Slashdot Mirror

• http://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/muslim_rape_wave_in_sweden/
• http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/swedish-city-overrun-by-muslim-crime-turns-to-superhero/
• http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/muslims-burn-down-church-in-storholmsjo-in-karlskrona-sweden
• http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/sweden-muslims-admit-deliberate-hate-crimes-against-swedes-government-is-proposed-to-reward-them-with-jobs/
• http://www.barenakedislam.com/2012/09/08/open-letter-from-a-swedish-woman-about-the-scourge-of-muslim-immigration-and-multiculturalism/
• http://islamversuseurope.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/hate-crimes-against-jews-in-muslim.html

No, thanks.

http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/evilapple.jpg

I never once stated that the gov't was responsible for the invention of seat belts or air bags. What I was disagreeing with was that the people in the US were using them in any way that would indicate the demand you seem to think there was.

Yes there was a whole lot of dialog. concerning seat belts. Most of it from the public was that they thought it somehow robbed them of their freedom. California seat belt usage from this graph goes back to 1980. It was about 25%. So you think it was greater in 1970? 1965? California has been at the forefront of safety issues. Do you really think people in Detroit were more safety conscious? The "Big 3" had air bags in 1973. What year was the first time you ever saw a car with one? Or even heard of an air bag? There are also seats that can greatly reduce your forward momentum in a crash. They aren't cheap, and I'd guess you never heard of it. I don't see the public clamoring for them. There had been several cars prior to the 1970's that touted remarkable safety features. Guess what, no body bought them because styling was much more important than safety.

Yes the Brady Bunch and every TV show had everyone using seat belts. Guess what, they made those movies in California. Where the seat belt usage was only 25% in 1980. I sure as hell wouldn't be pointing to Hollywood as proof as to what life was like in the 1970's. Or what was normal. My father was the only person I knew who wore a seat belt back then. Not even my mother did.

You grew up in Detroit and think there are automatic brakes on cars? I thin k there are a few that have the option for brakes that do this, but I doubt there are more than 10 models, and they are probably only the flagship for Mercedes, BMW, and maybe Lexus, etc. IF you are talking about power brakes, then that is partially due to cars getting heavier and gov't mandates for stopping distances. Or are you talking about ABS? Again, that was a option until the gov't mandated it. My niece just bought a Yaris in the last year or two. She paid somewhere around $2K less for a standard transmission. Like I said, it depends on the car. Bigger heavier cars with a fair bit of horse power, are much harder to make a standard that can hold up, so they are more expensive.

I can see how you would think that going thin client would consume more power but this theory has been tested before and favours the thin client.

Link to one of many studies: http://preilly.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/virtualization-thin-clients-and-energy-consumption/

I can't find a link to this white paper I remember seeing. It showed the power bill before. For an organization that had 200 employees, all server hardware was in house and the power bill saving was roughly 20%. This bill included more than just computers so this suggest the saving was more than 20%.

Well-known evolutionary biologist and website publisher (it's not a bl*g!), Jerry Coyne falls into the latter category, as he relates on his website here, which includes links to the original broadcast, [blocked by my firewall on this location, so I can't check if they're still live].

Or maybe burning wood - sorry, "biofuel" and burning coal both produce some sort of chemical that, in sufficient doses, can both prove hazardous to your health and there should be some sort of regulatory framework to safeguard public health and safety from people like you.

This problem is acute, not chronic. It happens during specific weather events. It's probably a little more constant in some areas in the borough, but it's not like we're living next to I-405 in Los Angeles.

The borough was starting some efforts to improve air quality, but unfortunately, an idiot convinced a majority of voters to freeze any attempt by the borough to limit the use of polluting devices. The state has begun some enforcement action, but it's been slow going.

This problem is acute, not chronic. It happens during specific weather events. It's probably a little more constant in some areas in the borough, but it's not like we're living next to I-405 in Los Angeles.

The borough was starting some efforts to improve air quality, but unfortunately, an idiot convinced a majority of voters to freeze any attempt by the borough to limit the use of polluting devices. The state has begun some enforcement action, but it's been slow going.

Ratings companies now rank Nokia stock as junk.

Citations please.

I made no comment about Elop, "Burning Platforms" or buyout strategies/conspiracy theories. I was pointing out that Nokia were the undisputed market leader in buggy whips. iPhone, despite being nowhere near as good a phone as the best Nokias until at least the 3G version, was what people now wanted, and contnue to want.

