Slashdot Mirror

schwit1 shares a report from The Times: It will shake houses and tall buildings, and unleash a 100ft tsunami on one of the most densely populated and industrialized coastlines in the world. It could kill and injure close to a million people. It will almost certainly come in the next few decades. Now, the Japanese government is making plans to evacuate millions of people in anticipation of what could be one of the worst natural disasters in history (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). It is known as the Nankai Trough megaquake. The Japanese government has previously estimated that there is a 70 to 80 percent chance that such an event will take place in the next 30 years and that the earthquake, and subsequent tsunami, could kill 323,000 people and injure 623,000. Unfortunately, the report doesn't outline how the government plans to get people out of harm's way. The city with the most people in the danger zone is Nagoya, Japan's fourth largest city and home to 2.3 million people. "The home of the nation's industry Hamamatsu is also at risk and home to over 800,000 people," reports The Irish Sun.

British defense officials say they have practiced cyber war games that could shut off electricity in Russia's capital, the Sunday Times (paywall) reports. From a report: The measures are part of a wider range of strategies to hit back at an increasingly assertive Russia -- accused of interfering with US elections, cyberattacks on Western targets, and poisoning a former spy on UK soil -- without resorting to a full-blown nuclear attack. "If they sank our aircraft carrier with a nuclear-tipped torpedo, what is our response? There's nothing between sinking their submarine and dropping a nuclear weapon on northern Kamchatka," one senior source told the Sunday Times. "This is why cyber is so important; you can go on the offensive and turn off the lights in Moscow to tell them that they are not doing the right things." Military planners are looking for options if Russian president Vladimir Putin tests NATO's resolve by seizing small islands belonging to Estonia, taking control of Libya's oil reserves, or using "irregular forces" to attack troops, according to the report.

Ecuador is planning to hand over WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to UK authorities in the "coming weeks or even days," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said, citing her own sources. Simonyan reported the news in a recent tweet, which was reposted by WikiLeaks. Slashdot reader Okian Warrior first shared the news. Daily Express reports: Foreign Office minister Sir Alan Duncan is said to be involved in the diplomatic effort, which has come weeks ahead of a visit by new Ecuadorian president, Lenin Moreno, who called Mr Assange an "inherited problem." He also referred to the exiled WikiLeaks founder as a "stone in the shoe." Sources close to Assange claim he was not aware of the talks, but believe America is piling "significant pressure" on Ecuador to give him up, according to the Sunday Times. The sources claim that America has threatened to block a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) if he is not removed from the embassy, based in Knightsbridge, west London. UPDATE 7/21/18: The Intercept also confirmed the news. Glen Greenwald, former reporter for The Guardian, writes: "A source close to the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry and the President's office, unauthorized to speak publicly, has confirmed to the Intercept that Moreno is close to finalizing, if he has not already finalized, an agreement to hand over Assange to the UK within the next several weeks. The withdrawal of asylum and physical ejection of Assange could come as early as this week."

In a recent interview with The Times, Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey said he believes that bitcoin will become the world's single currency within 10 years. "The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency," said Dorsey. "I personally believe that it will be bitcoin." Dorsey went on to say that the transition would happen "probably over ten years, but it could go faster." The Verge reports: That Dorsey is a fan of bitcoin isn't too surprising, though. In addition to serving as the CEO of Twitter, Dorsey is also the CEO of Square, which recently added the option to buy and sell Bitcoin directly from the Square Cash app. The company also released an illustrated children's story touting the benefits of the digital currency. As for Dorsey himself, he's gone on the record in an interview with The Verge's own Lauren Goode about the benefits of bitcoin as a currency, describing it as the "next big unlock" for the world of finance. (Dorsey owns an unspecified amount of the cryptocurrency.)

One of Britain's biggest car insurers has admitted increasing premiums for drivers who apply using a Hotmail account. From a report: Motorists seeking cover from Admiral could be charged $45 extra if they use certain email addresses. The insurer said some domain names were "associated with more accidents" than others, raising applicants' risk profile. Figures from the Association of British Insurers to be published today show that the cost of car insurance has increased by more than a quarter over the past three years. Admiral said that hundreds of factors were used by underwriters in setting car insurance, with riskier motorists paying more. Issues included the age of a driver and their postcode.

Mark Bridge, reporting for The Times: Thousands of Uber customers are believed to have had their accounts hacked by Russians after users of the app (Editor's note: the link is paywalled; alternative source) reported being billed in roubles for taxi journeys they had not taken in Moscow and St Petersburg. More than 800 people in Britain and the United States have complained on Twitter that their accounts were taken over in the past year, The Times found, with the number of reports spiking in April and May. Experts said this number of Twitter reports suggested that the true figure would be much higher.

