Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Using a combination of radar, cameras, and light-sensitive radar called LiDAR, one of Ford's self-driving cars has successfully navigated a winding road at night and without headlights. LiDAR works by emitting short pulses of laser light -- 2.8 million laser pulses a second -- so that the vehicle's software can create a real-time, high-definition 3D image of what's around it to determine the best driving path. Ford's self-driving cars come equipped with high-definition 3D maps, which include information about road markings, signs, geography, landmarks, and topography. If a vehicle isn't able to see the ground due to inclement conditions, it will detect above-ground landmarks to locate itself on the map. Ford's self-driving cars equipped with the LiDAR radar system are particularly noteworthy because they can operate without the usual cameras that depend on sunshine and street lamps.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has declared its support for the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield. The proposed legislation to govern data transmission between the EU and U.S. has been the subject of much debate. While acknowledging that more work will need to be done after it is adopted, Microsoft has thrown its support behind Privacy Shield, stating that after careful and detailed review, it 'believes wholeheartedly that it represents an effective framework and should be approved.' Microsoft has pledged to sign up for Privacy Shield, to adhere to its current and future guidelines, and to respond to Microsoft user complaints under Privacy Shield within 45 days. Despite the framework being criticized for its inadequacy, Microsoft supports the Privacy Shield in its current form, and believes that further adjustments should be made after the initial adoption.Microsoft is the first company to sign up for EU-U.S. Privacy Shield pact. The EU privacy regulators are yet to share their views on the deal. According to a recent leak, however, it appears they wouldn't approve it. While this shouldn't stop the commission from making a decision, as Fortune explains, "they can't technically stop the commission issuing its adequacy decision, but they can make life very difficult for companies transferring the data if they think the U.S. doesn't offer adequate protections."

Saritha Rai, reporting for Bloomberg: India is trying to yank its cash-based economy into the 21st century. But how do you get 1.2 billion people, many of whom have never seen a bank or opened an account, to send digital payments to each other? The government's answer is an effort it has named the Unified Payment Interface. Debuting Monday, it's a system designed to make transferring and receiving money as easy as exchanging e-mail or text messages. The goal is to bring banking and financial services to hundreds of millions of citizens, many of them poor and disadvantaged, in one fell swoop. The network was created by India's retail banks and backed by India's central bank -- and they're confident it will work because it's built on top of an even more audacious project: India's biometrics-enabled national ID system, called Aadhaar after the Hindi word for foundation.The idea is to make mobile payments and utilization of other services between users with accounts in different banks frictionless. The Aadhaar number, or a virtual address, will serve as the single identifier. This will also allow a person to use several services of a bank without being its customer, explains Forbes India. The UPI app is in phase-I and is operational for a closed user group. The app is expected to be launched for public in the coming months.

An anonymous reader writes: On April 6, a hacking outfit going by the name of Cyber Justice Team leaked data from multiple Syrian government and private websites. The leak includes the password file from the breached server, along with MySQL host permissions, admin passwords, and a link to the 10GB compressed file, uploaded to the file sharing site MEGA. While some of the data seems to be from older data breaches, some of it is also new. This is one of the biggest leaks of Syrian government data, a regime that has remained protected against such threats due to an aggressive cyber-policy. The government has been known to secretly back the Syrian Electronic Army hacker group, who the US government recently indicted (3 members at least).

An anonymous reader writes: The SpaceX Dragon cargo ship which launched from Cape Canaveral on Friday delivered the world's first inflatable room for astronauts. It arrived at the ISS on Sunday after station astronauts used a robot arm to capture the Dragon, orbiting 250 miles above Earth. The compartment should swell to the size of a small bedroom once filled with air next month. It will be attached to the space station this Saturday, but won't be inflated until the end of May. NASA envisions inflatable habitats in a couple decades at Mars, while Bigelow Aerospace aims to launch a pair of inflatable space stations in just four years for commercial lease. Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be restricted from the six on-board astronauts while NASA tests the chamber to see how it performs. The rocket used to launch the cargo ship successfully landed on a floating drone ship for the first time ever. It was the second time SpaceX successfully landed one of its rockets post-launch; the first time was in December, when the company's Falcon 9 rocket touched down at a ground-based landing site at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after putting a satellite into space.

Kelly Jackson Higgins, reporting for Dark Reading: A new study reveals that none of the top 10 U.S. university computer science and engineering program degrees requires students take a cybersecurity course. There's the cybersecurity skills gap, but a new study shows there's also a major cybersecurity education gap -- in the top U.S. undergraduate computer science and engineering programs. An analysis of the top 121 US university computer science and engineering programs by CloudPassage found that none of the top 10 requires students take a cybersecurity class for their degree in computer science, and three of the top 10 don't offer any cybersecurity courses at all. The alarming study also reveals that only one (University of Alabama) out of the 121 schools required three or more cybersecurity classes to graduate. "With more than 200,000 open cybersecurity jobs in 2015 in the U.S. alone and the number of threat surfaces exponentially increasing, there's a growing skills gap between the bad actors and the good guys," Robert Thomas, CEO of CloudPassage, told SCMagazine.com.

