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Comment Re:Thank you FCC (Score 1) 122

by smarkham01 (#49900521) Attached to: FCC Nixes PayPal's Forced Robocalls Plan
Between the two of you, there isn't much more to say. Rigel47's âoesmall number of companiesâ have resulted in over 600 court cases by the FCC; and $300 million doesn't go far when you are chasing callers who are providing spoofed info in their caller id packets. In those cases the FCC has to file a subpoena in each area that the call has gone through a telephone exchange starting with the one closest to the receiver. Law requires the FCC to complete all actions and file the case within one year, pretty hard to do when uncooperative countries may take six months to a year to honor records requests. The law was really popular and definitely bi-partisan, but when a bi-partisan committee met in 2008 to consider new ways to stop robocalls, neither house of congress acted on t he bill (Federal Robocall Privacy Act[) (pay attention here - this is how congress acts interested and doesn't let executive agencies actually do anything). You might also consider the FTC's enforcement actions in this area. The two Fs work togather fairly closely in this area. As for fuck's sake, my fuck doesn't need, nor want, you sake.

Comment Re:Thank you FCC (Score 1) 122

by smarkham01 (#49899749) Attached to: FCC Nixes PayPal's Forced Robocalls Plan
How is that you confuse incompetence with enforcement budgets and political pressure? Congress doesn't provide sufficient funding and demands the FCC not interfere with "the market", When the majority of directors are conservative appointees, protecting the rate paying public isn't a high priority. When others are in charge, money isn't provided to accomplish the mission..

Submission + - Commodore PC still controls heat and A/C at 19 Michigan Public Schools (woodtv.com) 2

Submitted by jmulvey
jmulvey writes: Think your SCADA systems are outdated? Environmental monitoring at 19 Grand Rapids Public Schools are still controlled by a Commodore Amiga. Programmed by a High School student in the 1980s, the system has been running 24/7 for decades. A replacement has been budgeted by the school system, estimated cost: Between $1.5 and 2 million. How much is your old Commodore Amiga worth?

Submission + - UK Parliament: Banning Tor is Unacceptable and Technologically Impossible (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Months after UK prime minister David Cameron sought to ban strong encryption, a new parliamentary briefing contradicts that, at least when it comes to Tor. The briefing says that "there is widespread agreement that banning online anonymity systems altogether is not seen as an acceptable policy option in the UK. Even if it were, there would be technical challenges." The briefing cites Tor's ability to circumvent such censorship in countries like China as well as looking at both legal and illegal uses of Tor.
Encryption

Kali Linux On a Raspberry Pi (A/B+/2) With LUKS Disk Encryption 37

Posted by samzenpus from the check-it-out dept.
An anonymous reader writes With the advent of smaller, faster ARM hardware such as the new Raspberry Pi 2 (which now has a Kali image built for it), we've been seeing more and more use of these small devices as 'throw-away computers'. While this might be a new and novel technology, there's one major drawback to this concept – and that is the confidentiality of the data stored on the device itself. Most of the setups do little to protect the sensitive information saved on the SD cards of these little computers.
Books

Book Review: Data and Goliath 51

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
benrothke writes Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World, author Bruce Schneier could have justifiably written an angry diatribe full of vitriol against President Obama and the NSA for their wholesale spying on innocent Americans and violations of myriad laws. Instead, he was written a thoroughly convincing and brilliant book about big data, mass surveillance and the ensuing privacy dangers facing everyone. A comment like what's the big deal? often indicates a naiveté about a serious significant underlying issue. The idea that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear is a dangerously narrow concept on the value of privacy. For many people the notion that the NSA was performing spying on Americans was perceived as not being a big deal, since if a person is innocent, then what do they have to worry about. In the book, Schneier debunks that myth and many others, and defends the importance of privacy. Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.

