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Submission + - What Minimum-Wage Foes Got Wrong About Seattle (bloomberg.com) 1

Submitted by gollum123
gollum123 writes: The dire warnings about minimum-wage increases keep proving to be wrong. So much so that in a new paper, the authors behind an earlier study predicting a negative impact have all-but recanted their initial conclusions. However, the authors still seem perplexed about why they went awry in the first place. Seattle, like some other thriving West Coast cities, a few years ago passed an ordinance raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour in a series of steps. The reaction was immediate, strident — and deeply wrong. The increase was an “economic death wish” that was going to tank the expansion and kill jobs, according to the sages at conservative think tanks. Despite their dire forecasts, not only were new restaurants not closing, they were in fact opening; employment in food services and drinking establishments has soared,
Security

LastPass Vulnerable To Extremely Simple Phishing Attack (softpedia.com) 146

Posted by samzenpus from the protect-ya-neck dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Security researcher Sean Cassidy has developed a fairly trivial attack on the LastPass password management service that allows attackers an easy method for collecting the victim's master password. He developed a tool called LostPass that automates phishing attacks against LastPass, and even allows attackers to collect password vaults from the LastPass API.
Crime

Police Agencies Using Software To Generate "Threat Scores" of Suspects (washingtonpost.com) 148

Posted by samzenpus from the pre-crime-unit dept.
Koreantoast writes: It's no secret that governments across the globe have been taking advantage of new technologies to create stronger surveillance systems on citizens. While many have focused on the actions of intelligence agencies, local police departments continue to create more sophisticated systems as well. A recent article highlights one new system deployed by the Fresno, California police department, Intrado's Beware. The system scours police data, public records, social media, and public Internet data to provide a "threat level" of a potential suspect or residency. The software is part of a broader trend of military counterinsurgency tools and algorithms being repurposed for civil use. While these tools can help police manage actively dangerous situations, providing valuable intel when responding to calls, the analysis also raises serious civil liberties questions both in privacy (where the data comes from) and accuracy (is the data valid, was the analysis done correctly). Also worrying are the long term ramifications to such technologies: there has already been some speculation about "citizen scores," could a criminal threat score be something similar? At very least, as Matt Cagle of the ACLU noted, "there needs to be a meaningful debate... there needs to be safeguards and oversight."
The Courts

1st Circuit Injunction Re: TSA's New Mandatory AIT Search Rule Fully Briefed (s.ai) 122

Posted by Soulskill from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.
saizai writes: I just filed my reply to the TSA's opposition to an emergency motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order (PI/TRO) against the TSA's new policy that arbitrarily mandates some people to go through electronic strip search ("AIT"). Case website here (will be kept updated). Court order expected soon, though impossible to know for sure.

I've also released 3 FOIA docs (see 2015-12-30 update), which I submitted as exhibits:
Technology

How Long Until the Cyborg Olympics Are Better Than the Traditional Games? (ieee.org) 60

Posted by Soulskill from the as-soon-as-we-commit-to-it dept.
the_newsbeagle writes: In October 2016, a stadium in Zurich will host the world's first cyborg Olympics. During this event, more officially called the Cybathlon, people with disabilities will use advanced technologies such as exoskeletons and powered prosthetic limbs to compete in the games. This article chronicles one team's training for the bicycle race, where the athletes will be people with paralyzed legs. The team is composed of the paralyzed biker who has an electrical stimulation system implanted in his body, and the engineers who built the gear that energizes his nerves and muscles.

Submission + - Physicists find new evidence for helium 'rain' on Saturn (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Using one of the world’s most powerful lasers, physicists have found experimental evidence for Saturn’s helium “rain,” a phenomenon in which a mixture of liquid hydrogen and helium separates like oil and water, sending droplets of helium deep in the planet’s atmosphere. The results show the range of blistering temperatures and crushing pressures at which this takes place. But they also suggest that a helium rain could also fall on Jupiter, where such behavior was almost completely unexpected.

