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Submission + - Dropbox open sources DivANS: a compression algorithm in Rust compiled to WASM

Submitted by danielrh
danielrh writes: DivANS is a new compression algorithm developed at Dropbox that can be denser than Brotli, 7zip or zstd at the cost of compression and decompression speed.
The code uses some of the new vector intrinsics in Rust and is multithreaded. It has a demo running in the browser.
One of the new ideas is that it has an Intermediate Representation, like a compiler, and that lets developers mashup different compression algorithms and build compression optimizers that run over the IR. The project is looking for community involvement and experimentation.

Submission + - Bitcoin, other virtual currencies likely manipulated last year 1

Submitted by davidwr
davidwr writes: The New York Times says Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say. Related coverage is here and elsewhere.

In his paper titled "Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered" (abstract here but paper unavailable as of the time of this submission) University of Texas researcher John Griffin analyzed the blockchain for bitcoin and several other coins and found suspicious activity related to the Bitfinex exchange and the Tether virtual currency created by the owners of Bitfinex. Tether is supposed to be tied to the US dollar. Bitfinex executives have previously denied they were involved in any manipulation.

Other currencies including Ether and Zcash had suspicious activity as well.

Submission + - Court rules that Trump can't block people on Twitter (knightcolumbia.org)

Submitted by drunken_boxer777
drunken_boxer777 writes: US District Judge Buchwald issued a 75-page ruling today clearly articulating why Donald Trump cannot block Twitter users, as it violates their First Amendment rights.

"Turning to the merits of plaintiffs’ First Amendment claim, we hold that the speech in which they seek to engage is protected by the First Amendment and that the President and Scavino exert governmental control over certain aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account, including the interactive space of the tweets sent from the account. That interactive space is susceptible to analysis under the Supreme Court's forum doctrines, and is properly characterized as a designated public forum. The viewpoint-based exclusion of the individual plaintiffs from that designated public forum is proscribed by the First Amendment and cannot be justified by the President's personal First Amendment interests."

Submission + - Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Zorro
Zorro writes: Google’s unofficial motto has long been the simple phrase “don’t be evil.” But that’s over, according to the code of conduct that Google distributes to its employees. The phrase was removed sometime in late April or early May, archives hosted by the Wayback Machine show.

“Don’t be evil” has been part of the company’s corporate code of conduct since 2000. When Google was reorganized under a new parent company, Alphabet, in 2015, Alphabet assumed a slightly adjusted version of the motto, “do the right thing.” However, Google retained its original “don’t be evil” language until the past several weeks. The phrase has been deeply incorporated into Google’s company culture—so much so that a version of the phrase has served as the wifi password on the shuttles that Google uses to ferry its employees to its Mountain View headquarters, sources told Gizmodo.

Submission + - SPAM: Progressive groups launch offensive telling the FTC to break up Facebook

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The groups are asking for the FTC to do three things:
  • Break off Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger into their own companies separate from Facebook proper.
  • Make it possible for users on competing social networks to communicate with one another.
  • Implement strong privacy rules.

The gritty details:

  • The coalition will run digital ads with messages like “Facebook keeps violating your privacy. Break it up.” and “Mark Zuckerberg has a scary amount of power. We need to take it back.”
  • Zuckerberg’s users will see them: they’re running on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter and more traditional display ad slots.
  • Groups involved range from the anti-concentration Open Markets Institute to broader progressive groups like Demand Progress and MoveOn Civic Action.

Google too.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Government-backed trolling on Argentinian human rights activivists

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As part of a global report on online censorship, Amnesty International published a report on the government-backed attacks on Twitter over human rights activists and journalists in Argentina, including Argentina's Amnesty International executive director, Mariela Belski. On the verge of the recent revelations on Cambridge Analytica's misuse of Facebook data to influence elections, the report resonates against a controversial 2016 resolution by Mauricio Macri's government authorizing the access of biometric and personal data from all the citizens contained in the social security database (ANSES) for the Public Communications Secretary.

The activity of government-paid trolls on the Argentinian politics sphere isn't new, but recently has been formally integrated to the Government structure by means of the creation of the Public Opinion Unit, focused on "monitoring the government's public performance" and "gathering information" on the citizens.

