Comment Re:Almost Exclusive (Score 1) 232
Who is this article about, again? Me, or Linus?
FISA Court Will Release More Opinions Because of Snowden 179
cold fjord sends this news from the Washington Post:
"Call it the Edward Snowden effect: Citing the former NSA contractor, a federal judge has ordered the government to declassify more reports from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. In an opinion from the FISC itself, Judge F. Dennis Saylor on Friday told the White House to declassify all the legal opinions relating to Section 215 of the Patriot Act written after May 2011 that aren't already the subject of FOIA litigation. The court ruled (PDF) that the White House must identify the opinions in question by Oct. 4. 'The unauthorized disclosure of in June 2013 of a Section 215 order, and government statements in response to that disclosure, have engendered considerable public interest and debate about Section 215,' wrote Saylor. 'Publication of FISC opinions relating to this opinion would contribute to an informed debate.' The ruling comes in response to a petition by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking greater government transparency. But because the ACLU already has a similar FOIA case pending in another court, Saylor wrote that the new FISC order can only cover documents that don't relate to that case."
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Snowden's information leaks started conversations that should have happened a long time ago. Also, the privacy reform panel created by President Obama met for the first time earlier this week. It did not discuss the NSA's surveillance activities. [Two attendees of the Monday meeting said the discussion was dominated by the interests of major technology firms, and the session did not address making any substantive changes to the controversial mass collection of Americans' phone data and foreigners' internet communications, which can include conversations with Americans."
Comment I'm ashamed to be an American right now (Score 1) 706
Common sense is totally dead in this country.
Student Arrested For Using Phone App To 'Shoot' Classmates 706
New submitter Lord_Breetai sends word that a Louisiana high school student has been arrested for using a mobile app to simulate shooting his classmates. The app overlays an FPS-style gun and UI over a real background seen through the device's camera. The student tried it out and then unwisely posted a video of it on YouTube. Another student's parent saw the video and reported it to authorities. Major Wolfe of the local police said, "You can't ignore it. We don't know at what time that game becomes reality. He said it was a result of him being frustrated and tired of being bullied. He said that he had no intentions of hurting anybody. We have to take all threats seriously and we have no way of knowing that without investigating and getting to the bottom of it. With all the school shooting we've had in the United States, it's just not a very good game to be playing at this time." The boy is now facing criminal charges for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school.
Comment Re:So, if we can mobilize to get a tax break (Score 1) 122
Because it won't work.
You can't wish a flood away, no more than you can wish the sky to be green.
The world is a global marketplace and there is nothing you can do to stop someone in India offering their services at a lower price than you.
Comment Migrated my company from XP in 2008 (Score 3, Interesting) 246
To Linux. We have been 100% Linux since then - not a single Microsoft machine in the entire operation. And yes, we do get threatening letters from the BSA every year...
Comment Re:Vaporize or ionize? (Score 1) 272
Ionization is not what it's talking about either. But, lesson learned - don't try and be all 'sciency' and use the wrong jargon.
Comment Re:Bad science (Score 1) 272
It's not bad science, because it's not science at all.
Comment Excuse me? (Score 1) 272
"First, consider the true vaporization â" the complete separation of all atoms within a molecule"
That's not what vaporization is.
Comment Re:Would DFT / scan catch this? (Score 1) 166
I doubt they have diagnostic coverage of every single flop in the entire processor.
NYC Is Tracking RFID Toll Collection Tags All Over the City 314
In the northeast U.S., most of the tolls people encounter when driving make use of a system called E-ZPass to let them pay the tolls electronically. Drivers are given small RFID transponders that are scanned in tollbooths, at which point the toll is automatically deducted from a pre-paid account. One hacker got curious whether the RFID tags were being scanned elsewhere, so he tweaked his E-ZPass to blink a light and make a noise every time it was read. He tested the streets of New York City, and wasn't surprised to see it light up in plenty of places where there were no tollbooths to be found. From the article:
"It’s part of Midtown in Motion, an initiative to feed information from lots of sensors into New York’s traffic management center. A spokesperson for the New York Department of Transportation, Scott Gastel, says the E-Z Pass readers are on highways across the city, and on streets in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island, and have been in use for years. The city uses the data from the readers to provide real-time traffic information, as for this tool. The DoT was not forthcoming about what exactly was read from the passes or how long geolocation information from the passes was kept. Notably, the fact that E-ZPasses will be used as a tracking device outside of toll payment, is not disclosed anywhere that I could see in the terms and conditions. When I talked to the E-ZPass Inter-agency Group — the umbrella association that oversees the use of the pay-toll-paying tags in 15 different states — it said New York is the only state that is employing this inventive re-use of the tags. ... 'If NYDOT can put up readers, says [the hacker], 'other agencies could as well.'"
Comment Almost Exclusive (Score 1) 232
When an HDD fails, you can still get the data off of it. It's expensive, but it can be done.
When an SSD fails, it seems that more often than not your data just disappears. I think this is why the industry is moving towards only using SSDs for caching to platter drives, because honestly I don't believe SSDs will ever be reliable enough for critical storage.
Comment Re:Welcome to how SSDs fail. (Score 1) 552
Stop buying OCZ SSDs.
Comment Confusing marketing (Score 0) 201
"The idea is that Android tablet manufacturers will use the Seagate drive, along with the company's mobile enablement kit and caching software, to up the storage."
They will use the "enablement kit" to "up the storage." Does that mean it's not really 500GB, but some smaller capacity that is made to be 500GB through software?
Maybe they just licensed DBLSPACE.BIN from Microsoft?
Comment Constitution does not protect third parties (Score 1) 452
You have a right against self-incrimination. You have no right against being incriminated by others, or against incriminating others. If you possess material facts and evidence that would incriminate someone else in a trial, you can be compelled to give it up, and nothing in the constitution prevents it.
There are some legal exceptions that have been carved out over time that do offer protections in some circumstances, for example Attorney-Client Privilege, Doctor-Patient Privilege, Spousal Privilege, and so on.
The case here is pretty clear cut. There is nothing journalistic about acting as an avenue for the commission of a crime. You are not writing a story or documenting anything - you are an accessory to a felony.
