Slashdot Mirror

"The Tinder dating app will soon be asking men to submit photos in order to verify their height," writes long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike, sharing a post made Friday (March 29th) on the official Tinder blog. Let's be real, when it comes to online dating -- honesty is the best policy. Yes, your height matters as long as every other shallow aspect of physical attraction does. Please try not to take it to heart...

Height-lying ends here. To require everyone under 6' to own up to their real height, we're bringing truthfulness back into the world of online dating. Introducing Tinder's Height Verification Badge (HVB), because yes -- sometimes it matters. It's the tool we've had in our back-pockets for years, but we were hoping your honesty would allow us to keep it there... Simply input your true, accurate height with a screenshot of you standing next to any commercial building. We'll do some state-of-the-art verifying and you'll receive your badge directly on your profile.

Oh, and by the way? Only 14.5% of the U.S. male population is actually 6' and beyond. So, we're expecting to see a huge decline in the 80% of males on Tinder who are claiming that they are well over 6 feet.
The post concludes that "Tinder's HVB is coming soon to a phone near you," and Tinder's official Twitter account described the feature as "the thing you never asked for, but definitely always wanted," with a short video showing their app displaying errors for incorrect heights. (The second error message reads "Seriously... Please enter your correct height.") The video has been viewed 2.78 million times. Its tagline? "Let's bring honesty back to dating."

"It's unknown at this point if this is a real feature that the company is adding to its dating app," reported one local news site, "or an early April Fool's joke."

A new study finds that active middle aged men who can do more than 40 push-ups at a time have a significantly lower risk of heart disease. From a report: Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health followed more than 1,100 middle-aged male firefighters over a decade. They looked at two specific measures: how many push-ups they could do and their exercise tolerance on a treadmill. They found that men who could do more than 40 push-ups had a 96-percent lower risk of heart disease than those who could do no more than 10 and their ability to do push-ups was a better predictor of cardiovascular disease than their stamina on a treadmill test.

The first clinical trial is underway to test a new male contraceptive that could be a game changer for preventing pregnancy. From a report: "(It's) a combination of two horomones: Progestin, which is the typical horomone that is found in female contraceptive pills, which they put in there to suppress sperm production, to trick the body, and testosterone, which is the male sex horomone so that there's normal circulating levels of testosterone that men don't lose their libido or sexual function or have any changes in mood," said CBS News medical contributor Dr. Tara Narula.

The National Institutes of Health is enrolling about 420 couples to use an experimental gel that has been in development for more than 10 years. If proven effective, it would be the first hormonal birth control for men. The gel is applied to the back and shoulders. Researchers found that testosterone, once absorbed through the skin, stays in the system longer than testosterone taken in pill form does. Male volunteers will use the gel every day for four to 12 weeks.

Housing in Silicon Valley is getting so expensive that the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) petitioned 6,000 faculty and staff members to consider offering students "a room in your home." The college's housing director David Keller wrote in a letter that there are "several hundred students" at the university who don't have "housing guarantees" and need support. Fortune reports: Silicon Valley is notorious for its high living costs. And, according to the report, Santa Cruz and its surrounding areas have far more single-family homes than affordable apartments. Worse yet, a senior at UCSC told the CBS affiliate that some "landlords are kind of jacking up the prices because they know about this." The student, Leon Pham, told CBS that he'll pay $1,100 per month for a small room in a shared house.

Still, there are potentially negative implications to schools asking for professors to rent rooms in their homes to students. Professors are still required to fairly judge student work, and a healthy separation between professors and students is usually what colleges want. The housing crunch, however, might have forced the university's hand. And a spokesperson from the school told CBS that the college has policies that govern "the conduct of students and professors."

He'd sold his second online advertising company for $300 million at the age of 25. Six years later he was charged with 47 felonies. And now? "A Silicon Valley millionaire entrepreneur who avoided jail time for a domestic violence conviction in 2014 -- and had his probation revoked following another domestic violence incident -- was sentenced to a year in jail Friday after losing his appeal," writes CBS SF. An anonymous reader quotes their report: Gurbaksh Chahal, founder of online advertising companies Gravity4 and RadiumOne, sobbed while asking San Francisco Superior Court Judge Tracy Brown for leniency... The 36-year-old was immediately remanded into custody after Brown declined to change her ruling. Chahal must serve at least six months of the one-year sentence. He has been out of custody on $250,000 bail...

Chahal was charged with felony domestic violence in 2013 after police say he punched and kicked his girlfriend 117 times inside his San Francisco penthouse. Security camera video evidence of the attack was deemed inadmissible after a judge ruled police had obtained it without a warrant. With no video and after his girlfriend declined to cooperate with police, Chahal pleaded guilty in 2014 to two misdemeanor battery charges of domestic violence and was sentenced to three years probation.... He was accused of violating his probation in 2016 by kicking another girlfriend in the same South Beach apartment. "Tonight he's sleeping in the big house," quipped a local TV reporter, adding "that's got to feel very different."

If you've ever visited San Jose, you may have noticed something rather unusual: there are electric scooters littering the streets. The scooters are placed randomly throughout the city and can be rented by users via an app. They're reportedly bothering pedestrians enough for the city to take notice and consider a number of possible restrictions, "including issuing revocable permits to a limited number of scooter companies such as Lime and Bird, requiring the companies to pay a deposit to cover potential scooter-involved damage to city property, and charging annual fees to operate in the city," reports The Mercury News. From the report: In recent weeks, the city has fielded complaints about people zooming down crowded sidewalks instead of riding in the street and parking scooters in front of driveways or leaving them tipped over outside stores. But the city currently doesn't have any rules governing the relatively new scooter-sharing industry, enabling both the companies and users to operate freely. In addition to paying operating fees, [...] the city wants the companies to provide multilingual customer service at all times, and to commit to addressing problems quickly. And like Ford GoBike -- which currently has an exclusive contract with San Jose to operate a docked bike sharing program in the city -- the city says scooter companies should be required to offer discounts to low-income residents and operate in what it calls "communities of concern."

To understand how and where people are riding scooters, the city says it also wants the companies to share their data, something they so far have been reluctant to part with, at least publicly. Most residents at the meeting seemed supportive of having scooters in San Jose, calling them an easy and environmentally friendly way to commute or run errands quickly.

schwit1 shares a report from CBS Local: China is rolling out a high-tech plan to give all of its 1.4 billion citizens a personal score, based on how they behave. But there are consequences if a score gets too low, and for some that's cause for concern. When Liu Hu recently tried to book a flight, he was told he was banned from flying because he was on the list of untrustworthy people. Liu is a journalist who was ordered by a court to apologize for a series of tweets he wrote and was then told his apology was insincere. "I can't buy property. My child can't go to a private school," he said. "You feel you're being controlled by the list all the time." And the list is now getting longer as every Chinese citizen is being assigned a social credit score -- a fluctuating rating based on a range of behaviors. It's believed that community service and buying Chinese-made products can raise your score. Fraud, tax evasion and smoking in non-smoking areas can drop it.