Just like no one is putting Hitler or swastika on vodka or anything else.

The Italian beer Birra Dala Storia have images of Hitler and Mussolini

I think all administrators and teacher and parents should be required to read the following:
http://georgedpcarlin.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/george-carlin-on-children/

He won't get a dime of your money, because much less than a dime will be available to give to him after Holywood accounting is done with it.

You know who else won't? The other producers, most of who run charities. Like the following:

List of charitable causes of Producers of Ender's Game:

Gigi Pritzker
http://www.forbes.com/profile/jean-gigi-pritzker/
Movie producer Jean "Gigi" Pritzker is one of 10 members of the extended Pritzker family on the Billionaires List. Gigi has been buying Hyatt shares from her cousins Linda and James. She owns the tiny (12 employees) film production company Odd Lot Entertainment, which backed the hit film "Drive" in 2011. The company is slated to release the film of Orson Scott Card's science fiction tale, "Ender's Game," starring Harrison Ford, in November 2013

Pritzker is president and a trustee of the Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation and the Chicago Children's Theatre.

PHILANTHROPY, VOLUNTARISM & GRANTMAKING FOUNDATION

Asset Amount: $37,832,052(37.8 million)
Income Amount: $7,737,864(7.7 million)

Additional charitable details:
http://foundation.luriechildrens.org/site/PageServer?pagename=oh_do_pritzker
The Pritzker family was one of the first of Chicago’s leading philanthropic families to join Heroes for Life: Campaign for Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
Their $10 million leadership campaign gift through their family foundation allowed construction of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago to begin on time in April 2008 for its projected opening in the summer of 2012.

Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

http://philanthropytimes.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/science-fiction-inspires-philanthropy/
June 21, 2013
Chrysalis is a nonprofit foundation in Los Angeles that is backed by some high profile Hollywood stars, including Colin Farrell, Lea Michele and J.J. Abrams. The organization focuses on helping the homeless population of Los Angeles build skills and find jobs in order to work their way to self-sufficiency. This weekend Chrysalis held the annual Butterfly Ball to honor the top champions for the fight against homelessness. Among top honorees this year were Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, writers and producers of the latest Star Trek film “Star Trek: Into Darkness”.
Kurtzman and Orci were honored for their contribution to helping the homeless along with agent Josh Lieberman and entertainment executive Katherine Pope.

Robert Chartoff
Robert Chartoff (born August 26, 1933) is an American film producer. He and fellow producer Irwin Winkler won an Academy Award for Best Picture for the 1976 film Rocky.
Chartoff established the RC Charitable Foundation in 1990 to award grants to international schools and other child agencies. He continues to serve as its President. The RC Charitable Foundation gives grants awards to the Buddha Educational Trust.

It might in accurate in the case of Card, but it's not an inaccurate word.

There have been a large number of studies on homophobia, so much so it pretty much proves that homosexuality is caused by a disease. Key factors
1) It is highly genetic, which indicates it confered a survival advantage.
2) It follows a similar pattern as other innate fears, such as fear of spiders or snakes. It is strongest in the young, who are most vulnerable. It dissipates with age, which varies based on ethnicity.
3) It is weakest in white people, who have the most openness to outsiders of all kinds. It is stronger in all other ethnic groups, who tend to be much more clannish.

Knowing what we now know about toxoplamosis, the protozoan that causes crazy cat lady syndrome, there are likely many as of yet undocumented diseases that affect behavior. Homosexuality, in this respect, would seem to fit the bill perfectly. It causes behavior that has no genetic advantage, and is in fact harmful. The behavior, in this case the urge to fornicate, borders on the pathological. Partner counts for gay men, for example, are orders of magnitude greater than straight men, and it doesn't decrease with age. Contrary to mass propaganda, anal sex is a SERIOUS disease vector, far more so than any other kind of sexual activity. Also contrary to mass propaganda, homosexuals are in fact much more likely to be sexual predators of children.

In any event, here are some great studies on the subject.

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/a-gay-germ-is-homophobia-a-clue/

The point is also made that a major danger here is when this gay germ is identified. The positive is that, in time, a vaccine will be developed. Chances are, the neurological changes are permanent, as with toxoplasmosis.The negative is that outside of western countries, there will undoubtedly be mass violence against gays. So, this is potentially a very dangerous situation.

