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Submission + - How many years is ideal for long term distro support?

Submitted by couchslug
couchslug writes: Howls of anguish from betrayed CentOS users highlight the value of its long support cycles. As distros become more refined how important are changes vs. stability for users running tens, thousands and hundreds of thousands of servers or who just want stability and security over change for its own sake? Should competitors like Ubuntu and SUSE offer truly LTS versions to seize that (obviously large thus important to widespread adoption) user base? Distro-hopping is fun but people with work to do and a fixed task set have different needs.
Why do you think distro leadership are so eager for distro life cycles? Boredom, progress or what mix of both?
What sayeth the hive mind and what distros do you use to achieve your goals?

Submission + - Jeff Bezos Shares Video of 10,000-Year Clock Project (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos shared a video on Tuesday of his latest project: a giant clock designed to keep time for 10,000 years. Buried deep in a west Texas mountain, the project is in partnership with San Francisco-based group The Long Now Foundation, which grew out of an idea for a 10,000 year clock that co-founder Danny Hillis proposed back in the '90s. Now, the 500-foot tall mechanical wonder is finally undergoing installation. Bezos is fronting the cash for the $42 million project, saying on the project's website that the clock is "designed to be a symbol, an icon for long-term thinking."

The clock is powered by a large weight hanging on a gear, built out of materials durable enough to keep time for 10 millennia. Bezos isn't the only noteworthy name on the clock project. Musician Brian Eno and writers Kevin Kelly and Stewart Brand are also involved in the clock's construction. The team has spent the last few years creating parts for the clock and drilling through the mountain to store the pieces. You can read Bezos's account of that and view photos of the progress here.

Comment Re:smart money (Score 4, Interesting) 103

by Arkh89 (#55897989) Attached to: Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production

Sure but let's look at some values here : 750M for 8000 jobs (3K+5K) over say 10 years (at 0%) that's a requirement of 9.3K/person/year in state taxes to recover. Just from income, that would require each person to be paid over 150K/year (with about 100K income after taxes).
If we include sales taxes at about 9% and we assume that each person spends half of his/her after-tax income, we get to down to a requirement of 101K/year salary per person.
There are certainly other indirect sources (you mentioned some) to consider to get to the complete picture here, but still... it seems far-fetched...

Submission + - Western Digital 'My Cloud' devices have a hardcoded backdoor (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Today, yet another security blunder becomes publicized, and it is really bad. You see, many Western Digital MyCloud NAS drives have a hardcoded backdoor, meaning anyone can access them — your files are at risk. It isn't even hard to take advantage of it — the username is "mydlinkBRionyg" and the password is "abc12345cba" (without quotes). To make matters worse, it was disclosed to Western Digital six months ago and the company dot nothing.

GulfTech Research and Development explains, "The triviality of exploiting this issues makes it very dangerous, and even wormable. Not only that, but users locked to a LAN are not safe either. An attacker could literally take over your WDMyCloud by just having you visit a website where an embedded iframe or img tag make a request to the vulnerable device using one of the many predictable default hostnames for the WDMyCloud such as 'wdmycloud' and 'wdmycloudmirror' etc."

Comment Re:May bite them in the ass, especially in academi (Score 1) 312

by Arkh89 (#55880201) Attached to: Nvidia Wants To Prohibit Consumer GPU Use In Datacenters

In cluster environments, the NVidia products are well ahead of anything made by AMD. And a good portion of the other core components (management, scheduler, ...) are already built to support NVidia hardware (with NVML/SMI/...).
Some of the Intel accelerators might get close but are also pretty pricey.

Submission + - Nvidia Prohibits Consumer GPU Use In Data Centers? (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Xesdeeni
Xesdeeni writes: (Except blockchains)

Nvidia has banned the use of its GeForce and Titan gaming graphics cards in data centers â" forcing organizations to fork out for more expensive gear, like its latest Tesla V100 chips.

The chip-design giant updated its GeForce and Titan software licensing in the past few days, adding a new clause that reads: âoeNo Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.â

Is this really even legal?

