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Music

Music Industry Argues Works Entering Public Domain Are Not In Public Interest 302

Posted by samzenpus from the watching-out-for-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes: With news that Canada intends to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings and performers, the recording industry is now pushing the change by arguing that works entering the public domain is not in the public interest. It is hard to see how anyone can credibly claim that works are "lost" to the public domain and that the public interest in not served by increased public access, but if anyone would make the claim, it would be the recording industry.
Bug

Groupon Refuses To Pay Security Expert Who Found Serious XSS Site Bugs 148

Posted by samzenpus from the pay-the-man dept.
Mark Wilson writes: Bounty programs benefit everyone. Companies like Microsoft get help from security experts, customers gain improved security, and those who discover and report vulnerabilities reap the rewards financially. Or at least that's how things are supposed to work. Having reported a series of security problems to discount and deal site Groupon, security researcher Brute Logic from XSSposed.org was expecting a pay-out — but the site refuses to give up the cash. In all, Brute Logic reported more than 30 security issues with Groupon's site, but the company cites its Responsible Disclosure policy as the reason for not handing over the cash.
Google

Median Age At Google Is 29, Says Age Discrimination Lawsuit 349

Posted by samzenpus from the get-ready-for-carrousel dept.
dcblogs writes: The typical employee at Google is relatively young, according to a lawsuit brought by an older programmer who is alleging age discrimination. Between 2007 and 2013, Google's workforce grew from 9,500 to more than 28,000 employees, "yet as of 2013, its employees' median age was 29 years old," the lawsuit claims. That's in contrast to the median age of nearly 43 for all U.S. workers who are computer programmers, according to the lawsuit.
Security

Researcher Discloses Methods For Bypassing All OS X Security Protections 130

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
Trailrunner7 writes: For years, Apple has enjoyed a pretty good reputation among users for the security of its products. That halo has been enhanced by the addition of new security features such as Gatekeeper and XProtect to OS X recently, but one researcher said that all of those protections are simple to bypass and gaining persistence on a Mac as an attacker isn't much of a challenge at all. Gatekeeper is one of the key technologies that Apple uses to prevent malware from running on OS X machines. It gives users the ability to restrict which applications can run on their machines by choosing to only allow apps from the Mac App Store. With that setting in play, only signed, legitimate apps should be able to run on the machine. But Patrick Wardle, director of research at Synack, said that getting around that restriction is trivial. "Gatekeeper doesn't verify an extra content in the apps. So if I can find an Apple-approved app and get it to load external content, when the user runs it, it will bypass Gatekeeper," Wardle said in a talk at the RSA Conference here Thursday. "It only verifies the app bundle. If Macs were totally secure, I wouldn't be here talking," Wardle said. "It's trivial for any attacker to bypass the security tools on Macs."

Comment Re:people still buy protected content from itunes? (Score 1) 368

by roc97007 (#49540731) Attached to: iTunes Stops Working For Windows XP Users

I guess I can see that, for a few years ago. But most non-Apple smartphones use micro-SD these days, and a 64 Gbyte card is $23 on Amazon today. (Or $120 for similar capacity in an Apple product, of course.) The first thing I did when I got my replacement phone (the previous one not having survived a motorcycle accident) was replace the paltry 8 GB micro-SD with a 64 GB part. And then it took almost an hour to download all my music to it.

One annoyance -- one of our vehicles with an older radio supports stereo Bluetooth, which means I can just play music from my phone through the car stereo, and manipulate the phone through the stereo controls.

In contrast, the radio in my 2014 motorcycle, which supports thumb drives and other neat stuff, will play music from the phone but will not control what is being played. Annoying.

Comment Re:"forced" (Score 1) 616

by roc97007 (#49539489) Attached to: Bill To Require Vaccination of Children Advances In California

> Last Wednesday, the legislation stalled in the Senate Education Committee as lawmakers said they were concerned that too many students would be forced into home schooling.

Or even worse, that they found that they liked it. The problem with making something a condition of participating in a government institution is the risk that significant numbers will discover they do fine without it.

Or, they may realize that the government service they are receiving is beneficial, and that might start them wondering about whether the Tea Party is confused.

Um, this is the California school system we're talking about...

Comment Re:same problem as with any biometrics (Score 1) 118

by roc97007 (#49539473) Attached to: Swallowing Your Password

That "Something you know"-part can be extracted quite easily. How much do you like having all your teeth, fingers & toes attached?

Well yes, I think I would like to keep all my appendages. (Cue OB XKCD, where a $7 crowbar is more effective than a $100M password cracking array.) I have thought about this, and I think it can be solved by having two accounts -- your "real" account, and a "hostage" account, which looks a lot like your "real" account (kinda like keeping two sets of books) and takes the same biometrics, but upon providing a slightly different "something you know", raises (silent) alarms everywhere it would be appropriate to do so.

Comment people still buy protected content from itunes? (Score 2) 368

by roc97007 (#49539287) Attached to: iTunes Stops Working For Windows XP Users

I think I have about six songs in itunes that are in "protected AAC" format, as I stopped buying stuff in that format early on, as soon as I realized the limitations. I still have a (gen3) ipod in the truck but the sound system in the other car and in the motorcycle understand thumb drives, and once you have that why the heck would you use an ipod? Most phones these days will play music and have removable storage -- why would you carry an extra device?

Once you realize that only Apple products will play "protected AAC" files, why the heck would you buy content in that format?

I guess the point I'm making is that if you lost access to content you paid for because itunes no longer supports your OS, this might be a good time to at least re-evaluate how you purchase content. If you must use itunes, it'll rip CDs just fine, and used CDs are available, often for a pittance, at Amazon and other places.

I can't believe in 2015 we're still saying "just say no to DRM content". That question should have been settled a long time ago.

Submission + - Newt Gingrich calls for doubling federal medical research at NIH (examiner.com) 1

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich published an oped in the New York Times calling for the doubling of the National Institutes for Health, currently at $31 billion. The idea, coming from Gingrich, is not as crazy as it may sound at first glance. Gingrich helped to start the ball rolling the last time the NIH budget was doubled, starting in the late 1990s. Gingrich has also been an advocate of science research as a means of benefiting the country.

Gingrich presents his case as a means of real health care reform, not from layering on more bureaucracy, but in finding cures and treatments for diseases.
United States

Except For Millennials, Most Americans Dislike Snowden 686

Posted by samzenpus from the no-sir-I-don't-like-him dept.
HughPickens.com writes: Newsmax reports that according to KRC Research, about 64 percent of Americans familiar with Snowden hold a negative opinion of him. However 56 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 have a positive opinion of Snowden which contrasts sharply with older age cohorts. Among those aged 35-44, some 34 percent have positive attitudes toward him. For the 45-54 age cohort, the figure is 28 percent, and it drops to 26 percent among Americans over age 55, U.S. News reported. Americans overall say by plurality that Snowden has done "more to hurt" U.S. national security (43 percent) than help it (20 percent). A similar breakdown was seen with views on whether Snowden helped or hurt efforts to combat terrorism, though the numbers flip on whether his actions will lead to greater privacy protections. "The broad support for Edward Snowden among Millennials around the world should be a message to democratic countries that change is coming," says Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "They are a generation of digital natives who don't want government agencies tracking them online or collecting data about their phone calls." Opinions of millennials are particularly significant in light of January 2015 findings by the U.S. Census Bureau that they are projected to surpass the baby-boom generation as the United States' largest living generation this year.

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