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The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the bending-the-rules dept.
Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"
Google

Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-and-forever dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.
Security

Video When Your Data Absolutely, Positively has to be Destroyed (Video) 295

Posted by Roblimo from the it's-all-about-the-magnetism dept.
Here's a corporate motto for you: "Destroying data since 1959." Timothy ran into a company called Garner Products (which doesn't use that motto as far as we know), at a security conference. While most exhibitors were busily preserving or encrypting data one way or another, Garner was not only destroying data but delighting in it. And yes, they've really been doing this since 1959; they started out degaussing broadcast cartridges so broadcasters could re-use them without worrying about old cue tones creeping into new recordings. Now, you might ask, "Instead of spending $9,000 or more to render hard drives useless, couldn't you just use a $24 sledge hammer? And have the fun of destroying something physical as a free bonus?" Yes, you could. You'd get healthy exercise as well, and if you only wanted to destroy the data on the hard drives, so what? New drives are cheap these days. But some government agencies and financial institutions require degaussing before the physical destruction (and Garner has machines that do physical destruction, too -- which is how they deal with SSDs). Garner Products President Ron Stofan says in the interview that their destruction process is more certain than shooting a hard drive with a .45. But neither he nor Tim demonstrated a shooting vs. degaussing test for us, so we remain skeptical.

Comment Re:What I don't get is why scammers are tolerated. (Score 1) 79

by Widowwolf (#43113561) Attached to: FTC Goes After Scammers Who Blasted Millions of Text Messages
"Robo calls make me not want to own a phone at all. I get a couple each week, and they distract me from day. Today one woke me up. Robo calls should be illegal, including political robo calls."

Because every lawmaker will vote for that..


"There should be a way to disable text messages on phones. The phone company's dirty secret is that they over charge for text messages so they don't want to provide this service. Every time some spammer sends me scam bait, it costs me .10."

You do realize there is a way to do it..Talk to your porvider and tell them to disable it...They have to do it by most countries laws.


"Phishers, and all those email scams should be looked into by the FBI too."

They are looked into by the government..It's called the FCC..People complain, they look into it http://www.us-cert.gov/report-phishing


"Look at the people who mail everyone who signs up for a webpage with a bill for their webpage making them think it comes from their webhost, but it is actually a scammer wanting money."

Why you always pay directly to the hoster..not a random letter


"I'm pretty sure it always wasn't this way, but today, it seems like a large portion of incoming communication is from someone who wants to scam you. I can understand not being able to shut down some threats out of the country, but a lot of these things come from inside the country."

No they do not..They usually come from Russia and China and Africa

Comment Re:What I don't get is why scammers are tolerated. (Score 2) 79

by Widowwolf (#43113545) Attached to: FTC Goes After Scammers Who Blasted Millions of Text Messages
"Look at free credit report, they bill your credit card even though they say it is free."


It is completely free, as long as you cancel within 7 days of getting your report..It says you get it free with the signup of their service, and you wouldn't be charged unless you forget to call and cancel..Right at top of the page


IMPORTANT INFORMATION When you order your $1 Credit Report and Score here, you will begin your 7-day trial membership in freecreditreport.com. If you don't cancel your membership within the 7-day trial period*, you will be billed $19.99 for each month that you continue your membership. You may cancel your trial membership anytime within the trial period without charge.

Comment Re:Don't be too quick to pass judgement on this on (Score 1) 841

by Widowwolf (#42899775) Attached to: Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That NYT Tesla Test Drive Was Staged
You are using ones that are not made for it then. Try going out and spending yoru money wisely on better ones. I have done it plenty of times and with good winch, plus non cheap ones its easy to do. Instead of cheap plastic casters, try the ones with rubber tires..Works just fine

Comment Re:Don't be too quick to pass judgement on this on (Score 1) 841

by Widowwolf (#42898647) Attached to: Elon Musk Lays Out His Evidence That NYT Tesla Test Drive Was Staged
Any good tow truck driver has these:http://homytools.com/hydraulic-vehicle-automotive-moving-jack-dolly-hydraulic-car-dolly They let them move vehicles that have their ebrake on and to change cars direction so they can be towed/or if tire is flat and needs to be moved

Comment Re:America was king in the 60s and 70s (Score 1) 271

by Widowwolf (#42181889) Attached to: Voyager 1, So Close To Interstellar Space That We Can Taste It!
It was never a war


Five wars have been declared under the Constitution: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.

All the rest are not wars,they are"police actions".

American Presidents often have not sought formal declarations of war, instead maintaining that they have the Constitutional authority, as commander in chief (Article Two, Section Two) to use the military for "police actions"

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