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  1. Only a surprise if... on L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...you haven't been paying attention. (Tried to put that all on the headline, but wouldn't fit.)

    Simply put, as many here already know, if you compare foreign news coverage on domestic affairs to our own domestic coverage, the gaps become obvious and huge: The Guardian et al on Snowden vs the play-down or even silence from domestic sources is just one of MANY examples. Art Bell commented on this years ago (15-20 years ago when I heard it) that he was amazed the coverage of America from the BBC was better than any American news outlet, so this isn't new at all.

    The entire point of the 1st Amendment's Press Freedom was to prevent this from happening; so much for that.

    It all makes me wonder how much longer before the rest of the conspiracy theorists' predictions come true...

  2. Re:Sensationalism? on Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Desktop x86 Motherboard Manufacturers? · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because a few things were yanked out of my submission, as usual for headlines. As shown in the Phoronix stories, and (here's one part that was deleted) by Googling around further, a bigger problem is that the mobo manufacturers simply don't give a flying f**k about anything other than winblows: Gigabyte and Asus both say, "We don't support Linux, use windows"--yes, really, read the story--and there was some MSI business before, but maybe that's getting better since they offer official Steam support (we'll see).

    I didn't know AsRock and AsusTek were separate companies now: perhaps their new X99-WS, while not an overclocker, is better supported as many workstations run Linux or Solaris.

    I'm surprised so many guys didn't know Intel isn't making boards anymore, but I didn't know they're (apparently?) still available. Whether with Z97 or X99 (or later) is a big question, though.

    Also deleted from my submission is that I specifically stated that I don't expect all the hardware to work on something so new, but I expect the important parts will: rather, that the M$-isms in the BIOS deliberately interfere with Linux. I'm very familiar with this, as I have a 7 year old laptop that, to this day, I cannot install any of the BSD's to: first the bootloaders died, and now the kernels die in early boot, so it's a little better, but still. Oh, and it likes LILO better than GRUB.

    So, is this sensationalistic? No, I don't think so. And I haven't been paid for any of this (in fact, I'm going to max out a credit card or two to pay for this). But I really don't want to repeat all the pain others have gone through. This isn't my first build, and definitely not my first Linux install, but this is the newest hardware that I've used in almost 2 decades. (Usually I just take hand-me-downs on the cheap--as usual, what works like shit in winblows works fine in Linux!) I want a machine for gaming, compiling, GIMPing, etc--for once, I'd like some top end screaming hardware (since I'll never be able to afford Haswell-EX with its 20 cores!). The last thing I need is the manufacturers themselves deliberately creating road blocks!

  3. Re:MSI Claims SteamOS compatibility with X99 on Ask Slashdot: Linux-Friendly Desktop x86 Motherboard Manufacturers? · · Score: 1

    I apparently missed that part. So far, this is the single most useful comment on this, THANK YOU!!!

  4. Re:Your ways frighten and confuse me on Ask Slashdot: What Old Technology Can't You Give Up? · · Score: 1

    Ah, my mod points for you. My 2nd computer was a CoCo2 and my parents threw it away in the 90's along with a bunch of other stuff. I miss it even though the 32 columns were a bitch. (FYI, my first computer was an MC-10, if you remember that--I even had the 20k expansion pack! The CC2 was an upgrade!)

    30 years since those days...sigh...

    BTW, are any of the Coco clubs and what-not still around?

  5. "...access to private bugs..." on Tor Browser Security Under Scrutiny · · Score: 1

    Wait, so Gecko is full of ***KNOWN*** "zero" days--zero in the sense we don't know about them, but Mozilla does? Please tell me I'm reading that wrong!

  6. Re: Google it on Scientists Baffled By Unknown Source of Ozone-Depleting Chemical · · Score: 1

    This is a very well known problem: most organic compounds, wherever they're found and whatever they may be, are easily halogenated (or less often substituted with other things, usually with bacterial help). Chlorine is by far the most common halogen and the most reactive electro-negative element outside of oxygen(#2) and fluorine(#1--fun stuff, watch the videos). I was going to waste bandwidth here, but here's a couple of Wikipedia links that explain things way better:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

    Bleach/Chlorine + any organic material equals

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

    which are Ozone-Depleting Chemicals, talked about here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

    I remember a day when every geek/nerd knew what trichloroethane was as it made the best tape head cleaner, but times change...

  7. Re:This is going to backfire horribly on AMD Launches Radeon R7 Series Solid State Drives With OCZ · · Score: 2

    Dammit, you said it first:

    1. Radeon R7, now for SSDs? How confusing and utterly stupid. The geniuses couldn't be bothered to come up with a new name?

