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Communications

How Boing Boing Handled an FBI Subpoena Over Its Tor Exit Node 104

Posted by Soulskill from the very-carefully dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Cory Doctorow has posted an account of what happened when tech culture blog Boing Boing got a federal subpoena over the Tor exit node the site had been running for years. They received the subpoena in June, and the FBI demanded all logs relating to the exit node: specifically, "subscriber records" and "user information" for everybody associated with the exit node's IP address. They were also asked to testify before a federal grand jury. While they were nervous at first, the story has a happy ending. Their lawyer sent a note back to the FBI agent in charge, explaining that the IP address in question was an exit node. The agent actually looked into Tor, realized no logs were available, and cancelled the request. Doctorow considers this encouraging for anyone who's thinking about opening a new exit node: "I'm not saying that everyone who gets a federal subpoena for running a Tor exit node will have this outcome, but the only Tor legal stories that rise to the public's attention are the horrific ones. Here's a counterexample: Fed asks us for our records, we say we don't have any, fed goes away."
Math

Using Math To Tune a Video Game's Economy 96

Posted by Soulskill from the as-opposed-to-tuning-it-with-music-theory dept.
An anonymous reader writes: When the shipping deadline was approaching for The Witcher 3, designer Matthew Steinke knew there was a big part of the game still missing: its economy. A game's economy is one of the things that can make or break immersion — you want collection and rewards to feel progressive and meaningful. Making items too expensive gives the game a grindy feel, while making them too cheap makes progression trivial. At the Game Developers Conference underway in Germany, Steinke explained his solution.

"Steinke created a formula that calculated attributes like how much damage, defense, or healing that each item provided, and he placed them into an overall combat rating could be used to rank other items in the system. ... Steinke set about blending the sub-categories into nine generalized categories, allowing him to determine the final weighting for damage and the range of prices for each item. To test if it all worked, he used polynomial least squares (a form of mathematical statistics) to chart each category's price progression. The resultant curve (pictured below) showed the rate at which spending was increasing as the quality of each item approached the category's ceiling value."

Submission + - Behold the whalecopter: Drones give whales a breathalyzer test (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Whales, like many cetaceans, are prone to respiratory tract infections, which can jeopardize already endangered populations. Assessing whales’ health, however, isn’t easy: Scientists hoping to measure bacteria and fungi in a whale’s “breath”—the moist air it shoots from its blowhole—need to get close enough to take a sample. Enter the whalecopter, a small, remote-controlled drone developed by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The drone—a six-propeller hexacopter—can both collect breath samples and take high-resolution photos of the whales from the air to assess general health and conditions such as fat level and skin lesions. In a test at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary last month, the whalecopter first hovered about 40 meters above 36 whales to take full-body photographs of the animals—and then zoomed in to just a few meters above sea level to fly through the whales’ spouts and collect breath samples.

Submission + - Has Microsoft Lost Its Developer Mojo?

Submitted by linkchaos
linkchaos writes: Through its storied history--filled with high-highs and low-lows--Microsoft has lost some of that mindshare to the likes of tech giants like Apple and Google, but also to companies that it never had to consider as competitors before. Has Microsoft lost its developer mojo, and can the company get it back?

Submission + - USC vs. UC San Diego in Throwdown over Alzheimer's Research

Submitted by BVBigelow
BVBigelow writes: In Southern California, a legal skirmish between USC and UC San Diego is escalating into into a full-blown donnybrook, replete with restraining orders, loyalty oaths, and accusations of computer piracy, intimidation, and interference in federal grant awards. The two universities are fighting over control of an Alzheimer’s program that coordinates about $100 million in research grants. The lawsuits began after USC recruited scientist Paul Aisen from UC San Diego, where he has been director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study since 2007. The study has been based at UC San Diego since 1991, and and UCSD expected to retain control. But Aisen’s team took root command of the computer system (including 24 years’ worth of clinical trial data) and won’t give it back.
Social Networks

Facebook Allows Turkish Government To Set the Censorship Rules 121

Posted by timothy from the but-everyone-loves-the-king-of-thailand dept.
New submitter feylikurds writes: Facebook has been blocking and banning users for posting Kurdish or anti-Turkish material. Many screenshots exists of Facebook notifying people for such. You can insult any single historical figure that you like on Facebook except one: Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal 'Ataturk'. However, he should not receive special treatment and be protected from criticism, but rather should be treated and examined like everyone else. In order to be accessible within Turkey, Facebook has allowed the repressive Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions of their users all around the globe. Facebook censors Kurds on behalf of Turkey. To show the world how unjust this policy is, this group discusses Facebook's censorship policy as it relates to Kurds (Facebook account required) and how to get Facebook to change its unfair and discriminatory policy. Makes re-reading Hossein Derakhshan's piece worth the time.
Botnet

Cleaning Up Botnets Takes Years, May Never Be Completed 74

Posted by timothy from the down-there-somewhere-let-me-take-another-look dept.
Once a botnet has taken root in a large pool of computers, truly expunging it from them may be a forlorn hope. That, writes itwbennett, is: the finding of researchers in the Netherlands who analyzed the efforts of the Conficker Working Group to stop the botnet and find its creators. Seven years later, there are still about 1 million computers around the world infected with the Conficker malware despite the years-long cleanup effort. 'These people that remain infected — they might remain infected forever,' said Hadi Asghari, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The research paper will be presented next week at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C. (And "Post-Mortem of a Zombie" is an exciting way to title a paper.)

