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Submission + - White House office to delete its FOIA regulations (usatoday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office.

The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law.

Submission + - Researchers find same RSA encryption key used 28,000 times (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes: While scanning the Internet to see how many servers and devices are still vulnerable to the "FREAK" flaw, researchers with Royal Holloway of the University of London discovered large numbers were accepting 512-bit RSA keys — and large numbers of devices using the same public keys. In one egregious example, 28,394 routers running a SSL VPN module all use the same 512-bit public RSA key.

Submission + - Study: Americans Still Don't Secure Their Online Communications and Activities (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A new Pew survey looking at how people have changed their online behaviors to avoid government surveillance has found that in the wake of the Snowden revelations most Americans have carried on as usual, uninterested in using encryption or identity-cloaking browsers like Tor. Roughly a third of respondents didn’t even know what Tor is.

Submission + - This App Lets You Piggyback Facebook's Free Internet to Access Any Site (vice.com)

Submitted by sarahnaomi
sarahnaomi writes: In countries like Zambia, Tanzania, or Kenya, where very few have access to the Internet, Facebook is bringing its own version of the net: Internet.org, an app that gives mobile users free access to certain sites such as Google, Wikipedia and, of course, Facebook.

While the initiative has clearly positive goals, it’s also been criticized as an “imperialistic” push for Facebook colonies, where novice Internet.org users will grow up thinking their restricted version of the web is the real internet.

To fight against that possibility, a 20-year-old developer from Paraguay is working on an app that tunnels the “regular” internet through Facebook Messenger, one of the services free to use on Internet.org’s app. This allows Internet.org users to establish a link to the outside, unrestricted internet, circumventing restrictions.
Crime

$56,000 Speeding Ticket Issued Under Finland's System of Fines Based On Income 760

Posted by samzenpus from the can-I-just-do-the-jail-time? dept.
HughPickens.com writes Joe Pinsker writes at The Atlantic that Finish businessman Reima Kuisla was recently caught going 65 miles per hour in a 50 zone in his home country and ended up paying a fine of $56,000. The fine was so extreme because in Finland, some traffic fines, as well as fines for shoplifting and violating securities-exchange laws, are assessed based on earnings—and Kuisla's declared income was €6.5 million per year. Several years ago another executive was fined the equivalent of $103,000 for going 45 in a 30 zone on his motorcycle. Finland's system for calculating fines is relatively simple: It starts with an estimate of the amount of spending money a Finn has for one day, and then divides that by two—the resulting number is considered a reasonable amount of spending money to deprive the offender of. Then, based on the severity of the crime, the system has rules for how many days the offender must go without that money. Going about 15 mph over the speed limit gets you a multiplier of 12 days, and going 25 mph over carries a 22-day multiplier. Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, and Switzerland also have some sliding-scale fines, or "day-fines," in place, but in America, flat-rate fines are the norm. Since the late 80s, when day-fines were first seriously tested in the U.S., they have remained unusual and even exotic.

Should such a system be used in the United States? After all, wealthier people have been shown to drive more recklessly than those who make less money. For example Steve Jobs was known to park in handicapped spots and drive around without license plates. But more importantly, day-fines could introduce some fairness to a legal system that many have convincingly shown to be biased against the poor. Last week, the Department of Justice released a comprehensive report on how fines have been doled out in Ferguson, Missouri. "Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs," it concluded. The first day-fine ever in the U.S. was given in 1988, and about 70 percent of Staten Island's fines in the following year were day-fines. A similar program was started in Milwaukee, and a few other cities implemented the day-fine idea and according to Judith Greene, who founded Justice Strategies, a nonprofit research organization, all of these initiatives were effective in making the justice system fairer for poor people. "When considering a proportion of their income,people are at least constantly risk-averse. This means that the worst that would happen is that the deterrent effect of fines would be the same across wealth or income levels," says Casey Mulligan. "We should start small—say, only speeding tickets—and see what happens."

Submission + - New Site Mocks Bad Artwork on Ebook Covers (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A British newspaper is celebrating "the world’s worst ebook artwork", as discovered by the creator of a new Tumblr feed. 'It's the hubris of it that people get a kick out of — the devil-may-care attitude of an author who, with zero arts training, says to themselves: "How hard can it be?" Two different authors simply cut-and-pasted smaller images over a background showing the planets, according to one Kindle blog, which notes that one author actually pasted eyes and lips onto the planets, creating an inadvertently creepy montage. But the site's creator tells the newspaper that it's ultimately meant to be an affectionate tribute to their rejection of the mundane and appreciating each creative and beautiful mess.

