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Submission + - Tracking Data casts doubt on Kentucky Drone Shooter's Story (wdrb.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: The owner of a drone shot down by Kentucky man (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/07/29/142227/kentucky-man-arrested-after-shooting-down-drone) is now telling his side of the story: David Boggs says he had just bought the drone a few days earlier and was planning on using it to shoot video of his kids riding motocross. (http://www.wdrb.com/story/29675427/drone-owner-responds-to-claims-of-privacy-invasion)

Boggs also shared the drone's tracking data with the media. "We are now 193 feet above the ground,” Boggs described as he showed the flight path. “This area here is the world-famous drone slayer home, and this is a neighbor's home, and our friends live over here, and over here, and over here. You will see now that we did not go below this altitude — we even went higher — nor did we hover over their house to look in. And for sure didn't descend down to no 10 feet, or look under someone's canopy, or at somebody's daughter."

The track does show that the drone hovered for around 30 seconds near Merideth’s home but was at an altitude in excess of 200 feet.

However, drone slayer Willie Merideth says he downed the drone using bird shot, an ammunition Merideth says would not have caused enough damage to bring the drone down at an altitude of more than 200 feet. “His claims are that the drone never got below 200 feet,” Merideth said on Thursday. “Number 8 bird shot is not going to take anything out at 200 feet.”

Both Boggs and Merideth say they want to see the video that the drone captured but neither seems to know what happened to the memory card inside the drone that saved the video. “The reason we don’t have the live footage is because when we got there where the drone was shot down and a neighbor had gone and retrieved it and the SD card was gone,” Boggs said. “We want that SD card.”

When asked, Merideth didn’t have an answer either. “We have no idea where that's at,” he said.

Meredith is facing two felony charges of wanton endangerment and criminal mischief. He appears in court this September. (http://www.whas11.com/story/news/local/2015/07/31/local-resident-shoots-drone-down-faces-two-felony-charges/30921593/)

Comment Re:The central pro-escrow argument is idiotic. (Score 2) 82

by Kjella (#50227991) Attached to: Questioning the Dispute Over Key Escrow

You would think a pair of gloves would render all the police fingerprinting useless, yet haphazard criminals are caught by it all the time. Like everyone else with limited resources, they either catch you because you're important or because you make it easy. Heck, I bet many criminals using computers don't even know what crypto is.

Submission + - Bill allows government to revoke Americans' passports without charges or trial (policestateusa.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would allow the government to restrict Americans' travel through the revocation of passports based upon mere suspicions of unscrupulous activity. This bill represents another dangerous step forward in the war on terror and the disintegration of American due process.

H.R. 237, the "FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) Passport Revocation Act of 2015," will allow the U.S. Secretary of State the unchecked authority to prohibit individuals from traveling internationally. According to the bill, the Secretary may unilaterally revoke (or refuse to issue) a passport from "any individual whom the Secretary has determined has aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise helped an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189)."

The bill did not bother to define what the terms "aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise helped" actually mean, in legal terms. The power has been left open-ended so that it can mean whatever the secretary wants it to mean. Needless to say, a bill like this would be easily abused.

The travel restriction requires no presumption of innocence for the targeted individual; no explanation; no public presentation of evidence; no opportunity for a defense; no checks and balances on the power. The bill does not outline any appeals process for the targeted individual. The only stipulation is that the Secretary of State must issue a report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs — "classified or unclassified." The bill does not state that either committee can reverse the secretary's decisions.

Comment That's a common misunderstanding. (Score 2) 5

by Futurepower(R) (#50227383) Attached to: Windows 10's New Feature Steals Your Internet Bandwidth
Yes, you know how to do that. VERY few PC computer users would know how. So, the practice is abusive toward most users.

Windows 10 is not "free". Windows 10 is apparently intended to take more control. For example, now Microsoft says it can take and make use of your data: Windows 10: Here are the privacy issues you should know about.

Microsoft will now have full control over Windows Home users with "updates". Microsoft often publishes buggy updates. Judging from the way things are moving, that is just one step to increasing control. Microsoft will apparently arrange even more domination later.

Submission + - For some Facebook users 'hide' may no longer mean hide (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: What do you do if a story appears in your Facebook that you're not interested in? You might just ignore it, or you might try to train Facebook about your preferences by selecting the 'hide' option.

But if you're the sort of person who hides a lot of stories, Facebook might start placing less importance on your dislikes. This might sound counter-intuitive, but Facebook is convinced that it makes sense, saying that for some people opting to hide a story "isn't as strong a negative signal". So who are these people?

