Comment WTF with this headline? (Score 1) 232
It should say it's about laptops right in the headline. I came here outraged believing media companies are ditching 16:9 aspect ratio in media and replacing it with square or portrait.
Submission + - US Natural Gas Plant and Pipelines Shut After Ransomware Attack (infosecurity-magazine.com)
Garabito writes: The Department of Homeland Security has revealed that an unnamed US natural gas compression facility was forced to shut down operations for two days after becoming infected with ransomware.
The plant was targeted with a phishing e-mail, that allowed the attacker to access its IT network and then pivot to its OT (control) network, where it compromised Windows PCs used as human machine interface (HMI), data historians and polling servers, which led the plant operator to shut it down along with other assets that depended on it, including pipelines.
According to the DHS CISA report, the victim failed to implement robust segmentation between the IT and OT networks, which allowed the adversary to traverse the IT-OT boundary and disable assets on both networks.
The plant was targeted with a phishing e-mail, that allowed the attacker to access its IT network and then pivot to its OT (control) network, where it compromised Windows PCs used as human machine interface (HMI), data historians and polling servers, which led the plant operator to shut it down along with other assets that depended on it, including pipelines.
According to the DHS CISA report, the victim failed to implement robust segmentation between the IT and OT networks, which allowed the adversary to traverse the IT-OT boundary and disable assets on both networks.
Submission + - New ransomware targets Industrial Control Systems (arstechnica.com)
Garabito writes: Ekans, a ransomware strain discovered last month contains the usual code for disabling data backups and mass-encrypting files on infected systems. But researchers at security firm Dragos found something else: code that actively seeks out and forcibly stops applications used in industrial control systems. Before starting file-encryption operations, the ransomware kills processes listed by process name in a hard-coded list within the encoded strings of the malware. These include: human-machine interfaces from Honeywell, Proficy Historian from General Electric, and licensing servers from GE Fanuc.
The targeted applications are used in industrial environments to monitor and control their processes and machines, and to historize process data. Having them down means a plant shutdown. This can also affect critical infrastructure, like power plants.
The targeted applications are used in industrial environments to monitor and control their processes and machines, and to historize process data. Having them down means a plant shutdown. This can also affect critical infrastructure, like power plants.
Comment Re: Stock (Score 1) 230
The Technology Connections guy?
I was going to reply the parent poster exactly that.
We nerd guys are so predictible...
[unfathomably smooth jazz]
Comment Re:Read the transcript (Score 1) 279
God, I had never heard or read anybody bragging like this about his home theater setup.
Quoting from the transcript:
The first projector I had, which I am calling a VPH1270Q, which was a three CRT projector, was in my theater screening room, and I had the best screening room on the East Coast. Spielberg, I call him Speily, used to come up and watch movies. It was a double system 35mm projector screening room.
It had its own separate projection booth, and the 1270Q was in that room. When we sold that to first Roy Furman [who later sold it to] Harvey Weinstein, both men bought it for the screening room. Not because it had a view of England, but because of the screening room. It had curved walls. It was extraordinary.
Submission + - The Growing Need For Human Robot-Minders Could Juice the Remote Workforce (wsj.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Across industries, engineers are building atop work done a generation ago by designers of military drones. Whether it’s terrestrial delivery robots, flying delivery drones, office-patrolling security robots, inventory-checking robots in grocery stores or remotely piloted cars and trucks, the machines that were supposed to revolutionize everything by operating autonomously turn out to require, at the very least, humans minding them from afar. Until the techno-utopian dream of full automation comes into effect—and frankly, there’s no guarantee that will ever happen—there will be plenty of jobs for humans, just not ones their parents would recognize. Whether the humans in charge are in the same city or thousands of miles away, the proliferation of not-yet-autonomous technologies is driving a tiny but rapidly growing workforce.
Companies working with remote-controlled robots know there are risks, and try to mitigate themin a few ways. Some choose only to operate slow-moving machines in simple environments—as in Postmates’s sidewalk delivery—so that even the worst disaster isn’t all that bad. More advanced systems require “human supervisory control,” where the robot or vehicle’s onboard AI does the basic piloting but the human gives the machine navigational instructions and other feedback. Prof. Cummings says this technique is safer than actual remote operation, since safety isn’t dependent on a perfect wireless connection or a perfectly alert human operator. For every company currently working on self-driving cars, almost every state mandates they must either have a safety driver present in the vehicle or be able to control it from afar. Guidelines from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggest the same. Phantom Auto is betting the shift to remote operation might become an important means of employment for people who used to drive for a living.
