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Submission + - Charles Stross cancels trilogy: the NSA is already doing it 1

Submitted by doom
doom writes: Charles Stross has announced that there won't be a third book in the 'Halting State' trilogy because reality (in a manner of speaking) has caught up to him too fast. The last straw was apparently the news that the NSA planted spies in networked games like WoW. Stross comments: "At this point, I'm clutching my head. 'Halting State' wasn't intended to be predictive when I started writing it in 2006. Trouble is, about the only parts that haven't happened yet are Scottish Independence and the use of actual quantum computers for cracking public key encryption (and there's a big fat question mark over the latter-- what else are the NSA up to?)."

Submission + - Experian sold social security numbers to ID Theft Service

Submitted by realized
realized writes: Experian — one of the three national US credit bureaus — reportedly sold SSNs through its subsidiary, Court Ventures, to the operators of SuperGet.info who then offered all of the information online for a price. The website would advertise having "99% to 100% of all USA" in their database on websites frequented by carders.

Hieu Minh Ngo, the website owner, has recently been charged with 15-count indictment filed under seal in November 2012, charging him with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, substantive wire fraud, conspiracy to commit identity fraud, substantive identity fraud, aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and substantive access device fraud.

Comment Re:Nothing new - Anyone remember Echelon? (Score 1) 337

Furthest back I can personally say anything about for the ramp up of ubiquitous surveillance was seeing the 1999-ish Echelon report the the EU:

http://www.duncancampbell.org/content/echelon

While the scope was somewhat more limited (and more narrowly targeted) than current programs (targets being things like interception of spillover from point-to-point microwave relays, etc etc) similar questions were raised. Handling of info derived from phone call relays involving US citizens only vs mix of citizens and foreign nationals vs foreign nationals only. Scope of activity vs. charter of organization(s) doing the data handling.

Anyone have some discussion of the downward slide starting earlier?
Government

Submission + - Albright: There's a place in Hell for women who don't help one another (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Speaking at the CIA Women's History Month Celebration this week former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered a number of career advancing suggestions for women in the workforce. Albright said her storied career — which really began at age 39 after raising three children and obtaining her Ph.D. — owes its success to making the most of opportunities presented. "I never imagined that I would one day become secretary of state," she said. "It's not that I lacked ambition. It is just that I had never seen a secretary of state in a skirt.""
Sci-Fi

Ask Slashdot: Most Underappreciated Sci-Fi Writer? 1130

Posted by Soulskill from the nice-try-zombie-brunner dept.
mvdwege writes "In the thread on the most depressing sci-fi, there were hundreds of posts but merely four mentions of John Brunner, dystopian writer par excellence. Now, given the normally U.S. libertarian bent of the Slashdot audience, it is understandable that an outright British Socialist writer like Brunner would get short shrift, but it got me thinking: what Sci-fi writers do you know that are, in your opinion, vastly underappreciated?"

Comment Re:One more category (Score 1) 250

by Chromium_One (#40773587) Attached to: I most recently switched ISPs ...
It varies from between providers, but time-division multiplexing is fairly common for point to multipoint as of last I looked. Add a bit more latency waiting for time slots in exchange for reducing/removing contention. I gots zero idea on traffic filtering on the bird. Suspect the 'dumb pipe' scenario would be the most likely though.
Earth

The Story of My As-Yet-Unverified Impact Crater 250

Posted by Soulskill from the dent-in-the-world dept.
tetrahedrassface writes "When I was very young, my dad took me on a trip to his parents' farm. He wanted to show me 'The Crater.' We walked a long way through second generation hardwoods and finally stood on the rim of a hole that has no equal in this area. As I grew up, I became more interested in The Crater, and would always tell friends about it. It is roughly 1,200 feet across and 120 feet deep, and has a strange vibe about it. When you walk up to it, you feel like something really big happened here. Either the mother of all caves is down there, or a large object smashed into this place a long, long time ago. I bought aerial photos when I was twelve and later sent images from GIS to a geologist at a local university. He pretty much laughed me out of his office, saying that it was a sinkhole. He did wish me luck, however. It may be sinkhole. Who knows? Last week I borrowed a metal detector and went poking around, and have found the strangest shrapnel pieces I have ever seen. They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dish-washing detergent. My second trip today yielded lots of strange new pieces of metal, and hopefully, one day the truth will be known. Backyard science is so much fun. And who knows; if it is indeed a cave, maybe Cerberus resides there."

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