Submission + - Kaspersky's 'Slingshot' report burned an ISIS-focused intelligence operation (cyberscoop.com)

Submitted by HowellONeill
HowellONeill writes: When Kaspersky Lab reported on "one of the most technically sophisticated groups we’ve ever seen" earlier this month by the name of Slingshot, the Moscow-based cybersecurity firm actually exposed a U.S.-led counter-terrorism operation targeting al-Qaeda and ISIS, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials. The report opened up a debate around the industry: What, if any, responsibilities do cybersecurity companies bear when faced with espionage that is targeting groups uniformly considered terrorists?

Submission + - Neutron star mergers may create much of the universe's gold (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The occasional merger of neutron stars literally shakes the universe by sending out gravitational waves, but these events may also be the main source of gold and other heavy elements in the Milky Way, a new study suggests. Using data gathered during a neutron star merger that occurred between 85 million and 160 million light-years away in August 2017 (an event in which the colliding stars together weighed about three times the mass of our sun), current astrophysical models suggest that that single event generated between one and five Earth masses of europium and between three and 13 Earth masses of gold.

Submission + - Chinese Companies Are Buying Up Cash-Strapped US Colleges (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Chinese companies are taking advantage of America’s financially strapped higher-education system to buy schools, and the latest deal for a classical music conservatory in Princeton, New Jersey, is striking chords of dissonance on campus. Beijing Kaiwen Education Technology Co. agreed in February to pay $40 million for Westminster Choir College, an affiliate of Rider University that trains students for careers as singers, conductors and music teachers. The announcement came just weeks after the government-controlled Chinese company changed its name from Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Co. The pending purchase rankles some Westminster faculty and alumni, who question what a longtime maker of steel spans knows about running an elite school whose choirs sang with maestros Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini and Seiji Ozawa. Alumni are among those suing in New York federal court to block the sale, saying it violates Westminster’s 1991 merger agreement with Rider and will trigger the choir college’s demise.

Submission + - Handheld "The Oregon Trail" Teardown (hackaday.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Target is capitalizing on the nostalgia of millennials with disposable income by putting out a handheld version of the classic educational game, "The Oregon Trail". This teardown goes into detail about what makes the device tick, and while it seems the core hardware is an NES emulator (and it should be possible to switch the game it plays), the biggest draw is probably how easy it is to modify into a retro emulation device with a Raspberry Pi.

Submission + - Scientists Ask Whether The Human Body Can Be Pushed Any Further (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Dave Knott
Dave Knott writes: As the Winter Olympics begin in Pyeongchang, some scientists are wondering how much faster, higher and stronger human beings can get. One recent study, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, concluded that — after more than a century of pushing the boundaries of our bodies — a plateau has been reached for both sexes. The researchers analyzed athletic performance data going back to the start of the 20th century. After more than 70 years of record-breaking trends, performance starting levelling off in the 1980s. Simply put, our bodies have peaked. And that may mean fewer world records will be smashed in the coming years.

Submission + - Equifax Releases Credit Locking App That Doesn't Work (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Wednesday, the beleaguered credit reporting agency Equifax launched a new service to protect people from the risks of identity theft that the company vastly magnified with a breach of over 145 million people's credit records last year. The service, called Lock & Alert, is fronted by a mobile application and a Web application. It is intended to allow individuals to control access to their credit report on demand. "Lock & Alert allows You to lock and unlock your EIS credit report ('Equifax credit report')," the services' terms of service agreement states. "Locking or unlocking your Equifax credit report usually takes less than a minute." Except when it doesn't.

As Tara Siegel Bernard and Ron Lieber of the New York Times reported, the new service—which is different from a "freeze" in some ways that are not clear from a legal and regulatory standpoint—has not been working for some (and possibly all) mobile app users. The idea of the "lock" is that it can be undone in an instant with a swipe of the screen, without incurring a charge to freeze or unfreeze the report or having to provide a PIN number. But attempts by Siegel Bernard to lock her husband's credit report resulted in application timeouts.

Submission + - New Adobe Flash Zero-Day Spotted in the Wild (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: South Korean authorities have issued a warning regarding a brand new Flash zero-day deployed in the wild. According to a security alert issued by the South Korean Computer Emergency Response Team (KR-CERT), the zero-day affects Flash Player installs 28.0.0.137 and earlier. Flash 28.0.0.137 is the current Flash version number.

Simon Choi, a security researcher with Hauri Inc., a South Korean security firm, says the zero-day has been made and deployed by North Korean threat actors and used since mid-November 2017. Choi says attackers are trying to infect South Koreans researching North Korea. Adobe said it plans to patch this zero-day on Monday, February 5.

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