HughPickens.com writes: Discovery Magazine reports that researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a super strong armor material that literally turns bullets to dust upon impact. The armor plating is made in part from composite metal foams, or CMFs, which are both lighter and stronger than traditional metal plating used in body and vehicle armor. The armor -- only an inch thick -- features a ceramic strike face, Kevlar backing, and CMFs in the energy-absorbing middle layer. "We could stop the bullet at a total thickness of less than an inch, while the indentation on the back was less than 8 millimeters," says Afsaneh Rabiei. "To put that in context, the NIJ standard allows up to 44 millimeters indentation in the back of an armor." CMFs are very effective at shielding X-rays, gamma rays and neutron radiation. Other applications include space exploration and shipping nuclear waste which both require a material to be not only light and strong, but also capable of withstanding extremely high temperatures and blocking radiation. A video shows a 7.62 x 63 millimeter M2 armor-piercing projectile that was fired using standard testing procedures established by the Department of Justice for evaluating armor types.

kheldan quotes a report from Consumerist: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein are expected to introduce a bill regarding phone encryption as soon as this week, according to Reuters. The draft text will give judges authority to order tech companies to help law enforcement when asked to -- basically, it would be a newer piece of law to fall back on than the All Writs Act of 1789, which is the one that usually sees use for this sort of thing. However, sources tell Reuters that the bill "does not spell out what companies might have to do or the circumstances under which they could be ordered to help," and therefore really doesn't necessarily change the underlying discussions at play, both in the tech world and in government. Nor does the bill specify penalties for failing to comply. The FBI recently briefed Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein on the methods used to unlock the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone 5c. According to Reuters, the White House is declining to offer public support for draft legislation Burr and Feinstein are currently working on because the administration is "deeply divided on the issue." The White House has reviewed the text and offered feedback, but it is expected to provide minimal public input, if any, sources familiar with the discussions said.

An anonymous reader shares with us an article on Mic: Famed science educator Bill Nye has long been an outspoken critic of people who continue to doubt climate change, the main driver of freaky weather patterns, rising global temperatures and sea level rise around the globe. In an interview with Mic, Nye said that despite lingering skepticisms, there is nearly 100% scientific consensus that climate change is happening and is here to stay -- and people are becoming increasingly anxious about its effects on the planet, particularly younger generations. "Almost every person in denial about climate change is older," Nye said. "It's very hard to find a millennial-aged person that is not concerned about climate change. I think the climate denial movement is running out of steam, I guess that's a pun."

Reader StonyCreekBare writes: From the Blog at osvdb.org "As of today, a decision has been made to shut down the Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB), and will not return. We are not looking for anyone to offer assistance at this point, and it will not be resurrected in its previous form. This was not an easy decision, and several of us struggled for well over ten years trying to make it work at great personal expense. The industry simply did not want to contribute and support such an effort."

theodp writes: Sunday marks the 20th anniversary of the arrest of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, at his cabin in rural Montana. Kaczynski, a brilliant mathematician turned recluse, spread destruction and death throughout the U.S by mailing bombs to his victims, most of whom worked at UNiversities or in the Airline industry -- hence the "UNAbomber" moniker -- from 1978 until his arrest in Lincoln, MT, on April 3, 1996. For years, the only clue to his identity was a single now-iconic sketch of a shadowy, hooded figure. The big break in the case came in 1995, when David Kaczynski recognized the ramblings of the Unabomber's 35,000-word anti-technology manifesto entitled Industrial Society and its Future, which was published in the Washington Post, as those of his older brother Theodore and tipped off the FBI. (Kaczynski warns of a world of intelligent machines where "the fate of the human race would be at the mercy of the machines.") Kaczynski, now 73, is currently serving a life sentence without parole at the so-called Supermax prison in Colorado. Kaczynski's listing in the Harvard alumni directory for the class of 1962 gives his occupation as 'prisoner' and cites "eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998" in the awards section.

mask.of.sanity writes: Thieves can hijack $28,000 professional drones used widely across the law enforcement, emergency, and private sectors using $40 worth of hardware. The quadcopters can be hijacked from up to two kilometers away thanks to a lack of encryption, which is not present due to latency overheads. Attackers can commandeer radio links to the drones from up to two kilometers away, and block operators from reconnecting to the craft. With the targeted Xbee chip being very common in drones, IBM security guy Nils Rodday says it is likely many more aircraft are open to compromise.

