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The Courts

Software Freedom Conservancy Funds GPL Suit Against VMWare 188

Posted by timothy from the this-isn't-nam-man-there-are-rules dept.
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes with this excerpt from a news release from the Software Freedom Conservancy: Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2, the license of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware's ESXi products. Serge Wroclawski points out the SFC's technical FAQ about the suit. One nugget: This case is specifically regarding a combined work that VMware allegedly created by combining their own code (“vmkernel”) with portions of Linux's code, which was licensed only under GPLv2. As such, this, to our knowledge, marks the first time an enforcement case is exclusively focused on this type of legal question relating to GPL

Submission + - Robocops Direct Traffic in the Congo (theguardian.com)

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: The Guardian describes robocops used in Kinshasa to direct traffic:
"The solar-powered aluminium robots are huge, towering over the jammed streets of Kinshasa, as cars and motorcyles jostle for road room, their horns blasting.
Each hand on the odd-looking machines — built to withstand the year-round hot climate — is fitted with green and red lights that regulate the flow of traffic in the sprawling city of nine million.
The robots are also equipped with rotating chests and surveillance cameras that record the flow of traffic and send real-time images to the police station."
These are second generation robots designed by a Congolese association of women engineers.
"Although the humanoids look more like giant toys than real policemen, motorists have given them a thumbs up.
“There are certain drivers who don’t respect the traffic police. But with the robot it will be different. We should respect the robot,” taxi driver Poro Zidane told AFP."

Submission + - CRTC issues $1.1 million penalty to Compu-Finder for spamming Canadians

Submitted by zentigger
zentigger writes: Canadians rejoice! It looks like the new anti-spam regulations might actually have some teeth! Today, the CRTC issued a $1.1 million fine to Compu-Finder for violating Canada’s anti-spam legislation by sending commercial emails without consent, as well as messages in which the unsubscribe mechanisms did not function properly. Furthermore, an analysis of the complaints made to the Spam Reporting Centre of this industry sector shows that Compu-Finder accounts for 26% of all complaints submitted.

Submission + - Conservancy Announces Funding for GPL Compliance Lawsuit (sfconservancy.org)

Submitted by Jeremy Allison - Sam
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes: From the article:

Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2, the license of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware's ESXi products.

Submission + - Developers Race to Develop VR Headsets that Won't Make Users Nauseous

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Nick Wingfield reports at the NYT that for the last couple of years, the companies building virtual reality headsets have begged the public for patience as they strive to create virtual environments that don't make people physically sick. “We’re going to hang ourselves out there and be judged,” says John Carmack, chief technology officer of Oculus, describing what he calls a “nightmare scenario” that has worried him and other Oculus executives. “People like the demo, they take it home, and they start throwing up,” says Carmack. "The fear is if a really bad V.R. product comes out, it could send the industry back to the ’90s." In that era, virtual reality headsets flopped, disappointing investors and consumers. “It left a huge, smoking crater in the landscape,” says Carmack, who is considered an important game designer for his work on Doom and Quake. “We’ve had people afraid to touch V.R. for 20 years.” This time around, the backing for virtual reality is of a different magnitude. Facebook paid $2 billion last year to acquire Oculus. Microsoft is developing its own headset, HoloLens, that mixes elements of virtual reality with augmented reality, a different medium that overlays virtual images on a view of the real world. Google has invested more than $500 million in Magic Leap, a company developing an augmented reality headset. “The challenge is there is so much expectation and anticipation that that could fall away quite quickly if you don’t get the type of traction you had hoped,” says Neil Young

At least one company, Valve, believes it has solved the discomfort problem with headsets. Gabe Newell says Valve has worked hard on its virtual reality technology to eliminate the discomfort, saying that “zero percent of people get motion sick” when they try its system. According to Newell, the reason why no one has gotten sick yet is thanks to Valve’s Lighthouse motion-tracking system, a precise motion-tracking system that is capable of accurately tracking users as they move around a space. In the meantime the next challenge will be convincing media and tech companies to create lots of content to keep users entertained. “Virtual reality has been around for 20 years, and the one thing that has been consistent throughout this is that the technology is not mature enough,” says Brian Blau,. “Today there’s the possibility for that to change, but it’s going to take a while for these app developers to get it right.”
Intel

Intel Reveals Unlocked, Socketed Broadwell and Core i7 NUC With Iris Graphics 51

Posted by timothy from the faster-all-the-time dept.
MojoKid writes Intel held an event at a location adjacent to GDC last night, where the company discussed some updates to its 5th Gen Core processor line-up, Intel graphics developments, the Intel Hardware SDK, and its various game developer tools. Chris Silva, Director of Marketing for Premium Notebook and Client Graphics teams disclosed a few details that a socketed, unlocked, 65W desktop processor based on Intel's Broadwell architecture, featuring Iris graphics, is due to arrive sometime in mid-2015. It's noteworthy because this will be Intel's first desktop CPU with Iris Pro graphics and because it is multiplier unlocked. It will be interesting to see what Iris Pro can do with some overclocking. Intel then showed off a new NUC mini PC powered by a 28W, quad-core Core i7 Broadwell processor, which also featured Iris graphics. The device has a tiny .63 liter enclosure with support for high-performance M.2 solid state drives and features an array of built-in IO options, like USB3, BT4, and 802.11ac WiFi. Bryan Langley, Principal PM for Windows Graphics also talked a bit about DirectX 12, disclosing that the company would be ready with DX12 support when Windows 10 arrives and that there are optimizations in DX12 and their drivers that would deliver performance enhancements to current and future Intel graphics platforms.

