Slashdot Mirror

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said she wanted to "guarantee" net neutrality for all Americans during her 2020 presidential campaign kickoff speech. "[T]he senator bringing it up in her announcement marked perhaps the most high-profile stage the issue has had in terms of recent presidential politics," reports The Daily Dot. From the report: The Minnesota senator brought up the issue among other technology platform goals, including privacy and cybersecurity. "Way too many politicians have their heads stuck in the sand when it comes to the digital revolution. 'Hey guys, it's not just coming. It's here.' If you don't know the difference between a hack and Slack, it's time to pull off the digital highway," she said. "What would I do as president? We need to put some digital rules of the road into law when it comes to people's privacy."

She added: "For too long the big tech companies have been telling you, don't worry, we've got your back," she said. "While your identities, in fact, are being stolen and your data is being mined. Our laws need to be as sophisticated as the people who are breaking them. We must revamp our nation's cybersecurity and guarantee net neutrality for all. And we need to end the digital divide by pledging to connect every household to the internet by 2022, and that means you, rural America." Other Democrats seeking the 2020 nomination have shown support for net neutrality in the past. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) tweeted late last month about reports suggesting that telecom investments have not risen since the FCC's controversial repeal of net neutrality, calling the decision "another handout to big corporations & telecom giants."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also told a crowd in Iowa last month that she believed "in net neutrality the same way I believe everybody should have access to electricity," according to the Washington Post.

Last Saturday a firm which rents promotional robots claimed that one of their robots broke free from a line of robots, only to be hit by a self-driving Tesla.

Though video of the incident has now been viewed over 1.2 million times, Wired followed up on the company's claim that "Nevada police" were investigating the incident. Or weren't. Aden Ocampo Gomez, a public information officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, said he couldn't find any record of such an incident. And anyway, he says, "We don't report to that kind of incident on private property."
Wired also challenged Promobot's claim that their robot was hit by "a self-driving Tesla car": Teslas don't have a "full self-driving" mode. Autopilot, the automaker's semiautonomous system, is made for highways, not the sort of private road shown in a video of the alleged crash published by the robotics company. Promobot seems to start falling over just a moment before the car gets to it. And that video appears to show a rope snaking away from the incident -- the sort that could be used, say, to pull down a robot that hadn't been hit by a car at all.
When Wired contacted the company for a comment, they didn't respond.

The company's press release also claims that after the collision "most likely there is no way to restore" their robot -- and yet the Daily Dot reports Promobot "does not intend to pursue reparations".

An anonymous reader writes: In just the last 35 weeks, one online divorce site received over 200 petitions citing addiction to Fortnite and other online games as one of the reasons someone wanted a divorce. "[T]he dawn of the digital revolution has introduced new addictions," said a spokesperson for the company, also citing online pornography and social media. "These numbers equate to roughly 5% of the 4,665 petitions we have handled since the beginning of the year and as one of the largest filers of divorce petitions in the UK, is a pretty good indicator."

On the other hand, the A.V. Club notes that the web site's creators "have a vested interest in making divorce seem sexy and cool in a way that only 'You walked in front of the screen and a 10-year-old in Wyoming shot me dead so now I'm taking the house' truly can."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: An update Google rolled out for its popular Chrome browser this weekend helps prevent those annoying auto-playing video ads on many websites from disturbing your day with unwanted sound as well. But that update is causing consternation for many Web-based game developers who are finding that the change completely breaks the audio in their online work. The technical details behind the problem involve the way Chrome handles WebAudio objects, which are now automatically paused when a webpage starts up, stymying auto-playing ads. To get around this, Web-based games now have to actively restart that pre-loaded audio object when the player makes an action to start the game, even if that audio wasn't autoplaying beforehand. "The standard doesn't require you to do this, so no one would have thought to do this before today," developer Andi McClure told Ars Technica. "With Chrome's new autoplay policies, developers shouldn't assume that audio can be played before a user gesture," Google told The Daily Dot in a statement. "With gaming in Chrome, this may affect Web Audio. We have shared details on what developers can do to address this, and the design for the policy was published last year."

The black market for Spotify playlists is booming. It's cheaper than you might expect to hack the system -- and if it's done right, it more than pays for itself, the Daily Dot reports. From the article: It's impossible to overstate the value of Spotify playlists. The company dominates the streaming music market, with 159 million active users and 71 million paid subscribers -- nearly double Apple Music's subscription base, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. More importantly, Spotify has made playlists its defining feature. [...] The rising value of Spotify playlists has spurred a new form of payola -- the decades-old illegal practice of paying for a song to be broadcast on the radio -- with massive amounts of money changing hands behind the scenes. An August 2015 expose by Billboard quoted an unnamed major-label executive who claimed playlist adds were being sold for "$2,000 for a playlist with tens of thousands of fans to $10,000 for the more well-followed playlists." Spotify responded by updating its terms of service to explicitly prohibit "selling a user account or playlist, or otherwise accepting any compensation, financial or otherwise, to influence the name of an account or playlist or the content included on an account or playlist." But the practice of paying for placement, as with other forms of payola before it, hasn't died out. It's just been remixed.

In a matter of minutes and for a mere $2, you can pay to have your song considered by one of the 1,500 curators working on SpotLister, one of several new services that sells access to prominent Spotify users. The site was founded by two 21-year-old college students -- Danny Garcia, a guitar player at New York University, and a close friend who requested anonymity due to unrelated privacy concerns. They started a "private-for-hire" PR company in 2016 that offered "pitching services" to generate buzz on SoundCloud and, later, Spotify. The two would take on anywhere from 15 to 20 clients a month, each paying anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 to secure prominent placement on playlists.

The black market for Spotify playlists is booming. It's cheaper than you might expect to hack the system -- and if it's done right, it more than pays for itself, the Daily Dot reports. From the article: It's impossible to overstate the value of Spotify playlists. The company dominates the streaming music market, with 159 million active users and 71 million paid subscribers -- nearly double Apple Music's subscription base, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal. More importantly, Spotify has made playlists its defining feature. [...] The rising value of Spotify playlists has spurred a new form of payola -- the decades-old illegal practice of paying for a song to be broadcast on the radio -- with massive amounts of money changing hands behind the scenes. An August 2015 expose by Billboard quoted an unnamed major-label executive who claimed playlist adds were being sold for "$2,000 for a playlist with tens of thousands of fans to $10,000 for the more well-followed playlists." Spotify responded by updating its terms of service to explicitly prohibit "selling a user account or playlist, or otherwise accepting any compensation, financial or otherwise, to influence the name of an account or playlist or the content included on an account or playlist." But the practice of paying for placement, as with other forms of payola before it, hasn't died out. It's just been remixed.