Submission + - Windows 10's New Feature Steals Your Internet Bandwidth (vortex.com) 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: t's a devious little feature called Windows Update Delivery Optimization. It's enabled by default. For Enterprise and Education users, it operates over the local LAN. For ordinary Home type users, Microsoft can send their data update goodies to potentially any PC on the global Internet — from your PC, over your Internet connection. On your dime.

We could get into the pros and cons of local updates being staged between local machines on a LAN as opposed to the outside Internet.

But as soon as MS decided that it's A-OK for them to use my Internet connection to cut down on their bandwidth costs serving their other customers — without asking me for my specific permission first — the situation blows into the red zone immediately.

Comment Re:The title is terrible (Score 1) 231

by Kjella (#50226659) Attached to: Will Autonomous Cars Be the Insurance Industry's Napster Moment?

The car insurance industry is making a lot of money on the fact that your driving profile is individual and will trick you into keep paying a high premium despite having moved into a lower risk segment. All autonomous cars of the same model will drive the same way, which makes it a lot harder to price gouge. It doesn't matter if you're 18 or 80, male or female, single driver or whatever. It's one Google car, 10000 miles/year, parked in garage - what are you charging? In fact, Google might easily just offer insurance themselves since they're the driver and got deep enough pockets they don't need an insurance company.

Comment Re:Ha, lower rates lol (Score 2) 231

by Kjella (#50226523) Attached to: Will Autonomous Cars Be the Insurance Industry's Napster Moment?

One of the major reasons traffic deaths went down is we redesigned cars so that instead of being able to withstand a crash without injury to the car, they absorb the crash in a 'crush zone', meaning the car itself takes the damage instead of a person.

And this made a lot of lesser crashes that wouldn't have injured the passengers anyway far more expensive because even small damage is distributed on a large area. I was in an accident not so long ago and despite being a fairly low speed collision where the air bag did not deploy, the damage to my car alone amounted to about 1/5th of the sticker price for a new one and in total I think it wiped out everything I've paid in insurance premiums over the last ten years. So I got no reason to complain, really...

Submission + - Want to fight climate change? Stop cows from burping (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A simple supplement to a cow’s feed could substantially decrease a major source of methane, a planet-warming greenhouse gas, a new study suggests. Each year worldwide, the methane produced by cud-chewing livestock warms Earth’s climate by the same amount as 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a little more than 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions related to human activity. That makes cows tempting targets for methane reduction efforts. In a new study, researchers added the chemical 3-nitrooxypropanol, also known as 3NOP, to the corn-and-alfalfa-based feed of 84 milk-producing Holsteins and monitored their methane production for 12 weeks—the largest and longest such trial of its type in lactating cows, the scientists say. For cows whose feed included 3NOP, methane emissions dropped, on average, by 30%.

Submission + - One In Four Indiana Residents Lost Data in Electronic Records Firm Hack (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Four million patients of more than 230 hospitals, doctors offices and clinics had patient data exposed in a May hack of the Fort Wayne, Indiana firm Medical Informatics Engineering (MIE), which makes the NoMoreClipBoard electronic health records system, according to the Indiana Attorney General.(http://goo.gl/KdCbRX) The breach affected 3.9 million people. But it hit MIE's home state of Indiana especially hard. In all, 1.5 million Hoosiers had data exposed in the hack, almost a quarter of the state's population, the Security Ledger reports. (https://securityledger.com/2015/07/doctors-still-in-the-dark-after-electronics-records-hack-exposes-data-on-4-million/)

But the breach affects healthcare organizations from across the country, with healthcare providers ranging from prominent hospitals to individual physicians’ offices and clinics are among 195 customers of the NoMoreClipboard product that had patient information exposed in the breach. And, more than a month after the breach was discovered, some healthcare organizations whose patients were affected are still waiting for data from EMI on how many and which patients had information exposed.

“We have received no information from MIE regarding that,” said a spokeswoman for Fort Wayne Radiology Association (http://www.fwradiology.com/), one of hundreds of healthcare organizations whose information was compromised in the attack on MIE.

According to MIE’s statement, released on July 24, individuals who received services from Fort Wayne Radiology Association and a variety of other imaging and MRI centers were also compromised when a database relating to the healthcare providers was breached in the incident, MIE said. That contained data going back more 17 years and involved another 44 healthcare organizations in three states: Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.

