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Comment Re:BULLSHIT ALERT! (Score 5, Informative) 80

So I guess you didn't even read the clip of the article Slashdot posted???

"In lab tests, researchers found their catalyst yielded not only hydrogen peroxide, but a variety of highly reactive compounds called reactive oxygen species, or ROS. It turned out that these novel compounds were responsible for the majority of the new disinfectant's impressive antibacterial and antiviral abilities..."

Comment One egregious example (Score 1, Insightful) 119

Glad this is finally getting addressed at the National level. I remember hearing about this story five years when Jimmy Johns was preventing former sandwich makers from taking jobs at Subway.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compete-clauses-following-settlement.html

No hourly and/or temp employee should be bound by a Non-Compete clause. They serve a purpose when an employee is actually creating IP, but those employees must be compensated adequately for their contributions.

Comment This wasn't directed AT Parler (Score 5, Informative) 377

The complaint against what DDoS-Guard was submitted in November, long before Parler fled there. DDoS-Guard had purchased a large block of IP addresses that were for use by Belize-based companies. DDoS-Guard has no other presence in Belize, and is therefore not qualified, so LACNIC is making them forfeit the block of IP addresses. They could have avoided this by simply opening an Internet cafe, but they have NOTHING there.

It makes sense that the provider Parler fled to was a shady operation, so I wouldn't call it ENTIRELY a coincidence. But it is pretty much a coincidence.

 

Comment This is what evil looks like. (Score 1) 312

In the early 20th century, progressives promoted rigorous compulsory education as a way to reduce class divides.

In the early 21st century, faux-progressive Gramscian whores pretend that such education makes class divides worse.

If they goal of the whores was to destroy opportunities for those from modest backgrounds, what would they be doing differently?

Submission + - Five Eyes governments, India, and Japan make new call for encryption backdoors (zdnet.com)

AmiMoJo writes: Members of the intelligence-sharing allianceFive Eyes, along with government representatives for Japan and India, have published a statement over the weekend calling on tech companies to come up with a solution for law enforcement to access end-to-end encrypted communications. The statement is the alliance's latest effort to get tech companies to agree to encryption backdoors. The Five Eyes alliance, comprised of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, have made similar calls to tech giants in2018and2019, respectively. Just like before, government officials claim tech companies have put themselves in a corner by incorporating end-to-end encryption (E2EE) into their products.

If properly implemented, E2EE lets users have secure conversations — may them be chat, audio, or video — without sharing the encryption key with the tech companies. Representatives from the seven governments argue that the way E2EE encryption is currently supported on today's major tech platforms prohibits law enforcement from investigating crime rings, but also the tech platforms themselves from enforcing their own terms of service.

Bitcoin

Owners of BitMEX, a Leading Bitcoin Exchange, Face Criminal Charges (nytimes.com) 24

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: American authorities brought criminal charges on Thursday against the owners of one of the world's biggest cryptocurrency trading exchanges, BitMEX, accusing them of allowing the Hong Kong-based company to launder money and engage in other illegal transactions. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the chief executive of BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, and three co-owners: Benjamin Delo, Samuel Reed and Gregory Dwyer. Mr. Dwyer was arrested in Massachusetts on Thursday, while the other three men remained at large, authorities said.

Prosecutors said BitMEX had taken few steps to limit customers even after being informed that the exchange was being used by hackers to launder stolen money, and by people in countries under sanctions, like Iran. "BitMEX made itself available as a vehicle for money laundering and sanctions violations," the indictment released on Thursday said. BitMEX has handled more than $1.5 billion of trades each day recently, making it one of the five biggest exchanges on most days. BitMEX and Mr. Hayes have been known for pushing the limits in the unregulated cryptocurrency industry.

After it was founded in 2014, BitMEX grew popular by allowing traders to buy and sell contracts tied to the value of Bitcoin -- known as derivatives, or futures -- with few of the restrictions and rules that were in place in other exchanges. That allowed investors to take out enormous loans and make risky trades. The relaxed attitude also made it possible for people all over the world to easily move money in and out of BitMEX without the basic identity checks that can prevent money laundering. In August, BitMEX put in place some of those verification checks.

Submission + - Publishers Worry as Ebooks Fly off Libraries' Virtual Shelves (wired.com)

An anonymous reader writes: After the pandemic closed many libraries’ physical branches this spring, checkouts of ebooks are up 52 percent from the same period last year, according to OverDrive, which partners with 50,000 libraries worldwide. Hoopla, another service that connects libraries to publishers, says 439 library systems in the US and Canada have joined since March, boosting its membership by 20 percent. Some public libraries, new to digital collections, delight in exposing their readers to a new kind of reading. The library in Archer City, Texas, population 9,000, received a grant to join OverDrive this summer. The new ebook collection “has really been wonderful,” says library director Gretchen Abernathy-Kuck. “So much of the last few months has been stressful and negative.” The ebooks are “something positive. It was something new.”