Companies working with remote-controlled robots know there are risks, and try to mitigate themin a few ways. Some choose only to operate slow-moving machines in simple environments—as in Postmates’s sidewalk delivery—so that even the worst disaster isn’t all that bad. More advanced systems require “human supervisory control,” where the robot or vehicle’s onboard AI does the basic piloting but the human gives the machine navigational instructions and other feedback. Prof. Cummings says this technique is safer than actual remote operation, since safety isn’t dependent on a perfect wireless connection or a perfectly alert human operator. For every company currently working on self-driving cars, almost every state mandates they must either have a safety driver present in the vehicle or be able to control it from afar. Guidelines from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggest the same. Phantom Auto is betting the shift to remote operation might become an important means of employment for people who used to drive for a living.
Submission + - Richard Stallman gave talk at Microsoft Campus (zdnet.com)
Garabito writes: Free Software advocate Richard M. Stallman gave a talk at Microsoft Campus yesterday. Stallman was invited by Microsoft Research.
Stallman's talk was related (as most of his talks) with Free Software, Privacy and the GPLv3. He also had a list of small requests to Microsoft: "make Github push users to better software license hygiene, make hardware manufactors to publish their hardware specs, make it easier to workaround Secure Boot."
While Microsoft has changed its attitude toward Open Source Software in the last years, this does not mean RMS has made peace with Microsoft: "If you're wondering whether Stallman's distaste for Microsoft has lessened over the years, his personal home page makes it clear that it has not".
Stallman's talk was related (as most of his talks) with Free Software, Privacy and the GPLv3. He also had a list of small requests to Microsoft: "make Github push users to better software license hygiene, make hardware manufactors to publish their hardware specs, make it easier to workaround Secure Boot."
While Microsoft has changed its attitude toward Open Source Software in the last years, this does not mean RMS has made peace with Microsoft: "If you're wondering whether Stallman's distaste for Microsoft has lessened over the years, his personal home page makes it clear that it has not".
Submission + - Google's 'two-tier' workforce (theguardian.com)
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.
Comment Sunny Cove? (Score 1) 90
No more lakes then?
What's next? Cloudy, Rainy and Foggy Cove?
Comment Re: Translation (Score 1) 80
Replaceable batteries : This is a no brainer.
And yet, big Android manufacturers are going the Apple way on this one. First Samsung, now LG. It seems like customers don't really care.
Comment Horseless cars must accept horse harness (Score 1) 506
.. So that real horses can take "immediate physical traction" of the vehicle if necessary.
Comment I don't believe in imaginary property (Score 2) 273
"I don't believe in imaginary property" was a popular anti-IP catchphrase here on Slashdot. It seems like it could apply here too.
Submission + - Fluke Donates Real Multimeters to SparkFun as goodwill gesture (facebook.com)
Actually, I do RTFA writes: We recently heard about the confiscation of a delivery of multimeters to SparkFun for infringing on Fluke's trademark. One common thread in the discussions was the theme that Fluke should have let that shipment through ("lawyers" argued about the legal ramifications of it) as a goodwill gesture to SparkFun and the Maker community. Well, Fluke did one better. They announced they were sending more than $30k worth of official multimeters to SparkFun for them to do whatever they want with.
SparkFun is most likely going to give them away.
A great example of win-win-win?
SparkFun is most likely going to give them away.
A great example of win-win-win?
Submission + - The Rise and Fall of Australia's $44 Billion Broadband Project (ieee.org)
Garabito writes: "In April 2009, Australia’s then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, dropped a bombshell on the press and the global technology community: His social democrat Labor administration was going to deliver broadband Internet to every single resident of Australia. It was an audacious goal, not least of all because Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on Earth.
(..)
So now, after three years of planning and construction, during which workers connected some 210 000 premises (out of an anticipated 13.2 million), Australia’s visionary and trailblazing initiative is at a crossroads. The new government plans to deploy fiber only to the premises of new housing developments. For the remaining homes and businesses—about 71 percent—it will bring fiber only as far as curbside cabinets, called nodes. Existing copper-wire pairs will cover the so-called last mile to individual buildings."
(..)
So now, after three years of planning and construction, during which workers connected some 210 000 premises (out of an anticipated 13.2 million), Australia’s visionary and trailblazing initiative is at a crossroads. The new government plans to deploy fiber only to the premises of new housing developments. For the remaining homes and businesses—about 71 percent—it will bring fiber only as far as curbside cabinets, called nodes. Existing copper-wire pairs will cover the so-called last mile to individual buildings."
Submission + - The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone (osnews.com)
Jah-Wren Ryel writes: Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems. Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS, PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything related to radio. So, we have a complete operating system, running on an ARM processor, without any exploit mitigation (or only very little of it), which automatically trusts every instruction, piece of code, or data it receives from the base station you're connected to. What could possibly go wrong?