Submission + - Facebook allows Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions (facebook.com)

Submitted by feylikurds
feylikurds writes: Facebook has been blocking and banning users for posting Kurdish or anti-Turkish material. Many screenshots exists of Facebook notifying people for such.

You can insult any single historical figure that you like on Facebook except one = Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal "Ataturk". However, he should not receive special treatment and be protected from criticism, but rather should be treated and examined like everyone else.

In order to be accessible within Turkey, Facebook has allowed the repressive Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions of their users all around the globe. Facebook censors Kurds on behalf of Turkey. To show the world how unjust this policy is, this group discusses Facebook's censorship policy as it relates to Kurds and discussions on how to get Facebook to change its unfair and discriminatory policy.

Submission + - FAA has approved more than 1,000 drone exemptions (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The Federal Aviation Administration today said it has issued 1,008 exemptions to businesses wanting to fly unmanned aircraft in the national airspace. Such small drones have been on the bad side of the news in the past few days as there have been at least 3 complaints about the diminutive aircraft flying near the flight path of JFK airport in New York. All three of the flights landed safely but the events prompted New York Senator Charles Schumer to call for called for “tougher FAA rules on drones, as well as geofencing software that could prohibit a done to fly higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

EFF and MuckRock Need Your Help Tracking Biometric Surveillance 19

Posted by timothy from the dear-sirs dept.
v3rgEz writes: Police departments are increasingly tracking your face, your fingerprints, your tattoos — and even your DNA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock are working to uncover how local agencies are tracking you and bring some much-needed transparency to the murky world of biometric surveillance through a free public records audit: Just put in some basic information about an agency near you, and they'll publicly file a request to see what vendors your city is using, how they protect your privacy, and more.

Submission + - EFF and MuckRock need your help tracking biometric surveillance (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: Police departments are increasingly tracking your face, your fingerprints, your tattoos — and even your DNA. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock are working to uncover how local agencies are tracking you and bring some much-needed transparency to the murky world of biometric surveillance through a free public records audit: Just put in some basic information about an agency near you, and they'll publicly file a request to see what vendors your city is using, how they protect your privacy, and more.

Submission + - Cleaning Up Botnets Takes Years, May Never Be Completed

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: That's the finding of researchers in the Netherlands who analyzed the efforts of the Conficker Working Group to stop the botnet and find its creators. Seven years later, there are still about 1 million computers around the world infected with the Conficker malware despite the years-long cleanup effort. 'These people that remain infected — they might remain infected forever,' said Hadi Asghari, assistant professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The research paper will be presented next week at the 24th USENIX Security Symposium in Washington, D.C.
Open Source

Ada Initiative Organization To End, But Its Work Will Continue 223

Posted by timothy from the cultural-learnings dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Today the Ada Initiative announced that the nonprofit will shut down in mid-October. Founded in 2011, the Ada Initiative is a nonprofit feminist organization created to help improve open source culture and build a more inviting, productive, safe environment for women. In this interview with Opensource.com, the co-founders look back at the organization's successes, and the work that still needs to be done.

Submission + - New Zealand Man 3d Prints the World's Smallest Working Circular Saw

Submitted by ErnieKey
ErnieKey writes: Lance Abernethy, a man from New Zealand, has designed and 3D printed what he considers to be the world's smallest working circular saw. Powered by a hearing aid batter, the saw turns on and operates like your traditional circular saw, although Abernethy says that he is still working to make it so that it can actually cut through objects. Abernethy made headlines a few months ago for 3D printing a miniature power drill, and he says he has plans to continue developing his saw further and also making even more miniature power tools in the future.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Comcast is doubling the speed of its low-cost Internet plans - Washington Post (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

USA TODAY
Comcast is doubling the speed of its low-cost Internet plans
Washington Post
Comcast is rolling out a few upgrades to its Internet program for low-income consumers, doubling download speeds and, for the first time, targeting senior citizens under a Florida-based pilot project. The $10-a-month program, Internet Essentials, will ...
Comcast upgrades its Internet essentials planUSA TODAY
Comcast Announces Fifth Back-to-School Kickoff for Internet EssentialsMarketWatch
Comcast:Internet Essentials Connects 500K FamiliesMultichannel News
Technical.ly
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