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Submission + - Mozilla Claims Government Spyware Masquerading As Firefox

Submitted by twoheadedboy
twoheadedboy writes: Mozilla has sent British spyware pusher Gamma International a cease and desist letter, after a report showed how the surveillance software was being delivered under the guise of a Firefox executable. Gamma has come under fire in recent months after its spyware was found in use in countries with poor human rights records. Its FinSpy tool, which can infect smartphones and PCs, was seen in use in various nations run by apparently repressive regimes, including Bahrain, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam. Mozilla isn't happy about how that spyware is getting on users' machines, however. "As an open source project trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world, defending Mozilla’s trademarks from this abuse is vital to our brand, mission and continued success,” said Mozilla chief privacy officer Alex Fowler.

Comment Re:How about gloves? (Score 2) 632

by TrentTheThief (#43582433) Attached to: New Smart Gun Company Hopes To Begin Production This Summer

Probably not.

Unless a person is willing to become a Darwin Contestant, they won't use it. I sure as hell won't. Fingerprint biometrics are barely reliable in a lab situation. I can't imagine anyone putting up for this sort of crap going out to do some work. It's just more feel-good bullshit from someone who's never pulled the trigger for real.

Submission + - How NASA brought the Saturn-V F1 rocket engine back to life (arstechnica.com) 3

Submitted by Martin S.
Martin S. writes: How NASA Engineers have reverse engineered the F1 engine of a Saturn V launcher, because: every scrap of documentation produced during Project Apollo, including the design documents for the Saturn V and the F-1 engines, remains on file. If re-creating the F-1 engine were simply a matter of cribbing from some 1960s blueprints, NASA would have already done so. A typical design document for something like the F-1, though, was produced under intense deadline pressure and lacked even the barest forms of computerized design aids. Such a document simply cannot tell the entire story of the hardware. Each F-1 engine was uniquely built by hand, and each has its own undocumented quirks. In addition, the design process used in the 1960s was necessarily iterative: engineers would design a component, fabricate it, test it, and see how it performed. Then they would modify the design, build the new version, and test it again. This would continue until the design was "good enough."

Submission + - Isaac Asimov's Psychohistory Becoming A Reality? (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wired.com publishes an interesting interview with University of Connecticut Professor Peter Turchin about an emerging field in applied science named "Cliodynamics":
"In Issac Asimov’s classic science fiction saga Foundation, mathematics professor Hari Seldon predicts the future using what he calls psychohistory. Drawing on mathematical models that describe what happened in the past, he anticipates what will happen next, including the fall of the Galactic Empire.
That may seem like fanciful stuff. But Peter Turchin is turning himself into a real-life Hari Seldon — and he’s not alone.
Turchin — a professor at the University of Connecticut — is the driving force behind a field called “cliodynamics,” where scientists and mathematicians analyze history in the hopes of finding patterns they can then use to predict the future. It’s named after Clio, the Greek muse of history.[...]"
The bad news is that, according to these scientists early studies, it appears that "[...]the prognosis isn’t that far removed from the empire-crushing predictions laid down by Hari Seldon in the Foundation saga. Unless something changes, he says, we’re due for a wave of widespread violence in about 2020, including riots and terrorism.".

Submission + - Mozilla Stands Firm on Firefox Cookie Blocking, Despite Protests (ostatic.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has accusied Mozilla of "undermining American small business" with its plan to block advertising cookies by default in the Firefox browser. Fast-forward to today, and the pre-release version of Firefox version 22 does indeed proceed with the plan, which will make many users happy.

Submission + - North Korea Blamed for March Cyber Attacks on South (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: It may have taken a few weeks but the South has finally officially pointed the finger of blamed for the 20 March cyber attacks on banks and TV stations at Pyongyang. As tensions rise on the Korean peninsula, cyber attacks could become increasingly important, with the North looking to target critical infrastructure in the South which is one of the world's most connected countries. The same cannot be said of the North however....

Submission + - Spectrolab claims new world record solar cell efficiency (gizmag.com)

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes: Spectrolab, a Boeing subsidiary known for the manufacture of solar cells for satellites and spacecraft, has in recent years turned its attention to terrestrial solar cells to tap into the expanding alternative energy market. Now the California-based company has claimed a new solar cell efficiency record of 37.8 percent for a ground-based multi-junction cell without solar concentration.

Comment This is why rooftop voting will soon be popular (Score 1) 631

by TrentTheThief (#43401873) Attached to: No Such Thing As a Tax-Free Lunch At Google?

What a fucked up place. Long, long ago, I was a proponent of "My country, right or wrong."

As I grew older that changed to distaste and then disgust with home and foreign policies.

Of late, it's become a cancer eating at my soul. What the fuck happened to America?

When I went off to the military I was so damned naive that I wish I could bitch slap my younger self.

I am activating my ace in the hole, which is a dual-citizenship courtesy of my immigrant parents (yes, they arrived with residence visas in-hand and obtained green cards).

There's nothing here worth saving.

Comment Re:A lot of these ideas are overlooking one thing (Score 2) 115

by TrentTheThief (#43204451) Attached to: A Moon Base Made From Lunar Dust

It should be possible to remove the dust using static electricity. Back in the vinyl LP days, there were a couple of systems that used static electricty to make dust "jump" off an LP. Considering the system's cost and that it was a consumer product, there's probably "professional" version that does the job quite well.

Comment So, have all the Sci Fi fans dies=d? (Score 2) 115

by TrentTheThief (#43203455) Attached to: A Moon Base Made From Lunar Dust

Holy crap. There have been dozens of moon/asteroid/airless-planet habitat ideas published since the 40's. While not all of them were well reasoned and possible, a huge number of them were. All that was lacking when the stories were written was a way to get there and the material technology to build the damned things. Most of those issues were resolved decades back.

Don't hail the sintered dome idea a new, unless you want to be in the same category as people raving about "new and improved" dish detergent. The idea's already been written about. But then, so have most of the habitat ideas.

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