Submission + - Intel Announces Xeon D SoC Line Based On Broadwell Core Architecture (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Intel is targeting big core performance and intelligence in a microserver form factor with its new Xeon D family of processors, the company's first ever Xeon-based System-on-Chip (SoC) design. The Xeon D line Intel is announcing today is built on their 14nm process technology and combines the performance and features of its traditional Xeon chips with the size and power savings of an SoC. According to Intel, Xeon D delivers up to 3.4x faster performance node and up to 1.7x better performance per watt compared to the company's Atom C2750. The Xeon D is the third generation of the family and it's actually based on Intel's Broadwell architecture. Intel unveiled two new Xeon D processors today, the D-1540 (8 cores, 16 threads, 2GHz, 45W TDP) and D-1520 (4 cores, 8 threads, 2.2GHz, 45W TDP). These chips have memory controllers capable of addressing up to 128GB. They also feature an integrated platform controller hub (PCH), integrated I/Os, and two integrated 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Again, all of this is based on Intel's Broadwell core CPU architecture, so performance per watt should be strong.

Comment What about the old tried and true... (Score 2) 301

by smarkham01 (#45089949) Attached to: Guardian Ignores MI5 Warnings, Vows To 'Publish More Snowden Leaks'
All of the spy types could meet at Rick's Cafe. Of course Sam won't be there to play that tune, but you can't have everything now, can you? The best alternative might be to have forms of communication directed to a spy central where censors review it for "National Secrets" then pass it on or arrest you!

Submission + - Feds Seek Prison for Man Who Taught How to Beat a Polygraph

Submitted by George Maschke
George Maschke writes: In a case with serious First Amendment implications, McClatchy reports that federal prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence for Chad Dixon of Indiana, who committed the crime of teaching people how to pass or beat a lie detector test. Some of his students passed polygraphs and went on to be hired by federal agencies. A pleading filed by prosecutors all but admits that polygraph tests can be beaten. The feds have also raided and seized business records from Doug Williams, who has taught many more people how to pass or beat a polygraph over the past 30 years. Williams has not been criminally charged.

I'm a co-founder of AntiPolygraph.org (we suggest using Tor to access the site) a non-profit, public interest website dedicated to exposing and ending waste, fraud, and abuse associated with the use of lie detectors. We offer a free e-book, The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (1 mb PDF) that explains how to pass a polygraph (whether or not one is telling the truth). We make this information available not to help liars beat the system, but to provide truthful people with a means of protecting themselves against the high risk of a false positive outcome. As McClatchy reported last week, I received suspicious e-mails earlier this year that seemed like an attempted entrapment.

Rather than trying to criminalize teaching people how to pass a polygraph, isn't it time our government re-evaluated its reliance on the pseudoscience of polygraphy?

Submission + - 3D printers shown to emit potentially harmful nanosized particles (sciencedirect.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new study by researchers in the Built Environment Research Group at the Illinois Institute of Technology shows that commercially available desktop 3D printers can have substantial emissions of potentially harmful nanosized particles in indoor air. Many desktop 3D printers rely on a process where a thermoplastic feedstock is heated, extruded through a small nozzle, and deposited onto a surface to build 3D objects. Similar processes have been shown to have significant aerosol emissions in other studies using a range of plastic feedstocks, but mostly in industrial environments. In this study, researchers measured ultrafine particle concentrations resulting from a popular commercially available desktop 3D printer using two different plastic feedstocks inside an office. Ultrafine particles (or UFPs) are small, nanosized particles less than 100 nanometers in diameter. Inhalation of UFPs may be important from a health perspective because they deposit efficiently in the lung and can even translocate to the brain. Estimates of emission rates of total UFPs in this study were high, ranging from about 20 billion particles per minute for a 3D printer utilizing a lower temperature polylactic acid (PLA) feedstock to about 200 billion particles per minute for the same type of 3D printer utilizing a higher temperature acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) feedstock. The emission rates were similar to those measured in previous studies of several other devices and indoor activities, including cooking on a gas or electric stove, burning scented candles, operating laser printers, or even burning a cigarette.

Submission + - How to deliver a print magazine online, while avoiding piracy? 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I work for a technical magazine that has been available in print for over 40 years. Moving to providing an alternative subscription available online has been hard; the electronic version is quickly pirated and easily available around the world each month.

We are a small company, and our survival depends not only on advertising but on the subscription fees.

Do any slashdotters have experience of delivering electronic magazines via a subscription service in a way that is cost effective and secure?

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