Long-time Slashdot reader Ichijo writes: A self-driving car was slapped with a ticket after police said it got too close to a pedestrian on a San Francisco street.

The self-driving car owned by San Francisco-based Cruise was pulled over for not yielding to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. Cruise says its data shows the person was far away enough from the vehicle and the car did nothing wrong.... According to data collected by Cruise, the pedestrian was 10.8 feet away from the car when, while the car was in self-driving mode, it began to continue down Harrison at 14th St."

The person in the crosswalk was not injured.

The woman who entered the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California, this morning and started shooting has been identified as Nasim Aghdam. According to ABC7 News, "the YouTube shooter was a user of the platform" and had "a website with an alleged manifesto that targeted YouTube for censorship and demonetization of her video content. According to her website, a possible motivation for the shooting could have been tied to her many YouTube accounts, which she says have seen a decline in viewership over the past few months."
Here is a timeline of events from our original post:

Police have responded to multiple 911 calls at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. From a report: Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at the company, tweeted that there is an active shooter on campus. The San Bruno Police Department instructed people to stay away from 901 Cherry Avenue, where the company is located. Multiple 911 calls have been received from inside the building, according to a report from local news station KRON. In a Twitter thread, YouTube product manager Todd Sherman said that employees first thought there had been an earthquake. People began running out of their meetings, he said, but before reaching the exit, they got word that someone had a gun. Sherman said he saw blood on the floor and the stairs. He also said the shooter may have committed suicide. Vadim Lavrusik, who works at YouTube's products team, tweeted, "Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers."

Update 20:30GMT: Google has issued the following statement, "we are coordinating with authorities and will provide official information here from Google and YouTube as it becomes available." San Bruno Police said it was "responding to an active shooter. Please stay away from Cherry Ave & Bay Hill Drive."

Update 20:40 GMT: CBS San Francisco reports: KPIX 5 reporter Andria Borba said at least two Homeland Security units were responding. Police radio transmissions describe casualties being taken to local hospitals. San Francisco General Hospital spokesman Brent Andrew said the hospital received patients from the incident but could not confirm a number.

Update 21:20 GMT: ABC News is reporting that the suspected shooter is a white adult female, and that this is "leaning towards a workplace violence situation."

Update 21:30 GMT: Law enforcement has confirmed that the shooter was a white female dressed in a headscarf. The woman reportedly shot her boyfriend then herself. It's unclear exactly how many people have been injured, but early reports estimate at least 9-10 victims. There is no word on their conditions.

Update 03:10 GMT: ABC7 News is reporting that the shooter has been identified as Nasim Aghdam. She reportedly had a website with an alleged manifesto that targeted YouTube for censorship and demonetization of her video content. Contrary to previous reports, she is said to have no relationship with anyone in the YouTube facility.

UPDATE 03:40 GMT: Aghdam's website can be found here.

Update 04:15 GMT: The shooter is believed to have known at least one of the victims, two law enforcement officials told CNN. Other sources suggest the shooter drove up from San Diego. YouTube says her YouTube channel "has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy against spam, deceptive practices, and misleading content or other Terms of Service violations."

Police have responded to multiple 911 calls at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. From a report: Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at the company, tweeted that there is an active shooter on campus. The San Bruno Police Department instructed people to stay away from 901 Cherry Avenue, where the company is located. Multiple 911 calls have been received from inside the building, according to a report from local news station KRON. In a Twitter thread, YouTube product manager Todd Sherman said that employees first thought there had been an earthquake. People began running out of their meetings, he said, but before reaching the exit, they got word that someone had a gun. Sherman said he saw blood on the floor and the stairs. He also said the shooter may have committed suicide. Vadim Lavrusik, who works at YouTube's products team, tweeted, "Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers."

Update 20:30 GMT: Google has issued the following statement, "we are coordinating with authorities and will provide official information here from Google and YouTube as it becomes available." San Bruno Police said it was "responding to an active shooter. Please stay away from Cherry Ave & Bay Hill Drive."

Update 20:40 GMT: CBS San Francisco reports: KPIX 5 reporter Andria Borba said at least two Homeland Security units were responding. Police radio transmissions describe casualties being taken to local hospitals. San Francisco General Hospital spokesman Brent Andrew said the hospital received patients from the incident but could not confirm a number. Update 21:20 GMT: ABC News is reporting that the suspected shooter is a white adult female, and that this is "leaning towards a workplace violence situation."

Update 21:30 GMT: Law enforcement has confirmed that the shooter was a white female dressed in a headscarf. The woman reportedly shot her boyfriend then herself. It's unclear exactly how many people have been injured, but early reports estimate at least 9-10 victims. There is no word on their conditions.

Update 03:10 GMT: ABC7 News is reporting that the shooter has been identified as Nasim Aghdam. She reportedly had a website with an alleged manifesto that targeted YouTube for censorship and demonetization of her video content. Contrary to previous reports, she is said to have no relationship with anyone in the YouTube facility.

UPDATE 03:40 GMT: Aghdam's website can be found here.

Update 04:15 GMT: The shooter is believed to have known at least one of the victims, two law enforcement officials told CNN. Other sources suggest the shooter drove up from San Diego. YouTube says her YouTube channel "has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy against spam, deceptive practices, and misleading content or other Terms of Service violations."

Ever since the Tempe police released a video of Uber's self-driving car hitting and killing a pedestrian, experts have been racing to analyze the footage and determine what exactly went wrong. (If you haven't watched the video, you can do so here. Warning: it's disturbing, though the actual impact is removed.) In a blog post, software architect and entrepreneur Brad Templeton highlights some of the big issues with the video:
1. On this empty road, the LIDAR is very capable of detecting her. If it was operating, there is no way that it did not detect her 3 to 4 seconds before the impact, if not earlier. She would have come into range just over 5 seconds before impact.
2.On the dash-cam style video, we only see her 1.5 seconds before impact. However, the human eye and quality cameras have a much better dynamic range than this video, and should have also been able to see her even before 5 seconds. From just the dash-cam video, no human could brake in time with just 1.5 seconds warning. The best humans react in just under a second, many take 1.5 to 2.5 seconds.
3. The human safety driver did not see her because she was not looking at the road. She seems to spend most of the time before the accident looking down to her right, in a style that suggests looking at a phone.
4.While a basic radar which filters out objects which are not moving towards the car would not necessarily see her, a more advanced radar also should have detected her and her bicycle (though triggered no braking) as soon as she entered the lane to the left, probably 4 seconds before impact at least. Braking could trigger 2 seconds before, in theory enough time.)

