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Comment Adblock Edge, or Pale Moon with Adblock Latitude. (Score 3, Informative) 147

by Futurepower(R) (#49116047) Attached to: Looking Up Symptoms Online? These Companies Are Tracking You
Use Adblock Edge. By hiding what it was doing, Adblock Plus has killed itself.

By hiding what it was doing when it sneakily adopted Microsoft Bing search, calling it Yahoo search, Mozilla Foundation has done irreparable harm to Firefox. Mozilla Foundation seems to be driving users to the Pale Moon 64-bit version of Firefox with Adblock Latitude.

Submission + - Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Compared to other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance, followed by heroin and cocaine.

Submission + - Areva, French Nuclear Giant, Warns of $5.6 Billion Loss (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Areva, the French nuclear technology giant, warned on Monday that it was facing a loss of a magnitude that raises doubts about its ability to continue operations without an injection of state funds to restore its capital.

The state-controlled company expects a 2014 net loss of about 4.9 billion euros, or $5.6 billion, from a loss of €500 million a year earlier, it said in a preliminary statement. The loss is substantially larger than Areva’s market capitalization of about €3.7 billion, suggesting it may need new funds to continue operating. ...

In its statement, Areva cited a variety of reasons for its weak results, including asset write-downs; provisions against losses at its nuclear plant project on the Finnish island of Olkiluoto, which is far behind schedule and over budget; and unprofitable renewable energy contracts. It also cited the cost of complying with regulations governing the shuttering of plants and writing down deferred tax assets. ...

Construction of the Olkiluoto plant in Finland started in 2005; in those optimistic days, Areva had projected it would begin operating in 2009. Today, Areva and Siemens, with which it is building the plant, are battling in court with the Finnish utility TVO over financial responsibility for construction delays and cost overruns. Some analysts predict the plant will not begin operating before the end of this decade.

Submission + - Weather Company CIO: 5 reasons why I believe in open source

Submitted by Lemeowski
Lemeowski writes: The Weather Company, which oversees such brands as The Weather Channel and weather.com, has been a major adopter of open source software, deploying an open source big data analytics system for its operations. Given the company's penchant for open source software, Weather Company CIO Bryson Koehler says he is often asked why there's value in taking the open source route to solve its business challenges. Koehler outlines five reasons why he believes in open source, addressing some of the risks he hears from peers: "With open source software you have more eyeballs on an application, more people to find and fix problems, and more people to check resolutions to those problems for their validity."

Submission + - NSA, GHCQ implicated in SIM encryption hack.

Submitted by BlacKSacrificE
BlacKSacrificE writes: Australian carriers are bracing for a mass recall after it was revealed that a Dutch SIM card manufacturer Gemalto was penetrated by the GCHQ and the NSA in an alleged theft of encryption keys, allowing unfetted access to voice and text communications. The incident is suspected to have happened in 2010 and 2011 and seems to be a result of social engineering against employees, and was revealed by yet another Snowden document. Telstra, Vodafone and Optus have all stated they are waiting for further information from Gemalto before deciding a course of action. Gemalto said in a press release that they "cannot at this early stage verify the findings of the publication" and are continuing internal investigations, but considering Gemalto provides around 2 billion SIM cards to some 450 carriers across the globe (all of which use the same GSM encryption standard) the impact and fallout for Gemalto, and the affected carriers, could be huge.

Submission + - Snowden Film 'Citizenfour' Wins Oscar for Best Documentary (nationaljournal.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Citizenfour, a film chronicling the living history of Edward Snowden's unprecedented heist of U.S. government secrets, won the Academy Award for best documentary Sunday night—an unusual feat for a movie so critical of a sitting president's policies.

Directed by Laura Poitras, the political thriller captures Snowden in a claustrophobic Hong Kong hotel room in the days leading up to and after the release of the first of batch of classified documents that publicly revealed the sweeping scope of the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of phone and Internet communications.

