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Submission + - Despite statements to the contrary, Acer is still shipping PCs to Russia

Submitted by Required Snark
Required Snark writes: Acer Electronics is selling computers in Russia even though they claimed they would abide by the Taiwanese government's commitment to the international embargo on western technology. The sales are through their Swiss subsidiary Acer Sales International SA. This subterfuge means Acer's position is nominally true even while they are breaking the embargo. Neither Russian, Swiss or Taiwanese government officials would comment on the report.

Submission + - 10 Years After Snowden's First Leak, What Have We Learned? (theregister.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The world got a first glimpse into the US government's far-reaching surveillance of American citizens' communications – namely, their Verizon telephone calls – 10 years ago this week when Edward Snowden's initial leaks hit the press. [...] In the decade since then, "reformers have made real progress advancing the bipartisan notion that Americans' liberty and security are not mutually exclusive," [US Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)] said. "That has delivered tangible results: in 2015 Congress ended bulk collection of Americans' phone records by passing the USA Freedom Act." This bill sought to end the daily snooping into American's phone calls by forcing telcos to collect the records and make the Feds apply for the information.

That same month, a federal appeals court unanimously ruled that the NSA's phone-records surveillance program was unlawful. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the New York Civil Liberties Union sued to end the secret phone spying program, which had been approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, just days after Snowden disclosed its existence. "Once it was pushed out into open court, and the court was able to hear from two sides and not just one, the court held that the program was illegal," Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology project, told The Register. The Freedom Act also required the federal government to declassify and release "significant" opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and authorized the appointment of independent amici – friends of the court intended to provide an outside perspective. The FISC was established in 1978 under the FISA – the legislative instrument that allows warrantless snooping. And prior to the Freedom Act, this top-secret court only heard the government's perspective on things, like why the FBI and NSA should be allowed to scoop up private communications.

"To its credit, the government has engaged in reforms, and there's more transparency now that, on the one hand, has helped build back some trust that was lost, but also has made it easier to shine a light on surveillance misconduct that has happened since then," Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Security and Surveillance Project, told The Register. Wyden also pointed to the sunsetting of the "deeply flawed surveillance law," Section 215 of the Patriot Act, as another win for privacy and civil liberties. That law expired in March 2020 after Congress did not reauthorize it. "For years, the government relied on Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act to conduct a dragnet surveillance program that collected billions of phone records (Call Detail Records or CDR) documenting who a person called and for how long they called them – more than enough information for analysts to infer very personal details about a person, including who they have relationships with, and the private nature of those relationships," Electronic Frontier Foundation's Matthew Guariglia, Cindy Cohn and Andrew Crocker said.

Comment Re:The Model 3 starts at $40k (Score 1) 259

by BovineOne (#59736568) Attached to: Tesla Teardown Finds Electronics 6 Years Ahead of Toyota and VW

The base RWD available on their website is a Standard Range+ (SR+) that includes basic autopilot for $40k. The additional $7k is for full self-driving (FSD), which most people don't get much added benefit (besides Navigate-on-AP, parking assist, and summon) quite yet since the full FSD functionality is still pending release.

You can still order the off-menu Standard Range (SR) over the phone for $36.2k (up slightly from the original $35k), but that does not include even basic autopilot or traffic-aware cruise control. Although federal rebate for Teslas have been phased out, you can still get state rebates (depending on which state you live in) to bring that price down, possibly to $33k or lower.

I do agree that the article is wrong to say that the base price starts at $33k. Tesla has never claimed the Model 3 had a starting price lower than $35k.

Comment Re:Question (Score 3, Informative) 162

by BovineOne (#53540371) Attached to: Tesla Updates Autopilot To Make It Follow the Speed Limit On Roads

Each update must be acknowledged and scheduled for installation by the user, although theoretically there might be a backdoor way for them to remotely install updates without user consent. If you ever go a Tesla Service Center you'll need to remember to tell them not to install software updates for you (since they will commonly do that as a courtesy).

However, there will also be a point where features in the older software versions may no longer be supported and capabilities may degrade, particularly if Tesla's server-side communications specific to those older versions are discontinued, particularly around the navigation features. The Tesla Service Center may also say that they are logistically unable to fix or support some issues without upgrading to a current version.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to deal with persistent and incessant port scanner

Submitted by jetkins
jetkins writes: What would you do if your firewall was being persistently targeted by port scans from a specific group of machines from one particular company?

I run a Sophos UTM9 software firewall appliance on my home network. Works great, and the free Home Use license provides a bunch of really nice features normally only found on commercial-grade gear. One of those is the ability to detect, block, and report port scans, and under normal circumstances I only get the occasional alert when some script kiddie comes a-knocking at my door.

But in recent months I have been getting flooded with alerts of scans from one particular company. I initially reported it to my own ISP's (RoadRunner's) abuse desk, on the assumption that if they're scanning me then they're probably scanning a bunch of my neighbors as well, and any responsible ISP would probably want to block this BS, but all I ever got back was an automated acknowledgement and zero action.

