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Submission + - NSA spied on Copenhagen climate summit .. (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2014 @08:31PM

An anonymous reader writes: Developing countries have reacted angrily to revelations that the United States spied on other governments at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.

Documents leaked by Edward Snowden show how the US National Security Agency (NSA) monitored communication between key countries before and during the conference to give their negotiators advance information about other positions at the high-profile meeting where world leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel failed to agree to a strong deal on climate change.

Submission + - Kansas to nix expansion of Google Fiber and municipal broadband (consumerist.com) 1

Submitted by symbolset on Thursday January 30, 2014 @08:18PM

symbolset writes: Consumerist is reporting on a bill to restrict municipal support of broadband expansion. Purportedly to ensure a "level playing field" to encourage commercial expansion in this area, these bills are usually referred to as oligopoly protection acts. Everywhere they have been implemented expansion of new broadband technology stops. In this specific case no municipal entity in Kansas will be able to enter the same sort of agreements that enabled Google Fiber. From the bill:

Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly: (1) Offer to provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications or broadband service; or (2) purchase, lease, construct, maintain or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications or broadband service to one or more subscribers.

More details at Muninetworks.org and GigaOM

Federal Agency Data-Mining Hundreds of Millions of Credit Card Accounts 264

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @06:09PM from the but-frogs-love-warm-water dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Washington Examiner: "Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are conducting a massive, NSA-esque data-mining project collecting account information on an estimated 991 million American credit card accounts. It was also learned at a Congressional hearing Tuesday that CFPB officials are working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency on a second data-mining effort, this one focused on the 53 million residential mortgages taken out by Americans since 1998. ...Later in the hearing, [Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas] remarked that CFPB 'and NSA are in a contest of who can collect the most information,' ... although the CFPB disagreed with that statement. In previous testimony before Rep. Jeb Hensarling's panel, Antonakes said 'the combined data represents approximately 85-90 percent of outstanding card balances.' The Argus contract specifies that the company must collect 96 'data points' from each of the participating card issuers for each credit card account on a monthly basis. The 96 data points include a unique card-account identification reference number, ZIP code, monthly ending balance, borrower's income, FICO score, credit limit, monthly payment amount, and days past due. 'Would you object to getting permission from consumers, those people who you work for, before you collect and monitor their information?' Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., asked Cordray. 'That would make it impossible to get the data,' Cordray replied."

Submission + - Feds grab 163 web sites, snatch $21.6 million in NFL counterfeit gear strike (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by coondoggie on Thursday January 30, 2014 @05:52PM

coondoggie writes: As they have for the past few years the US Customs department teamed with the National Football League to cut into the lucrative counterfeit sports gear market. In what the feds called “Operation Team Player,” special agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and officers from Customs and Border Protection worked with the National Football League (NFL) and other sports leagues along with law enforcement agencies to identify illegal shipments imported into the U.S., as well as stores and vendors selling counterfeit trademarked items.

Submission + - When cars go driverless, what happens to the honking? (theatlanticcities.com)

Submitted by blastboy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @05:40PM

blastboy writes: The potential upside to getting rid of drivers: "Today car horns are still a leading source of noise pollution in urban centers. India's honking problem is so severe that the response to it—from both activists and government officials—mirrors the response to an actual epidemic. Officials in Peru, meanwhile, began treating honking like a serious crime in 2009, threatening to confiscate the cars of people who honk when they shouldn't.

EU Secretly Plans To Put a Back Door In Every Car By 2020 364

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @05:28PM from the don't-worry-we'll-only-track-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A secretive EU body has agreed to develop a device to be fitted to all cars allowing police to cut off any engine at will, it emerged today. The device, which could be imposed within a decade, would also allow police to track a vehicle's movements as well as immobilise it. According to The Daily Telegraph a group of senior EU officials, including several Home Office mandarins, have signed off the proposal at a secret meeting in Brussels."

Submission + - Half of U.S. nuclear missile wing implicated in cheating (reuters.com)

Submitted by mdsolar on Thursday January 30, 2014 @05:19PM

mdsolar writes: Just over half of the 183 nuclear missile launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in a widening exam cheating scandal, the Air Force said on Thursday, acknowledging it had "systemic" problem within its ranks.

The cheating was discovered during an investigation into illegal drug possession among airmen, when test answers were found in a text message on one missile launch officer's cell phone. The Air Force initially said 34 officers either knew about the cheating or cheated themselves.

But Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a Pentagon news conference on Thursday that the total number of implicated officers had grown to 92, all of them at Malmstrom, one of three nuclear missile wings overseeing America's 450 inter-continental missiles, or ICBMs.