    2. OCZ and their reputation. AMD and their reputation. Whatever reviewers may say, those in the know will stay away, and if these drives crap out as well, OCZ will now stain AMD as well (not that they needed any more of that).

    [digression]Otherwise, the Nvidia bit...can't really comment as my last laptop was running an Nvidia IGP (GForce7000 + nForce 610m--probably the last thing Nvidia made without some form of hardware decoding for video), and ran just fine with AHCI sata, forcedeth networking, and nvidia pata (for the CD). The graphics were finally supported by Nouveau around 3.10, but stopped working with 3.14 (I'm strongly suspecting this is actually a KMS issue as I'm having the exact same trouble with a Intel IGP laptop).[/digression]

    Anyway, this really does make me wonder even more than I already was if AMD is being prepped for a fire sale to some company, and if so, who's pulling the strings? It can't be Intel or Nvidia, I doubt it would be ARM themselves, so who does that leave that could use an alternative x86/x64 IP, possibly being combined with ARM IP, and the only graphics that can hope to stand up to Nvidia?

  8. Re:ALREADY HAPPENED! (New Mexico) on Ebola Quarantine Center In Liberia Looted · · Score: 1

    They don't think it's Ebola but they want to be sure:

    http://www.kob.com/article/sto...

    And this is just ONE person! Even if this one is not the one, statistics says a plane or boat full of carriers is coming sooner or later. May be time to stock up on Tyvek suits and bleach, for starters...

  9. Open-Source Gear For Making Mind-Control Gadget on Open-Source Gear For Making Mind-Controlled Gadgets · · Score: 1

    Am I the only one who read this as Mind-Control(ling)? And here I thought I could make a Arduino version of the Chum Bucket Mind Control Helmet and capture me a girlfriend...oh, well...

  10. Once again, science fact follows science fiction on About Half of Kids' Learning Ability Is In Their DNA · · Score: 1

    *HOW MANY* stories have been written over the years with just this premise? Frankly, I've lost track.

    Science Fiction has already predicted the consequence: designer children. Whether the consequences predicted of THAT come to pass remains to be seen.

    Gattica / Brave New World indeed...

  11. Actually read the book! on Ridley Scott to Produce Philip K Dick's The Man In the High Castle · · Score: 1

    Can't remember if I got it from a used book store or old public library stock; unlike some of his other stuff, I found this a lot more approachable (maybe because of that editing?). I can see why the BBC might reject it, dealing with Nazis running everything, but syfy? Must require too much thought for them.

    Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time--it and the original Matrix are one of the very few movies I can watch again and again. I love almost everything that Ridley does (maybe YOU hated Prometheus, but I didn't mind) and majorly look forward to this!

  12. US Government OKs Sale of Sharper Image on US Government OKs Sale of Sharper Satellite Images · · Score: 1

    I can't be the only one who read the headline as the above...

  13. Security considerations and other-than-Linux? on Docker 1.0 Released · · Score: 1

    The quality of comments on are are further proof of how far downhill /. has fallen. It's just depressing.

    A couple questions pop to mind:

    1. Security--how do containers, whether LXC/Docker, Jails, etc compare to true virtualization? For example, pfSense strongly argues against using virtualization in production machines not only for being slower, but for possible security risks--and a container would be even less secure than that. As an extreme scenario, what's to keep one Docker program from messing with another Docker program running under the same Docker Engine instance?

    2. Will Docker only support LXC/Linux only or will it expand to support jails and such? The ability to support multiple OS containers with Docker sounds like it could be INSANELY useful!

  14. Compare bands and devices on Ask Slashdot: Do 4G World Phones Exist? · · Score: 1

    First, someone mentioned their Verizon phone wouldn't work in Africa: this is no surprise, as Verizon uses CDMA, which is found only in islands outside of N. America. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

    Second, here is Wikipedia's list of bands since no one bothered to include it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

    and an alternative source: http://niviuk.free.fr/lte_band...

    Now, for a list of phones, a quick search found this article: http://www.extremetech.com/ele...
        This phone doesn't support 600-700 MHz LTE, but I don't think that's being deployed much yet in Europe, anyway (though it's coming). And, of course, the mention of the latest Apples.

    Personally, I think it's a miracle that EE's are able to squeeze in as many bands as they have (650-928 MHz and 1710-2600 MHz with a gap or two PLUS 2450 MHz WiFi and Bluetooth) and still have usable sensitivity and selectivity. This is more than just SDR at work.

  15. What's old is new again: Teledesic on Google To Spend $1 Billion On Fleet of Satellites · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

    It's about friggin' time.

    Oh, yeah, and there are plenty of people even "in the middle of nowhere", as city-slickers like to say from their Starbucks. How many people "in the middle of nowhere" up in the Arctic can't get anything but unreliable and VERY expensive satellite. And what about down in Antarctic where the options are slow-but-reliable bonded Iridium or fast-but-unreliable NOAA wobblesat (don't remember which one exactly).

