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Submission + - Verizon throttles video in a net-neutrality-compatible way

Submitted by dgatwood
dgatwood writes: According to an Ars Technica article, Verizon recently began experimenting with throttling of video traffic. The remarkable part of this story is not that a wireless ISP would throttle video traffic, but rather that Verizon's own Go90 video platform is also affected by the throttling.

If even Verizon can get on board with throttling sans paid prioritization, why is Comcast so scared of the new laws that are about to go into effect banning it?

[From the cold feet dept.]

Submission + - Drupal developers still rebelling against Drupal leadership

Submitted by cornholed
cornholed writes: In an update to previous posts on Slashdot, prominent Drupal and PHP Developer Larry Garfield is still defending his reputation against allegations by Drupal leadership against sexual misconduct. As previously reported by a variety of news organizations, Larry was exiled from the Drupal project for adherence to the Gor sci-fi lifestyle.

In the latest round of allegations, Garfield was reportedly asked to resign because an autistic "woman who attended Drupal community events ... was allowed to contribute by him". While some have accused Dries Buytart and the Drupal Association of "Autism Shaming", the leader of the Drupal project claims "this person could be vulnerable and may have been subject to exploitation", hence raising the risk of legal damage to the Drupal project. Larry refutes these allegations, saying these claims are post-hoc and has shared police reports purporting his innocence.

There is still much debate in the Drupal community around why Larry was ejected from his leadership positions. While there's much speculation over Larry's ouster, there is one thing for certain: become a leader in the OSS community and a dossier on your public statements just might be made about you.

Submission + - Slackware, Oldest Linux Distro Still in Active Development, turns 24

Submitted by sombragris
sombragris writes: July 17 marked the 24th anniversary of Slackware Linux, the oldest GNU/Linux still in active development, being created in 1993 by Patrick Volkerding, who still serves as its BDFL. Version 14.2 was launched last year, and the development version (Slackware-current) currently offers kernel 4.9.38, gcc 7.1, glibc 2.25, mesa 17.1.5, and KDE and Xfce as official desktops, with many others available as 3rd party packages. Slackware is also among the Linux distributions which have not adopted systemd as its init system; instead, it uses a modified BSD init which is quite simple and effective. Slackware is known to be a solid, stable and fast setup, with easy defaults which is appreciated by many Linux users worldwide. Phoronix has a small writeup noting the anniversary and there's also a nice reddit thread.

Submission + - The End of Moore's Law. What's Next?

Submitted by Paul Fernhout
Paul Fernhout writes: R. Stanley Williams, of Hewlett Packard Labs, wrote a report exploring the end of Moore's Law. The summary says:"The end of Moore's law could be the best thing that has happened in computing since the beginning of Moore's law. Confronting the end of an epoch should enable a new era of creativity by encouraging computer scientists to invent biologically inspired devices, circuits, and architectures implemented using recently emerging technologies."

This idea is also looked at in a broader shorter article by Curt Hopkins also with HP Labs.

Submission + - France drops Windows 10 privacy case after Microsoft changes telemetry settings (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: There have been lots of complaints about invasion of privacy since the release of Windows 10. Microsoft's telemetry lead to several lawsuits, including one from France's National Data Protection Commission which said Windows 10 was collecting "excessive personal data" about users.

But now the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) has decided to drop its case against Microsoft. The commission is happy that sufficient steps have been taken to reduce the amount of data that is collected and users are now informed about data collection.

Submission + - Large-scale study 'shows neonic pesticides harm bees (bbc.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: The most extensive study to date on neonicotinoid pesticides concludes that they harm both honeybees and wild bees.

Researchers said that exposure to the chemicals left honeybee hives less likely to survive over winter, while bumblebees and solitary bees produced fewer queens.

The study spanned 2,000 hectares across the UK, Germany and Hungary and was set up to establish the "real-world" impacts of the pesticides.

Submission + - Ubuntu placing ads into the MOTD (twitter.com) 1

Submitted by Lproven
Lproven writes: It appears that Ubuntu is using a feature it has added – intended to insert headlines of breaking tech news (security alerts andso on) into the Message of the Day displayed at login to the console – to display advertising and promotional messages.

It has already been filed as a bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubu...

