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Submission + - First alpha of public sector Linux deployment system 1

Submitted by mathiasfriman
mathiasfriman writes: SverigeLinux (SwedenLinux in swedish) is a project financed by the Swedish Internet Fund that develop a Linux deployment system for the public sector. It is based on DebianLAN and has just released its first public early alpha version. This 7 minute video shows how you can deploy up to 100 workstations with minimal Linux knowledge in under an hour, complete with DHCP, DNS and user data in LDAP, logins using Kerberos and centralized storage. The project has a home on Github and is looking for testers and developers, hope you will try it out. Don't worry, no Björgen Kjörgen, it's all in english.

Submission + - Being Overweight Reduces Dementia Risk (bbc.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Being overweight cuts the risk of dementia, according to the largest and most precise investigation into the relationship. The researchers were surprised by the findings, which run contrary to current health advice. The team at Oxon Epidemiology and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analysed medical records from 2 million people aged 55 on average, for up to two decades. Their most conservative analysis showed underweight people had a 39% greater risk of dementia compared with being a normal healthy weight. But those who were overweight had an 18% reduction in dementia, and the figure was 24% reduction for the obese. Any explanation for the protective effect is distinctly lacking. There are some ideas that vitamin D and E deficiencies contribute to dementia and they may be less common in those eating more. Be it any way, let's still not forget that heart disease, stroke, diabetes, some cancers and other diseases are all linked to a bigger waistline. Maybe being slightly overweight is the optimum to strike, if the recent study is to be followed.

Submission + - Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Update w/ Intel Broadwell, Self-Encrypting SSD, Tested (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Lenovo just revamped the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and in this third generation of the machine, they've adopted Intel's latest 5th generation Core Series Broadwell processors, along with a few other updates. In addition, they've retooled the keyboard and trackpad area, returning back to more traditional roots versus the second generation machine, which was met with some criticism due to its adaptive function key row and over-simplified, buttonless trackpad. Notable upgrades to this 3rd gen model are a faster Core i5-5300U processor and a self-encrypting Opal2 compliant SSD. Performance-wise, the new ThinkPad offers up some of the best numbers in utlrabooks currently, though battery life is a bit middle of the road, but still able to last over 8 hours under light, web-driven workloads.

Submission + - Electrical engineering employment declines nearly 10%, but developers up 12% (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: The number of people working as electrical engineers declined by 29,000 last year, continuing a long-standing trend, according to government data. But the number of software developers, the largest IT occupational category, increased by nearly 12%,or a gain of 132,000 jobs. There were 1.235 million people working as software developers last year, and 271,000 electrical engineers, according U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Submission + - Intel Will Reportedly Land Apple as a Modem Chip Customer (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: After so many years of spinning its wheels, Intel is reportedly about to make a big step into mobile by providing Apple with LTE modem chips for its hot-selling iPhone. The news comes courtesy of VentureBeat, which cites two separate sources of the plans. The story says Apple will begin using Intel’s new 7360 LTE modem processor in place of a Qualcomm chip, which has been there for a few generations.

Submission + - US Asks Vietnam To Stop Russian Bomber Refueling Flights From Cam Ranh Air Base 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Reuters reports that the United States has asked Vietnam to stop letting Russia use its former US base at Cam Ranh Bay to refuel nuclear-capable bombers engaged in shows of strength over the Asia-Pacific region. General Vincent Brooks, commander of the U.S. Army in the Pacific, says the Russian bombers have conducted "provocative" flights, including around the U.S. Pacific Ocean territory of Guam, home to a major American air base. Brooks said the planes that circled Guam were refueled by Russian tankers flying from the strategic bay, which was transformed by the Americans during the Vietnam War into a massive air and naval base. Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the airport at Cam Ranh was first used for staging Il-78 tankers for aerial refueling of Tu-95MS bombers in January 2014. Asked about the Russian flights in the region, the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington respected Hanoi's right to enter agreements with other countries but added that "we have urged Vietnamese officials to ensure that Russia is not able to use its access to Cam Ranh Bay to conduct activities that could raise tensions in the region."

Cam Ranh is considered the finest deepwater shelter in Southeast Asia. North Vietnamese forces captured Cam Ranh Bay and all of its remaining facilities in 1975. Vietnam’s dependence on Russia as the main source of military platforms, equipment, and armaments, has now put Hanoi in a difficult spot. Russia has pressed for special access to Cam Ranh Bay ever since it began delivering enhanced Kilo-class submarines to Vietnam. "Hanoi is invariably cautious and risk adverse in its relations with the major powers," says Carl Thayer. "The current issue of Russian tankers staging out of Cam Ranh pits Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other. There is no easy solution for Vietnam."