Comment Or: Maybe you don't understand the conditions. (Score 3, Insightful) 237

by Futurepower(R) (#49100851) Attached to: Ten Lies T-Mobile Told Me About My Data Plan
Often when someone complains about their experiences on Slashdot, someone else post a comment with a superior attitude, saying that he has never had that problem.

Please consider that maybe you don't understand the conditions.

The element of the U.S. culture in which males compete with each other is annoying and defeating.

Submission + - When it comes to surveillance gear, many police ignore public records laws in fa (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: What should take precedence: State public records laws, or contractual agreements between local police, the FBI, and the privately owned Harris Corporation? That's the question being played out across the country, as agencies are strongly divided on releasing much information, if any, on how they're using Stingray technology to collect and monitor phone metadata without judicial oversight.

Submission + - Intel Employee here. Intel says it's for Net Neutrality, but isn't?

Submitted by whistlingtony
whistlingtony writes: I work for Intel.

I'm not in a position of authority. I work in the Fab. This is NOT my area of expertise, although I care about the issue and try to be informed.

I was pretty bummed to find that Intel was on an letter with other companies against Title II regulation.

I also ran into a little piece on the company intranet about Net Neutrality, and emailed the author. It turns out he is, I believe, Intel's main lobbyist in Washington D.C.

He told me that Intel was FOR Net Neutrality. It seems everyone thinks that we're against it.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1...

http://arstechnica.com/busines...

After speaking to him via phone and email, I got pretty discouraged. It really feels to me as if Intel is trying to say "Yay! We're for NN!" while doing everything it can to sink real regulation and oversight.

After talking to the guy for a while, It seems Intel believes that Title II regulation will slow growth. In addition, Intel thinks that the FCC has all the authority it needs under section 706, so the FCC shouldn't TRY for Title II regulation.

I think that's hogwash, to be polite. I hope it's the position of this one guy, and not the company? I doubt this though.

Frankly, I think that Intel will do well in a competitive environment. Without Net Neutrality, we WILL have a less competitive environment. I'm afraid of broadband companies strangling the next Google or Netflix because they don't want the competition for their own services. As a stockholder, I think this is a bad move.

I also don't think the Broadband companies will spend less under Title II. Oh, they SAY they will, but of course they do... What else would they say?

Frankly, I think broadband companies are simply afraid of unbundling. Back in the dial up days when most of us got our internet over the phone lines, there was Title II regulation and the ISPs had to lease their lines to competitors at sane prices. This gave us choice and competition. You could go get a mom and pop local company to be your ISP, and their service was AWESOME. I think the entire resistance to Title II is that the ISPs don't want those days again. Comcast has long been one of the worst companies in America in terms of customer service and satisfaction.

I don't know why Intel is following their lead. We should want MORE competition, not less. Why are we doing this?

I looked into section 706, and it seems to lack a LOT of teeth. Our main lobbyist said that the FCC could use section 706, but Title II would be tied up in the courts for a long time.

I read up on court cases from 2014, and the circuit court in D.C. said that the FCC gave up it's authority and that all it needed to do was reclassify to title II and it could have it back. The courts themselves seem to disagree with Intel's position. Section 706 is a mandate to report and vague permission to do something if broadband coverage isn't widely spread enough. It's very vague, and WILL be tied up in the courts.

From the court case...

“Even though section 706 grants the Commission authority to promote broadband deployment by regulating how broadband providers treat edge providers, the Commission may not utilize that power in a manner that contravenes any specific prohibition contained in the Communications Act. ... We think it obvious that the Commission would violate the Communications Act were it to regulate broadband providers as common carriers. Given the Commission’s still-binding decision to classify broadband providers not as providers of “telecommunications services” but instead as providers of “information services,” such treatment would run afoul of section 153(51).”

http://transition.fcc.gov/Dail...

