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+ - Punching Mantis Shrimp Inspires Super-Tough Composites->

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula (1870348) writes "A new lightweight, super strong material has been discovered thanks to one of nature’s most violent sociopaths. The peacock mantis shrimp may look like a colorful, reasonably mild-mannered aquarium dweller, but its claws have the punch of a .22 bullet. A team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside, has developed a carbon composite that imitates the claw’s structure. The result is a promising new material that may one day be used to build cars and airplanes."
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+ - Does the Sky Have a Faulty Filter? ->

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Just when scientists thought the ozone layer’s worst days were behind it, it turns out they may have been missing a big threat to its health. Soon-to-be-published findings suggest that a natural mechanism that filters air rising to the top of the sky may not work as well as previously thought. If subsequent studies confirm the findings, the faulty filter could also have big implications for global climate."
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+ - DC Revolving Door: Ex-FCC Commissioner Is Now Head CTIA Lobbyist->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh (300774) writes "Up until three years ago, Meredith Attwell Baker was an Obama-appointed FCC commissioner. Now she's the newly minted CEO of the CTIA, the nation's largest lobbying group for the mobile phone industry. How can we expect regulators to keep a careful watch over industries when high-paying jobs in those industries await them after retirement? One of the most damning sentences in that article: 'More than 80 percent of FCC commissioners since 1980 have gone on to work for companies or groups in the industries they used to regulate.'"
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+ - Brazil approves Internet Bill of Rights

Submitted by Dr.Potato
Dr.Potato (247646) writes "After more than three years being discussed, Brazil's Internet Bill of Rights was approved on April 22nd ( http://www.engadget.com/2014/0... and in Portuguese http://g1.globo.com/politica/n... ). It was rushed through senate in order president Dilma Roussef could sign it during the meeting on internet governance that occurs in São Paulo this week. In the bill of rights, among other things, net neutrality was maintained, providers will not be legally responsible for content published by users (but are forced to take it down when legally requested) and internet providers are obliged to keep records of users' access for six months and can't pass this responsability to other companies."

Comment: Three problems, at least, with the number of users (Score 3, Insightful) 112

by Futurepower(R) (#46830165) Attached to: WhatsApp Is Well On Its Way To A Billion Users
Exactly. Funny and not funny.

Why do people accept what Facebook says about the number of users? There are problems: 1) No independent verification. 2) Conflict of interest. If Facebook claims more users, Facebook makes more money. 3) Many "users" are people who merely tried something and never came back.

Comment: Re:Wasn't allocation always the problem? (Score 1) 266

by dissy (#46830061) Attached to: ARIN Is Down To the Last<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/8 of IPv4 Addresses

Sadly a surprisingly large number of core routers out there won't even propagate a /24, despite being the official minimum. A lot still dropped /22's and smaller, some even dropping /20's.
I can understand end point routers doing this, as Cisco RAM isn't exactly cheap and in the end that normally would only actually effect the users at that one end point. But I was surprised how many were actually backbone routers! (I'm looking at you cogent)

Back in 1996 or so the ISP I worked for had to get a /20 just to avoid all that crap, which arguably was more than overkill (we did dialup, webhosting, and "low speed" colo aka T1 speeds)

Ironically, a couple years after that ISP went out of business, ARIN still didn't revoke the IP block or ASN despite being a year behind on payment.
The contacts were still in my name (apparently being the last sysadmin to bother updating them) so after checking with the founder I ended up making the payments and keeping the IP block myself for another few years.

I relinquished the /20 back to ARIN in 2007 mainly due to the shortages, and they reallocated it to another company not 3 months later (their standard at the time was to not reallocate for at least one full year)

There are still days when I wonder if I should have kept it... But at least I can say I did my part as a good netizen.

