114099556
submission
apoc.famine writes:
In a proposed change to the licensing of spaceflight operations, the FAA writes:
"This action would fundamentally change how the FAA licenses launches and reentries...by proposing a regulatory approach that relies on performance-based regulations rather than prescriptive regulations.....This action would also enable flexible timeframes, remove unnecessary ground safety regulations, redefine when launch begins to allow specified pre-flight operations prior to license approval, and allow applicants to seek a license to launch from multiple sites. This proposal would significantly streamline and simplify licensing of launch and reentry operations, would enable novel operations, and would result in net cost savings."
The proposal is out for public comment at the link provided. Numerous companies engaged in spaceflight operations (ULA, Boeing, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, etc.) have requested clarifications about what this proposal means. Concerns about public safety are understandably being voiced as well.
113587174
submission
reg writes:
A Windows security patch in June broke the display of many Windows Metafile graphics across all supported versions of Windows, resulting in many old PowerPoint files and Word documents not displaying figures, and graphics from some popular applications not displaying, including at least some ESRI GIS products and files created using the devEMF driver in R. This likely also impacts EMF files created with Open Source Office suites. While the problem can be fixed by recreating the files using a newer set of options, or resorting to using bitmaps, it means that presentations or documents that used to display perfectly no longer do. Microsoft promised a fix in July, but there is still no news of when it will be available.
113586014
submission
CaptainDork writes:
MSRC / By Simon Pope / August 13, 2019 / Patch, RCE, vulnerability, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Worm
Today Microsoft released a set of fixes for Remote Desktop Services that include two critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, CVE-2019-1181 and CVE-2019-1182. Like the previously-fixed ‘BlueKeep’ vulnerability (CVE-2019-0708), these two vulnerabilities are also ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits these could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer without user interaction.
The affected versions of Windows are Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and all supported versions of Windows 10, including server versions.
113561474
submission
AmiMoJo writes:
When Matheus Dominguez was 16, YouTube recommended a video that changed his life.
YouTube had recently installed a powerful new artificial intelligence system that learned from user behavior and paired videos with recommendations for others. One day, it directed him to an amateur guitar teacher named Nando Moura, who had gained a wide following by posting videos about heavy metal, video games and, most of all, politics. In colorful and paranoid far-right rants, Mr. Moura accused feminists, teachers and mainstream politicians of waging vast conspiracies. Mr. Dominguez was hooked.
As his time on the site grew, YouTube recommended videos from other far-right figures. Members of the nation’s newly empowered far right — from grass-roots organizers to federal lawmakers — say their movement would not have risen so far, so fast, without YouTube’s recommendation engine. New research has found they may be correct. YouTube’s search and recommendation system appears to have systematically diverted users to far-right and conspiracy channels in Brazil.
113533650
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Kotaku reports that Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf was streaming a Fortnite game late Sunday when he abruptly left his desk and abandoned the game with the livestream still running. The cause? His father coming to tell him that armed police were at the front door. Fortunately, Bugha returned unharmed to the stream several minutes later. "That was definitely a new one," he can be heard saying on a recording of the stream. "I got swatted." The comparatively quick and peaceful resolution of the issue was in part due to sheer good luck. "I was lucky because the one officer, yeah, he lives in our neighborhood," Bugha explained on the stream.
Bugha won $3 million for his first-place finish in the first-ever Fortnite World Cup in July and even appeared on The Tonight Show to talk about his win with host Jimmy Fallon. He is also all of 16 years old, and so a threat against him also involved his parents, whose personal information may have been easy to find. "Swatting" occurs when someone places a hoax emergency call to a police department, hoping to mobilize an emergency response (i.e., a SWAT team) to the victim's home. Bugha was lucky in that the officers who responded to his address were of a mood to ask questions first.
113343702
submission
The Snazster writes:
Dark matter remains one of the universe's greatest mysteries, with no one quite certain what it is or where it came from, even though it may comprise as much as 80% of the universe (if ignoring the still hypothetical dark energy). A recent study at John Hopkins University is now suggesting that it may be older than the Big Bang itself, which would actually help explain why our previous searches for it have failed thus far. Although this is not a new idea, this is the first time the possibility has been described with calculations that seem to support it.
