Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - US airport screeners missed 95% of weapons, explosives in undercover tests

An anonymous reader writes: An internal investigation by the TSA found that 95% of those testing airport checkpoints were able to bring weapons through at dozens of airports. In one case, an alarm sounded, but during the pat down, the screener failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to the undercover agent's back. ABC reports: "Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was apparently so frustrated by the findings he sought a detailed briefing on them last week at TSA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, according to sources. U.S. officials insisted changes have already been made at airports to address vulnerabilities identified by the latest tests. 'Upon learning the initial findings of the Office of Inspector General's report, Secretary Johnson immediately directed TSA to implement a series of actions, several of which are now in place, to address the issues raised in the report,' the DHS said in a written statement to ABC News."

Comment WARNING: WOT still flags SF as "Trusted" (Score 2) 384

This behavior should get SourceForge blacklisted as both cyber-squatters and adware, possibly malware vendor.

I agree 100%. 10 years ago sourceforge was a great site. Now it's basically a malware haven. Unfortunately, plugins like Web of Trust (WoT) seem to have been slow to catch up ... WoT is still marking sourceforge as green ("trusted"). Perhaps blackholing the site in DNS really is the best answer...

Submission + - When will we stop using Facebook? (thepinchandzoom.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The inspiration for this article comes from a study written in 2014 by John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, both Princeton researchers, who likened use of social networks to the spread of the bubonic plague.

The researchers concluded that 'Facebook will undergo a rapid decline in the coming years, losing 80% of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017', and based this prediction on the number of times Facebook is typed into Google as a search term. They found that Facebook searches peaked in December 2012 and have begun to tail off ever since (see below).

They then cited Myspace as an example of a social network which had declined in popularity inline with their expectations using the method, conveniently failing to mention that Facebook itself was probably the chief culprit in killing it off.

Soon a press desperate for new stories to write about on a boring Tuesday afternoon descended on it, weighing in on whether there was any substance to the premise and gleefully splashing 'Facebook to lose 80% of users by 2017' all over their front pages.

Even Facebook itself got involved as Mike Develin, one of their data scientists, tore it to shreds with a few choice quips:

'Using the same robust methodology featured in the paper, we attempted to find out more about this 'Princeton University' – and you won’t believe what we found! In keeping with the scientific principle 'correlation equals causation,' our research unequivocally demonstrated that Princeton may be in danger of disappearing entirely.

This trend suggests that Princeton will have only half its current enrolment by 2018, and by 2021 it will have no students at all, agreeing with the previous graph of scholarly scholarliness. Based on our robust scientific analysis, future generations will only be able to imagine this now-rubble institution that once walked this earth.'

In fact perhaps the biggest accomplishment the Princeton research achieved was that by packaging it as an academic study it managed to encourage everyone to describe it as research rather than what it actually was, which was nonsense — and in doing so achieved its core aim of getting everybody to talk about and share it.

Still, it does pose an interesting question — when will we stop using Facebook?

- See more at: http://www.thepinchandzoom.com...

Submission + - New flights from SpaceShipTwo will likely not happen for years

schwit1 writes: A variety of unnamed sources are saying that Virgin Galactic's new SpaceShipTwo will will likely not fly for years.

This quote is especially telling:

As to when that commercial service might actually be ready, one former Virgin Galactic employee told Newsnight: "I can't say whether it will be two years or whether it will be five... They have a huge, huge, way to go."

So is this quote from Doug Messier, quoted in the article:

"This program's claimed four lives already and it's had four powered flights and they haven't gotten anywhere near space in 10 years."

When summed up, as Messier does, Virgin Galactic's effort sure sounds disappointing.

Submission + - The Tricky Business of Being a Male Advocate for CS Gender Equality

theodp writes: The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) recently doled out $200,000 of Google.org money to reward three CS departments that have shown significant positive outcomes in women’s enrollment and graduation rates. Now, in a Wired piece entitled The Tricky (and Necessary) Business of Being a Male Advocate for CS Gender Equality, NCWIT senior research scientists Catherine Ashcraft and Wendy DuBow offer their ideas for getting men involved in gender diversity efforts, which includes some no-good-deed-goes-unpunished advice for potential male allies: "Don’t be alarmed-or even confused-if some women refuse, resist, or react negatively to your initial interest. Instead, recognize that this is an understandable, even logical, reaction to longtime experience as a minority in a majority environment. Recognize that it might sometimes take a while to build trust, and some women may never want to participate...Even if a negative reaction seems unreasonable or unfair, we suggest reframing this as an incredibly valuable opportunity for experiencing what it’s like to be a woman in tech, or any minority in a majority group environment. In other words, if such an experience makes it feel like you’re walking on eggshells or makes you worry about being misunderstood, imagine feeling like that much of the day, every day, at work. This temporary experience can help foster empathy and help you make sense of why these negative reactions might occur." And you can take some comfort in knowing that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, and other male allies will no doubt feel your pain.

Submission + - Cybersecurity and the Tylenol Murders

HughPickens.com writes: Cindy Cohn writes at EFF that when a criminal started lacing Tylenol capsules with cyanide in 1982, Johnson & Johnson quickly sprang into action to ensure consumer safety. It increased its internal production controls, recalled the capsules, offered an exchange for tablets, and within two months started using triple-seal tamper-resistant packaging. Congress ultimately passed an anti-tampering law but the focus of the response from both the private and the public sector was on ensuring that consumers remained safe and secure, rather than on catching the perpetrator. Indeed, the person who did the tampering was never caught.

