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Submission + - Write on the Sidewalks, Go To Jail (truth-out.org)

Submitted by Frosty Piss
Frosty Piss writes: Jeff Olson is being persecuted for thirteen counts of vandalism stemming from an expression of political protest that involved washable children's chalk on a City sidewalk. He has no previous criminal record. A San Diego Judge placed an unprecedented gag order on a misdemeanor trial — in particular muzzling Olson. But it also apparently included witnesses, the jury and others. Judge Howard Shore also chastised the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner. In the judge's eyes, the mayor had the temerity to call the trial of Olson a waste of time and taxpayer money. It is alleged that the San Diego city attorney is prosecuting this case at the beheist of the Bank of America after Olson scrawled anti-big bank messages in front of three Bank of America branches water soluble chalk

Submission + - How do we explain cloud privacy risks to K12 Teachers?

Submitted by hyperorbiter
hyperorbiter writes: [* Google Apps is just an example here, I think it applies to many cloud services]
With the advent of Google Apps for Education, there has been a massive uptake by the K12 schools I deal with on signing students up with their own Google powered email address under the school domain. This combined by the fact that the students' work when using Google Apps is stored offshore and out of our control—with no explicit comeback if TOC are breached by Google—it seems to me that the school cannot with integrity maintain it has control over the data and its use. I have expressed a concern that it is unethical to use these services without informing the students' parents of what is at stake e.g. the students are getting a digital footprint from the age of seven AND are unaware of the implications this may have later in life. The response has often been that I'm over-reacting and that the benefits of the services far outweigh the concerns, so rather than risk knee jerk reactions by parents (a valid concern) and thereby hampering 'education', it's better to not bring this stuff up. My immediate issue isn't so much about the use of the cloud services now, but the ethics over lack of disclosure in the parental consent process. Does anyone have ideas about defining the parameters of "informed consent" where we inform of risks without bringing about paranoia?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: HIPAA Privacy Compliance in the Snowden Age

Submitted by Motard
Motard writes: For much of my career, I've worked in organizations subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Among other things, HIPAA prescribes government-mandated regulations regarding the security surrounding Protected Health Information, or PHI.

In smaller companies, where I've been able to talk directly to the equivalent of a General Counsel, it has been interpreted as a requirement to employ reasonable measures to protect the information. In larger corporations — especially those that had found themselves entertaining representatives of The Office of The Inspector General — there are generally dedicated Risk Management or Security officers dedicated to eliminating risk — often without regard to practicality (since that isn't their charge).

So I ask this question: When it is demonstrated that a government contractor can flee to Hong Kong with classified secrets from the NSA (of all things), what chance does 'The Main Street Clinic' have of meeting the requisite data security requirements? At what point to we have to throw up our hands exclaiming "If the freaking NSA can't do it, how can we?"

Submission + - 16-Yr-Old Student Has Developed a Way to Turn Banana Peels Into Bioplastic (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by formaggio
formaggio writes: A sixteen-year-old Turkish student recently discovered that the starches and cellulose contained in a banana peel can also be used to create materials that insulate wires and form medical protheses. Bilgin developed a chemical process that turns the peels into a non-decaying bioplastic. She hopes that it will help replace the need for petroleum and combat pollution.

Submission + - How Linux Foundation Runs Its Virtual Office (informationweek.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit that manages much of the day-to-day business behind the open source operating system, maintains a small office in San Francisco. Stop by, however, and you probably won't find anyone there. That's because the organization's 30-something employees work virtually. It's like the anti-Yahoo: Just about everyone, including Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds, works from home. "We really wanted to have that effectiveness and nimbleness of a virtual organization," said Amanda McPherson, Linux Foundation's VP of marketing and developer programs. "You have that commitment and ownership of your job more than when you're just sitting there in that cube farm," McPherson said. "For us, if you hire the right people who are motivated by that, you just get more commitment. [You get] people who really love their jobs and like to work, but also like that they can go to the gym at 2 in the afternoon when it's not crowded. In an office, [people would say]: 'Why isn't he at his desk? It's 2. There must be something wrong.'"

