Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Speaking at the Wall Street Journal's WSJD Live Conference, Google's senior vice president of adverts and commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy has said (paywalled) that advertisers need to address the shortcomings of online ads within 'months'. "This is essential to our survival" said Ramaswamy. "We're talking about getting this in a time frame of months rather than years. We need to get going on this." Ramaswamy was referring to recent commitment from the advertising industry to halt the rise of adblocking services by addressing common reader annoyances such as autoplay video, overly complex and slow-loading content, and excessive tracking.

Zothecula jumps on the "Back To the Future Day" bandwagon with this news about Stanford's experimental DeLorean. Gizmag reports: "It doesn't have a flux capacitor and may not be able to travel through time like its inspiration in the 1985 feature Back to the Future, but Stanford University's converted DeLorean Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw (MARTY) can cut some wicked donuts without the aid of a driver. The creation of professor of mechanical engineering Chris Gerdes and his students, the autonomous, electric, drifting automotive research vehicle is part of a student-driven research project into the physical limits of autonomous driving that aims to improve the safe operation of self-driving cars under all conditions."

An anonymous reader writes: Reuters reports that Western Digital will buy SanDisk in a deal worth roughly $19 billion. In a press release, WD said, "The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM)." SanDisk has been in business since 1988, and primarily "manufactures flash memory chips and other digital storage for personal computers, data centers and consumer electronics, including smartphones and tablets." They have over 8,000 employees, compared to WD's ~76,000. This follows another major transaction in the storage market, when Dell bought EMC last week.

theodp writes: The curious case of Ahmed Mohamed, the 9th grader who was cuffed for scaring school officials with what turned out to be a repackaged digital clock, has taken yet another twist with news on Tuesday that the 'Clock Kid' and his family will move to Qatar. Less than 24 hours after Ahmed met President Obama at the White House, the family issued a news release saying, "After careful consideration of all the generous offers received, we would like to announce that we have accepted a kind offer from Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) for Ahmed to join the prestigious QF Young Innovators Program, which reflects the organization's on-going dedication to empowering young people and fostering a culture of innovation and creativity." Prior to the announcement, some in the press sensed something was amiss when the President seemed to give Ahmed the cold shoulder on Monday after personally inviting Ahmed to the White House for "Astronomy Night." Last month, Ahmed enjoyed a decidedly warmer welcome at Google, where he was literally put front and center before the Google Science Fair winners (including Grand Prize winner Olivia Hallisey, who came up with a novel way to detect Ebola), and enjoyed a meet-and-greet with Sergey Brin.

An anonymous reader writes: A few years ago, we heard tales of vans outfitted by the U.S. government to hold giant X-ray scanners, which they'd use to drive around and inspect vehicles. Now, it turns out similar vans have made their way to police departments, including the NYPD. The police are unwilling to explain (PDF) how they're used, or how often. "A state court has already ruled that the NYPD has to turn over policies, procedures, and training manuals that shape uses of X-rays; reports on past deployments; information on the costs of the X-ray devices and the number of vans purchased; and information on the health and safety effects of the technology. But New York City is fighting on appeal to suppress that information and more, as if it is some kind of spy agency rather than a municipal police department operating on domestic soil, ostensibly at the pleasure of city residents."

AmiMoJo writes: Japan's labor ministry has confirmed the first cancer case related to work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Following on from reports of elevated levels of child cancer and 1,600 civilians deaths from the evacuation, this is the first time that one of the 44,000 people involved in the clean up operation has been diagnosed with cancer resulting directly from the accident. The worker was involved in recovery and cleanup efforts at the plant after it suffered a meltdown in March, 2011. He was in his late 30s at the time, and has been diagnosed with leukemia. The ministry has approved workers' compensation. Radiation exposure has been linked to the onset of leukemia.

AmiMoJo writes: Japan's labor ministry has confirmed the first cancer case related to work at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Following on from reports of elevated levels of child cancer and 1,600 civilians deaths from the evacuation, this is the first time that one of the 44,000 people involved in the clean up operation has been diagnosed with cancer resulting directly from the accident. The worker was involved in recovery and cleanup efforts at the plant after it suffered a meltdown in March, 2011. He was in his late 30s at the time, and has been diagnosed with leukemia. The ministry has approved workers' compensation. Radiation exposure has been linked to the onset of leukemia.

theodp writes: In August, Federal Judge Ellen Huvelle called BS on 'emergency' changes made by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in 2008 to Optional Practical Training (OPT) that extended the amount of time foreign STEM graduates of U.S. colleges could stay in the country and work ("to alleviate the crisis employers are facing due to the current H-1B visa shortage," as Bill Gates explained it in 2007). "The 17-month duration of the STEM extension appears to have been adopted directly from the unanimous suggestions by Microsoft and similar industry groups," said the Judge in her ruling, which threatened to invalidate STEM OPT extensions in February. But the DHS fired back Monday with a new proposed rule — Improving and Expanding Training Opportunities for F-1 Nonimmigrant Students With STEM Degrees and Cap-Gap Relief for All Eligible F-1 Students — that will extend STEM OPT to as much as 60 months (a standard 12-month OPT period, plus two 24-month extensions). Foreign students demand it, explained the DHS, as do public colleges and universities, who "particularly benefit from the payment of tuition by foreign students, especially in comparison to the tuition paid by in-state students." DHS estimates that the proposed rule will affect 634,464 foreign STEM students over the next 10 years.

theodp writes: In August, Federal Judge Ellen Huvelle called BS on 'emergency' changes made by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in 2008 to Optional Practical Training (OPT) that extended the amount of time foreign STEM graduates of U.S. colleges could stay in the country and work ("to alleviate the crisis employers are facing due to the current H-1B visa shortage," as Bill Gates explained it in 2007). "The 17-month duration of the STEM extension appears to have been adopted directly from the unanimous suggestions by Microsoft and similar industry groups," said the Judge in her ruling, which threatened to invalidate STEM OPT extensions in February. But the DHS fired back Monday with a new proposed rule — Improving and Expanding Training Opportunities for F-1 Nonimmigrant Students With STEM Degrees and Cap-Gap Relief for All Eligible F-1 Students — that will extend STEM OPT to as much as 60 months (a standard 12-month OPT period, plus two 24-month extensions). Foreign students demand it, explained the DHS, as do public colleges and universities, who "particularly benefit from the payment of tuition by foreign students, especially in comparison to the tuition paid by in-state students." DHS estimates that the proposed rule will affect 634,464 foreign STEM students over the next 10 years.

theodp writes: In August, Federal Judge Ellen Huvelle called BS on 'emergency' changes made by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security in 2008 to Optional Practical Training (OPT) that extended the amount of time foreign STEM graduates of U.S. colleges could stay in the country and work ("to alleviate the crisis employers are facing due to the current H-1B visa shortage," as Bill Gates explained it in 2007). "The 17-month duration of the STEM extension appears to have been adopted directly from the unanimous suggestions by Microsoft and similar industry groups," said the Judge in her ruling, which threatened to invalidate STEM OPT extensions in February. But the DHS fired back Monday with a new proposed rule — Improving and Expanding Training Opportunities for F-1 Nonimmigrant Students With STEM Degrees and Cap-Gap Relief for All Eligible F-1 Students — that will extend STEM OPT to as much as 60 months (a standard 12-month OPT period, plus two 24-month extensions). Foreign students demand it, explained the DHS, as do public colleges and universities, who "particularly benefit from the payment of tuition by foreign students, especially in comparison to the tuition paid by in-state students." DHS estimates that the proposed rule will affect 634,464 foreign STEM students over the next 10 years.

