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Comment: Google, Big Brother's Helper ? (Score 2, Informative) 80

What they didn't make public is that the hackers have also accessed a database containing information about court-issued surveillance orders that enabled law enforcement agencies to monitor email accounts belonging to diplomats, suspected spies and terrorists.

... and anybody else, as long as the authority can label them "potential threats"

Welcome to 1984, man !!

Comment: The proliferation of computer languages (Score 4, Insightful) 262

by Taco Cowboy (#43789043) Attached to: Dart Is Not the Language You Think It Is

I haven't used DART yet, so I will not comment on the strength or the weakness of it

But, all through the decades that I've been in the scene, there have been so many programming languages invented, but so few of them being used

Some of the more widely used programming languages like C, for instance, are not perfect, but they are being used partly because of legacy, partly because of momentum, and partly because of the laziness of programmers to learn new, more useful languages

Talking about legacy, the other day there was a piece on Cobol, and that IBM is trying to extend Cobol to the cloudsphere

As for the languages that are not so-widely used, some of them are downright weird, but then, there are gems among them. The only downside for those few gems is that the ecology is not there to enable those few gems to become more widespread

I guess it's kinda Darwinian game plan --- not all surviving/thriving species are perfect, and not all the extinct species are bad, either

+ - NYT: Apple's Web of Tax Shelters Saved It Billions 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes "Even as Apple became the nation's most profitable tech company, it avoided billions in taxes in the U.S. and around the world through a web of subsidiaries so complex it spanned continents and went beyond anything most experts had ever seen, according to Congressional investigators. The investigation is expected to set up a potentially explosive confrontation between lawmakers and Apple CEO Tim Cook at a public hearing on Tuesday. "Apple successfully sought the holy grail of tax avoidance," said Senator Carl Levin. "It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be tax resident nowhere." In response to the release of the Congressional report, Apple published its prepared testimony a day early. One can only hope to see a Steve Jobs-like presentation by Cook on Tuesday!"
Piracy

Latvian Police Raid Teacher's Home for Uploading $4.00 Textbook 271

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the one-officer-per-dollar dept.
richlv writes "Latvian police recently raided the home of a history teacher and confiscated his computer. The crime? Scanning a history book and making it available on his website covering various topics on history. The raid was based on a complaint from the publisher (Google Translate to English), which has a near-monopoly on educational materials in Latvia, often linked with shady connections in the Ministry of Education."

+ - MI5 abandons multi-million pound IT project ->

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes "There seems to be a special curse that effects the building of digital records and case management software for security services, something to which the US FBI could readily attest. Now the curse has fallen on the British security service MI5 for a sum of at least £90m : "A 2011 Security Committee report said: “"The Security Service’s new electronic information management system is intended to “modernise and enhance the Service’s information management capability” and “provide a greater level of information assurance and mitigate the risks of intelligence failure and information loss”. “The Director General told the Committee in evidence that the project “is in some difficulties”. . . . But it is understood that earlier this year that the MI5 had decided to admit failure and re-start with a new generation of IT specialists."

 "
Link to Original Source

+ - Forbes Takes a Second Look At Rossi's E-Cat Cold Fusion Device->

Submitted by Baldrson
Baldrson writes "Forbes technology contributor Mark Gibbs reports that: "I haven’t posted about Rossi and his E-Cat since last August simply because there wasn’t much to report other than more of Rossi’s unsupported and infuriating claims ... What everyone wanted was something that Rossi has been promising was about to happen for months: An independent test by third parties who were credible... much to my, and I suspect many other people’s surprise, a report by credible, independent third parties is exactly what we got. Published on May 16, the paper titled “Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device” would appear to deliver what we wanted...And now, the big reveal the authors’ conclusions are (again, the emphasis is mine): ' if we consider the whole volume of the reactor core and the most conservative figures on energy production, we still get a value of (7.93 ± 0.8) 102 MJ/Liter that is one order of magnitude higher than any conventional source.'""
Link to Original Source

+ - Hollywood Studios Issue DMCA To Censor Pirate Bay Documentary

Submitted by Aaron B Lingwood
Aaron B Lingwood writes "As reported by TorrentFreak, Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary 'TPB-AFK'. The film, created by Simon Klose, is available for no cost and has already been watched by millions of people. The public response to this free release model has been overwhelmingly positive, but it’s now meeting resistance from Hollywood, TPB’s arch rival.

