Slashdot Mirror

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced calls on Monday from U.S. and European lawmakers to explain how a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump's election campaign gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users. From a report: Facebook's shares fell more than 7 percent, wiping around $40 billion off its market value, set for their biggest drop since September 2012, as investors worried that new legislation could damage the company's lucrative advertising business. "The lid is being opened on the black box of Facebook's data practices, and the picture is not pretty," said Frank Pasquale, a University of Maryland law professor who has written about Silicon Valley's use of data. Lawmakers in the United States, Britain and Europe have called for investigations into media reports that political analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the private data on more than 50 million Facebook users to support Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign. Further reading: An undercover investigation by Channel 4 News reveals how Cambridge Analytica secretly campaigns in elections across the world. Bosses were filmed talking about using bribes, ex-spies, fake IDs and sex workers.

Maciej Ceglowski, a Polish-American web developer, has demolished a news story from earlier this week in which a British outlet Channel 4 suggested that Amazon's algorithm-driven suggestions were helping people find items that are required to make bombs. Multiple credible news outlets picked the story, including The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, and CNBC. We ran an excerpt from the New York Times' article, which included a newsworthy response from Amazon that it was reviewing its website, on Slashdot. In reality what was happening was, Ceglowski wrote, the items Amazon suggested would help high school chemistry students with their experiments. From his blog: The 'common chemical compound' in Channel 4's report is potassium nitrate, an ingredient used in curing meat. If you go to Amazon's page to order a half-kilo bag of the stuff, you'll see the suggested items include sulfur and charcoal, the other two ingredients of gunpowder. [...] The Channel 4 piece goes on to reveal that people searching for 'another widely available chemical' are being offered the ingredients for thermite, a mixture of metal powders that when ignited "creates a hazardous reaction used in incendiary bombs and for cutting through steel." In this case, the 'widely available chemical' is magnesium ribbon. If you search for this ribbon on Amazon, the site will offer to sell you iron oxide (rust) and aluminum powder, which you can mix together to create a spectacular bit of fireworks called the thermite reaction. The thermite reaction is performed in every high school chemistry classroom, as a fun reward for students who have had to suffer through a baffling unit on redox reactions. [...] When I contacted the author of one of these pieces to express my concerns, they explained that the piece had been written on short deadline that morning, and they were already working on an unrelated article. The author cited coverage in other mainstream outlets (including the New York Times) as justification for republishing and not correcting the assertions made in the original Channel 4 report. The real story in this mess is not the threat that algorithms pose to Amazon shoppers, but the threat that algorithms pose to journalism. By forcing reporters to optimize every story for clicks, not giving them time to check or contextualize their reporting, and requiring them to race to publish follow-on articles on every topic, the clickbait economics of online media encourage carelessness and drama. This is particularly true for technical topics outside the reporter's area of expertise. And reporters have no choice but to chase clicks.

An anonymous reader notes this report from Channel 4 News that Adult FriendFinder, one of the largest dating sites in the world, has suffered a database breach that revealed personal information for 3.9 million of its users. The leaked data includes email addresses, IP addresses, birth dates, postal codes, sexual preferences, and information indicating which of them are seeking extramarital affairs. There even seems to be data from accounts that were supposedly deleted. Channel 4 saw evidence that there were plans for a spam campaign against these users, and others are worried that a blackmail campaign will follow. "Where you've got names, dates of birth, ZIP codes, then that provides an opportunity to actually target specific individuals whether they be in government or healthcare for example, so you can profile that person and send more targeted blackmail-type emails," said cybercrime specialist Charlie McMurdy.

codeusirae wrote in with news that Edward Snowden gave an alternative to the UK's yearly Christmas message, speaking about his objections to mass indiscriminate surveillance by governments. The message aired on channel four at 16:15. Slashgear posted a transcript. Quoting: "Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves — an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."

codeusirae wrote in with news that Edward Snowden gave an alternative to the UK's yearly Christmas message, speaking about his objections to mass indiscriminate surveillance by governments. The message aired on channel four at 16:15. Slashgear posted a transcript. Quoting: "Think about what this means for the privacy of the average person. A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves — an unrecorded, unanalyzed thought. And that's a problem, because privacy matters. Privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be."

judgecorp writes "Britain's Channel 4 screened Blackout, a drama about a cyber-attack which crashes the national power grid. The show was silly enough, with a strong message about the dangers of lighting candles in such a situation, but the Twitter responses were even better. The show terrified some viewers who apparently didn't realise that their TV screen was powered by the grid."