In a matter of minutes and for a mere $2, you can pay to have your song considered by one of the 1,500 curators working on SpotLister, one of several new services that sells access to prominent Spotify users. The site was founded by two 21-year-old college students -- Danny Garcia, a guitar player at New York University, and a close friend who requested anonymity due to unrelated privacy concerns. They started a "private-for-hire" PR company in 2016 that offered "pitching services" to generate buzz on SoundCloud and, later, Spotify. The two would take on anywhere from 15 to 20 clients a month, each paying anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 to secure prominent placement on playlists.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Scientists have been investigating the impact of violent video games on behavior for more than two decades, and the results are still being debated. In a 2015 resolution on games, the American Psychological Association reported that multiple studies found a link between violent game exposure and aggressive behavior, though critics at the time questioned the findings. Now, a new study published by researchers at the University of York in the journal Computers in Human Behavior further challenges the connection.

It has long been theorized that exposure to in-game concepts like violence has a "priming" effect on players that ultimately impacts behavior, leading scientists to believe that a player exposed to in-game violence will be more susceptible to displaying such violence in real life. The new study found the exact opposite to be true in some instances. In a series of experiments with a little over 3,000 participants (more than any past study to date), university researchers found that exposure to video game concepts like violence won't necessarily impact behavior. It also found that increasing the realism of violent video games does mean aggressive behavior in gamers will increase.

schwit1 shares a report from The Daily Dot: A man was killed by police Thursday night in Wichita, Kansas, when officers responded to a false report of a hostage situation. The online gaming community is saying the dead man was the victim of a swatting prank, where trolls call in a fake emergency and force SWAT teams to descend on a target's house. If that's true, this would be the first reported swatting-related death. Wichita deputy police chief Troy Livingston told the Wichita Eagle that police were responding to a report that a man fighting with his parents had accidentally shot his dad in the head and was holding his mom, brother and sister hostage. When police arrived, "A male came to the front door," Livingston told the Eagle. "As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon." The man at the door was identified by the Eagle as 28-year-old Andrew Finch. Finch's mother told reporters "he was not a gamer," but the online Call of Duty community claims his death was the result of a gamer feud which Finch may not have even been a part of.
UPDATE: The New York Daily News reports police in Los Angeles have now arrested 25-year-old gamer Tyler Barriss, who the paper describes as "an alleged serial 'prankster'..."

"Barriss gave cops Finch's address, mistakenly believing it belonged to a person he had feuded with over a $1 or $2 Call of Duty wager."

Cutting_Crew writes: Along with Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ, I used AIM extensively (without an AOL subscription of course). AIM will finally come to a halt on December 15th, 2017, as reported a few months ago and explained in AOL fashion over on their website. I remember using AIM to keep in touch with friends, co-workers and yes, even tried dating back in the day using the "looking for love" feature not only available to AOL subscribers but also extended to AIM users as well. Any memories you want to share? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

sqorbit writes: Two German twitter users were able to post a 30,000-character tweet, blowing way past the 280-character limit it is testing for select users. The accounts were banned for a brief period of time but are now back online after they apologized. The original 30,396-character tweet has been archived and can be viewed here. The two pranksters exploited "a rule Twitter made in 2016 that links would no longer count in the 140-character limit," reports The Daily Dot. "Yes, this is just one big web address with a URL code hidden deep in the large block of text."

Slashdot reader blottsie shares a new article about the legendary Captain Crunch -- which includes Steve Wozniak's memory that Steve Jobs "started avoiding Crunch...afraid that it would put us too close to getting arrested." The Daily Dot reports: Wozniak and Jobs, of course, would go on to found the most successful tech company in the world. But Draper is far from being just an important footnote in Apple's history. He's the original hacking prankster, a purist driven by curiosity and craftsmanship, with a lifetime of exploits that have pushed technological and legal boundaries. And according to Jobs, in a rare 1994 interview, without him there wouldn't have been Apple. Now, for the first time, Draper is looking to publish his story with Beyond the Little Blue Box, an autobiography for which he's about to launch a Kickstarter campaign...

[H]e anonymously called in a national emergency directly to a furious President Richard Nixon on the Oval Office phone line, reporting that the West Coast had run out of toilet paper. He also claims he once bypassed the Iron Curtain to call Moscow in the Soviet Union. There's a playful mischief about him, but he's serious when it comes to his craft, relaying technical, intricate details about the systems he worked to hack... For many tinkering young coders and internet activists, Draper is still considered a folk hero, one whose apolitical infatuation with complex systems and compulsion to expose their limits made him a target -- especially where that curiosity crossed with corporate interests.
"Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas," Steve Jobs said in a 1994 interview. "The power of understanding that if you could build this box, you could control hundreds of billions of dollars around the world, that's a powerful thing." Steve Wozniak -- who writes the book's foreword -- remembers how Jobs ended that interview. "Steve Jobs said -- and I agree -- that without the blue box there might never have been an Apple."

Draper's Kickstarter campaign includes a "2600 Club" Bronze level, while people who pledge over $199 will receive an actual blue anonabox. And there's also a $10,000 "Super Phreak" level which includes a "VIP one-to-one meeting" with 74-year-old John Draper himself.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, is the most popular YouTuber in the world. He's gotten himself into another controversy, this time for shouting the n-word while livestreaming a video game. The 27-year-old Swede has repeatedly been criticized for hate speech, and just last month said he would no longer make Nazi jokes after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent. But while playing PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on Sunday, Kjellberg, who has over 57 million subscribers on YouTube, called another player the n-word before erupting into laughter. "What a fucking n****r," he said. "Jeez, oh my god. What the fuck? Sorry, but what the fuck? What a fucking asshole. I don't mean that in a bad way." Kjellberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and has yet to publicly acknowledge the incident.

