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Comment Re:Specific apps? (Score 1) 219

Yes and no. It's true that Linux lacks built-in ransomware protection. But it also doesn't have the Windows problem of privilege-escalation or lots of insecure system processes for the ransomware to exploit in the first place. In Linux marking something by superuser as read-only is probably sufficient protection against the current crop of attacks.

Comment Makes you wonder... (Score 1) 187

Why they continue to bother? If DRM is broken so quickly and so easily for the vast majority of games, why would you use it? Especially if it will make the game worse by introducing glitches and annoying performance issues?

P.S. I'd be willing to bet that they crack Lords of the Fallen within the next week.

Comment Living up to it's name (Score 0) 174

I find it hard to get angry or excited or frustrated by environmental programs, in much the same way that I don't lose sleep over the inevitable heat-death of the universe. If there's one thing that Americans, (producers of most of the world's CO2 emissions) hate, it's "going green" (e.g. wearing sweaters in the winter, taking showers less than 10 minutes, turning lights off, and not buying Jeeps). Problem? Yes. Bigger problem? The rest of the world covets our "lifestyle" and has near 20x as many people. Just look at the mess China is making and they aren't even close to the emissions rate per capita of the U.S. (Though they are certainly headed in that direction). As for international agreements, yeah right, many American politicians are basically owned by the oil industry and the rest of the World isn't going to take "only the U.S. gets to pump CO2 in the air." Tragedy of the commons, really. My advice? Move inland, preferably north as well. I head Canada has a great beach climate, or at least will soon. Scotland and Sweden are also nice if you don't mind the respective haggis and socialism.

Comment Not a silver bullet, but a hold-over tactic (Score 5, Insightful) 293

If Fukashima has not occurred, we would be currently looking at a global uranium shortage in the next 5 years as existing major sources (re-purposing from old warheads) dry up and are not replaced with new mines.

Whenever production of power plants comes back on track, we will once again be facing such a shortage.

Yes there are limited reserves of uranium like everything else on the planet, but there is a lot more than 5 years... more like 200 according to this article. This is important because it buys us time to get technologies which are actually clean (looking at you, solar energy researchers) up to the speed of our current energy sources. Or find something else

United States

Submission + - US to deploy ballistic missile interceptors in response to NK threats

dcmcilrath writes: Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger, and Martin Fackler of the New York Times write:

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will spend $1 billion to deploy additional ballistic missile interceptors along the Pacific Coast to counter the growing reach of North Korea’s weapons, a decision accelerated by Pyongyang’s recent belligerence and indications that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is resisting China’s efforts to restrain him."

Full Article

Government

Submission + - Massive security breech at US Federal Government contractors site (gsa.gov)

dstates writes: SAM (Systems for Awards Management) is a financial management system that the US government requires all contractors and grantees to use. This system has recently been rolled out to replace the older CCR system. Last night, thousands of SAM users received the following message:

"Dear SAM user

The General Services Administration (GSA) recently has identified a security vulnerability in the System for Award Management (SAM), which is part of the cross-government Integrated Award Environment (IAE) managed by GSA. Registered SAM users with entity administrator rights and delegated entity registration rights had the ability to view any entity’s registration information, including both public and non-public data at all sensitivity levels."

From March 8 to 10, any registered user who searched the system could view confidential information including account and social security numbers for any other user of the system. Oops! The Government Services administration says that they have fixed the problem, but this is a serious black eye for the Fed.

The Internet

Submission + - This Story Stinks: Researchers Explain Why Trolls Win With Toxic Comments 2

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Web is a place for unlimited exchange of ideas but NPR reports that researchers have found that rude comments on articles can change the way we interpret the news. "It's a little bit like the Wild West. The trolls are winning," says Dominique Brossard, co-author of the study on the so-called "Nasty Effect." Researchers worked with a science writer to construct a balanced news story on the pros and cons of nanotechnology, a topic chosen so that readers would have to make sense of a complicated issue with low familiarity then asked 1,183 subjects to review the blog post from a Canadian newspaper that discussed the water contamination risks of nanosilver particles and the antibacterial benefits. Half saw the story with polite comments, and the other half saw rude comments like, "If you don't see the benefits of using nanotechnology in these products, you're an idiot." People that were exposed to the polite comments didn't change their views really about the issue covering the story, while the people that did see the rude comments became polarized — they became more against the technology that was covered in the story. We need to have an anchor to make sense of complicated issues says Brossard. "And it seems that rudeness and incivility is used as a mental shortcut to make sense of those complicated issues." Brossard says there's no quick fix for this issue (PDF) and while she thinks it's important to foster conversation through comments sections, every media organization has to figure out where to draw the line when comments get out of control. "It’s possible that the social norms in this brave new domain will change once more — with users shunning meanspirited attacks from posters hiding behind pseudonyms and cultivating civil debate instead," writes Broussard. "Until then, beware the nasty effect.""

Comment Re:Samesung should rush out a sWatch product (Score 1) 239

Even if Apple win's billions in compensation the fact is Samsung has created an empire suitable to dethrone Apple, which was Steve Jobs greatest fear, for Apple to become a runner up again.

Thank god for that, the last time Apple did something truly interesting was when they were a runner-up to Microsoft. I feel like being top dog is bad for just about any company. Look at the aforementioned Microsoft, they've been the OS leader for 20 years and haven't made anything nearly as good as the people desperately trying to compete (ex: Linux & Apple)

If Apple has to start trying again, it will make the market far more interesting, and probably better. Capitalism works best on fierce competition

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