theodp writes "'What's the point of a mobile device,' asks WSJ reporter and iPad-beatdown-victim Rolfe Winkler, 'if people don't feel safe using it while they're mobile?' A lucrative secondhand market for today's electronics devices — a used iPad or iPhone can fetch $400+ — has produced an explosion in 'Apple picking' by thieves. So, how big is the iCrime wave? In New York City alone, there were more than 26,000 incidents of electronics theft in the first 10 months of 2011 — 81% involving mobile phones — according to an internal NYPD document. And plenty of the crimes are violent. The best way to deter theft is to reduce the value of stolen device — the wireless industry is moving to adopt a national registry that would deny service to such devices. A remote kill switch has been discussed as another approach. For its part, Apple says the company 'has led the industry in helping customers protect their lost or stolen devices,' although some are unimpressed."

sammyF70 writes "Every geek's favourite non-sci-fi show (the original UK one, not the abysmally bad German and US remakes) is coming back for a fourth season! According to the IMDB's message board, it should be on the air 'Juneish.' While you wait, you can check out what kind of vintage hardware will be on the show this time, and remember: if you illegally download movies, you will face the consequences!"

fatnickc writes "The UK's Channel 4, from the 16th of September, will be broadcasting a few programmes in 3D, the full list of which can be found here. While the likes of a 3D Miley Cyrus concert aren't exactly groundbreaking, this will give 3D viewing at home much more publicity, paving the way for even more interesting projects in the future. In partnership with retailer Sainsbury's, Channel 4 are producing free 3D glasses so that as many people as possible can watch them, although it's unclear which of the various types they'll be. "

chrb writes "Several British news sources have recently reported on the growing campaign that calls for an apology to Alan Turing for his persecution by the British government. The petition to the Prime Minister was started by John Graham-Cumming, who has also written to the Queen requesting a Knighthood for Turing, but admits that a pardon is 'unlikely,' saying, 'The most important thing to me is that people hear about Alan Turing and realize his incredible impact on the modern world, and how terrible the impact of prejudice was on him.'"

nuke-alwin writes "Channel 4 news in the UK is reporting that Google will be sued by Lastminute.com for the way it sells advertising. Adverts from competitors will now be displayed when searching for some trademarks. Google says consumers will benefit. Some trademarks become so familiar that all similar products are known by the trademark name: Coke and Hoover, for example. I think searching for these kinds of words should allow competitors to advertise their similar products."

prostoalex writes "IT Crowd, a comedy television show by UK's Channel 4, introduced on Slashdot earlier, has released the first episode, available on the official show site in Windows Media format." Pretty standard fare- there are nice touches like EFF stickers and an RTFM shirt scattered about. Some funny stuff, but the laugh track makes it really unwatchable for me.

RJG writes "In the latest reality show on British TV, three British "space tourists" last night succesfully blasted off on a five day mission and are currently orbiting the earth 200 miles up. Or so they think. And to forestall the first question. They aren't experiencing weightlessness due to a combination of being in a low orbit (rather than outer space where the weightlessness is) and a few under-floor gravity generators."

fingal asks: "I've recently started working for a company who has decided that viral marketing is The Way Forwards. I've got mixed feelings about this. As the sysadmin who has to deal with the aftermath of hosting our own stuff and dealing with the inevitable congestion associated with the (rapidly increasing) size of attachments that are routinely moved about, it just winds me up. On the other hand - I very much enjoy checking out what people are up to (except when they email it to me and I'm on a dial-up...), but I don't think that I've ever actually bought anything as a result. What does everyone think about about this (either from the viewpoint of a consumer, provider or infrastructure engineer)?" Here is a better definition of the term "viral marketing". What are your thoughts on this subject?

Responding to your questions today in finestkind all-lowercase form is Cathy Rogers, former co-host (the technical term is "presenter") of Scrapheap Challenge and Junkyard Wars, now presiding over a brand-new show, Full Metal Challenge.

1) Time...
by AmigaAvenger

On Junkyard wars it always seemed that the teams had something in running condition before the end of the time limit. Was there ever a time when a team had ABSOLUTELY nothing worth sending into competition? (Wouldn't make for much of a show though...)

