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Comment No digital signature?!?!? (Score 1) 37

by Smerta (#47097825) Attached to: Google Releases VirusTotal Uploader For OS X

Wow. Just went over to download the Windows version of the Uploader tool - the installer isn't digitally signed. WTF?!?!?

I'm still shocked that so much software from legitimate companies isn't digitally signed. I do a lot of firmware development, and very few companies' installers are digitally signed (IAR, I'm looking at you). Sheesh. Even a tiny company like Saleae and the main developer of TortoiseSVN ,Stefan Küng, have digital certificates for signing code, why can't a bigger company be bothered with this?

Submission + - 1 TB memory chip about to become reality (phys.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Toshiba, teaming up with its memory partner Sandisk, in a deal worth a reported 500 billion yen ($4.84 billion) to set up a plant to produce flash chip which can be as large as One Terabyte (TB) each

Inside the 1TB flash chip several layers of wafers would be stacked on top of each other using the 3D packing technique

The different layers of wafer would hooked on and linked to each others using the through-silicon via (TSV) technology

The proposed chip would be 16 times as large as the 64gigabyte (GB) flash chip Toshiba produces.

Submission + - The Technical Difficulty In Porting a PS3 Game to the PS4 (edge-online.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Last of Us was one of the last major projects for the PlayStation 3. The code optimization done by development studio Naughty Dog was a real technical achievement — making graphics look modern and impressive on a 7-year-old piece of hardware. Now, they're in the process of porting it to the much more capable PS4, which will end up being a technical accomplishment in its own right. Creative director Neil Druckmann said, 'Just getting an image onscreen, even an inferior one with the shadows broken, lighting broken and with it crashing every 30 seconds that took a long time. These engineers are some of the best in the industry and they optimised the game so much for the PS3’s SPUs specifically. It was optimised on a binary level, but after shifting those things over [to PS4] you have to go back to the high level, make sure the [game] systems are intact, and optimise it again. I can't describe how difficult a task that is. And once it’s running well, you’re running the [versions] side by side to make sure you didn't screw something up in the process, like physics being slightly off, which throws the game off, or lighting being shifted and all of a sudden it’s a drastically different look. That’s not ‘improved’ any more; that’s different. We want to stay faithful while being better.'

Submission + - LibreSSL Update (openbsd.org)

Submitted by the_B0fh
the_B0fh writes: Bob Beck reports on the progress the OpenBSD team has made on LibreSSL. Some highlights:

Code was horrible. Nobody wanted to touch it. OpenSSL Foundation appears to be a million dollar a year for-profit company doing FIPS consulting. Bugs rot for years in bug tracker. ROP coding function — allows you to jump to any arbitrary address — ROP coder's wet dream! Current third party ports are all insecure. Need funding. Linux Foundation has not committed to support LibreSSL.

Submission + - Congresswoman's Google Search Results to Appear After 7 Years

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Google prides itself on delivering search results in an Instant. Not so speedily delivered by Google, however, were the results from Representative Maxine Waters' 2007 search for "How many [of Google's employees] are African-American?", which stumped Google VP of People Operations Laszlo Bock. "I don't actually have that data at my fingertips," Bock said. "I apologize." Now — seven years later — Google has pledged to divulge diversity data on its workforce, for the first time. Google conceded that it has been "reluctant to divulge that data" and "quite frankly, we are wrong about that." The U.S. government requires all major employers to file diversity statistics with the EEOC, but Google convinced the Dept. of Labor that the race and gender of its work force is a trade secret that cannot be released. By the way, revisiting Bock's 2007 testimony (YouTube), in which Congress is informed of "Google's global efforts to attract, develop, and retain the most talented employees wherever we may find them," is also intriguing in light of what has been learned about Google's no-poaching hiring practices. Just three months earlier, Steve Jobs fired off his infamous smiley face e-mail response after Google HR terminated and made "a public example" of a recruiter who violated Google's "zero-tolerance policy" for recruiters who failed to respect the secret non-solicitation agreement in place between Google and Apple at the time.