    We *NEED* a polar-LEO data satellite system that can be accessed from individual users (like Hughesnet, etc) versus just from telcos and ISPs (O3b, etc). Neither fiber nor terrestrial microwave can reach everywhere, and in some places is forbidden by environmental law: satellite can work in this case.

  16. What are they using for a detector? on Quad Lasers Deliver Fast, Earth-Based Internet To the Moon · · Score: 2

    Incoming power at the satellite is stated as a nanowatt. I'm pretty sure this puts it way below the threshold of most, if not all, solid state optical detectors. I'm thinking some kind of FAST photomultiplier tube, but I really have no idea. Any thoughts?

    Think of using something like this to transmit terrestrially through air of many miles/kilometers distance RELIABLY rather than the one or (if you're lucky) two you get today: it would be a godsend and could replace a LOT of metro microwave (depending on which city and its local climate, of course) without having to lay fiber. Its the unlicensed holy grail, really.

  17. "Funded by Wellcome Foundation" on Mental Illness Reduces Lifespan As Much as Smoking · · Score: 3, Informative

    If the name doesn't ring a bell to younger Western audiences (and not to be confused with an Asian supermarket chain, apparently), it is now part of Glaxo-SmithKline (GSK):

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

  18. Re:Is Diffie Hellman at risk? on Discrete Logarithm Problem Partly Solved -- Time To Drop Some Crypto Methods? · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing Schneier et al won't have a chance to analyze and reply until next week, but this is so important, who knows?

    It also occurred to me that, since the mess with the NSA broke out, I have not seen anything about Suite B being modified--everything in there is still officially supported for "State Secrets". I keep wondering if we're missing something there...

  19. Re: GPS problems? on Russia Bans US Use of Its Rocket Engines For Military Launches · · Score: 1

    Your GNSS primer has quite a few errors--except for calling them GNSS instead of using GPS like Kleenex, like most reporters do. :)

    1a. GPS long in the tooth: not at all. From the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps#Timeline_and_modernizationGPS article, the next phase (III-A) is already approved and just needs to be built; 7 more from the previous phase still need to be completed and launched as the older birds die. And the math doesn't change over 30 years, only the corrections.

    1b. Didn't notice this until after I wrote the above: Wikipedia has an entire article on the next GPS generation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

    2. GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, and the newer Chinese Beidou expansion that's apparently been renamed Compass are all worldwide systems. The former three use medium earth orbit (MEO), but not polar so there's reduced or eliminated polar coverage (mainly above the (ant)arctic circles; Compass/Beidou uses both GEO and MEO. Also, I know first-hand that GLONASS works just fine here in Arizona as my Samsung Galaxy Note II with its SIRF dual-system chip receives it with no flags for inaccuracy compared to GPS.

    3. "Planned Errors": This is Selective Availability and hasn't been used since the 90's.

    4. Beidou/Compass' build-out vs GALILEO's: China's is happening, according to Wikipedia, unlike GALILEO, where the latest announcement is a pair of birds delivered to the Guyana spaceport and STILL no ETA to full deployment...

  20. Anonymous (and whoever else) will get in trouble.. on Anonymous' Airchat Aim: Communication Without Need For Phone Or Internet · · Score: 1

    ...because they're too greedy. Let's go down the list of what I've read here so far:

    1a. CB radio: this band, 11 meters, was formerly an amateur radio band and was taken away to make the CB band. It became the total morass it is now when they stopped licensing it.

    1b. This also shows what happens to a band in the absence of regulation and licensing. You can get away with this in the ISM portions of the microwave bands due to the massive propagation losses; this was originally the thought for using 11 meters for the CB band, but they didn't factor in amps. giant antennas, and especially ionospheric propagation: hence the need for "CB" bands up in the UHF range (aka GMRS/FRS/etc).

    2. You "free band" too much and start interfering with people who actually care, and you'll find out how fast they come after you. This largely depends on what country you are in and what band. As an example, ask the Brazilian guy who was on US military frequencies in NYC, or the people regularly busted for jamming or at least operating on police frequencies.

    3. As pointed out repeatedly, this has already been invented both by hams and commercially.

    4. Encryption on amateur radio bands is explicitly banned in most countries including the USA and Canada; strangely, this doesn't seem to exist in the ITU regs. I'm sure the thought on this is that Amateur Radio must not be used for business or as a replacement for other communications except in emergencies; also Amateurs regularly communicate with foreign countries, so everyone wants to be able to listen to them. If you look at the preamble of the relevant section of the law, the part about "fostering goodwill" would be inherently violated with encryption. Remember, everyone getting so gung-ho with EMCOMM is a relatively recent phenomena, and the primary purposes have always been experimentation such. It's sad that newer people to the hobby and even the national organizations like ARRL/CRRL/JARL/RSGB/etc seem to have forgotten this.