So I used DNS lookup and WHOIS to find their phone number, and spoke with someone there; it appears that they're a small outfit, and I was assured that they had a good idea where it was coming from and that they would make it stop. Indeed, it did stop a few days later but then it was back again, unabated, after another week or so. So last week I called them again, and was once again assured of a resolution. No dice, the scans continue to pour in.

I've already blocked their subnet at my firewall, but the UTM apparently does attack detection before filtering, so that didn't stop the alerts. And although I *could* disable port scan alerts, it's an all-or-nothing thing and I'm not prepared to turn them off completely.

This afternoon I forwarded the twenty-something alerts that I've received so far today, to their abuse@ address with an appeal for a Christmas Miracle, but frankly I'm not holding out much hope that it will have any effect.

So, Slashdotters, what should I do if this continues into the new year? Start automatically bouncing every report to their abuse address? Sic Anonymous on them? Start calling them every time? I'm open to suggestions.

Submission + - Google Formally Puts Palestine on Virtual Map (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Google has indirectly walked right into one of Middle East's most obstinate conflict by putting Palestine as an independent nation wiping off the term Palestinian Territories and replacing it with Palestine in its localized search page. Google’s move is more or less in line with the UN’s decision October to name Palestine as a non-member observer state. The status given to Palestine will allow the state to join UN debates as well as global bodies such as the International Criminal Court, in theory atleast. Up until May 1, anyone visiting http://www.google.ps were shown the phrase Palestinian Territories, which has now been replaced with the word Palestine. This change is definitely not a huge one but, it has attracted criticism from politicians in Israel. They have slammed Google for invading and getting involved in a complex issue that has not been resolved yet.

Comment Re:Don't modern plans almost fly themselves? (Score 1) 421

by BovineOne (#41977703) Attached to: Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage

Although commercial planes do fly on autopilot for most of the flight once they are in cruise, you still need the pilots that are fully capable of controlling the plane and landing it when the autopilot suddenly drops offline because the pitot tubes freeze, wings ice over, a gyro fails, or an engine catches on fire. The routine flights can indeed be handled by most any low-time pilot, but the unusual circumstances are where you need pilots with sufficient experience.
Image

Torvalds Slams NVIDIA's Linux Support 663

Posted by timothy from the first-person-digital dept.
New submitter jppiiroinen writes "Linus Torvalds received the Millennium prize last week for his work on Linux operating system. He was already in Finland, so Aalto University arranged a talk session with him (video). During the Q&A, a person asks why NVIDIA does not play well with Linux. Torvalds explained shortly that NVIDIA has been one of the worst companies to work with Linux project — which makes it even worse that NVIDIA ships a high number of chips for Android devices (which use Linux inside). Torvalds even summarized that ('Nvidia, f*** you!') in a playful manner. What has been your experience on NVIDIA drivers with Linux?"
Wireless Networking

A Real-World Test of the Verizon MiFi 118

Posted by kdawson from the cool-things-in-small-packages dept.
uninet writes "Over the course of a few days last week, I was able to spend a good deal of time with Verizon's amazing little MiFi 3G router. It admirably performed its task of providing speedy Wi-Fi Internet to other devices via an EvDO Rev. A connection. Ironically, the device even improved the experience of using the iPhone, making it usable for surfing where its native network (AT&T) doesn't even connect."
Silicon Graphics

SGI's Open Source Performance Co-Pilot 24

Posted by kdawson from the legacy-of-a-legend dept.
codesmythe writes "The Fates, through SGI nee Rackable, have granted a new beginning to Silicon Valley's once darling Silicon Graphics. Despite old mistakes and economic misfortunes, Silicon Graphics' engineering contributions are legendary: their systems (oh, the systems!), and software such as the well known OpenGL and the little known Performance Co-Pilot. PCP is an enterprise-class open source system monitoring, measurement, and visualization infrastructure — overlooked in last fall's monitoring tool discussion. Since its proprietary beginning in 1993, PCP has been re-released as open source and ported to all major operating systems. Readers of Slashdot's recent Beginning Python Visualization book review will be pleased to hear there are Python interfaces to PCP data sources. Here is an example of using Python and Blender to visualize PCP data (registration may be required). The PCP dev community is well and active, and includes several of the original team members."

Comment Re:Here's a proposal for the developers (Score 1) 150

The top 100 most often played missions at the end of every month are guaranteed to be played by the developers or GMs or player volunteers, and officially rated. Those that are good get awarded manually and a form of in-game badge next to them.

There is already a "Dev's Choice" and "Hall of Fame" category for missions that have been officially played by staff. Those missions receive special recognition and will reward players with standard item drops, rather than tickets.

Now you could go slightly further by changing things so that missions have not been approved do not receive tickets or experience at all. This has been discussed in their forums and many vocal users indicated that would not have any motivation to create or play (legitimate non-farm) architect missions if that were the case.
Mars

Mars Lander's Robot Arm Shuts Down To Save Itself 214

Posted by kdawson from the doctor-it-hurts-when-i-do-dat dept.
Cowards Anonymous passes along a PCWorld article that begins, "The robotic arm on the Mars Lander found itself in a tough position over the weekend. After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis."

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