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Education

Can Students Have Too Much Tech? 198

Posted by Soulskill from the maybe-4th-graders-don't-need-weaponized-roombas dept.
theodp writes: In a NY Times Op Ed, developmental psychologist Susan Pinker goes against the conventional White House wisdom about the importance of Internet connectivity for schoolchildren and instead argues that students can have too much tech. "More technology in the classroom has long been a policy-making panacea," Pinker writes. "But mounting evidence shows that showering students, especially those from struggling families, with networked devices will not shrink the class divide in education. If anything, it will widen it." Tech can help the progress of children, Pinker acknowledges, but proper use is the rub. As a cautionary tale, Pinker cites a study by Duke economists that tracked the academic progress of nearly one million disadvantaged middle-school students against the dates they were given networked computers. The news was not good. "Students who gain access to a home computer between the 5th and 8th grades tend to witness a persistent decline in reading and math scores," the economists wrote, adding that license to surf the Internet was also linked to lower grades in younger children.
Verizon

Fixing Verizon's Supercookie 111

Posted by Soulskill from the c-is-for-cookie,-cookie-is-for-whoever-verizon-says dept.
New submitter ferro lad sends a story about Verizon's so-called supercookie, a unique identifier they add to web traffic going across their network to help advertisers target their ads better. A new article at Slate demonstrates how Verizon could fix the identifier so that ad companies would have a harder time misusing it — something they've already been shown to do. "...with just a tiny amount of effort, Verizon could maintain its current business while substantially preventing the misuse of its UID headers." Of course, for privacy-conscious users, the ability to get rid of them altogether would be preferable. Fortunately, Verizon now says users will soon have the ability to opt out of the identifiers. Previously, users could opt out of having their data shared with advertisers, but the unique identifier itself remained with their web traffic. It's not a complete solution — the tracking should be opt-in to begin with — but it's a step in the right direction.

Submission + - New Microsoft iOS and Android Outlook Apps cache your email and credentials (winkelmeyer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New Microsoft Outlook Apps cache your credentials and *temporarily* store all incoming and outgoing mail. Outside of the obvious corporate security concerns, even for those outside the US, this mean sends and stores all your mail and passwords on US servers even if you are connecting to a private exchange server.

Comment Re:Umm..and telnet is insecure. (Score 1) 375

by Burz (#48938111) Attached to: Why Screen Lockers On X11 Cannot Be Secure

Qubes handles video playback just fine even at FHD (although within a frame, to show security context).

The MS Office website says Excel requires DirectX "for acceleration". IOW, it runs without acceleration if DirectX hardware is not available. Its not something I really notice, given that Excel mainly deals with text on a grid.

If you really need 3D, Qubes can handle it as long as you supply an additional GPU that behaves well with an IOMMU, such as an Nvidia Quadro. Otherwise, you have to wait for ITL to incorporate GPU virtualization into the Qubes codebase... but virtual GPU tech has only been demonstrated by GPU vendors very recently.

Granted, 3D is an important feature in PCs today, but the inability to /safely/ incorporate it thus far highlights the kind of negligence that has held sway in the computer industry.

You'll have more luck 3D-wise with a Hyper-V server combined with Windows new RemoteFX technology. I know that this is unpopular option, and if anyone can set me straight on hypervisors and 3D for Windows guests not running on Windows hypervisors, please do. I've researched KVM, LXD, Jailhouse, or ESX, and of those, only ESX has experimental Windows 3D guest support.

Most hypervisors are designed for the convenience of users and sysadmins to either run another OS, or better manage server resources... Securing desktop PC features is secondary at best with them.

Submission + - New Snowden Revelation: GCHQ/NSA 'Manipulate, Deceive And Destroy Reputations'

Submitted by Press2ToContinue
Press2ToContinue writes: Extracted from the recent Snowden cache, Glenn Greenwald at NBC News has posted a GCHQ presentation demonstrating how the NSA incubated a covert "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG — the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. The purpose of JTRIG is to infiltrate groups online and destroys people's reputations — going far beyond terrorist threats to national security.

Among the core self-identified purposes of JTRIG are two tactics: (1) to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and (2) to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable. To see how extremist these programs are, just consider the tactics they boast of using to achieve those ends: “false flag operations” (posting material to the internet and falsely attributing it to someone else), fake victim blog posts (pretending to be a victim of the individual whose reputation they want to destroy), and posting “negative information” on various forums.

NSA and GCHQ were self-described "signals intelligence" agencies, supposedly merely understanding and decoding signals, without taking offensive action. The Snowden docs have now revealed that the mandate of these organizations swings to the offensive, and they actively employ tactics which destroy people's lives to meet their own agendas.

Is this really a power you want to trust — a secretive government agency without any accountable oversight?
Biotech

FDA Wants To Release Millions of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In Florida 265

Posted by samzenpus from the I've-seen-this-movie dept.
MikeChino writes In an attempt to curb outbreaks of two devastating tropical diseases in the Florida Keys, the FDA is proposing the release of millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into the area. Scientists have bred male mosquitoes with virus gene fragments, so when they mate with the females that bite and spread illness, their offspring will die. This can reduce the mosquito population dramatically, halting the spread of diseases like dengue fever.

Submission + - Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask 'Regin' Trojan as NSA Tool (spiegel.de)

Submitted by turkeydance
turkeydance writes: The new analysis provides clear proof that Regin is in fact the cyber-attack platform belonging to the Five Eyes alliance, which includes the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Neither Kaspersky nor Symantec commented directly on the likely creator of Regin. But there can be little room left for doubt regarding the malware's origin.
link:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
Microsoft

Microsoft To Invest In Rogue Android Startup Cyanogen 280

Posted by samzenpus from the have-a-pile-of-money dept.
An anonymous reader writes The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft plans to be a minority investor in a roughly $70 million round of equity financing for mobile startup Cyanogen Inc. Neither company is commenting on the plan but last week during a talk in San Francisco, Cyanogen's CEO said the company's goal was to "take Android away from Google." According to Bloomberg: "The talks illustrate how Microsoft is trying to get its applications and services on rival operating systems, which has been a tenet of Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella. Microsoft has in the past complained that Google Inc., which manages Android, has blocked its programs from the operating system."

Comment Re:FUD (Score 1) 375

by Burz (#48925769) Attached to: Why Screen Lockers On X11 Cannot Be Secure

Its not FUD when a malware (or bug) with normal privs can open an avenue for physical attack.

If a website/MITM tricks your browser into putting up a tiny context menu, it can allow someone to walk up to your computer later and start messing with it.
The Internet

Eric Schmidt: Our Perception of the Internet Will Fade 228

Posted by Soulskill from the augmenting-our-reality dept.
Esra Erimez writes: Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday predicted a change in how we perceive the internet. Schmidt says, "There will be so many IP addresses, so many devices, sensors, things that you are wearing, things that you are interacting with that you won't even sense it. It will be part of your presence all the time. Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room."
Earth

Doomsday Clock Could Move 145

Posted by samzenpus from the closer-to-midnight dept.
Lasrick writes The ominous minute hand of the 'Doomsday Clock' has been fixed at 5 minutes to midnight for the past three years. But it could move tomorrow. The clock is a visual metaphor that was created nearly 70 years ago by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, whose Board of Governors boasts 18 Nobel laureates. Each year, the Bulletin's Science and Security Board assesses threats to humanity — with special attention to nuclear warheads and climate change — to decide whether the Doomsday Clock needs an adjustment. The event will be streamed live from the Bulletin's website at 11 am EST.

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