An anonymous reader quotes an article on The New York Times about the death of Zaha Hadid: Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-British architect whose curving, elongated structures left a mark on skylines around the world, and who was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, her profession's highest honor, died on Thursday in Miami. She was 65. Ms. Hadid "contracted bronchitis earlier this week and suffered a sudden heart attack while being treated in hospital," her office, Zaha Hadid Architects in London, said in a statement. [...] She was also a role model and inspiration for generations of young architects, men and women, who wanted to become Ms. Hadid: an architect of boundless ambition, a celebrity, and an artist with big ideas who won commissions for some of the world's big, flashiest projects by the sheer force of her intelligence, creativity and personality. Ms. Hadid epitomized an era when architects became global brands. Her brand promised buildings of extravagant sculptural invention, spectacles of curving, swooping, unprecedented forms. She represented the epitome of the art of so-called parametric design, by which architects, aided by sophisticated computer programs, could animate buildings into new shapes. You will want to read her profile on The Guardian.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from THE INQUIRER: Now-defunct Unix vendor, which claimed that Linux infringed its intellectual property and sought as much as $5 billion in compensation from IBM, has filed notice of yet another appeal in the 13-year-old dispute. The appeal comes after a ruling at the end of February when SCO's arguments claiming intellectual property ownership over parts of Unix were rejected by a U.S. district court. That judgment noted that SCO had minimal resources to defend counter-claims filed by IBM due to SCO's bankruptcy. "It is ordered and adjudged that pursuant to the orders of the court entered on July 10, 2013, February 5, 2016, and February 8, 2016, judgement is entered in favor of the defendant and plaintiff's causes of action are dismissed with prejudice," stated the document. Now, though, SCO has filed yet again to appeal that judgement, although the precise grounds it is claiming haven't yet been disclosed.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from THE INQUIRER: Now-defunct Unix vendor, which claimed that Linux infringed its intellectual property and sought as much as $5 billion in compensation from IBM, has filed notice of yet another appeal in the 13-year-old dispute. The appeal comes after a ruling at the end of February when SCO's arguments claiming intellectual property ownership over parts of Unix were rejected by a U.S. district court. That judgment noted that SCO had minimal resources to defend counter-claims filed by IBM due to SCO's bankruptcy. "It is ordered and adjudged that pursuant to the orders of the court entered on July 10, 2013, February 5, 2016, and February 8, 2016, judgement is entered in favor of the defendant and plaintiff's causes of action are dismissed with prejudice," stated the document. Now, though, SCO has filed yet again to appeal that judgement, although the precise grounds it is claiming haven't yet been disclosed.

SpacemanukBEJY.53u writes: An article published by CNBC on Tuesday offered tips on how to create a secure password, complete with a form that tested submitted passwords. While well-intended, security experts said it exposed passwords to third-party advertisers. Also, the form created to test a password didn't use SSL/TLS, which meant someone on the same network could have sniffed it. Even worse, the tool claimed to not store the passwords, but an acute observer found they were actually being inputted into a Google Docs spreadsheet. CNBC quickly withdrew the article.

Reader sittingnut writes: According to a study by Elizabeth Stoycheff from Wayne State University -- which was also referred to in the Washington Post, "knowing one is subject to surveillance and accepting such surveillance as necessary, act as moderating agents in the relationship between one's perceived climate of opinion and willingness to voice opinions online." In other words, knowledge of government surveillance causes people to self-censor their dissenting opinions online. This study adds to the well-researched phenomenon known as "spiral of silence", of people suppressing unpopular opinions to fit in by explicitly examining how government surveillance affects self-censorship. Participants who claimed they don't break any laws and don't have anything to hide and tended to support mass surveillance as necessary for national security, were the most likely to silence their minority opinions.

Like many of you, I use IFTTT. It's one of the handiest tools on the internet to get your work done. Want a text alert for weather? Want a notification on your Android smartphone whenever someone you follow publishes a blog post? IFTTT can do all sorts of such things. It is able to do so because it works with different companies and utilizes APIs of their services. Many of these companies are happy to have IFTTT trying to enhance the experience of their customers. Many don't necessarily want -- or can allow -- IFTTT to do that. Pinboard, a social bookmarking website, falls in the latter category. Maciej Ceglowski, CEO of Pinboard in a blog post explained why that is the case: Imagine if your sewer pipe started demanding that you make major changes in your diet. Now imagine that it got a lawyer and started asking you to sign things. You would feel surprised. This is the position I find myself in today with IFTTT, a form of Internet plumbing that has been connecting peaceably to my backend for the past five years, but which has recently started sending scary emails. [...] Because many of you rely on IFTTT, and because [their request] makes it sound like I'm the asshole, I feel I should explain myself. In a nutshell: 1. IFTTT wants me to do their job for them for free. 2. They have really squirrely terms of service. In the blog post, Ceglowski further explains his concerns with IFTTT. He says IFTTT wants ownership of all right, title, and interest. "Pinboard is in some ways already a direct competitor to IFTTT. The site offers built-in Twitter integration, analogous to IFTTT's twitter-Pinboard recipe. I don't know what rights I would be assigning here, but this is not the way I want to find out." You should read the blog post, it's very insightful and sheds light on things that many of us might not have considered otherwise. Jason Snell has offered his take on this as well, he writes: If IFTTT sticks with this philosophy, it will rapidly become a lot less useful and interesting as a service.

