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Submission + - CERN Open Sources Its KiCad Component Libraries

ewhac writes: CERN, a long-time Open Source pioneer, has made several contributions over the years to KiCad ("KEE-kad"), an Open Source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) package widely used in the hobbyist and professional electronics communities. It's gotten so widely used that users can now submit their KiCad design files directly to several electronics fabricators (rather than the traditional step of converting the layouts to Gerber files). Over the years, CERN have also developed their own symbol and footprint libraries to support their own internal electronic designs. Last week, CERN released those KiCad component libraries, containing over 17,000 symbols, under the CERN Open Hardware License (permissive version).

Comment eBay is Now eStop! (Score 1) 97

Welcome to the all-new eStop! We know you have concerns, so let us put them to rest straight away.

The site will not change. We respect the investment you've made in learning and navigating the site. However, if you're feeling curious or adventurous, feel free to check out our [new site design prototype]. (This design will become the default landing page in mid-2027; the old site UI will enter maintenance mode for only the most critical bugs.)

To thwart LLMs and other bots, new default limits on bidding have been imposed. Accounts may only bid on a given item no more frequently than once every 20 minutes. If your circumstances require more frequent bidding, have a look at our [eStop Pro Membership Plan] for only $9.95/month (billed annually; no pro-rated refunds), which will allow unlimited bidding frequency. And for members who want to have more than 20 items on sale simultaneously, take some time to review our [eStop Bulk Vendor Programs], charging only 25% of gross sales, or $3600/year + 20% of gross sales.

And to help with "doomscrolling" for that one specific thing you're looking for, we've also partnered with Anthrop\c and X's Grok to help curate your buying experience, surfacing the items most likely to interest you.

(All terms are subject to change without notice.)

Comment ISDN: It Still Does Nothing (Score 1) 95

(a/k/a Innovation Subscribers Don't Need)

It still amazes me that, as late as the 1990's, and well after 56kbit modems were prolific, ISDN was being offered up by the ILECs as "broadband," at metered rates that made Ma Bell's long distance charges look like spare change.

Happily, it wasn't too long before ISDN was put out of everyone's misery when DSL showed up. And now, finally, after fifty years of pissing about, fiber is finally being pulled to the premises.

If you really need ongoing ISDN support, you can pull the source code from an old Git commit and update it. But I feel quite comfortable in opining: ISDN support will not be missed.

Comment Re:How did they get initial access to the routers? (Score 2) 70

According to a Brian Krebs article, initial access to devices such as routers and TV boxes that are vulnerable on the LAN side of a NATed home internet connection is sometimes via 'free' smartphone games and apps that contain residential proxy software.

Some 'free' smartphone games and apps make money by allowing nefarious people to relay traffic through your home internet connection for things like fake social media accounts and credit card fraud but sometimes they also relay traffic to LAN ip addresses, typically 192.168.0.x, allowing hacking of devices that have default passwords, security holes in the crappy web interface, "Android Debug Bridge" enable and suchlike.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/20...

Comment A Surprising Result From This Crew (Score 1) 91

Given that the Roberts Court is one of the most corporate-friendly in history, this decision comes as something of a surprise.

Nonetheless, it appears to be largely concordant with the so-called "Betamax case" from the early 1980's which established the principle of significant non-infringing uses as a defense and, despite passage of the DMCA, still largely informs the contours of contributory infringement.

Comment hidden gotcha for people who avoid using a Microso (Score 4, Interesting) 114

There is a hidden gotcha for people who avoid using a Microsoft account to log in to a personal Windows machine.

It has become common for a new laptop to be supplied with bitlocker disk encryption enabled, without the user being aware.

If you log on using a Microsoft Account then the bitlocker key gets stored in the account. Microsoft can give the key to police or feds when they seize a laptop. If Windows stops booting for some reason, or the key gets erased from the TPM which is not uncommon, then to take the drive out of the computer and retrieve your files you need the key and you can get it from the Microsoft account.

If someone jumps through the hoops to avoid using a Microsoft account then later they can find they can't take the disk/ssd out and read it by connecting it to another computer. If the computer stops booting, they did not save the bitlocker key because they did not know the drive was encrypted and did not have an up to date backup then, oh no, they have permanently lost their files.