An anonymous reader sends news that Consumer Reports, after earlier giving the Tesla Model S a perfect road test score, has now withdrawn its recommendation for the electric car after investigating its reliability. As part of our Annual Auto Reliability Survey, we received about 1,400 survey responses from Model S owners who chronicled an array of detailed and complicated maladies. From that data we forecast that owning that Tesla is likely to involve a worse-than-average overall problem rate. ... The main problem areas involved the drivetrain, power equipment, charging equipment, giant iPad-like center console, and body and sunroof squeaks, rattles, and leaks. ... Overall, squeaks and rattles appear to be the most prevalent complaint. But as one respondent commented, "The car is so very silent when driving that minor squeaks and rattles that you wouldn't be able to hear in a gasoline engine car become very annoying." The list of issues also includes more significant problems, which could be pricey to fix once out of warranty. Based on survey responses, Tesla has made a habit of replacing the car’s electric motors. The brake rotors tend to warp. And the door handles often fail to “present” themselves as drivers approach their cars.

The last time we spoke with Evan Koblentz it was about a vintage computer festival. This time we talked about a book he's written written titled Abacus to smartphone: The evolution of mobile and portable computing. Yes, he's obsessed with computer history. But somebody has to be, and we're glad it's Evan because he is eminently suited for this task.

New submitter bigtomrodney writes: Following last week's ruling by the European Court of Justice ruling on Safe Harbor, the Irish High Court has quashed the former decision of the Data Protection Commissioner not to investigate Facebook. In the current vacuum of legislation and given that this challenge is directly focused on U.S. intelligence agency's gathering of European citizen's data, this makes for interesting times ahead. See this story from earlier this month for a bit more background; all this fuss comes down mostly to efforts by one determined gadfly (Max Schrems) and the attention he's brought to the issue of privacy when data crosses national (or at least notional) borders.

Recently you had a chance to ask John McAfee about his presidential run under the newly-formed Cyber Party. John covers a wide variety of topics from education and infrastructure, to gun control and drug legalization. Read below for his answers to your questions. Reality
by wstrucke

How do you plan to overcome the virtual impossibility of breaking through the two-party system?

McAfee: Please bear with me on this one. It is a very serious question:

I have always been outside the box, exploring, discovering, examining. I take nothing for granted, including the rules laid down by my church, my family, my schools, my government. The world is a large place with conflicting morals, cultures, values and traditions. Life is something we enter without a universal instruction booklet and I have been searching for one - unsuccessfully. But I have learned much through the school of hard knocks. I have never murdered anyone and I do not steal. I avoid causing physical harm at all costs. I tell the truth, no matter how painful it may be me. I have compassion for all people. I have never raped, nor slept with a legally underage woman. I have honored my father and mother and have respected those worthy of respect. As for all the rest, I have broken every rule ever written. Some forays over the line have enlightened me. Some have brought me down. But I could not be the security talent that I am had I not done everything that I did. I understand the high and low of life and I understand the human heart. I see the misery in this world and I know that only compassion and courage will fix it.

The two party system is a single machine. It has evolved for more than one hundred years into a mechanism that absorbs all participants. Every party member becomes a cog in that machine, and the machine, and its cogs are devoid of heart and spirit. The machine cannot fix anything that touches the human heart or the human spirit, nor can it perceive anything beyond its own ambitions. It is the destroyer of humanity and the cause of wars and all manner of suffering.

The perception that the two party system cannot be overcome is an illusion, and the illusion is propagated by those who look to history for advice rather than the exquisite beauty of the present moment.

We are in the age of the Internet. We no longer must believe what others tell us. We no longer have to accept the polished, plastic debates of Presidential candidates to help us decide who might better lead the country. We have the full knowledge of the World at our fingertips. When Senator Nelson (D-Fl), for example, proposes a bill to force companies to reveal to its customers that a data breach has occurred within 30 days of the breach, we can do our own research and discover the following:

We would discover, for example, that more than 90% of all computer hacks go entirely undetected. Of the 10% that are detected, there is not a single example where the awareness of the breach happened sooner than 6 months after the breach, with the average being two or more years. Even the most invasive and egregious hacks are seldom detected soon enough to avoid the hackers from exploiting whatever they have taken.

A prime example of this is the hack of the US Office of Personnel Management. The most sensitive data that any government can possible posses, complete records of every employee possessing a Top Secret clearance, went undiscovered for more than a year.

You could then ask yourself: of what earthly value is a legislated notification period to a victim whose data has already been compromised and exploited to the fullest extent possible? Additionally, it is usually impossible, when a breach is detected, to determine whose data was taken. You might ask what the total cost in time and effort would be expended in adhering to this legislation and you could then research all pertinent data on the steps required to recall a senator.

I am running an electronic campaign. It is through interviews such as this, and through fireside chats using software that I have developed that I intend to reach the American public, whom, I believe is much smarter than the average politician believes. I am convinced that I will be the first independently elected U.S. President. I do know that the two party system must come to an end. Courage and compassion are the necessary ingredients of any push to save this country, and the party system is devoid of both.



One World
by shuz

The world largely views the USA as a bully and full of very wealthy people that don't care about those less privileged. As president of the USA, how would you advance world cooperation and work to change world views of the USA to just another location in the world full of mostly average non-privileged individuals living out their lives?

Unrelated, my best friend almost ran you over at Defcon. He wasn't looking where he is going and apologizes.

McAfee: Hat’s off to your friend, whom I dodged with ease. Had he not been drinking I may not be speaking to you now.

America has been playing World Policeman for far too long. It is our unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign states that has caused, supported and animated the concept of terrorism.

I have traveled extensively, and no traveler is hated more than the American traveler. We are arrogant and expect the entire world to speak our language rather than go to the trouble to learn theirs. We are rude: we expect everyone else’s food to taste like our own, and when it does not, we complain. We are morally and culturally judgmental and frown when an Ecuadorian Peasant urinates beside the road or naked man and woman emerge from the surf at Ipanema. We are demanding. We stay at cheap hotels in Tokyo and we are put out when there is no room service. We gossip and stare. And we dress and act like barbarians that only yesterday came down from the trees and began walking upright in near perfect imitation of humans.

We are an anomaly in the world. We project the greatest military power that the world has ever seen, yet we express ourselves as spoiled angry children. Even our leaders mimic the crudities of the American Tourist. Is it any wonder that we are embroiled in every hot spot of chaos that erupts within the world.

