. That'll give you a bootable volume in case of primary failure. It's not a raid 1 but for home or small office purposes it would probably do the trick just fine.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 622

"Ordinarily you'd think that the user had a poor password..." Actually we can, you know, look it up. It's in the news. And no it wasn't a poor password and I didn't think that. But thanks for putting words in my mouth.
"And what is precisely why you don't get this." Is this a question? It looks more like a statement.
"This is an either/or case." Why in the world couldn't it be both? Why can't we have a vendor vulnerability and users with bad password discipline? Are they somehow mutually exclusive?

Comment Re:Color Me Surprised (Score 1) 335

No, not really. There are various ways to poll weather "most people approve of what R&D are doing" but Congressional approval at 14% and presidential approval around 50% (with some pretty significant drops), I don't know that you could safely take the approval of the majority as a foregone conclusion. The general tone I'm seeing is that people are getting increasingly discontented(sp?) with their government, Occupy style. There are two realistic choices, and I think the argument could be made they are both similar enough to be considered functionally equivalent (think Bush / Obama actions). To a large degree, they are also not what the people want.

Comment Re:If you don't want your nude photos on the inter (Score 1) 622

Absolutely!
When I go "shipping" online though, there are fairly rigorous security measures in place to assure both me and, say, Amazon that everything is on the up-and-up. If something goes south, Visa will step in and kick someone's hindquarters. Regardless, I as the end-user don't end up assuming liability for, say, someone getting my CC# and making purchases on my behalf. In this case, the security was plainly not sufficient to the task and JL has no intermediary to run interference for her. You're right, same tubes, but the implementation is what makes the difference.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 622

News flash: vendors may stretch the truth just a bit when telling you how great their services are!
Fact: the services in question had a weakness which was successfully exploited.
What I'm trying to explain to you is that the pictures were not properly secured. We can tell because they went public without authorization via a hack. That security was Jennifer Lawrence's responsibility. You will notice nothing in the links you sent talking about guarantees or compensation in case of a breach. She did not assign responsibility for the security of her photos to Apple or Dropbox.
So, to recap...
1) Nude selfies produced by Jennifer Lawrence.
2) Insufficient security used to protect pictures after they were sent across / posted on the INTERNET.
3) Pictures go public because there are bad people on the internet.
4) Jennifer Lawrence claims she is a victim of a sex crime

To put it another way (per your request): If your picnic in the middle of the street on a blind turn is ruined by a car driving through it, while the driver may be cited for not yielding right of way to a pedestrian, it's really your fault for exercising poor judgment locating it there in the first place.

When you say " that's equivalent to putting photos in an envelope and putting them in a post office? I don't think so.". Well, it was an analogy but YES. We have insufficiently secured personal documents posted on a public medium.

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 622

If I have naked selfies printed out in my house[*] and someone comes in and steals them...

Ah, but what if "Sam" puts nude selfies in an envelope and pins the envelope up at the local post office? Without a doubt the guy that takes them out of the envelope is wrong to do so, but as the possessor of an extremely low UID "Sam" should know his nude pics would be interesting to many people. In this scenario, you don't think "Sam" should bear any responsibility for creating and insecurely distributing his selfies?
Note I'm not arguing that breaking into the account and making a copy of the pics contained therein was right, I'm just saying that a celebrity sending nude pictures of themselves over a worldwide network designed to disseminate data looks a bit silly crying crocodile tears when someone other than the intended recipient sees them.

Comment Re:Color Me Surprised (Score 1) 335

Of course, this is all ignoring the fact that US is a democracy. You don't need a revolution to change the people in charge, you simply need to express support for someone else, and anonymously at that.

There was this country recently that had huge protests because while they were getting a democratic election the only people they could vote for were preapproved by a third party not necessarily interested in what the people wanted.
Yeah, we have two choices (we can pretend there are more but let's stick to reality here) and they end up being functionally the same and not what we want.

Bug

Xen Cloud Fix Shows the Right Way To Patch Open-Source Flaws 81

darthcamaro writes Amazon, Rackspace and IBM have all patched their public clouds over the last several days due to a vulnerability in the Xen hypervisor. According to a new report, the Xen project was first advised of the issue two weeks ago, but instead of the knee jerk type reactions we've seen with Heartbleed and now Shellshock, the Xen project privately fixed the bug and waited until all the major Xen deployments were patched before any details were released. Isn't this the way that all open-source projects should fix security issues? And if it's not, what is?
United Kingdom

UK Government Tax Disc Renewal Website Buckles Under Pressure 145

An anonymous reader writes When you pay the tax on a road vehicle in the UK, you used to get a paper "tax disk" to affix to the inside of your car windshield. However the relevant records are documented electronically anyway, inspiring the government to replace the paper system with a purely online one. Unfortunately said system was still in beta when it launched today and predictably, it has broken under user demand. No alternative system is available. (The licensing agency actually ran out of the paper disks more than a month ago, and has been printing them out on normal office paper and asking vehicle owners to cut out the circle themselves.) The initiative is part of a larger "digital-first", restructuring of how the government provides services aimed at "meeting user needs".
Government

California Governor Vetoes Bill Requiring Warrants For Drone Surveillance 115

schwit1 sends word that California governor Jerry Brown has vetoed legislation that would have required warrants for surveillance using unmanned drones. In his veto message (PDF), Brown said, "This bill prohibits law enforcement from using a drone without obtaining a search warrant, except in limited circumstances. There are undoubtedly circumstances where a warrant is appropriate. The bill's exceptions, however, appear to be too narrow and could impose requirements beyond what is required by either the 4th Amendment or the privacy provisions in the California Constitution."

The article notes that 10 other states already require a warrant for routine surveillance with a drone (Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin). Further, Brown's claims about the bill's exceptions are overstated — according to Slate, "California's drone bill is not draconian. It includes exceptions for emergency situations, search-and-rescue efforts, traffic first responders, and inspection of wildfires. It allows other public agencies to use drones for other purposes — just not law enforcement."

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