In response to Kjellberg's use of a racial slur, a number of video game players and developers have condemned the creator. Sean Vanaman, the co-founder of video game company Campo Santo, decided to use copyright law to push back against Kjellberg. On Twitter, he said he was filing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown request against the famous YouTuber regarding a video in which Kjellberg plays Campo Santo's game Firewatch. There are compelling reasons to [remove hate speech from major internet platforms] by any means necessary, but DMCA overreach is among the least compelling options, considering that it unilaterally puts power into the hands of what are essentially uninvolved parties and allows for little arbitration or defense on the part of those who have their content removed.

blottsie writes: Starting next month, the FBI will no longer accept Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests via email. Instead, the U.S. agency will largely require requests be made via fax machine or the U.S. Postal Service. [The FBI will also accept a small number of requests via an online portal, "provided users agree to a terms-of-service agreement and are willing to provide the FBI with personal information, including a phone number and physical address."] The Daily Dot reports: "It's a huge step backwards for the FBI to switch from a proven, ubiquitous, user-friendly technology like email to a portal that has consistently shown problems, ranging from restricting how often citizens can access their right to government oversight to legitimate privacy concerns," says Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock, a nonprofit that has helped people file over 28,271 public records requests at more than 6,690 state, federal, and local agencies. "Given that email has worked well for millions of requests over the years, this seems like a move designed to reduce participation and transparency, and we hope that the FBI will reverse course," Morisy added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Daily Dot: The more social media you use, the higher the likelihood that you'll be anxious or depressed. At least according to the University of Pittsburgh Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health. In a study published online this month with more than 1,700 millennial adults, it found people who report using seven to 11 social media platforms had more than three times the risk of depression or anxiety than millennials who use zero to two platforms. The participants were asked about the most popular social media platforms in 2014, the year the study was conducted, which included Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine, and LinkedIn. Those who used more than seven platforms showed higher levels of depressive symptoms, even when researchers controlled for factors like race, gender, relationship status, household income, education, and total time spent on social media. Brian A. Primack, lead author of the study, notes that the correlation is not certain. He told PsyPost: "It may be that people who suffer from symptoms of depression or anxiety, or both, tend to subsequently use a broader range of social media outlets. For example, they may be searching out multiple avenues for a setting that feels comfortable and accepting. However, it could also be that trying to maintain a presence on multiple platforms may actually lead to depression and anxiety. More research will be needed to tease that apart."

Police have now one less tool to monitor users on Twitter. The Daily Dot is reporting that Twitter has cut ties with a third-party social network surveillance firm, citing company policies intended to safeguard users against the surreptitious collection of data by law enforcement agencies. From the report: The severed contract follows Twitter nullifying the commercial data agreements of two other leading social-network-surveillance firms, Geofeedia and Snaptrends. Previously unreported, Twitter severed the access of Media Sonar, an Ontario-based company founded in 2012, which has sold surveillance software to police departments across the United States. Nineteen local government services are known to have each spent at least $10,000 on the software between 2014 and 2016, according to documents acquired under state open-records laws. Twitter informed the Daily Dot this week that it had terminated Media Sonar's access to its public API in October. If the company attempts to create other API keys, Twitter said, "we will terminate those as well and take further action as appropriate."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Daily Dot: Sega may be done making the Genesis (known as the Mega Drive outside of the U.S.), but that doesn't mean people aren't still buying them. In Brazil, the 16-bit system is still hugely popular, and now it's being brought back into production. TecToy, which produces all manner of gadgets and toys, has launched preorders for all-new Sega Mega Drive stock, complete with support for the original game library and controllers. But what's even more astounding about the announcement is that it's all being done with Sega's blessing, making these official, brand new, Sega-branded consoles. The new consoles are spitting images of the originals, aside from the addition of an SD card slot, which makes it great for emulation. They're even complete with support for A/V cables, though there's no HDMI or other bells or whistles. That might seem like a bad move, but for the Brazilian market, it's a perfect fit, not to mention that you can easily pick up an A/V-to-HDMI converter for fairly cheap. The system costs roughly $125 (BRL399) and includes a SD card with 22 games.

"Please know that Apple will continue its work with law enforcement," reads an email from Apple's vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, who reports directly to CEO Tim Cook, according to new documents this week on WikiLeaks. An anonymous reader writes: In the email the Apple executive writes "we work closely with authorities to comply with legal requests for data that have helped solve complex crimes. Thousands of times every month, we give governments information about Apple customers and devices, in response to warrants and other forms of legal process. We have a team that responds to those requests 24 hours a day." The email was addressed to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

But the context is missing, and could show a larger attempt to soften Hillary Clinton's position on encryption. While Jackson writes that at Apple, "We share law enforcement's concerns about the threat to citizens," she later writes "Strong encryption does not eliminate Apple's ability to give law enforcement meta-data or any of a number of other very useful categories of data."
The email also compliments Clinton for her "principled and nuanced stance" on encryption in a December debate against Bernie Sanders. Clinton had said "maybe the backdoor is the wrong door, and I understand what Apple and others are saying about that. But I also understand, when a law enforcement official charged with the responsibility of preventing attack...well, if we can't know what someone is planning, we are going to have to rely on the neighbor... I just think there's got to be a way, and I would hope that our tech companies would work with government to figure that out."

An anonymous reader writes: Recently, browsers are starting to ship Web Bluetooth API, soon to become a component of Web of Things. Web Bluetooth will allow to connect local user devices with remote web sites. While offering new development and innovation possibilities, it may also open a number of frightening security and privacy risks such as private data leaks, abuses and complexity. Web Bluetooth as currently defined by W3C may introduce unexpected data leaks such as location, and personally-identifiable data. "There are numerous examples of data processing methods possible of extracting insight previously seemingly hidden," said Steve Hegenderfer, director of Developer Programs at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. "With Web Bluetooth, core security and privacy responsibility is delegated to the already powerful Web browser. Browsers should consider the types of information made available to websites and act accordingly in designing their data privacy layers." Is pairing kettles with web sites a good idea?

An anonymous reader writes: Recently, browsers are starting to ship Web Bluetooth API, soon to become a component of Web of Things. Web Bluetooth will allow to connect local user devices with remote web sites. While offering new development and innovation possibilities, it may also open a number of frightening security and privacy risks such as private data leaks, abuses and complexity. Web Bluetooth as currently defined by W3C may introduce unexpected data leaks such as location, and personally-identifiable data. "There are numerous examples of data processing methods possible of extracting insight previously seemingly hidden," said Steve Hegenderfer, director of Developer Programs at the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. "With Web Bluetooth, core security and privacy responsibility is delegated to the already powerful Web browser. Browsers should consider the types of information made available to websites and act accordingly in designing their data privacy layers." Is pairing kettles with web sites a good idea?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: An online surveillance tool that enabled hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agencies to track and collect information on social media users was also marketed for use in American public schools, the Daily Dot has learned. Geofeedia sold surveillance software typically bought by police to a high school in a northern Chicago suburb, less than 50 miles from where the company was founded in 2011. An Illinois school official confirmed the purchase of the software by phone on Monday. In the fall of 2014, the Lincolnshire-Prairie School District paid Geofeedia $10,000 to monitor the social media posts of children at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. "We did have for one year a contract with Geofeedia," said Jim Conrey, a spokesperson for Lincolnshire-Prairie School District. "We were mostly interested in the possibility of trying to prevent any kind of harm, either that students would do to themselves or to other students." Conrey said the district simply wanted to keep its students safe. "It was really just about student safety; if we could try to head off any potential dangerous situations, we thought it might be worth it," he said. Ultimately, the school found little use for the platform, which was operated by police liaison stationed on school grounds, and chose not to renew its subscription after the first year, citing cost and a lack of actionable information. "A lot of kids that were posting stuff that we most wanted, they weren't doing the geo-tagging or making it public," Conrey said. "We weren't really seeing a lot there." The school's experience, added Conrey, was that more often than not students would approach school administrators with sensitive issues, as opposed to the school unearthing problems affecting students using Geofeedia. "Quite frankly, we found that it wasn't worth the money," Conrey said.