113317814
submission
trolman writes:
Brian Krebs states "Who Owns Your Wireless Service? Crooks Do."
If you are somehow under the impression that you — the customer — are in control over the security, privacy and integrity of your mobile phone service, think again. And you’d be forgiven if you assumed the major wireless carriers or federal regulators had their hands firmly on the wheel.
113285118
submission
AmiMoJo writes:
After two recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, President Trump said his administration would ask social media companies to develop tools that could detect potential mass shooters. While delivering a speech on the recent violence, Trump said “we must do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs,” and he suggested social media companies could develop new ways of catching “red flags.”
While the president did not specify what those “tools” might look like, Trump seemed to be suggesting that companies could use predictive software to single out potential shooters based on their activity on a platform. Crucially, this would mean taking action before a person commits violent crimes. Data-mining tools are in wide use, but creating a detection system for violence would inevitably raise a host of privacy and accountability issues.
113200852
submission
Tablizer writes:
SpaceFlightNow reported: "With the drill feed mechanism no longer reliably working, managers decided to keep the drill bit in its extended position. That raised concerns over the stability of the drill while in use because the prong-like extensions on each side of the bit will no longer be in contact with the rock.
“We had to do a big pivot in the mission thinking about how we could drill without the feed motor,” said Ashwin Vasavada, the Curiosity mission’s project scientist at JPL, in a presentation to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group in April.
Controllers devised a way to use force applied by the robotic arm to null out forces generated by the drill, a role the arm was never designed to fill.
Engineers used a replica of the Curiosity rover at JPL’s “Mars Yard” to test out the new drilling techniques, and the rover drilled a test hole in a rock on Mars in February. That test did not produce a scientifically useful rock sample — it used only the drill’s rotary mechanism, not its hammer-like percussion capability — but yielded important data for engineers to continue refining the updated drilling technique...
113141318
submission
popcornfan679 writes:
"When police partner with Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance camera company, they get access to the “Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal,” an interactive map that allows officers to request footage directly from camera owners. Police don’t need a warrant to request this footage, but they do need permission from camera owners.
Emails and documents obtained by Motherboard reveal that people aren’t always willing to provide police with their Ring camera footage. However, Ring works with law enforcement and gives them advice on how to persuade people to give them footage."
113072114
submission
stikves writes:
ANKARA (Reuters) — Turkey on Thursday granted its radio and television watchdog sweeping oversight over all online content, including streaming platforms like Netflix and online news outlets, in a move that raised concerns over possible censorship.
“The regulation granting RTUK the authority to censor the internet came into effect today... Soon, access to the Netflix platform or to news outlets broadcasting from abroad... could be blocked,” Akdeniz wrote on Twitter.
Critics have also voiced concerns that the move will allow the government to tighten its grip on media, which is largely under the influence of Erdogan and his AK Party.
Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights lawyer, said the move was the “biggest step in Turkish censorship history” and said all outlets producing opposition news would be affected.
113061428
submission
Artem S. Tashkinov writes:
Mathy Vanhoef and Eyal Ronen have recently disclosed two new additional bugs impacting WPA3. The security researched duo found the new bugs in the security recommendations the WiFi Alliance created for equipment vendors in order to mitigate the initial Dragonblood attacks. Just like the original Dragonblood vulnerabilities from April, these two new ones allow attackers to leak information from WPA3 cryptographic operations and brute-force a WiFi network's password.
On their webpage the researchers lamented that, "once again, it shows that privately creating security recommendations and standards is at best irresponsible and at worst inept".
113017756
submission
schwit1 writes:
SpaceX plans to build facilities at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A for launches and, eventually, landings of its next-generation launch vehicle, according to a newly released report.
An environment assessment prepared by SpaceX, and released by NASA Aug. 1, discusses plans to develop additional facilities at LC-39A, which currently hosts Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for use by the company’s Starship vehicle and its Super Heavy booster.
The plans outlined in the document call for the construction of a new launch mount at the complex near the existing one used by the Falcon 9 and Heavy. The modifications to the pad would also include a tank farm for the methane fuel used by the Raptor engines that power Starship and Super Heavy.