Submission + - Did Hillary Commit a Felony? (nationalreview.com) 1

Submitted by bhlowe
bhlowe writes: Hilliary used a private email server hosted at her house to conduct business as Secretary of State under a pseudonym. This appears to be in violation of US law that may exclude her from holding office. A mock twitter account has been set up using the pseudonym of the "administrator" of her server, Eric Hoteham. In 2000, Hillary Clinton says she gave up using email because of the number of investigations she's been under.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot - Private-cloud file hosting software for linux, like Google Drive?

Submitted by TarpaKungs
TarpaKungs writes: I'm Asking Slashdot because I *know* this is a growing problem, but I have failed to find a suitable soution. Here's hoping the collective intelligence of Slashdot will prevail :)

OK — you have lots of android devices and maybe a several Chromebooks: Google Drive is great — it works well, it has user selectable offline caching ("Keep on device") — and most importantly, it handles updates from multiple clients gracefully. The main problem with this is reliability (will the service stay there), security, privacy and cost.

"Cost" because I have several terabytes of data (mostly photos, but a lot of other important files and documents) on an existing linux infrastructure which is well maintained, raid-ed and backed up. A small fraction of this it would be nice to replicate to all my client devices. The rest would be nice just to have on demand, subject to a network connection.

"Privacy and security" because I have lots of data that I don't want to lose control of.

I have been searching for a long time and have yet to find any self hosted software that has the technical abilities of Google Drive or Dropbox. Adding to that, the ability to maintain a secondary sync'd full copy of specific shares on linux (eg on my laptop) would be cool — but not crucial. However a general access linux client is a must.

I'm not looking for the all singing all dancing features of Google Drive such as live spreadsheets in my browser or any of the ancillary features like email and calendars. Simply good honest robust file serving with client offline mode (aka local cached copy, user selectable file by file or folder by folder) and no issues with multiple clients updating files.

I've tried Tonido and Owncloud and neither play nice with POSIX user permissions — they seem to want to own the files and manage access at a server level. Owncloud free seems also to be limited to a single share and enterprise pricing on both products is very high (3 to 4 figures) with no hobbyist/home licensing tier.

Simpler scenarios like SFTP and SMB of course do play nice with the local user permissions, but are not so bright on the client side — ie no offline mode. I did look down the WebDAV route but again, I have failed to find any client apps that are smart about offline mode. I suspect Google and Dropbox add some additional stuff to their protocols to push notifications of changes to other connected clients and also to manage the concept of "who has the latest copy".

So I guess what I am looking for is either a whole server/client suite that works or at least an SFTP/SMB/WebDAV client that is a bit smarter. Here's hoping the collective intelligence of Slashdot will prevail :)

Submission + - Open source mapping plays important role in humanitarian response (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Open source and crowdsourcing—uttering these words at a meeting of the United Nations before the year 2010 would have made you persona non grata. In fact, the fastest way to discredit yourself at any humanitarian meeting just five years ago was to suggest the use of open source software and crowdsourcing in disaster response. Then, a tragic earthquake occured in Haiti in 2010, and OpenStreetMap and Ushahidi were deployed in the aftermath.

Their use demonstrated the potential of free and open source crowdsourcing platforms in humanitarian contexts.

Then, Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines occured five years later. What technology was used?

Submission + - IoT devices not secured by design (zdnet.com)

Submitted by irl_4795
irl_4795 writes: Internet of Things devices are not originally built to be robust against attacks, resulting in vulnerabilities that can lead to severe repercussions if left unchecked, such as data that's being collected and acted upon in Singapore's smart nation plan.

Submission + - Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The NYT reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” says Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Submission + - Google Quietly Backs Away From Encrypting New Lollilop Devices by Default

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Although Google announced in September 2014 that Android 5.0 Lollipop would require full-disk encryption by default in new cell phones, Ars Technica has found otherwise in recently-released 2nd-gen Moto E and Galaxy S6. It turns out, according to the latest version of the Android Compatibility Definition document (PDF), full-disk encryption is currently only "very strongly recommended" in anticipation of mandatory encryption requirements in the future. The moral of the story is don't be lazy; check that your full-disk encryption is actually enabled.

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