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: "Amazon.com's first big-budget video game is like street basketball, except played in a mythological world where athletes are armed," reports the Los Angeles Times, adding "Wait, Amazon makes video games?" Indeed. Two weeks ago Amazon Game Studios held their first live "unboxing event", and PlayBreakaway.com is now accepting sign-ups for alpha playtesting of their new Twitch-optimized team-based title, promising a game "made by streamers, for streamers." ("Taunt every interception, celebrate every kill, and highlight your dominance with instant replays...")

"If you think about what makes games so fantastic, it's the experiences you have with your friends," explained one Amazon Games official, in an interview with the Times Friday. "A long time ago it was in arcades, then over local networks, then online and now you have Twitch and e-sports and modding and cosplay. They are all about shared experiences."

blottsie writes from a report via Daily Dot: Earlier this year, the FBI released a free, online video game featuring sheep in its attempts to fight terrorism recruitment efforts. The game is called The Slippery Slope of Violent Extremism, and it is a real thing that exists. You can play it here. After journalists filed a FOIA request to find out more about the game, the FBI said it would take two years to respond -- a staggeringly long wait that helps expose how the Bureau actively avoids responding to open-records requests. The information requested asked for "all documents -- specifically memos, email correspondence, and budgets -- around the development, release, and public reception of the FBI's Slippery Slope game. It's the one with the sheep." There are several reasons why it would take two years to respond. One reason is because of the lack of requests. "If 500 people want to have the FBI file on a famous dead person, that's going to be available, and it's going to be available quickly," J. Pat Brown, an employee at MuckRock, a nonprofit that helps journalists, researchers, good government groups, and interested members of the public make FOIA requests of government agencies, said. "But basic requests about agency activities are pushed into their own pile," adds Daily Dot. Another part of the problem has to do with the outdated technology used by government agencies. "Many of the computers the FBI is using to search for this material are from the 1980s and lack graphical interfaces. Outdated technology being a hurdle to government transparency is common across many federal agencies. The CIA only accepts FOIA request by fax machine, for example," reports Daily Dot. "In 2013, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which oversees the NSA among other agencies, was unable to accept FOIA requests for months because its fax machine broke and it had to wait until the next fiscal year to get it replaced." What's more is that government agencies are often not required to disclose information after long wait times for processing FOIAs. "As Ginger McCall of the Electronic Privacy Information Center told the Daily Dot in 2014, she once waited four years with near total silence on a FOIA request about the TSA's airport body-scanner technology only to get a note out of the blue from TSA saying she had to respond with 30 days if she wanted them to continue processing her request," reports Daily Dot. "When McCall reached out to others who had made FOIA requests to agencies under the Department of Homeland Security umbrella, they reported similar experiences."

An anonymous reader quotes the censorship-monitoring site Turkey Blocks: Turkey has blocked access to Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and partially restricted Google Drive cloud file sharing services following the leak of a set of private emails allegedly belonging to Minister Albayrak by hacktivist group RedHack. Both Google Drive and Dropbox services were issuing SSL errors, indicating intercepted traffic at the national or ISP level. Microsoft OneDrive was also subsequently blocked off throughout Turkey.
The emails reportedly document Turkey's use of pro-government trolls on Twitter -- though ironically, it's Twitter that's now being used to document the censorship. (GitHub was also blocked last night, according to a status update from the group.) Google Drive was even displaying an official notice from the Turkish government's Information and Communication Technologies Authority describing their block as an "administration measure" -- although another Twitter update this morning says Google Drive is now back online after Google complied with the government's takedown order.

South Carolina was hit by Hurricane Matthew at 11 a.m. EST, after the hurricane killed at least 300 people in Haiti (with Reuters estimating Haiti's death toll over 800). But as the U.S. declares a state of emergency for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, and with the power out for more than a million people, an anonymous Slashdot reader looks at the role tech companies are playing in responding to the storm system: AirBNB "has been advertising free rooms in parts of Florida and South Carolina" reports Motherboard. AirBNB's Disaster Reponse Tool connects people needing shelter with volunteers who are offering their residences for free. Meanwhile, Uber promised to cap its "surge pricing" for the area, while Lyft promised its fares would rise no more than two times their normal rate.

But many escaped the path of the hurricane thanks to Shofur, a startup that books chartered buses and matches riders to low-cost tickets, according to the Daily Dot. "Through Thursday night and into the early morning hours of Friday, Shofur evacuated an estimated 10,000 Floridians and Georgians to areas such as Atlanta, Florida's west coast, and the panhandle."
NASA is also flying a huge 15,000-pound drone over the area to collect real-time weather data, while Verizon is testing a 17-foot drone which may one day provide LTE mobile connectivity to first responders. In addition, a Verizon spokesperson says drone-enabled connectivity has "set the stage" for connecting drones to their IoT platform next year.