An anonymous reader writes: Andrew Auernheimer, a black hat hacker known as "Weev," has admitted to hacking thousands of Internet-connected printers and making them print-out racist and anti-semitic messages. As you'd expect, the hack took place after the hacker used a simple port scanner and found millions of unprotected, Internet-accessible printers. He then used a one-line Bash command that sent them a PostScript file on port 9100. This triggered all printers to print his anti-semitic message. Ironically, the hacker is a former Jew turned neo-nazi while incarcerated for a questionable "hacking" incident when he revealed to Gawker that ATT had failed to protect one of their servers. The printer hack affected devices at USC, UC Berkeley, Northwestern, UMass, Princeton, Brown University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, DePaul University in Chicago, Clark University in Worcester, and many more.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Quantum computers are based on atomic-scale quantum bits, or qubits, that can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously. Realizing that potential, however, depends on the ability to build working quantum circuits. The quantum version of the classic Fredkin gate exchanges two qubits depending on the value of the third. It could be a key component of quantum circuitry, but because of the complexity involved, no one has ever managed to build one in the real world -- until now. Whereas the Fredkin gate typically requires a circuit of five logic operations, researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland used the quantum entanglement of particles of light to implement the controlled-SWAP operation directly. Essentially, the scientists demonstrated how to build large quantum circuits directly, without having to use numerous small logic gates. That, in turn, puts real quantum computers within closer reach.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Quantum computers are based on atomic-scale quantum bits, or qubits, that can represent both 0 and 1 simultaneously. Realizing that potential, however, depends on the ability to build working quantum circuits. The quantum version of the classic Fredkin gate exchanges two qubits depending on the value of the third. It could be a key component of quantum circuitry, but because of the complexity involved, no one has ever managed to build one in the real world -- until now. Whereas the Fredkin gate typically requires a circuit of five logic operations, researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland used the quantum entanglement of particles of light to implement the controlled-SWAP operation directly. Essentially, the scientists demonstrated how to build large quantum circuits directly, without having to use numerous small logic gates. That, in turn, puts real quantum computers within closer reach.

HughPickens.com writes: Matthias Gafni writes in the San Jose Mercury News that the engineers who built BART, the rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area that started operation in 1972, used principles developed for the aerospace industry rather than tried-and-true rail standards. And that's the trouble. "Back when BART was created, (the designers) were absolutely determined to establish a new product, and they intended to export it around the world," says Rod Diridon. "They may have gotten a little ahead of themselves using new technology. Although it worked, it was extremely complex for the time period, and they never did export the equipment because it was so difficult for other countries to install and maintain." The Space Age innovations have made it more challenging for the transit agency to maintain the BART system from the beginning. Plus, the aging system was designed to move 100,000 people per week and now carries 430,000 a day, so the loss of even a single car gets magnified with crowded commutes, delays and bus bridges. For example, rather than stick to the standard rail track width of 4 feet, 8.5 inches, BART engineers debuted a 5-foot, 6-inch width track, a gauge that remains to this day almost exclusive to the system. Industry experts say the unique track width necessitates custom-made wheel sets, brake assemblies and track repair vehicles.

Another problem is the dearth of readily available replacement parts for BART's one-of-a-kind systems. Maintenance crews often scavenge parts from old, out-of-service cars to avoid lengthy waits for orders to come in; sometimes mechanics are forced to manufacture the equipment themselves. "Imagine a computer produced in 1972," says David Hardt. "No one is supporting that old equipment any longer, but those same microprocessors are what we have controlling our logic systems." Right now BART needs 100 thyristors at a total cost of $100,000. BART engineers said it could take 22 weeks to ship them to the San Francisco Bay Area to replace in BART's "C" cars, which make up the older cars in the fleet. Right now, the agency has none. Nick Josefowitz says it makes no sense to dwell on design decisions made a half-century ago. "I think we need to use what we have today and build off that, rather than fantasize what could have been done in the past. The BART system was state of the art when it was built, and now it's technologically obsolete and coming to the end of its useful life."

mdsolar quotes a report from Reuters: The Rockefeller Family Fund said on Wednesday it will divest from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and "eliminate holdings" of Exxon Mobil, chiding the oil company for allegedly misleading the public about the threat of climate change. The move by the U.S. based charity, which will also include coal and Canadian oil sands holdings, is especially notable because a century ago John D. Rockefeller Sr. made a fortune running Standard Oil, a precursor to Exxon Mobil.
Given the threat posed to the survival of human and natural ecosystems, "there is no sane rationale for companies to continue to explore for new sources of hydrocarbons," the fund said. Exxon did not immediately comment. In a letter posted on its website, the Rockefeller Family Fund said Exxon's conduct on climate issues appears to be "morally reprehensible."