First, because it changes use of existing hardware, already purchased, by changing software (with potentially required bug fixes) agreements retroactively.

Second, because how can a customer (at least in the US) be told they can't use a product in a particular place, unless it's a genuine safety or security concern (i.e. government regulation)!?

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theregister.co.uk%2F... https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwccftech.com%2Fnvidia-ge... https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Famp%2Fs%2Fw...

Submission + - EFF: Accessing Publicly Available Information On the Internet Is Not a Crime (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: EFF is fighting another attempt by a giant corporation to take advantage of our poorly drafted federal computer crime statute for commercial advantage—without any regard for the impact on the rest of us. This time the culprit is LinkedIn. The social networking giant wants violations of its corporate policy against using automated scripts to access public information on its website to count as felony “hacking” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 federal law meant to criminalize breaking into private computer systems to access non-public information.

EFF, together with our friends DuckDuckGo and the Internet Archive, have urged the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reject LinkedIn’s request to transform the CFAA from a law meant to target “hacking” into a tool for enforcing its computer use policies. Using automated scripts to access publicly available data is not “hacking,” and neither is violating a website’s terms of use. LinkedIn would have the court believe that all “bots” are bad, but they’re actually a common and necessary part of the Internet. “Good bots” were responsible for 23 percent of Web traffic in 2016. Using them to access publicly available information on the open Internet should not be punishable by years in federal prison. LinkedIn’s position would undermine open access to information online, a hallmark of today’s Internet, and threaten socially valuable bots that journalists, researchers, and Internet users around the world rely on every day—all in the name of preserving LinkedIn’s advantage over a competing service. The Ninth Circuit should make sure that doesn’t happen.

Submission + - Victims of Mystery Attacks In Cuba Left With Anomalies In Brain Tissue (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: American victims of mysterious attacks in Cuba have abnormalities in their brains’ white matter, according to new medical testing reported by the Associated Press. But, so far, it’s unclear how or if the white-matter anomalies seen in the victims relate to their symptoms. White matter is made up of dense nerve fibers that connect neurons in different areas of the brain, forming networks. It gets its name from the light-colored electrical insulation, myelin, that coats the fibers. Overall, the tissue is essential for rapidly transmitting brain signals critical for learning and cognitive function.

In August, U.S. authorities first acknowledged that American diplomats and their spouses stationed in Havana, Cuba, had been the targets of puzzling attacks for months. The attacks were carried out by unknown agents and for unknown reasons, using a completely baffling weaponry. The attacks were sometimes marked by bizarrely targeted and piercing noises or vibrations, but other times they were completely imperceptible. Victims complained of a range of symptoms, including dizziness, nausea, headaches, balance problems, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), nosebleeds, difficulty concentrating and recalling words, permanent hearing loss, and speech and vision problems. Doctors have also identified mild brain injuries, including swelling and concussion.

Comment Question (Score 1) 348

by Arkh89 (#55638603) Attached to: Bitcoin Hits $10,000 Because Ceilings Are Just a Construct, Man

Ok, I am not well versed in economics but may be someone here can answer these questions :
With roughly 250B$ market cap between the 4 first crypto-currencies, would a collapse of Bitcoin send significant ripples through the "real" economy?
Do we know how much of this value was really invested in the currencies versus how much comes from the speculation?

Submission + - Intel Recruits AMD RTG Exec Raja Koduri To Head New Visual Computing Group (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Intel just announced that former AMD Radeon Technologies Group SVP, Raja Koduri, would be joining its team to head up a newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group, and as a general manager of a new initiative to drive edge and client visual computing solutions. With Koduri's help, Intel plans to unify and expand its IP across multiple segments including core computing, graphics, media, imaging and machine learning capabilities for the client and data center segments, artificial intelligence, and emerging opportunities. Intel also explicitly stated that it would also expand its strategy to develope and deliver high-end, discrete graphics solutions. This announcement also comes just after Intel revealed it would be employing AMD's Vega GPU architecture in a new mobile processor that will drive high-end graphics performance into smaller, slimmer, and sleeker mobile form factors. With AMD essentially spinning the Radeon Technologies Group into its own entity, Intel now leveraging AMD graphics technology, and a top-level executive like Koduri responsible for said graphics tech switching teams, we have to wonder how the relationship between Intel and AMD's RTG with evolve.

