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Comment The Big, Bad Wolf (Score 3, Informative) 55

by dotslashit (#46263079) Attached to: Google Acquires Israeli Security Startup SlickLogin
"Goodness, what big eyes you have!" "The better to see you with, my dear." SlickLogin's technology uses a combination of protocols to start the authentication process. WiFi, Bluetooth, or QR codes – to name a few – are used to verify that, yes, a user's smartphone is located somewhat near one's active desktop or laptop computer. Use this and Google will be able to identify and tie your id with both your computer and your smartphone ... It's all about whoring the online you to their advertisers.

Submission + - Woman arrested after not returning movie she rented 9-years prior (intellihub.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Could you imagine being arrested for failing to return a movie you renter 9-years earlier? Well that’s just what happened to one South Carolina woman recently

Staff Writer

PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. (INTELLIHUB) — “Failure to return rented movie or cassette” is what the warrant said, after Kayla Finley found out when filing some paperwork with the city herself. Finley, 27, was arrested while down at the city office reporting a “crime”–that’s when reports say the police told her what she was being arrested for.

Submission + - Study Confirms Internet Trolls Are Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Sadistic

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Chris Mooney reports at Slate that research conducted by Erin Buckels of the University of Manitoba confirmed that people who engage in internet trolling are characterized by personality traits that fall in the so-called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), psychopathy (the lack of remorse and empathy), and sadism (pleasure in the suffering of others). In the study, trolls were identified in a variety of ways. One was by simply asking survey participants what they “enjoyed doing most” when on online comment sites, offering five options: “debating issues that are important to you,” “chatting with others,” “making new friends,” “trolling others,” and “other.” The study recruited participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk website and two measures of sadistic personality were administered (PDF): the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale and the Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies Scale. Only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed “trolling.” By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were “non-commenters,” meaning they didn’t like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users. Overall, the authors found that the relationship between sadism and trolling was the strongest, and that indeed, sadists appear to troll because they find it pleasurable. “Both trolls and sadists feel sadistic glee at the distress of others. Sadists just want to have fun ... and the Internet is their playground!” The study comes as websites are increasingly weighing steps to rein in trollish behavior but the study authors aren't sure that fix is a realistic one. “Because the behaviors are intrinsically motivating for sadists, comment moderators will likely have a difficult time curbing trolling with punishments (e.g., banning users),” says Buckels. “Ultimately, the allure of trolling may be too strong for sadists, who presumably have limited opportunities to express their sadistic interests in a socially-desirable manner.” Perhaps posting rights should only be unlocked if you pass a test.

Submission + - Google's Definition of 'Open' (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of Android's biggest draws is its roots in open source. It enables a broad range of device manufacturers to work from the same code base, and provides app developers with more insight into the platform they're building on. But openness isn't a binary condition — there are many shades of gray. While Android is technically very open, from a practical standpoint it's much more difficult for device makers to distance themselves from Google, if that's their preference. 'Phone manufacturers and carriers that want to use Google's services must conform to Google's device standards, a stricter requirement than what basic AOSP requires. For some, this is a catch. For others, it's merely the cost of doing business. ... [Dianne Hackborn, one of Android's tech leads,] defends Google's right to include proprietary services, and to keep them proprietary, saying that its no different than any other proprietary app on Android. That's not entirely true, since Google does keep some API development to itself, but to its credit the company does open-source most of the new APIs introduced to Android.'

Submission + - Police use WhatsApp for surveillance operations, share intel with civilian.

Submitted by TheP4st
TheP4st writes: A group of Swedish police officers thought it a good idea to use WhatsApp as a work tool for surveillance operations, the officer that set up their chat group mistyped one of the phone numbers to mistakenly include a civilian IT teacher. Once the teacher informed authorities about the mistake it took more than 24 hours before he stopped receiving sensitive case information that included criminal records excerpts, passport photos and communications between surveillance teams tailing suspects.

When confronted by Computer Sweden (article in Swedish) the officer responsible for setting up the group say "I know this server is not located in Sweden and that one cannot share every kind of information" Yet it took less than an hour from that the group were set up that the teacher started getting sensitive intel on suspects. The only mobile chat medium approved for sensitive information is Blackberry, and this initiative by a small group of officers happened as they do not have access to Blackberry handsets which are considered too expensive.

Article in English

Submission + - NSF Report Flawed; Americans Do Not Believe Astrology is Scientific (neoacademic.com) 1

Submitted by RichDiesal
RichDiesal writes: A new report from the National Science Foundation, reported a few days ago right here on Slashdot, states that roughly 40% of Americans believe astrology to be scientific. But this is in fact false; most of those apparently astrology-loving Americans have actually confused astrology with astronomy. In a 100-person Mechanical Turk study with a $5 research budget, I verified this by actually asking people to define astrology. Among those that correctly defined astrology, only 10% believe it to be scientific; among those that confused astrology for astronomy, 92% believe "astrology" to be scientific. Apparently US science education is not so far behind the Chinese after all.

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