My administration will reign in our activities relating to policing the world. It will accept that the world is filled with cultures and governments alien to our own, yet admired and loved by those existing within those cultures. It will acknowledge that morality is, with few exceptions, a localized phenomenon and that we are not the world’s moral judge. It will acknowledge that Democracy is not the fountain stone as a measure of government, and that our own Democracy is fraught with severe problems that lead to the same police state atrocities that we generally ascribe to dictatorships. Thus, the mindless propagation of democracy throughout the world as the solution to all of the world’s problems will be re-evaluated. We need to first fix our own democracy.

Foreign aid will have to be curtailed. We are 18 Trillion dollars in debt. If a friend asks you for $20 and you don’t have it, you can’t give it. This is a prime axiom of the real world. The government does not live in the real world and simply prints money when it does not have any to spend. This printing devalues the hard earned dollars that you have worked for. It is a simple formula, irrespective of how complex the government wants you to believe that it is.

In a nutshell, I believe that our domestic problems are so extreme, that foreign policy will not much deteriorate if we do little or nothing about it for a while. It may even improve.



Snowden
by gQuigs

Would you pardon Edward Snowden?

McAfee: Absolutely. And Also Ross Ulbricht.



Trump
by justcauseisjustthat

What are your thoughts on Donald Trump? And why are you more qualified to be president?

McAfee: I believe that Trump would best serve the country by doing what he has always done so well – Creating thousands of productive jobs in private industry.

I am skeptical of someone who claims to have never written an email leading a country in a Cyber War with China.



Re:technology?
by Qzukk

Or, to put it differently: If we're going to become issues voters and only vote on the technology issue, why should we vote for you instead of Lawrence Lessig?

McAfee: I have never proposed that we become one issue voters. You’re confusing me with President Obama.

What I had to say on that was: On 2 October, President Obama declared: “Here's what you need to do: You have to make sure that anybody that you are voting for is on the right side of this issue.” If politicians oppose these measures, he continued, “even if they're great on other stuff, you've got to vote against them.” He was talking about gun control.

My first thought upon hearing Obama's proclamation was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip. My second thought was: what possible single issue, in this complex society of ours, would merit a “single issue” status?

Just to set the record straight.



Nuclear Power using LFTR
by Anonymous Coward

John, what is your position on Nuclear Power?

Would you support the re-opening of research into liquid fluoride thorium reactors. These reactor designs, and the thorium fuel cycle were researched back in the 70's and can solve both our energy crisis, be far more environmentally friendly than uranium based fuel cycles, and can even used 'spent' uranium reactor fuel as fuel sources, allowing us to reprocess our vast quantity of spent fuel into less harmful waste, while also capturing the energy from them (instead of having it wasted heating water in spent fuel ponds).

McAfee: We have hobbled ourselves and become non competitive by our harsh legislation again nuclear power. This will change.



What Technologies?
by Bodhammer

What technology research should be government funded and what should be private?

McAfee: We must bolster our Cyber security and cyber weapons research, first and foremost, and this must be government funded. We are so far behind the Chinese that catching up is not at all certain, even with me at the helm. As to the rest, I need to understand it better and consider it well.



Cybersecurity Knowledge?
by jmac_the_man

Mr. McAfee, obviously your field of expertise is Information Security. What are the one or two biggest problems facing the Federal government from an IT perspective? How would you solve these problems?

McAfee: Education is number one. Our information technology managers are generally old, ossified and unmotivated to keep up with the rapidly changing technology environment. Without education, all of our efforts will amount to nothing.



Comment on your last interview
by schneidafunk

Care to comment on your last answer from your last interview here on slashdot?

“McAfee: The attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee contacted me and asked if I would help. I said ‘no’. I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.”

McAfee: I would still rather drive a nail through my foot. I sincerely do not want this. My closest friends, however, have threatened to kneecap me if I don’t do it. If you can provide me safe harbor from my friends and advisers I would gladly stop campaigning.



Where's the rest of the platform?
by mr_mischief

We understand where you stand on surveillance. Where do you stand on these issues?: (*Some subjects specifically addressed at https://mcafee16.com/issues/ were removed.*)

firearms
McAfee: An armed society is a polite society.

The impetus for most proclamations surrounding gun control are generally mass murders, some involving guns. A little research will uncover the little known fact that mass murders were virtually unknown prior to 1980.

This fact disturbs me, and it should you, since guns have been prominently owned in this society since the founding of our country, and there was no sweeping legislation in 1980 or after that radically changed gun ownership laws or rates of gun ownership. This, to a thinking person, without qualification, removes guns as the source of our problem — unless of course guns suddenly achieved the ability to subconsciously tempt their owners to use them in heretofore-unknown ways. If not, then the problem appears to be an increase in violent urgings, stemming from some unknown source deep within the fabric of our society.

There are many possibilities for this source. In the 1980s we saw the first widescale use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (anti-depressants) such as Prozac, Paxil, and others. Hundreds of studies have shown that these anti depressants have side effects that include violent thoughts. A few minutes of research will tell us that 8 percent of the U.S. is taking anti-depressants, yet more than 30 percent of all mass murderers since 1980 were known to have been taking them. It’s highly suspected that the real number approaches 90 percent — a statistical anomaly of egregious proportions. I would begin here if I were looking for a source.

But it’s much easier to disprove a cause than it is to prove a cause. Use of anti-depressants may merely be an artifact of some deeper cause that is as yet unknown.

We do know that governments that turn deceptive and begin spying on their citizens foment unrest, anger, and despair. However, given that we do not have citizens carrying signs in the streets and recalling their representatives en masse — outward signs we would expect from a citizenry that is not afraid of its government — then perhaps that has not happened here in America.

In any case, I do not believe that guns are the problem. On the other hand, Gun Free Zones appear to be a serious problem. Every mass shooting for the past 20 years has occurred in a gun free zone. Where else would someone with a gun who wants to create havoc go? We need armed guards at schools, churches, courthouses and every other place that we now deem “gun free”

abortion
McAfee: A woman's body is her own.

gay marriage
McAfee: Homosexual couples of either sex should equally be allowed to suffer the frustrations of marriage along with everyone else.

keeping the FCC from preventing flashing of consumer electronics with new firmware
McAfee: Is the FCC still needed in an age of digital communications? Isn't this the question?

net neutrality
McAfee: Any control whatsoever of the Internet is questionable if not actually insidious.

lowering the skyrocketing levels of student debt
McAfee: Why not lower the cost of education itself? What is the cause of these high costs? Further, why not redefine Education in a manner that reflects the fact that the overwhelming knowledge base no longer resides in Universities but is freely available on the Net? We need to ask ourselves whether our higher education system in it's entirety, us actually relevant.

making healthcare affordable or subsidizing paying for it
McAfee: Healthcare costs would be cut by 75% if medical malpractice lawsuits were outlawed or at least massively curtailed.

investing in our roads and bridges
McAfee: This was the original main intent of government - an infrastructure, plus national defense. Look how far we have strayed. I intend to take the "power" out of government and return it to is original function of "service"



What will you do when you become president?
by Kohath

What is your agenda for the first 100 days of the McAfee administration?