Submission + - British Court Rejects Donald Trump's Attempt to Block Wind Farm

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Sewell Chan reports at the NYT that Britain’s highest court has unanimously rejected an attempt by Donald J. Trump to block the construction of a wind farm near his luxury golf resort in northeast Scotland. Trump has vowed to stop further development on the project if the offshore wind farm — 11 turbines, which would be visible from the golf resort 2.2 miles away — goes forward. Trump spokesman George A. Sorial denounced the ruling as “extremely unfortunate for the residents of Aberdeen and anyone who cares about Scotland’s economic future” adding that the wind farm will “completely destroy the bucolic Aberdeen Bay and cast a terrible shadow upon the future of tourism for the area. History will judge those involved unfavorably, and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates the current Scottish government’s dangerous experiment with wind energy.”

Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, withdrew Trump’s status as a business ambassador to Scotland last week after Trump called for Muslims to be barred from entering the United States. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it awarded him in 2010. Trump’s mother was born in Scotland and moved to the United States in the 1930s. " I think I do feel Scottish," said Trump at one time.

Submission + - Some Geneticists Push for Databases Over Journals as Main Source of Information (theatlantic.com)

Submitted by neoritter
neoritter writes: The issues of reproducibility in journals continue present problems. This time in the world of clinical geneticists. Where a misleading or incorrect journal on the effect of a gene variant can affect the decisions made by doctors and patients alike; from heart monitoring implants to abortions. Poor sampling and low thresholds for evidence have led some clinical geneticists to work towards an open database of genetic information. Scientists and doctors would go to a “one-stop shop for disease genes” to check and share information with each other under the strictest of standards.

Submission + - Tacoma goes all in to support municipal fiber

Submitted by Peterus7
Peterus7 writes: The Tacoma city council just voted unanimously to invest and upgrade their Click! fiber network as a municipal ISP, which likely means gigabit speeds. This decision was made in light of a proposal from Wave Broadband, which wanted to lease the municipal fiber backbone for 40 years initially, then 5. This vote came after the Tacoma Public Utility board passed both resolutions, to lease and go all in as a city run ISP. Now that the proposal has gone through to allow the city to sell service as an ISP, Tacoma will be added to the growing number of cities with municipal fiber.

Submission + - Budget bill includes super-CISA (engadget.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "Last night's budget bill wasn't all about avoiding a government shutdown. Packed inside the 2,000-page bill announced by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is the full text of the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) of 2015. If you'll recall, the measure passed the Senate back in October, leaving it up to the House to approve the bill that encourages businesses to share details of security breaches and cyber attacks.

Despite being labeled as cybersecurity legislation, critics of CISA argue that it's a surveillance bill that would allow companies to share user info with the US government and other businesses. As TechDirt points out, this version of the bill stripped important protections that would've prevented directly sharing details with the NSA and required any personally identifying details to be removed before being shared. It also removes restrictions on how the government can use the data."

Submission + - FOIA'd documents give tour of Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (muckrock.com)

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: In the 1990s, during our nuclear disarmament initiative, the Congress preserved two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos as historic sites. The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (MMNHS) is one of them, and MuckRock used FOIA to take a tour of what's publicly on display, including a Domino's Themed Blast Door and probing questions guides are told to ask visitors, including, "Could you turn they key?" Well, could you?
Science

Thousands of Blackbirds Fall From Sky Dead 577

Posted by samzenpus from the silent-spring dept.
Dan East writes "In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead in Arkansas yesterday. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them."
Government

Wikileaks and Democracy In Zimbabwe 669

Posted by samzenpus from the loose-ips dept.
OCatenac writes "The Atlantic has an interesting story on the collateral damage of exposing diplomatic communications in Zimbabwe. From the article: 'The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe's Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it's unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.' Undoubtedly there are lots of things that our governments hide from us which should not be hidden but it's a shame that no one from Wikileaks could be troubled to consider the potential repercussions of this particular exposure."
Image

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Bee Study 174

Posted by samzenpus from the write-of-the-bumblebee dept.
flintmecha writes "A group of British schoolchildren may be the youngest scientists ever to have their work published in a peer-reviewed journal. In a new paper in Biology Letters, children from Blackawton Primary School report that buff-tailed bumblebees can learn to recognize nourishing flowers based on colors and patterns. The paper itself is well worth reading. It's written entirely in the kids' voices, complete with sound effects (part of the Methods section is subtitled, ''the puzzle'duh duh duuuhhh') and figures drawn by hand in colored pencil."

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