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Submission + - Leaked document points to insolvency for MTGox Bitcoin exchange (scribd.com)

Submitted by electrongunner
electrongunner writes: As one of the unfortunate many who have/had money/bitcoins at MTGox, I was rather dismayed by the details in the purported leaked internal document detailing the disaster that has unfolded over the past few weeks....
"At this point 744,408 BTC are missing due to malleability-related theft which went
unnoticed for several years. The cold storage has been wiped out due to a leak in the hot
wallet."
As of now, MTGox is offline and there's no indication that anyone is going to get their money or bitcoins back. Yeah, yeah, I know...you told me so.

Submission + - One of the Most Alarming Internet Proposals I've Ever Seen (vortex.com)

Submitted by Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: You'd think that with so many concerns these days about whether the likes of AT&T, Verizon, and other telecom companies can be trusted not to turn our data over to third parties whom we haven't authorized, that a plan to formalize a mechanism for ISP and other "man-in-the-middle" snooping would be laughed off the Net.

But apparently the authors of IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) Internet-Draft "Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0" (14 Feb 2014) haven't gotten the message.

What they propose for the new HTTP/2.0 protocol is nothing short of officially sanctioned snooping.

Submission + - YouTube to Remove Scientist's Account who Debunked AIDS Deniers Movie (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by EwanPalmer
EwanPalmer writes: YouTube is threatening to remove the account of a scientist who made a series of videos debunking claims made in an Aids denialist movie over copyright infringement disagreement.

Myles Power is claiming the producers of controversial 2009 documentary House of Numbers are attempting to censor him by submitting bogus DMCA claims against him. He says his movies do not breach copyright laws because his films are educational and therefore fair use. The 'AIDS denialist' documentary makers say they instead amounted to “propaganda”.

Submission + - Why do you need license from Canonical to create derivatives? (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Canonical's requirement of a licence to create an Ubuntu derivative has surfaced again. Yesterday the Community council published a statement about Canonical's licencing policies but it doesn't nothing more than leaving things more vague than they were and tell derivatives to not go to the press and instead talk to the Community Council which seldom responds. Now Jonathan Riddell of Kubuntu has come forth and said no one needs any licence to create any derivative. So the question remains when Oracle or CentOS don't need licence from Red Hat to create a clone why does Canonical?

Submission + - Ubuntu to switch to systemd (markshuttleworth.com)

Submitted by GuerillaRadio
GuerillaRadio writes: Following the decision for Debian to switch to the systemd init system, Ubuntu founder and SABDFL Mark Shuttleworth has posted a blog entry indicating that Ubuntu will now follow in this decision. "Nevertheless, the decision is for systemd, and given that Ubuntu is quite centrally a member of the Debian family, that’s a decision we support. I will ask members of the Ubuntu community to help to implement this decision efficiently, bringing systemd into both Debian and Ubuntu safely and expeditiously."

Submission + - Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class (nytimes.com) 4

Submitted by vikingpower
vikingpower writes: If there were such a thing, it would probably be rule No. 1 in the teaching manual for instructors of aspiring suicide bombers: Don’t give lessons with live explosives.

In what represented a cautionary tale for terrorist teachers, and a cause of dark humor for ordinary Iraqis, a commander at a secluded terrorist training camp north of Baghdad unwittingly used a belt packed with explosives while conducting a demonstration early Monday for a group of militants, killing himself and 21 other members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, army and police officials said.

Al Qaeda had already disavowedd the group, although it is not known whether this was due to....um.... "lack of terrorist professionality".

Submission + - South Carolina Education Committee Removes Evolution from Standards

Submitted by Toe, The
Toe, The writes: The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee approved new science standards for students except for one clause: the one that involves the use of the phrase 'natural selection.' Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, argued against teaching natural selection as fact, when he believes there are other theories students deserve to learn. Fair argued South Carolina's students are learning the philosophy of natural selection but teachers are not calling it such. He said the best way for students to learn is for the schools to teach the controversy. Hopefully they're going to teach the controversy of gravity and valence bonds too. After all, they're just theories.

Submission + - Stephen Hawking Was Wrong, So Ignore Whatever Scientists 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following Stephen Hawking's latest work on black holes (http://www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-holes-1.14583), Republican Michele Bachmann has brilliantly deduced that this proves "the danger inherent in listening to scientists" (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/01/stephen-hawkings-blunder-on-black-holes-shows-danger-of-listening-to-scientists-says-bachmann.html?intcid=obnetwork). Expanding on her thesis, she said, "If black holes don’t exist, then other things you scientists have been trying to foist on us probably don’t either, like climate change and evolution." Her recommendation? All students who were "forced to learn" about black holes should now sue Dr. Hawking for a full refund. But not Bachmann — "Fortunately for me, I did not take any science classes in college,"

Submission + - New Microsoft CEO Member of Myhrvold-Gates Patent Club

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: It turns out a pretty good clue that new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella enjoyed an inside track for the top job at the software giant was just a patent search away. While a USPTO search turned up no issued or pending patents assigned to Microsoft that listed Nadella as an inventor, it did surprisingly turn up 33 patent applications listing Nadella, Bill Gates, and Nathan Myhrvold as co-inventors, most of which were assigned to Intellectual Ventures holding company Elwha, LLC. So, with Nadella and Gates driving Microsoft, is it time for the software giant to provide an explanation for why its top execs were moonlighting for a patent bully, and how that squares with the Microsoft Standards of Business Conduct?

Submission + - How to fix Slashdot Beta? 17

Submitted by Forbo
Forbo writes: Since the migration to Slashdot Beta was announced, it seems all meaningful discussion has been completely disrupted with calls to boycott and protest. Rather than pull an Occupy, what can be done to focus and organize the action? What is the end goal: To revert entirely to the previous site, or to address the problems with the new site?

Submission + - LibreOffice 4.2 with GPU mantle support is out (libreoffice.org) 4

Submitted by Billly Gates
Billly Gates writes: A basic summary of the new features are listed here. In catching up with MS Office the new LibreOffice 4.2 now has full Windows 7/8 integration including aero peak, thumbnails, jumplists, and recent documents all from the taskbar. In addition one weak area for LibreOffice has been enterprise network support and the lack of active directory tools. LibreOffice now has GPO and active directory support for system administrators to deploy and manage Libreoffice over corporate networks. Libreoffice also includes an expert configuration Window to assist power users and system administrators when deploying to hundreds of workstation at a time as well.

Also of particular interest is AMD/ATI is expecting to finally release Mantle in the next coming hours for games like Battlefield 4. Surprisingly LibreOffice also supports mantle as well according to the release notes. However you will need the 14.1 driver which is being compiled and uploaded at the time of this writing to utilize this feature. Mantle will accelerate lower end cpus by up to 300% in some tasks while having modest improvements for those with more recent powerful CPUs. A real niceties for those like myself on AMD phenom II's with the later 7000 series cards.

The only issue (some on slashdot may say benefit ) is the lack of a ribbon UI. However, for recent articles about governments considering openoffice this release addresses shortcomings with the new active directory and GPO support.

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