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Submission + - Debian Tries to Elect a Leader... Fails. (lwn.net)

Submitted by Seven Spirals
Seven Spirals writes: As with every Spring, the Debian folks hold an election for their leader. There is some discussion as to if the job will be filled at all due to lack of candidates. The submission deadline has been extended due to no applicants. Alternatives discussed include an AI bot as leader or simply letting leadership fall to the next administrative functionary in line. It's anyone's guess if their code of conduct changes or systemd flap has made it harder to recruit for the position.

Submission + - Europe Frightened By US Cloud Act, Fearing National Security Risks (sfgate.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Bloomberg reports that a foreign power with possible unbridled access to Europe's data is causing alarm in the region. No, it's not China. It's the U.S. Under the CLOUD act (or the "Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act",) all U.S. cloud service providers from Microsoft and IBM to Amazon — when ordered — have to provide American authorities data stored on their servers regardless of where it's housed. Some are drawing parallels between the legislation and the National Intelligence Law that China put in place in 2017, which the U.S. says is a tool for espionage — an act that the US was caught doing. "Because of the Cloud Act, the long arm of the American authorities reaches European citizens, contradicting all EU law," Dutch lawmaker Sophie in 't Veld at the European Parliament said. "Would the Americans accept it if the EU would grant itself extraterritorial jurisdiction on U.S. soil? And would the Commission also propose negotiations with Russia or China, if they would adopt their own Russian or Chinese Cloud Act?" France has been more vociferous in its opposition to the Cloud Act because its companies have borne the brunt of other extraterritorial U.S. laws. In 2014, BNP was slapped with an $8.97 billion U.S. fine for transactions with countries facing American sanctions, while American companies doing the same got a pass. China denies that its National Intelligence Law requires companies or individual to collect foreign countries' data, and the law does not contain any requirement for backdoors or decryption capability.

Submission + - SPAM: NYPD to Google: Stop revealing the location of police checkpoints 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The NYPD is calling on Google to yank a feature from its Waze traffic app that tips off drivers to police checkpoints warning it could be considered “criminal conduct,” according to a report on Wednesday.

The department sent a cease-and-desist letter over the weekend demanding Google disable the crowd-sourced app’s function that allows motorists to pinpoint police whereabouts, StreetsBlog reported.

“Individuals who post the locations of DWI checkpoints may be engaging in criminal conduct since such actions could be intentional attempts to prevent and/or impair the administration of the DWI laws and other relevant criminal and traffic laws,” wrote Acting Deputy Commissioner for Legal Matters Ann Prunty in the letter, according to the website.

My $0.02 is that the NYPD loses on first amendment grounds.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Google's 'two-tier' workforce (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Garabito
Garabito writes: A Google internal trainning document revealed how the company instructs employees on how to treat temp, vendor and contractor (TVC) workers. This includes: "not to reward certain workers with perks like T-shirts, invite them to all-hands meetings, or allow them to engage in professional development training"

"Working with TVCs and Googlers is different,” the training documentation, titled the The ABCs of TVCs, explains. “Our policies exist because TVC working arrangements can carry significant risks." The risks Google appears to be most concerned about include standard insider threats, like leaks of proprietary information, but also – and especially – the risk of being found to be a joint employer, a legal designation which could be exceedingly costly for Google in terms of benefits.

Submission + - Five-Eyes nations to force backdoors in encryption (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by Bismillah
Bismillah writes: Last week, officials from the Five-Eyes countries (US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand) issued a statement saying tech providers will have to come up with a way to provide lawful access to encrypted data, or else. How tech companies do it is up to them, but they will have to do it. Plus, uploads of illicit content must be prevented. If it can't be prevented, providers have to take such content with all haste.

Submission + - Jonathan Blow: "C++ is a weird mess" (gamesindustry.biz) 2

Submitted by slack_justyb
slack_justyb writes: Jonathan Blow, an independent video game developer, indicated to gamesindustry.biz that while working on a recent project he stopped and considered how miserable programming can be. After some reflection Blow came to the realization as to why. [C++ is a] "really terrible, terrible language."