To be clear, while the car had the right-of-way and the victim was clearly unwise to cross there, especially without checking regularly in the direction of traffic, this is a situation where any properly operating robocar following "good practices," let alone "best practices," should have avoided the accident regardless of pedestrian error. That would not be true if the pedestrian were crossing the other way, moving immediately into the right lane from the right sidewalk. In that case no technique could have avoided the event. The overall consensus among experts is that one or several pieces of the driverless system may have failed, from the LIDAR system to the logic system that's supposed to identify road objects, to the communications channels that are supposed to apply the brakes, or the car's automatic braking system itself. According to Los Angeles Times, "Driverless car experts from law and academia called on Uber to release technical details of the accident so objective researchers can help figure out what went wrong and relay their findings to other driverless system makers and to the public."

The New York Times notes an important caveat to Florida's recently-approved law observing daylight savings time year-round: it specifies that their change will only go into effect if "the United States Congress amends 15 U.S.C. s. 260a to authorize states to observe daylight saving time year-round."

"In other words: Even if the governor signs the bill, nothing will happen now... States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time -- Arizona and Hawaii do -- but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time." Meanwhile one California legislator exploring the idea of year-round standard time discovered that "youth sports leagues and families worried that a year-round early sunset would shut down their kids' after-school games." But the Times also acknowledges problems in the current system. "In parts of Maine, for example, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the sun sets before 4 p.m. -- more than an hour earlier than it does in Detroit, at the other end of the Eastern time zone." So is there a better alternative?

An anonymous reader quotes Business Insider: Standardtime.com has a unique suggestion. Their proposal has only two time zones in the continental U.S. that are two hours apart, which The Atlantic calls "a simple plan to fix [DST]"... Johns Hopkins University professors Richard Henry and Steven Hanke have come up with yet another possible fix: worldwide adoption of a single time zone. They argue that the internet has eliminated the need for discrete time zones across the globe, so we might as well just do away with them...

No plan will satisfy everyone. But that doesn't mean daylight-saving time is good. The absence of major energy-saving benefits from DST -- along with its death toll, health impacts, and economic ramifications -- are reason enough to get rid of the ritual altogether.
The article associates Daylight Saving Time with "a spike in heart attacks, increased numbers of work injuries, automobile accidents, suicides, and more." And in addition, it also blames DST for an increased use of gasoline and air conditioners -- adding that it will also "rob humanity of billions of hours of sleep like an evil spacetime vampire."

Since October 2017, Apple has made around 1,600 false alarm 911 calls from a distribution site in Elk Grove. "We've been seeing these calls for the last four months from Apple," said police dispatcher Jamie Hudson. "We're able to see quickly where the call is coming from, so when we get one from Apple, the address will come up with their location." CBS Sacramento reports: On average, Elk Grove Police say they've received 20 accidental 911 calls a day from Apple, roughly 1,600 calls since October. Hudson says the calls take valuable seconds away from calls that could be real life-and-death emergencies. "The times when it's greatly impacting us is when we have other emergencies happening and we may have a dispatcher on another 911 call that may have to put that call on hold to triage the incoming call," he said. The calls are all coming from an Apple repair and refurbishing center off Laguna Boulevard. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Communication Center is also getting these calls -- 47 since January 1. Dispatchers there say they sometimes hear technicians working in the background. Apple hasn't confirmed which of their devices is actually causing these calls: the iPhone or Apple watch, but both devices can be triggered easily. With just a touch of a button, SOS comes on and 911 is called.

An anonymous reader quotes CBS SFBayArea: On one recent morning, Rick Garcia and his wife Shannon Knuth woke up to a posse of San Francisco police officers at their front door. "I peered through the peephole and I saw a police officer and a battering ram," Garcia said. "We heard 'SFPD' and 'warrant,' and I was like 'what's going on?'" Knuth remembers. It felt like a nightmare yet it was real. Garcia says that within seconds he was dragged into the hallway of his apartment complex, handcuffed, then whisked away to the Taraval Station.... Meanwhile Knuth, who had just got out of the shower, was ordered to sit on the couch... After rifling through the apartment Knuth says the officers finally told her what they were looking for: Her husband's iPhone X.

According to the warrant, it was stolen but Knuth showed them the receipt which proved her husband bought it. Once the officers realized their mistake they called the police station and a squad car brought Garcia home. "They gathered their pry bar and their battering ram and they left," he said. So how could a mistake like that happen? It's still unclear but it turns out Garcia and Knuth bought the iPhone at an Apple store at Stonestown Galleria just a few weeks after 300 iPhone Xs were stolen from a UPS truck in the mall parking lot.
One former police chief says the way it was handled "kind of boggles the mind...

"This was clearly an incident that should have just been a knock and talk, a couple detectives come to the door, knock on the door and they would have gathered the same info that they gathered after they put him in handcuffs and hauled him off to jail."

mi shares a report from CBS Los Angeles: "In a 2016 well-choreographed press conference, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck got out of an electric BMW driven by Mayor Garcetti to tout the city's ambitious project [to provide electric cars for the department]," reports CBS Los Angeles. "The cost: $10.2 million, which includes charging stations." However, the cars have seen very little use. With the monthly lease payment of a little more than $418, one vehicle ends up costing taxpayers over $15 a mile to use. Some of the use they do get is improper too, alleges CBS Los Angeles, citing footage captured from several hidden cameras. "We followed someone after leaving the downtown police garage; they went to the drive-through at Yoshinoya," reports CBS. "On another day, someone drove from downtown LA to Loyola Marymount University in West LA, picked up someone who appeared to be a student, and went to lunch." The deputy chief is looking into what CBS found and says the cars are to be used for business only.