According to Cohn the story of the Tylenol murders comes to mind as Congress considers the latest cybersecurity and data breach bills. To folks who understand computer security and networks, it's plain that the key problem are our vulnerable infrastructure and weak computer security, much like the vulnerabilities in Johnson & Johnson’s supply chain in the 1980s. As then, the failure to secure our networks, the services we rely upon, and our individual computers makes it easy for bad actors to step in and “poison” our information. The way forward is clear: We need better incentives for companies who store our data to keep it secure. "Yet none of the proposals now in Congress are aimed at actually increasing the safety of our data. Instead, the focus is on “information sharing,” a euphemism for more surveillance of users and networks," writes Cohn. "These bills are not only wrongheaded, they seem to be a cynical ploy to use the very real problems of cybersecurity to advance a surveillance agenda, rather than to actually take steps to make people safer." Congress could step in and encourage real security for users—by creating incentives for greater security, a greater downside for companies that fail to do so and by rewarding those companies who make the effort to develop stronger security. "It's as if the answer for Americans after the Tylenol incident was not to put on tamper-evident seals, or increase the security of the supply chain, but only to require Tylenol to “share” its customer lists with the government and with the folks over at Bayer aspirin," concludes Cohn. "We wouldn’t have stood for such a wrongheaded response in 1982, and we shouldn’t do so now."

Submission + - SourceForge Joins the Bundle Wagon

An anonymous reader writes: The irony of submitting this on /. is not lost on me.
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
"Apparently, SourceForge's mysterious "sf-editor1" has also claimed ownership of a number of other accounts for open source and other software projects."
SF is claiming ownership of these projects for the specious reason of them being "abandoned" when in fact these project simply stopped using SF (apparently for good reason).

Submission + - SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows' account, wraps installer in bundle-pushing (arstechnica.com) 1

shanehiltonward writes: SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements.

Update: In a blog post issued shortly after this story posted, an unidentified member of SourceForge's community team wrote that, in fact, "this project was actually abandoned over 18 months ago, and SourceForge has stepped-in to keep this project current." That runs counter to claims by members of the GIMP development community.

The GIMP project is not officially distributed through SourceForge—approved releases are only posted on the GIMP project's own Web page. But Jernej Simoni, the developer who has been responsible for building Windows versions of GIMP for some time, has maintained an account on SourceForge to act as a distribution mirror. That is, he had until today, when he discovered he was locked out of the Gimp-Win account, and the project's ownership "byline" had been changed to "sf-editor1"—a SourceForge staff account. Additionally, the site now provided Gimp in an executable installer that has in-installer advertising enabled. Ars tested the downloader and found that it offered during the installation to bundle Norton anti-virus and myPCBackup.com remote backup services with GIMP—before downloading the installer authored by Simoni (his name still appears on the installer's splash screen).

Submission + - SourceForge hijacks Win-Gimp, wraps installer in adware (arstechnica.com) 1

slashdice writes: Ars Technica (and, well, everybody other than slashdot) is reporting on the reprehensible behavior by SourceForge, Slashdot sister sister site. "SourceForge, the code repository site owned by Slashdot Media, has apparently seized control of the account hosting GIMP for Windows on the service, according to e-mails and discussions amongst members of the GIMP community—locking out GIMP's lead Windows developer. And now anyone downloading the Windows version of the open source image editing tool from SourceForge gets the software wrapped in an installer replete with advertisements."

Submission + - SourceForge MITM Projects (github.io) 2

lister king of smeg writes: What happened?

SourceForge, once a trustworthy source code hosting site, started to place misleading ads (like fake download buttons) a few years ago. They are also bundling third-party adware/malware directly with their Windows installer.

Some project managers decided to leave SourceForge – partly because of this, partly just because there are better options today. SF staff hijacked some of these abandoned accounts, partly to bundle the crapware with their installers. It has become just another sleazy garbage site with downloads of fake antivirus programs and such.

How can I help?

If you agree that SourceForge is in fact distributing malicious software under the guise of open source projects, report them to google. Ideally this will help remove them from search results, prevent others from suffering their malware and provide them with incentive to change their behavior.

As this story has been submitted several times in the past several days, by various submitter and is going around various other tech forums( https://news.ycombinator.com/i... , https://soylentnews.org/articl... , https://www.reddit.com/r/progr... ,) this submitter wonders has our shared "glorious Dice Corporate overloads" been shooting this story down?

Submission + - Google Photos Launches With Unlimited Storage, Completely Separate From Google+ 1

An anonymous reader writes: At its I/O 2015 developer conference today, Google launched Google Photos for Android, iOS, and the Web. The new service is completely separate from Google+, something Google users have been requesting for eons. Google is declaring that Google Photos lets you backup and store “unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free.” All of Google’s various photo offerings had storage limits based on your Google account (Gmail, Google Drive, and Google+).

Comment Re:Large change with app permissions (Score 4, Informative) 83

Older applications not targeting M, will show permissions at install time and be granted by default, but the user will be able to revoke them, the platform will just give empty data or fail.

... and for those concerned about old apps failing under those conditions, Cyanogenmod's privacy guard has been doing this for quite some time and I've never heard of an app failing because of it. So it's possible to do it in a safe fashion. Whether that's how Google has actually implemented it remains to be seen.

Submission + - UK Goes Full Orwell: Snooper's Charter, Encryption Backdoors, Speech Suppression (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The old joke goes "George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a 'how to' manual." But that joke is increasingly less funny as the UK really seems to be doing everything it can to put in place Orwell's fictitious vision — just a few decades later. Right after the election a few weeks ago, we noted the government's plan to push forward with its "extremist disruption orders" (as had been promised). The basic idea is that if the government doesn't like what you're saying, it can define your statements as "extremist" and make them criminal. Prime Minister David Cameron did his best Orwell in flat out stating that the idea was to use these to go after people who were obeying the law and then arguing that the UK needed to suppress free speech... in the name of protecting free speech. Really.

Slashdot Top Deals

It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

Working...