Submission + - Could your next HDTV roll up like a blind? (foxnews.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: Japan's Shinoda Plasma Co. demonstrated a giant, flexible, plasma display at the Display Week 2013 conference last month in Vancouver, British Columbia, winning an award for “Best Prototype at Display Week.” It’s the latest effort to create the flexible gizmos of the future. The company calls its invention a “Luminous Array Film,” or LAFi; instead of being made from one large, flat sheet of glass, the display uses a thousand tiny glass tubes, each 1 mm in diameter and a bit more than 3 feet long. In spite of their tiny size, the tubes are hollow, and can hold the inert gas and phosphors required to make the light to create an image. Shinoda’s secret is that the display can only bend in one dimension. Consider a typical bamboo screen that you might use to cover a window, where a flexible fabric connects the relatively rigid bamboo sticks. You can roll up the screen so that all the bamboo pieces remain parallel to each other — forming a cylinder less than 4 inches across.

Submission + - Alpha Centauri to Bend Starlight for Planet Hunt (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: In October 2014 and again February 2016 Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our Solar System, will pass in front of two distant stars allowing astronomers a rare opportunity to use Einstein's General Relativity to potentially detect hidden exoplanets around the binary star system. As Alpha Centauri blocks the distant starlight from our perspective, the gravitational field will bend the distant light to create a microlensing event. The transient brightening can then be analyzed and the gravitational presence of any worlds may be revealed. The research, announced Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Indianapolis, has been submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Submission + - New Asus device runs both Windows and Android 1

Submitted by taz346
taz346 writes: Asus has unveiled a new 11.6-inch tablet/laptop that runs both Windows 8 and Android Jelly Bean side by side, the BBC reports. The firm said "users would be able to synchronise data between the platforms in order to enjoy a 'smooth transition' between each mode." Hmmm, I'm guessing one could also create another partition and install a full Linux distro as well, though there's no telling how UEFI might come into play.

Submission + - Big Changes Coming to Canada's Wireless Landscape (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by FuzzNugget
FuzzNugget writes: The CRTC has unveiled a code of conduct that brings many positive changes for Canadian wireless customers, most notably:
  • Carriers must provide the option to unlock a cell phone after 3 months for subsidized phones within the contract period, or immediately if the device was purchased outright.
  • Contracts are now capped at two years, and cancellation fees are limited to the amount of the subsidy.
  • Carriers can no longer charge outrageous data overage and international roaming charges. Without explicit consent from the a customer, such charges are capped at $50 and $100 per month, respectively.

The full text of the Wireless Code is available on the CRTC's website.

Submission + - Mozilla, Foxconn confirm Firefox OS partnership (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Firefox OS maker Mozilla has confirmed reports that indicated a probable collaboration with Foxconn for development of Firefox OS based devices. Announcing the "wide ranging partnership" with Foxconn Mozilla’s SVP of Mobile Devices noted in a blog post that collaboration between the two companies “demonstrates the full potential of Firefox OS,” and it would not only enable the smartphone “but also a wide range of mobile devices".

Submission + - Study shows most controversial pages on Wikipedia, by country. (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Bearhouse
Bearhouse writes: Researchers have identified the most-edited pages in Wikipedia — the subject of so-called 'Wikiwars'.
It's interesting to see how these differ by country; in the USA, GWB tops the list.
For the Czech republic, it's homosexuality.
Regarding Germany, 9/11 conspiracy theories are in third place, after Croatia and Scientology.
Just as weird and interesting as Wikipedia itself.

Comment Re:Loaded words and misfired analysis (Score 1) 376

by taz346 (#43884957) Attached to: Too Many Smart People Chasing Too Many Dumb Ideas?
"Now, good luck getting the VA to allow us to implement it." I get what you are saying, but taking the time and making the effort to overcome that kind of thing is why undertaking this kind of work is more difficult than just creating apps. And that's why, I think, she says that our best minds are being wasted when they could be put to work addressing issues like that.

Comment Re:Loaded words and misfired analysis (Score 1) 376

by taz346 (#43883757) Attached to: Too Many Smart People Chasing Too Many Dumb Ideas?
If you read her opinion about government in the article and her bio (and the author is a woman), you'll see she is a conservative, and what she's arguing is precisely that people need to take more personal responsibility for their country's pressing problems and quit blissfully ignoring them. And, no, the problems are very complex - if they were simple, you wouldn't need bright minds to take them on.

Comment Re:Loaded words and misfired analysis (Score 2) 376

by taz346 (#43882927) Attached to: Too Many Smart People Chasing Too Many Dumb Ideas?
I think her point is exactly that these are problems that are "social and political in nature," and that our brightest minds are mostly writing inane apps instead of tackling them. Software solutions would help solve many of them but, as she says, doing that work is hard and doesn't offer much of an opportunity to strike it rich.

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