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Submission + - Linux Getting Extensive x86 Assembly Code Refresh 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A massive x86 assembly code spring cleaning has been done in a pull request that is to end up in Linux 4.1. The developers have tried testing the code on many different x86 boxes, but there's risk of regression when exposing the code to many more systems in the days and weeks ahead. That being said, the list of improvements is excellent. There are over 100 separate cleanups, restructuring changes, speedups and fixes in the x86 system call, IRQ, trap and other entry code, part of a heroic effort to deobfuscate a decade old spaghetti assembly code and its C code dependencies.

Submission + - Google and Amazon Want to Send You a Plumber

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Caroline O'Donovan reports at Buzzfeed that Google plans to announce a new product aimed at connecting Google search users with local home-service providers — like plumbers and electricians. Currently, Google searches for things like plumbers and electricians return links to service providers along with associated AdWord advertisements. Sources said the new product would go beyond this presentation format to actually connect search users with service providers

Google isn’t the only tech company looking to tap into the huge and rapidly expanding home services industry. Amazon just launched its new Home Services site, which allows Amazon shoppers to search, select, and pay for things like landscapers and car mechanics without ever leaving the site. Amazon is offering more than 700 services that include just about anything that might require a professional to come to your door. Tasks are searchable on Amazon, just like any other product, and there are no estimates — offers will be priced by the professional before the job takes place. Amazon says it vets all the professionals for the invite-only program before inclusion. “It’s a pretty natural extension of our business to move into the service space,” says Peter Faricy, vice president of Amazon Marketplace. “In talking to customers, they don’t feel like anyone serves their needs end to end. You can pay a subscription to get reviews, but why not just do that on Amazon for free?”

Submission + - How the government just protected some of your favorite podcasts (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: When you're listening to your favorite podcast — This American Life, maybe, or Radiolab — patents are probably the last thing on your mind. But behind the scenes, the podcasting world has been living in fear of one particular patent that threatens to force many independent producers out of business.

Now, a government board has revoked key parts of that patent, handing a huge victory to podcasters.

Submission + - Google Lollipop Bricking Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 devices 2

Submitted by Zape
Zape writes: The Lollipop update has turned sour for me and several other Nexus 7, Gen 2 (and Nexus 5) owners. It seems that I'm not alone in having my tablet boot to the Google Logo since a couple of days after updating to Android 5.0.2. Now Nexus 5 owners are reporting a reboot loop in Android 5.1. My device, like many others, is a couple of months out of warranty, but worked great until the latest OTA update from Google. They branded it, and they updated it, but Google claims it is between the buyers and ASUS, the manufacturer.

Submission + - Microsoft: Feds are 'rewriting' the law to obtain emails overseas (thehill.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was written in 1986. It's incredibly outdated, yet it still governs many internet-related rights for U.S. citizens. Microsoft has now challenged Congress to update the legislation for how online communications work in 2015. The company is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the government over a court order to release emails stored in a foreign country to U.S. authorities. In a new legal brief (PDF), Microsoft says, "For an argument that purports to rest on the 'explicit text of the statute,’ the Government rewrites an awful lot of it. Congress never intended to reach, nor even anticipated, private communications stored in a foreign country when it enacted [the ECPA]." In an accompanying blog post, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote, "Until U.S. law is rewritten, we believe that the court in our case should honor well-established precedents that limit the government’s reach from extending beyond U.S. borders. ... To the contrary, it is clear Congress’s intent was to ensure that your digital information is afforded the same legal protections as your physical documents and correspondence, a principle we at Microsoft believe should be preserved."

Submission + - Amazon Gets Approval To Test New Delivery Drones (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has been vocal in its complaints about how slow the FAA is in approving drones for test flights. In March they were finally given permission to test a drone they had developed six months ago, and they said the drone was already obsolete. Their complaints appear to have worked — yesterday, the FAA gave permission to test a new, updated delivery drone. According to the FAA's letter (PDF), the drone must stay at an altitude of less than 400 feet and at speeds of less than 100 mph.

