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Submission + - NSA Codebreaking Computer Accidentally Exposed to Internet (theintercept.com)

Submitted by archatheist
archatheist writes: A misconfigured server at NYU exposed a drive that "held confidential information on an advanced code-breaking machine that had never before been described in public. Dozens of documents spanning hundreds of pages detailed the project, a joint supercomputing initiative administered by NYU, the Department of Defense, and IBM." The "WindsorGreen" system is designed to excel at the kind of math used for breaking crypto.

Submission + - Sprint sues FCC for 'capricious' deregulation of business data services

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sprint Corp. and another wireless company filed a lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission for the agency's recent decision on business data services.

Overland Park-based Sprint (NYSE: S) and Arkansas-based Windstream Services LLC filed the petition for review Monday, seeking relief "on the grounds that the Report and Order is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion," according to a filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The lawsuit is based on an April 20 vote by the FCC to deregulate its business data services, among them wireless backhaul services, which are crucial for transmitting large amounts of data quickly. Sprint had supported the price caps proposed under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, as the carrier pays companies like AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink to use their bandwidth to bridge gaps in the Sprint network during backhaul services.

Although Sprint did not report the breakdown of these costs in its annual filing, the carrier noted that they are "a significant cost for our wireless and wireline segments."

Submission + - US government is reviewing whether to use Kaspersky software, because Russia (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Mention the US and Russia in the same sentence and the mind naturally wanders to three things. Firstly, the alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia, secondly whether or not the FBI investigation these alleged links led to the dismissal of Comey, and thirdly whether or not Russia interfered with the US election.

But now the US government is reviewing whether or not to continue to use Russian-made security software from Kasperksy. Defense Intelligence Agency director Vincent Stewart says "we are tracking Kaspersky and their software." He does not elaborate or given reasons, but there have been — as yet unsubstantiated — claims that Russia has been using Kaspersky software to spy on America. The director of the NSA is "personally involved" in monitoring the company.

Submission + - Intel Releasing the Last and Final Itanium Chips

Submitted by WheezyJoe
WheezyJoe writes: Four new 9700-series Itanium CPUs will be the last and final Itaniums Intel will ship. For those who might have forgotten, Itanium and its IA-64 architecture was intended to be Intel's successor to 32-bit i386 architecture back in the early 2000's. Developed in conjunction with HP, IA-64 used a new architecture developed at HP that, while capable as a server platform, was not backward-compatible with i386 and required emulation to run i386-compiled software. With the release of AMD's Opteron in 2003 featuring their alternative, fully backward-compatible X86-64 architecture, interest in Itanium fell, and Intel eventually adopted AMD's technology for its own chips and X86-64 is now dominant today. In spite of this, Itanium continued to be made and sold for the server market, supported in part by an agreement with HP. With that deal expiring this year, these new Itaniums will be Intel's last.

Submission + - Telefonica Tells Employees to Shut Down PCs Amid Massive Ransomware Outbreak (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Telefonica, Spain's biggest ISP, has suffered a massive ransomware infection, with hundreds of PCs encrypted with a new ransomware strain that came out of the blue and made thousands of victims worldwide. According to reports, the situation is so bad that Telefonica's security team is telling employees to shut down their computers to prevent the ransomware from spreading.

El Mundo reports that hundreds of PCs were affected at Telefonica, but also at other Spanish companies such as Vodafona, Capgemini, Gas Natural, and Iberdrola. Bleeping Computer reports that Telefonica has sent several internal memos telling employees to disconnect from internal WiFi and VPN networks, and has even blasted alerts through the company's internal speakers to make sure all users are aware of the issue.

The ransomware responsible for these infections is a new strain called WCry (or WannaCry), and has not caused any problems before. According to security researchers, infections exploded out of the blue today, with victims all over the world, but especially Spain. It is unclear how this ransomware is spread at the moment.

Submission + - MIT Water Purifying Method Targets Trace Chemical Wastes and Pesticides (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by LCooke
LCooke writes: Scientists at MIT and the Technical University of Darmstadt developed an electrochemical process that can remove even tiny concentrations of pharmaceuticals, pesticides, or chemical wastes from water. Their method doesn't require the high amounts of energy or chemicals water purification processes typically have needed in the past, and they say their process could be powered by solar panels in remote locations. The method could help people in developing countries where water pollution from pesticides, dyes, and other harmful chemicals is often a health issue.

Submission + - Going After Netflix, Cannes Bans Streaming-Only Movies From Competition Slots

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Cannes Film Festival is taking a stand against Netflix. Responding to a rumor that the streaming service’s Okja, directed by Bong Joon Ho, and The Meyerowitz Stories, directed by Noah Baumbach, would be excluded from awards consideration after being included in the Competition lineup, the festival released a statement clarifying and adjusting its positioning going forward. The short version: From now on, if you want to compete at Cannes, your movie had better be released in French movie theaters—not just online.

There has long been a point of tension between Cannes and Netflix, to the extent where the inclusion of Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories came as a bit of a surprise. Netflix films had previously been snubbed and festival officials had advocated for “discouraging” the streaming service’s online-first approach to release. The two movies included in Cannes’ lineup this year are slated for theatrical bows stateside, but according to the festival’s official statement, “no agreement has been reached” to get the moves into French cinemas and the effort to reach one was made “in vain.” However, the statement does clarify that this rule goes into effect next year, so Okja and The Meyerowitz Stories will remain in competition and eligible for the Palme d’Or.

