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Submission + - Could gravity be evidence that the universe is a computer simulation? (theconversation.com)

Submitted by loserhead
loserhead writes: The Conversation published an article giving further evidence that none of us exist.

FTA: "Suppose the law of gravity is simply an echo of something more fundamental: a byproduct of the universe operating under a computer-like code...

It is a notion that seems like science fiction â" but one that is based in physics and evidence that the universe appears to be operating suspiciously like a computer simulation.

In digital technologies, right down to the apps in your phone and the world of cyberspace, efficiency is the key. Computers compact and restructure their data all the time to save memory and computer power. Maybe the same is taking place all over the universe?"

Comment Re: how does this help the investigation? (Score 1) 169

by loserhead (#64342187) Attached to: Judge Orders YouTube to Reveal Everyone Who Viewed A Video
In addition to the privacy issues, I don't see how this helps the investigation. It makes sense to track people viewing something like child porn, or perhaps videos advocating terrorism, but how does tracking the viewing of innocuous videos unrelated to the alleged crimes help? This would seem to be pointless or at best very inefficient. (If the answer is in the Forbes article, it is pay-walled.)
-br>so they're pretty sure a guy watched a thing at a time from a link. they get a dump of *all* viewers that week and prune the list using referrer data, device info, etc to find their target. Clever deduction.
Clever trap, too. This could usher in a new era of police dropping links like breadcrumbs.

Submission + - SEC Charges SolarWinds CISO With Fraud and Cybersecurity Failures (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: In a surprising development on Monday that is spooking the cybersecurity community, the SEC filed charges against SolarWinds and its Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Timothy G. Brown, alleging that the software company misled investors about its cybersecurity practices and known risks.

The charges stem from alleged fraud and internal control failures related to known cybersecurity weaknesses that took place between the company’s October 2018 initial public offering (IPO) and its December 2020 revelation of the infamous supply chain cyberattack dubbed “SUNBURST.”

The SEC’s complaint also points to internal communications among SolarWinds employees, including Brown, in 2019 and 2020, which raised questions about the company’s ability to protect its critical assets from cyberattacks.

Submission + - US air quality is slipping after years of improvement (apnews.com)

Submitted by The Grim Reefer
The Grim Reefer writes: After decades of improvement, America’s air may not be getting any cleaner.

Over the last two years the nation had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data shows. While it remains unclear whether this is the beginning of a trend, health experts say it’s troubling to see air quality progress stagnate.

There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the four years when America had its fewest number of those days since at least 1980.

Air quality is affected by a complex mix of factors, both natural and man-made. Federal regulations that limit the emissions of certain chemicals and soot from factories, cars and trucks have helped dramatically improve air quality over recent decades. In any given year, however, air quality can be affected by natural variations. That may be what’s behind the stalled progress, scientists say.

“What you’re seeing is a flattening off of progress as opposed to a major change in the wrong direction,” said former deputy EPA administrator Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

Submission + - SPAM: Bezos HQ2: Amazon CEO Pays $80 Million for 3 NYC Apartments

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Architectural Digest on Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' $80 million New York City bachelor pad: "Jeff Bezos is not only taking over the internet but is also ruling the real-estate world too. It was just revealed that he purchased not one but three Manhattan apartments overlooking Madison Square Park for $80 million. Included in the sale was a three-floor penthouse apartment [video], in addition to the two units below, giving the Amazon founder and CEO the potential to create a palatial 17,000-square-foot, 12-bedroom pad. [...] This is just the billionaire's latest purchase. He already owns an apartment overlooking Central Park, four California homes, and homes in Texas, Washington state, and Washington, D.C."

Submission + - Report Finds Some Users Can't Opt Out of Facebook's Face Recognition (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A consumer advocacy group has found that not all Facebook users have been given the ability to opt out of the company’s facial recognition. According to Consumer Reports, despite Facebook rolling out a new privacy setting last year allowing users to choose whether the company can use such technology to detect them in photos, some users say they have never been granted the option. After analyzing the accounts of 31 users throughout the U.S., Consumer Reports discovered that 8 accounts, or roughly 25 percent, did not have the face recognition setting. Consumer Reports set up its own test accounts to determine whether the privacy setting would be available but found that around half a dozen did not have the ability to disable face recognition.

Submission + - 3D-Printed Guns Are Back, and This Time They Are Unstoppable (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new network of 3D-printed gun advocates is growing in America – and this time things are different. Unlike previous attempts to popularise 3D-printed guns, this operation is entirely decentralized. There’s no headquarters, no trademarks, and no real leader. The people behind it reckon that this means they can’t be stopped by governments. Known only by his online moniker, Ivan the Troll is the de facto spokesman of an underground wave of 3D-printing gunsmiths. Ivan says he knows of at least 100 people who are actively developing 3D-printed gun technology, and he claims there are thousands taking part in the network. This loose-knit community spans across the whole world.