Cathy:

absolutely nothing? hmmm. i think that's a question of interpretation... did you see the hydrofoils show? neither of the machines worked at all. so what did we do... repeated the challenge for the british version of the show and that time... neither of them worked again. we just won't learn. but its funny - people use to think i was just being a smart arse when i would go in and give the teams a hard time for being behind, having nothing ready etc - but really i was terrified that we wouldn't have a last part of the show and was imagining that we'd all have to do the can-can or something...

2) Why do you think Engineering is so male dominated?
by Anonymous Coward

You have said in the past that it would be good to have an all female team, but as yet, we haven't seen this.

Why do you think so few women are interested in technology?

Cathy:

oh lord i don't know. i vacillate so much on this one - sometimes i think it is all just habit and training and sometimes i think there really is some different configuration of men's and women's brains - like when i see my little niece desperately wanting to wear pink and play dollies and my nephew constantly deconstructing the alphabet / numbers etc.

but we have actually had all-female teams a couple of times now - twice on junk and in the new show full metal challenge. (in fact there is a fabulous all women team in the show next week - the flamin' aussies who are all drag-racers and are cooool) and they've done well - but they're always a real battle to find. i thought it would be easier in america, where in many ways women's position in society generally is more evolved - but i was wrong. it seems just as tough. and its odd because in other areas of science women are ahead of men. its just something about wirey stuff and digit stuff and big hammer stuff. but any tech-keen ladies reading this, please please apply! you have my ear.

3) how do you do it?
by Suppafly

A lot of people don't realize that not only do you work on all of these shows, you help conceive the initial ideas behind them. How do you do it? Did you just one day have an idea and present it to a network, or did you work from the inside to have your concepts realized? What in your past got you interested in the whole build things from junkyard parts concept?

Cathy:

i was working for an independent tv company (rdf media) when we first hatched the idea for scrapheap challenge (the british name for junkyard wars). so i was in a good position in that i was talking to people at the networks here all the time about all kinds of ideas. and that was just one that hit home. the idea actually first came from the movie apollo 13 and being transfixed by the 'houston we have a problem' part. that scene in which all the very non-typical-hero boys at ground control had to figure out how to save the astronauts lives with nothing but a bit of knicker elastic and a plastic knife. it was that that got us thinking - making life-saving stuff out of rubbish - brilliant, and making the people who aren't normally heroes (i call them the grubby fingernail brigade) into heroes - fantastic. the junkyard and all the rest kind of followed from there. don't know quite how i have managed to end up doing so many shows about boy stuff though. i would much rather go to a nice art gallery.

4) American vs. British contestants
by banda

Have you found any differences between the contestants in different iterations of the show? Speaking as an American who spent part of his youth in England, I find the British contestants much more entertaining, insightful and engaging. Was it easier to work with any particular group? Were there any contestants that made the show difficult?

Cathy:

well here's a funny thing - a lot of americans prefer the british teams and a lot of british people prefer the american teams... what can it all mean? are we all riddled with self-loathing? are we all superbly positive and outward-looking and natural anthropologists? i don't know. i think there is part of the show which is about observing people doing their thing in their natural habitat, a bit like how we might watch a natural history film about baracudas. and in that sense it is easier to watch people who are bit removed from ourselves. i would say in terms of being a host (yuk yuk hate that word) - it is easier to do the american shows because american people are more 'tv-articulate' - they understand what is required for tv - i guess simply because tv is the most dominant medium in american life and history. whereas for brits, other media are still dominant if you look over the whole period of our history; we haven't quite let go of a time when we read dickens serialised in pamphlets, so we are more used to sitting quietly taking things in - rather than 'putting them out there' ourselves. americans can get away with saying things like 'i am the big cahuna' whereas british people just sound silly saying things like that. the only downside of the american show is that americans seem to be more competitive, which can mean that things get a bit serious sometimes. in the new show FMC the brits often lose and find it all rather funny and are very self-deprecating. but the americans sometimes cry!

5) Sounds from the indie records
by Mikey-San

Before the 'Heap, you were in a British indie-crash-twee-pop band called Marine Research, and before that, Heavenly. Do you keep in touch with Amelia and Rob these days?

Cathy:

indie crash twee pop?! yikes. don't let that get out. yes i do keep in touch with the old indies though i must say i don't go and shuffle along to shows as much as i used to. i saw britney in vegas so the tortured lollipops at the dublin castle will never feel quite the same...

6) As a musician, what do you think of...
by CSG_SurferDude

As a musician, what do you think of the music industry these days, specifically about the slave-labor-like recording contracts, industry ownership of copyrights, Peer-to-peer song sharing (MP3s), and the current fruitless atempts to copy-protect CDs?

