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+ - Did Hillary Commit a Felony?-> 1

Submitted by bhlowe
bhlowe (1803290) writes "Hilliary used a private email server hosted at her house to conduct business as Secretary of State under a pseudonym. This appears to be in violation of US law that may exclude her from holding office. A mock twitter account has been set up using the pseudonym of the "administrator" of her server, Eric Hoteham. In 2000, Hillary Clinton says she gave up using email because of the number of investigations she's been under."
Link to Original Source

+ - Ask Slashdot - Private-cloud file hosting software for linux, like Google Drive?

Submitted by TarpaKungs
TarpaKungs (466496) writes "I'm Asking Slashdot because I *know* this is a growing problem, but I have failed to find a suitable soution. Here's hoping the collective intelligence of Slashdot will prevail :)

OK — you have lots of android devices and maybe a several Chromebooks: Google Drive is great — it works well, it has user selectable offline caching ("Keep on device") — and most importantly, it handles updates from multiple clients gracefully. The main problem with this is reliability (will the service stay there), security, privacy and cost.

"Cost" because I have several terabytes of data (mostly photos, but a lot of other important files and documents) on an existing linux infrastructure which is well maintained, raid-ed and backed up. A small fraction of this it would be nice to replicate to all my client devices. The rest would be nice just to have on demand, subject to a network connection.

"Privacy and security" because I have lots of data that I don't want to lose control of.

I have been searching for a long time and have yet to find any self hosted software that has the technical abilities of Google Drive or Dropbox. Adding to that, the ability to maintain a secondary sync'd full copy of specific shares on linux (eg on my laptop) would be cool — but not crucial. However a general access linux client is a must.

I'm not looking for the all singing all dancing features of Google Drive such as live spreadsheets in my browser or any of the ancillary features like email and calendars. Simply good honest robust file serving with client offline mode (aka local cached copy, user selectable file by file or folder by folder) and no issues with multiple clients updating files.

I've tried Tonido and Owncloud and neither play nice with POSIX user permissions — they seem to want to own the files and manage access at a server level. Owncloud free seems also to be limited to a single share and enterprise pricing on both products is very high (3 to 4 figures) with no hobbyist/home licensing tier.

Simpler scenarios like SFTP and SMB of course do play nice with the local user permissions, but are not so bright on the client side — ie no offline mode. I did look down the WebDAV route but again, I have failed to find any client apps that are smart about offline mode. I suspect Google and Dropbox add some additional stuff to their protocols to push notifications of changes to other connected clients and also to manage the concept of "who has the latest copy".

So I guess what I am looking for is either a whole server/client suite that works or at least an SFTP/SMB/WebDAV client that is a bit smarter. Here's hoping the collective intelligence of Slashdot will prevail :)"

+ - Open source mapping plays important role in humanitarian response->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Open source and crowdsourcing—uttering these words at a meeting of the United Nations before the year 2010 would have made you persona non grata. In fact, the fastest way to discredit yourself at any humanitarian meeting just five years ago was to suggest the use of open source software and crowdsourcing in disaster response. Then, a tragic earthquake occured in Haiti in 2010, and OpenStreetMap and Ushahidi were deployed in the aftermath.

Their use demonstrated the potential of free and open source crowdsourcing platforms in humanitarian contexts.

Then, Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines occured five years later. What technology was used?"
Link to Original Source

+ - Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules-> 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "The NYT reports that Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record. Clinton did not have a government email address during her four-year tenure at the State Department. Her aides took no actions to have her personal emails preserved on department servers at the time, as required by the Federal Records Act. “It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” says Jason R. Baron. A spokesman for Clinton defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”"
Link to Original Source

+ - Google Quietly Backs Away From Encrypting New Lollilop Devices by Default

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Although Google announced in September 2014 that Android 5.0 Lollipop would require full-disk encryption by default in new cell phones, Ars Technica has found otherwise in recently-released 2nd-gen Moto E and Galaxy S6. It turns out, according to the latest version of the Android Compatibility Definition document (PDF), full-disk encryption is currently only "very strongly recommended" in anticipation of mandatory encryption requirements in the future. The moral of the story is don't be lazy; check that your full-disk encryption is actually enabled."

+ - Blackphone 2 caters to the enterprise, the security-minded and the paranoid->

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson (3799011) writes "Yep, we know all about the NSA, thanks Edward. Yeah, it's possible (probable?) that a government agent somewhere is listening to or recording your conversations. And yes, even if you're not one of the tin-foil hat brigade, there's a danger that someone could tap into your phone. But you don’t have to be paranoid to want security; there are plenty of companies and enterprise customers for whom security is of the utmost importance.

While much of the news coming out of MWC 2015 has been dominated by Microsoft's Lumia 640, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, and tablets from Sony, there's always room for something a little different. Following on from the security-focused Blackphone, Silent Circle used the Barcelona event to announce the follow-up — the Blackphone 2."
Link to Original Source

+ - Feds admit Stingray can disrupt bystanders' communications

Submitted by linuxwrangler
linuxwrangler (582055) writes "The government has fought hard to keep details about use and effects of the controversial Stingray device secret. But this Wired article points to recently released documents in which the government admits that the device can cause collatoral damage to other network users. The controversy has heated to the point that Florida senator Bill Nelson has made combative statments that such devices will inevitably force lawmakers to come up with new ways to protect privacy — a comment that is even more remarkable considering that the Stingray is produced by Harris Corporation which is headquartered in Nelson's home state."

Comment: Re: Bring on the lausuits (Score 1) 599

by Captain Splendid (#49138081) Attached to: Republicans Back Down, FCC To Enforce Net Neutrality Rules
Add that to the long list of other things you don't know.

LOL. Care to make it interesting? Unlike most assholes here, I don't just say shit to make myself feel good, I'll back it up with cash. Care to wager some money that the GOP will take the White House in 2 years?

Comment: Re: Bring on the lausuits (Score 1) 599

by Captain Splendid (#49131565) Attached to: Republicans Back Down, FCC To Enforce Net Neutrality Rules
In a normal world, your argument would be persuasive. But since the GOP has spent the last 30 years jumping every shark they can get, the problem isn't whether Dems can win 2016, it's the whether the GOP can untangle itself from the crazy long enough to not scare off most "independent" voters.

Some people have a great ambition: to build something that will last, at least until they've finished building it.

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