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Submission + - The Hackers Who Recovered NASA's Lost Lunar Photos (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project has since 2007 brought some 2,000 pictures back from 1,500 analog data tapes. They contain the first high-resolution photographs ever taken from behind the lunar horizon, including the first photo of an earthrise (first slide above). Thanks to the technical savvy and DIY engineering of the team at LOIRP, it’s being seen at a higher resolution than was ever previously possible. ... The photos were stored with remarkably high fidelity on the tapes, but at the time had to be copied from projection screens onto paper, sometimes at sizes so large that warehouses and even old churches were rented out to hang them up. The results were pretty grainy, but clear enough to identify landing sites and potential hazards. After the low-fi printing, the tapes were shoved into boxes and forgotten. ... The drives had to be rebuilt and in some cases completely re-engineered using instruction manuals or the advice of people who used to service them. The data they recovered then had to be demodulated and digitized, which added more layers of technical difficulties.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Possible to follow the PMI code of ethics and keep a job? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Read a Slashdot article re: ethics for programmers, and it made me think.... As a long-time project manager, I have seen all manner of tom-foolery; directors pillaging project budgets without sponsor authorization, managers and executives lying to customers about issues (that eventually tanked the project and our contract), PMI chapter presidents leveraging their power of position for self-enrichment, EPMO-executive-leaders looking the other way when asked to confront such problems.

But if you are a good soldier and keep quiet, you get to keep your job. So, my question to the PMI Ethics Committee is: "If a project manager follows the PMI Code of Ethics and is subsequently 'released' from their job, will PMI pay that project manager until he/she can find a new job?"

The answer is obviously "no, we won't." So, why does PMI continue to promulgate a strict code of ethics for PMP's, if code of ethics makes it nearly impossible to keep a job, in the real world?

Submission + - Facebook's Nearby Friends: Location-based Advertising is Next Frontier (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Facebook has introduced Nearby Friends where users can choose whether they would like to pinpoint their location to mates in a move that could give the social network a lot more data on users that could then be used for targeted ads.

While some in the industry are calling the new feature "creepy", Nearby Friends potentially gives Facebook a chance to better monetise its mobile app, an area where the company has so far failed to profit.

Location-based advertising, whereby consumers are geo-located to receive messages about offers and discounts directly to their smartphones as they walk down a high street, could be the answer.

"The challenge of location-based advertising is that it has to be very targeted. Facebook is a general social platform so different age groups use it in different ways. Twitter is the same," Alys Woodward, IDC's research director for European big data and social business tells IBTimes UK.

"In the past, Facebook have pushed the boundaries of privacy and then turn around and say, 'Oh, you don't like it?', and then roll [it] back. Since Whatsapp will never give them users' data, Facebook is now getting users to opt in.

"Despite their vast revenue, they do have to evolve to survive [as] Facebook sponsored ads haven't been successful."

Submission + - Band Releases Album As Linux Kernel Module (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: A band called netcat is generating buzz in software circles by releasing its debut album as a Linux kernel module (among other more typical formats.) Why? “Are you ever listening to an album, and thinking ‘man, this sounds good, but I wish it crossed from user-space to kernel-space more often!’ We got you covered,” the band says on its Facebook page. “Our album is now fully playable as a loadable Linux kernel module.”
Google

Google Opens Up Street View Archives From 2007 To Today 25

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the just-look-at-that-urban-decay dept.
mpicpp (3454017) writes with news that Google is publishing all Street View imagery back to 2007. Quoting Ars: "The feature hasn't rolled out to many accounts yet, but it looks like a small, draggable window will be added to the Street View interface. Just move the time slider around and you'll be able to jump through past images. Granted, Street View has only been around for a few years, so the archives only go back to 2007. A few of the events Google suggests browsing through are the building of One World Trade Center and the destruction and rebuilding of Onagawa, Japan after the 2011 earthquake. Besides being really cool, the move will save Google from having to choose a canonical Street View image for every location. If the current image is blacked-out or wrong in some way, you can just click back to the previous one."
The Internet

ARIN Is Down To the Last /8 of IPv4 Addresses 306

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the end-times dept.
An anonymous reader writes "On 3 February 2011, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) issued the remaining five /8 address blocks, each containing 16.7 million addresses, in the global free pool equally to the five RIRs, and as such ARIN is no longer able to receive additional IPv4 resources from the IANA. After yesterday's large allocation (104.64.0.0/10) to Akamai, the address pool remaining to be assigned by ARIN is now down to the last /8. This triggers stricter allocation rules and marks the end of general availability of new IPv4 addresses in North America. ARIN thus follows the RIRs of Asia, Europe and South America into the final phase of IPv4 depletion."

Submission + - OpenSSL: The New Face Of Technology Monoculture (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: In a now-famous 2003 essay, “Cyberinsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly” (http://cryptome.org/cyberinsecurity.htm) Dr. Dan Geer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Geer) argued, persuasively, that Microsoft’s operating system monopoly constituted a grave risk to the security of the United States and international security, as well. It was in the interest of the U.S. government and others to break Redmond’s monopoly, or at least to lessen Microsoft’s ability to ‘lock in’ customers and limit choice. “The prevalence of security flaw (sp) in Microsoft’s products is an effect of monopoly power; it must not be allowed to become a reinforcer,” Geer wrote.