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/gay-germ-fallout/

What this proves is what should be expected regarding all tradition. Traditions evolved for a reason. Morality isn't subjective, but is the way we humans - who are social animals - pass down learned behavior that is good and prevent behavior that is bad. With good being reproductive success, and bad being failure. It should be no surprise that all religions condemn homosexuality. It also should not be a surprise that aversion to it is genetic, as it completely prevents reproduction.

It might in accurate in the case of Card, but it's not an inaccurate word.

There have been a large number of studies on homophobia, so much so it pretty much proves that homosexuality is caused by a disease. Key factors
1) It is highly genetic, which indicates it confered a survival advantage.
2) It follows a similar pattern as other innate fears, such as fear of spiders or snakes. It is strongest in the young, who are most vulnerable. It dissipates with age, which varies based on ethnicity.
3) It is weakest in white people, who have the most openness to outsiders of all kinds. It is stronger in all other ethnic groups, who tend to be much more clannish.

Knowing what we now know about toxoplamosis, the protozoan that causes crazy cat lady syndrome, there are likely many as of yet undocumented diseases that affect behavior. Homosexuality, in this respect, would seem to fit the bill perfectly. It causes behavior that has no genetic advantage, and is in fact harmful. The behavior, in this case the urge to fornicate, borders on the pathological. Partner counts for gay men, for example, are orders of magnitude greater than straight men, and it doesn't decrease with age. Contrary to mass propaganda, anal sex is a SERIOUS disease vector, far more so than any other kind of sexual activity. Also contrary to mass propaganda, homosexuals are in fact much more likely to be sexual predators of children.

In any event, here are some great studies on the subject.

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/a-gay-germ-is-homophobia-a-clue/

The point is also made that a major danger here is when this gay germ is identified. The positive is that, in time, a vaccine will be developed. Chances are, the neurological changes are permanent, as with toxoplasmosis.The negative is that outside of western countries, there will undoubtedly be mass violence against gays. So, this is potentially a very dangerous situation.

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/gay-germ-fallout/

What this proves is what should be expected regarding all tradition. Traditions evolved for a reason. Morality isn't subjective, but is the way we humans - who are social animals - pass down learned behavior that is good and prevent behavior that is bad. With good being reproductive success, and bad being failure. It should be no surprise that all religions condemn homosexuality. It also should not be a surprise that aversion to it is genetic, as it completely prevents reproduction.

Since Texas is far away from any fault lines that I know of I don’t think this is the case.

http://legendsofgreenisle.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/texasfaultlines.gif

Happy Monday!

That was hydrogen.

Helium was from the huge manatee

How many GPIO pins does your ARM tablet have by the way?

Just plug something like this into your tablet.

You know that open usb io board is twice the cost of a raspberry pi, right?

How many GPIO pins does your ARM tablet have by the way?

Just plug something like this into your tablet.

I think we do something equivalent in another case. Does rsyncable gzip rings a bell?

https://beeznest.wordpress.com/2005/02/03/rsyncable-gzip/

Try asking anyone under 30 if they know what the phrase "Papers Please!" denotes

It's just two words... It's a lot of things.

It's when the Military place soldiers in a natural disaster area such as New Orleans after Katrina requiring you to show military ID or proof of government authorization, to avoid arrest, or having vehicles impounded

It's an attack onAmerican birthright citizenship

It's two words that succinctly describe America's dark future.

Personal and Professional Encounters with Surveillance

anti-state.com: May I See Your Papers Please?

It's what Mr. Hiibel of Nevada went to jail for refusing to comply with

It's what police do now to ordinary people minding their own business.

It's congress work on the REAL ID act

It's a name given to a section of an Arizona law upheld by the Supreme court.

It's the name of a complaint against changes the US is making starting this Fall 2013 to further restrict the free travel of Americans and greatly increase the difficulty of US citizens getting passports

It's the name of a dystopian video game about communist immigration control.

It's the name of an anti-TSA blog

It's a request you comply with when asked by the police; otherwise, you face immediate arrest.