mspohr writes from an article on The Washington Post: We haven't seen this much CO2 added to the atmosphere in 66 million years: "If you look over the entire Cenozoic, the last 66 million years, the only event that we know of at the moment, that has a massive carbon release, and happens over a relatively short period of time, is the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)," says Zeebe. "We actually have to go back to relatively old periods, because in the more recent past, we don't see anything comparable to what humans are currently doing." [New research suggests, even the drama of the PETM falls short of our current period, in at least one key respect: We're putting carbon into the atmosphere at an even faster rate than happened back then.] "The anthropogenic release outpaces carbon release during the most extreme global warming event of the past 66 million years, by at least an order of magnitude," writes Peter Stassen, an Earth and environmental scientist at KU Leuven, in Belgium, in an accompanying commentary on the new study. "Given that the current rate of carbon release is unprecedented throughout the Cenozoic, we have effectively entered an era of a no-analogue state, which represents a fundamental challenge to constraining future climate projections," the study concludes.

pacopico writes: A startup out of Denver called Boom Technology has just come out of stealth mode [by] talking-up their supersonic jet. It would carry 40 passengers and travel at Mach 2.2. The company claims that it's about 30 percent more fuel-efficient than the Concorde. Based on this, it could get its prices down to the equivalent of a business class seat on long-haul flights. At Mach 2.2, a trip from New York to London would take 3.4 hours. Boom is meant to start test flights next year out of John Denver's old hangar.

Freshly Exhumed writes: Redox OS, a project on GitHub aimed at creating an alternative OS able to run almost all Linux executables with only minimal modifications, is to feature a pure Rust ecosystem, which they hope will improve correctness and security over other OSes. In their own words, 'Redox isn't afraid of dropping the bad parts of POSIX, while preserving modest Linux API compatibility.' They also level harsh criticisms at other OSes, saying "...we will not replicate the mistakes made by others. This is probably the most important tenet of Redox. In the past, bad design choices were made by Linux, Unix, BSD, HURD, and so on. We all make mistakes, that's no secret, but there is no reason to repeat others' mistakes." Not stopping there, Redox documentation contains blunt critiques of Plan 9, the GPL, and other mainstays.

Freshly Exhumed writes: Redox OS, a project on GitHub aimed at creating an alternative OS able to run almost all Linux executables with only minimal modifications, is to feature a pure Rust ecosystem, which they hope will improve correctness and security over other OSes. In their own words, 'Redox isn't afraid of dropping the bad parts of POSIX, while preserving modest Linux API compatibility.' They also level harsh criticisms at other OSes, saying "...we will not replicate the mistakes made by others. This is probably the most important tenet of Redox. In the past, bad design choices were made by Linux, Unix, BSD, HURD, and so on. We all make mistakes, that's no secret, but there is no reason to repeat others' mistakes." Not stopping there, Redox documentation contains blunt critiques of Plan 9, the GPL, and other mainstays.

HughPickens.com writes: The American presence at the Guantanamo Prison Camp has been deeply contentious since even before terrorism suspects began to be housed there beginning in 2002. Now as President Obama prepares to make the first presidential visit to Cuba in almost 90 years, ecologists Joe Roman and James Kraska have published their case in the influential journal Science for creating a Guantanamo-based research center to study biodiversity in the Caribbean. The primary benefit of a Guantanamo Bay research station is symbolic. "The main goal is trying to take Guantanamo and make it an inspiring place, and redeem it," says Roman. But the case for Guantanamo Bay as a science lab goes beyond political optics. According to Roman and Kraska the land and the sea offer an ecosystem uniquely worthy of study. The research hub of Roman's dreams would be a state-of-the art facility to help understand how biodiversity loss can be prevented across the Caribbean. "A parcel of the land, perhaps on the developed southeastern side of the base, could become a 'Woods Hole of the Caribbean,' housing research and educational facilities dedicated to addressing climate change, ocean conservation, and biodiversity loss. With genetics laboratories, geographic information systems laboratories, videoconference rooms — even art, music, and design studios — scientists, scholars, and artists from Cuba, the United States, and around the world could gather and study. The new facilities could strive to be carbon neutral, with four 80-meter wind turbines having been installed on the base in 2005, and designed to minimize ecological damage to the surrounding marine and terrestrial ecosystems" Hugh Pickens continues: According to Roman, the main idea is that science can be healing: a way to bring diverse nations together, a way to rectify a complicated history, and a way to help better the lives of all people through research. The biggest roadblock won't be the Obama administration but Congress. Republican lawmakers have derided Obama's preliminary framework for closing the prison, so for the foreseeable future, the status quo will remain. But Roman can still dream. "At a certain point, I don't know when, that base is going to close. It's going to return to Cuba at some point. This is a great use of that property. You don't have many places in the world like that."