Submission + - Free software foundation condemns Mozilla's move to support DRM in Firefox. (fsf.org)

Submitted by ptr_88
ptr_88 writes: Free software foundation has opposed Mozilla's move to support DRM in Firefox browser partnership with Adobe. This is what FSF has to say about this move : The Free Software Foundation is deeply disappointed in Mozilla's announcement. The decision compromises important principles in order to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser market share. It allies Mozilla with a company hostile to the free software movement and to Mozilla's own fundamental ideals .

Submission + - List of Congressmen Who Lobbied FCC Against Net Neutrality & Received Payoff

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars Technica published an article Friday highlighting the results from research conducted by a money-in-politics watchdog regarding the 28 congressmen who sent a combined total of three letters to the FCC protesting against re-classifying the internet as a public utility. These 28 members of the U.S. House of Representatives 'received, on average, $26,832 from the "cable & satellite TV production & distribution" sector over a two-year period ending in December. According to the data, that's 2.3 times more than the House average of $11,651.' That's average. Actual amounts that the 28 received over a two year period ranged from $109,250 (Greg Waldon, R-OR) to $0 (Nick Rahall, D-WV). Look at the list yourselves, and find your representative to determine how much legitimacy can be attributed to their stated concerns for the public.

Submission + - Programmers: It's OK to Grow Up

Submitted by Nemo the Magnificent
Nemo the Magnificent writes: From the Peter-Pan-need-not-apply dept.

Everybody knows software development is a young man's game, right? Here's a guy who hires and manages programmers and he says it's not about age at all, it's about skills, period. A company that actively works to offer all employees the chance to learn and to engage with modern technologies is a company that good people are going to work for, and to stay at.

Comment Re:Creative Suite Six will be Adobe's XP (Score 2) 74

by Smerta (#47018581) Attached to: Adobe Creative Cloud Is Back
Totally agree. Still chugging away on my 7 year old copy of CS3, bought back when I qualified for the student discount. (Actually if I want to find CS6, I should probably start looking now. Just did some poking around, looks like slim pickings already. Even Fry's, which I normally avoid, is only selling Cloud now, sigh...)

Submission + - Discrete Logarithm problem solved : Time to drop some crypto methods ? 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: From the article :

Researchers at the Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherches en Informatique et ses Applications (CNRS/Université de Lorraine/Inria) and the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris 6 (CNRS/UPMC) have solved one aspect of the discrete logarithm problem. This is considered to be one of the 'holy grails' of algorithmic number theory, on which the security of many cryptographic systems used today is based. They have devised a new algorithm that calls into question the security of one variant of this problem, which has been closely studied since 1976.

Comment Re:This is dismaying (Score 1) 182

by Smerta (#47012931) Attached to: FCC Votes To Consider Next Round of 'Net Neutrality' Rules

The old saying goes, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." But if you knew the whole story, you would know that stupidity does not adequately explain Wheeler's actions. It is malice, through and through.

True, but let's acknowledge the fact that Wheeler could be (probably is) a dumb mule as well.

A malicious, conniving mule who's lining his pockets with bundles of cash from Comcast & Verizon etc., but a dumb mule nonetheless. (Speaking of mules, don't they whip mules if they don't do what you need them to do?)

Disclaimer: animal-lover. I just have a lot of contempt for Wheeler and his ilk.

Comment Re:Can't Tell Them Apart (Score 1) 466

by Smerta (#46994787) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Minimum Programming Competence In Order To Get a Job?

This probably doesn't help you very much, but the places that insist on that kind of interview are probably not the kind of place you want to work, anyway.

I know that's easier to swallow when you're gainfully employed as opposed to looking for a job (I'm not saying you're in either camp), but it's the truth.

BTW, not sure if you're a C++ programmer, but Scott Meyers would agree with you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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