Comment How could this possibly go wrong? (Score 3, Insightful) 563
I can imagine this getting abused rather quickly, like someone important getting tricked into clicking a link.
4-Billion-Pixel Panorama View From Curiosity Rover 101
A reader points out that there is a great new panorama made from shots from the Curiosity Rover. "Sweep your gaze around Gale Crater on Mars, where NASA's Curiosity rover is currently exploring, with this 4-billion-pixel panorama stitched together from 295 images. ...The entire image stretches 90,000 by 45,000 pixels and uses pictures taken by the rover's two MastCams. The best way to enjoy it is to go into fullscreen mode and slowly soak up the scenery — from the distant high edges of the crater to the enormous and looming Mount Sharp, the rover's eventual destination."
DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146
Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"
Submission + - This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For (whitehouse.gov)
fractalVisionz writes: The White House officially responded to the petition to secure resources and funding to begin Death Star construction by 2016, as previously covered by Slashdot. With costs estimated over $850,000,000,000,000,000 (that's quadrillion), and a firm policy stating "The Administration does not support blowing up planets" the US government will obviously pass. However, that is not to say that we do not already have a death star of our own, floating approximately 120 miles above the earth's surface.
The response ends in a call to those interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields of study:
The response ends in a call to those interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields of study:
If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
Submission + - IBM's Watson Gets A 'Swear Filter' After Learning The Urban Dictionary (ibtimes.com) 1
redletterdave writes: "IBM's super-computer Watson briefly went from "smart" to "smart ass" with the help of the Urban Dictionary. According to Eric Brown, an IBM research assistant, he and his 35-person team wanted to get Watson to sound more like a real human. After teaching IBM's super-computer the entire Urban Dictionary, however, Watson simply couldn't distinguish polite discourse from profanity. Watson unfortunately learned all of the Urban Dictionary's bad habits, including throwing in overly-crass language at random points in its responses; in answering one question, Watson even reportedly used the word "bullshit" within an answer to one researcher's question. In the end, Brown and his team were forced to remove the Urban Dictionary from Watson's vocabulary, and additionally developed a smart filter to keep Watson from swearing in the future."
Submission + - Symbian Sells Millions, Despite Nokia Pushing Windows Phone (slashdot.org)
Nerval's Lobster writes: "During the fourth quarter of 2012, Nokia sold 4.4 million Lumia smartphones—a significant rise from the previous quarter, which featured sales of 2.9 million Lumia devices. The Lumia line runs Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, which largely replaced Symbian as Nokia’s smartphone software of choice. Despite that shift and Nokia's emphasis on Windows Phone, however, the company still sold 2.2 million Symbian smartphones during the quarter. The question remains whether Nokia should have gone with Windows Phone in the first place, or embraced an alternate platform such as Android; an anti-Elop camp has emerged in recent months, arguing that Symbian was still a viable platform before Elop consigned it to the dustbin of tech history. For now at least, both sides seem to be right: Symbian still sells despite Nokia’s attempts to take it increasingly offline, and Lumia phones are selling well. It’ll take more time—perhaps a lot more time—before the ramifications of Elop’s bet become clear."
Submission + - The Privacy Richter Scale 1
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jay Cline writes that not all privacy issues are created equal and proposes a privacy Richter scale to rank the bad things that could happen to our privacy. A privacy Richter 1 or 2 event is a temporary bad turn for you or a handful of people, but nothing systemic, posing no lasting harm to individuals or society as a whole. Examples include receiving someone else's mail, having someone expose something embarrassing about you to co-workers or friends, or losing your wallet or purse. Privacy events measuring 4 to 7 on the scale are risks that can cause real and lasting damage to a lot of people and include stolen laptops containing thousands of Social Security numbers and credit-card numbers that would allow identity thieves to make fraudulent transactions that could impact credit scores for years. Finally events topping 8 are points of no return for large numbers of people and society as a whole. DARPA's Total Information Awareness program, proposed in 2002 and defunded by Congress in 2003, would have topped the scale. "The massive collection of data about U.S. citizens could have created a perpetual bureaucracy that put at risk our right of due process and protection against unlawful search and seizure." So where does Google's plan to consolidate its 60 privacy policies into a single approach rank? "The current change ranks at a 3," writes Cline. "Larry Page's company will weather this change. I don't see irreparable or lasting harm or loss of liberty. If you don't like Google, use Bing. Don't watch weird things on YouTube. You shouldn't be sending confidential things through Gmail in the first place.""