• Texas 77 year old Grandmother arrested after refusing to show ID
• Police arrest for refusing to show ID while on private property
• Exhibit 1
• Exhibit 2: According to the Supreme Court, the police may arrest for failure to identify
• Arrested at Circuit City for refusing to show ID: "It all started when I refused to show my receipt to the loss prevention employee at Circuit City, and it ended when a police officer arrested me for refusing to provide my driver's license."
• I follow the blog of a guy who walked across the country (California to New York) last year. He was arrested in Greencastle, Indiana last summer, after a prison worker called the police to report him as a suspicious person after they exchanged words while he was walking past the prison complex.
• Florida Cops Tase man for refusing to show ID
• Refusal to show id in Georgia (arrest)
• Man in Arizona arrested for refusing to surrender firearm to officers who refused to show their own ID

1. Use a mirrored NAS pair such as QNAP or Synology. This will be pricey but will work well.

2. Use a pair of Western Digital My Books with network and roll your own mirroring with Rync between them. Relatively inexpensive. These blog posts should get you started.

Thorium reactors by design are meltdown proof.

You know, I'd go with "citation needed", but how about I just bust this myth right here and now.

Thorium reactors require uranium and/or other fissile material. They are not any safer than conventional reactors on this basis. A shorter explanation of just how much of a pipe dream thorium reactors are is here along with the caveat that dropping a bomb on one would be a very messy affair.

And they are not meltdown proof; if the safety controls fail. Thorium reactors are so-called "meltdown-proof" because they have a plug in the bottom of the reactor that will disintegrate and drop the core into a large holding tank. As the molten salt that acts as the coolant is now spread out, the theory is this is safer. But it all depends on that plug giving way, and this is only a theoretical model.

Meltdowns are one possible failure mode of a reactor. They aren't even the most common, nor most dangerous, depending on the design. A thorium reactor can still fail catastrophically if the piping becomes plugged. Think about this for a second; the primary coolant is molten salt. What happens if it becomes too cool or solidifies in places; The plug as at the bottom, and heat rises. Impurities could slowly build up, the plug could fail to melt away due to corrosion, etc.

Thorium reactors are not meltdown proof; Poor maintenance is as much as hazard for them as any other. And as a bonus... they're about 50 years away from being feasible anyway.

Thank you for playing though... now kindly stop spreading bullshit.

It's clear from the language of the test that this isn't a general purpose maths literacy test, it uses specific methods and language that must be taught by the school in order for the test to be understood by the student. Therefore it tests only how well the school has taught the specific method and language, not how well the kid knows maths.

The entire test: http://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/the-math-test.pdf

Or at least, he shouldn't be writing tech articles. To say that extra rendering power is only for higher resolution and framerate totally misses the point.

Despite continuing gains in performance, current graphics cards remain woefully underpowered for truly photo-realistic rendering.

The Govt can't design and implement a billion+ dollar data storage center. It can hire people to do it for them. Badly.

http://storageservers.wordpress.com/2013/10/08/nsa-prism-data-center-stops-working-due-to-electrical-problems/

All my friends live in China, you insensitive clod!

The arms race simply converted finite physical resources into desert boneyards filled with billions of dollars of scrapped and utterly useless aircraft: http://chemtrailsplanet.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/boneyard-a.jpg

Can you give an example of "nearly all gains"?

For example, an accountant may earn 120 roubles per month. Rent would be 30 roubles, food would be 60 roubles, and family would consume 30 roubles. How soon will such a person be able to afford a car (6,000 roubles) ?

In USSR people were paid only the bare minimum to rent a room or a whole apartment from the government; to buy basic food in government-owned stores, and sometimes a TV (300 roubles) or a radio receiver (100 roubles) from the same store. They were not expected to have any excess money; many had to borrow several days before the payday. It took decades to outfit an apartment, assuming honest work.

People in USSR were nothing but slaves; however the government permitted them to pick and choose what they do, as long as they work somewhere (not working was a crime.) The government did not care where they live, and how many people (none or one) can fit into their kitchen. Slaves were permitted to play around with those trifles. A whole workday of a scientist was valued in 7 roubles - enough to buy a couple of bags of raw potatoes, or twice as much as cost of eating at a diner. Slaves were provided with transportation that was nearly free (0.05 rouble per ride) - but it was very uncomfortable. Taxicabs were available, sometimes, starting from 10 roubles.

