Comment: Re:Well, sure (Score 1) 183
My brother's favorite response to my parents (which always resulted in more punishment) was "Well, two negatives equal a positive!"
Comment: Re:It really annoys the hell out of me... (Score 1) 952
There could be many reasons he dropped out of high school. There could be many reasons why he advanced in the NSA. While I don't believe that having high school and college diplomas make you an intelligent or skilled person, I also don't believe _not_ having them makes you automatically unqualified. I am compensated well and have a position of great responsibility at my current company. I have also never sat through a day of college. Clearly others see more value in what I have done and can demonstrate rather than how I learned it.
I do sometimes wish I'd gone to college, but only because I feel I missed out on a lot of social benefits I might have received.
I do sometimes wish I'd gone to college, but only because I feel I missed out on a lot of social benefits I might have received.
Comment: Google already started a version of it (Score 3, Informative) 123
Google has already tried this.
Comment: Configuration Management (Score 1) 195
Isn't this the exact kind of problem that configuration management is supposed to solve?
Comment: Re:Nintendo's Right, but being Jerks about it... (Score 1) 297
Notch did tweet about it, saying he almost did it. I think if he had it would have been suicide for his company because everyone I know, myself included, found Minecraft through the LP videos. It would have been a lot of revenue though. For the folks who base their Youtube businesses off of the Minecraft success, they would have seen their income drop to nothing or near to it.
Comment: Re:Not going to help them (Score 1) 297
Some of these LP makers earn a very good living. Look at the two Yogscast guys. They now have a multi-million dollar business based out of their videos they make on youtube. I personally know several who have closed businesses or quit day jobs to do nothing but make these videos. They do love the games they play, and are passionate about it, but it is also their livelihood. They take it seriously. They play games viewers are interested in, edit and make their own music for their videos, and they will sometimes even spend hours working an idea out before recording it for a video (like a minecraft machine they want to demonstrate). Nintendo taking the ad revenue from them could potentially ruin their ability to make money depending on what games they favor on their channels.
Comment: Re:for the love of god (Score 1) 322
I know that they had detonations, but I also remember reading that they weren't picking up enough radiation to prove that it was a nuclear explosion and not just large stockpiles of traditional TNT. The explosions were small for a nuclear blast as well, well within the range of what a mass of traditional explosives could do.
This definitely does not prove they _don't_ have nuclear arms, but doesn't it at least cast a bit of doubt?
This definitely does not prove they _don't_ have nuclear arms, but doesn't it at least cast a bit of doubt?
+ - Researchers Build Fibre Cables Capable of Near Light Speed Communication->
Submitted
by
hypnosec
hypnosec writes "Researchers have managed to build a fibre optic cable that is capable of transferring data between end points at near light speed. The team of researchers over at the University of Southampton in England have constructed a fibre that is hollow with special inner walls that will prevent light from refracting. Fibre optic cables transfer data using light beams and even though theoretically the cables can carry data at near light speed, the actual data throughput is reduced by 31 per cent — thanks to the refraction of light as it passes through silica glass. Refraction of light is less in air as compared to glass and to get around the above problem, researchers have been looking at options through which the core of the fiber can be replaced by air. Another hurdle was the question of how to get light beams to move through cables that bend and around curvatures. This is where the ingenuity of the research comes into play. The researchers have built fibre cables with a hollow core that allows for movement of light across bends while minimizing loss of light due to refraction. The researchers credit this achievement to what they have dubbed "ultra-thin photonic-bandgap rim" that not only minimizes data loss but also reduces latency while providing for wider bandwidth."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
+ - Researchers Uncover Targeted Attack Campaign Using Android Malware->
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Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes "Android attacks have become all the rage in the last year or two, and targeted attacks against political activists in Tibet, Iran and other countries also have been bubbling up to the surface more and more often lately. Now those two trends have converged with the discovery of a targeted attack campaign that's going after Tibetan and Uyghur activists with a spear-phishing message containing a malicious APK file. Researchers say the attack appears to be coming from Chinese sources.
The new campaign began a few days ago when unknown attackers were able to compromise the email account of a well-known Tibetan activist. The attackers then used that account to begin sending a series of spear-phishing messages to other activists in the victim's contact list. One of the messages referred to a human rights conference in Geneva in March, using the recipients' legitimate interest in the conference as bait to get them to open the attachment. The malicious attachment in the emails is named "WUC's Conference.apk"."
Link to Original Source
The new campaign began a few days ago when unknown attackers were able to compromise the email account of a well-known Tibetan activist. The attackers then used that account to begin sending a series of spear-phishing messages to other activists in the victim's contact list. One of the messages referred to a human rights conference in Geneva in March, using the recipients' legitimate interest in the conference as bait to get them to open the attachment. The malicious attachment in the emails is named "WUC's Conference.apk"."
