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Submission + - Apple Isn't Tracking You, But Facebook Is... (shugendo.org)

stonemirror writes: "Apple has put out a statement explaining that the file containing locations in the areas where the iPhone has visited are, indeed, the locations of cell towers and such and are, indeed, used to speed up triangulation in iOS Location Services. Apple says that will store less data, encrypt the file on the phone, and not back it up to the desktop in a future release of the platform.

On a related note, it's been revealed that Facebook has been placing tracking cookies onto the computers of non-users of the site, simply for visiting sites which happen to use Facebook Connect for authentication. Facebook blames this on a bug."

Piracy

Submission + - Movie-ruining trends that are actually ancient (cracked.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Cracked has an interesting article on the historical roots of a number of entertainment industry-related things we like to complain about here. In case you don't want to RTFA:

5) Crappy Sequels/Prequels: actually started in 460 B.C.E. (sequels of The Iliad)
4) Everything Is an Adaptation or a Remake: actually started before recorded history.
3) Rampant Piracy: actually started in the 1500s (bad quartos)
2) Cheap Knockoffs Trying to Cash in on Blockbusters: actually started in the 1800s (penny dreadfuls)
1) Arbitrary Ratings for "Adult" Content: actually started in the 1500s (Queen Elizabeth's censorship boards)

Google

Submission + - Does Google Encourage Book Piracy?

lee1 writes: "David Flanagan, author of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide and other reference works, has for 15 years been, as he says, ‘one of those lucky authors who has been able to support himself and his family almost entirely on book royalties.’ But now he his looking for a salaried job, because royalties are declining. He believes this is due in part to piracy of his books, which he sees as being actively encouraged by Google. The search giant ranks results leading to illegal copies of his works above legitimate results, such as reviews, and features illegal download sites prominently in its interactive list of search suggestions. Flanagan even found that the latest edition of his JavaScript book was available as an illegal download before he received his own copy."
Businesses

Submission + - Nokia Hands Symbian OS Business To Accenture (itworld.com)

jfruhlinger writes: "As Nokia shifts from Symbian to Windows Phone 7 for its smartphones, it doesn't need the 3,000 employees it has working on Symbian software, so the company is handing them over to consulting firm Accenture. No word on who paid whom in this transaction, or how long Accenture will hold onto these employees once Nokia's shift is complete, since Nokia would be their major customer for Symbian consulting. In addition to this move, Nokia is also firing 4,000 people outright."
Security

Submission + - FBI Says Wire Fraud Scam Sending Millions to China (threatpost.com) 2

Trailrunner7 writes: The FBI is warning businesses about an ongoing spate of attacks that are stealing millions of dollars from companies through unauthorized bank transfers to Chinese companies. The fraudulent wire transfers are not a new tactic, but the FBI says the current round of attacks is notable in that virtually all of the transfers are going to shell companies based in China and have cost U.S. businesses $11 million.
The FBI said that many of the cases it has seen involve well-known pieces of malware, such as Zeus, SpyEye and others. The amount of money the attackers try to transfer varies from $50,000 up to nearly $1 million.

Submission + - DoJ asks Supreme Court to take up GPS tracking (google.com)

Whorhay writes: The DOJ has been directed by the Obama Administration to push the Supreme Court to take up the legality of Warrantless GPS Tracking. This on the heels of the a federal appeals court in Washington overturning the conviction of a man citing warrantless GPS tracking as violating his fourth ammendmant rights.
Science

Submission + - Caterpillar-Inspired Robots Rock 'n' Roll (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: Forget Roy Batty, the android who easily evaded Harrison Ford in Bladerunner: Robots with superhuman speed and flexibility might look more like somersaulting caterpillars. A new soft-bodied robot made out of silicon mimics caterpillars' ballistic roll, which is among the fastest wheeling behaviors in nature. Their 10-centimeter-long robot, named GoQBot for the Q-shape it forms as it rolls, is powered by shape memory coils that bend at three points to allow it to change its body conformation in less than 100 milliseconds. Soft-bodied robots that can both squirm into difficult spaces and change direction extremely quickly could be useful for getting into debris-strewn areas for rescues or intel gathering.
IOS

Submission + - iPhone/SpyPhone--The Music Video! (shugendo.org)

stonemirror writes: "As a final installment to this saga, I put together yet another modified version of Peter Warden's iPhoneTrack application, and used it to produce a video showing the locations the phone gathered, in order, over a ten-month period. The soundtrack is David Byrne's "My Fair Lady", used under a Creative Commons license.

The video is on YouTube, and a higher-quality version can be downloaded from my site, along with a pre-built version of my modified iPhoneTracker, the modifications to the source code, and "The Wired CD", a Creative Commons-licensed CD of tunes from some excellent artists, including Mr. Byrne. Enjoy!"

Submission + - Citizen Scientists Making Incredible Discoveries - (nasa.gov)

Phoghat writes: "People across the globe are working together to help scientists analyze data from NASA's Hubble, Kepler, and LRO instruments. And they're making surprising discoveries of their own! Joining Zooniverse you can help with identifying and classifying stellar objects an formations"
Google

Submission + - Google Will Save Videos After All (blogspot.com)

don9030582 writes: After Google announced it would permanently shutter its Google Videos collection, dozens of volunteers from around the world sprung unto action in a massive attempt to make a copy of the entire site. Originally slated to go dark on April 29th, now they have eliminated any such deadline and furthermore they will be migrating the collection to YouTube. We wish Google would have planned to do that from the beginning, but ultimately this is a victory for the preservation of user-generated content on the Internet.

Comment Re:Lie watch (Score 1) 362

Hm. While I didn't look directly at what was in the database at that point, I modified Peter Warden's tool to let me get a more refined picture of what was going on, both by increasing the precision, and by aggregating the data on a daily basis, as opposed to a weekly one.

That said, I actually got into what gets stored in a representative consolidated.db's "CellLocations" table today, and dumped out raw data to an Excel spreadsheet (which you can also download if you want to play with it yourself). I also mapped each "batch" of locations—since they're time-stamped in a dozen batches ranging from 7 to 43 locations, collected at intervals ranging from 1 minute to over 16 hours, and covering geographical areas from a few blocks up to 80 or 90 miles. You can see all the details at http://caffeine.shugendo.org/2011/04/22/an-even-deeper-dive-into-the-iphone-location-data/

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, kiss my ass.

IOS

Submission + - An Even Deeper Dive Into the iPhone Location Data (shugendo.org)

stonemirror writes: "I've produced several overlays onto Google Maps showing precisely the data the iPhone added to the consolidated.db file over the course of a three day period, without any modification, and the information's quite interesting, if not completely comprehensible. I've provided details on all the tools I used, as well as a link to a copy of the data I used in an Excel spreadsheet for those who'd like to take a look themselves."
Security

Submission + - Wardrivers target Seattle businesses (computerworld.com.au)

angry tapir writes: "Seattle police are investigating a group of criminals who they say have been cruising around town in a black Mercedes stealing credit card data by tapping into wireless networks belonging to area businesses. The group has been at it for about five years, according to an affidavit signed by Detective Chris Hansen, a fraud investigator with the Seattle Police Department."

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