A Dallas business owner is accusing Yelp of hiding good reviews of his coffee shop after he refused to pay them for advertising. From a report on CBS Local: Bob Sinnott owns Toasted Coffee + Kitchen in Lower Greenville. He said after months of non-stop phone calls from Yelp, he claims his favorable rating dropped after he finally told the company he would not pay for advertising. "What I would compare it to, the mafia," said Sinnott. "You know, you do business with me or there's retaliation." Sinnott feels Yelp is hiding many of his 5-star reviews in the "not recommended" section because he chose not to pay for Yelp services. "The sales pitch is, pay us a monthly fee and we'll your help page," said Sinnott. He claims there were constant phone calls and emails from Yelp pitching the company's services. "It became what I would call borderline harassment," said Sinnott. After posting on Facebook about his experience, Sinnott said his rating went from a 4-star to a 3.5-star rating. Google rates Toasted at 4.1 and Facebook has the business at a 4.6 rating.

"A man with an anti-media agenda was arrested in Oakland after he flew a drone over two different stadiums to drop leaflets" last Sunday, writes Slashdot reader execthis. A local CBS station reports: According to investigators, [55-year-old Tracy] Mapes piloted his drone over Levi's Stadium during the second quarter of the 49ers-Seattle game and released a load of pamphlets. He then quickly landed the drone, loaded it up and drove over to Oakland. He flew a similar mission over the Raiders-Broncos game. Santa Clara Police Lt. Dan Moreno said after Mapes was apprehended he defended the illegal action as a form of free speech.
USA Today reports there's now also an ongoing federal investigation "because the Federal Aviation Administration prohibits the flying of drones within five miles of an airport. Both Levi's Stadium and Oakland Coliseum are within that range."

"The San Francisco Chronicle added that the drone was a relatively ineffective messenger because 'most of the drone-dropped leaflets were carried away by the wind.'"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Slate: Anyone who has ever paid a bill to or waited for customer service from Comcast knows why it is one of America's most detested companies, its recent efforts to improve its image notwithstanding. While Comcast says its customers will "enjoy strong net neutrality protections," it hasn't explicitly said it won't offer paid prioritization, which is how the company would most likely monetize its new ability to legally muck with internet traffic. In other words, Comcast might not choke or slow service to any website, but it could speed access to destinations that pay for the priority service. The company's promises should sound familiar. As Jon Brodkin pointed out in Ars Technica on Monday, back when the FCC was crafting the network neutrality rules in 2014, Comcast said it had no plans to enact paid prioritization, either. "We don't prioritize Internet traffic or have paid fast lanes, and have no plans to do so," a Comcast executive wrote in a blog post that year.

But Comcast's line has changed in an important way. In a comment to the FCC from earlier this year, the company said it is time for the FCC to adopt a "more flexible" approach to paid prioritization, and noted in a blog post at the time that the FCC should consider net neutrality principles that prevent "no anticompetitive paid prioritization." In other words, not necessarily all paid prioritization. The inclusion of "anti-competitive" could signal that the company does in fact hope to offer fast-lane service, but at the same price for all. And it might be a price that say, Fox News and the New York Times can afford, but one that smaller outlets can't. That Comcast's language is changing is one reason to distrust its promises regarding net neutrality, but its track record is an even bigger one. The company has been caught red-handed lying about its traffic discrimination in the past. In 2007, for example, when Comcast was found intermittently blocking users' ability to use BitTorrent, the company made numerous false claims about its network interference before finally admitting its bad behavior and halting the disruptions.

Zorro shares a report from CBS Local: Sacramento Regional Transit is the one being taken for a ride on this night, by a computer hacker. That hacker forced RT to halt its operating systems that take credit card payments, and assigns buses and trains to their routes. The local transit agency alerted federal agents following an attack on their computers that riders may not have noticed Monday. "We actually had the hackers get into our system, and systematically start erasing programs and data," Deputy General Manager Mark Lonergan. Inside RT's headquarters, computer systems were taken down after the hacker deleted 30 million files. The hacker also demanded a ransom in bitcoin, and left a message on the RT website reading "I'm sorry to modify the home page, I'm good hacker, I just want to help you fix these vulnerability."

An anonymous reader writes: A special Massachusetts commission recommends the state stop observing Daylight Savings TIme "if a majority of other northeast states, also possibly including New York, also do so." After a 9-to-1 vote, the head of the commission reported their conclusion after months of study: "There's no good reason why we're changing these clocks twice a year"... According to local reports, "The commission studied the pros and cons of the move and found, for example, retailers liked the idea of more daylight late in the day for shoppers... They also said there would be less crime, fewer traffic accidents and we would actually save energy."

A Maine state representative argues that it's actually harmful to observe Daylight Savings Time. "Some of those harms include an increased risk of stroke, more heart attacks, miscarriages for in vitro fertilization patients, among many other undesirable complications," reports Newsweek. Maine's legislature has already passed a bill approving an end to daylight savings time -- if Massachusetts and New Hampshire also end the practice, and if voters approve the change in a referendum.
At least six states are considering changing the time zones, according to Newsweek, and when it comes to Daylight Savings Time, the Maine representative told a reporter she had just one question.

"Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?"

An anonymous reader quotes the New York Post: It was nearly Black Hawk down over Staten Island -- when an Army chopper was struck by an illegally flying drone over a residential neighborhood, authorities said Friday. The UA60 helicopter was flying 500 feet over Midland Beach alongside another Black Hawk, when the drone struck the chopper at around 8:15 p.m. Thursday, causing damage to its rotor blades. The uninjured pilot was able to land safely at nearby Linden Airport in New Jersey... "Our aircraft was not targeted, this was a civilian drone," said Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Buccino, the spokesman for the 82nd Airborne... "One blade was damaged [and] dented in two spots and requires replacement and there is a dented window"... The NYPD and the military are investigating -- but no arrests have been made.
The same day a federal judge struck down an ordinance banning drone flights over private property that had been passed by the city of Newton, Massachusetts. But local law enforcement warned that "an out of control helicopter could have crashed into residential homes causing numerous injuries and even fatalities," while the Post reports that drones have also crashed into a power plant and into the 40th floor of the Empire State Building.

"In February, a GoPro drone crashed through a Manhattan woman's 27th floor window and landed just feet away from her as she sat in her living room."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS Local: President Donald Trump's push to cut legal immigration to the United States in half is being met by opposition from Silicon Valley leaders, economists, and even some Republicans senators, who all say legal immigration is key to economic prosperity. The Trump administration Wednesday endorsed the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act or RAISE Act, a Senate bill introduced by two Republican senators earlier this year, that aims to cut all U.S. immigration in half. Business leaders, especially those in California's tech industry, say the bill will stymie their ability to fill jobs and grow the U.S. economy. California's economy is the sixth largest in the world and many attribute that success, in part, to immigration. The Information Technology Industry Council, which represents companies including Amazon, Apple, Adobe, Dell, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Visa, Nokia, and Microsoft railed against the bill.

