Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Should read... (Score 1) 41

by fahrbot-bot (#65865551) Attached to: The Oscars Will Abandon Broadcast TV For YouTube In 2029

Show I don't watch will abandon Broadcast TV for streaming platform I don't use. I think it's safe to say that people over a certain age are never going to be watching the Oscars again because they won't know how to.

More to the point, if one is interested in who/what won what award - for some reason - it's easier to simply wait until the next day and read an article about it online somewhere. Same goes for any performances that may be entertaining. Why waste X hours watching either linear or streaming, especially if it contains commercials/ads. Personally, while I can see a point for the actual awards - it's nice to be recognized by your peers for your efforts - I can't really see a point to a (live) show about them. Same goes for all the other award shows. /$0.02

Comment Re:Nope (Score 2) 66

by fahrbot-bot (#65865297) Attached to: Linux Kernel Rust Code Sees Its First CVE Vulnerability

The applicable bit here is that the rust compiler enforces memory ownership rules that ought to prevent multiple threads from modifying the same memory address. By using an "unsafe" block of code, you've told the compiler to turn those rules off.

At which point, you're (basically) using C - again. Not saying that there's no benefit to Rust and its safe(er) sections, but being a good Rust programmer doesn't make you a good C programmer, which (I'm guessing) is what you need more of for the unsafe sections. Rewriting things in Rust for the sake of it probably hinges on the ratio or safe to unsafe code, where those are and how they're maintained.

Comment Re:Independent from whom? (Score 3, Insightful) 69

So "independent" agency really does mean the president can't use the agency to extort companies into punishing his "enemies"? Good to know... now how do we enforce that distinction?

Republicans will fight for it - when a Democrat is in office. Note that I'm not declaring that Democrats are definitely better, but more that Republicans aren't thinking the statement below through. Congressional Republicans are okay abdicating their authority and responsibility now, under Trump, but probably not so much when they're no longer in power, especially if (when) they lose the House and Senate in 2026 and the White House in 2028.

The extraordinary statement speaks to a broader trend of regulatory agencies losing power to the executive branch during the Trump era.

Republicans aren't thinking ahead and may just have to suffer through learning what things like the following mean: "reap what you've sown", "good for the goose, good for the gander", "what goes around, comes around", etc...

Submission + - Oh look, yet another Starship clone has popped up in China. (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The trend began with the Chinese government. In November 2024 the government announced a significant shift in the design of its super-heavy lift rocket, the Long March 9. Instead of the previous design, a fully expendable rocket with three stages and solid rocket boosters strapped to the sides, the country’s state-owned rocket maker revealed a vehicle that mimicked SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship.

Around the same time, a Chinese launch firm named Cosmoleap announced plans to develop a fully reusable “Leap” rocket within the next few years. An animated video that accompanied the funding announcement indicated that the company seeks to emulate the tower catch-with-chopsticks methodology that SpaceX has successfully employed.

But wait, there’s more. In June a company called Astronstone said it too was developing a stainless steel, methane-fueled rocket that would also use a chopstick-style system for first stage recovery. Astronstone didn’t even pretend to not copy SpaceX, saying it was “fully aligning its technical approach with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”

And then, on Friday, the state-aligned China.com reported that a company called “Beijing Leading Rocket Technology” took things a step further. It has named its vehicle “Starship-1,” adding that the new rocket will have enhancements from AI and is billed as a “fully reusable AI rocket.”

Submission + - Researchers Build Quantum Antenna to Precisely Measure Terahertz Signals (scitechdaily.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: SciTechDaily is reporting that a research team has created a quantum antenna capable of precisely measuring terahertz frequency combs for the first time.

A research team from the Faculty of Physics and the Centre for Quantum Optical Technologies at the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw has introduced a new approach for detecting extremely weak terahertz signals by using a “quantum antenna.” Their method relies on a specialized system that employs Rydberg atoms for radio wave detection, allowing them not only to capture these signals but also to accurately calibrate a frequency comb in the terahertz range.

This part of the electromagnetic spectrum was considered largely unexplored until recently, and the breakthrough, reported in Optica, offers a pathway toward highly sensitive spectroscopy and a new class of quantum sensors that can function at room temperature.

Terahertz (THz) radiation occupies a unique position within the electromagnetic spectrum, sitting between microwaves (such as those used in Wi-Fi) and infrared light at the intersection of electronics and optics. It promises a wide range of applications, including scanning packages without harmful X-rays, enabling ultra-fast 6G communication, and advancing spectroscopy and organic compound imaging.

Submission + - Researchers Build Quantum Antenna to Precisely Measure Terahertz Signals (scitechdaily.com)

Submitted by fahrbot-bot
fahrbot-bot writes: SciTechDaily is reporting that a research team has created a quantum antenna capable of precisely measuring terahertz frequency combs for the first time.

A research team from the Faculty of Physics and the Centre for Quantum Optical Technologies at the Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw has introduced a new approach for detecting extremely weak terahertz signals by using a “quantum antenna.” Their method relies on a specialized system that employs Rydberg atoms for radio wave detection, allowing them not only to capture these signals but also to accurately calibrate a frequency comb in the terahertz range.