+ - OpenSSL: The New Face Of Technology Monoculture->

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy (814965) writes "In a now-famous 2003 essay, “Cyberinsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly” (http://cryptome.org/cyberinsecurity.htm) Dr. Dan Geer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Geer) argued, persuasively, that Microsoft’s operating system monopoly constituted a grave risk to the security of the United States and international security, as well. It was in the interest of the U.S. government and others to break Redmond’s monopoly, or at least to lessen Microsoft’s ability to ‘lock in’ customers and limit choice. “The prevalence of security flaw (sp) in Microsoft’s products is an effect of monopoly power; it must not be allowed to become a reinforcer,” Geer wrote.

The essay cost Geer his job at the security consulting firm AtStake, which then counted Microsoft as a major customer.(http://cryptome.org/cyberinsecurity.htm#Fired) (AtStake was later acquired by Symantec.)

These days Geer is the Chief Security Officer at In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm. But he’s no less vigilant of the dangers of software monocultures. Security Ledger notes that, in a post today for the blog Lawfare (http://www.lawfareblog.com/2014/04/heartbleed-as-metaphor/), Geer is again warning about the dangers that come from an over-reliance on common platforms and code. His concern this time isn’t proprietary software managed by Redmond, however, it’s common, oft-reused hardware and software packages like the OpenSSL software at the heart (pun intended) of Heartbleed.(https://securityledger.com/2014/04/the-heartbleed-openssl-flaw-what-you-need-to-know/)

“The critical infrastructure’s monoculture question was once centered on Microsoft Windows,” he writes. “No more. The critical infrastructure’s monoculture problem, and hence its exposure to common mode risk, is now small devices and the chips which run them," Geer writes.

What happens when a critical and vulnerable component becomes ubiquitous — far more ubiquitous than OpenSSL? Geer wonders if the stability of the Internet itself is at stake.

“The Internet, per se, was designed for resistance to random faults; it was not designed for resistance to targeted faults,” Geer warns. “As the monocultures build, they do so in ever more pervasive, ever smaller packages, in ever less noticeable roles. The avenues to common mode failure proliferate.”"
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+ - "Tree Huggers Don't Buy Luxury Cars," Says Auto Exec On Electric Cars 2

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy (2660665) writes "When you think of hybrid and electric car buyers, do you think of the term "tree hugger?" According to a Cadillac executive, you shouldn't. He said a "tree hugger" is someone who never buys luxury cars during a discussion about the luxury brand, and its plans for future plug-in cars. He argued those vehicles have to provide "added value for the price" while also maintaining the performance and luxury expected of the brand. "These are not cars for tree-huggers, as tree-huggers do not buy new luxury cars." Yeah? What about the 25,000 people that have bought a Tesla Model S in the last two years? They might beg to differ."

+ - Supreme Court Upholds Michigan's Ban On Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "CNN reports that the Supreme Court by a vote of 6 — 2 has upheld a Michigan law banning the use of racial criteria in college admissions, finding that a lower court did not have the authority to set aside the measure approved in a 2006 referendum supported by 58% of voters. "This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it," wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy. "Michigan voters used the initiative system to bypass public officials who were deemed not responsive to the concerns of a majority of the voters with respect to a policy of granting race-based preferences that raises difficult and delicate issues." Kennedy’s core opinion in the Michigan case seems to exalt referenda as a kind of direct democracy that the courts should be particularly reluctant to disturb. This might be a problem for same-sex marriage opponents if a future Supreme Court challenge involves a state law or constitutional amendment enacted by voters. Justice Sonia Sotomayor reacted sharply in disagreeing with the decision in a 58 page dissent. "For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy (PDF) that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government."

The decision was the latest step in a legal and political battle over whether state colleges can use race and gender as a factor in choosing what students to admit. Michigan has said minority enrollment at its flagship university, the University of Michigan, has not gone down since the measure was passed. Civil rights groups dispute those figures and say other states have seen fewer African-American and Hispanic students attending highly competitive schools, especially in graduate level fields like law, medicine, and science. “Today’s decision turns back our nation’s commitment to racial equality and equal treatment under the law by sanctioning separate and unequal political processes that put undue burdens on students,” National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said in a statement. “The Supreme Court has made it harder to advocate and, ultimately, achieve equal educational opportunity.""

Is a person who blows up banks an econoclast?

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