While the United States has the First Amendment to justify the spread of memes that may ridicule political figures for example, the Indonesian government doesn't. In fact, it is looking to criminalize internet users for posting memes. The Daily Dot reports via Jakarta Post: Its Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE) punishes any electronic media communication that incites fear or embarrassment under its defamation article. The public has continuously called for the article's removal, but instead Indonesia is introducing more restrictions to freedom of expression. Posting memes, texts, pictures, or videos would be punishable if found to have a defamatory or slanderous tone. According to the Indonesian government, this provision stands to prevent and control cyberbullying. But it can further be used as a political tool against opposition during elections. Since its implementation in 2008, 200 people have been prosecuted according to data from the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network. Among the most notable cases, was the prosecution of Prita Mulyasari in 2009 for complaining about Omni International Hospital services on an online mailing list.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Signal, widely considered the gold standard of encrypted messaging apps, was put to the test earlier this year when a FBI subpoena and gag order that demanded a wide range of information on two users resulted in a federal grand jury investigation in Virginia. The makers of Signal, Open Whisper Systems, profoundly disappointed law enforcement. The app collects as little data as possible and therefore was unable to hand anything useful over to agents. "That's not because Signal chose not to provide logs of information," ACLU lawyer Brett Kaufman told the Associated Press. "It's just that it couldn't." "The Signal service was designed to minimize the data we retain," Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Open Whisper Systems, told the New York Times. The subpoena came with a yearlong gag order that was successfully challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union. Signal's creators challenged the gag order as unconstitutional, "because it is not narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest." The challenge was successful. In addition to being popularly considered the best consumer encrypted messaging app available, Signal's technology is used by Facebook for Secret Conversations, WhatsApp for encrypted messages, and Google's Allo. Confronted with the subpoena, Marlinspike went to the ACLU for legal counsel. The ACLU responded with a letter saying that even though Signal did not have data the FBI sought, it still strenuously objected (PDF) to the fact the FBI wanted so much information.

Every major phone carrier experience outages on United States' east coast this morning at around 11am local time. The outage lasted for about 45 minutes. DownDetector, which monitors outages of services, confirmed AT&T, Verizon, Charter Spectrum, Comcast, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, US Cellular, and Vonage among others were affected. From a DailyDot report: T-Mobile CEO John Legere tweeted about the incident, pointing to issues with Level 3, a major internet backbone. Other tech firms quickly pointed to a Level 3 outage as well. No specific information has been released on potential causes of the outage or consequences that may result from it. Business VoIP providers (Resource: https://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/VOIP+Service+Providers+Business) were unaffected as they run over internet connections.

Striek writes: "On Wednesday, several YouTube creators posted videos that voiced concerns over the platform's process of demonetizing videos for not being friendly to advertisers," reports Daily Dot. Many YouTube creators have similar concerns that no, this isn't censorship in the strictest sense, but that YouTube owes its users a better commitment to free speech than most private companies due to its dominant marketplace position. Its criteria for videos being "advertiser-friendly" is also incredibly vague or restrictive, or both. The Daily Dot reports: "Content that is considered inappropriate for advertising includes: Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor; Violence, including display of serious injury and events related to violent extremism; Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity and vulgar language; Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use and abuse of such items; Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown." You read that right -- any YouTube video covering any war or natural disaster is considered inappropriate for advertising, which essentially includes all news and current events shows. This might not seem like a big deal to many people, but it would be, if you made your living creating YouTube videos. So while technically not censorship, many people are arguing YouTube has gone a few steps too far with this, and are likewise worried that this will be too selectively enforced. justthinkit adds: On August 31, 2016, YouTube demonetized videos for reasons that appear to punish those who attack "Social Justice Warriors" and the mainstream media. Philip DeFranco has spoken out about it and hinted he may have to move to other video platforms. Is this an issue most should care about or is it merely a first world problem? The reason this is a story is because YouTube has "recently improved the notification and appeal process to ensure better communication." What this means is YouTube has been making users more aware of the issue with language or content, and the chance to appeal a demonetized video. What has upset many creators is the fact that the company has been demonetizing videos without telling the creators. YouTube has only recently started telling partners what is going on. In addition, there has been a discrepancy as to which channels/networks have been demonetized. For example, while one YouTube creator may be reporting on a current event that isn't "advertiser-friendly" and has been denied monetization as a result, another YouTube creator via a large network like CNN may be covering the same current event but be allowed monetization.

SonicSpike quotes a report from ABC News: FBI Director James Comey warned again Tuesday about the bureau's inability to access digital devices because of encryption and said investigators were collecting information about the challenge in preparation for an "adult conversation" next year. Widespread encryption built into smartphones is "making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark," Comey said in a cybersecurity symposium. The remarks reiterated points that Comey has made repeatedly in the last two years, before Congress and in other settings, about the growing collision between electronic privacy and national security. "The conversation we've been trying to have about this has dipped below public consciousness now, and that's fine," Comey said at a symposium organized by Symantec, a technology company. "Because what we want to do is collect information this year so that next year we can have an adult conversation in this country." The American people, he said, have a reasonable expectation of privacy in private spaces -- including houses, cars and electronic devices. But that right is not absolute when law enforcement has probable cause to believe that there's evidence of a crime in one of those places, including a laptop or smartphone. "With good reason, the people of the United States -- through judges and law enforcement -- can invade our private spaces," Comey said, adding that that "bargain" has been at the center of the country since its inception. He said it's not the role of the FBI or tech companies to tell the American people how to live and govern themselves. "We need to understand in the FBI how is this exactly affecting our work, and then share that with folks," Comey said, conceding the American people might ultimately decide that its privacy was more important than "that portion of the room being dark." Comey made his remarks to the 2016 Symantec Government Symposium. The Daily Dot has another take on Comey's remarks, which you can read here.

blottsie quotes a report from the Daily Dot: Over a four-year period, the FBI authorized informants to break the law more than 22,800 times, according to newly reviewed documents. Official records obtained by the Daily Dot under the Freedom of Information Act show the Federal Bureau of Investigation gave informants permission at least 5,649 times in 2013 to engage in activity that would otherwise be considered a crime. In 2014, authorization was given 5,577 times, the records show. USA Today previously revealed confidential informants engaged in "otherwise illegal activity," as the bureau calls it, 5,658 times in 2011. The figure was at 5,939 the year before, according to documents acquired by the Huffington Post. In total, records obtained by reporters confirm the FBI authorized at least 22,823 crimes between 2011 and 2014. Unfortunately, many of those crimes can have serious and unintended consequences. One of the examples mentioned in the Daily Dot's report was of an FBI informant who "was responsible for facilitating the 2011 breach of Stratfor in one of the most high-profile cyberattacks of the last decade. While a handful of informants ultimately brought down the principal hacker responsible, the sting also caused Stratfor, an American intelligence firm, millions of dollars in damages and left and estimated 700,000 credit card holders vulnerable to fraud."

