Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Why would IBM employees NEED Dropbox et al? (Score 1) 107

I don't see why an employee would need a service like Dropbox while working for a large corporation like IBM.

They already have all kinds of subversion, document, and content servers in-house, readily available by logging in to the VPN (securely!)

External services like Dropbox are fine for consumers whose employers don't already provide intranet "cloud" storage for data, but employees of large companies? What kind of employee shoot-myself-in-the-foot insanity would place cricital corporate information on a public cloud service instead of securely within the intranet cloud?

Comment: Sentience vs. Intelligence (Score 5, Interesting) 226

by msobkow (#40111523) Attached to: Where's HAL 9000?

I tend to think we need to split out "Artificial Sentience" from "Artificial Intelligence." Technologies used for expert systems are clearly a form of subject-matter artificial intelligence, but they are not creative nor are they designed to learn about and explore new subject materials.

Artificial Sentience, on the other hand, would necessarily incorporate learning, postulation, and exploration of entirely new ideas or "insights." I firmly believe that in order to hold a believable conversation, a machine needs sentience, not just intelligence. Being able to come to a logical conclusion or to analyze sentence structures and verbiage into models of "thought" are only a first step -- the intelligence part.

Only when a machine can come up with and hold a conversation on new topics, while being able to tie the discussion history back to earlier statements so that the whole conversation "holds together" will be able to "fool" people. Because at that point, it won't be "fooling" anyone -- it will actually be thinking.

Privacy

FBI Quietly Forms Secretive Net-Surveillance Unit 128

Posted by timothy
from the indefatigable-declan dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from CNET: "CNET has learned that the FBI has formed a Domestic Communications Assistance Center, which is tasked with developing new electronic surveillance technologies, including intercepting Internet, wireless, and VoIP communications. 'The big question for me is why there isn't more transparency about what's going on?' asks Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco. 'We should know more about the program and what the FBI is doing. Which carriers they're working with — which carriers they're having problems with. They're doing the best they can to avoid being transparent.'"
Security

US State Department Hacks Al-Qaeda Websites In Yemen 239

Posted by samzenpus
from the hearts-and-minds dept.
shuttah writes "In the growing Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed today that 'cyber experts' had recently hacked into web sites being used by an Al-Qaeda affiliate, substituting the group's anti-American rhetoric with information about civilians killed in terrorist strikes. Also this week, a statement from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs revealed the presence an Al-Qaeda video calling for 'Electronic Jihad.'"
The Internet

Sales of Unused IPv4 Addresses Gaining Steam 323

Posted by samzenpus
from the get-em-before-they're-gone dept.
netbuzz writes "A growing number of U.S. carriers and enterprises are hedging their bets on IPv6 by purchasing blocks of unused IPv4 addresses through official channels or behind-the-scenes deals. There is certainly no shortage of stock, as these address brokers have blocks available that range from 65,000 to more than a million IPv4 addresses. And it's not just large companies and institutions benefiting, as one attorney who's involved in the market says he represents a woman who came into possession of a block of IPv4 address in the early '90s and now, 'She's in her 70s, and she's going to have a windfall.''"
Security

Moxie Marlinspike Proposes New TACK Extension To TLS For Key Pinning 55

Posted by samzenpus
from the protect-ya-neck dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "Two independent researchers are proposing an extension for TLS to provide greater trust in certificate authorities, which have become a weak link in the entire public key infrastructure after some big breaches involving fraudulent SSL certificates. TACK, short for Trust Assertions for Certificate Keys, is a dynamically activated public key framework that enables a TLS server to assert the authenticity of its public key. According to an IETF draft submitted by researchers Moxie Marlinspike and Trevor Perrin, a TACK key is used to sign the public key from the TLS server's certificate. Clients can 'pin' a hostname to the TACK key, based on a user's visitation habits, without requiring sites modify their existing certificate chains or limiting a site's ability to deploy or change certificate chains at any time. If the user later encounters a fraudulent certificate on a "pinned" site, the browser will reject the session and send a warning to the user. 'Since TACK pins are based on TACK keys (instead of CA keys), trust in CAs is not required. Additionally, the TACK key may be used to revoke previous TACK signatures (or even itself) in order to handle the compromise of TLS or TACK private keys,' according to the draft."
Medicine

Supreme Court Orders Do-Over On Key Software Patents 161

Posted by samzenpus
from the no-trade-backs dept.
Fluffeh writes "It seems that the U.S. Supreme Court has an itch it just can't scratch. A patent granted to the Ultramercial company covers the concept of allowing users to watch a pre-roll advertisement as an alternative to paying for premium content and the company is demanding fees from the likes of Hulu and YouTube. Another company called WildTangent, however, is challenging Ultramercial's 'invention' as merely an abstract idea not eligible for patent protection. Add to this a recent ruling by the Supreme Court restricting patents — albeit on medical diagnostic techniques — and you get into a bit of a pickle. The Supreme Court is now sending the Ultramercial case back to the lower courts for another round, which doesn't mean that the court disagrees with the original ruling, but rather that it thinks it is a patent case that is relevant to the situation and they want to re-examine it under this new light."
Government

Obama To Agencies: Optimize Web Content For Mobile 318

Posted by samzenpus
from the phone-of-the-people dept.
CWmike writes "President Barack Obama has ordered all major government agencies to make two key services available on mobile phones within a year, in an effort to embrace a growing trend toward Web surfing on mobile devices. Obama, in a directive issued Wednesday, also ordered federal agencies to create websites to report on their mobile progress. The websites are due within 90 days. Innovators in the private sector and the government have used the Internet and powerful computers to improve customer service, but 'it is time for the federal government to do more,' Obama said in the memo. 'For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across different government programs in order to find the services they need.'"
The Military

Bioethicist Jonathan Moreno Talks Jacked-In Soldiers And Military Neuroscience 115

Posted by samzenpus
from the weapon-of-the-future dept.
pigrabbitbear writes "Who's driving a lot of neuro research? The military. Much of it is health related, like figuring out how to make prosthetics work more seamlessly and helping diagnose brain injuries. But the military's involvement highlights the basic ethical quandary of neurological development: When our brains pretty much define who we are, what happens when you start adding tech in there? And what happens when you take it away? Jonathan Moreno is quite possibly the top bioethicist in the country, and along with Michael Tennison, recently penned a fascinating essay on the role and ethics of using neuroscience for national security. He also recently updated his book Mind Wars, a seminal look into the military's work with the brain. In this interview he discusses brain implants, drones, and what will happen when military tech hits the civilian world."

War is never imperative. -- McCoy, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2