If Windows gets as far as reading the bitlocker key from the TPM chip (which happens before user log in), then sometimes it is possible to solder wires to the I2C bus, record the data with a hardware logic analyzer and spend a week customizing some software from github to extract the bitlocker key. If someone takes their personal windows laptop to a local computer shop or IT department then they almost certainly are not capable of that. Some models of laptop, intended for business, have a BIOS option to erase the TPM if opening of the laptop case is detected.

There is a security choice between:

1) Bitocker encryption and MS account: If my laptop gets lost or stolen then whoever has it will find it very difficult to access my files but Microsoft can prevent me logging in to my own computer, if I don't have access to the email I used for the Microsoft account or the Microsoft account password then I may loose my files later.

2) No disk encryption. Someone who steals or finds my laptop can access my files.

3) Bitlocker and windows login with an MS account. If you don't have backups and you didn't save the bitlocker key then you may be screwed later.

I hate Microsoft trying to force me to use a Microsoft account on a personal Windows laptop and I hate the boobytrap of bitlocker that you did not know was in use even more.

Comment Re:Where does the data live? (Score 4, Informative) 26

Thanks for your questions, Freenet caches data but it isn’t meant to be a long-term storage network. It’s better to think of it as a communication system. Data persists as long as at least one node remains subscribed to it. If nobody subscribes (including the author), it will eventually disappear from the network. So yes, if only your node subscribes then the data will only exist there and won’t be available when your machine is offline. But if other nodes subscribe it will be replicated automatically and remain available even if your node goes offline.

Submission + - New Freenet Network Launches With River Group Chat (freenet.org)

Sanity writes: Freenet’s new generation peer-to-peer network is now operational, along with the first application built on the network: a decentralized group chat system called River.

The new version is a complete redesign of the original project, focusing on real-time decentralized applications rather than static content distribution. Applications run as WebAssembly-based contracts across a small-world peer network, allowing software to operate directly on the network without centralized infrastructure.

An introductory video demonstrating the system is available on YouTube.

Slashdot previously covered the reboot of Freenet in 2023 in this article.

Submission + - Python `chardet` Package Replaced with LLM-Generated Clone, Re-Licensed

ewhac writes: The maintainers of the Python package `chardet`, which attempts to automatically detect the character encoding of a string, announced the release of version 7 this week, claming a speedup factor of 43x over version 6. In the release notes, the maintainers claim that version 7 is, "a ground-up, MIT-licensed rewrite of chardet." Problem: The putative "ground-up rewrite" is actually the result of running the existing copyrighted codebase and test suite through the Claude LLM. In so doing, the maintainers claim that v7 now represents a unique work of authorship, and therefore may be offered under a new license. Version 6 and earlier was licensed under the LGPL. Version 7 claims to be available under the MIT license.

The maintainers appear to be claiming that, under the Oracle v. Google decision which found that cloning public APIs is fair use, their v7 is a fair use re-implementation of the `chardet` public API. However, there is no evidence to suggest their re-write was under "clean room" conditions, which traditionally has shielded cloners from infringement suits. Further, the copyrightability of LLM output has yet to be settled. Recent court decisions seem to favor the view that LLM output is not copyrightable, as the output is not primarily the result of human creative expression — the endeavor copyright is intended to protect. Spirited discussion has ensued in issue #327 on `chardet`s GitHub repo, raising the question: Can copyrighted source code be laundered through an LLM and come out the other end as a fresh work of authorship, eligible for a new copyright, copyright holder, and license terms? If this is found to be so, it would allow malicious interests to completely strip-mine the Open Source commons, and then sell it back to the users without the community seeing a single dime.

Comment Yet Another Reason to Leave Discord (Score 1) 82

Sounds like Micros~1 doesn't want to deal with actual people, much less the consequences of their own boneheaded decisions.

Of course, if Discord had a backbone (and ethics), they would summarily remove the filters, and smack Micros~1 for making them look bad. And if Micros~1 gave them any back-talk about it, they could reply, "Well, it sounds like you should set up your own rules on your own globally accessible chat network. I hear you already have something along those lines. Something called... Teams, I think?. Knock yourselves out..."

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