This paints a picture of a very poor society. This is because the government retained nearly all the profit from the labor of those people. Some work was poorly organized and not efficient, but still people worked practically for free - because it was the only game in town, and you could not refuse to participate. The rest of the monies was spent on stupid things, like helping select African regimes. Millions of tons of trucks, weapons and fuel were readily sent to any tinpot dictator who declares himself a socialist (of convenience.) A lot of money was spent on weapons, and on spaceflight, and on personal enrichment of party leaders.

What was not spent money on? Housing, and healthcare. Those were two lagging areas of social development. People in 1980s still lived in homes built in 1880s - and those were not Czar's palaces either. Those houses were nearly impossible to live in, everything was worn down so much in them that many did not even have central hot water pipes connected; crude point of use water heaters were employed instead. Any living accomodations were hard to get. The Party simply did not care that the people live in squalor, like five people in one tiny room. (The bathroom was shared, of course, between all the inhabitants of an apartment when it is divided up this way. And the telephone.)

Healthcare was similarly rationed. Shortage of doctors was a permanent state of affairs. Doctors were paid very little, and in return they were often angry and hating the patient even before he walks in. The equipment that they used was from 1950s and 1960s. Dental fillings were done without anaesthetic, without suction, without a nurse, and using an old, belt-driven dental drill. No X-rays either. There are many horror stories on the Internet that explain how the whole torture was set up. Imported, modern dental drills, and anaesthetics, and nurses, and X-rays, and the latest materials - that was available only to patients at the Kremlin Hospital and a few top notch, closed hospitals that only serviced party bosses. Everyone else had to suffer without anaesthetic. Naturally, the "free" did not involve a dental hygienist - there was no such job, and nobody even knew that you need to see one a couple times per year. Slaves did not require good medicine - they only had to be kept alive for work. You can mill or drill or bake with three teeth just as good as with 32 teeth. And if you die, there are more slaves to step up to your machine and continue milling, drilling or baking.

Any escapee from *that* society truly appreciates the western system of medicin

I don't think you are comparing equivalent figures. The Australian figures are adjusted for household size .etc. Here is a good explanation: http://mattcowgill.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/what-is-the-typical-australians-income-in-2013/ If you look at tax burden in Australia cs America the figures are quite similar. So I don't think it is fair to blame the welfare state either. In fact it seems to have more to do with companies realizing they can charge more in the Australian market. Except for books. That's just protectionist bs legislation.

Need an X server! My kingdom for a decent xserver on android then I wouldn't care. I'd just write lisp and serve it up on my wd mybooklive.

There is an x server implementation for android here which is mostly complete.

Registrant Country:US

I'd just feel a bit happier if the new effort was based somewhere other than the USA; somewhere a bit harder for the NSA to get its sticky paws into. I have in mind how the NSA screwed with IPSec. Mind you: discussion would have to be international, I am not sure how much harder it would make things for them if this was based in, say, Bolivia.

I don't speak Gaelic dialects, you see, so I don't see a reason in English to stick a seemingly-random apostrophe in the middle of the word.

Teal'c is not amused.

"Were we directed by Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we would soon want bread."
-- Thomas Jefferson

(Don't know offhand where to find the whole statement, but...
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/screenhunter_159-apr-26-06-08.jpg?w=640 )

Here's a glimpse into that alternate future.

http://whyswords.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/horsecar.jpg

Cause what you want is this: http://adventurelightingblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/indiancity_powerpole1.jpg

#BadBIOS - BIOS Malware

#

- Copernicus: Question Your Assumptions about BIOS Security

http://www.mitre.org/capabilities/cybersecurity/overview/cybersecurity-blog/copernicus-question-your-assumptions-about

- "Seems to have a BIOS hypervisor, SDR functionality that bridges air gaps, wifi card removed."

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388512915742937089

=

- #BadBIOS

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BadBIOS

=

- "More on my ongoing chase of #badBIOS malware."

https://plus.google.com/103470457057356043365/posts/9fyh5R9v2Ga
https://plus.google.com/103470457057356043365

=

- Nobody Seems To Notice and Nobody Seems To Care: Government & Stealth Malware

http://slexy.org/view/s2otvoDuKW

=

- Gpu based paravirtualization rootkit, all os vulne

http://forum.sysinternals.com/gpu-based-paravirtualization-rootkit-all-os-vulne_topic26706.html

=

- #badBIOS (and lotsa paranoia, plus fireworks)

https://kabelmast.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/badbios-and-lotsa-paranoia-plus-fireworks/

=

- Air-Gap-Breaching BIOS Rootkits with SDRs Inside (and smartphones, Snowden, NSA, Wikileaks)

"A little while back I covered a paper on FPGAs that could turn themselves into SDRs. I suspected this would be one way to breach an air gap.