Is there anything that you can do in your current position to help change any of that to the betterment of recording artists and consumers everywhere?

Cathy:

is this a leading question?! do you have a letter drafted for me to sign?!

er.. where to start? big corporations are scary in many many ways and the music industry is obviously no exception. but although there seem to be so many new issues today where normal people / artists / whatever are exploited i wonder whether it is really that different from when i was a kid and me and my mates used to tape everything off the radio and make compilation tapes (one of the greatest and most overlooked art forms) and never buy a record in our life. except if it was a local band or a band on a really cool label or a record where we just loved the cover and had to have it. its a big discussion - the only incontrovertible good is to support your truly independent labels. k records / kill rock stars / many others have proved that you can have integrity, great music and not go under.

7) Role of expert
by naarok

Watching on TV, it often seems that the expert provides some good initial insight into a problem, but then often becomes superflous. Sitting through many hours of actually watching the challenges unfold. How valuable were the experts in comparison to teams with general inventiveness?

Cathy:

it depends a lot on the challenge. if its something innovative and thought-provoking like 'build a car that fits in a suitcase' then most teams who have the necessary know-how to get on in the first place would be able to make a pretty good stab at it expert-less. but in other challenges, such as making gliders or submarines, they are dependent. it also depends of course how well they all get along....

8) massive disruption to geeks everywhere....
by gclef

So, have you ever been tempted to wander into somewhere like a LinuxWorld conference, just to see if you could stop all productive work from occurring? (you probably could, you know...)

If not, are you tempted now?

Cathy:

er. i blush easily. my sister and i used to have a fantasy about going to this event called 'crufts' (a really pompous but very-seriously-taken dog show in england (like, they show it on tv! ) where people parade their over-coiffured hounds around doing daft tricks and generally proving that to be english is to be humorous in this fairly tragic way) and doing a streak. but maybe just with bottom halves! it would be a totally pointless act of sort-of-harmless-sabotage of a worthless institution and this amused us.

i suppose what i mean (ie not evading your question quite so obviously) is that the notion of committing a minor act that leads to massive disruption is an appealing idea. but i'm not quite sure about yours....

9) Off screen testing?
by The Mutant

How much testing goes on off screen? For example, the episode where participants had to build a diving bell, descend to the bottom of a small pond, and retrieve a chest of gold.

I don't believe that this was not tested off camera, if for no other reason solely to insure you didn't inadvertantly end up making a snuff episode.

Same thing goes for pretty much any device where explosives were used, or even the airplanes.

Cathy:

worryingly little. its always the hardest decision - test them and make sure they work but risk them breaking during the test (which you're not filming) and then you have no show, or fail to test them and have true spontaneity and excitement about the outcome but risk them failing during the show or being dangerous or whatever. we debate it endlessly and there is often a half way house - the diving bells you can put in the water and test-pump some air, the gliders you can tow up on a winch without a person on them. but it never gives you the full picture and what you see in the show is invariably the first time the machines have been properly tested, people and all. scary isn't it?

10) Why Rollins? Why!!
by SanLouBlues

What's the coolest thing you've ever built yourself? Or, what's the coolest thing you've ever tried to build yourself?

Cathy:

well who else would look as good in a power station? i mean, just say the words 'disused power station' and you think of henry. i think he is fantastic - a force of nature. and he makes me laugh a lot.

what have i built? lord how embarrassing. you have outed me. the sad truth is the things i have made which have been the most impressive feats of engineering and construction have been cakes. sshhhhhh.

Junkyard Wars (and the British Scrapheap Challenge) have long been popular with Slashdot readers. Now Cathy is co-host of a new show, Full Metal Challenge, that also involves teams building strange machines out of this and that. Take a look at this 'Cathy' fan site (and possibly her less interesting official biography), then ask away. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)

category9 writes "One of the best xmas tv highlights for us chaps in the UK is the RI Christmas Letures. Once broadcast by the BBC, Channel4 now have the helm. Past lecturers include the world renowed cybernetics engineer, Prof. Kevin Warwick. This year Sir John Sulston, of Human Genome Project fame, will be talking about genetics and the building blocks of life over 5 lectures. This is a must see for anyone interested in artificial intelligence. The lectures are presented in a format which allows technical detail, but in a way very accessible to those outside the particilar scientific fields. The website has transcripts for anyone not able to receive Channel4, perhaps with streams coming at a later date (lobby Channel4 if you must)."