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Submission + - Samsung chief says he pushed Galaxy Fold 'before it was ready' (engadget.com)

Submitted by PolygamousRanchKid
PolygamousRanchKid writes: Samsung hasn't commented much on its decision to delay the Galaxy Fold and address design flaws, but it's opening up a little today. The company's electronics division CEO, DJ Koh, told those at a media event that he "pushed [the phone] through before it was ready." The setback was "embarrassing," he added. While Koh didn't elaborate on what happened, the statement suggests that Samsung was in a hurry to get the Fold out the door and claim some bragging rights.

The Fold was supposed to arrive in late April, but early reviewers quickly discovered problems, including a display cover that was too easy to peel off and gaps that allowed debris to get behind the foldable screen. It was all too easy to break the sensitive panel — and that would have been a problem with any phone, let alone one costing $1,980.

Submission + - OpenPGP Keyserver Attack Ongoing

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: There’s an interesting and troubling attack happening to some people involved in the OpenPGP community that makes their certificates unusable and can essentially break the OpenPGP implementation of anyone who tries to import one of the certificates.

The attack is quite simple and doesn’t exploit any technical vulnerabilities in the OpenPGP software, but instead takes advantage of one of the inherent properties of the keyserver network that’s used to distribute certificates. Keyservers are designed to allow people to discover the public certificates of other people with them they want to communicate over a secure channel. One of the properties of the network is that anyone who has looked at a certificate and verified that it belongs to another specific person can add a signature, or attestation, to the certificate. That signature basically serves as the public stamp of approval from one user to another.

Last week, two people involved in the OpenPGP community discovered that their public certificates had been spammed with tens of thousands of signatures--one has nearly 150,000--in an apparent effort to render them useless. The attack targeted Robert J. Hansen and Daniel Kahn Gillmor, but the root problem may end up affecting many other people, too.

Matthew Green, a cryptographer and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, said that the attack points out some of the weaknesses in the entire OpenPGP infrastructure.

"PGP is old and kind of falling apart. There's not enough people maintaining it and it's full of legacy code. There are some people doing the lord's work in keeping it up, but it's not enough," Green said. "Think about like an old hospital that's crumbling and all of the doctors have left but there's still some people keeping the emergency room open and helping patients. At some point you have to ask whether it's better just to let it close and let something better come along.

"I think PGP is preventing the development of better stuff and the person who did this is clearly demonstrating this problem."

Submission + - Amount of Floating Antarctic Ice Plunges To Record Lows (time.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The amount of ice circling Antarctica is suddenly plunging from a record high to record lows, baffling scientists. Floating ice off the southern continent steadily increased from 1979 and hit a record high in 2014. But three years later, the annual average extent of Antarctic sea ice hit its lowest mark, wiping out three-and-a-half decades of gains — and then some, a NASA study of satellite data shows. Serreze and other outside experts said they don’t know if this is a natural blip that will go away or more long-term global warming that is finally catching up with the South Pole. Antarctica hasn’t showed as much consistent warming as its northern Arctic cousin.

At the polar regions, ice levels grow during the winter and shrink in the summer. Around Antarctica, sea ice averaged 4.9 million square miles (12.8 million square kilometers) in 2014. By 2017, it was a record low of 4.1 million square miles (10.7 million square kilometers, according to the study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Antarctic sea ice increased slightly in 2018, but still was the second lowest since 1979. Even though ice is growing this time of year in Antarctica, levels in May and June this year were the lowest on record, eclipsing 2017, according to the ice data center.

Comment Re:This matches exactly my experience from 2009 (Score 1) 188

by vannoble (#54863885) Attached to: Are Nondisparagement Agreements Silencing Employee Complaints?
I wonder if people in situations like yours where you cannot even disclose that you signed an NDA could put a warrant canary in their resume like

(2000 - 2005) Worked at X Corp. Responsibilities were XYZ. Did not sign an NDA.
(2005 - 2010) Worked at Y Corp. Responsibilities were XYZ. Did not sign an NDA.
(2010 - 2017) Worked at Z Corp. Responsibilities were XYZ.

or something along those lines?

Comment Re:Okay - that was quick. (Score 1) 895

by vannoble (#53870591) Attached to: Michael Flynn Resigns As Trump's National Security Adviser
What I don't get is why people don't understand that even if we did use the popular vote for the measure you still need a MAJORITY(>50%) of votes. Hillary only got 48.2% of the popular vote, which if we are still using the rules from the Constitution would kick it back to the House with a 3 way runoff. The Republican controlled House would still have voted Trump in as POTUS.

Comment This is SHOCKING!! (Score 1) 200

According to followthemoney.org Verizon is her second largest donor, right behind the VA GOP. Big Red has given her $31,500. Other top donors are VA Cable Telecommunications Association ( $14,250) and AOL Time Warner ($11,500). That's a lot for state House representative. Still don't understand the difference between "donations" like this and bribery.

Comment Re:yes (Score 0, Troll) 1049

by nilbog (#30724032) Attached to: Does a Lame E-Mail Address Really Matter?

Wrong. If you're using an email address from AOL you're wearing a big sign on your forehead that says "I have no clue what is going on in the world." I don't care if you actually do or not. You wouldn't wear a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and sandals to meet with a big client, so you shouldn't do the same thing with your email address.

How you present yourself is important. If you don't realize that you're not living in reality.

And yes, if I ever see someone with an AOL address, I immediately mentally disqualify the possibility that they know anything about what is going on with computers and technology.
It's funny. Laugh.

Celebrity AD&D Character Sheets 194

Posted by CmdrTaco from the kinda-funny dept.
GnomeIllusionist writes "In their continuing tribute to Gary Gygax, Wired has created character sheets for nine celebrities. Apparently, Stephen Hawking can do 10D6 radiation damage to his enemies and Rick Astley is a 20th-Level bard. Steve Jobs' black turtleneck is actually magical armor with +6 against edged attacks." Most of them are kinda cheesy and obvious- I wonder if you can do better.
Security

US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats 95

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the shoot-first-ask-questions-later dept.
CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "
Sony

Submission + - Sony announces DRM-free at Amazon

Submitted by sehlat
sehlat writes: An article at The New York Times begins:

Sony BMG announced Thursday that it would become the fourth and final major music label to sell digital music on Amazon.com, offering its entire catalog in the MP3 format by the end of the month.
The Rebel Alliance has won.

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