It seems I was right on the money. If a little behind the times.

Researchers have found an incredibly persistent BIOS rootkit in the wild that includes SDR functionality⦠literally turning your computer into a radio transmitter to exfiltrate data even if youâ(TM)re not connected to the Internet." [..]

"The researchers were using a new tool, Copernicus, which sadly seems to be Windows-only. Nevertheless a number of you might be interested in checking it out.

There is one enduring mystery of this rootkit⦠how does it survive BIOS reflashes?" [..]

https://kabelmast.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/air-gap-breaching-bios-rootkits-with-sdrs-inside-and-smartphones-snowden-nsa-wikileaks/

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388511686744764416

- IMHO Copernicus is the most important security tool in recent history. Already found persistent BIOS malware (survives reflashing) here.

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388512915742937089

- and thatâ(TM)s not even interesting part. Seems to have a BIOS hypervisor, SDR functionality that bridges air gaps, wifi card removed.

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388521551693217792

- Copernicus BIOS verification. Also if tool is mysteriously failing or weird output full of FFs you may have problem. http://goo.gl/AHLwbD

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388534580493287424

- This particular BIOS persistent malware sample seems use TLS encrypted DHCP HostOptions as a command and control.

https://twitter.com/drago

#BadBIOS - BIOS Malware

#

- Copernicus: Question Your Assumptions about BIOS Security

http://www.mitre.org/capabilities/cybersecurity/overview/cybersecurity-blog/copernicus-question-your-assumptions-about

- "Seems to have a BIOS hypervisor, SDR functionality that bridges air gaps, wifi card removed."

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388512915742937089

=

- #BadBIOS

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23BadBIOS

=

- "More on my ongoing chase of #badBIOS malware."

https://plus.google.com/103470457057356043365/posts/9fyh5R9v2Ga
https://plus.google.com/103470457057356043365

=

- Nobody Seems To Notice and Nobody Seems To Care: Government & Stealth Malware

http://slexy.org/view/s2otvoDuKW

=

- Gpu based paravirtualization rootkit, all os vulne

http://forum.sysinternals.com/gpu-based-paravirtualization-rootkit-all-os-vulne_topic26706.html

=

- #badBIOS (and lotsa paranoia, plus fireworks)

https://kabelmast.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/badbios-and-lotsa-paranoia-plus-fireworks/

=

- Air-Gap-Breaching BIOS Rootkits with SDRs Inside (and smartphones, Snowden, NSA, Wikileaks)

"A little while back I covered a paper on FPGAs that could turn themselves into SDRs. I suspected this would be one way to breach an air gap.

It seems I was right on the money. If a little behind the times.

Researchers have found an incredibly persistent BIOS rootkit in the wild that includes SDR functionality⦠literally turning your computer into a radio transmitter to exfiltrate data even if youâ(TM)re not connected to the Internet." [..]

"The researchers were using a new tool, Copernicus, which sadly seems to be Windows-only. Nevertheless a number of you might be interested in checking it out.

There is one enduring mystery of this rootkit⦠how does it survive BIOS reflashes?" [..]

https://kabelmast.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/air-gap-breaching-bios-rootkits-with-sdrs-inside-and-smartphones-snowden-nsa-wikileaks/

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388511686744764416

- IMHO Copernicus is the most important security tool in recent history. Already found persistent BIOS malware (survives reflashing) here.

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388512915742937089

- and thatâ(TM)s not even interesting part. Seems to have a BIOS hypervisor, SDR functionality that bridges air gaps, wifi card removed.

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388521551693217792

- Copernicus BIOS verification. Also if tool is mysteriously failing or weird output full of FFs you may have problem. http://goo.gl/AHLwbD

https://twitter.com/dragosr/status/388534580493287424

- This particular BIOS persistent malware sample seems use TLS encrypted DHCP HostOptions as a command and control.

https://twitter.com/drago

If we could just figure out how to execute murderers humanely using imported water, beer and wine we could fix our balance of trade without any tariffs. http://pierstransportation.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/top-u-s-imports-exports-with-europe/ Car parts would work too but its hard to figure out how we could do that humanely.