McAfee:

• Pardon All non violent Marijuana offenses, whether for possession or for sale.
• Pardon Edward Snowden and Ross Ulbricht.
• Disband the TSA in its entirety. I will continue to pay all salaries until I can figure out what value the employees have. The TSA budget is nearly $8 Billion. Salaries are less than $2 Billion. We save $6 Billion.
• Place armed marshals on all flights.
• Disband the Bureau of Indian Affairs – under same principles as TSA.
• Radically restrict The FDA.
• Direct the NSA and all other covert agencies that report to the Executive Branch to end all spying on American citizens and to place their efforts where our real threats lie.

After that, I’m unclear. Hopefully I will have learned much after I assume the Oval Office.

Recently you had a chance to ask John McAfee about his presidential run under the newly-formed Cyber Party. John covers a wide variety of topics from education and infrastructure, to gun control and drug legalization. Read below for his answers to your questions. Reality
by wstrucke

How do you plan to overcome the virtual impossibility of breaking through the two-party system?

McAfee: Please bear with me on this one. It is a very serious question:

I have always been outside the box, exploring, discovering, examining. I take nothing for granted, including the rules laid down by my church, my family, my schools, my government. The world is a large place with conflicting morals, cultures, values and traditions. Life is something we enter without a universal instruction booklet and I have been searching for one - unsuccessfully. But I have learned much through the school of hard knocks. I have never murdered anyone and I do not steal. I avoid causing physical harm at all costs. I tell the truth, no matter how painful it may be me. I have compassion for all people. I have never raped, nor slept with a legally underage woman. I have honored my father and mother and have respected those worthy of respect. As for all the rest, I have broken every rule ever written. Some forays over the line have enlightened me. Some have brought me down. But I could not be the security talent that I am had I not done everything that I did. I understand the high and low of life and I understand the human heart. I see the misery in this world and I know that only compassion and courage will fix it.

The two party system is a single machine. It has evolved for more than one hundred years into a mechanism that absorbs all participants. Every party member becomes a cog in that machine, and the machine, and its cogs are devoid of heart and spirit. The machine cannot fix anything that touches the human heart or the human spirit, nor can it perceive anything beyond its own ambitions. It is the destroyer of humanity and the cause of wars and all manner of suffering.

The perception that the two party system cannot be overcome is an illusion, and the illusion is propagated by those who look to history for advice rather than the exquisite beauty of the present moment.

We are in the age of the Internet. We no longer must believe what others tell us. We no longer have to accept the polished, plastic debates of Presidential candidates to help us decide who might better lead the country. We have the full knowledge of the World at our fingertips. When Senator Nelson (D-Fl), for example, proposes a bill to force companies to reveal to its customers that a data breach has occurred within 30 days of the breach, we can do our own research and discover the following:

We would discover, for example, that more than 90% of all computer hacks go entirely undetected. Of the 10% that are detected, there is not a single example where the awareness of the breach happened sooner than 6 months after the breach, with the average being two or more years. Even the most invasive and egregious hacks are seldom detected soon enough to avoid the hackers from exploiting whatever they have taken.

A prime example of this is the hack of the US Office of Personnel Management. The most sensitive data that any government can possible posses, complete records of every employee possessing a Top Secret clearance, went undiscovered for more than a year.

You could then ask yourself: of what earthly value is a legislated notification period to a victim whose data has already been compromised and exploited to the fullest extent possible? Additionally, it is usually impossible, when a breach is detected, to determine whose data was taken. You might ask what the total cost in time and effort would be expended in adhering to this legislation and you could then research all pertinent data on the steps required to recall a senator.

I am running an electronic campaign. It is through interviews such as this, and through fireside chats using software that I have developed that I intend to reach the American public, whom, I believe is much smarter than the average politician believes. I am convinced that I will be the first independently elected U.S. President. I do know that the two party system must come to an end. Courage and compassion are the necessary ingredients of any push to save this country, and the party system is devoid of both.



One World
by shuz

The world largely views the USA as a bully and full of very wealthy people that don't care about those less privileged. As president of the USA, how would you advance world cooperation and work to change world views of the USA to just another location in the world full of mostly average non-privileged individuals living out their lives?

Unrelated, my best friend almost ran you over at Defcon. He wasn't looking where he is going and apologizes.

McAfee: Hat’s off to your friend, whom I dodged with ease. Had he not been drinking I may not be speaking to you now.

America has been playing World Policeman for far too long. It is our unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign states that has caused, supported and animated the concept of terrorism.

I have traveled extensively, and no traveler is hated more than the American traveler. We are arrogant and expect the entire world to speak our language rather than go to the trouble to learn theirs. We are rude: we expect everyone else’s food to taste like our own, and when it does not, we complain. We are morally and culturally judgmental and frown when an Ecuadorian Peasant urinates beside the road or naked man and woman emerge from the surf at Ipanema. We are demanding. We stay at cheap hotels in Tokyo and we are put out when there is no room service. We gossip and stare. And we dress and act like barbarians that only yesterday came down from the trees and began walking upright in near perfect imitation of humans.

We are an anomaly in the world. We project the greatest military power that the world has ever seen, yet we express ourselves as spoiled angry children. Even our leaders mimic the crudities of the American Tourist. Is it any wonder that we are embroiled in every hot spot of chaos that erupts within the world.

My administration will reign in our activities relating to policing the world. It will accept that the world is filled with cultures and governments alien to our own, yet admired and loved by those existing within those cultures. It will acknowledge that morality is, with few exceptions, a localized phenomenon and that we are not the world’s moral judge. It will acknowledge that Democracy is not the fountain stone as a measure of government, and that our own Democracy is fraught with severe problems that lead to the same police state atrocities that we generally ascribe to dictatorships. Thus, the mindless propagation of democracy throughout the world as the solution to all of the world’s problems will be re-evaluated. We need to first fix our own democracy.

Foreign aid will have to be curtailed. We are 18 Trillion dollars in debt. If a friend asks you for $20 and you don’t have it, you can’t give it. This is a prime axiom of the real world. The government does not live in the real world and simply prints money when it does not have any to spend. This printing devalues the hard earned dollars that you have worked for. It is a simple formula, irrespective of how complex the government wants you to believe that it is.

In a nutshell, I believe that our domestic problems are so extreme, that foreign policy will not much deteriorate if we do little or nothing about it for a while. It may even improve.



Snowden
by gQuigs

Would you pardon Edward Snowden?

McAfee: Absolutely. And Also Ross Ulbricht.



Trump
by justcauseisjustthat

What are your thoughts on Donald Trump? And why are you more qualified to be president?

McAfee: I believe that Trump would best serve the country by doing what he has always done so well – Creating thousands of productive jobs in private industry.

I am skeptical of someone who claims to have never written an email leading a country in a Cyber War with China.



Re:technology?
by Qzukk

Or, to put it differently: If we're going to become issues voters and only vote on the technology issue, why should we vote for you instead of Lawrence Lessig?

McAfee: I have never proposed that we become one issue voters. You’re confusing me with President Obama.

