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Submission + - Top-secret U.S. replica of Iran nuclear sites key to weapons deal (latimes.com)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Paul Richter at the LA Times has a very cool article describing replicas of Iran's nuclear facilities that the US operates in order to study what Iran's technical capabilities are. 'Using centrifuges acquired when Libya abandoned its nuclear program in 2003, as well as American-built equipment, the government has spent millions of dollars over more than a decade to build replicas of the enrichment facilities that are the pride of Iran's nuclear program.' Fascinating stuff.

Submission + - $56,000 Speeding Ticket Issued Under Finland's System of Fines Based on Income

Submitted by HughPickens.com
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."

Comment OpenAtrium (Score 3, Informative) 144

by SpzToid (#49242559) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Issue Tracker For Non-Engineers?

OpenAtrium is an open-source intranet-in-a-box, its v2.0 version making use of Responsive Design to support all devices, and includes calendaring, an excellent issue tracker, RSS reader/publisher, and can be customized for all kinds of unique purposes (or not).

www.openatrium.com

It is the issue tracker used by the current White House for its issue tracking and collaboration purposes.

http://www.kavehmoravej.com/bl...

https://developmentseed.org/bl...

Comment Re:Backup software? (Score 2) 71

by SpzToid (#49240285) Attached to: Google Nearline Delivers Some Serious Competition To Amazon Glacier

git-annex and Amazon glacier might serve you well. Encrypting your GIT/Glacier archive using your PGP key is a one-click-and-save option. With Google's recent announcement of Nearline I imagine over time it will be supported also. GIT annex came about through a kick-starter campaign, and you're welcome to support the project.

Here's some links to help you:

http://git-annex.branchable.co...

Specifically for Glacier:
http://git-annex.branchable.co...

Comment Re:I don't get the pricing? (Score 3, Informative) 71

by SpzToid (#49239629) Attached to: Google Nearline Delivers Some Serious Competition To Amazon Glacier

Interesting point, so I read up a bit. This only applies to Office365 customers. What about Linux, (etc.) users that can't fully utilize Office365? This really seems almost like a consumer option, and there are certainly business use-cases where this just ain't gonna fly. There's a 20,000 file limit, *period*, and the maximum file size is 10Gb, which is limiting for some, (especially those folks who roll their own encryption and compression).

For those reasons, Microsoft Office365/OneDrive doesn't seem like a serious competitor to Google Nearline, Amazon Glacier, or Microsoft Azure services.

http://www.techrepublic.com/ar...

Submission + - Google Nearline Delivers Some Serious Competition To Amazon Glacier (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by SpzToid
SpzToid writes: Google is offering a new kind of data storage service – and revealing its cloud computing strategy against Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

The company said on Wednesday that it would offer a service, called Nearline, for non-essential data. Like an AWS product called Glacier, this storage costs just a penny a month per gigabyte. Microsoft’s cheapest listed online storage is about 2.4 cents a gigabyte

While Glacier storage has a retrieval time of several hours, though, Google said Nearline data will be available in about three seconds.

Submission + - Court overturns Dutch data retention law, privacy more important (dutchnews.nl) 1

Submitted by wabrandsma
wabrandsma writes: DutchNews.nl writes:
Internet providers no longer have to keep their clients phone, internet and email details because privacy is more important, a Dutch court ruled on Wednesday.

Digital Rights organisation Bits of Freedom writes in a Blog:
The law’s underlying European directive was meant as a tool in the fight against serious crimes. The Dutch law, however, is much more expansive, including everything from terrorism to bike theft. During the hearing, the state’s attorneys avowed that the Public Prosecution does not take the law lightly, and would not call on the law to request data in case of a bicycle theft. The judge’s response: it doesn’t matter if you exploit the possibility or not, the fact that the possibility exists is already reason enough to conclude that the current safeguards are unsatisfactory.

Comment Re:Patenting (Score 1) 64

by SpzToid (#49232259) Attached to: Open Source Hardware Approaching Critical Mass

Ars Technica just published an excellent piece on Microsoft's contribution to Open-Source data center designs: http://arstechnica.com/informa...

If the Facebook's and Microsoft's of the world are being so proactive in this space, it'll only be a matter of time until their lawyer's get to work. That's what they're there for, right? Gotta do something to keep earning those fat retainers.

Submission + - Uber hauls GitHub into court to find who hacked database (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by SwampApe
SwampApe writes: Uber has subpoenaed GitHub to unmask netizens suspected of hacking its database of taxi drivers.

The ride-booking app maker is trying to force GitHub to hand over the IP addresses of anyone who visited a particular gist post between March and September last year.

That gist is believed to have contained a login key used by a hacker to access an internal Uber database of 50,000 drivers. Github refused to hand over the information, leading to Friday's subpoena filing.

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