Submission + - The 'Page 63' Backdoor to Elliptic Curve Cryptography 3

Submitted by CRYPTIS
CRYPTIS writes: The security of Elliptic curve cryptography is facilitated by the perceived 'hard' problem of cracking the Discrete Logarithm Problem (DLP) for any given curve. Historically, for FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) compliance it was required that your curves conformed to the FIPS186-2 document located at http://csrc.nist.gov/publicati... . Page 63 of this specifies that the 'a' and 'b' elliptic curve domain parameters should conform to the mathematical requirement of c*b^2 = a^3 (mod p).

Interestingly, back in 1982, A. M. Odlyzko, of AT & T Bell Laboratories, published a document entitled “Discrete logarithms in finite fields and their cryptographic significance” ( http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzk... ). Page 63 of this document presents a weak form of the DLP, namely a^3 = b^2*c (mod p).

It seems then, that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), driven in turn by the NSA, have required that compliant curves have this potentially weak form of the DLP built in; merely transposing the layout of the formula in order to obtain what little obfuscation is available with such a short piece of text.

Submission + - Ten U.S. senators seek investigation into the replacement of U.S. tech workers (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Ten U.S. senators, representing the political spectrum, are seeking a federal investigation into displacement of IT workers by H-1B-using contractors. They are asking the U.S. Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and the Labor Department to investigate the use of the H-1B program "to replace large numbers of American workers" at Southern California Edison (SCE) and other employers. The letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the secretaries of the two other departments, was signed by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Justice Department. The other signers are Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), a longtime ally of Grassley on H-1B issues; Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), David Vitter (R-La.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.). Neither California senator signed on. "Southern California Edison ought to be the tipping point that finally compels Washington to take needed actions to protect American workers," Sessions said. Five hundred IT workers at SCE were cut, and many had to train their replacements.

Comment Maybe start with the No-Fly list? (Score 3) 75

by leftover (#49441351) Attached to: FTC Creates Office Dedicated To "Algorithmic Transparency"

All the "suspected terrorist" lists are notorious for their unrestricted inclusion/non-existent removal policies, none more so than the No-Fly list.

It might not be glamorous to review a blank 'algorithm' but it would be a significant step for transparency in government. That is where the focus should be. We need to make a lot of noise to support this point of view. Otherwise all the usual race-baiters and niche-problem whiners will disperse and ruin what could have become a powerful tool.

Submission + - NORAD moving comms gear back to Cheyenne Mountain (yahoo.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The US military command that scans North America's skies for enemy missiles and aircraft plans to move its communications gear to a Cold War-era mountain bunker, officers said.

The shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to safeguard the command's sensitive sensors and servers from a potential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.

Submission + - The Courage of Bystanders Who Press 'Record'

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that in the past year, after the killings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, many police departments and police reformists have agreed on the necessity of police-worn body cameras. But the most powerful cameras aren’t those on officer’s bodies but those wielded by bystanders. We don’t yet know who shot videos of officer officer, Michael T. Slager, shooting Walter Scott eight times as he runs away but "unknown cameramen and women lived out high democratic ideals: They watched a cop kill someone, shoot recklessly at someone running away, and they kept the camera trained on the cop," writes Robinson. "They were there, on an ordinary, hazy Saturday morning, and they chose to be courageous. They bore witness, at unknown risk to themselves."

“We have been talking about police brutality for years. And now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is,” tweeted Deray McKesson, an activist in Ferguson, after the videos emerged Tuesday night. “The videos over the past seven months have empowered us to ask deeper questions, to push more forcefully in confronting the system.” The process of ascertaining the truth of the world has to start somewhere. A video is one more assertion made about what is real concludes Robinson. "Today, through some unknown hero’s stubborn internal choice to witness instead of flee, to press record and to watch something terrible unfold, we have one more such assertion of reality."

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