Startup Out of MIT Promises Digital Afterlife — Just Hand Over Your Data 241

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @04:50PM from the ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-nsa dept.

v3rgEz writes "A new startup out of MIT offers early adopters a chance at the afterlife, of sorts: It promises to build an AI representation of the dearly departed based on chat logs, email, Facebook, and other digital exhaust generated over the years. "Eterni.me generates a virtual YOU, an avatar that emulates your personality and can interact with, and offer information and advice to your family and friends after you pass away," the team promises. But can a chat bot plus big data really produce anything beyond a creepy, awkward facsimile?"

Submission + - Lego ECTO-1 wins Fall 2013 CUUSO Competion (youtube.com)

Submitted by omnipotus on Thursday January 30, 2014 @04:10PM

omnipotus writes: It's official: The Ghostbusters' ECTO-1 will be coming to Lego store shelves in 2014. Australian Brent Waller's winning CUUSO submission, Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Concept, will net him 1% of total sales. The release date and price are still TBD.

LibreOffice 4.2 Busts Out GPU Mantle Support and Corporate IT Integration 192

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @04:07PM from the when-free-is-valuable dept.

Billly Gates points to this basic summary of the features of the recently released LibreOffice 2.4, writing: "In catching up with MS Office, the new LibreOffice 4.2 now has full Windows 7/8 integration including Aero peek, 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." Read on for some more details about the release, including some information about support for AMD's Mantle CPU acceleration support.

Submission + - GitHub Launches Bug Bounty Program, Offers Between $100 And $5,000

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2014 @04:00PM

An anonymous reader writes: GitHub today launched the GitHub Bug Bounty program "to better engage with security researchers." In short, the company will pay between $100 and $5,000 for each security vulnerability discovered and responsibly disclosed by hackers. The program currently covers the GitHub API, GitHub Gist, and GitHub.com. GitHub says its other Web properties and applications are not part of the program, but it says vulnerabilities found “may receive a cash reward at our discretion.”

Submission + - Sniffmap : 80% of the Internet is captured by NSA and allies

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 30, 2014 @03:52PM

An anonymous reader writes: Sniffmap is a project to map the potential Internet mass interception performed by NSA and its allies. As stated in the fateful NSA document, many telecommunication links go through USA and its allies to connect to other countries. To create the dataset, it was detected each time an internet route between two IP addresses passes by an NSA controlled country and therefore can be considered as intercepted. Around 80% of the Internet is captured by NSA and allies.

IE Drops To Single-Digit Market Share 390

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @03:27PM from the but-high-in-the-single-digits dept.

New submitter fplatten writes "I think this is all you need to see to know what legacy Steve Ballmer has left at Microsoft, where its IE browser market share has collapsed from a high of 86% in 2002 to just 9% now. I guess this is just another in a long list of tech companies that failed to maintain its dominant market share. Also, IE may be the one product that never really deserved it, but just piggybacked on Windows, and users left in droves once decent (more secure) alternatives and standards became popular." Microsoft stockholders probably don't feel too badly about the Ballmer legacy overall, though -- browser choice is a pretty small arm of the octopus.

Submission + - IE drops to single digit market share

Submitted by fplatten on Thursday January 30, 2014 @02:48PM

fplatten writes: I think this is all you need to see to know what legacy Steve Ballmer has left at Microsoft where it's IE browser market share has collapsed from a high of 86% in 2002 to just 9% now. I guess this is just another in a long list of tech companies that failed to maintain it's dominant market share. Also, IE may be the one product that never really deserved it, but just piggybacked on Windows and users left in droves once decent (more secure) alternatives and standards became popular.

The App That Tracks Who's Tracking You 52

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 30, 2014 @02:45PM from the perfect-disguise-for-a-backdoor dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "It's no secret that apps like maps or local weather know your current location, and you're probably cool with that because you want to use the handy services they provide in exchange. But chances are there are many other apps on your phone, anything from dictionaries to games, that are also geolocating your every move without your knowledge or permission. Now researchers are developing a new app to police these smartphone spies, by tracking which apps are secretly tracking you, and warning you about it. Before your eyes glaze over at the mention of yet another privacy tool, it's worth noting that this new app is the first to be able to provide this line of defense between snooping apps and smartphone users for Android phones. Android's operating system is engineered not to allow apps to access information about other apps. But a team at Rutgers University found a way around that, by leveraging a function of Android's API to send a signal whenever an app requests location information from the operating system. MIT Technology Review reported on the research today."

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