Cognitive Dissident - Slashdot User

Submission + - New Linux Vulnerability (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Cognitive Dissident on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @09:39AM

Cognitive Dissident writes: Ars Technical is reporting a major new vulnerability in Linux. Named "Dirty Pipeline" it involves abuse of 'pipes' at the shell level as you might guess.

The name Dirty Pipe is meant to both signal similarities to Dirty Cow and provide clues about the new vulnerability's origins. "Pipe" refers to a pipeline, a Linux mechanism for one OS process to send data to another process. In essence, a pipeline is two or more processes that are chained together so that the output text of one process (stdout) is passed directly as input (stdin) to the next one. Tracked as CVE-2022-0847, the vulnerability came to light when a researcher for website builder CM4all was troubleshooting a series of corrupted files that kept appearing on a customer's Linux machine. After months of analysis, the researcher finally found that the customer's corrupted files were the result of a bug in the Linux kernel.

Submission + - Autism associated with shorter lifespan according to UK charity study

Submitted by Cognitive Dissident on Sunday March 20, 2016 @07:12PM

Cognitive Dissident writes: It's only one study, but the results are disturbing. An article in The Guardian describes a study by the UK charity Autistica showing that all people on the autism spectrum, not just the profoundly autistic, seem to be dying much younger than the average. There is no single definable cause, though a higher rate of suicide is one problem, but the aggregate result is a much higher mortality rate than the general population. There is no single cause, but a higher rate of suicide is noted. "Autistic people with no learning disabilities are nine times more likely to die from suicide compared to the rest of the population, the report states." Looks like something that needs more attention and research, which the charity is trying to organize.

Submission + - 18th Century Law dredged up to force decryption of devices (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Cognitive Dissident on Tuesday December 02, 2014 @12:15PM

Cognitive Dissident writes: The Register has a story about federal prosecutors using a law signed by George Washington to force manufacturers to help law enforcement access encrypted data on devices they manufacture. The All Writs Act is a broad statute simply authorizing courts to issue any order necessary to obtain information within their jurisdiction.

Quoting the Register Article:
Last month, New York prosecutors successfully persuaded a judge that the ancient law could be used to force an unnamed smartphone manufacturer to help unlock a phone allegedly used in a credit card fraud case. The judge ordered the manufacturer to offer "reasonable technical assistance" to make the phone's contents available.

End quote. What will happen when this collides with Apple and Google deliberately creating encryption that they themselves cannot break?

Submission + - New analysis shows dinosaurs not as heavy as previously believed. (discovery.com)

Submitted by Cognitive Dissident on Wednesday June 06, 2012 @03:53PM

Cognitive Dissident writes: Discovery.com has an article on a new study using computer modeling to estimate the actual amount of flesh needed to cover the skeletons of dinosaurs. Based on a comparison with modern animals, it indicates that these animals could have weighed dramatically less than has been previously estimated. "A huge Brachiosaur, once thought to weigh 176,370 pounds, is now believed to have weighed 50,706 pounds." That's only about two-and-a-half times the weight of a modern African elephant. If other evidence can be reconciled with this, many estimates of the ecosystems dinosaurs lived in will also have to be revised.

Submission + - Monsanto's Harvest of Fear (vanityfair.com)

Submitted by

Cognitive Dissident

on Sunday April 13, 2008 @08:35PM

Cognitive Dissident writes: "Intellectual property thuggery is not restricted to the IT and entertainment industries. The May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair carries a major feature article on the mafiaa-like tactics of Monsanto in its pursuit of total domination of various facets of agribusiness. First in GM seeds with its "Roundup Ready" crops designed to sell more of its Roundup herbicide, and more recently in milk production with rBGH designed to squeeze more milk out of individual cows, Monsanto has been resorting to increasingly over-the-top tactics to prevent what it sees as infringement or misrepresentation of its biotechnology. As with other forms of IP tyranny, the point is not really to help the public but to consolidate corporate power.
Quotes: 'Some compare Monsanto's hard-line approach to Microsoft's zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto's seeds can't even do that.' and '"I don't know of a company that chooses to sue its own customer base," says Joseph Mendelson, of the Center for Food Safety. "It's a very bizarre business strategy." But it's one that Monsanto manages to get away with, because increasingly it's the dominant vendor in town.' Sound familiar?"

Submission + - Understanding burnout

Submitted by

Cognitive Dissident

on Tuesday December 05, 2006 @05:40PM

Cognitive Dissident writes: "New York Magazine has put a feature story online about the growing phenomenon of 'burnout' and the growing interest of both healthcare professionals and even corporate management in this problem. IT Professionals and other geeks can surely recognize the aptness of the title: "Can't Get No Satisfaction: In a culture where work can be a religion, burnout is its crisis of faith."

Probably the most surprising thing learned from reading this article is that work load is not the best predictor of burnout. Instead it has more to do with perceived 'return on investment' of effort. So work places are having to learn to adjust the work environment to reduce or prevent burnout.

"It's kind of like ergonomics," she finally says. "It used to be, 'You sit for work? Here's a chair.' But now we design furniture to fit and support the body. And we're doing the same here. The environments themselves have to say, 'We want people to thrive and grow.' There was a shift, finally, in how people understood the question."

NPR's Talk of the Nation also had a recent feature story based on this article."

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