The main flaw with C++, in Blow's opinion, is that it's a fiendishly complex and layered ecosystem that has becoming increasingly convoluted in its effort to solve different problems; the more layers, the higher the stack, the more wobbly it becomes, and the harder it is to understand.

Blow is the developer of two games so far. Braid and The Witness and developed a new programming language known as Jai in hopes to help C++ game developers become more productive.

With Jai, Blow hopes to achieve three things: improve the quality of life for the programmer because "we shouldn't be miserable like many of us are"; simplify the systems; and increase expressive power by allowing programmers to build a large amount of functionality with a small amount of code.

Is Blow correct? Has C++ become a horrific mess that we should ultimately relegate to the bins of COBOL and Pascal? Are there redeeming qualities of C++ that justify the tangle it has become? Is Jai a solution or just yet another programming language?

Submission + - Companies Are Annoyed By "Ghosting" 3

Submitted by NormalVisual
NormalVisual writes: This LinkedIn article talks about the rise of the phenomenon of "ghosting", where candidates drop all contact with the hiring company, leaving them to wonder what's going on. It'd be interesting to hear Slashdotters' experience with this — have you ever ghosted a potential employer, or perhaps more relevant, have you ever been ghosted by a potential employer during the hiring process? Do you feel it's unprofessional, or simple justice for the behavior of some companies when the balance of power was more on their side?

Submission + - How Chromebooks became the go-to laptops for security experts (cnet.com)

Submitted by mspohr
mspohr writes: "Heading to my first security conference last year, I expected to see a tricked-out laptop running on a virtual machine with a private network and security USB keys sticking out — perhaps something out of a scene from "Mr. Robot."

That's not what I got.

Everywhere I went I'd see small groups of people carrying Chromebooks, and they'd tell me that when heading into unknown territory it was their travel device.
  "Drewry and Liu focused on four key features for the Chromebook that have been available ever since the first iteration in 2010: sandboxing, verified boots, power washing and quick updates."

Submission + - Coping with Spectre and Meltdown: What sysadmins are doing

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: In technical terms, Spectre and Meltdown are a security pain in the butt. In day-to-day terms, though, they're a serious distraction. Before you left on the holiday break, after all, you had a nice sensible To Do list for the projects you wanted to tackle after the new year.

Ha ha ha.

Instead, sysadmins have spent their time trying to keep up with the nature of the problem and its fixes (will it REALLY slow down computers that much? how can you tell that to the users?), and apply patches. Or, more specifically:

Ron, an IT admin, summarizes the situation succinctly: “More like applied, applied another, removed, I think re-applied, I give up, and have no clue where I am anymore.”

Feel like you're alone? Here's what other sysadmins have done so far, as well as their current plans and long-term strategy, not to mention how to communicate progress to management.

Submission + - SPAM: Learning to Program is Getting Harder

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: While Google suggests that parents and educators are to blame for why kids can't code, Allen Downey argues that learning to program is getting harder. Downey writes: "The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers: 1) Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE — and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first. 2) User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first. 3) Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder." So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?

Submission + - Apple Rerouting Employee Shuttle Buses in San Franisco Due To Attacks (mashable.com)

Submitted by sqorbit
sqorbit writes: Apple runs shuttle buses for it's employees in San Francisco. It seems someone who is not happy with Apple has decided to take out their anger on these buses. In an email obtained by Mashable Apple states "Due to recent incidents of broken windows along the commute route, specifically on highway 280, we’re re-routing coaches for the time being. This change in routes could mean an additional 30-45 minutes of commute time in each direction for some riders." It has been reported that at least 4 buses have had windows broken, some speculating that it might caused by rubber bullets. This is not the first time Apple has had an issue with these shuttles. In 2014 activist blamed Apple for driving up rent costs in areas that Apple used city buses as employee transport.

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