An anonymous reader writes: French hacker and security expert Anthony Zboralski calls social media networks a "digital shantytown" in his most recent blogpost. While fellow members of hacker collective w00w00 have formed successful billion dollar startups, he claims that the rewards for creating content and use are unfair and suggests a better solution would be like the successful creation of land title for slum dwellers — partial ownership for users on social media.

An anonymous reader writes: French hacker and security expert Anthony Zboralski calls social media networks a "digital shantytown" in his most recent blogpost. While fellow members of hacker collective w00w00 have formed successful billion dollar startups, he claims that the rewards for creating content and use are unfair and suggests a better solution would be like the successful creation of land title for slum dwellers — partial ownership for users on social media.

An anonymous reader writes: [Hogan's attorneys told jurors this is the core of the case:] "Gawker took a secretly recorded sex tape and put it on the Internet." And now they are paying for it, dearly. Also notable is that there doesn't seem to be anyone interested in defending them, as even the Twitter community (if it can truly be called that) has come out strongly in favor of the ruling against Gawker. Maybe they should have at least made more friends? They did make $6.5 million in net income in 2014 and their Wikipedia article states that they were last sold in 2009 for $300 million, so while they may not be put out of business, it seems likely they will at least be [changing] hands, and soon, with the jury ruling $55 million for economic injuries and $60 million for emotional distress. I think that's jury-speak for "body slam."
According to Ars Technica, Gawker Media was one of the first successful, large, digital-only news companies. "The stunning sum, which may have punitive damages added to it, is a life-threatening event for the New York-based network of news and gossip sites."

Tekla Perry writes: Earlier this month, BART engineers shut down a substation in hopes that the closure would quiet the power surges that were frying the electrical propulsion equipment on BART cars -- a peak of 40 in just one day in February. The shutdown seemed to solve the problem, but BART officials weren't sure they'd really found the answer. Yesterday, the power surges popped up again, on an entirely different section of tracks, damaging 50 cars before BART closed off that section, rerouting passengers onto buses. Track inspections yesterday revealed nothing, and BART reports that it has reached out to experts around the country and asked them to fly in and help solve the mystery. Do you have a theory? Note: BART is the 5th-busiest heavy-rail rapid transit system in the U.S.

itwbennett writes: A study from George Mason University, which estimates danger from consumer drones, suggests that rules around private drone use could be relaxed without endangering general aviation. [Researcher] Eli Dourado [coupled] data on bird strikes with aircraft, with an estimate of the number of birds in airspace and the average weight per species of bird, and concluded that "a two-kilogram drone would cause an injury once every 187 million years of continuous operation."
Dourado admits there are some limitations to his estimate. While drones are crafted with plastic and metal, birds are generally softer and more likely to get squished on impact with an aircraft. However, birds are likely to be flying in flocks, where the danger of having several sucked into the engines is greater. US Airways flight 1549 was a prime example of this as the aircraft encountered numerous bird strikes which took out its engines, causing it to land in New York's Hudson River. In addition, the research doesn't include the possibility of someone maliciously trying to hit an aircraft.

Nerval's Lobster writes: Everybody knows that tech's top figures, such as Google CEO Larry Page or Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, are worth billions of dollars thanks to stock options. But how much do everyday tech executives -- the CIOs, Chief Data Officers, and so on -- earn? Generally between $150,000 and $175,000 per year, not [including] possible perks such as stock options, according to a new analysis. That's based on national data, although anyone who works in tech knows that in high-demand areas such as Silicon Valley, salaries can skyrocket far higher for those with highly specialized skill sets and the right mix of experience. It's a good time to be a Pointy-Haired Boss, but then again, when isn't it?

R3d M3rcury writes: So we've all heard about the brave new world of autonomous cars which will be at our beck-and-call. But how about an autonomous bike? The i-Bike (not to be confused with the iBike computer) is the winner of KPIT Sparkle 2016, the All India Science and Engineering Student Contest. It started off as a bicycle suitable for use by people with disabilities. If you could use a smartphone, you could ride a bike. But the developers realized that this could be part of a bike-sharing system. You could rent a bike at the train station, ride to work, and then have the bike automatically return to the train station for the next person. Of course, the obvious question is: Will the bike stop at stop signs?

vikingpower writes: The European Space Agency's second mission to Mars, ExoMars, was successfully launched from the Baikonur launch pad today. ExoMars will search for traces of life, either past or present, on the Red Planet, and is the precursor to a more full-fledged mission to Mars in 2018, comprising a rover. It consists of an orbiter and of Schiaparelli, a lander built by European industry and scheduled to land in October this year. Both missions are cooperations between ESA and RosKosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. If one of them met their ultimate goal -- proving there is or was life on Mars — the excitement here on Earth would be unimaginable. Mark Whittington adds a link to The Guardian's coverage and a bit of detail: The Russian-made launch vehicle lobbed a probe into space, the Trace Gas Orbiter, that will enter orbit around Mars later in 2016 and search for methane in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Methane can have a number of sources, but one of them is the waste product of microbial life. Both the Mars Express orbiter and the Mars Curiosity rover have detected some measure of methane, which could be produced by geological processes as well.