    5. All nations' regulations follow (more or less) the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) regulations as a guideline, though every nation usually makes changes. As long as these changes don't impact other countries, it doesn't matter much. I believe this is part of the reason the world is organized into 3 regions: Europe, Africa, and the old USSR and its satellites are Region 1, the New World including Greenland is Region 2, and the rest of Asia and Oceania is Region 3.

    Oh, and just to drive home the interference point, I had to jump on ARRL's web site and these were on the front page:

    http://transition.fcc.gov/eb/O...
    http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-c...

  21. Wikipedia entry on Mantle on LibreOffice 4.2 Busts Out GPU Mantle Support and Corporate IT Integration · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    Mantle is a low-level API specification developed by AMD as an alternative to Direct3D and OpenGL, primarily for use on the PC platform.

    Emphasis mine. I can't be the only one seeing this as a bad strategy (versus pushing this into Openxx).

  22. I don't understand /. here on It's Official: Registrars Cannot Hold Domains Hostage Without a Court Order · · Score: 1

    You villify the MPAA/RIAA mafiaa, agree with Voltaire on defending the right to free speech, hate NSA and RSA,

    AND YET

    you say that EasyDNS is in the wrong here?!? I don't get it. I just don't. Regardless that the defendant here was another registrar rather than the City of London itself, the question remains the same: can a police department authorize the seizure of property without so much as a court order? If so, why not do away with the courts altogether since police agencies now play the roles of judge, jury, and executioner?

    For me, EasyDNS has earned a customer when it comes time for me to renew my domain. And while I'm only one, I know that, as this news spreads, I won't be the only one.

  23. Re:The Wrong Question on Ask Slashdot: Can Commercial Hardware Routers Be Trusted? · · Score: 2

    This! Mod parent way up! The question isn't whether your [insert endpoint here] is safe, but if the intermediate points are. Even if your own router is safe, what about the one upstream? I've assumed for a long time (way before Snowden) that all electronic communications are monitored, and when you realize that, and the insane difficulty of getting around that monitoring, you kind of give up. You have to decide what is important enough to secure from a worthy (non script-kiddie) adversary and versus letting them see what kind of pr0n you like. IMHO this has been the reality for years (probably before 9/11 thanks to CALEA and friends), but it took Snowden to wake most people up to the fact.

    Now securing your own machine, that's whole other level: again, how secure to do need it to be? I'm *HOPING* that keeping the browser cache clean/disabled, using Linux and FF and shutting down the browser when accessing bank account info and such is enough to keep the CC guys from getting my info; OTOH, if you're doing something that the intelligence agencies (regardless of country) is interested in, your only real hope is to use the the 100% open software/firmware like the FSF advocated, and (of course) even then there's no guarantee the hardware doesn't have a compromise or some CIA/FBI/whatever spy doesn't physically attack your machine when you're not looking (which is normal if you're actually under investigation).

    As others have pointed out, its you versus agencies with BILLIONS of US$ (or equivalent) funding: you can resist, but if they really want you, you have no chance of winning: think the end of Half Life when Freeman refuses--that's what you face, proverbially.

    tl;dr YOU ARE SCREWED, and your barely computer-literate family and friends have probably already been pwned and not even know it.

  24. Service is Viasat AKA Wildblue on JetBlue Launches Satellite-Based Inflight Wi-Fi · · Score: 2

    http://www.viasat.com/news/high-speed-internet-now-flying-jetblue-launches-service-using-viasat-high-capacity-ka-band-broadband

    I remember reading this a year ago or so when the home service launched, but I guess /. missed it. This kind of portable/mobile use is being heavily marketed for homeland security, SNG (Satellite News Gathering), and other high-end markets, while they continue to give the middle finger to RVers, truckers, etc--I guess the home system is locked to the spotbeam its activated on so you can't roam outside it, unlike HughesNet. Personally, I'd love their little portable flyaway system, but at a price of $20k or so, oh well.

  25. Re:Pick your favourite outcome! on Sci-fi Author Charles Stross Cancels Trilogy: the NSA Is Already Doing It · · Score: 1

    Umm...the !Doctorow options (1,2,4) are not mutually exclusive; in fact, I'm convinced we have been in a Corporatocracy for a while, which controls us through the "utopia where the people are bribed into apathy/foolishness" (courtesy of MPAA/RIAA mafia + youtube and friends), and the "Totalitarian states in constant war" is right around the corner--hell, you can see THAT just in the other comments here!