A British-based luxury phone maker which made its name selling $50,000 smartphones decked out in alligator leather and titanium and fitted with sapphire screens, has applied to the courts to be placed in administration after running of out money to pay staff and suppliers, (paywalled) reports British outlet The Times. In a witness statement filed in the High Court in London yesterday, the report adds, the company's last remaining director Jean-Charles Charki, said that Vertu was insolvent and unable to meet its June 30 payroll obligations of about 500,000 euros. From an earlier report: According to a juicy new report in the Telegraph, employees are worried about the future of the company after noticing that production had been running at reduced capacity. Employees are apparently worried about their unpaid wages, as well as pension contributions taken out of their paychecks without being added into the company's retirement fund. Sources inside the company also told the Telegraph that Vertu has unpaid debts with suppliers such as Qualcomm and Microsoft, and bills from waste management, pest control, and other property services.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Rolling Stone: Verizon, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and other major companies have pulled advertisements from YouTube after learning they were paired with videos promoting extremism, terrorism and other offensive topics, The New York Times reports. Among the other companies involved are pharmaceutical giant GSK, HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland and L'Oreal, amounting to a potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Google-owned company. The boycott began last week after a Times of London investigation spurred many major European companies to pull their ads from YouTube. American companies swiftly followed, even after Google promised Tuesday to work harder to block ads on "hateful, offensive and derogatory" videos. Like AT&T, most companies are only pulling their ads from YouTube and will continue to place ads on Google's search platforms, which remain the biggest source of revenue for Google's parent company, Alphabet. Still, the tech giant offered up a slew of promises to assuage marketers and ensure them that they were fixing the problems on YouTube. Due to the massive number of videos on YouTube -- about 400 hours of video is posted each minute -- the site primarily uses an automated system to place ads. While there are some failsafes in place to keep advertisements from appearing alongside offensive content, Google's Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler wrote in a blog post that the company would hire "significant numbers" of employees to review YouTube videos and mark them as inappropriate for ads. He also said Google's latest advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning will help the company review and flag large swaths of videos.

Orome1 quotes a report from Help Net Security: Animal tracking through electronic tagging has helped researchers gain insight into the lives of many wild animal species, but can also be misused by wildlife poachers, hunters, animal-persecution groups and people interested in seeing and interacting with the animals -- all to the detriment of our animal brethren. A recent paper by a group of researchers from several Canadian and U.S. universities has pointed to several instances of misuse or attempted misuse of the tracking technology. The researchers believe that instances of poachers intercepting signals to track animals down are under-reported, as the researchers and conservationists are worried about losing funding. The researchers have also noted that photographers and people interested in seeing wild animals have been known to acquire and use tracking equipment, and they are worried that "frequent exposure of animals to people can habituate them to human interaction, which at minimum alters the animal's natural behavior, thus negatively influencing research findings." The tagging devices are usually collars with GPS or radio transmitters, and cost between 150 and 4,000 British pounds, The Times reports. But, unfortunately, security measures for protecting their signal are not adequate.

New submitter drunkdrone writes: "French authorities investigating the EgyptAir crash that killed 66 people last year believe that the plane may have been brought down by an overheating phone battery," reports International Business Times. Investigators say the fire that broke out on the Airbus A320 in May 2016 started in the spot where the co-pilot had stowed his iPad and iPhone 6S, which he placed on top of the instrument panel in the plane's cockpit. From the report: "EgyptAir flight MS804 was traveling from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared from radar on 19 May 2016. Egyptian investigators have speculated that the crash, which killed all 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel on board, was caused by an act of terrorism due to traces of explosives reported to be found on some the victims. Investigators in France have disputed these claims, saying that data recorded from the aircraft around the time it disappeared points to an accidental fire on the right-hand side of the flight deck, next to the co-pilot. According to The Times, CCTV pulled from cameras at Paris' Charles de Gualle airport show that the co-pilot stored a number of personal items above the dashboard, where the first signs of trouble were detected. This included an automated alert indicating a series of malfunctions on the right-hand flight deck window, followed by smoke alerts going off in a toilet and in the avionics area below the cockpit, minutes before the plane vanished."

mi writes from a report via The Times: A senior judge has called for the establishment of an online court (Warning: source may be paywalled) that does not have lawyers and can deal with claims of up to 25,000 British Pound (around $32,850). The proposal is the centerpiece of a package of reforms to the civil justice system, drawn up by Lord Justice Briggs, a Court of Appeal judge. Just how exactly will this court ensure no one is, in fact, a trained professional on the internet, where no one knows who you really are, is not explained. We discussed the idea last year. Apparently, it is still alive. The judge's report says this computer court would provide "effective access to justice without having to incur the disproportionate cost of using lawyers." The Law Gazette reported earlier in June that Briggs has mused about a three-stage process -- triage, conciliation and final judgement -- in which there might be some lawyer involvement.