Dean Garfield, President and CEO of the council said, "This is not the right proposal to fix our immigration system because it does not address the challenges tech companies face, injects more bureaucratic dysfunction, and removes employers as the best judge of the employee merits they need to succeed and grow the U.S. economy." Garfield argues that the tech industry cannot find enough STEM-skilled Americans to fill open positions and that U.S. immigration policy "stops us from keeping the best and brightest innovators here in the U.S. and instead we lose out to our overseas competitors."

An anonymous reader writes: Devices that can talk to our pet dogs and cats could be less than 10 years away, according to a report Amazon commissioned that was co-authored by futurist William Higham. "Innovative products that succeed are based around genuine and major consumer needs," Higham wrote, noting the tremendous amounts already spent on our pets, and concluding, "Somebody is going to put this together." Amazon already sells one dubious device that converts human voices into meows using samples from 25 cats, according to the Guardian. (One reviewer who tested the device wrote that "the cat seems puzzled.") But Amazon's report also cites the work of Con Slobodchikoff, a professor emeritus in Northern Arizona University's biology department, who spent 30 years studying the behavior of prairie dogs. Slobodchikoff discovered prairie dogs have different words for colors and for species of predators, and is now already raising money to develop a translation device for pets.
Although Slobodchikoff concedes that "With cats I'm not sure what they'd have to say. A lot of times it might just be 'you idiot, just feed me and leave me alone.'"

The Heritage Valley Health System says it has been hit with a cyber attack. From a report: A spokeswoman confirmed the attack Tuesday morning. "Heritage Valley Health System has been affected by a cyber security incident. The incident is widespread and is affecting the entire health system including satellite and community locations. We have implemented downtime procedures and made operational adjustments to ensure safe patient care continues un-impeded." Heritage Valley is a $480 million network that provides care for residents of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler and Lawrence counties, in Pennsylvania; parts of eastern Ohio; and the panhandle of West Virginia. Also read: Ukrainian Banks, Electricity Firm Hit by Fresh Cyber Attack; Reports Claim the Ransomware Is Quickly Spreading Across the World.

Matt.Battey writes: According to WJZ in Baltimore, the TSA may force passengers to check laptops on domestic U.S. flights. Based on the common fear, uncertainty and doubt that supports the TSA's security theater, the terror attacks in Great Britain could result in laptop bans in the U.S. TSA officer Camille Morris is quoted as saying, "A AA battery is fine. A AAA. A 9-volt battery is a huge power charge. The size of the battery that can take down a plane when attached to an explosive." Backed up by comments from Ben Yelin of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, his statement confirms the problem: "Airplanes have been the common threat that we've seen over the past several years." Personally, I'm just glad we have the TSA to recommend we "arrive two hours before a domestic flight, and three hours before an international trip."

An anonymous reader quotes CBS: CBS News has learned that a manhunt is underway for a traitor inside the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA and FBI are conducting a joint investigation into one of the worst security breaches in CIA history, which exposed thousands of top-secret documents that described CIA tools used to penetrate smartphones, smart televisions and computer systems. Sources familiar with the investigation say it is looking for an insider -- either a CIA employee or contractor -- who had physical access to the material... Much of the material was classified and stored in a highly secure section of the intelligence agency, but sources say hundreds of people would have had access to the material. Investigators are going through those names.
Homeland security expert Michael Greenberger told one CBS station that "My best guest is that when this is all said and done we're going to find out that this was done by a contractor, not by an employee of the CIA."

From a report: Everyone knows it's dangerous, but a lot of people are still doing it -- driving while distracted. In a survey of 3-million motorists, almost 9 out of 10 admitted to using their smartphone behind the wheel. According to a report by Zendrive, which studied device use among 3.1 million drivers over 5.6 billion miles of driving, in 88 percent of trips, drivers made at least some use of their phones. On average, they spent more than three-minute on the phone.

mi quotes a report from CBS Local: After keeping it hidden for years, California's Department of Public Health has released a draft document outlining health officials' concerns about cellphone radiation exposure. The previously unpublished document was released this week after a judge indicated she would order the documents be disclosed. Health officials' overall recommendation is to "increase the distance between you and your phone" by using a headset, the speaker phone function and text messaging. Health officials recommend not sleeping near your phone and not carry it in your pocket or directly on your body, unless it is off. The fact sheet also states that "EMFs can pass deeper into a child's brain than and adult's" so suggests parents limit their child's cellphone use to texting, important call and emergencies.

ComputerWorld reports: In early December, Carnival Corp. told about 200 IT employees that the company was transferring their work to Capgemini, a large IT outsourcing firm. The employees had a choice: Either agree to take a job with the contractor or leave without severance. The employees had until the week before Christmas to make a decision about their future with the cruise line. By agreeing to a job with Paris-based Capgemini, employees are guaranteed employment for six months, said Roger Frizzell, a Carnival spokesman. "Our expectation is that many will continue to work on our account or placed into other open positions within Capgemini" that go well beyond the six-month period, he said in an email.
Senior IT engineer Matthew Culver told CBS that the requested "knowledge transfer activities" just meant training their own replacements, and "he isn't buying any of it," writes Slashdot reader dcblogs. "After receiving his offer letter from Capgemini, he sent a counteroffer. It asked for $500,000...and apology letters to all the affected families," signed by the company's CEO. In addition, the letter also demanded a $100,000 donation to any charity that provides services to unemployed American workers. "I appreciate your time and attention to this matter, and I sincerely hope that you can fulfill these terms."

And he's also working directly with a lawyer for an advocacy group that aims to "stop the abuse of H-1B and other foreign worker programs."

mi writes: The drama is over, Donald J. Trump passed the 270 electoral votes necessary to become President. A few electors dissented, resulting in their prompt dismissal and replacement per their state's laws. Ironically, more dissenters turned on Clinton than on Trump... The sky may not be falling yet, but the Earth is already in peril.

Buses and light rail cars make San Francisco's "Muni" fleet the seventh largest mass transit system in America. But yesterday its arrival-time screens just displayed the message "You Hacked, ALL Data Encrypted" -- and all the rides were free, according to a local CBS report shared by RAYinNYC: Inside sources say the system has been hacked for days. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has officially confirmed the hack, but says it has not affected any service... The hack affects employees, as well. According to sources, SFMTA workers are not sure if they will get paid this week. Cyber attackers also hit Muni's email systems.
Though the article claims "The transit agency has no idea who is behind it, or what the hackers are demanding in return," Business Insider reports "The attack seems to be an example of ransomware, where a computer system is taken over and the users are locked out until a certain amount of money is sent to the attacker." In addition, they're reporting the attack "reportedly included an email address where Muni officials could ask for the key to unlock its systems."

