Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment WhatsApp had it coming. (Score 1) 110

by Remote (#52608569) Attached to: Brazil Judge Orders Phone Carriers To Block WhatsApp Message App
I am Brazilian, I am in favor of privacy and access to strong crypto for everyone, I think most judges don't have a clue about how WhatsApp works.
Having said that, you don't answer a Court Order in a country where you operate and have offices over e-mail, in a foreign language, asking for details about the ongoing investigation (in English, please)!

Quote from the e-mail, contained in the decison:

"If possible, please provide responses in English as that will significantly improve our ability to analyze and process your request in a timely manner.
1. Is this a criminal matter?
2. What organization is conducting the investigation (Federal Police, Civil Police, Prosecutor's Office)?
3. What is the nature of the crime being investigated (corruption, drug trafficking, gun violence/homicide, child exploitation, terrorism, etc.)?
4. What are the specific WhatsApp accounts that are the target of this legal process (including all applicable country codes)?
5. What data are you requesting for each of the targets listed above?"

Unquote

The reason the appeal was granted is not simply because the higher court disagreed with the judge's decision. It was granted because it was done in writing, by lawyers, respectfully and in Portuguese. It is that simple!
Bitcoin

Btcd - a Bitcoind Alternative Written In Go! 150

Posted by timothy from the bang-for-the-buck dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Conformal have announced btcd, an alternative full-node implementation to bitcoind, written in Go! They have released the first of their core packages, btcwire, available for download at GitHub. As a bitcoin user myself, I love the idea of a full alternative. It will only make bitcoin stronger and more independent. This will be great for the Go community, too!"
The Internet

Ship Anchor, Not Sabotaging Divers, Possibly Responsible For Outage 43

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-to-blame dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "This week, Egypt caught three men in the process of severing an undersea fiber-optic cable. But Telecom Egypt executive manager Mohammed el-Nawawi told the private TV network CBC that the reason for the region's slowdowns was not the alleged saboteurs — it was damage previously caused by a ship. On March 22, cable provider Seacom reported a cut in its Mediterranean cable connecting Southern and Eastern Africa, the Middle East and Asia to Europe; it later suggested that the most likely cause of the incident was a ship anchor, and that traffic was being routed around the cut, through other providers. But repairs to the cable took longer than expected, with the Seacom CEO announcing March 23 that the physical capability to connect additional capacity to services in Europe was "neither adequate nor stable enough," and that it was competing with other providers. The repairs continued through March 27, after faults were found on the restoration system; that same day, Seacom denied that the outage could have been the work of the Egyptian divers, but said that the true cause won't be known for weeks. 'We think it is unlikely that the damage to our system was caused by sabotage,' the CEO wrote in a statement. 'The reasons for this are the specific location, distance from shore, much greater depth, the presence of a large anchored vessel on the fault site which appears to be the cause of the damage and other characteristics of the event.'"
Technology

Festo's Drone Dragonfly Takes To the Air 45

Posted by samzenpus from the little-flyer dept.
yyzmcleod writes "Building on the work of last year's bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and maneuvering in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter's ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."
Censorship

Submission + - Google taken down? 2

Submitted by Remote
Remote writes: I haven't been able to locate google.com for about an hour now, using 3 different providers (DNS error). Would that have anything to do with the taking down of many websites by the U.S. government today?

Comment Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment (Score 3, Informative) 185

by jgarzik (#41354393) Attached to: BitInstant CEO Says World Operates "On an Inferior Monetary System"

Wrong on every detail.

1a) Using the "move" RPC command, bitcoin makes an instant transfer between two accounts that you control.

1b) All transactions are published instantly, and available instantly, via the bitcoin P2P network. There are also several websites like http://mtgox.com/ which facilitate instant transfers. After that, you wait on average 10 minutes per confirmation, each of which makes your transaction exponentially more secure. While not recommended, yes you can spend zero-confirmation transactions.

2) Did you bother to look at Android Market before posting? Only full nodes require the full block chain database (2+ GB now). Lightweight software exists for phones, or you can use a web wallet from places like http://blockchain.info/ or http://instawallet.org/

          - jgarzik, bitcoin core dev

Comment Re:Tracking money (Score 2) 185

by jgarzik (#41354303) Attached to: BitInstant CEO Says World Operates "On an Inferior Monetary System"

Incorrect. Even if you have 100% of the network computing power, you still cannot force core rule changes upon users.

Each P2P node validates transactions and blocks on their own, and refuses to relay invalid ones. Deviating from these rules simply segments yourself away from the rest of the network.

With sufficient network power, you may DoS the network, but not force unwanted rule changes.

          - jgarzik, bitcoin core dev
Bitcoin

Value of Bitcoin "Crashes" 709

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the smells-like-real-currency dept.
souravzzz writes with an update on the state of Bitcoin. Quoting the Ars Technica article: "Bitcoin, the world's first peer-to-peer digital currency, fell below $3 on Monday. That represents a 90 percent fall since the currency hit its peak in early June." That's still three times its value in April 2011.
Bitcoin

Bitcoin Is Not Anonymous 279

Posted by CmdrTaco from the yup-its-bitcoin dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from University College Dublin have conducted an analysis of anonymity on Bitcoin, and found it is not inherently anonymous, and that in many cases, users and their transactions can be identified. They use techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate and visualize an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."
Power

Submission + - Relativity Powers Car Batteries (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: Relativity is usually something said to affect only things moving at speeds close to that of light. But now calculations show that the common car battery works because of relativistic effects.

The work was done by a team from Sweden's Uppsala University and the University of Helsinki. They looked at how much energy a lead-acid battery produces if one doesn't take into account relativistic effects. Then they did the same set of calculations including them.

What they found was that a large portion — some 80 percent — of the 2.1 volts a battery produces was from relativistic effects.
The Internet

Submission + - IETF turning 25 on Sunday (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: The Internet Engineering Task Force – the Internet’s leading standards organization – will mark the 25th anniversary of its first meeting on Jan. 16. ``The IETF is unique,’’ says Russ Housley, an Internet security expert who got involved with the group in 1987 and has been IETF Chair since 2007. ``Unlike other standards bodies, wherever possible the IETF avoids formal hierarchy, and there are no membership requirements or fees. The IETF invites all interested parties to participate in the technical evolution and work toward even greater stability of the Internet.”
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Sony Must Show It Can Sue PS3 Hacker (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider
RedEaredSlider writes: A California court today asked that Sony show it has jurisdiction over the hacker who publicized a "jailbreak" for the Playstation 3 console.

Judge Susan Ilston, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said Sony has to show that George Hotz, a hacker who posted a method of "jailbreaking" PS3 consoles, has some connection to California if Sony is to claim damages for his work on the PS3.
Earth

Bastardi's Wager 672

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-all-a-matter-of-degrees dept.
DesScorp writes "AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a challenge for climate scientists. He wants one or more of their rank to accept a bet about temperature trends in the coming decade. Bastardi is making specific predictions. 'The scientific approach is: you see the other argument, you put forward predictions about where things are going to go, and you test them,' he says. 'That is what I have done. I have said the earth will cool .1 to .2 Celsius in the next ten years, according to objective satellite data.' Bastardi's challenge to his critics — who are legion — is to make their own predictions. And then wait. Climate science, he adds, 'is just a big weather forecast.' Bastardi's challenge is reminiscent of the famous Simon-Ehrlich Wager, where the two men made specific predictions about resource scarcity in the '80s."

Slashdot Top Deals

With your bare hands?!?

Close