Why I resigned from my stupid cycling organisation.
http://kmccready.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/cycling-deaths-i-resign-from-cycling-action-network-can/
Short version:
1. dooring (a cyclist riding into a car door as it’s being opened because the cyclist is too close). Dumb cyclists should NEVER ride in the door death zone. Attempts to blame car doors (kids in back seat? drivers who haven't been born with x-ray vision to see through door frames?) are dumb
2. attacking coroner's report which said wear bright clothing. (how dumb is that?)
3. No helmet stupidity - any protection is better than none, even if you accept the dumb arguments presented.

At the risk of sounding like a damned space hippy, I've missed Star Trek's fundamentally positive outlook towards the future of humanity. Trek gave a really strong feeling that we'd end up overcoming a lot of our problems as a species. I like that sort of utopianism, so any new series of Trek is good by me.

TOS seems much maligned, and 40 years later it does seem rather awkward and dated, but there's some good episodes in there. Besides, who doesn't love some serious acting..

As an aside, this would be a good time to recommend the Post Atomic Horror podcast for anyone re-watching any of the series.

??? How old ARE you? (OMG: I'm only 55 -- maybe I really am older and more paranoid than I thought.)

Let me get this straight: you gave away control of your unencrypted files to someone who wasn't a known personal friend and then am surprised that something happened to them??

I treat on-line services slightly differently: I keep local copies of EVERYTHING that goes out, and I'm surprised when it's still accessible online 5 minutes later, never mind 5 years later. And controlling exactly who has access to it? That's just a fantasy -- really. It's actually binary: either it's out there and they MIGHT have it, or it's not and they DON'T.

I do run Dropbox and use KeePass as a password manager. The credential store is encrypted, but even then the stored password there just isn't "quite right". Phone camera pics get uploaded to Dropbox. At times I'll AES encrypt and email or use Dropbox and expose. For stupid pics I'll just dump 'em out there straight. But I know what's exposed and encrypted-exposed. The latter die soon after they're used.

You store important and critical (tax receipts, lawyer-enforced) notices that might cause breach of contract? And you put control of that in someone else's hands, paid for or not? What kind of an IDIOT are you? Then again, you must not think much of the breaching penalties. That's great, I'm glad you're so confident at everyone always doing the right thing everywhere and nothing bad ever happening.

Me, if I'm going to have a some contract or data leakage it'll be because *I* did it myself and have no one else to blame. Then again, it's obvious digital computer files and paid services will stay around forever: Just ask MegaUpload, GeoCities, and LavaBit. Oh, and the data center located in the Twin Towers? Onsite backups sure came in handy there. Some got thru better than others: One, Two

Then again, there's this brand new data center that will hold all of your data for years -- all for free! I'm sure you can retrieve all of your data from that.

Really, I'm glad things are going so well for you, with the exception of a few bumps. And local storage doesn't solve everything either -- drives can be stolen, warrants can be served, computers can be hacked and data downloaded. But damn it, for 99.9% of my data, I'm 100% directly responsible for it. Offloading everything to the cloud is just offloading responsibility, never mind anything at all to do with the NSA.

Oh, one last thing. Even if all of the employees in the ISP, supporting companies, 3rd party vendors and everyone involved are all above reproach. are you sure? And even say all of the software is 100% vetted and accurate (ignoring accidental software bugs): oops.

Paranoid? Probably, but then again most things don't deserve multiple layers of defense. Only a few do, and of those only a select few get vetted, encrypted, backed up, and rotated offsite. But as for "What would you need if everything was suddenly gone (house fire) and you could only keep a couple of things?" Well there's your answer.

Good luck with it all; hope you produce a updated

Let's not forget that, in New York, this kind of pseudonymous online conduct is considered a "crime of deceit and provocation" that the Internet authorities can prosecute to the full extent of the law. See the documentation of one current case involving sock puppets and criminally deadpan "satire" at: http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/ and see how the NY Attorney General opened a fake yogurt shop in Brooklyn to get some of those scoundrels posting fake comments on Yelp: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24218139 (Let's hope they go after every single fake "best chiropractor" and "best probiotic" on Amazon too. This is a potential source of billions of dollars in fines.) It would not, of course, be surprising to see rampant criminal deceit and provocation even at the highest level of government, but we should at least be clear that if you use "sock puppets" or engage in "astroturfing" or send out deadpan "confessions" in someone else's name, at least in New York (a model in this respect for the entire country and especially for Washington), you are presumed to be a criminal. This latest incident should be thoroughly investigated at once by the appropriate Internet law enforcement authorities and the perpetrator, assuming he "crossed the line," should be brought to justice.