An anonymous reader writes: The Journal of Applied Microbiology published a report claiming Dyson Airblade hand-driers spread 60 times more germs than standard air dryers, and 1,300 times more than standard paper towels. The researchers from University of Westminster conducted their research by dipping their hands in water containing a harmless virus. Then, they dried their hands with either a Dyson Airblade, a standard hot-air dryer, or a paper towel. Their research shows the Dyson drier's 430mph blasts of air are capable of spreading viruses up to 3 meters across a bathroom. Typical driers spread viruses up to 75cm (about 2.5ft), and the hand towels 25cm (less than 1ft).

An anonymous reader writes: The Times reports (paywalled) that the Investigatory Powers Bill promised by the UK government over the summer is likely to be presented to parliament next month, and that it will contain 'dizzying' powers for MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to hack the devices of individuals under investigation, with the permission of the home secretary. An implementation of the Wilson Doctrine will mean that British MPs will not be subject to these powers in the same way as other citizens. According to a digital evidence expert that the Times interviewed, the bill addresses the difficulty that the UK government is sharing with other nations in defeating encryption effectively. "Hacking is different from interception because it allows hackers to take control of the device, using it for surveillance and accessing data from the source, rather than simply intercepting them, which is becoming increasingly difficult."

JKT writes: "According to The Times (of London): Predators, which can operate for 40 hours at a time ... can hover at up to 25,000ft, taking photographs in all types of weather, and at night with the use of infrared cameras ... For the first time in any operation, the Predators, developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San Diego, are also armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles ... if a Predator spots a potential target, the ground operator can launch a Hellfire missile attack immediately." The article covers all the various pre-attack surveillance mechanisms, including special forces units of various countries. Interesting stuff, especially because it appears that one of those recon drones has already been shot down.

mikewhittaker writes "A recent article on The Times refer to a report which indicates that the intake of caffeine from a single coffee can have adverse effects on your arteries and heart." Actually, it goes so far to say that the first cup of coffee is the worst. Of course, basically, anything you do is bad for at some level, so I guess it's choosing your poisons.

jtcampbell writes: "Whilst reading the Times today I found this article about a U.S. government idea to give everyone a unique 'ENUM,' that serves as a universal phone number, email address, and fax number. Quite a cool idea, but will everyone adopt the standard? besides, i thought we left numeric email addresses with compuserve a few years back. And remembering these 11 digit numbers could be fun ..."

EnnaH writes "An article on the Times web-site stated that the popular energy drink Red Bull is under investigation in Sweden, after three people died shortly after consuming the drink. I thought that this may interest the Slashdot community, as I'm sure many of us drink a lot of these hyper-caffinated products and Red Bull is available on the ThinkGeek site." From the article itself, it appears that the problem isn't so much the Red Bull as people overdrinking with it and such. Ah, the wonders of nanny states.Update: 07/14 11:36 PM by H :So, for those of you who didn't pick it out - my comment about nanny states isn't one about Sweden - it's about system that try too hard to protect people from themselves. By all accounts, Sweden's a very nice place. *grin*

EnnaH writes "An article on the Times web-site stated that the popular energy drink Red Bull is under investigation in Sweden, after three people died shortly after consuming the drink. I thought that this may interest the Slashdot community, as I'm sure many of us drink a lot of these hyper-caffinated products and Red Bull is available on the ThinkGeek site." From the article itself, it appears that the problem isn't so much the Red Bull as people overdrinking with it and such. Ah, the wonders of nanny states.Update: 07/14 11:36 PM by H :So, for those of you who didn't pick it out - my comment about nanny states isn't one about Sweden - it's about system that try too hard to protect people from themselves. By all accounts, Sweden's a very nice place. *grin*

CyberLeader writes: "An article in the UK Times is reporting that cell phone manufacturers have patented 'brain shields,' or components intended to reduce the stray EM radiation that might enter your noggin from your phone. This despite their consistent claims that cell phone radiation is harmless."

sidetrack writes: "According to an article in The Times, Cambridge University Computer Laboratory's famous coffee pot camera - allegedly the world's first web cam (indeed, it predated the web by a few years in its original form) is to be retired, when the department moves to a new building. I think I remember looking at this some time in '95 - a piece of internet history that really should be saved, IMHO ;-)." Bits and pieces of history guys. It frightens me to realize that all this stuff we thought was so cool just a few years ago is now part of the net's history and lore. Tell your grandkids that you were there when...