vikingpower writes: The European Space Agency's second mission to Mars, ExoMars, was successfully launched from the Baikonur launch pad today. ExoMars will search for traces of life, either past or present, on the Red Planet, and is the precursor to a more full-fledged mission to Mars in 2018, comprising a rover. It consists of an orbiter and of Schiaparelli, a lander built by European industry and scheduled to land in October this year. Both missions are cooperations between ESA and RosKosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. If one of them met their ultimate goal -- proving there is or was life on Mars — the excitement here on Earth would be unimaginable. Mark Whittington adds a link to The Guardian's coverage and a bit of detail: The Russian-made launch vehicle lobbed a probe into space, the Trace Gas Orbiter, that will enter orbit around Mars later in 2016 and search for methane in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Methane can have a number of sources, but one of them is the waste product of microbial life. Both the Mars Express orbiter and the Mars Curiosity rover have detected some measure of methane, which could be produced by geological processes as well.

vikingpower writes: The European Space Agency's second mission to Mars, ExoMars, was successfully launched from the Baikonur launch pad today. ExoMars will search for traces of life, either past or present, on the Red Planet, and is the precursor to a more full-fledged mission to Mars in 2018, comprising a rover. It consists of an orbiter and of Schiaparelli, a lander built by European industry and scheduled to land in October this year. Both missions are cooperations between ESA and RosKosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency. If one of them met their ultimate goal -- proving there is or was life on Mars — the excitement here on Earth would be unimaginable. Mark Whittington adds a link to The Guardian's coverage and a bit of detail: The Russian-made launch vehicle lobbed a probe into space, the Trace Gas Orbiter, that will enter orbit around Mars later in 2016 and search for methane in the Red Planet's atmosphere. Methane can have a number of sources, but one of them is the waste product of microbial life. Both the Mars Express orbiter and the Mars Curiosity rover have detected some measure of methane, which could be produced by geological processes as well.

jones_supa writes: The hotel in which Matthew Garrett was staying at, had decided that light switches are unfashionable and replaced them with a series of Android tablets. In his tour to the system, one was quickly met with a glitch message "UK_bathroom isn't responding." Anyway, two of the tablets had convenient-looking ethernet cables plugged into the wall, so MacGyver began hacking. He managed to borrow a couple of USB ethernet adapters, set up a transparent bridge and then stick his laptop between the tablet and the wall. Tcpdump showed traffic, and Wireshark revealed that it was Modbus over TCP. Modbus is a pretty trivial protocol, and does not implement authentication. The Pymodbus tool could be used to control lights, turn the TV on/off, and even close and open the curtains. Then he noticed something. His room number was 714. The IP address he was communicating with was 172.16.207.14. They wouldn't, would they? Indeed, he could access the control systems on every floor and query other rooms to figure out whether the lights were on or not, which strongly implies that he could control them as well.

An anonymous reader writes: In traditional computing, numbers are represented by either 0s or 1s, but quantum computing relies on atomic-scale units, or "quibits," that can be simultaneously 0 and 1 -- a state known as a superposition that's far more efficient. It typically takes about 12 qubits to factor the number 15, but researchers at MIT and the University of Innsbruck in Austria have found a way to pare that down to five qubits, each represented by a single atom, they said this week. Using laser pulses to keep the quantum system stable by holding the atoms in an ion trap, the new system promises scalability as well, as more atoms and lasers can be added to build a bigger and faster quantum computer able to factor much larger numbers. That, in turn, presents new risks for factorization-based methods such as RSA, used for protecting credit cards, state secrets and other confidential data. "If you are a nation state, you probably don't want to publicly store your secrets using encryption that relies on factoring as a hard-to-invert problem," said Chuang. "Because when these quantum computers start coming out, [adversaries will] be able to go back and unencrypt all those old secrets."

vikingpower writes: ARPAnet pioneer and networking legend Ray Tomlinson, who is best known for his contributions in developing email standards, has died at 74. Tomlinson was best known for choosing the @ symbol to indicate a message should be sent to a different computer on a network. He also led development of standards for the from, subject, and date fields found in every email message sent today. When Tomlinson first showed his invention to his colleague Jerry Burchfiel, Tomlinson said, "Don't tell anyone! This isn't what we're supposed to be working on." May Ray rest in peace in /dev/null.

