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Comment Re:Good. (Score 3, Interesting) 1037

by Rande (#46675027) Attached to: How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion

The flaw in the Riddle is in the assumptions.
That "Evil" is a definable thing that everyone can agree on. What is evil to me may not be evil to you which may not be evil to God.
If you stub your toe, is that evil? Should God have stopped you? Or would it be more evil to prevent your temporary pain because they you wouldn't learn not to do silly things?
Or are you only defining certain bad things as evil? Say genocide, torture, rape, and murder? Because if all those things never existed, all that would do is change the goalposts so that thievery, vandalism and bad language were now the height of evil. Remove them also and things like being ugly, stupid and unwashed are now the height of evil?

Should God wait upon you hand and foot, serving your every whim and desire, preventing any pain of any kind because not to, you would consider evil?
Or would the greater evil be that self same bubble wrapping where you never leave the womb, never to learn, never to grow, never to mature?

Submission + - China rejects 545,000 tons of US genetically modified corn (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by hawkinspeter
hawkinspeter writes: The BBC is reporting that US corn that was found to contain an unapproved genetically modified strain. Although China doesn't have a problem per se with GM crops (they've been importing GM soybeans since 1997), their product safety agency found MIR162 in 12 batches of corn.

"The safety evaluation process [for MIR162] has not been completed and no imports are allowed at the moment before the safety certificate is issued" said Nui Din, China's vice agricultural minister.

The Chinese are now calling on US authorities to tighten their controls to prevent unapproved strains from being sent to China after the first batch of corn was rejected in November due to MIR162.

Submission + - Microsoft Security Essentials misses 39% of malware (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: The latest tests from Dennis Publishing's security labs saw Microsoft Security Essentials fail to detect 39% of the real-world malware thrown at it. Dennis Technology Labs (DTL) tested nine home security products on a Windows 7 PC, including Security Essentials, which is distributed free to Windows users and built into Windows 8 in the form of Windows Defender. While the other eight packages all achieved protection scores of 87% or higher — with five scoring 98% or 99% — Microsoft's free antivirus software protected against only 61% of the malware samples used in the test. Microsoft conceded last year that its security software was intended to offer only "baseline" performance".

Submission + - Academics should not remain silent on hacking (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: The Guardian's technology editor, Charles Arthur, asks in an opinion piece in Nature why researchers have remained largely silent in the wake of the revelation that the US National Institute of Standards and Technology's standard for random numbers used for cryptography had been weakened by the NSA:
"The nature of the subversions sounds abstruse: the random-number generator, the 'Dual EC DRBG' standard, had been hacked by the NSA and the UK's GCHQ so that its output would not be as random as it should have been. That might not sound like much, but if you are trying to break an encrypted message, the knowledge that it is hundreds or thousands of times weaker than advertised is a great encouragement."
Arthur attributes the silence of UK academics, at least, to pressure from GCHQ. He goes on to say:
"For those who do care, White and Matthew Green, who teaches cryptography at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, have embarked on an ambitious effort to clean up the mess — one that needs help.
They have created a non-profit organization called OpenAudit.org, which aims to recruit experts to provide technical assistance for security projects in the public interest, especially open-source security software."

Submission + - US Judge explains why few indicted for the fraud created the mortgage crisis (nybooks.com)

Submitted by smaxp
smaxp writes: As the statute of limitations on the fraud committed during the financial crisis is about to expire with few indictments US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff explains why.

According to Rakoff "I suggest that this is not the best way to proceed. Although it is supposedly justified because it prevents future crimes, I suggest that the future deterrent value of successfully prosecuting individuals far outweighs the prophylactic benefits of imposing internal compliance measures that are often little more than window-dressing. Just going after the company is also both technically and morally suspect."

Submission + - Police in Slovenia to have "clandestine entry" rights to install spyware. (monitor.si)

Submitted by Vlado
Vlado writes: There is a law in emergency express discussion that, if and when it passes, will grant police in Slovenia rights to enter private premisses in "a clandestine manner" in order to install "monitoring software" on computer equipment at the point before communication channels are encrypted (link to a local article in Slovenian below). Reasoning by the police is that it is not always possible to remotely install spyware when they want to monitor their targeted subjects.
All standard excuses apply: This will only be used in extreme scenarios. This will only be used for the most serious offences (children, saving, think...?).

The law, if enacted will be very problematic on multiple levels:
In Slovenia, currently private property and especially homes are considered fairly inviolate. Police cannot enter a private home without search warrant, or if they're not in direct pursuit of a suspect who flees through private premises, or if they don't suspect that there's an immediate threat to life. Even with search warrant witnesses are required in order to guarantee some level of oversight.
This law will remove that oversight as otherwise it will probably not be very "clandestine" of the police to enter the home in question.

Also, even though the law stipulates, that the spyware in question should only allow for "monitoring" of communications on the affected equipment and does not give permission for the spyware to actively change any content, it's fairly difficult to assume that this will actually work out like that in practice.

It's an extremely disturbing turn of events, which would give local police unprecedented amount of power with virtually no oversight in their actions.

Submission + - ADA Compliance at the ATM – To be or not to be, that is the question. (afsiatms.com)

Submitted by afsiatms
afsiatms writes: In 2011, an amendment to the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring ATM owners to install audio-based capabilities for easy access of blind and vision impaired customers has caused a debacle in the banking sector. The requirements actually imposed by the Department of Justice on 15 September 2010, took effect in March of 2011, with updates to all ATMs at banks and credit unions required to be in compliance with the ADA guidelines by March 2012.

Submission + - Dark Souls 2: Slaying the curse of the sequel (redbull.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dark Souls 2 is coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 this March, but it's got a tough act to follow. A really tough one: Dark Souls has the reputation of being this generation's toughest game, with brutal and unforgiving boss after boss. In a new interview published this week, DS2 director Yui Tanimura discusses the tough considerations the team at From Software had to make on what to include, what to introduce, and how to make sure hardcore fans don't find a more accessible game any easier. The trick, he says, is to make the difficulty related precisely to the player's decisions and movements.

"One pillar of our decision making is whether the player will feel as if the results were a result of the player’s choices and actions. We feel that the fun and enjoyment comes from the results coming from the player’s efforts, decisions, successes and failures.”

Tanimura also reveals that there were "never" any plans to bring the game to next-gen consoles, which leaves us wondering — just how epic could Dark Souls 3 look on a PS4 or Xbox One?

Submission + - Standardised laptop charger approved by IEC

Submitted by Sockatume
Sockatume writes: The IEC, the standards body which wrote the phone charger specification used in the EU, has approved a standardised laptop charger. While the "DC Power Supply for Portable Personal Computer" doesn't have a legal mandate behind it, the IEC is still optimistic that it will lead to a reduction in electronics waste and make it easier to find a replacement charger. Unfortunately the technical documentation does not seem to be available yet, but previous comments indicate that it will be a barrel plug of some kind.

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