Cletusthesjyokel writes "Interesting read on how one of Britain's biggest insurance companies admitted to using unapproved genetic screening when deciding when to give coverage or not. Makes you think."

coljac writes: "An article in The Times on Monday details the claims of British researcher Ilham Abuljadayel who says she can produce stem cells from adult cells (in this case, white blood cells). Stem cells, the main source of which is currently human embryos, are undifferentiated cells which under the right biochemical conditions can grow into any kind of tissue cell. Stem cell research promises breakthroughs in many areas of disease (and even aging) research, but until now has been dogged by controversy because of the use of human embryos. If verified, this is a pretty exciting development."

coljac writes: "An article in The Times on Monday details the claims of British researcher Ilham Abuljadayel who says she can produce stem cells from adult cells (in this case, white blood cells). Stem cells, the main source of which is currently human embryos, are undifferentiated cells which under the right biochemical conditions can grow into any kind of tissue cell. Stem cell research promises breakthroughs in many areas of disease (and even aging) research, but until now has been dogged by controversy because of the use of human embryos. If verified, this is a pretty exciting development."

SlushDot writes:This article describes an unbelievably ambitious project that would make the "the chunnel", the underwater tunnel connecting England and France, look like a high school science project. Russia wants to build a tunnel from Eastern Siberia to Western Alaska, right under the Bering Sea. At a projected cost of 1.7x10^12 Russian Rubles (That's 4x10^10 GBP or $6x10^10 USD), I'm not sure where Russia will get this money, but wouldn't it be fun to ultimately travel from Tierra del Fuego to Johannesburg by train?"

Therin writes: "According to the London Times, inside of 50 years the ozone hole will be healed, and it will shrink in a decade, without any further actions. Of course, a few volcanoes in there could mess up the timetable ..." The article seems a bit uncritical of claims like, "We now have the science of the ozone layer buttoned down," but it does sound like good news.

More news from the protecting-the-children front in Indianapolis (and it's good news, even if fleeting); bits on emulation and long-ago video games from a British perspective (and another wacky British story that you can tell your kids as a cautionary tale); and educational news of Cosmic significance, all below. And I promise, apart from this paragraph, there will be no mention of Lieberman, Gore, Cheney or Bush.

Meanwhile, kids, make sure to join the Marines! An unnamed correspondent writes: "An update on a slashdot article from Oct 14: The video game industry has obtained a stay from the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. According to the article, "the city on Wednesday was ordered to hold off enforcement, temporarily at least, of its ordinance against children under 18 using violent or sexually explicit coin-operated video games." The CNN article can be found here."

Those whom the gods would destroy ... Sacrifice writes: "The Times tells the whimsical story of an inventor too overconfident in the difficulty of a puzzle he estimated would take a genius four years of work to complete; three possible solutions are being reviewed after only 16 months, and royalties aren't enough to cover the half million pounds he pledged, so has put his 67 room mansion up for sale to make good on his pledge (Lloyd's will pony up the other half)."

.. then only criminals will play emulated videogames. Ultra-protective reader FortKnox writes: "Although we've all heard about retro-gaming emulators and copyrights, this BBC article mentions a few of the copyright holder's that waived their copyrights to emulators. Its good to finally see some of these copyrights being waived to let us retro-gamers get our fix."

quintillions and jazillions (with inflation) general_re writes: "Carl Sagan's groundbreaking series "Cosmos" is finally available on VHS/DVD after many years. Although it isn't scheduled to ship until sometime next month, there's a reasonable discount for pre-orders. Many of you probably remember how awesome this series was (I first saw it when I was 9, and still remember it), and for those of you who haven't seen it, go see it. One caveat: after hunting around Project Voyager and carlsagan.com, nobody seems to be offering an official Carl Sagan commemorative bong. ;)"

Take that, evil wicked dirty spammer scumbags! And that! And that! rhea writes: "As an update to this article, Harris dropped the lawsuit they brought against MAPS for putting them on the RBL. Read the final word from MAPS. Paul Vixie: 1; Spammers: 0." The close of that "final word" is pretty biting:

In the final analysis, it would seem that the only thing which Harris has accomplished was getting one, possibly two ISPs (depending on AOL) out of more than a dozen ISP defendants to start accepting their email traffic, something which they could quite possibly have done without the expense and complication of filing a lawsuit.

And, oh yes, they helped to prove MAPS' position that it is up to each individual subscriber to the RBL to decide for themselves whose email they will accept, and whose they will reject.

Harris remains on the RBL.

Not that there's any truly good answer to spam, but MAPS represents about the sanest approach I've ever seen -- it's voluntary, it's factual, and it makes no bones about either one of those. Congratulations, Paul. Keep up the good work.

Scott Manley writes "According to the Sunday Times, and the BBC the UK government is putting together a task force to advise the government on Extraterrestrial hazards. Professor Mark Bailey has been campaigning for this for a long time - and it seems timely for such a thing after his staff at Armagh Observatory made the first accurate prediction of a meteor shower. "