One San Francisco local told CBS, "I think it is terrifying. I really do I think if they can start doing this here, we're not safe anywhere."

The Natural Resources Defense Council has issued a new report accusing Samsung, LG and Vizio of "misleading consumers and regulators about how much energy high-definition screens devour, alleging that the televisions were designed to perform more efficiently during government testing than in ordinary use." The report "estimates that the collective electricity bills during a decade of watching the high-definition TVs will be $1.2 billion higher than the energy ratings imply," and that "the higher energy usage generates an additional 5 million metric tons of carbon pollution." CBS Local reports: The findings are based on an analysis of high-definition TVs with screens spanning at least 55 inches made in 2015 and 2016. The estimates on electricity costs are based on high definition TVs with screens 32 inches and larger. The study concluded that Samsung and LG have gamed the system during government testing in an effort to get better scores on the "Energy Star" yellow labels that appear on the sets in stores. Those scores often influence the buying decisions of consumers looking to save money on their utility bills. The report said Samsung and LG did not break any laws in their manipulation of the tests, but rather exploited weaknesses in the Department of Energy's system to measure electricity usage. The Samsung and LG sets have a dimming feature that turns off the screens' backlight during part of the 10-minute video clip used in government tests. But that does not typically happen when the sets are being used in homes to watch sports, comedies, dramas and news programming. The analysis also found that Samsung, LG and Vizio disable energy-saving features in their TVs when consumers change the factory setting on the picture, a common practice. The energy-saving feature is turned off, with little or no warning on the screen, sometimes doubling the amount of electricity consumed, according to the NRDC report.

An anonymous reader writes: A lawsuit is accusing the Golden State Warriors' app of spying on fans in order to determine a user's precise location in order to serve targeted ads. The creepiest thing about it? The lawsuit says the app does this even when it isn't in use. It claims the app secretly uses the microphones from the mobile device running the app to listen in and record user conversations. CBS Local reports: "The app, which delivers up-to-date scores, schedules and news, asks for permission to access the microphone on users' phones. But, according to a lawsuit filed Monday in San Francisco federal court, it doesn't disclose the extent to which it listens in. If true, the allegations would violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits the 'interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications.' The lawsuit, which seeks class action status, seeks statutory damages equal to 'the sum of actual damages suffered plus any profits defendants earned through its unlawful conduct.'" "Even more disconcerting, the app turns on the microphone (listening and recording) any time the app is running," the filing reads. "No matter if a consumer is actively using the app or if it is merely running in the background: the app is listening."

An anonymous reader writes: Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania has signed into law a new revenue package that will require residents to pay a 6% sales tax on their streaming subscriptions. AllFlicks reports: "Though the term 'Netflix tax' has become popular, laws like this don't just affect Netflix -- they also affect competitors like Hulu and HBO Now. App purchases and ebooks are also affected. They recently decided on a hefty $31.5 billion budget, and they came up $1.3 billion short of paying for it. The government is trying to close that funding gap, and streaming subscribers are being stuck with the bill." Magazine and newspaper subscriptions, as well as digital versions of the Bible, will be exempt from the digital downloads tax, reports CBS Local News in Pittsburgh.

It's easy to pontificate about the best security practices -- but the real test is what we do with our own money. Long-time Slashdot reader Keybounce writes: So, like most of you, I recently got a new credit card with a chip in it. I was not worried about that -- I know the chips are harder to copy and counterfeit. But I recently discovered that the card is also a radio card -- swiping it near the screen caused an message to show up on the reader. In this case, it told me to use the chip reader instead, but this means it has an active radio signal, and could be "hacked" -- stolen by someone with the right device.

How can I prevent this? Is there anything I can do that will disable the radio signal and still leave the chip functioning?
At least 200 million RFID credit cards were in circulation by 2012, even though their signals could be easily intercepted, prompting the introduction of RFID-blocking wallets and sleeves. But what's the alternative? A recent article in Quartz argued that America's transition to chip cards has been an utter disaster (since the banks dispensed with PIN numbers altogether and now validate with only an electronic signature). Is the answer to just use a mobile wallet like Apple Pay or Android Pay -- or to always pay with cash?

So leave your own answer in the the comments. How are you keeping your own credit card secure?

An anonymous reader writes: "Federal agents are planting microphones to secretly record conversations," reports CBS Local, noting that for 10 months starting in 2010, FBI agents hid microphones inside light fixtures, and also at a bus stop outside the Oakland Courthouse, to record conversations without a warrant. "They put microphones under rocks, they put microphones in trees, they plant microphones in equipment," a security analyst and former FBI special agent told CBS Local. "I mean, there's microphones that are planted in places that people don't think about, because thats the intent!" Federal authorities are currently investigating fraud and bid-rigging charges against a group of real estate investors, and the secret recordings came to light when they were submitted as evidence. "Private communication in a public place qualifies as a protected 'oral communication'..." says one of the investor's lawyers, "and therefore may not be intercepted without judicial authorization."

An anonymous reader shares an article on Mercury News: In yet another sign of a slowdown in the booming Bay Area economy, tech layoffs more than doubled in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year (could be paywalled, here's an alternate source). Yahoo's 279 workers let go this year contributed to the 3,135 tech jobs lost in the four-county region of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Francisco counties from January through April, as did the 50 workers axed at Toshiba America in Livermore and the 71 at Autodesk in San Francisco. In the first four months of last year, just 1,515 Bay Area tech workers were laid off, according to mandatory filings under California's WARN Act. For that period in 2014, the region's tech layoffs numbered 1,330. The jump comes amid a litany of other signs that the tech economy may be taking a breather: disappointing earning reports from stalwarts like Apple, an IPO market that has come to a near standstill, a volatile stock exchange and uncertainty in China.

HughPickens.com writes: Valentina Zarya writes at Fortune Magazine that the top 2016 prediction for David Marcus, Facebook's vice president of messaging products, is the disappearance of the phone number and its replacement by applications like Facebook's Messenger. " You can make video and voice calls while at the same time not needing to know someone's phone number," writes Marcus. "You don't need to have a Facebook account to use Messenger anymore, and it's also a cross platform experience – so you can pick up where you left off whether you're on a desktop computer, a tablet, or your phone." Jonah Berger, Wharton professor and author of "Contagious: Why Things Catch On" agrees. "For most of us, I think it's really hard to actually remember what someone's phone number actually is. We use our phones so often or we click on a button that has it. But if there was a test where you had to say, do you remember your best friends number or could you type in your best friend's number I think most of us would fail."

