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Submission + - Subversion project migrates to Git (apache.org)

Submitted by gitficionado
gitficionado writes: The Apache Subversion project has begun migrating its source code from the ASF Subversion repo to git. Last week, the Subversion PMC (project management committee) voted to to migrate, and the migration has already begun.

Although there was strong opposition to the move from the older and more conservative SVN devs, and reportedly a lot of grumbling and ranting when the vote was tallied, a member of the PMC (who asked to remain anonymous) told the author that "this [migration] will finally let us get rid of the current broken design to a decentralized source control model [and we'll get] merge and rename done right after all this time."

Submission + - One Person Successfully Removed From U.S. No-Fly List (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In February, Judge William Alsup ruled in favor of Rahinah Ibrahim who sued the U.S. government in 2006 after she was mistakenly added to the no-fly list. Now, the Department of Justice has finally decided it won't appeal the ruling, making Ibrahim the first person to go to trial and get herself removed from the list. 'But Ibrahim's case, as just one of hundreds of thousands of individuals who have been placed on such lists, shows the system's opacity. First, the only surefire way to even determine if one is on such a list in the U.S. is to attempt to board a flight and be denied. Even after that happens, when a denied person inquires about his or her status, the likely response will be that the government “can neither confirm nor deny” the placement on such lists. The government's surrender in Ibrahim comes on the heels of a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union that shows just how insanely difficult it is to contest one's status on the government blacklists (PDF).'

Submission + - Einstein's Spooky Theory Could Bring Snowden's Encrypted Internet Dream to Life (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Albert Einstein's "spooky" quantum mechanics theory about entangled particles that can stay connected even when separated by large distances could be applied to encrypt communications and improve security over the internet.

The phenomenon is known as the N-partite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering and over half a century later in the 1990s, scientists finally succeeded in using it to securely transmit a message from one person to another.

They created a shared quantum key that decoded the message only for the sender and receiver – meaning that the message would be completely secure from interception until it was received. However, until now, the quantum key has only worked for sharing messages between two parties.

Submission + - Judge: IP Address Not a Person And Can't Identify a BitTorrent Pirate

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Florida District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Malibu Media against an alleged BitTorrent pirate. Though Malibu Media explained how they geolocated the download site and verified that the IP address was residential rather than a public wifi hotspot, the judge reasoned that the 'Plaintiff has not shown how this geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant....Even if this IP address is located within a residence, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence’s computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright.' Judge Ungaro's ruling is not the first of its kind, but it could signal a growing legal trend whereby copyright lawsuits can no longer just hinge on the acquisition of an IP address.

Submission + - Russia Dumps US Treasury Holdings To Little Effect (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In response to recent US sanctions, Russia has dumped its holding of US treasury bonds worth around $300 billion. Many slashdot commenters have speculated on the effects of a major world power dumping US bonds on the market. However, as reuters reports, this act had little effect on US bonds.

Submission + - Netflix hits out at ISP traffic fees .. (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The head of video-streaming service Netflix has hit out at internet service providers (ISPs) for demanding a fee to maintain video streaming quality.

The company recently "reluctantly" made a deal with US ISP Comcast to make sure its videos were streamed faster and more smoothly.

ISPs argue that data-heavy services should share the cost of providing capacity on the networks.

Submission + - College Grads Create Fake Tesla Commercial That Elon Musk Loves

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Two University of Southern California grads were looking to start a digital content company so they decided to roll the dice and create a home-made (but incredibly professional looking) television commercial for Tesla — just to see if they could get some attention for it. Well, apparently, mission accomplished. R.J. Collins and James Khabushani took $1,500 and created a 60-second Tesla "faux-mercial" dubbed "Modern Spaceship" that is well, pretty good. Elon Musk noticed, tweeted it and has helped the thing go viral. Makes you wonder why TV commercials cost so much to make when these guys created this for a fraction of what it would normally take.

Submission + - Gmail Goes HTTPS Only For All Connections

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Perhaps no company has been as vocal with its feelings about the revelations about the NSA’s collection methods as Google has, and the company has been making a series of changes to its infrastructure in recent months to make it more difficult for adversaries to snoop on users’ sessions. The biggest of those changes landed Thursday when the company switched its Gmail service to HTTPS only, enforcing SSL encryption on all Gmail connections.

The change is a significant one, especially given the fact that Google also has encrypted all of the links between its data centers. Those two modifications mean that Gmail messages are encrypted from the time they leave a user’s machine to the time they leave Google’s infrastructure. This makes life much more difficult for anyone–including the NSA–who is trying to snoop on those Gmail sessions.

Submission + - France bans GM maize .. (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: France's agriculture ministry on Saturday banned the sale, use and cultivation of Monsanto's MON 810 genetically modified maize, the only variety currently authorised in the European Union ..

Submission + - Steam Controller Drops Touchscreen (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last year Valve announced a new game controller that was trying to innovate on the designs that have been with us for over a decade now. The biggest changes were replacing analog sticks with circular touchpads and plopping a small touchscreen into the middle of the controller. Valve has now revamped their prototype hardware, and the touchscreen is nowhere to be seen. In its place are stop/play buttons (which appear similar to start/select buttons) and a bigger Steam logo button. They've also moved around the directional and ABXY buttons, reverting to a more traditional layout (picture). They'll be demonstrating the latest prototype next week at GDC.

Submission + - Can we replace Insightful with another word in reviewing articles. 2

Submitted by lsatenstein
lsatenstein writes: I understand insightful as giving me insight to technology, to new things I have not considered.
Adjective
adjective: insightful

        1.
        having or showing an accurate and deep understanding; perceptive.
        "thank you for all the insightful comments"
        synonyms: intuitive, perceptive, discerning, penetrating, penetrative, astute, percipient, perspicacious, sagacious, wise, judicious, shrewd, sharp, sharp-witted, razor-sharp, keen, incisive, acute, imaginative, appreciative, intelligent, thoughtful, sensitive, deep, profound; More
        visionary, farsighted, prescient;
        informalsavvy, right-brained
        "he gives an insightful analysis of the text"

Use over time for: insightful

I do not mentalize insightful as asking me to raise or express self enthusiasm to trigger reactions from readers,

Perhaps provoking would be a better word.

Submission + - Stop putting band-aids on broken back-end systems (citeworld.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: Here's a great cautionary story. A bus maintenance company in San Francisco was having trouble keeping buses running. Consulting company Deloitte put in an enterprise social network so mechanics could share information more easily. But these workers weren't sharing tips on swapping out gearboxes or tweaking spark plugs. The real problem was their warehouse inventory system was so bad that the parts were never where the database said they should be. So they were mainly asking other workers to check the shelves for parts before driving off town. Is that a successful enterprise social implementation or a disastrous ERP system?

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