Submission + - Microsoft Taking Aggresive Steps Against Linux on (softwarefreedom.org) 2
Microlith writes: Microsoft has updated their WHQL certification requirements for Windows 8, and placed specific restrictions on ARM platforms that will make it impossible to install non-Microsoft operating systems on ARM devices, and make it impossible to turn off or customize such security.
Choice quotes from the certification include from page 116, section 20: "On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enable." which prevents users from customizing their security, and in section 21: "Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems" to prevent you from booting any other OSes.
Choice quotes from the certification include from page 116, section 20: "On an ARM system, it is forbidden to enable Custom Mode. Only Standard Mode may be enable." which prevents users from customizing their security, and in section 21: "Disabling Secure MUST NOT be possible on ARM systems" to prevent you from booting any other OSes.
Submission + - Kazakhstan Disables the Internet (activepolitic.com)
bs0d3 writes: In the face of oil protests on their 20'th independence day, Kazakhstan has blocked the internet and disabled cellphone towers in the city of Zhanaozen. As with previous internet blackouts, hactivist group telecomix is putting together free dial up servers for people blacked out in this region.
Submission + - Human survival depends on space exploration, says (winnipegfreepress.com)
thomst writes: The Winnipeg Free Press posts a story by Cassandra Szklarski of the Canadian Press about an email interview with Stephen Hawking in which the astrophysicist and geek hero opines, "Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space." The story also covers the upcoming Canadian debut of Hawking's new "TV series Brave New World With Stephen Hawking", and his excitement about ongoing work at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ont. investigating quantum theory and gravity.
Comment Re:Pro Nuke people (Score 1) 417
It's one thing to report the news, it's another thing to blow something out of proportion.(I saw today when this was aired on tv that one anchorlady said that the reactor was going to meltdown. What in the world would the reactor meltdown with when there's no fuel in the reactor?!) You're looking at a form of power generation that accounts for close to 20% of all power generated in the US. Sitting here watching some cable news channels lately makes me feel disgusted because of the knee jerk responses from several people -- people want to shutter things over a single accident in the past 20 years. What about the Gulf oil spill? What about miners getting trapped farming for coal? Anyways, what would happen if you shut all those nuclear plants down here in the United States? What would they be replaced with? Everything has some form of risks, and they have to be taken for people to live comfortably. Renewables? I do have a lot of faith in them, but it takes time for technology to mature. When you're looking at things like solar panels and wind turbines, they take space. People want renewables but then don't want to deal with the space they take up, or the fact that it "disturbs the natural view. So what do people really want to do about this? That is the real question.
Scotland Yard Has Been After Anonymous For Months 278
jhernik writes "Scotland Yard has confirmed it has been investigating Anonymous since before the WikiLeaks wars broke out. The Metropolitan police has been investigating Internet vigilante group Anonymous, since well before its current online reprisals against companies not supporting WikiLeaks. 'Earlier this year, the Metropolitan police service received a number of allegations of denial of service cyber attacks againat several companies by a group calling itself Anonymous,' a police spokesman told eWEEK Europe UK. 'We are investigating these criminal allegations and our investigation is ongoing.'"
Gene Simmons Threatens Anonymous Again and Gets DDoS'd 403
BussyB writes "Rather than shutting him up, the 'Operation Payback' DDoS attack on his websites only made Simmons more angry and outspoken. None of those threats seemed to bother Anonymous, however, and the group promptly launched another DDoS attack on both of Simmons' websites and rendered them inaccessible once again."
Submission + - Students don't understand meaning of "equal" sign (sciencedaily.com) 2
bickerdyke writes: Science Daily reports that about 70% of middle grade students in the US don't understand what the "equal" sign in an equation stands for.
EFF Reviews the Verizon-Google Net Neutrality Deal 162
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The EFF has written an analysis of the Net Neutrality deal brokered between Verizon and Google. While the EFF agrees with substantial portions of it, such as giving the FCC only enough authority to investigate complaints, rather than giving them a blank check to create regulations, there are a number of troubling issues with the agreement. In particular, they're concerned that what constitutes 'reasonable' network management is in the eye of the beholder and they don't like giving a free pass to anyone who claims they're attempting to block unlawful content, even when doing so in such a way that they interfere with lawful activities. On balance, while there are some good ideas about how to get Net Neutrality with minimal government involvement, there are serious flaws in the agreement that would allow ISPs to interfere with any service they wanted to because there is no algorithm that can correctly determine which numbers are currently illegal."
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