Submission + - US Marshals Service refuses to release Stingray info — that's already publ (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: The US Marshals Service is known to be one of the most avid users of StingRays, and documents confirm that the agency has spent more than $9 million on equipment and training since 2009.

But while it appears the USMS is not under any nondisclosure agreement with the device manufacturer, the agency has withheld a wide range of basic information under an exemption meant to protect law enforcement techniques — despite the fact that that same information is available via a federal accounting website.

Comment misleading summary, inaccurate article (Score -1, Flamebait) 340

First off, it's Québécois, not Quebecker.

Second, I can't believe that he refused to turn over the password, rather than immediately surrendering as any good Frenchmen would. Hey Quebec, if you're wondering why the French don't actually believe you're French.... ;)
Canada

Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials 340

Posted by timothy from the looking-for-banned-books-and-hockey-scores dept.
wired_parrot writes Canadian customs officials have charged a 38-year old man with obstruction of justice after he refused to give up his Blackberry phone password [on arrival in Canada by plane from the Dominican Republic]. As this is a question that has not yet been litigated in Canadian courts, it may establish a legal precedent for future cases. From the article: [Law professor Rob] Currie says the issue of whether a traveller must reveal a password to an electronic device at the border hasn't been tested by a court. "This is a question that has not been litigated in Canada, whether they can actually demand you to hand over your password to allow them to unlock the device," he said. "One thing for them to inspect it, another thing for them to compel you to help them."
Canada

Quebecker Faces Jail For Not Giving Up Phone Password To Canadian Officials 340

Posted by timothy from the looking-for-banned-books-and-hockey-scores dept.
wired_parrot writes Canadian customs officials have charged a 38-year old man with obstruction of justice after he refused to give up his Blackberry phone password [on arrival in Canada by plane from the Dominican Republic]. As this is a question that has not yet been litigated in Canadian courts, it may establish a legal precedent for future cases. From the article: [Law professor Rob] Currie says the issue of whether a traveller must reveal a password to an electronic device at the border hasn't been tested by a court. "This is a question that has not been litigated in Canada, whether they can actually demand you to hand over your password to allow them to unlock the device," he said. "One thing for them to inspect it, another thing for them to compel you to help them."

Submission + - Anthem Refuses Full IT Security Audit (databreachtoday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A federal watchdog agency says Anthem Inc. has refused to allow it to conduct vulnerability scans of the health insurer's systems in the wake of its recent massive data breach affecting 78.8 million individuals. Anthem also refused to allow scans by the same agency in 2013.
Television

A Critical Look At CSI: Cyber 145

Posted by timothy from the war-games-did-it-better dept.
Trailrunner7 writes with the introduction to a Threatpost article (best read without coffee near your keyboard) about the new CSI: Cyber: The show centers on the Cyber Crime Division at the FBI, a perfectly focus-grouped cast headed by Special Agent Avery Ryan. She is a former behavioral psychiatrist whose practice fell apart when–spoiler alert!–all of her case files were stolen by a hacker who then murdered one of her patients. Now she is on a mission to "turn" hackers one at a time to the path of righteousness. She is aided in this noble quest by the guy who played Dawson, former child rapper Lil Bow Wow, and the two h4x0r caricatures: a bearded, wisecracking guy named Daniel Krumitz who is the "greatest white hat hacker in the world", and Raven Ramirez, whom we know is a hacker because she has dyed hair. Also, because her name is Raven.

As a public service, the Threatpost team, Mike Mimoso, Dennis Fisher, Brian Donohue and Chris Brook, watched the first episode of CSI: Cyber and kept a running chat log of the "action."

Comment Re:Fascinating ship (Score 1) 114

Those treaties were irrelevant by the time the Two-Ocean Navy Act passed. The Iowa class was free of treaty limits, as was the envisioned Montana class. The North Carolina and South Dakota classes were built within treaty limits and were nearly the equal of the Iowa class. I would have sailed with confidence in those "treaty battleships" against anything put to sea by the Axis Powers, including Yamato and Musashi. They can hit first, at greater range, thanks to their superior fire control, and even if they took hits Allied damage control techniques were better.

As far as Germany, she never had the resources to compete with the Allied powers at sea, so it really didn't matter what she built. The submarine campaign could have made a difference and it may have made more sense to pour ALL naval resources into subs, although this negates the Norwegian Campaign and who can say what impact that would have had? There's also an argument to be made that every sub launched represented tanks and aircraft that could have been sent to the Eastern Front....

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