Submission + - Windows 10 forced upgrades spark legal action

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Three people in Illinois have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that its Windows 10 update destroyed their data and damaged their computers. The complaint, filed in Chicago's US District Court on Thursday, charges that Microsoft Windows 10 is a defective product and that its maker failed to provide adequate warning about the potential risks posed by Windows 10 installation – specifically system stability and data loss. The attorneys representing the trio are seeking to have the case certified as a class action that includes every person in the US who upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 and suffered data loss or damage to software or hardware within 30 days of installation. They claim there are hundreds or thousands of affected individuals. Last June, a California woman won $10,000 after a Windows 10 update disabled her PC.

Submission + - Microsoft releases Skype for Linux 5.0 Beta (betanews.com) 1

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft shares the following significant improvements.

*Calling updates: Calls to mobiles and landlines with Skype credit, one-to-one video calls can be made from Linux to Skype users on the latest versions of Skype for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac.
*Better collaboration: Linux users can now view shared screens from other Skype desktop clients (Windows 7.33 and above, Mac 7.46 and above).
*Usability improvements: Unity launcher now shows the number of unread conversations, online contacts in contact list now include Away and Do Not Disturb statuses.

Submission + - Techdirt asks judge to throw out suit over "Inventor of E-mail" (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: Michael Masnick, who founded the popular Techdirt blog, filed a motion today asking for a defamation lawsuit against him to be thrown out. Masnick was sued last month by Shiva Ayyadurai, a scientist and entrepreneur who claims to have invented e-mail in 1978 at a medical college in New Jersey.

In his motion, Masnick claims that Ayyadurai "is seeking to use the muzzle of a defamation action to silence those who question his claim to historical fame."

Submission + - A Source Code Typo Allowed an Attacker to Steal 370,000 Zerocoin ($592,000) (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A typo in the Zerocoin source code allowed an attacker to steal 370,000 Zerocoin, which is about $592,000 at today's price. According to the Zcoin team, one extra character left inside Zerocoin's source code was the cause of the bug. The hacker exploited the bugs for weeks, by initiating a transaction and receiving the money many times over.

According to the Zcoin team, the attacker (or attackers) was very sophisticated and took great care to hide his tracks. They say the attacker created numerous accounts at Zerocoin exchanges and spread transactions across several weeks so that traders wouldn't notice the uneven transactions volume. The Zcoin team says they worked with various exchanges to attempt and identify the attacker but to no avail.

Out of the 370,000 Zerocoin he stole, the attacker has already sold 350,000. The Zcoin team estimates the attacker made a net profit of 410 Bitcoin ($437,000).

Submission + - Mozilla Thunderbird Finally Makes Its Way Back into Debian's Repos

Submitted by prisoninmate
prisoninmate writes: A year ago, we told you that, after ten long years, the Debian Project finally found a way to switch their rebranded Iceweasel web browser back to Mozilla Firefox, both the ESR (Extended Support Release) and normal versions, but one question remained: what about the Mozilla Thunderbird email, news, and calendar client? Well, that question has an official answer today, as the Mozilla Thunderbird packages appear to have landed in the Debian repositories as a replacement for Icedove, the rebranded version that Debian Project was forced to use for more than ten years do to trademark issues. Make sure you read the entire article to find out what steps you need to take if you want to migrate from Icedove to Mozilla Thunderbird.

Submission + - The Munich Linux Project is to be cancelled and rolled back

Submitted by Qbertino
Qbertino writes: Apparently , as German IT News Website Heise.de reports, LiMux, the prestigious FOSS project of replacing the entire cities administration IT with FOSS based systems is about to be cancelled and decommissioned.

A paper set up by a board of city officials wants to reorganise the cities IT to "commonly used software" and a base client of the cities software running on MS Windows that integrates well with the cities ERP system based on SAP. The best possible integration of office software products with SAP is the goal, which looks like LibreOffice will be ruled out. The OS independence of the system is stated as a goal, but is seen by the article as more of a token gesture than a true strategy. The costs of remigration back to non-FOSS systems aren't mentioned.

Currently roughly 15 000 Systems in Munich are running on FOSS, 5000 on Windows. The city concil will make the final decision on this next week. Oppositional parties like the Greens and the Pirates call the move a huge leap backwards to the Quasi-Monopoly of Microsoft Windows and a waste of resources.

Submission + - Latest Adobe Acrobat Reader Update Silently Installs Chrome Extension (bleepingcomputer.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest Adobe Acrobat Reader security update (v15.023.20053), besides delivering security updates, also secretly installs the Adobe Acrobat extension in the user's Chrome browser.

There is no mention of this "special package" on Acrobat's changelog, and surprise-surprise, the extension comes with anonymous data collection turned on by default.

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