What I had to say on that was: On 2 October, President Obama declared: “Here's what you need to do: You have to make sure that anybody that you are voting for is on the right side of this issue.” If politicians oppose these measures, he continued, “even if they're great on other stuff, you've got to vote against them.” He was talking about gun control.

My first thought upon hearing Obama's proclamation was that I was in the middle of an acid flashback and I had no benzodiazepines to mediate the trip. My second thought was: what possible single issue, in this complex society of ours, would merit a “single issue” status?

Just to set the record straight.



Nuclear Power using LFTR
by Anonymous Coward

John, what is your position on Nuclear Power?

Would you support the re-opening of research into liquid fluoride thorium reactors. These reactor designs, and the thorium fuel cycle were researched back in the 70's and can solve both our energy crisis, be far more environmentally friendly than uranium based fuel cycles, and can even used 'spent' uranium reactor fuel as fuel sources, allowing us to reprocess our vast quantity of spent fuel into less harmful waste, while also capturing the energy from them (instead of having it wasted heating water in spent fuel ponds).

McAfee: We have hobbled ourselves and become non competitive by our harsh legislation again nuclear power. This will change.



What Technologies?
by Bodhammer

What technology research should be government funded and what should be private?

McAfee: We must bolster our Cyber security and cyber weapons research, first and foremost, and this must be government funded. We are so far behind the Chinese that catching up is not at all certain, even with me at the helm. As to the rest, I need to understand it better and consider it well.



Cybersecurity Knowledge?
by jmac_the_man

Mr. McAfee, obviously your field of expertise is Information Security. What are the one or two biggest problems facing the Federal government from an IT perspective? How would you solve these problems?

McAfee: Education is number one. Our information technology managers are generally old, ossified and unmotivated to keep up with the rapidly changing technology environment. Without education, all of our efforts will amount to nothing.



Comment on your last interview
by schneidafunk

Care to comment on your last answer from your last interview here on slashdot?

“McAfee: The attorney for the House Ways and Means Committee contacted me and asked if I would help. I said ‘no’. I would never run for office, neither would I want to be in office, of any kind. I would rather drive a nail through my foot.”

McAfee: I would still rather drive a nail through my foot. I sincerely do not want this. My closest friends, however, have threatened to kneecap me if I don’t do it. If you can provide me safe harbor from my friends and advisers I would gladly stop campaigning.



Where's the rest of the platform?
by mr_mischief

We understand where you stand on surveillance. Where do you stand on these issues?: (*Some subjects specifically addressed at https://mcafee16.com/issues/ were removed.*)

firearms
McAfee: An armed society is a polite society.

The impetus for most proclamations surrounding gun control are generally mass murders, some involving guns. A little research will uncover the little known fact that mass murders were virtually unknown prior to 1980.

This fact disturbs me, and it should you, since guns have been prominently owned in this society since the founding of our country, and there was no sweeping legislation in 1980 or after that radically changed gun ownership laws or rates of gun ownership. This, to a thinking person, without qualification, removes guns as the source of our problem — unless of course guns suddenly achieved the ability to subconsciously tempt their owners to use them in heretofore-unknown ways. If not, then the problem appears to be an increase in violent urgings, stemming from some unknown source deep within the fabric of our society.

There are many possibilities for this source. In the 1980s we saw the first widescale use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (anti-depressants) such as Prozac, Paxil, and others. Hundreds of studies have shown that these anti depressants have side effects that include violent thoughts. A few minutes of research will tell us that 8 percent of the U.S. is taking anti-depressants, yet more than 30 percent of all mass murderers since 1980 were known to have been taking them. It’s highly suspected that the real number approaches 90 percent — a statistical anomaly of egregious proportions. I would begin here if I were looking for a source.

But it’s much easier to disprove a cause than it is to prove a cause. Use of anti-depressants may merely be an artifact of some deeper cause that is as yet unknown.

We do know that governments that turn deceptive and begin spying on their citizens foment unrest, anger, and despair. However, given that we do not have citizens carrying signs in the streets and recalling their representatives en masse — outward signs we would expect from a citizenry that is not afraid of its government — then perhaps that has not happened here in America.

In any case, I do not believe that guns are the problem. On the other hand, Gun Free Zones appear to be a serious problem. Every mass shooting for the past 20 years has occurred in a gun free zone. Where else would someone with a gun who wants to create havoc go? We need armed guards at schools, churches, courthouses and every other place that we now deem “gun free”

abortion
McAfee: A woman's body is her own.

gay marriage
McAfee: Homosexual couples of either sex should equally be allowed to suffer the frustrations of marriage along with everyone else.

keeping the FCC from preventing flashing of consumer electronics with new firmware
McAfee: Is the FCC still needed in an age of digital communications? Isn't this the question?

net neutrality
McAfee: Any control whatsoever of the Internet is questionable if not actually insidious.

lowering the skyrocketing levels of student debt
McAfee: Why not lower the cost of education itself? What is the cause of these high costs? Further, why not redefine Education in a manner that reflects the fact that the overwhelming knowledge base no longer resides in Universities but is freely available on the Net? We need to ask ourselves whether our higher education system in it's entirety, us actually relevant.

making healthcare affordable or subsidizing paying for it
McAfee: Healthcare costs would be cut by 75% if medical malpractice lawsuits were outlawed or at least massively curtailed.

investing in our roads and bridges
McAfee: This was the original main intent of government - an infrastructure, plus national defense. Look how far we have strayed. I intend to take the "power" out of government and return it to is original function of "service"



What will you do when you become president?
by Kohath

What is your agenda for the first 100 days of the McAfee administration?

McAfee:

• Pardon All non violent Marijuana offenses, whether for possession or for sale.
• Pardon Edward Snowden and Ross Ulbricht.
• Disband the TSA in its entirety. I will continue to pay all salaries until I can figure out what value the employees have. The TSA budget is nearly $8 Billion. Salaries are less than $2 Billion. We save $6 Billion.
• Place armed marshals on all flights.
• Disband the Bureau of Indian Affairs – under same principles as TSA.
• Radically restrict The FDA.
• Direct the NSA and all other covert agencies that report to the Executive Branch to end all spying on American citizens and to place their efforts where our real threats lie.

After that, I’m unclear. Hopefully I will have learned much after I assume the Oval Office.

An anonymous reader writes: The tech industry has recognized it isn't as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that's been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination. He says, "One company, Payscale, does supply some estimates. Looking at its numbers in 2012, Payscale noted, 'The typical tech employee wasn't around for the original release of Star Wars. And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms. In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus. Right now, that's not happening."

An anonymous reader writes: The tech industry has recognized it isn't as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that's been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination. He says, "One company, Payscale, does supply some estimates. Looking at its numbers in 2012, Payscale noted, 'The typical tech employee wasn't around for the original release of Star Wars. And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms. In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus. Right now, that's not happening."