But the surging popularity of library ebooks also has heightened longstanding tensions between publishers, who fear that digital borrowing eats into their sales, and public librarians, who are trying to serve their communities during a once-in-a-generation crisis. Since 2011, the industry’s big-five publishers—Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, and Macmillan—have limited library lending of ebooks, either by time—two years, for example—or number of checkouts—most often, 26 or 52 times. Readers can browse, download, join waiting lists for, and return digital library books from the comfort of their home, and the books are automatically removed from their devices at the end of the lending period. The result: Libraries typically pay between $20 and $65 per copy—an industry average of $40, according to one recent survey—compared with the $15 an individual might pay to buy the same ebook online. Instead of owning an ebook copy forever, librarians must decide at the end of the licensing term whether to renew.

Education

University of Michigan Study Advocates Ban of Facial Recognition in Schools (venturebeat.com) 18

University of Michigan researchers recently published a study showing facial recognition technology in schools has limited efficacy and presents a number of serious problems. From a report: The research was led by Shobita Parthasarathy, director of the university's Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program, and finds the technology isn't just ill-suited to security purposes, it can actively promote racial discrimination, normalize surveillance, and erode privacy while marginalizing gender nonconforming students. The study follows the New York legislature's passage of a moratorium on the use of facial recognition and other forms of biometric identification in schools until 2022. The bill, a response to the Lockport City School District launching a facial recognition system, was among the first in the nation to explicitly regulate or ban use of the technology in schools. That development came after companies including Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft halted or ended the sale of facial recognition products in response to the first wave of Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S.

Submission + - Woz Turns 70th Birthday into Charity Event (wozbday.com)

NoMoreACs writes: Join Apple Computer inventor and co-Founder Steve Wozniak for "11 Days of Wozdom", a social media "Scavenger Hunt" featuring creative challenges that speak to the things he values most: Happiness, creativity, ingenuity and fun.

The challenges will officially begin on August 11th, but you can get a head start by going to WOZBDAY.COM for details.

The first challenge will be to help Woz spread the word about his birthday party and fundraiser on August 11th. All challenges will be due on August 21st at 11:59pm PDT. Challenge winners get special prizes!

Woz also stated:

"Iâ(TM)m lucky to be able to do this for a foundation oriented towards helping children, especially ones in need of finding themselves."

A livestream featuring a star-studded list of performers (see list at the birthday site) and other guests will begin on August 11, 2020 at 5 pm, PDT.

Come celebrate the life of one of the true pioneers in the Personal Computer Revolution. Listen to some music, hear some great stories, and maybe even help some kids in need!

Comment I'm guessing this is some sort of PHONE? (Score 1) 98

Nowhere in the write-up do you mention that you are talking about a phone. I'm guessing it probably is because the category is Android, but maybe if people aren't familiar wit OnePlus it would help to use the word just once?

Or are beyond calling them phones and just going with "device" now? Because you don't even call it a device, either.

Submission + - Congress needs to address international postage rates for USPS to survive (ft.com) 1

sziring writes: Have you ever purchased something off ebay with free shipping direct from China via USPS? How does the USPS actually make money off that? Turns out they might not. From the article in the Financial Times, "Today manufacturers in countries as small as Cambodia and as large as China pay less to send small parcels from their countries to New York than US manufacturers do to ship packages from Los Angeles to the Big Apple. This puts American manufacturers and workers at a significant competitive disadvantage and forces the US Postal Service to subsidize a system that weakens America’s manufacturing base."

Submission + - Governors on East and West coasts form pacts to decide when to reopen economies (cnn.com)

gollum123 writes: States on the country's East and West coasts are forming their own regional pacts to work together on how to reopen from the stay-at-home orders each has issued to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. The first such group to be announced came Monday on the East Coast. Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said his state, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island each plan to name a public health and economic official to a regional working group. The chief of staff of the governor of each state also will be a part of the group, which will begin work immediately to design a reopening plan. Later on Monday, the West Coast states of California, Washington and Oregon also announced they are joining forces in a plan to begin incremental release of stay-at-home orders. When announcing the three-state coordination of the western governors during his midday briefing on Monday, Newsom quoted an old proverb: "If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together."

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