Pirate Party Australia opines 'Hollywood is using takedown notices to censor Pirate Bay doco, is it incompetence or malice? Always hard to tell'. Whichever the answer, the system is definately broken."

+ - Future Promises More Drones, More Drone Hacks->

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes "The “consumerization” of UAV technology has created a lot of opportunities for Cool! — like this video of a UAV flying over (and almost in to) Niagra Falls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMHr6LQhTRE). But it has also led to some problems. In March, a UAV “quadrcopter” came within a couple hundred feet of striking an Alitalia flight trying to land at JFK Airport in New York. More concerning: the FAA is set to license tens of thousands of drones for use over the U.S., many by law enforcement or private security firms. (https://www.eff.org/document/timeline-domestic-drone-integration).That has prompted warnings about a huge breach of privacy for U.S. citizens.
But a security researcher warns that snooping is only part of the problem. Speaking at The Security B-Sides event in Boston, Andrew Clare, a doctoral candidate at MIT’s Humans and Automation Lab (HAL), told an audience of security experts that the same economic pressures that drive UAV adoption will hinder the security of UAVs, leaving many susceptible to hacking and manipulation, as well as data loss."
Link to Original Source
Bitcoin

EFF Resumes Accepting Bitcoin Donations After Two Year Hiatus 91

Posted by Unknown Lamer
from the coal-into-digital-plowshares dept.
hypnosec writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has started accepting donations in the form of Bitcoins again after a two year hiatus, stating that the legal uncertainty hovering over the digital currency has all but disappeared. On their blog the EFF noted that a report from U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in addition to their own findings, 'have confirmed that, as a user of Bitcoin or any virtual currency, EFF itself is likely not subject to regulation.'"

+ - Oklahoma Tornado Kills 51; NWS Watch Remains for Plains 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A tornado with winds up to 200 mph flattened the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore today, killing at least 51 and injuring hundreds more, leaving an intensive search for survivors. This comes after a week of devastating tornado activity in the central US plains states, including Texas, Kansas, and Illinois. The National Weather Service has initially assigned an EF-4 (second highest) severity rating to the Moore tornado, and warns that more tornadoes are expected in the region in the coming days and weeks. These events come two years after a massive tornado killed 161 in Joplin, Missouri."

Comment: Re:Old School B-) (Score 4, Insightful) 428

by Taco Cowboy (#43748783) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Dealing With a Fear of Technological Change?

I enjoy change -- sometimes even for its own sake.

You and I have come a long way, buddy

I do not change, for change sake

But I do enjoy trying out new things, and only then, I get to decide whether or not there is a need for me to change

For example, when Facebook first came out, I gave it a try, and decided that it wasn't for me

No matter how much stuffs FB has added since then, I won't force myself to change, just for the sake of changing

Comment: Re:Old School B-) (Score 3, Insightful) 428

by Taco Cowboy (#43748751) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Dealing With a Fear of Technological Change?

Change is only good if it's an improvement. Otherwise, change is BAD, even if it's just as good as the old thing.

What is missing on the above is the willingness to try out the new stuffs

Giving the new stuffs a try out does not mean throwing out the old things altogether - but we need to have the willingness to try out the new stuffs, get a taste of it, and only after that, we can make up our own mind whether or not we need to change

If we do not even try out the new stuffs, how are we to know if the new stuff is better, or worse ?

Comment: Re:Well, he's not afraid his company might fire hi (Score 2, Insightful) 485

by Taco Cowboy (#43748697) Attached to: Larry Page: You Worry Too Much About Medical Privacy

'Maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,' Larry Page said."

Yes, we can have the rules changed, but then, they too can change the rules

If we are too force the insurance to accept all people, they can make their insurance policy so expensive that only the rich can afford

After all, who is in business to make a lost ?

Comment: Will it stop there ? (Score 2) 392

by Taco Cowboy (#43737041) Attached to: Why We Should Build a Supercomputer Replica of the Human Brain

Once someone successfully build a computer that can simulate 86 billion neurons and 100 trillion connection all at the same time, someone else will build an even bigger computer that can do 10x as much, and then someone will attempt to up that ... ad nauseum

What will happen then, when the computer we build is 100x or even 1,000,000x more capable than our brain ?

Nemo me impune lacessit. [No one provokes me with impunity] -- Motto of the Crown of Scotland

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