MarkWhittington writes: Russia is turning its attention to the moon again for the first time in about 40 years. The first Russian mission to the moon since long before the end of the Cold War will be Luna 27, a robot lander that will touch down on the edge of the lunar South Pole as early as 2020. Russia is looking for international partners to help make Luna 27 a reality and may have found one in the European Space Agency, according to a story on the BBC. "The initial missions will be robotic. Luna 27 will land on the edge of the South Pole Aitken basin. The south polar region has areas which are always dark. These are some of the coldest places in the Solar System. As such, they are icy prisons for water and other chemicals that have been shielded from heating by the Sun. According to Dr. James Carpenter, ESA's lead scientist on the project, one of the main aims is to investigate the potential use of this water as a resource for the future, and to find out what it can tell us about the origins of life in the inner Solar System."

Ichijo writes: Several years ago, Slashdot reported that the Amiga community had developed a way to restore old, yellowed ABS plastic to like-new condition, and they put the recipe for the gel, dubbed Retr0bright, into the public domain. Since then, it was discovered that the effect of the gel is only temporary, and plastic treated with the gel soon reverts to its original yellowed state even when efforts are made to block it from additional UV light.

Now, Amiga enthusiast Philippe Lang has created a new Kickstarter campaign to design and build new, improved molds for Amiga 1200 housings and do a licensed production run using anti-UV ASA plastic in the original color plus black, transparent, and 9 other colors. His team is also investigating the feasibility of producing new Amiga 1200 keyboards if this campaign succeeds. This follows a successful production run by Commodore 64 enthusiasts of new C64c housings using the original injection molds and new C64 motherboards designed to modern standards and production methods. And a new Amiga 1200 clone motherboard is also in the works.

dmr001 writes: As seen previously, Palo Alto startup Theranos planned to put the power of affordable lab work directly in the hands of patients with tiny fingerprick samples taken at Walgreen's, with four hour turnaround. The company claimed their tests were "made possible by advances in the field of microfluidics." But they were cagey about methodology and didn't use FDA approved analyzers.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports (paywalled) (among others) that all but one of Theranos' analyzers currently in use is off the shelf, and that their tiny samples may not always have been accurate. Typically cagey founder Elizabeth Holmes vigorously disputes the criticism of her $9 billion startup, but entrenched players like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp (which do quite well charging orders of magnitude above Theranos' prices) are likely doing a happy dance.

Physicians worrying about patients bringing in their own carcinoembryonic antigen levels and Epstein Barr Virus panels to confirm their Internet diagnoses of cancer and chronic fatigue may also be breathing sighs of relief, albeit with bittersweet regret at the potential loss of the price advantage and milliliter samples.

theodp writes: With its sweeping vistas and narration by the late Robin Williams, Apple's 2014 'Your Verse' ad dramatically showcased the many ways iPads might help people create, from making movies to calibrating wind turbines. So it's interesting that Microsoft's first ad for its new Surface Book (YouTube) bears a striking resemblance to the earlier Apple ad (YouTubeDoubler comparison). Which is probably only fair, since Apple's soon-to-be-released iPad Pro bears more than a passing resemblance to the Microsoft Surface. Hey, good artists copy, great artists steal, right? By the way, between the release of Microsoft's Surface Pro 4, Apple's iPad Pro, and Google's Pixel C, is the keyboard+touch interface poised to be a four-decade "overnight success"?

badger.foo writes: 20 years to the day after the OpenBSD source tree was created for the new project, the project has released OpenBSD 5.8, the 38th release on CD-ROM (and 39th via FTP/HTTP). This release comes with four release songs instead of the usual one, and a long list of improvements over the last releases. (Probably a good time to donate to the project, too, even if you don't use it directly, because of all the security improvements that OpenBSD programmers contribute to the world.)

badger.foo writes: 20 years to the day after the OpenBSD source tree was created for the new project, the project has released OpenBSD 5.8, the 38th release on CD-ROM (and 39th via FTP/HTTP). This release comes with four release songs instead of the usual one, and a long list of improvements over the last releases. (Probably a good time to donate to the project, too, even if you don't use it directly, because of all the security improvements that OpenBSD programmers contribute to the world.)

schwit1 writes: You've heard of the Paleo diet, but the next big thing in health may well be the Paleo sleep schedule. A UCLA researcher studied three hunter-gatherer and hunter-farmer groups -- the Hadza in Tanzania, San in Namibia, and Tsimane in Bolivia, "who live roughly the same lifestyle humans did in the Paleolithic," as NPR reports -- and determined our ancient ancestors may not have slept nearly as much we thought, and may have actually slept less than modern Westerners. "People like to complain that modern life is ruining sleep, but they're just saying: Kids today!" Jerome Siegel tells the Atlantic . "It's a perennial complaint but you need data to know if it's true." Siegel found that members of the three aforementioned groups sleep between 5.7 hours and 7.1 hours per night. That's less than is recommended for our health, yet the groups seemed very healthy indeed. (And if you're feeling insomniac, some earlier Slashdot stories about sleep are also pretty thought-provoking.)

An anonymous reader writes: A revamp of Yahoo Mail includes a new feature which eliminates the password from the sign-in process on mobile platforms, instead relying on the user's phone number as a token of authenticity. Notification-based sign-ins are a network-heavy commitment used with less frequency during some online banking authentication procedures, and by Google and others in specific events such as the need for a password reset. But Yahoo is well-motivated to improve security after a 2014 data breach led to a mass-reset of passwords for affected users.

itwbennett writes: Even though, as reported today on Slashdot, 'experts from government, industry, and academia say they have no confidence they'll develop a secure system that can protect users from tracking and privacy breaches,' a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives have 'proposed that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration set up an Automotive Cybersecurity Advisory Council to develop cybersecurity best-practice.' The draft proposal would require vehicle manufacturers to 'develop and implement' a privacy policy outlining their information-gathering practices, and would make vehicle data hacking illegal and subject to a $100,000 penalty for each violation.

An anonymous reader writes: According to VentureBeat Red Hat Inc is about to buy the company behind the automation and orchestration software Ansible. The move is seen as a good acquisition, since Ansible, other than being almost universally expanding, is also used by Red Hat's own cloud and system platforms. It could probably use some strong backing for the extra services it wishes to offer. The question remains whether this will have consequences in the future direction of the Python-based, open source platform itself (on GitHub). It's one of the most trivial to implement (compared to cfengine, ever-changing puppet or Chef) yet very powerful, and Red Hat may want to optimize it for their own purposes. Update: 10/16 15:39 GMT by S : Red Hat has confirmed the acquisition and explained their reasons for doing so.

grimmjeeper writes: According to Ars Technica the Windows 10 upgrade option is being selected by default for some users. A dialogue box is appearing that only permits them to reschedule the upgrade process, not cancel it. "For the first year of its availability, Windows 10 is available for free to most Windows 7 and 8 users, and Microsoft has been trying to coax those users to make the switch by delivering the operating system through Windows Update. Until now, the OS has been delivered as an optional update; while Windows Update gives it prominent positioning, it shouldn't be installed automatically. This system has already generated some complaints, as Windows Update will download the sizeable operating system installer even if you don't intend to upgrade any time soon, but, over the last couple of days, the situation seems to have become a little more aggressive. We've received a number of reports that people's systems are not merely downloading the installer but actually starting it up." Update: 10/16 11:35 GMT by S : Microsoft said, "In the recent Windows update, this option was checked as default; this was a mistake and we are removing the check."

itwbennett writes: Slashdot readers are no strangers to Oracle's aggressive licensing practices, practices that have earned them notoriety over the years. This week, Texas law firm Scott & Scott wrote a blog post warning enterprises about the 'traps' in Oracle software licensing. One of the biggest problems with Oracle software is how difficult it is for companies to track internally what they're using and how they're using it, said Julie Machal-Fulks, a partner with Scott & Scott, in an interview with Katherine Noyes. 'They may use just one Oracle product and think they're using it correctly, but then Oracle comes along and says, 'no, you're using it wrong — you owe us a million bucks.'

