40104647
submission
Freddybear writes:
If your computer has been cracked and subverted for use by a botnet or other remote-access attack, is it legal for you to hack back into the system from which the attack originated? Over the last couple of years three legal scholars and bloggers have debated the question on The Volokh Conspiracy weblog. The linked webpage collects that debate into a coherent document.
"The debaters are:
Stewart Baker, a former official at the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson with a large cybersecurity practice. Stewart Baker makes the policy case for counterhacking and challenges the traditional view of what remedies are authorized by the language of the CFAA.
Orin Kerr, Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor of Law at George Washington School of Law, a former computer crimes prosecutor, and one of the most respected computer crime scholars. Orin Kerr defends the traditional view of the Act against both Stewart Baker and Eugene Volokh.
Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law, founder of the Volokh Conspiracy, and a sophisticated technology lawyer, presents a challenge grounded in common law understandings of trespass and tort."
36430345
submission
Freddybear writes:
A recent report from the US Energy Information Agency says that US carbon emissions are the lowest they have been in 20 years, and attributes the decline to the increasing use of cheap natural gas obtained from fracking wells.
Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, said the shift away from coal is reason for "cautious optimism" about potential ways to deal with climate change. He said it demonstrates that "ultimately people follow their wallets" on global warming.
"There's a very clear lesson here. What it shows is that if you make a cleaner energy source cheaper, you will displace dirtier sources," said Roger Pielke Jr., a climate expert at the University of Colorado.
35814895
submission
Freddybear writes:
Ubisoft games using the UPLAY DRM infrastructure may compromise the security of PC's on which they are installed. Any website can call up a function of the UPLAY browser plugin, which is silently installed by those Ubisoft games, to run arbitrary code or commands on your PC.
Instructions on removing the UPLAY plugin can be found here: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?5725-Ubisoft-DRM-is-a-security-risk#4
31500617
submission
Freddybear writes:
Last Friday, Maryland became the first state to ban employers from asking for access to the social media accounts of employees or applicants. Lawmakers in the US House and Senate are working on legislation that would ban the practice nationally.
31500075
submission
Freddybear writes:
US Ninth Circuit Court has handed down it's decision in US v Nosal, which concerned whether violation of terms of service could be made a federal crime.
From the ruling:
"[W]e hold that the phrase “exceeds authorized access” in the CFAA does not extend to violations of use restrictions. If Congress wants to incorporate misappropriation liability into the CFAA, it must speak more clearly."
This decision contradicts rulings in several other district courts.
Some discussion of whether the Supreme Court will take up the case can be found here: http://volokh.com/2011/12/19/thoughts-on-the-oral-arguments-in-united-states-v-nosal/
27447564
submission
Freddybear writes:
A study of online gamers in the Steam community finds that those who are friends with cheaters are more likely to begin cheating themselves.
"First up, cheats stick together. The data shows that cheaters are much more likely to be friends with other cheaters.
Cheating also appears to be infectious. The likelihood of a fair player becoming labelled as a cheater in future is directly correlated with this person's number of friends who are cheaters. So if you know cheaters you are more likely to become one yourself. Cheating spreads like flu through this community.
Finally, being labelled as a cheat seems to significantly affect social standing. Once a person is labelled as a cheat, they tend to lose friends. Some even cut themselves off from friends by increasing their privacy settings."
27077974
submission
Freddybear writes:
A recent EPA report which claimed that "fracking" could cause hydrocarbon pollution of the water table was based on 900-foot deep wells (much deeper than the usually 300-foot deep water wells) which penetrated into the gas field.
"In short, they drilled into the natural gas reservoir that has long attracted industry producers. It may the single most productive moment in EPA history."
26936694
submission
Freddybear writes:
Politically-connected Philip Falcone’s proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results.
26547956
submission
Freddybear writes:
Digital forensics experts at Dartmouth have developed software that can analyze digital photos to rate how drastically they have been altered by digital editing techniques. "The Dartmouth research, said Seth Matlins, a former talent agent and marketing executive, could be “hugely important” as a tool for objectively measuring the degree to which photos have been altered."
24787874
submission
Freddybear writes:
A French court has ordered ISPs to block access to Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F, a website designed to allow civilians to post videos of alleged police misconduct. French police unions applauded the decision.
24186102
submission
Freddybear writes:
"Not long after the development of the first laser in 1960 scientists discovered that shining a beam through certain crystals produced light of a different color; more specifically, it produced light of exactly twice the frequency of the original. The phenomenon was dubbed second harmonic generation
The green laser pointers in use today to illustrate presentations are based on this science, but producing such a beautiful emerald beam is no easy feat. The green light begins as an infrared ray that must be first processed through a crystal, various lenses and other optical elements before it can illuminate that PowerPoint on the screen before you.
It was later discovered that applying an electrical field to some crystals produced a similar, though weaker, beam of light. This second discovery, known as EFISH – for electric-field-induced second harmonic light generation – has amounted mostly to an interesting bit of scientific knowledge and little more. EFISH devices are big, demanding high-powered lasers, large crystals and thousands of volts of electricity to produce the effect. As a result, they are impractical for all but a few applications.
In a paper published today in Science, engineers from Stanford have demonstrated a new device that shrinks EFISH devices by orders of magnitude to the nanoscale. The result is an ultra-compact light source with both optical and electrical functions. Research implications for the device range from a better understanding of fundamental science to improved data communications."
22743176
submission
Freddybear writes:
Via MAKE magazine's blog, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana have developed a method of using an ordinary glucose meter to selectively detect and quantify a wide range of chemicals. The method involves custom-tailored DNA coupled to the enzyme invertase. When the DNA detects the specific chemical which it is designed to react with, it releases the invertase which converts ordinary table sugar to fructose and glucose, which can be measured by a standard glucose meter.
22366370
submission
Freddybear writes:
Researchers in France have assembled an acoustic superlens from an array of soda cans. The cans act as resonators, and by exciting the array with tailored sound waves, the sound volume can be made to peak in specific volumes less than a few centimeters wide.
22084048
submission
Freddybear writes:
Along with 90 (and still counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, [David Post of the Volokh Conspiracy law blog] have signed a letter (drafted by Dave Levine, Mark Lemley, and me) in opposition to Sen. Leahy’s “PROTECT IP Act.”
21725472
submission
Freddybear writes:
Xiph.org, makers of ogg audio and theora video codecs submitted a detailed proposal to the FTC for the patents workshop. Their proposal recommends changes which would help to eliminate the practice of "submarine" patents regarding standardized technologies.
