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John Lemke

Former Microsoft Privacy Chief Says He No Longer Trusts The Company - HotHardware - 0 views

  • This is a fundamental problem for nations that aren't interested in exposing their traffic to American observation, whether they're engaged in nefarious activities or not. Long term, the problem could lead to the construction of digital firewalls, in which the United States is effectively isolated behind protective nodes built by local governments to scrub and redirect traffic away from potential capture points. This is directly in opposition to the central concept of the Internet, which is a dynamic structure capable of responding to outages or damage by routing around the problem.
John Lemke

Petition Launched To Get The White House To Open Source Healthcare.gov Code | Techdirt - 0 views

  • Of course, there are a few issues with this. First of all, while things created by government employees is automatically public domain, works created by contractors is not. So while conceptually we can argue that the code should be open sourced, it's not required by law. Second, and more importantly, it's a lot harder to take proprietary code and then release it as open source, than it is to build code from the ground up to be open source (and it's even more difficult to make sure that code is actually useful for anything). Indeed, if the code had been open sourced from the beginning, perhaps they wouldn't make embarrassing mistakes like violating other open source licenses.
  • By this point, open sourcing the code isn't going to fix things, but if more attention is put on the issue of closed vs. open code in government projects, hopefully it means that government officials will recognize that it should be open source from the beginning for the next big government web project.
  • After the disastrous technological launch of the healthcare.gov website, built by political cronies rather than companies who understand the internet, there has been plenty of discussion as to why the code wasn't open sourced. At that link, there's a good discussion from On the Media, with Paul Ford, discussing what a big mistake it was that the government decided not to open source the code and be much more transparent about the process. It discusses the usual attacks on open source and why they almost certainly don't apply to this situation.
John Lemke

Climate change is 'absolutely' linked to wildfires, says UN chief | The Verge - 0 views

  •  
    "The head of a United Nations committee on climate change said this week that global warming is "absolutely" linked to a recent spate of wildfires and heat waves, while calling upon international leaders to address the matter with more urgency. Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), made the comments in a recent interview with CNN, as massive brushfires continue to rage across Australia"
John Lemke

Brazil looks to protect privacy and net neutrality with internet bill of rights | The Verge - 0 views

  • "The internet you want is only possible in an environment of respect for human rights," Rousseff said in a statement on her website, "especially privacy and freedom of expression."
  •  
    ""The internet you want is only possible in an environment of respect for human rights," Rousseff said in a statement on her website, "especially privacy and freedom of expression.""
John Lemke

Unique Mineral Discovered In Australia | Popular Science - 0 views

  •  
    "While dozens of new minerals are discovered each year, it is rare to find one that is unrelated to already-known substances."
John Lemke

Corn-waste biofuels might be worse than gasoline in the short term | Plugged In, Scientific American Blog Network - 0 views

  • Biofuels made using corn waste could release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared to conventional gasoline. As a result, this type of cellulosic ethanol could be inelligible to meet quotas under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
  • In the longer-term, the study says that these types of biofuels will result in a net emissions decrease. However, the short term increase is enough to keep this type of biofuel from complying with regulations in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).
John Lemke

Microsoft Announces Windows 10 | TechCrunch - 0 views

  • Starting tomorrow, Microsoft will launch a Windows Insider Program that will give users who are comfortable with running very early beta software access to Windows 10. This first preview will be available for laptops and desktops. A build for servers will follow later.
  • The company went on to detail that its new operating system will have a tailored user experience between different screen sizes — that’s to say that if you are on a smaller device, you will see a different sort of user interface. The code will run across all device categories: “One product family. One platform. One store.”
  • Put more bluntly, the company is going for the enterprise crown.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • bringing back a few features of Windows 7
  • ncluding a redesigned start menu that combines the basic Windows 7 menu with the (resizable) tiles of the Windows 8 start screen. Windows 8 Metro apps can now also open in a windowed mode on the desktop, so you aren’t taking into the full-screen mode by default and you can use a “modern” Windows 8 side by side with a standard Windows desktop app.
  • multiple desktops
  • command line, too, which has also been improved quite a bit.
  •  
    "the last 943 people to cover the operating system got the name wrong."
John Lemke

FireChat: The internet-free messaging app that's sweeping the world - News - Gadgets and Tech - The Independent - 0 views

  • t's a messaging app for iOS.
  • based on peer-to-peer “mesh networking” and connects to nearby phones using Bluetooth and WiFi, with connectivity increasing as more people use it in an area.
  • In Hong Kong mostly, where pro-democracy protesters are using it to communicate amid fears of network shutdowns. It's also been used by Iraqis and Taiwanese students during their anti-Beijing Sunflower Movement. Aside from not being reliant on the internet (which some governments restrict), it is more clandestine and less traceable.
John Lemke

FBI Arrested CEO of 'StealthGenie' for Selling Mobile Spyware Apps - 0 views

  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has arrested the CEO of a UK-based company for allegedly advertising and selling a spyware app to individuals who suspect their romantic partners of cheating on them.
  • The dodgy cell phone spyware application, dubbed as StealthGenie, monitors victims’ phone calls, text messages, videos, emails and other communications "without detection" when it is installed on a target's phone, according to the Department of Justice.
  • Once installed on the phone, it allows conversations to be monitored as they take place, enables the purchaser to call the phone and activate it at any time to monitor all surrounding conversations within a 15-foot radius, and collects the user’s incoming and outgoing email and SMS messages, incoming voicemail, address book, calendar, photographs, and videos. All of these functions are enabled without the knowledge of the user of the phone.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Akbar was charged with conspiracy, sale of a surreptitious interception device, advertisement of a known interception device and advertising a device as a surreptitious interception device in US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
John Lemke