An anonymous reader writes: Intel has begun releasing more "Skylake" processors that are cheaper than the launch SKUs of the i5-6600K and i7-6700K. One of the new processors that is now widely available is the Core i5 6500 and it costs just $199 USD — that puts it just a few dollars more than the AMD FX-8370 and significantly less than the higher-end Skylake and Haswell CPUs. At least with Ubuntu Linux, the Core i5 6500 is showing competitive performance that for some workloads puts it faster than Core i7 Haswell/Broadwell processors and much faster than any AMD processors. The Intel Skylake CPUs are fully supported under Linux but the caveat is needing the very latest kernel otherwise there's no graphics acceleration or sound support.

An anonymous reader writes: Despite the ferment that occurs when yet another digital publisher paywalls a news-site, most paywalls are absurdly easy to circumvent, even using no other software than a web-browser, because of the need to present unrestricted content to the search engines that publicise it. None of the parties involved are considering anyone else's point of view: Google wants free flow of information funded by merit-based advertising revenue; publishers want to restore consumer lock-in in a network environment of story-led consumers who have completely abandoned the concept; and Apple is fine with content-blocking, since it just wants to sell hardware.

An anonymous reader writes: Despite the ferment that occurs when yet another digital publisher paywalls a news-site, most paywalls are absurdly easy to circumvent, even using no other software than a web-browser, because of the need to present unrestricted content to the search engines that publicise it. None of the parties involved are considering anyone else's point of view: Google wants free flow of information funded by merit-based advertising revenue; publishers want to restore consumer lock-in in a network environment of story-led consumers who have completely abandoned the concept; and Apple is fine with content-blocking, since it just wants to sell hardware.

An anonymous reader writes: Despite the ferment that occurs when yet another digital publisher paywalls a news-site, most paywalls are absurdly easy to circumvent, even using no other software than a web-browser, because of the need to present unrestricted content to the search engines that publicise it. None of the parties involved are considering anyone else's point of view: Google wants free flow of information funded by merit-based advertising revenue; publishers want to restore consumer lock-in in a network environment of story-led consumers who have completely abandoned the concept; and Apple is fine with content-blocking, since it just wants to sell hardware.

An anonymous reader writes: The UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) has issued a warning to UK online banking consumers to guard against the possibility of having been infected by the Dridex malware, which spreads via macros in infected Microsoft documents and is currently estimated to have cost £20mn to UK consumers. The NCA says that it is working with the FBI and several European authorities in a concerted campaign to take down the botnet behind the current crop of infections. Dridex is a derivative of the Cridex strain of banking malware, which itself stole many techniques from the GameOver Zeus malware package.

itwbennett writes: Tim Conkling is an independent game developer whose current project, Antihero, is a strategy game about running a thieves' guild in a Dickens-inspired Victorian city. Recently he had the opportunity to talk to (i.e., was held captive by) an elderly and 'accomplished playwright, set designer, and painter' who quickly dismissed game design as 'not art.' The question of games being art or not isn't a new one. Roger Ebert was on the 'games are not art' bandwagon in 2010. More important to Conkling, who wrote about this interaction in a recent blog post, is the notion that any 'intentionally designed' piece is worthy of intellectual respect. "Nobody would ever seriously write off, for example, an Eames chair or a Gehry building; whether these objects fit some random definition of 'art' is inconsequential to their perceived cultural value." writes Conkling.

An anonymous reader writes: As the capabilities of science and engineering expand, they rely more on the precision of measurements. It's vitally important, then, to make sure the standard units underpinning those measurements don't change. This is a problem for the kilogram. For years, it has remained the only SI unit based on a physical object — a small cylinder of platinum and iridium. Scientists have been arguing about how to replace it for decades, but now it looks like their efforts are finally reaching fruition. They finally have all the data they need to define the kilogram with mathematical constants, which solves the problem of the variability of physical objects. "One method, pioneered by an international team known as the Avogadro Project, involves counting the atoms in two silicon-28 spheres that each weigh the same as the reference kilogram. This allows them to calculate a value for Avogadro's constant, which the researchers convert into a value for Planck's constant. Another method uses a device called a watt balance to produce a value for Planck's constant by weighing a test mass calibrated according to the reference kilogram against an eletromagnetic force." Further research has narrowed down the value of Planck's constant, and experimental data from standards bodies is finally matching up. "If they are proved right, in 2018, Le Grand K will join the meter as a museum piece."

theodp writes: Last week, President Obama signed into law H.R. 1020, the STEM Education Act of 2015, which expands the definition of STEM to include computer science for the purposes of carrying out education activities at the NSF, DOE, NASA, NOAA, NIST, and the EPA. The Bill was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Rep. Elizabeth Etsy (D-CT). Smith's February press release linked to letters of support from tech billionaire-backed Code.org (whose leadership includes Microsoft President Brad Smith), and the Microsoft-backed STEM Education Coalition (whose leadership includes Microsoft Director of Education Policy Allyson Knox).

An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times has published an article on Star Trek: New Voyages, a fan production that's based on TOS. “People come from all over the world to take part in this — Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and every state in the union,” said James Cawley, the show’s executive producer. “That’s the magic of Star Trek. It’s spawned this whole generation of fans who went on to professional careers — doctors, lawyers, engineers — who are now participating in that shared love here.” With TOS fans generally being less than enamored with the movie reboots, are fan produced web series the wave of the future?

erier2003 writes: Sen. Bernie Sanders' opposition to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act in its current form aligns him with privacy advocates and makes him the only presidential candidate to stake out that position, just as cybersecurity issues loom large over the 2016 election, from email server security to the foreign-policy implications of data breaches. The Senate is preparing to vote on CISA, a bill to address gaps in America's cyberdefenses by letting corporations share threat data with the government. But privacy advocates and security experts oppose the bill because customers' personal information could make it into the shared data.

