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Submission + - Compiling my own SPARC CPU in a cheap FPGA board (www.thanassis.space)

Submitted by ttsiod
ttsiod writes: After reading an interesting article from an NVIDIA Engineer, about how he used a dirt-cheap FPGA board to code a real-time ray-tracer, I got my hands on the same board — and "compiled" a dual-core SPARC-compatible CPU inside it... basically, the same kind of design we fly in the European Space Agency's satellites.

I decided to document the process, since there's not much material of that kind available. I hope it will be an interesting read for my fellow Slashdotters — showcasing the trials and tribulations faced by those who prefer the Open-Source ways of doing things... Just read it and you'll see what I mean.

Submission + - The Most Important Right-To-Repair Hearing Yet Is On Monday (vice.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Monday, the right-to-repair movement will have its best chance at advancing legislation that would make it easier to repair your gadgets. The Massachusetts state legislature is holding a three-hour hearing on the Digital Right to Repair act, a bill that would require electronics manufacturers to sell repair parts and tools, make repair guides available, and would prevent them from using software to artificially prevent repair.

So far this year, 19 other states have considered similar legislation. It hasn’t passed in any of them. But Massachusetts is one of the most likely states to pass the legislation, for a few different reasons. Most notably, the legislation is modeled on a law passed unanimously in Massachusetts in 2012 that won independent auto shops the right to repair, meaning lawmakers there are familiar with the legislation and the benefits that it has had for auto repair shops not just in Massachusetts but around the country. Crucially, important legislative hurdles have already been cleared in the state: Both the House and Senate bills are identical and has broad support from both Democrats and Republicans in the legislature. The hearing is going to be held in the Gardner Auditorium, which holds 600 people, making this the largest and highest-profile hearing on the topic in any state thus far.

Submission + - Facebook defends itself against op-ed calling for its breakup (theverge.com)

Submitted by soldersold
soldersold writes: On Thursday, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the company to be broken up, saying that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s “focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks,” and that he should be held accountable for his company’s mistakes.

Now, Facebook has responded an op-ed of its own, saying that its size isn’t the real problem and that its success as a platform shouldn’t be punished.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Blocking Encryption Of Files/Backups 2

Submitted by CaptainDork
CaptainDork writes: I'm a retired IT guy and ransomware was not a huge thing 3-5 years ago (at least few victims were self-reporting) and I'm very curious about protection schemes. In my, now ancient, world we did not encrypt anything — anywhere. Seems to me the trick would be to mark certain places as "unencryptable," similar to long-time attributes like "hidden," "system," "read-only," ect.

Do solutions exist that would mark local data folders and backup drives as "unencryptable," and if not, do you think it could be done? If so, how?

Submission + - New Intel Firmware Boot Verification Bypass Enables Low-Level Backdoors (csoonline.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: At the Hack in the Box conference in Amsterdam this week, researchers Peter Bosch and Trammell Hudson presented a new attack against the Boot Guard feature of Intel's reference UEFI implementation, Tianocore. The attack, which can give an attacker full, persistent access, involves replacing a PC's SPI flash chip with one that contains rogue code, reports Lucian Constantin for CSO. 'Even though such physical attacks require a targeted approach and will never be a widespread threat, they can pose a serious risk to businesses and users who have access to valuable information,' writes Constantin. Intel has patches available for Tianocore, but as we all remember from the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities, distributing UEFI patches isn't an easy process.
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Submission + - Twitter-shaming can cost you your job - whether you're giving or receiving (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes: "Hoping to strike a blow against sexism in the tech industry, developer and tech evangelist Adria Richards took to Twitter to complain about two male developers swapping purportedly offensive jokes at PyCon. The decision has set into motion a chain of events that illustrate the impact a tweet or two can make in this age of social networking: One the developers and Richards have since lost their jobs, and even the chair of PyCon has been harassed for his minor role in the incident."

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