But not everyone agrees that Marcus' predictions are objective and disinterested. "It's all very well the company wanting to be the de facto Internet — especially in places like India. But drier minds and eyes might wonder whether the wish to eradicate phone numbers has something to do with not everyone having yet given Facebook their phone numbers," says Chris Matyszczyk. "It may well be that phone numbers will disappear. Some, though, might wonder how making their disappearance a company theme squares with what Marcus claims is the ultimate goal: 'It's all about delight.' This one's easy. It's all about delighting Facebook."

coondoggie writes: The Federal Aviation Administration today said it has issued 1,008 exemptions to businesses wanting to fly unmanned aircraft in the national airspace. Such small drones have been on the bad side of the news in the past few days: there have been at least three complaints about the diminutive aircraft flying near the flight path of JFK airport in New York. All three of the flights landed safely but the events prompted New York Senator Charles Schumer to call for "tougher FAA rules on drones," as well as geofencing software that could prohibit a done from flying higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area.

Required Snark writes: During the recent North Fire that burned vehicles on I-15 in California, firefighters had to suspend aerial operations because of the presence of drone aircraft, according to CNN. Quoting: "Five such 'unmanned aircraft systems' prevented California firefighters from dispatching helicopters with water buckets for up to 20 minutes over a wildfire that roared Friday onto a Los Angeles area freeway that leads to Las Vegas. Helicopters couldn't drop water because five drones hovered over the blaze, creating hazards in smoky winds for a deadly midair disaster, officials said."

In response, state officials have introduced legislation that would allow first responders to disable drones in emergency situations. A second bill would allow jail time and fines for drone users that interfere with firefighting efforts. "Senate Bill 168, introduced by Gatto and Sen. Ted Gaines, R-El Dorado, would grant 'immunity to any emergency responder who damages an unmanned aircraft in the course of firefighting, air ambulance, or search-and-rescue operations.' Los Angeles County fire Inspector David Dantic declined to comment on the specific legislation, but said his agency's aircraft cannot operate safely if a drone is in the same airspace."

schwit1 writes: New statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the average American has packed on the pounds in the past 50 years. Both men and women have gained a considerable amount of weight since 1960, with the average American woman now weighing 166.2 pounds — nearly identical to what American men weighed in the 1960s. U.S. men have been getting bigger too, gaining nearly 30 pounds from the 1960s to 2010 — 166.3 pounds to 195.5 pounds today. The good news is that both sexes have gained almost an inch in height since then, so that accounts for some of the overall weight gain.

_xeno_ writes: You may remember back in February that Slashdot covered the NFL asking Columbia University for help investigating Deflategate, a scandal where the New England Patriots were caught deflating their footballs in order to make them easier to catch. The Patriots claimed this was simply a result of the weather, while their opponents disagreed. Well, it's been months, but we finally have our answer: the balls were, in fact, knowingly deflated by the Patriots (to no one's surprise). And while science can explain a little deflation, it cannot explain the amount of deflation seen during the game. Which isn't stopping Boston fans from attacking the science. The report stops short of certainty, though, concluding rather that deliberate underinflation was "more likely than not." Not everyone agrees that a conspiracy is necessary to account for the measured pressure readings.

McGruber writes: The CBS affiliate in Denver reports: "Two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers." According to law enforcement reports obtained during the CBS4 investigation, a male TSA screener told a female colleague in 2014 that he "gropes" male passengers who come through the screening area at DIA. "He related that when a male he finds attractive comes to be screened by the scanning machine he will alert another TSA screener to indicate to the scanning computer that the party being screened is a female. When the screener does this, the scanning machine will indicate an anomaly in the genital area and this allows (the male TSA screener) to conduct a pat-down search of that area." Although the TSA learned of the accusation on Nov. 18, 2014 via an anonymous tip from one of the agency's own employees, reports show that it would be nearly three months before anything was done."

sabri points out that Reddit CEO Ellen Pao plans to ban salary negotiations in an attempt to equalize pay for men and women. "After losing a sex-discrimination lawsuit in Silicon Valley last week, Ellen Pao continues on her crusade to bring gender equality to the tech world, but this time with a focus on her home turf. As Reddit’s interim CEO, Pao said she wants to eliminate salary negotiations from the company’s hiring process. In her first interview since the lawsuit, Pao told with the Wall Street Journal Monday that the plan would help level the playing field. 'Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,' she said. 'So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation.'"

An anonymous reader sends news that unidentified hackers are demanding 500 bitcoins, currently worth about $128,000, from administrators of a New Jersey school district. Four elementary schools in Swedesboro-Woolwich School District, which enroll more than 1,700 students, are now locked out of certain tasks: "Without working computers, teachers cannot take attendance, access phone numbers or records, and students cannot purchase food in cafeterias. Also, [district superintendent Dr. Terry C. Van Zoeren] explained, parents cannot receive emails with students grades and other information." According to this blog post from security company BatBlue, the district has been forced to postpone the Common Core-mandated PARCC state exams, too. Small comfort: "Fortunately the Superintendent told CBS 3’s Walt Hunter the hackers, using a program called Ransomware, did not access any personal information about students, families or teachers." Perhaps the administrators can take heart: Ransomware makers are, apparently, starting to focus more on product support; payment plans are probably on the way.

randomErr writes A new procedure has been developed that can turn any brown eye to blue. The procedure uses a laser that disturbs the melanin in the pigmented part of the eye. Over the course of a few weeks your body would eliminate the disturbed pigment revealing the blue layer below all people have. The procedure costs about $5,000 and only takes a few second to complete. You can't get it yet in the U.S. because it still going through clinical trials and some ophthalmologists fear that process could increase pressure in the eyes.

mi (197448) writes You heard the scare-mongering, you heard the governors and mayors closing public transit and declaring driving on public roads a crime. But it turned out to have been a mistake. Boston may have been hit somewhat, but further South — NYC and Philadelphia — the snowfall was rather underwhelming. Promised "2-3 feet" of snow, NYC got only a few inches. Is this an example of "better safe than sorry," or is government's overreach justified by questionable weather models exceeding the threshold of an honest mistake?

mi (197448) writes You heard the scare-mongering, you heard the governors and mayors closing public transit and declaring driving on public roads a crime. But it turned out to have been a mistake. Boston may have been hit somewhat, but further South — NYC and Philadelphia — the snowfall was rather underwhelming. Promised "2-3 feet" of snow, NYC got only a few inches. Is this an example of "better safe than sorry," or is government's overreach justified by questionable weather models exceeding the threshold of an honest mistake?