An anonymous reader writes: On the 20th of October Pepsi will launch its own smartphone in China. The P1 is not just a cowling brand, but a custom-made device running Android 5.1 and costing approximately $205. At that price it's almost a burner, but even so it represents new possibilities for a brand to truly control the digital space for its eager consumers in a period where mobile content-blocking is becoming a marketing obstruction, and where there is increasing resistance on Google's part to allow publishers to push web-users from the internet to 'the app'.

jones_supa writes: A couple of years ago, details began to unfold of a government-backed high capacity data cable between Germany and Finland, which would be routed through the Baltic Sea. The cable has now been nicknamed "Sea Lion," and the work started Monday in Santahamina coastal area, outside Helsinki. The cable was built by Alcatel Lucent and is operated by the Finnish firm Cinia Group. The Finnish government, along with the banking and insurance sector, have together invested €100M into the project. That investment is expected to pay for itself many times over once the business sector gets a boost from the new telecom jump. The new cable also makes Finland independent of the Øresund Bridge, through which all of the country's Internet traffic is currently routed, via Denmark and Sweden. Eventually the new link can reach Asia as well, via the Northeast Passage shipping route.

theodp writes: Several weeks ago, Google launched Brotli, a new open source compression algorithm for the web. Since then, controversy broke out over the choice of 'bro' as the content encoding type. "We are hoping to establish a file ending .bro for brotli compressed files, a command line tool 'bro' for compressing and uncompressing brotli files, and a accept/content encoding type 'bro'," explained Google software engineer Jyrki Alakuijala. "Can I talk you out of it?," replied Mozilla SW engineer Patrick McManus. "'bro' has a gender problem, even though the dual meaning is unintentional. It comes of[f] misogynistic and unprofessional due to the world it lives in." Despite some pushback from commenters, a GitHub commit made by Google's Zoltan Szabadka shows that there will be no '.bro' in Brotli. "I have asked a feminist friend from the North American culture-sphere, and she advised against bro," explained Alakuijala. "We have found a compromise that satisfies us, so we don't need to discuss this further. Even if we don't understand why people are upset from our cultural standpoint, they would be (unnecessarily) upset and this is enough reason not to use it."

Mickeycaskill writes: Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, has outlined the organization's plans to improve open source security. He says failing to do so could threaten a "golden age" which has created billion dollar companies and seen Microsoft, Apple, and others embrace open technologies. Not long ago, the organization launched the Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII), a body backed by 20 major IT firms, and is investing millions of dollars in grants, tools, and other support for open source projects that have been underfunded. This was never move obvious than following the discovery of the Heartbleed Open SSL bug last year. "Almost the entirety of the internet is entirely reliant on open source software," Zemlin said. "We've reached a golden age of open source. Virtually every technology and product and service is created using open source. Heartbleed literally broke the security of the Internet. Over a long period of time, whether we knew it or not, we became dependent on open source for the security and Integrity of the internet."

the_newsbeagle writes: Researchers have demonstrated a laser-based pacemaker in fruit flies, and say that a human version is "not impossible."

The invention makes use of optogenetics, a technique in which the DNA that codes for a light-sensitive protein is inserted into certain cells, enabling those cells to be activated by pulses of light. Researchers often use this method to study neurons in the brain, but in this case the researchers altered flies' heart cells. Then they activated those cardiac cells using pulses of light, causing them to contract in time with the pulses (abstract). Voila, they had an optical pacemaker that worked on living adult fruit flies.

Don't worry, no one can control your heartbeat with a laser just yet. That would require inserting foreign DNA into your heart cells, and also finding a way to shine light through the impediment of your flesh and bones. But lead researcher Chao Zhou of Lehigh University is working on it.

An anonymous reader writes: Wikileaks has released the finalized Intellectual Property text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which international negotiators agreed upon a few days ago. Unfortunately, it contains many of the consumer-hostile provisions that so many organizations spoke out against beforehand. This includes the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years, and a ban on the circumvention of DRM. The EFF says, "If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever." The EFF walks us through all the other awful provisions as well — it's quite a lengthy analysis.

1sockchuck writes: At this week's AWS re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services introduced new features and looked ahead to a future in which enterprise computing shifts to the cloud. But AWS also looked back at how a disaster reshaped its supply chain. In 2011, an unusually heavy monsoon season led to massive flooding in Thailand, which at the time manufactured nearly half of the world's supply of hard disk drives (HDDs). Prices soared and shortages developed, and Amazon's usual vendors were unable to deliver the volume the company sought to support its fast-growing cloud computing platform. "When a single flood hits half the manufacturing supply, and you don't have a direct relationship with suppliers, it turns out to be hard to get what you need," said AWS executive Jerry Hunter. So AWS executives jumped on a plane, flew to Thailand, and began building direct relationships that would support their shift to company-built hardware.

basscomm writes: For years (as seen on Slashdot) the Linux Standard Base has been developed as an attempt to reduce the differences between Linux distributions in an effort significant effort. However, Debian Linux has announced that they are dropping support for the Linux Standard Base due to a lack of interest.

From the article: "If [Raboud's] initial comments about lack of interest in LSB were not evidence enough, a full three months then went by with no one offering any support for maintaining the LSB-compliance packages and two terse votes in favor of dropping them. Consequently, on September 17, Raboud announced that he had gutted the src:lsb package (leaving just lsb-base and lsb-release as described) and uploaded it to the "unstable" archive. That minimalist set of tools will allow an interested user to start up the next Debian release and query whether or not it is LSB-compliant—and the answer will be 'no.'"

Artem Tashkinov writes: Researchers from Dutch and Singapore universities have successfully carried out an initial attack on the SHA-1 hashing algorithm by finding a collision at the SHA1 compression function. They describe their work in the paper "Freestart collision for full SHA-1". The work paves the way for full SHA-1 collision attacks, and the researchers estimate that such attacks will become reality at the end of 2015. They also created a dedicated web site humorously called The SHAppening.

Perhaps the call to deprecate the SHA-1 standard in 2017 in major web browsers seems belated and this event has to be accelerated.

An anonymous reader writes: Volkswagen has taken some serious heat for deliberately circumventing emissions tests with "defeat devices" in some of their vehicles. While no other cars have been found to use specific devices to fool tests in the same way, we're now learning that many manufacturers still mysteriously perform worse in the real world. Last week, the Guardian revealed that diesel cars from Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Renault emitted significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than the tests supposedly allow. Now, we learn that vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi emit substantially more than they should as well. For example: "Mercedes-Benz's diesel cars produced an average of 0.406g/km of NOx on the road, at least 2.2 times more than the official Euro 5 level and five times higher than the Euro 6 level. Honda's diesel cars emitted 0.484g/km of NOx on average, between 2.6 and six times the official levels." This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution).

An anonymous reader writes: Volkswagen has taken some serious heat for deliberately circumventing emissions tests with "defeat devices" in some of their vehicles. While no other cars have been found to use specific devices to fool tests in the same way, we're now learning that many manufacturers still mysteriously perform worse in the real world. Last week, the Guardian revealed that diesel cars from Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo, and Renault emitted significantly more pollution in realistic driving conditions than the tests supposedly allow. Now, we learn that vehicles from Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Mazda, and Mitsubishi emit substantially more than they should as well. For example: "Mercedes-Benz's diesel cars produced an average of 0.406g/km of NOx on the road, at least 2.2 times more than the official Euro 5 level and five times higher than the Euro 6 level. Honda's diesel cars emitted 0.484g/km of NOx on average, between 2.6 and six times the official levels." This provides clear evidence that the automotive industry is designing its cars to follow the letter of the law (passing tests), but not the spirit (actually reducing pollution).