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Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter

Submitted by CmdrTaco
CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

Comment Re:You tell me. (Score 1) 128

by tiltowait (#61325474) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Harmful Are In-House Phishing Campaigns?

Thanks for your comments. This thread has given me a few things to think about, although I'm still not totally sold on the concept.

Some have compared this sort of exercise to a fire drill. We don't do those, at least without prior notification, for fear of freaking people out, like in the trauma caused by active shooter drills on children.

Also, I've not yet fallen for one of these. Given how they come in with our URL checker stripped, having "phishing" tags coded in the image bugs, from domains openly registered to security companies, they are fairly easy to spot.

So it seems like overkill, at least in my environment. I don't work with launch codes or anything, and besides, without my 2FA fob, you're not going to go far with my password anyway.

These are people I'm entrusting with my work files and communications, and they can't even be truthful with me in return. Maybe that's why it rubs me the wrong way, no matter how the means and ends are weighed.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How Harmful are In-House Phishing Campaigns? 2

Submitted by tiltowait
tiltowait writes: My organization has an acceptable use policy which forbids sending out spam. Every few months, however, the central IT office exempts itself from this rule by delivering deceptive e-mails to all employees as a test of their ability to ignore phishing scams. For those who simply delete the messages, they are a small annoyance, comparable to the overhead of having to regularly change passwords—also done largely unnecessarily, perhaps even to the point of being another bad practice. As someone working in a departmental systems office, I can also attest that these campaigns generate a fair amount of workload from inquiries about their legitimacy. Aside from the "gotcha" angle, which perpetuates some ill will amongst staff, I can't help but think that these exercises are of questionable net value, especially with other countermeasures, such as MFA and Safelinks, already in place. Is it worth spreading misinformation to experiment on your colleagues in such a fashion?

Submission + - SPAM: Geeks: Give the Gift of Computer Security

Submitted by Larry Sanger
Larry Sanger writes: Grandma is never going to install a password manager. That's your job, geek. Besides, it's a great, unique, valuable Christmas present! Hop to it! Just be sure to teach her how to use it. Generally, there are valuable things you can do for friends and family that they'd never think to do for themselves. Come on, isn't that your job, geek?
Link to Original Source

Comment Re:No Autonomy (Score 2) 125

You might have missed that Musk made the same claim about 2016, with the 1-camera sensor system. The 2017 claim was with the newer 8-camera system, and the claim was made before Tesla even had software for the new sensors, and the Tesla then lacked adaptive cruise control, adaptive high beam, self parking, summon, and other things that the prior model did have. I'm embarrassed that I actually believed these claims.

Submission + - A Primer on "Algorithmic Bias" (medium.com)

Submitted by tiltowait
tiltowait writes: The recent flap over Apple’s apparently sexist lending decisions highlights the growing concern over systemic bias. Can algorithms truly be prejudiced? It seems an overly anthropomorphized claim. When an automated process patterns its decisions based on data gathered from the actions of bigoted individuals, however, it becomes a hazard.

[Consider for example how certain ethnic groups may be disproportionately targeted in the criminal justice system. Applying predictive policing models from such resulting trends will result in an inherently unfair environment. Similar flaws have been shown in the medical field and even with library research databases.]

As with the Uber car that killed a pedestrian because it wasn’t programmed to recognize jaywalkers, better care is needed in engineering products which recognize how the real world works. For a more detailed introduction to this important topic, please see the presentation The Discovery Dark Ages: How Filter Bubbles, Dark Patterns, and Algorithms Propagating Bias Impede the Spread of Knowledge.

Submission + - Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

Submitted by Larry Sanger
Larry Sanger writes: "Humanity has been contemptuously used by vast digital empires," says my new Declaration of Digital Independence, which you can sign. So I'm calling a massive social media strike for July 4-5 to raise awareness of the possibility of decentralizing social media, which is wildly popular whenever proposed. Read the FAQ use the resources to learn and spread the word far and wide. Look for lots of news about this soon. And get ready! Maybe we can make a long-held geek dream finally come true.

Comment Re:bitcoin isn't real, either (Score 2) 376

by SteveWoz (#55072073) Attached to: Here's Why People Don't Buy Things With Bitcoin

In California, businesses (like restaurants) can refuse to accept money from anyone for any reason. They are not required to do business just because you have dollars or legal tender. If they don't like the fact that you are trying to pay in pennies, they don't have to accept it. Therefore, some business could legally refuse dollars but accept bitcoin if they wanted to.

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