Submission + - 10 years of Intel processors compared (techspot.com)

Submitted by jjslash
jjslash writes: An interesting look back at the evolution of Intel CPUs since the original Core 2 Duo E6600 and Core 2 Quad processors were introduced. The test pits the eight year old CPUs to their successors in the Nehalem, Sandy Bridge and Haswell families, including today's Celeron and Pentium parts which fare comparably well. A great reference just days before Intel's new Skylake processor debuts.

Submission + - Windows 10 Upgrade Strategies, Pitfalls And Fixes As MSFT Servers Are Hit Hard (hothardware.com) 1

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: The upgrade cycle begins, with Microsoft's latest operating system--the highly anticipated Windows 10--rolling out over Windows Update for free, for users of Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. For those that are ready to take the plunge over the weekend, there are some things to note. So far, Microsoft has been rolling out the upgrade in waves and stages. If you are not one of the 'lucky' ones to be in the first wave, you can take matters into your own hands and begin the upgrade process manually. While the process is mostly simple, it won't be for everyone. This guide steps through a few of the strategies and pitfalls. There are two main methods to upgrade, either through Windows Update or through the Media Creation Tool. In either case, you will need to have opted-in for the Windows 10 Free Upgrade program to reserve your license. Currently, the Windows Update method is hit or miss due to the requirement for additional updates needing to be installed first and Microsoft's servers being hit hard, leading to some rather humorous error messages like the oh-so helpful description, "Something Happened". Currently, it would be best to avoid the Windows Update upgrade, at least for the time being. Numerous issues with licensing have been reported, requiring manual activation either through the dreaded phone call, or by running slmgr.vbs /ato at the command prompt to force license registration.

Submission + - Silicon Valley's Big Lie

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Danny Crichton writes at TechCrunch that startups in Silicon Valley run on an alchemy of ignorance and amnesia and that lying is a requisite and daily part of being a founder, the grease that keeps the startup flywheel running. Most startups fail. The vast, vast majority of startup employees will never exercise their options, let alone become millionaires while doing it. But founders have little choice as they sell their company to everyone, whether investors, employees, potential employees, or clients. "Founders have to tell the lie – that everything is fine, that a feature is going to launch even though the engineer for that feature hasn’t been hired yet, that payroll will run even though the VC dollars are still nowhere on the horizon," writes Crichton. "For one of the most hyper-rational populations in the world, Silicon Valley runs off a myth about startup success, of the lowly founder conquering the world."

Crichton says that Silicon Valley needs a new transparent approach toward information, but also need to understand that startups are inherently risky – and accept the lies that come with them. Founders can’t expect to hide the term sheets and their liquidation preferences from employees who ask and informed employees have a right to know what they are getting into. "We still need that Big Lie to function. We still need to dream about the possibility of success in order to realize it," concludes Chrichton. "With greater transparency comes a responsibility on the part of everyone in the startup ecosystem to understand and empathize with the plight of founders trying to build their companies."

Submission + - Open Hardware Team successfully replicating Tesla inventions (fixtheworldproject.net)

Submitted by lkcl
lkcl writes: A small team has successfully overcome the usual barrier to replicating one of Tesla's inventions (death threats and intimidation) by following Open Hardware development practices, encouraging other teams world-wide to replicate their work. Their FAQ and several other reports help explain that the key is Schumann resonance: "tuning" the device to the earth's own EM field and harvesting it as useful electricity. Whilst it looks like it's going mainstream, the real question is: why has it taken this long, and why has an Open Hardware approach succeeded where other efforts have not?

Submission + - The real price of Windows 10 is your privacy (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Windows 10 is a free upgrade, right? Well, surely you know by now that there's no such thing as a free lunch. We're only 48 hours on from the launch of Windows 10 and already the complaining and criticism is underway. One thing that has been brought under the spotlight is privacy under the latest version of Microsoft's operating system.

Some people have been surprised to learn that Microsoft is utilizing the internet connections of Windows 10 users to deliver Windows Updates to others. But this is far from being the end of it. Cortana also gives cause for concern, and then there is the issue of Microsoft Edge, and ads in apps. Is this a price you're willing to pay?

Windows 10 is more closely tied to a Microsoft account than any previous version of the OS. This allows Microsoft to assign an ID number to users that can then be used to track them across different devices, services, and apps. This in turn can be used to deliver closely targeted ads to people. Microsoft has been pushing the mobile first, cloud first philosophy for some time now, and it becomes clear with Windows 10 that the love of the cloud is as much to do with the ability it gives Microsoft to gather useful data as it is about convenience for users.

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