No Evidence of Terrorist Plots Against Aviation in US

This begs the question, then, of what evidence the government possesses to rationalize that we should be so afraid of non-metallic explosives being brought aboard flights departing from the U.S. that we must sacrifice our civil liberties. The answer: there is none. "As of mid-2011, terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports; instead, their focus is on fundraising, recruiting, and propagandizing."

I can well believe there are differences in battery performance between the OSes but we need someone to sit down with programs performing exactly the same operations on base configurations of all the OSes and then report the results. Saying they vary is one thing but far more interesting is to know why. Is it the drivers, is it the scheduler, is it the kernel, is it a better userspace or is it some combination of all of them?

My understanding is that both Linux and Windows supported timer coalescing before OS X. Linux had a tickless kernel. OS X's XNU kernel is allegedly tickless but I can't find out when this change actually took place. As for Windows it's not clear - my understanding is that Windows 8 is tickless but I can't find a clear reference only one that says Windows 8 idles more than Windows 7 so perhaps it has dynamic ticks and hence can be tickless. That last link seems to suggest that Microsoft have put a large amount of effort into trying to make Windows more battery friendly...

In addition to the above, Windows has a huge number of energy saving features: Idle detection that can control things like what processes are allowed to start, Windows 8 store apps use a "only focussed app runs" model unless it's a background task, USB suspend (Windows 7), adjustable tick rate (Windows 2000) (Windows seems to suffer from programs that push for higher resolution ticks though). It would be nice to know whether all these things are having an impact.

One of the things I noticed on OS X 10.8 though is that when the battery is near to depletion it seems to force the CPU to run at a slower rate until the machine power goes out completely. I don't know the other OSes do this or whether it's a positive impact but it could impact on results that purely go on time rather than amount of work done.

"You don't want to feel guilty for living a western lifestyle that generates lots of CO2, something like that?"

I don't feel guilty, in the slightest. Because THE ACTUAL DATA from the IBUKI CO2-mapping satellite show that developed "Western" nations are net CO2 absorbers, not emitters.

Far more CO2 is generated (and less absorbed in proportion), in the tropics and third-world countries. So even if I subscribed to AGW theory, why should I feel guilty?

"Where are you suggesting these pay checks issue from? What would the UN, say, stand to gain by influencing IPCC research toward alarmism -- or bias in any direction, for that matter? In the other corner, as it were, who is bankrolling the denial camp?"

I didn't write anything about "bankrolling" a "camp". That sound suspiciously like conspiracy theory to me. As for paychecks... they do come from somewhere, yes? I'm not suggesting any kind of big conspiracy, as you seem to be doing. I'm simply saying: AGW is what they're doing, and they are getting paid for it. Is there something about that with which you disagree?

"Also I am pretty sure the latest IPCC report made a point of stating more clearly and unambiguously then ever before that climate change is real and man-made. We discussed it here on /. at the time."

Yes, the report does make a point of saying so, in their executive summary. Which is just proving my point. Because the actual science in the report (pdf) does not justify the claim. If anything, the actual evidence is weaker than before. (That is a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature Climate Change, by the way). 117 climate models were studied. Of those, 114 overstated the actual amount of warming (by, as I stated before, an ever-increasing margin), and the mean divergence between those 114 models and current reality was 100%. In other words, the models, on average, predicted 100% more warming than has actually been observed.

Put that together with the increasing number of new studies that contradict the very foundations of most AGW climate models, and the only reasonable conclusion is that these ever-more-shrill pronouncements are nothing but hot air (pun very definitely intended).

... seems to be rather unimpressed with the idea

That can't be!

Everyone knows that the Tea party is a bunch of comic, laughable clowns with no grounding in reality. I mean, why else would they be so thoroughly lampooned using derogatory terms and snarky, dismissive comments.

Even Obama himself (praise be his name) mocks them.

It can't be true... can it?