This part of the electromagnetic spectrum was considered largely unexplored until recently, and the breakthrough, reported in Optica, offers a pathway toward highly sensitive spectroscopy and a new class of quantum sensors that can function at room temperature.

Terahertz (THz) radiation occupies a unique position within the electromagnetic spectrum, sitting between microwaves (such as those used in Wi-Fi) and infrared light at the intersection of electronics and optics. It promises a wide range of applications, including scanning packages without harmful X-rays, enabling ultra-fast 6G communication, and advancing spectroscopy and organic compound imaging.

Comment Re:Putin might make a deal (Score 1) 64

by fahrbot-bot (#65860491) Attached to: Russian Ban On Roblox Gaming Platform Sparks Rare Protest

..."Kill 10 Ukrainian soldiers, and you get your game back."

Ukraine is doing something like that... Ukrainian computer game-style drone attack system goes ‘viral'

System rewards soldiers who achieve strikes with points that can be used to buy more weapons in an online store.

The number of Russian casualties in September is double the number from last October, in part because the Kyiv government doubled the rewards for killing Russian infantry from six to 12 points, reflecting changing battlefield priorities. ... killing an enemy drone operator now earns 25 points and using a drone to capture a Russian soldier attracts 120 points

A BBC article, Kill Russian soldiers, win points: Is Ukraine's new drone scheme gamifying war? notes:

... destroying an enemy multiple rocket launch system earns up to 50 points; 40 points are awarded for a destroyed tank and 20 for a damaged one.

Google: Ukraine earn points

Submission + - Microsoft Will Finally Kill Obsolete Cipher That Has Wrecked Decades of Havoc (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft is killing off an obsolete and vulnerable encryption cipher that Windows has supported by default for 26 years following more than a decade of devastating hacks that exploited it and recently faced blistering criticism from a prominent US senator. When the software maker rolled out Active Directory in 2000, it made RC4 a sole means of securing the Windows component, which administrators use to configure and provision fellow administrator and user accounts inside large organizations. RC4, short for Rivist Cipher 4, is a nod to mathematician and cryptographer Ron Rivest of RSA Security, who developed the stream cipher in 1987. Within days of the trade-secret-protected algorithm being leaked in 1994, a researcher demonstrated a cryptographic attack that significantly weakened the security it had been believed to provide. Despite the known susceptibility, RC4 remained a staple in encryption protocols, including SSL and its successor TLS, until about a decade ago. [...]

Last week, Microsoft said it was finally deprecating RC4 and cited its susceptibility to Kerberoasting, the form of attack, known since 2014, that was the root cause of the initial intrusion into Ascension’s network. “By mid-2026, we will be updating domain controller defaults for the Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) on Windows Server 2008 and later to only allow AES-SHA1 encryption,” Matthew Palko, a Microsoft principal program manager, wrote. “RC4 will be disabled by default and only used if a domain administrator explicitly configures an account or the KDC to use it.” [...] Following next year’s change, RC4 authentication will no longer function unless administrators perform the extra work to allow it. In the meantime, Palko said, it’s crucial that admins identify any systems inside their networks that rely on the cipher. Despite the known vulnerabilities, RC4 remains the sole means of some third-party legacy systems for authenticating to Windows networks. These systems can often go overlooked in networks even though they are required for crucial functions.

To streamline the identification of such systems, Microsoft is making several tools available. One is an update to KDC logs that will track both requests and responses that systems make using RC4 when performing requests through Kerberos. Kerberos is an industry-wide authentication protocol for verifying the identities of users and services over a non-secure network. It’s the sole means for mutual authentication to Active Directory, which hackers attacking Windows networks widely consider a Holy Grail because of the control they gain once it has been compromised. Microsoft is also introducing new PowerShell scripts to sift through security event logs to more easily pinpoint problematic RC4 usage. Microsoft said it has steadily worked over the past decade to deprecate RC4, but that the task wasn’t easy.

Comment Re:Even simpler solution (Score 1) 45

SIM-locking should be banned, period. Works well in many other countries. There is no valid reason to SIM-lock a phone, even for 60 days or 60 days of active paid service. It's a net loss to society as a whole. Even though I understand it can benefit Verizon in one case, it also prevented someone else to switch to Verizon from a competitor.

I think people in other countries generally buy their phones outright, rather than via provider payment plans, often at a discount, like in the U.S. and I think SIM locking is to prevent people from switching providers before those phones are paid off - and so the providers don't have to sue to recoup that money. That's probably reasonable, but doing it to just make it harder for people to switch is not. Of course, most phones smartphones probably aren't paid off after 60 days, unless providers have another avenue to recoup the money for the device, so I don't know how a policy works in that case.

From Cell Phone Unlocking:

Locked phones are often sold at a reduced price or as part of an installment plan. They remain locked until all the installments are paid, or for a certain period of time to ensure the phone is used on the network of the provider that sold the phone at a discount.

Even when paying full price for a cell phone, it may be locked for a short period of time, such as 60 days, to help prevent theft and certain types of fraud. Providers may have different unlocking policies for their prepaid and postpaid monthly service plans.

As for me, I bought my three successive cell phones over the last 26 years. unlocked and in full.

Slashdot Top Deals

God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker

Close