The essay cost Geer his job at the security consulting firm AtStake, which then counted Microsoft as a major customer.(http://cryptome.org/cyberinsecurity.htm#Fired) (AtStake was later acquired by Symantec.)

These days Geer is the Chief Security Officer at In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm. But he’s no less vigilant of the dangers of software monocultures. Security Ledger notes that, in a post today for the blog Lawfare (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/04/heartbleed-as-metaphor/), Geer is again warning about the dangers that come from an over-reliance on common platforms and code. His concern this time isn’t proprietary software managed by Redmond, however, it’s common, oft-reused hardware and software packages like the OpenSSL software at the heart (pun intended) of Heartbleed.(https://securityledger.com/2014/04/the-heartbleed-openssl-flaw-what-you-need-to-know/)

“The critical infrastructure’s monoculture question was once centered on Microsoft Windows,” he writes. “No more. The critical infrastructure’s monoculture problem, and hence its exposure to common mode risk, is now small devices and the chips which run them," Geer writes.

What happens when a critical and vulnerable component becomes ubiquitous — far more ubiquitous than OpenSSL? Geer wonders if the stability of the Internet itself is at stake.

“The Internet, per se, was designed for resistance to random faults; it was not designed for resistance to targeted faults,” Geer warns. “As the monocultures build, they do so in ever more pervasive, ever smaller packages, in ever less noticeable roles. The avenues to common mode failure proliferate.”

Submission + - Parents' Privacy Concerns Kill Bill Gates' $100M inBloom Initiative

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: As things turn out, All Your Child's Data Are Not Belong To inBloom, the Bill Gates-bankrolled and News Corp. subsidiary-implemented data initiative that sought to personalize learning. GeekWire's Tricia Duryee reports that inBloom, which was backed by $100 million from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others, is closing up shop after parents worried that its database technology was violating their children's privacy. According to NY Times coverage (reg.), the inBloom database tracked 400 different data fields about students — including family relationships ("foster parent" or "father's significant other”") and reasons for enrollment changes ("withdrawn due to illness" or "leaving school as a victim of a serious violent incident") — that parents objected to, prompting some schools to recoil from the venture. In a statement, inBloom CEO Iwan Streichenberger said that personalized learning was still an emerging concept, and complained that the venture had been "the subject of mischaracterizations and a lightning rod for misdirected criticism." He added, "It is a shame that the progress of this important innovation has been stalled because of generalized public concerns about data misuse, even though inBloom has world-class security and privacy protections that have raised the bar for school districts and the industry as a whole [although it was still apparently vulnerable to Heartbleed]." As far as Gates goes, the world's richest man has a couple of irons left in the data-driven personalized learning fire via his ties to Code.org, which seeks 7 years of participating K-12 students' data, and Khan Academy, which recently attracted scrutiny over its data-privacy policies. Khan Academy — which counted the managing partner of Gates' bgC3 think-tank and Google CEO Eric Schmidt as Board members in a recent tax filing — just struck an exclusive partnership with CollegeBoard to prepare students for the redesigned SAT.

Comment Musicians travel with their instruments (Score 1) 894

Virtuoso musicians don't check their instruments as luggage. Even if their instruments are big, like a cello, they get a seat for the instrument.

...Razgui, who was not present when his bag was opened. 'I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life.' When his baggage arrived in Boston, the instruments were gone.

If his instruments were his life and he is a virtuoso musician, he would have kept his flutes with him on the airplane.

Comment Re:Who gives a...? (Score 1) 115

by Ellie K (#45868725) Attached to: Rap Genius Returns To Google Search Rankings
"Rap Genius" is a misleading and silly name for what, transcription software like DragonWriter? Actually, it might not even be that good (all I read about lately are Internet piecework/ sweatshops that are supposedly "social" and "democratizing"...except they aren't).

I know that Mark Andreessen funded it, but he isn't right about everything.

Comment Re:Rap "Genius"? (Score 1) 115

by Ellie K (#45868689) Attached to: Rap Genius Returns To Google Search Rankings

And if you want bad lyrics, listen to opera.

OK, I'll bite. Treat yourself to a little "Gilbert and Sullivan"...

I really like Eminem and Kid Rock. They are sarcastic and very funny. Will they still have the same appeal after 100 years? I doubt it. Gilbert and Sullivan has endured.

I don't especially like G&S (I prefer what someone else called "traditional arias" e.g. full chorus "Ode to Joy"), yet I can completely relate to, understand why you are fond of G&S. A live G&S performance is music and art.

Comment Re:Rap "Genius"? (Score 1) 115

by Ellie K (#45868643) Attached to: Rap Genius Returns To Google Search Rankings

...It takes a skilled linguist to write good rap as it does to write good poetry and there are good and bad examples of both.

Linguist! The professors of linguistics that write University of Pennsylvania's Language Log are skilled linguists. I don't think that has anything to do with their ability to write poetry. Or rap, although it would be fun to ask!

Rap is words, music and visuals with attitude, and usually post-production effects. Poetry is written words on a page. They aren't comparable.

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