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Comment Re:That's nice.. (Score 1) 571

by esocid (#38472840) Attached to: New Study Confirms Safety of GM Crops

4. crop monoculture

There's the biggest one. I'd have no problem eating GMOs. My concern is that >90% of the cereal grains grown in the US are genetically identical. Did no one learn anything from the potato blight? If our crops are so identical, what happens when they encounter some pathogen that can wipe them out? 90% of our crops are susceptible, and I don't like those odds. Genetic diversity is the spice of life.

Comment Re:You know what else store CC numbers in cleartex (Score 1) 213

by esocid (#38397732) Attached to: Google Wallet Stores Card Data In Plain Text

The good news is that viaForensics confirmed that the app does repel man-in-the-middle attacks, and is protected by a PIN to conduct transactions with the cards.

Isn't that the important part? If someone steals my phone (which is encrypted btw - galaxy nexus ftw) they're going to have an easier time just grabbing my wallet to make fraudulent charges.

Comment Uncovered hypocrisy (Score 1) 340

by esocid (#38356308) Attached to: Site Offers History of Torrent Downloads By IP
https://torrentfreak.com/busted-bittorrent-pirates-at-sony-universal-and-fox-111213/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+(Torrentfreak)
Torrentfreak found some juicy hypocrisy going on:

First up is Sony Pictures Entertainment. As shown below, on this single IP-address alone a wide variety of music and movies have been downloaded. And this is probably just the tip of the iceberg, as YouHaveDownloaded only tracks about 20% of all public BitTorrent downloads. Another Hollywood studio where it’s not uncommon to download music, TV-shows and movies is NBC Universal. The employee(s) behind one of the IP-addresses at the Fort Lauderdale office in Florida downloaded the first season of ‘Game of Thrones,’ some trance music, a DVD of ‘Cowboys and Aliens’, and much more. And then there are the fine upstanding people at Fox Entertainment checking out the work of a competing studio. Perhaps downloading ‘Super 8 can be branded as “market research,” but in this instance actually paying for the DVD might be more appropriate. After all, when Fox notices that one of their own movies has leaked online they quickly contact the FBI to get the offender jailed. Ouch.
United Kingdom

Submission + - UK Police Test "Temporarily Blinding" LASER (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Called the SMU 100 it costs £25,000 and sends out a three-metre "wall of light" that leaves anyone caught in it briefly unable to see. Designed by a former Royal Marine Commando, it was originally developed for use against pirates in Somalia. While tasers and CS gas work well over short distances the laser is said to be effective at up to 500 metres (1,640ft). Being targeted by the beam has been compared to staring into the sun before being forced to turn away.Paul Kerr, managing director of Clyde-based Photonic Security Systems, which came up with the design, said "If you can't look at something you can't attack it."
Youtube

Submission + - Corporate Claims On Public Domain YouTube Videos (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Corey Doctorow has written a Guardian column, "The pirates of YouTube," about how multinational copyright-holding companies have laid false claim to public domain videos on YouTube. The videos are posted by the nonprofit FedFlix organization, which liberates public domain government-produced videos and makes them available to the world. These videos were produced at public expense and no one can claim to own them, but multinationals from CBS to Discovery Communications have done just that, getting YouTube to place ads on the video that deliver income to their coffers. What's more, their false copyright claims could lead to the suspension of FedFlix's YouTube account under Google's rules for its copyright policing system. This system, ContentID, sets out penalties for "repeat offenders" who generate too many copyright claims — but offers no corresponding penalties for rightsholders who make too many false claims of ownership.
Communications

Submission + - Bill To Let Telemarketers Call Mobile Phones (nydailynews.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: Current law bars telemarketing calls to cell phones unless the customer has given approval. The proposed change would allow prerecorded “informational” calls to be made to cell phones without consent, called the “Mobile Information Call Act” and would allow all sorts of nuisance calls to cell phones.
The sole Democratic sponsor stated

"Do we really want to stop FedEx or UPS using modern technology to deliver your holiday gifts on time? Of course not, but that is what we heard at the hearing is one consequence of this 20-year old law."

His statement is still at odds with the ability to give consent to receive such calls.

Comment Re:denied with costs? (Score 1) 159

by esocid (#38315300) Attached to: Apple Loses Tablet Battle In Australia

(Oh, and falsifying legal documents.)

Oh, I haven't heard this one. Go ahead, I could do with a laugh.

Altering the aspect ratio of images in legal documents to make differently shaped objects look like the Apple devices I believe is what he's referring to. And what do you mean it doesn't have a bezel. What do you call that area around the screen?
Space

Submission + - Looking To Primordial Black Holes For Dark Matter (physorg.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: The primary objective of NASA’s Kepler satellite, which was launched in March 2009 to orbit the Sun, is to search for Earth-like planets in a portion of the Milky Way galaxy. But now a team of physicists has proposed that Kepler could have a second appealing purpose: to either detect or rule out primordial black holes (PBHs) of a certain mass range as the primary constituent of dark matter. PBHs have been considered as a candidate for dark matter since the 1970s. They are thought to have formed during the early universe from density perturbations that may have resulted from inflation, phase transitions, and possibly even the collapse of string loops.
The searches for particle dark matter at the LHC, and others, have so far come up empty handed, so PBHs are becoming more likely as candidates.
Mars

Submission + - 'Google Earth' Like Application For Mars Surface (physorg.com)

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: A new software tool developed by the HiRISE team in the UA's Lunar and Planetary Lab allows members of the public to download high-resolution images of the Martian landscape almost instantaneously and explore the surface of the Red Planet from their own desktops, similar to Google Earth. The images produced by HiRISE are in the gigabyte size range: Up to tens of thousands of pixels across and more than 100,000 pixels high, the images are big enough to be murals on your living room wall.

"You can really get into it in very interesting ways. The ability to see surface features from orbit around Mars and then to zoom right down onto the surface from HiRISE — that's breathtaking." said HiView developer Bradford Castalia

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