Submission + - Ophelia Became a Major Hurricane Where No Storm Had Before (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The system formerly known as Hurricane Ophelia is moving into Ireland on Monday, bringing "status red" weather throughout the day to the island. The Irish National Meteorological Service, Met Eireann, has warned that, "Violent and destructive gusts of 120 to 150km/h are forecast countrywide, and in excess of these values in some very exposed and hilly areas. There is a danger to life and property." Ophelia transitioned from a hurricane to an extra-tropical system on Sunday, but that only marginally diminished its threat to Ireland and the United Kingdom on Monday, before it likely dissipates near Norway on Tuesday. The primary threat from the system was high winds, with heavy rains. Forecasters marveled at the intensification of Ophelia on Saturday, as it reached Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale and became a major hurricane. For a storm in the Atlantic basin, this is the farthest east that a major hurricane has been recorded during the satellite era of observations. Additionally, it was the farthest north, at 35.9 degrees north, that an Atlantic major hurricane has existed this late in the year since 1939.

Submission + - Tesla Badly Misses Model 3 Production Goals (wsj.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tesla badly missed its goal of building 1,500 Model 3 cars in the third quarter, the first sign that the production ramp-up for the new sedan isn’t going as smoothly as planned. The Silicon Valley electric-car maker built 260 of the Model 3s between July and September, the company said Monday in a statement. In August, the auto maker predicted it would build more than 1,500 Model 3s before cranking up production to 5,000 a week by the end of the fourth quarter. Tesla blamed “production bottlenecks” for the weaker production. “It is important to emphasize that there are no fundamental issues with the Model 3 production or supply chain,” Tesla said in a statement. “We understand what needs to be fixed and we are confident of addressing the manufacturing bottleneck issues in the near-term.”

Submission + - Mystery of Sonic Weapon Attacks At US Embassy In Cuba Deepens (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The blaring, grinding noise jolted the American diplomat from his bed in a Havana hotel. He moved just a few feet, and there was silence. He climbed back into bed. Inexplicably, the agonizing sound hit him again. It was as if he’d walked through some invisible wall cutting straight through his room. Soon came the hearing loss, and the speech problems, symptoms both similar and altogether different from others among at least 21 U.S. victims in an astonishing international mystery still unfolding in Cuba. The top U.S. diplomat has called them “health attacks." New details learned by the Associated Press indicate at least some of the incidents were confined to specific rooms or even parts of rooms with laser-like specificity, baffling U.S. officials who say the facts and the physics don’t add up.

Suspicion initially focused on a sonic weapon, and on the Cubans. Yet the diagnosis of mild brain injury, considered unlikely to result from sound, has confounded the FBI, the state department and U.S. intelligence agencies involved in the investigation. Some victims now have problems concentrating or recalling specific words, several officials said, the latest signs of more serious damage than the U.S. government initially realized. The United States first acknowledged the attacks in August — nine months after symptoms were first reported.

Submission + - ShadowBrokers Releases NSA UNITEDRAKE Manual (schneier.com)

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: The ShadowBrokers released the manual for UNITEDRAKE, a sophisticated NSA Trojan that targets Windows machines:

Able to compromise Windows PCs running on XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, Vista, Windows 7 SP 1 and below, as well as Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, the attack tool acts as a service to capture information.

UNITEDRAKE, described as a "fully extensible remote collection system designed for Windows targets," also gives operators the opportunity to take complete control of a device.

The malware's modules — including FOGGYBOTTOM and GROK — can perform tasks including listening in and monitoring communication, capturing keystrokes and both webcam and microphone usage, the impersonation users, stealing diagnostics information and self-destructing once tasks are completed.

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