Hackers charged with stealing Xbox, 'Call of Duty,' and US Army secrets worth over $100 million | The Verge - 0 views

  • Four hackers have been jointly charged with conspiracies to commit computer fraud, copyright infringement, wire fraud, mail fraud, identity theft, and theft of trade secrets. Individually, they have been charged with counts of aggravated identity theft, unauthorized computer access, copyright infringement, and wire fraud.
  • The defendants, aged between 18 and 28, are believed to have stolen more than $100 million in intellectual property and other proprietary data from the likes of Microsoft Corporation, Epic Games, Valve, and even the US Army. This includes pre-release versions of Gears of War 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Apache helicopter simulation software developed for the US army, and information about the Xbox One console. Two of the suspects have pleaded guilty, one of which is 22-year old David Pokora. His plea represents what may be the first conviction of a foreign-based individual for hacking into US businesses to steal trade secret information.
  • 18-count superseding indictment
John Lemke

Shellshock: Code injection vulnerability found in Bash | LIVE HACKING - 0 views

  • A code injection vulnerability in the Bourne again shell (Bash) has been disclosed on the internet. If exploited then arbitrary commands can be executed, and where Bash is used in relation to a network service, for example in CGI scripts on a web server, then the vulnerability will allow remote code execution.
  • The problem is that Bash does not stop after processing the function definition; it continues to parse and execute any shell commands following the function definition
  • The vulnerability is deemed as critical because Bash is used widely on many types of UNIX-like operating systems including Linux, BSD, and Mac OS X.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The most prominent attack vector is via HTTP requests sent to CGI scripts executed by Bash. Also, if SSH has been configured to allow remote users to run a set of restricted commands, like rsync or git, this bug means that an attacker can use SSH to execute any command and not just the restricted command.
John Lemke

Force of nature gave life its asymmetry : Nature News & Comment - 0 views

  • In an experiment that took 13 years to perfect1, the researchers have found that these electrons tend to destroy certain organic molecules slightly more often than they destroy their mirror images.
  • The weak nuclear force, which is involved in nuclear decay, is the only force of nature known to have a handedness preference: electrons created in the subatomic process known as β decay are always 'left-handed'. This means that their spin — a quantum property analogous to the magnetization of a bar magnet — is always opposite in direction to the electron's motion.
  • In all cases the asymmetry was tiny, but consistent, like flipping a not-quite-fair coin. “The scale of the asymmetry is as though we flip 20,000 coins again and again, and on average, 10,003 of them land on heads while 9,997 land on tails,” says Dreiling.
John Lemke

Forest Service says media needs photography permit in wilderness areas, alarming First Amendment advocates | OregonLive.com - 0 views

  • "It's pretty clearly unconstitutional," said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Alexandria, Va. "They would have to show an important need to justify these limits, and they just can't."
  • Close didn't cite any real-life examples of why the policy is needed or what problems it's addressing. She didn't know whether any media outlets had applied for permits in the last four years.
  • "The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone," Wyden said. "Especially where reporters and bloggers are concerned, this policy raises troubling questions about inappropriate government limits on activity clearly protected by the First Amendment."
John Lemke

Hackers Using 'Shellshock' Bash Vulnerability to Launch Botnet Attacks - 0 views

  • Researchers on Thursday discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in the widely used command-line shell GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash), dubbed "Shellshock" which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide, and may already have been exploited in the wild to take over Web servers as part of a botnet that is currently trying to infect other servers as well.
  • the vulnerability is already being used maliciously by the hackers.
  • There is as of yet no official patch that completely addresses both vulnerabilities, including the second, which allows an attacker to overwrite files on the targeted system.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It's things like CGI scripts that are vulnerable, deep within a website (like CPanel's /cgi-sys/defaultwebpage.cgi)," Graham wrote in a blog post. "Getting just the root page is the thing least likely to be vulnerable. Spidering the site and testing well-known CGI scripts (like the CPanel one) would give a lot more results—at least 10x." In addition, Graham said, "this thing is clearly wormable and can easily worm past firewalls and infect lots of systems. One key question is whether Mac OS X and iPhone DHCP service is vulnerable—once the worm gets behind a firewall and runs a hostile DHCP server, that would be 'game over' for large networks."
  • 32 ORACLE PRODUCTS VULNERABLE
  • PATCH ISSUED, BUT INCOMPLETE
  •  
    "Researchers on Thursday discovered a critical remotely exploitable vulnerability in the widely used command-line shell GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash), dubbed "Shellshock" which affects most of the Linux distributions and servers worldwide, and may already have been exploited in the wild to take over Web servers as part of a botnet that is currently trying to infect other servers as well."
John Lemke

Character Breakdowns for The Walking Dead Companion Series Revealed? - SuperHeroHype - 0 views

  • As the series is said to be wholly original and not based on any of the comics or games in particular, it’s safe to assume these aren’t characters fans are familiar with. In addition, the names of these characters could simply be placeholders as auditions for the series continue to take place. Though also unconfirmed, the series is rumored to be a prequel of sorts, focusing on the early days of the zombie infection, which Rick Grimes of “The Walking Dead” luckily missed out on.
  •  
    "As the series is said to be wholly original and not based on any of the comics or games in particular, it's safe to assume these aren't characters fans are familiar with. In addition, the names of these characters could simply be placeholders as auditions for the series continue to take place. Though also unconfirmed, the series is rumored to be a prequel of sorts, focusing on the early days of the zombie infection, which Rick Grimes of "The Walking Dead" luckily missed out on."
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