Bennett Haselton writes: They would never admit it, but your high school admins would probably breathe a sigh of relief if all of their sexting-mad students would go ahead and install Snapchat so that evidence of (sometimes) illegal sexting would disappear into the ether. They can't recommend that you do this, because it would sound like an implicit endorsement, just like they can't recommend designated drivers for teen drinking parties -- but it's a good bet they would be grateful. Read on for the rest.

Five teenagers at Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Illinois were arrested in November in conjunction with a girl's topless photo being distributed throughout the school. Last Thursday, in Rochester Hills, Michigan, a prosecutor announced that contemplating filing child pornography charges against "dozens" of students for distributing explicit pictures to other students at Rochester Adams High School. In Portland, Oregon, police are investigating a group of Grant High School students for making videos of each other having sex at the school and off campus. (And, of course, these are just the incidents that police found out about.) Naturally, schools everywhere have been falling over themselves to institute strict anti-cyber-bullying and anti-sexting policies (not to mention that sending and forwarding sexually explicit pictures of children under 18 is a federal crime as well).

Schools have rules for reasons that are a mixture of cynical protection against lawsuits and sincere concern for the students. When education system teach students not to smoke cigarettes, they're presumably doing that out of genuine concern for students' welfare, since it would be hard to sue the school for not teaching about the dangers of smoking. When a school installs a railing by the side of a walkway to keep students safe from passing cars, they're probably motivated by a mixture of concern over being sued, and legitimate concern for students' safety. When the school installs software on their computers to block Facebook and Reddit (even outside of class time, when computers are sitting idle and students have nothing else to do), they're probably motivated entirely by liability concerns - because they know virtually all of those students can get on those websites at home, so they're not affecting the students' long-term welfare by keeping them off of those websites, but they just don't want to be liable for anything if the students access those sites at school.

In the case of anti-sexting policies, I'm not cynical enough to think that schools are motivated entirely by liability concerns. There are actual risks to sexting pictures of yourself, even if you're never charged with violating child pornography laws: the embarrassment of your picture being forwarded around the school, or ending up in the archive of a porn site. On the other hand, worse things happen to dozens of high school students every month, but only a handful of schools get dragged into the national spotlight as a result of a child porn investigation. So let's call it about 25% due to legitimate concern for students and 75% due to liability reasons and concern for adverse publicity.

But sexting students could vastly reduce schools' concerns about both issues, by sending pictures using an app like Snapchat, which automatically deletes photos after the recipient has viewed them -- in order to greatly reduce the chance of a picture being saved or forwarded after it's sent. Please note, I'm not saying the photos can't be saved anyway, or recovered by computer forensics. And take heed: I'm not saying you should do it either way! But if you greatly reduce the chances of an image being saved, you greatly reduce the chances of it leading to a scandal that engulfs the school, or leads to a federal child pornography charge.

Of course there are cases where teens were arrested for sending child pornography through Snapchat as well. But these high-profile stories don't address the relevant question, which is: Are you less likely to get arrested (or expelled, or humiliated) for sending these pictures if you do it through Snapchat, even if the likelihood doesn't drop to zero? Obviously, yes.

Now even someone with no phone-hacking knowledge can figure out that if they receive an image over Snapchat, they can "save" it by taking a photo of their screen with another phone or camera, and the sender won't know. (You can also take a normal screen shot with the phone, but that will notify the sender that you took a screen shot, unless you download a third-party app or try some other hack which may or may not even work by the time you read this.) However, this assumes that the trust relationship between the sender and the recipient is already broken at the time the message is being sent, if the recipient is saving the message without the knowledge or consent of the sender. Some of these sexts are presumably being sent in the context of a relationship in which some (sweet, naive, misguided) trust still exists, so that if the sender sends the message and the recipient doesn't use some sneaky workaround, the picture will get deleted on schedule. If trust only falls apart later, then the recipient won't have a copy of the image any more if it was sent by Snapchat, but they will if it was sent via text.

Actually, it may be possible for the recipient to recover a snapchat image after their smartphone Snapchat app has supposedly "deleted" it -- a company called Digital Forensics offers Snapchat image recovery as a service, but they charge $300-$500 per incident, and even they haven't figured out how to do it on an iPhone yet.

So, in terms of boolean logic, if you send an explicit photo via Snapchat, it might end up being saved permanently and forwarded if:
(
the recipient is already being dishonest with you (saving pics without your permission) at the time that you send the picture
AND
the recipient is smart enough to figure out how to save Snapchat pictures without notifying you -- not that hard, but eliminates some people
)
OR
(
you later go through a nasty breakup with the recipient and they're determined to humiliate you or get you in trouble with the law
AND
they don't mind the fact that they could also get in trouble with the law, for saving or forwarding the picture
AND
they're willing to spend $300 to recover the image
AND
they don't have an iPhone
)

Whereas if you send a photo via regular text, all it takes to get in trouble is either (a) the recipient going through a nasty breakup with you, that puts them in a vindictive frame of mind, while they still have a copy on their phone, or (b) the recipient's family member snooping through their messages.

Your high school would never tell you so out loud, but between Snapchat and texting, you can guess which they would prefer you to use.

Of course, this advice wouldn't have done much good for the Portland students who made and distributed their own sex videos, since creating the illegal permanent recording was their entire goal. Snapchat can help protect people from mild levels of stupid, but it's a barrier you can overcome if you aim high and truly believe in yourself.

Got something to say about privacy, technology, or other topics of interest? Long-form submissions are welcome.

MobyDisk writes: A lawsuit was filed yesterday over a case in which a woman was arrested for recording the police from her car while stopped in traffic. Ars Technica writes, "Police erased the 135-second recording from the woman's phone, but it was recovered from her cloud account according to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City lawsuit, which seeks $7 million."

Baltimore police lost a similar case against Anthony Graber in 2010 and another against Christopher Sharp in 2014. The is happening so often in Baltimore that in 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the police reminding them that they cannot stop recordings, and most certainly cannot delete them.

Local awareness of this issue is high since the the Mayor and the City Council support requiring police body cameras. The city council just passed a bill requiring them, but the mayor is delaying implementation until a task force determines how best to go about it. The country is also focused on police behavior in light of the recent cases in Ferguson and New York, the latter of which involved a citizen recording.

So the mayor, city council, police department policies, courts, and federal government are all telling police officers to stop doing this. Yet it continues to happen, and in a rather violent matter. What can people do to curb this problem?