The Super Heavy booster would land at a ship in the ocean downrange from the launch site, although the report noted that SpaceX may later have the booster return to land. The Starship upper stage would initially land at the company’s existing Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the company plans to build a pad near the new launch mount at LC-39A for to support Starship landings at a future date.
The facilities will be able to support up to 24 Starship/Super Heavy launches a year.
112821830
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Apple has long performed like clockwork, growing steadily and producing an ever-growing stream of profit. Not anymore. On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley behemoth said that itsnet income had fallen 13 percentand that its revenue rose 1 percent in the latest quarter, with iPhone sales continuing to decline and gains in the company’s services and wearables business failing to make up the difference. The results showed persistent signs of weakness for one of the world’s financial standouts. Apple built its enormous business on the iPhone, but sales of the device have slipped for three straight quarters in a saturated market for smartphones. Yet the results also suggested that the company could be starting to halt declines in those sales and other key areas, including revenue from the Chinese market. Over the previous two quarters, Apple’s profits and revenue had fallen over all.
Apple said net income had dropped to $10.04 billion for its fiscal third quarter, from $11.5 billion a year earlier, with profit of $2.18 a share exceeding Wall Street estimates. Revenue rose to $53.8 billion from $53.3 billion a year earlier. In the latest quarter, revenue from iPhone sales fell nearly 12 percent, to $25.97 billion, from a year earlier. In the company’s previous quarter, iPhone sales fell 17 percent. For the first time since 2013, iPhone sales did not account for at least half of Apple’s revenue, said Yoram Wurmser, an analyst at the market-research firm eMarketer.
112820482
submission
SonicSpike writes:
The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to vote on the CASE Act, legislation that would create a brand new quasi-court for copyright infringement claims. We have expressed numerous concerns with the legislation, and serious problems inherent with the bill have not been remedied by Congress before moving it forward. In short, the bill would supercharge a “copyright troll” industry dedicated to filing as many “small claims” on as many Internet users as possible in order to make money through the bill’s statutory damages provisions. Every single person who uses the Internet and regularly interacts with copyrighted works (that’s everyone) should contact their Senators to oppose this bill.
Making it so easy to sue Internet users for allegedly infringing a copyrighted work that an infringement claim comes to resemble a traffic ticket is a terrible idea. This bill creates a situation where Internet users could easily be on the hook for multiple $5,000 copyright infringement judgments without many of the traditional legal safeguards or rights of appeal our justice system provides.
Proponents of the legislation argue that the bill’s cap on statutory damages in a new “small claims” tribunal will protect accused infringers. But the limits imposed by the CASE Act of $15,000 per work are far higher than the damages caps in most state small claims courts—and they don’t require any proof of harm or illicit profit. The Register of Copyrights would be free to raise that cap at any time. And the CASE Act would also remove a vital rule that protects Internet users – the registration precondition on statutory damages.
Today, someone who is going to sue a person for copyright infringement has to register their work with the Copyright Office before the infringement began, or within three months of first publication, in order to be entitled to statutory damages. Without a timely registration, violating someone’s copyright would only put an infringer on the hook for what the violation actually cost the copyright holder (called “actual damages”), or the infringer’s profits. This is a key protection for the public because copyright is ubiquitous: it automatically covers nearly every creative work from the moment it’s set down in tangible form. But not every scribble, snapshot, or notepad is eligible for statutory damages—only the ones that U.S. authors make a small effort to protect up front by filing for registration. But if Congress passes this bill, the timely registration requirement will no longer be a requirement for no-proof statutory damages of up to $7,500 per work. In other words, nearly every photo, video, or bit of text on the Internet can suddenly carry a $7,500 price tag if uploaded, downloaded, or shared even if the actual harm from that copying is nil.
For many Americans, where the median income is $57,652 per year, this $7,500 price tag for what has become regular Internet behavior would result in life-altering lawsuits from copyright trolls that will exploit this new law. That is what happens when you eliminate the processes that tend to ensure only a truly motivated copyright holder can obtain statutory damages.