Link to Original Source
+ - You Don't "Own" Your Own Genes->
Submitted
by
olePigeon (Wik)
olePigeon (Wik) writes "Cornell University's New York based Weill Cornell Medical College issued a press release today regarding an unsettling trend in the U.S. patent system: Humans don't "own" their own genes, the cellular chemicals that define who they are and what diseases for which they might be at risk. Through more than 40,000 patents on DNA molecules, companies have essentially claimed the entire human genome for profit, report Dr. Christopher E. Mason of Weill Cornell Medical College, and the study's co-author, Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and a member of the High Performance and Research Computing Group, who analyzed the patents on human DNA. Their study, published March 25 in the journal Genome Medicine, raises an alarm about the loss of individual "genomic liberty.""
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Comment: Proxmox (Score 1) 286
Slightly off topic but I wanted to take a chance to plug Proxmox VE. It's done beautifully for me, I run 16 guests on a server for some web projects (a bunch of them run sharepoint). It's very nice and open source. It supports KVM and OpenVZ and has a healthy community for it.
Check it out :)
Check it out
+ - Did Reuters employee who breached Tribune Media serves leak Reuters .XML source?-> 1
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owenferguson
owenferguson writes "RT is reporting that "the deputy social media editor for Reuters has been indicted by the US Justice Department for allegedly conspiring with members of the hacktivist (sic) movement Anonymous."
According to a justice department statement, "After providing log-in credentials, [Matthew] Keys allegedly encouraged the Anonymous members to disrupt the website. According to the indictment, at least one of the computer hackers used the credentials provided by Keys to log into the Tribune Company server, and ultimately that hacker made changes to the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature.” Once could almost say he gave away the keys to the castle.
So it's interesting to note that all of Reuters.com's .XML source code was leaked last week just before this gaping goatse was discovered in their security aparatus. At least they're closing the barn door now."
Link to Original Source
According to a justice department statement, "After providing log-in credentials, [Matthew] Keys allegedly encouraged the Anonymous members to disrupt the website. According to the indictment, at least one of the computer hackers used the credentials provided by Keys to log into the Tribune Company server, and ultimately that hacker made changes to the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature.” Once could almost say he gave away the keys to the castle.
So it's interesting to note that all of Reuters.com's
Link to Original Source
+ - Google begins blocking 3rd party Jabber invites supposedly to combat spam-> 1
Submitted
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kxra
kxra writes "Do you have a federated jabber instant messaging account that never gets responses from Google accounts anymore? Or do you have a Gmail account that a friend has been unable to invite from their 3rd party Jabber account? The Free Software Foundation reports, "Google users can still send subscription requests to contacts whose accounts are hosted elsewhere. But they cannot accept incoming requests. This change is akin to Google no longer accepting incoming e-mail for @gmail.com addresses from non-Google domains." This sounds like something Facebook would try in order to gain even tighter control over the network, but they never even federated their Jabber service to begin with. According to a public mailing list conversation, Google is doing this as a lazy way to handle a spam problem."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
+ - Big data will keep driverless cars off roads until 2040, analyst says->
Submitted
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colinneagle
colinneagle writes "IDC's program manager for product lifecycle strategies Sheila Brennan is leading a new effort in the research firm to gauge the potential time to market for autonomous vehicles. Brennan says Ford and Google are both accurate in their prediction that driverless cars will be street-ready within the next few years, but not with their expectations for them to reach mainstream markets by 2025. She sees too many barriers, and says adoption will more likely reach the mainstream around 2040. Privacy, cybersecurity and safety are the first concerns that come to mind when autonomous cars are discussed. But another problem with just as much of an impact lurks around the corner, and leaves plenty of questions to be answered.
"It's extremely valuable data," Brennan says. "I can't argue that point. That data will be worth a lot, and it's still not clear, again, how the consumer will play out."
It's still unclear who will own the data generated by autonomous cars, and given how valuable the data will be to auto manufacturers, insurance companies, and third-party advertisers, it is likely to be a competitive data grab when the technology is ready. Some manufacturers are already asking drivers to sign waivers granting them permission to use their data. Will consumers oblige, or will it cause a privacy-minded backlash against manufacturers?"
Link to Original Source
"It's extremely valuable data," Brennan says. "I can't argue that point. That data will be worth a lot, and it's still not clear, again, how the consumer will play out."
It's still unclear who will own the data generated by autonomous cars, and given how valuable the data will be to auto manufacturers, insurance companies, and third-party advertisers, it is likely to be a competitive data grab when the technology is ready. Some manufacturers are already asking drivers to sign waivers granting them permission to use their data. Will consumers oblige, or will it cause a privacy-minded backlash against manufacturers?"
Link to Original Source
+ - Hacker Targets Clinton Confidant In New Attack->
Submitted
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helix2301
helix2301 writes "The hacker who has spent the past several months breaking into the e-mail accounts of family, friends, and political allies of the Bush family has crossed party lines and illegally accessed the AOL account of a former senior White House adviser to President Bill Clinton. The intrusion into Sidney Blumenthal’s e-mail account apparently occurred this week, days after the hacker--who uses the alias “Guccifer”--defaced Colin Powell’s Facebook page and breached the former Secretary of State’s AOL account."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source