They communicate across several digital platforms, including Signal, Twitter, IRC, and Discord. They critique each other's work, exchange 3D gun CAD files, offer advice, talk theory, and collaborate on future blueprints. These 3D-printed gun enthusiasts – who share similar ideas and political viewpoints on gun control – mostly found each other online via gun control subreddits and forums. Ivan is just one small part of this network. He says he is from Illinois, and is of "college age," but otherwise he remains mostly anonymous, to lie low. At the same time though, he’s launched bombastic PR videos demonstrating the new 3D-printed gun parts he’s created in his garage, including a Glock 17 handgun frame.

Comment Calm your tits, interweb (Score 2) 50

by loserhead (#58624076) Attached to: Sony's Deal With Microsoft Blindsided Its Own PlayStation Team
What this article does NOT say: -There are winners and losers in this arrangement -Next-Gen console development will be affected In case you didn't RTFA, this deal between two faceless mega-corporations is about Micro$oft's superior cloud computing capabilities. Sony has contracted their apparent rival to bear that burden, thereby releasing themselves from the pressures of competition. This is a prudent operational decision on Sony's part which is being spun as some sort of failure or coup.

Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft Wants To Apply AI 'To The Entire Application Developer Lifecycle'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At its Build 2018 developer conference a year ago, Microsoft previewed Visual Studio IntelliCode, which uses AI to offer intelligent suggestions that improve code quality and productivity. In April, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac. At that point, IntelliCode was still an optional extension that Microsoft was openly offering as a preview. But at Build 2019 earlier this month, Microsoft shared that IntelliCode's capabilities are now generally available for C# and XAML in Visual Studio 2019 and for Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python in Visual Studio Code. Microsoft also now includes IntelliCode by default in Visual Studio 2019. IntelliCode has come a long way since May 2018, but Microsoft is only getting started. When it comes to using AI to aid developers, the company wants to help at every step of the way, according to Amanda Silver, a director of Microsoft’s developer division.

Submission + - 1960's IBM 360 Mainframe Rescued from Abandoned Building in Germany (ibms360.co.uk)

Submitted by Adam Bradley
Adam Bradley writes: Hi! My friend and I recently rescued an IBM 360 Model 20 Mainframe from an abandoned building in the backstreets of Nuremberg, Germany. The machine will shortly be headed to the UK for a full restoration to working order. We're planning to blog the entire process and hope some of you might be interested in reading more about it at our blog: https://ibms360.co.uk/

Submission + - One step toward regaining autonomy using FOSS: Best practices for email hosting (linuxjournal.com)

Submitted by whh3
whh3 writes: After reading the recent Doc Searls article in Linux Journal, I realized that I need to get back to my roots. The first step will be to build/setup/run my own email server for my vanity domain.

The problem is, I haven't run my own email server since the 90s. It was easy back then — there was much less SPAM and self-hosted email servers didn't have to jump through hoops to make sure that they weren't blacklisted as senders.

So, I am reaching out to this great community to find out if there are any good tutorials on modern-day best-practices for self hosting an email server. Any tips/tricks/pointers would be great appreciated!

Submission + - The Rise of Fear-Based Social Media Like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Now Neighbors (vox.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Violent crime in the U.S. is at its lowest rate in decades. But you wouldn’t know that from a crop of increasingly popular social media apps that are forming around crime. Apps like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon Ring’s Neighbors — all of which allow users to view local crime in real time and discuss it with people nearby — are some of the most downloaded social and news apps in the U.S., according to rankings from the App Store and Google Play.

Nextdoor was the ninth most-downloaded lifestyle app in the US on iPhones at the end of April, according to App Annie, a mobile data and analytics provider; that’s up from No. 27 a year ago in the social networking category. (Nextdoor changed its app category from social to lifestyle on April 30; on April 29 it was ranked 14th in social, according to App Annie.) Amazon Ring’s Neighbors is the 36th most-downloaded social app. When it launched last year, it was 115th. Citizen, which considers itself a news app, was the seventh most-downloaded news app on iOS at the end of April, up from ninth last year and 29th in 2017. These apps have become popular because of — and have aggravated — the false sense that danger is on the rise. Americans seem to think crime is getting worse, according to data from both Gallup and Pew Research Center. In fact, crime has fallen steeply in the last 25 years according to both the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Submission + - Secret U.S. Missile R9X "The Flying Ginsu" Revealed. (wsj.com)

Submitted by Zorro
Zorro writes: The U.S. government has developed a specially designed, secret missile for pinpoint airstrikes that kill terrorist leaders with no explosion.

To the targeted person, it is as if a speeding anvil fell from the sky, the officials said. But this variant of the Hellfire missile, designated as the R9X, also comes equipped with a different kind of payload: a halo of six long blades that are stowed inside and then deploy through the skin of the missile seconds before impact, shredding anything in its tracks.

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