An anonymous reader writes: T-Mobile's new "unlimited" data plan that throttles video has upset the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which accuses the company of violating net neutrality principles. The new $70-per-month unlimited data plan "limits video to about 480p resolution and requires customers to pay an extra $25 per month for high-definition video," reports Ars Technica. "Going forward, this will be the only plan offered to new T-Mobile customers, though existing subscribers can keep their current prices and data allotments." EFF Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula told the Daily Dot, "From what we've read thus far it seems like T-Mobile's new plan to charge its customers extra to not throttle video runs directly afoul of the principle of net neutrality." The FCC's net neutrality rules ban throttling, though Ars notes "there's a difference between violating 'the principle of net neutrality' and violating the FCC's specific rules, which have exceptions to the throttling ban and allow for case-by-case judgements." "Because our no-throttling rule addresses instances in which a broadband provider targets particular content, applications, services, or non-harmful devices, it does not address a practice of slowing down an end user's connection to the internet based on a choice made by the end user," says the FCC's Open Internet Order (PDF). "For instance, a broadband provider may offer a data plan in which a subscriber receives a set amount of data at one speed tier and any remaining data at a lower tier." The EFF is still determining whether or not to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission.

blottsie writes: The NSA and FBI are both expected to investigate the leak of NSA-linked cyberweapons this week by an entity calling itself the Shadow Brokers, experts with knowledge of the process tell the Daily Dot. However, multiple experts say any retaliation by the U.S. will likely remain secret to keep the tactical advantage. Meanwhile, Motherboard reports that some former NSA staffers believe the leak is the work of a "rogue NSA insider." "First, the incident will be investigated by the National Security Agency as it tracks down exactly what went so wrong that top-secret offensive code and exploits ended up stolen and published for the world to see," reports Daily Dot. "An FBI counterintelligence investigation will likely follow, according to experts with knowledge of the process. [...] Following the investigation, the NSA and other entities within the United States government will have to decide on a response." The response will depend on a lot of things, such as whether or not an insider at the NSA is responsible for the breach -- a theory that is backed by a former NSA staffer and other experts. "The process is called an IGL: Intelligence Gain/Loss," reports Daily Dot. "Authorities suss out a pro and con list for various reactions, including directly and publicly blaming another country. [Chris Finan, a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration and now CEO of the security firm Manifold Technology, said:] 'Some people think about responding in kind: A U.S. cyberattack. Doing that gives up the asymmetric response advantage you have in cyberspace.' Finan urged authorities to look at all tools, including economic sanctions against individuals, companies, groups, governments, or diplomatic constraints, to send a message through money rather than possibly burning a cyberwar advantage. Exactly if and how the U.S. responds to the Shadow Brokers incident will depend on the source of the attack. Attribution in cyberwar is tricky or even impossible much of the time. It quickly becomes a highly politicized process ripe with anonymous sources and little solid fact."

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Daily Dot: Onion's Omega2 computer may give the Raspberry Pi a run for its money if the success of the Kickstarter campaign is any indication. The Daily Dot reports: "With an initial goal of just $15,000, over 11,560 backers have pledged the company $446,792 in hopes of getting their hands on this little wonder board. So why are thousands of people losing their minds? Simple; the Omega2 packs a ton of power into a $5 package. Billed as the world's smallest Linux server, complete with built-in Wi-Fi, the Omega2 is perfect for building simple computers or the web connected project of your dreams. The tiny machine is roughly the size of a cherry, before expansions, and runs a full Linux operating system. For $5 you get a 580MHz CPU, 64MB memory, 16MB storage, built-in Wi-Fi and a USB 2.0 port. A $9 model is also available with 128MB of memory, 32MB of storage, and a MircoSD slot. The similarly priced Raspberry Pi Zero comes with a 1GHz Arm processor, 512MB of memory, a MicroSD slot, no onboard storage, and no built-in Wi-Fi. Omega2 supports the Ruby, C++, Python, PHP, Perl, JavaScript (Node.js), and Bash programming languages, so no matter your background in coding you should be able to figure something out." You can also add Bluetooth, GPS, and 2G/3G support via add-ons or expansions. It looks promising, though it is a Kickstarter campaign and the product may not come into fruition.

Patrick O'Neill quotes a report from The Daily Dot: After a group of hackers stole and published a set of NSA cyberweapons earlier this week, the multibillion dollar tech firm Cisco is now updating its software to counter two potent leaked exploits that attack and take over crucial security software used to protect corporate and government networks. "Cisco immediately conducted a thorough investigation of the files released, and has identified two vulnerabilities affecting Cisco ASA devices that require customer attention," the company said in a statement. "On Aug. 17, 2016, we issued two Security Advisories, which deliver free software updates and workarounds where possible." The report adds: "An unknown group of hackers dubbed the Shadow Brokers posted cyberweapons stolen from the so-called Equation Group, the National Security Agency-linked outfit known as 'the most advanced' group of cyberwarriors in the internet's history. One of the cyberweapons posted was an exploit called ExtraBacon that can be used to attack Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software designed to protect corporate networks and data centers. 'ExtraBacon targets a particular firewall, Cisco ASA, running a particular version (8.x, up to 8.4), and you must have SNMP read access to it,' Khalil Sehnaoui, a Middle East-based cybersecurity specialist and founder of Krypton Security, told the Daily Dot. 'If run successfully, the exploit will enable the attacker to access the firewall without a valid username or password.' ExtraBacon was a zero-day exploit, Cisco confirmed. That means it was unknown to Cisco or its customers, leaving them open to attack by anyone who possessed the right tools."

Reader blottsie writes: A group of hackers identifying themselves as theShadow Brokers claims to have hacked the NSA's Equation Group, a team of American hackers that have been described as both "omnipotent" and "the most advanced" threat cyberspace has ever seen. On the Shadow Brokers' website, the group has shared a sample of data that some cybersecurity experts say lends credibility to the breach. The the hackers' asking price for what they claim is a cache of NSA-built cyberweapons. Motherboard's take on this is here.

The Daily Dot is warning about fake wi-fi hubs around Rio, but also networks which decrypt SSL traffic. And Slashdot reader tedlistens writes: Steven Melendez at Fast Company reports on the cybercrime threat in Rio, and details a number of specific threats, from ATMs to promotional USB sticks to DDoS attacks [on the networks used by Olympic officials]... "Last week, a reporter for a North Carolina newspaper reported that his card was hacked immediately after using it at the gift shop at the IOC press center. And on Friday, two McClatchy reporters in Rio said their cards had been hacked and cloned soon after arrival."
Even home viewers will be targeted with "fraudulent emails and social media posts" with links to video clips, games, and apps with malware, as well as counterfeit ticket offers -- but the threats are worse if you're actually in Rio. "In an analysis last month of over 4,500 unique wireless access points around Rio, Kaspersky found that about a quarter of them are vulnerable or insecure, protected with an obsolete encryption algorithm or with no encryption at all."