I think it's pretty disingenious for Intel to say that we're for Net Neutrality while we try to sink it. I think Intel is lying to people, and I don't like it, as a customer, as an employee, and as a shareholder.

The FCC is voting to decide if we get Title II regulation BACK (We had it before and it was awesome) on the 26th of Feb, 2015. It's coming soon! I wish my company was on the right side here, but it seems they're not.

I wish I could change that, but it seems I can't.

Does anyone have any ideas? Should I be calling for boycott? Should I take to Twitter? Will that help?

I am also a little scared of being too effective. I LIKE my job, and Intel is good to me as an employee. I just wish we wouldn't be saying things are are demonstratively wrong, to ourselves and to the world.

For more information, please read up. This is IMPORTANT folks. The internet is our main communication channel now.

http://www.savetheinternet.com...

https://www.aclu.org/net-neutr...

https://www.eff.org/issues/net...

Submission + - Online black market 'Darkleaks' lets you trade secrets for bitcoin (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An anonymous online black market site, Darkleaks, has been discovered which facilitates whistleblowing and helps blackmailers make money from selling confidential and valuable data in exchange for Bitcoin. The decentralized black marketplace is built on blockchain technology and is available to download as a free software package, with its source code published openly on code-sharing site Github. According to a blog post introducing the site, “there is no identity, no central operator and no interaction between leaker and buyers.” This anonymity is assured through blockchain which encrypts the files released when the payment is taken by the ‘leaker’, says developer Zozan Cudi. The developers say that Darkleaks will help “stop corruption and challenge power”, but there seems to be no limit to the files sellers and buyers can trade in, freely and anonymously – “government secrets”, “celebrity sex pictures” and “military intelligence”, among other critical and highly sensitive information.

Submission + - The Disastrous Privacy Consequences of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Canada's proposed anti-terrorism legislation is currently being debated in the House of Commons, with the government already serving notice that it plans to limit debate. Michael Geist argues that decision has enormous privacy consequences, since the bill effectively creates a “total information awareness” approach that represents a radical shift away from our traditional understanding of public sector privacy protection. The bill permits information sharing across government for an incredibly wide range of purposes, most of which have nothing to do with terrorism and opens the door to further disclosure “to any person, for any purpose.” The cumulative effect is to grant government near-total power to share information for purposes that extend far beyond terrorism with few safeguards or privacy protections.

Submission + - After White House Cyber Summit a Consensus - on Pessimism (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Even with a high-profile summit in the heart of Silicon Valley, partisan gridlock back in Washington D.C. will make progress on cyber security impossible, the Security Ledger reports. https://securityledger.com/201...

Last week's “Whitehouse Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection” (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/02/13/1711225/tech-industry-in-search-of-leadership-at-white-house-cyber-summit ) made much of the need for better cooperation between the government and private sector, especially in sharing information about cyber attacks and threats. Speaking at the event, President Obama issued an Executive Order (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/02/13/executive-order-promoting-private-sector-cybersecurity-information-shari) instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) to “strongly encourage the development and formation of Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAOs)” that would facilitate such sharing.

But critics note that the President’s reliance on an Executive Order was just one sign of the trouble ahead – with a familiar culprit: gridlock. “I know people on both sides – Republicans and Democrats, people on the Hill and the Whitehouse who deal with these policy matters,” said John Dickson, a Principal at Denim Group. “I’ll tell you one thing, they are not talking to each other at all.”

The result is efforts on cyber security that are more symbol than action: calls for information sharing without the legal changes to enable it. “Obviously, the lynch pin for information sharing is getting some comfort for commercial entities about liability and how that is defined,” Dickson said. “And that simply was not addressed."

Not that Republicans are doing any better: with control of both the House and Senate, the GOP hasn't made any effort to put forward comprehensive reforms, despite bi-partisan support and good prospects for passage and a Presidential signature. Neither side, it seems, wants the other to "win," Dickson observed.

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