An anonymous reader writes: Writing for Defense News, Lara Seligman reports, "For the first time since a controversial report detailing how the F-35 performs in a dogfight emerged last summer, an F-35 pilot gave an in-depth analysis of his experience flying the jet in a close-range battle scenario. Norwegian Air Force Maj. Morten 'Dolby' Hanche, the first Norwegian to fly the F-35, analyzed the jet's performance in a dogfight in a March 1 blog post published on Norway's Ministry of Defense website. Although Hanche never mentions the 2015 report, 'F-35A High Angle of Attack Operational Maneuvers' revealed last summer by blogger David Axe on WarisBoring.com, he counters many of the anonymous author's claims."

moon_unit2 writes: DJI's new Phantom 4 drone may be able to stop if there's an obstacles directly in front of it, but MIT Technology Review has a story about a much more sophisticated self-flying drone, from a startup called Skydio (basically using high-speed visual SLAM, which is no mean feat in such a tiny package). The company's prototype uses several video cameras to navigate around obstacles at high speeds through busy airspace. The technology could make consumer drones much harder to crash, and it could let drones do more complex surveillance tasks. Skydio, founded last year, has so far raised $25 million in funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel Partners.

serviscope_minor writes: The OpenBSD people forked and heavily cleaned up OpenSSL to create LibreSSL due to dissatisfaction with the maintainance of OpenSSL, culminating in the heartbleed bug. The emphasis has been on cleaning up the code and improving security, which includes removing things such as SSL2 which has fundamental security flaws. As a result, LibreSSL is not affected by the DROWN bug. LibreSSL is largely compatible with OpenSSL. The main exceptions are in the cases where programs use insecure functions removed from libreSSL, or require bug compatiblity with OpenSSL.

An anonymous reader writes: Two open-source libraries used in the Mars Rover software have been integrated in the source code of a malware family (nicknamed Rover) used as part of a cyber-espionage campaign against the Indian government (Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan). The two libraries are OpenCV and OpenAL, two libraries for processing image and audio information. As such, the Rover malware can take screenshots, record video and audio.

An anonymous reader writes with this news from the Guardian about a proposed expansion of UK government agencies' power to eavesdrop under the so-called "snooper's charter": Powers for the police to access everyone's web browsing histories and to hack into their phones are to be expanded under the latest version of the snooper's charter legislation. The extension of police powers contained in the investigatory powers bill published on Tuesday indicates the determination of the home secretary, Theresa May, to get her controversial legislation on to the statute book by the end of this year in spite of sweeping criticisms by three separate parliamentary committees in the past month. The bill is designed to provide the first comprehensive legal framework for state surveillance powers anywhere in the world. It has been developed in response to the disclosure of state mass surveillance programmes by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. The government hopes it will win the backing of MPs by the summer and by the House of Lords this autumn.

StewBeans writes: At Evanta's recent CIO Executive Summit in Washington, D.C., two Enterprisers took the stage to discuss how CIOs can influence the future of business at the "tipping point" of technology and innovation today. David Bray, CIO of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, began the talk: "2013 was the year there was the same number of network devices on the face of the planet as there were humans -- seven billion network devices on the face of the planet, seven billion humans. Now 2015, just two years later, we're at 14 billion network devices on the face of the planet." This set the stage for a conversation on the future of technology that touched on everything from Moore's Law to the consumerization of technology, global connectivity, and mass personalization. Bray and co-presenter Lee Congdon, CIO of Red Hat, shared their predictions and insights into how all businesses will need to evolve and adapt to a future in which they have less control.

HughPickens.com writes: Kevin Quealy writes in the NYT that the two remaining mainstream candidates for the GOP Presidential nomination — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — are living out an issue studied for decades in game theory. Game theorists might call the GOP predicament an anti-coordination game or a volunteer's dilemma but most of us might call it by a more familiar name: chicken. Although Rubio is the obvious establishment favorite, the two are splitting some votes. so to have his best chance against Trump and Cruz, Rubio needs Kasich to drop out. The longer both candidates remain in the race, the worse it is for both of them.

Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."

HughPickens.com writes: Kevin Quealy writes in the NYT that the two remaining mainstream candidates for the GOP Presidential nomination — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — are living out an issue studied for decades in game theory. Game theorists might call the GOP predicament an anti-coordination game or a volunteer's dilemma but most of us might call it by a more familiar name: chicken. Although Rubio is the obvious establishment favorite, the two are splitting some votes. so to have his best chance against Trump and Cruz, Rubio needs Kasich to drop out. The longer both candidates remain in the race, the worse it is for both of them.

Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."

HughPickens.com writes: Kevin Quealy writes in the NYT that the two remaining mainstream candidates for the GOP Presidential nomination — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — are living out an issue studied for decades in game theory. Game theorists might call the GOP predicament an anti-coordination game or a volunteer's dilemma but most of us might call it by a more familiar name: chicken. Although Rubio is the obvious establishment favorite, the two are splitting some votes. so to have his best chance against Trump and Cruz, Rubio needs Kasich to drop out. The longer both candidates remain in the race, the worse it is for both of them.

Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."