"The Russians are top notch," says Chris Finan, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, now a CEO at security firm Manifold Technology, and a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration. "They are some of the best in the world... " Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake": In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world's great and most active cyber powers. The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee... The evidence -- plainly not definitive but clearly substantial -- has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have "high confidence" that Russia is behind the attack...

Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlin's expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat.
The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the "historic and precedent-setting" cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. "Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight."

blottsie quotes a report from The Daily Dot: A leaky database has exposed the physical security of multiple Oklahoma Department of Public Safety facilities and at least one Oklahoma bank. The vulnerability -- which has reportedly been fixed -- was revealed on Tuesday by Chris Vickery, a MacKeeper security researcher who this year has revealed numerous data breaches affecting millions of Americans. The misconfigured database, which was managed by a company called Automation Integrated, was exposed for at least a week, according to Vickery, who said he spoke to the company's vice president on Saturday. Reached on Tuesday, however, an Automation Integrated employee said "no one" in the office was aware of the problem. Vickery was able to retrieve images of various doors, locks, RFID access panels, and the controller board of an alarm system all of which could be previously accessed without a username or password. The database also contained "details on the make, model, location, warranty coverage, and even whether or not the unit was still functional," Vickery said. What's worse is that Automated Integration is far from the only company whose database are left exposed online. "I have a constantly fluctuating list of 50 to 100 similar breaches that need to be reported," he said. "This one just happened to involve a security-related company and government buildings, so it got bumped to the top of my list."

blottsie writes from a report via The Daily Dot: The Romanian hacker known as Guccifer (real name Marcel Lehel Lazar) admitted to the FBI that he lied to the public when he said he repeatedly hacked into Hillary Clinton's email server in 2013. FBI Director James Comey testified before members on Congress on Thursday that Guccifer never hacked into Clinton's servers and in fact admitted that he lied. Lazar told Fox News and NBC News in May 2016 about his alleged hacking. Despite offering no proof, the claim caused a huge stir, including making headline news on some of America's biggest publications, which offered little skepticism of his claims. "Can you confirm that Guccifer never gained access to her server?" asked Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold. "He did not. He admitted that was a lie," Comey replied. Lazar is currently imprisoned in Alexandria, Virginia, following his extradition from Romania.

Patrick O'Neill quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Just days after the fatal shooting of a black man by Baton Rouge police prompted international outrage and a Justice Department investigation, the Baton Rouge city government's servers have been hacked and 50,000 city police records leaked including names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers. A hacker that goes by the name @ox2Taylor claimed responsibility for the breach, which was confirmed by security intelligence analyst at Patch Penguin, Jamie-Luke Woodruff. He told the Daily Dot that the administrators of the website had failed to implement proper security measures. When the hacker first announced the hack, he accompanied the tweet with three hashtags revealing the motivation: #AltonSterling, #Hacked, and #BlackLivesMatters. "The reason i did it is because of what that officer did to alton sterling," Taylor told the Daily Dot in a private message. "i'm sick of seeing police abuse their power and all the killings."

Trailrunner7 quotes a report from On the Wire: A powerful California congressman is pushing the federal government to treat ransomware attacks on medical facilities as data breaches and require notifications of patients. The pressure is coming from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and follows comments from officials at the Department of Health and Human Services about the department's plan to issue guidance to health care organizations about ransomware attacks. The Office for Civil Rights section of HHS, which has responsibility for health information privacy, will provide guidance on how to handle ransomware attacks, and Lieu is eager to ensure that the guidance specifically addresses how ransomware attacks relate to data breach regulations. "I welcome the news of HHS providing guidance to health providers on a matter that threatens so many hospital IT systems. However, we need to make clear that ransomware is not the same as conventional breaches. The threat to patients from ransomware is typically due to the denial of access to their medical records and medical services. Not only could this be a threat to privacy, but it could result in medical complications and deaths if hospitals can't access patient information," Lieu said in a statement. He sent a letter to the deputy director for health information privacy in the Office of Civil Rights at HHS, Deven McGraw, asking him to instruct health organizations and providers to notify patients of an attack if it results in a denial of access to a medical record or a loss of functionality thats necessary to provide patient care. In the past, Lieu has called for a full congressional investigation into the aforementioned widespread flaw in global phone networks that allows hackers to track anyone's location and spy on their phone calls and text messages. He was also one of the first lawmakers to publicly express his pro-encryption view after a federal judge ordered Apple to help the FBI break into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, saying it effectively "forces private-sector companies like Apple to be used as an arm of law enforcement."

A bill that was proposed recently in the Russian Duma to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps, has passed. Patrick Howell O'Neill, reports for DailyDot:A massive surveillance bill is now on its way to becoming law in Russia. The "anti-terrorism" legislation includes a vast data-eavesdropping and -retention program so that telecom and internet companies have to record and store all customer communications for six months, potentially at a multitrillion-dollar cost. Additionally, all internet firms have to provide mandatory backdoor access into encrypted communications for the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency and successor to the KGB. The bill, with support from the ruling United Russia party, passed Friday in the Duma, Russia's lower legislative house, with 277 votes for, 148 against, and one abstaining. It now moves to Russia's Federal Council and the Kremlin, where it's expected to pass into law.

A bill that was proposed recently in the Russian Duma to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps, has passed. Patrick Howell O'Neill, reports for DailyDot:A massive surveillance bill is now on its way to becoming law in Russia. The "anti-terrorism" legislation includes a vast data-eavesdropping and -retention program so that telecom and internet companies have to record and store all customer communications for six months, potentially at a multitrillion-dollar cost. Additionally, all internet firms have to provide mandatory backdoor access into encrypted communications for the FSB, the Russian intelligence agency and successor to the KGB. The bill, with support from the ruling United Russia party, passed Friday in the Duma, Russia's lower legislative house, with 277 votes for, 148 against, and one abstaining. It now moves to Russia's Federal Council and the Kremlin, where it's expected to pass into law.

blottsie writes: Chris Vickery, a security researcher at MacKeeper, has uncovered a new voter database containing 154 million voter records, exposed as a result of a CouchDB installation error. The database includes names, addresses, Facebook profile URLs, gun ownership, and more. Who exposed the voter database? Vickery believes the suspect may be linked to L2, a company specializing in voter data utilization, after he noticed that the voter ID field was labeled "LALVOTERID." After calling the company, L2 said the database likely belongs to one of their clients, noting that there are very few clients big enough to have a national database like that. The database was secured within three hours of their phone call. L2's CEO Bruce Willsie said that the client told L2 that they were hacked and the firewall had been taken down. Their client is conducting their own research to figure out the extent of the incursion. The Daily Dot reports: "Why does this keep happening, and what is our government doing about it? No federal agency is enforcing data security in political organizations or non-profits, and so far, neither are state attorneys general."