Submission + - 3D Audio Standard Released (cepro.com)

Submitted by CIStud
CIStud writes: The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has released its new 3D Audio Standard ( AES69-2015), covering topics such as binaural listening, which is growing due to increased usage of smartphones, tablets and other individual entertainment systems that offer audio using headphones. AES states that an understanding of the way that the listener experiences binaural sound, expressed as head-related transfer functions (HRTF) facilitates the way to 3D personal audio. The standard also looks into convolution-based reverberation processors in 3D virtual audio environments, which has also grown with the increase of available computing power.

Submission + - Secure Pirate Bay 'Unblocked' By Most UK ISPs (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, several UK ISPs are required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.

The most prominent target of these blocks is without doubt The Pirate Bay. As one of the most visited sites on the Internet it has been a thorn in the side of the entertainment industries for years.

The Pirate Bay was one of the first sites on the UK blocklist and access has been barred since 2012. Or rather should have been barred.

For a few weeks most UK Internet subscribers have been able to access TPB just fine. Ever since the site switched to CloudFlare and made the secure https://thepiratebay.se/ version default, it has become widely accessible again.

Comment Re:Still objects more dangerous than moving object (Score 3, Interesting) 85

by Immerman (#49267803) Attached to: NASA Wants Your Help Hunting For Asteroids

Ah, but we do. We've landed probes on comets already, if we spot an asteroid that will impact the Earth in 20-50 years (orbital mechanics - one of the few fields where we really can see into the future with high accuracy) we could land a probe on it and fire all thrusters on full until out of fuel, deflecting it's path just enough so that it misses the Earth instead of hitting it. At a range of several billion miles it doesn't take much deflection to miss a target as small as the Earth.
Privacy

Hertz Puts Cameras In Its Rental Cars, Says It Has No Plans To Use Them 188

Posted by samzenpus from the all-the-better-to-see-you-with dept.
schwit1 writes Hertz has added a camera to many of its newer cars that uses the "NeverLost" navigational device. So why is Hertz creeping out customers with cameras it's not using? "Hertz added the camera as a feature of the NeverLost 6 in the event it was decided, in the future, to activate live agent connectivity to customers by video. In that plan the customer would have needed to turn on the camera by pushing a button (while stationary)," Hertz spokesperson Evelin Imperatrice explained. "The camera feature has not been launched, cannot be operated and we have no current plans to do so."

Comment Re:VR Demands Specialized Input Devices (Score 1) 124

by Immerman (#49267743) Attached to: Valve's SteamVR: Solves Big Problems, Raises Bigger Questions

> If you are talking about button presses, there is no direct event to line up.

Right. But if we're talking about using your hands/feet/etc. normally in VR space (or even via 6DOF "wands"), a.k.a VR interfaces, then there *is* a 1:1 event correspondence, and lag may become extremely disorienting and/or interfere with your real-world reflexes as your brain learns to compensate.

Submission + - FBI Closing In on Hackers Who Stole Data From JPMorgan Chase (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Last summer’s attack on JPMorgan Chase — which resulted in hackers gaining access to email addresses and phone numbers for 83 million households and small businesses — may break that pattern of investigative dead ends in large corporate breaches.

Federal authorities investigating the attack at JPMorgan are increasingly confident that a criminal case will be filed against the hackers in the coming months, said people briefed on the investigation. Law enforcement officials believe that several of the suspects are “gettable,” meaning that they live in a country with which the United States has an extradition treaty. That would not include countries like Russia.

The JPMorgan case is advancing quickly partly because the attack was not nearly as sophisticated as initially believed, and law enforcement authorities were able to identify at least some suspects early on.
Censorship

Cuba Approves First Public Wi-Fi Hub In Havana 33

Posted by samzenpus from the let-the-starcraft-begin dept.
An anonymous reader writes that Havana is on the verge of getting its first public wi-fi. "Cuba's state telecom agency Etecsa has granted approval to the artist Kcho to open the country's first public wireless hub at his cultural center. Kcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, is operating the hub using his own, government-approved internet connection, and paying approximately $900 (£600) per month to run it. Only an estimated 5% — 25% of Cubans have any type of internet service. That is because internet access is incredibly expensive. For instance, an hour of internet access at a cafe can cost $4.50 — nearly a week's wages for the average Cuban. Kcho told the Associated Press he decided to offer free internet at the center, which opened in western Havana in January, in order to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet."

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