Submission + - Nuisance call firm Keurboom hit with record fine (bbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A cold-calling firm has been fined a record £400,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for making almost 100 million nuisance calls.
Keurboom Communications called people, sometimes at night, to see if they were eligible for road-accident or PPI compensation, the ICO said.
It breached privacy laws by calling people without their consent.
The company has since gone into liquidation but the ICO said it was committed to recovering the fine.
It said it had received more than 1,000 complaints about automated calls from the Bedfordshire-registered company.

Submission + - Microsoft Wants To Monitor Your Workplace With AI, Computer Vision And The Cloud (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: Gizmodo reports on a Microsoft Workplace Monitoring demo where CCTV cameras watch a workplace — like a construction site — on 24/7 basis, and AI algorithms constantly oversee and evaluate what is happening in that workplace. The system can track where employees are, where physical equipment and tools are at what time, who does what at what time in this workplace and apparently use Cloud-based AI of some sort to evaluate what is happening in the workplace being monitored. Spotting employees misbehaving, breaking workplace rules or putting themselves and expensive equipment at risk may be the intended "value proposition" this system brings to the workplace. Another aspect may be reducing insurance premiums employers pay by creating a strict, highly monitored work environment. But the system is also very Big Brother — an AI is monitoring people and equipment in a workplace in realtime at all times, and all the data ends up being processed in the Microsoft Cloud.

Submission + - Explanation of quantum physics theories by Dennis Zetting (quantumcreationministries.com)

Submitted by quantum creationministries
quantum creationministries writes: Modern physics principles defined as the quantum physics theories. We explain the topics of quantum theory and God’. God live in everywhere in the universe and sciences already prove that. Classical physics can define the many miracles, angels, and heavens described in the Bible. For more information, see our more videos and read our articles. http://quantumcreationministri...

Submission + - Analysis Of 500 Million Passwords Shows What You Should Avoid (helpnetsecurity.com)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: A dump of over 550 million username and password combinations is currently being sold on underground forums, and eager crooks are paying for the privilege to test them out against many online services. Their hope is that some of these combinations will work and they will be able to hijack and misuse legitimate accounts. That hope is not in vain: it is a well known fact of life that too many users reuse the same login credentials for too many services. Duo Security researchers have gotten their hands on this particular dump – named “Anti Public Combo List” – and have analyzed it. They found that the top ten list of most used passwords is quite similar to many previously compiled ones: “12345”, “123456789”, “abc123”, “password”, and “password1” head it.

Submission + - ShotSpotter IPO proves privatizing police surveillance hasn't been profitable (observer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: 16 years in operation, not a single quarter of profits. Silicon Valley-based ShotSpotter, which makes acoustic gunfire detectors, seeks to raise $35 million on the public market. The money will fund sales teams, international expansion and research to integrate with other urban surveillance products.

Submission + - Waymo's Case Against Uber Sent By Judge To US Prosecutors (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The judge presiding over Waymo’s trade-secrets theft lawsuit against Uber Technologies Inc. asked federal prosecutors to investigate the claims in the case. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said in Thursday’s order he takes no position on whether prosecution is warranted. The specter of a possible prosecution has hung over the case for weeks, ever since the engineer at the center of the dispute, Anthony Levandowski, said he could potentially be the subject of a criminal investigation. Levandowski cited the explosive allegations that he downloaded thousands of proprietary files at the Alphabet Inc. unit before he left. He later joined the ride-hailing giant. Alsup said at a May 3 hearing that Waymo hadn’t presented “smoking gun” proof of wrongdoing by Uber even though the evidence strongly suggested that Levandowski downloaded files that Waymo accused him of stealing. The judge’s brief order referring case to the U.S. attorney’s office made reference to a ruling he issued a few minutes earlier — sealed from public view — with a detailed description of evidence.

Submission + - Star Trek Bridge Crew gets IBM Watson-powered voice commands (theverge.com)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Star Trek Bridge Crew — the VR game that puts you in the slip-on space shoes of a Starfleet officer — already emphasizes vocal communication when you’re playing with real humans, but it will soon allow you to use your voice to issue orders to computer-controlled characters, too.

The feature has been made possible using IBM’s VR Speech Sandbox. The software combines IBM Watson’s Speech to Text and Conversation services with the company’s Unity SDK, using the natural language processing capabilities of IBM’s Watson software to parse your barked commands, and allow AI-controlled characters to act on them. Players will be able to launch photon torpedoes, jump to warp speed, or lock S-foils in attack formation (maybe not that last one) by requesting that your crew members push the relevant blinking buttons on their own command consoles.

Let's just skip all that stuff, and cut right to the part where Kirk gets the girl . . .

How well it actually works in practice, we’ll see this summer, aboard our own starships.

"Scotty, beam up the IBM stock price!" — Posterior Admiral Ginni Rometty

Submission + - Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy (spectator.co.uk) 1

Submitted by bricko
bricko writes: Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy

Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.

Their trick is to hide behind the statement that close to 14 per cent of the world’s energy is renewable, with the implication that this is wind and solar. In fact the vast majority — three quarters — is biomass (mainly wood), and a very large part of that is ‘traditional biomass’; sticks and logs and dung burned by the poor in their homes to cook with. Those people need that energy, but they pay a big price in health problems caused by smoke inhalation.

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