Patrick O'Neill quotes a report from The Daily Dot: A new bill in the Russian Duma, the country's lower legislative house, proposes to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps in the country so the Federal Security Service -- the successor to the KGB -- can obtain special access to all communications within the country. [Apps like WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram, all of which offer varying levels of encrypted security for messages, are specifically targeted in the "anti-terrorism" bill, according to the Russian-language media. Fines for the offending companies could reach 1 million rubles or about $15,000.] Russian Senator Elena Mizulina argued that the new bill ought to become law because, she said, teens are brainwashed in closed groups on the internet to murder police officers, a practice protected by encryption. Mizulina then went further. "Maybe we should revisit the idea of pre-filtering [messages]," she said. "We cannot look silently on this."

Thursday's news of a $50 million heist of digital currency at Ethereum. was followed today by reports of a second heist from the DAO, according to the Bitcoin News Service -- this one for just 22 Ether. "It appears this is just someone who wanted to test the exploit and see if they could use it to their advantage... " Slashdot reader Patrick O'Neill writes: The currency's community is currently debating a course forward for a currency who is built on the idea that it is governed by software and not human beings. One option is to fork the code, another is to do absolutely nothing at all."
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, posted Sunday that "Over the last day with the community's help we have crowdsourced a list of all of the major bugs with smart contracts on Ethereum so far, including both the DAO as well as various smaller 100-10000 ETH thefts and losses in games and token contracts." The list begins by including "The DAO (obviously)," but is followed by a warning that "progress in smart contract safety is necessarily going to be layered, incremental, and necessarily dependent on defense-in-depth. There will be further bugs, and we will learn further lessons; there will not be a single magic technology that solves everything."

The Daily Dot wrote Friday that "Because of the way the code in question is written, Etherum's developers and community have 27 days to decide what to do before the hackers are able to move the money and cash out... What's happening now amounts to a political campaign. But the debate is far from over. The clock is ticking now, the world is watching, and the next step of the cryptocurrency experiment is unfolding under a spotlight burning hotter every day."

Thursday's news of a $50 million heist of digital currency at Ethereum. was followed today by reports of a second heist from the DAO, according to the Bitcoin News Service -- this one for just 22 Ether. "It appears this is just someone who wanted to test the exploit and see if they could use it to their advantage... " Slashdot reader Patrick O'Neill writes: The currency's community is currently debating a course forward for a currency who is built on the idea that it is governed by software and not human beings. One option is to fork the code, another is to do absolutely nothing at all."
Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, posted Sunday that "Over the last day with the community's help we have crowdsourced a list of all of the major bugs with smart contracts on Ethereum so far, including both the DAO as well as various smaller 100-10000 ETH thefts and losses in games and token contracts." The list begins by including "The DAO (obviously)," but is followed by a warning that "progress in smart contract safety is necessarily going to be layered, incremental, and necessarily dependent on defense-in-depth. There will be further bugs, and we will learn further lessons; there will not be a single magic technology that solves everything."

The Daily Dot wrote Friday that "Because of the way the code in question is written, Etherum's developers and community have 27 days to decide what to do before the hackers are able to move the money and cash out... What's happening now amounts to a political campaign. But the debate is far from over. The clock is ticking now, the world is watching, and the next step of the cryptocurrency experiment is unfolding under a spotlight burning hotter every day."

blottsie quotes a report from The Daily Dot: In the wake of programmer Jacob Appelbaum's abrupt departure from the Tor Project, rumors and accusations about both sexual misconduct and bullying have surfaced that extend back years. Now, four witnesses -- including a current senior Tor employee -- are stepping forward into the public eye, adding valuable insight into how Appelbaum allegedly intimidated those around him to keep accusations of sexual misconduct secret and pressure those who are speaking out to remain anonymous. [Late last week, a website was launched in which alleged victims of Appelbaum's sexual misconduct joined together to post their stories in an effort to publicize them without a much-feared wave of personalized and professional backlash. The stories are graphic and describe the ways Appelbaum allegedly assaulted people in public and in private. Three current Tor employees -- two of which agreed to be named on the record -- have confirmed that they personally know the authors of the alleged victim statements on the site, JacobAppelbaum.net. Although they continue to maintain anonymity for the authors of the stories, these Tor employees are now publicly vouching for the site's authenticity, which Appelbaum has called into question. Appelbaum broke his silence on Monday, deriding the accounts of his former colleagues as "vague rumors." It was an "attack," he said, on his reputation, led by character-assassins spreading "vicious and spurious" allegations against him.] In May, one of Tor's core software developers dodged the FBI and left the U.S. for Germany to avoid testifying in a criminal hacking investigation.

blottsie quotes a report from The Daily Dot: In the wake of programmer Jacob Appelbaum's abrupt departure from the Tor Project, rumors and accusations about both sexual misconduct and bullying have surfaced that extend back years. Now, four witnesses -- including a current senior Tor employee -- are stepping forward into the public eye, adding valuable insight into how Appelbaum allegedly intimidated those around him to keep accusations of sexual misconduct secret and pressure those who are speaking out to remain anonymous. [Late last week, a website was launched in which alleged victims of Appelbaum's sexual misconduct joined together to post their stories in an effort to publicize them without a much-feared wave of personalized and professional backlash. The stories are graphic and describe the ways Appelbaum allegedly assaulted people in public and in private. Three current Tor employees -- two of which agreed to be named on the record -- have confirmed that they personally know the authors of the alleged victim statements on the site, JacobAppelbaum.net. Although they continue to maintain anonymity for the authors of the stories, these Tor employees are now publicly vouching for the site's authenticity, which Appelbaum has called into question. Appelbaum broke his silence on Monday, deriding the accounts of his former colleagues as "vague rumors." It was an "attack," he said, on his reputation, led by character-assassins spreading "vicious and spurious" allegations against him.] In May, one of Tor's core software developers dodged the FBI and left the U.S. for Germany to avoid testifying in a criminal hacking investigation.

An anonymous reader quotes this article about Siemens' army of autonomous spider robots -- each one the size of a microwave, communicating with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi to create "a collaborative mind": It's expensive to build an automated factory, and even more pricey to repurpose one. German manufacturing giant Siemens wants that to change, and they've developed an army of robot spiders to make it happen. Utilizing what Siemens calls "mobile manufacturing", researchers in Princeton, New Jersey have built prototype spider-bots that work together to 3D print structures and parts in real time.
Siemens hopes to build even larger spider robots than can weld cars.