59657859
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
"Did you enjoy your flight, Dr Heywood Floyd?" Boeing unveiled a new concept for the cabin of a future commercial spaceliner, based on the blue-lit Boeing "Sky" interior of the company's modern airliners, as well as work on the company's CST-100 space capsule. "Provided there is a destination for them out there, how will that passenger want to go back and forth?'" said Chris Ferguson, a former astronaut who commanded NASA's final space shuttle mission in 2011 and now serves as Boeing's director of crew and mission operations for the commercial crew program. Boeing developed the CST-100 capsule to compete for NASA’s space station crew launch business after the agency retired its space shuttle fleet. The capsule is designed to launch on an expendable Atlas 5 rocket. NASA will be selecting one or more companies in August of this year, with the aim of reaching flight operations in 2017.
58616875
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
The US Navy's new railgun technology, developed by General Atomics, uses Lorentz force in a type of linear, electric motor to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7 — excess 5000 MpH. The weapon has a range of 100 miles and doesn’t require explosive warheads. "The electromagnetic railgun represents an incredible new offensive capability for the U.S. Navy," says Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, the Navy’s chief engineer. "This capability will allow us to effectively counter a wide range of threats at a relatively low cost, while keeping our ships and sailors safer by removing the need to carry as many high-explosive weapons." Sea trials begin aboard an experimental Navy catamaran, the USNS Millinocket, in 2016.
51859057
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Rapture of the Nerds co-author Charlie Stross hates Microsoft Word, worse than you do. Best of all, he can articulate the many structural faults of Word that make his loathing both understandable and contagious. "Steve Jobs approached Bill Gates... to organize the first true WYSIWYG word processor for a personal computer -- ...should it use control codes, or hierarchical style sheets? In the end, the decree went out: Word should implement both formatting paradigms. Even though they're fundamentally incompatible... Word was in fact broken by design, from the outset — and it only got worse from there."
Can Free Software do any better, than to imitate the broken Microsoft model? Does document formatting even matter this much, versus content?
49031917
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
After signing a $30 million iPad deal with Apple in June, the Los Angeles School Board of Education has revealed the full extent of the program that will provide tablets to all students in the district. CiteWorld reports that the first phase of the program will see pupils receive 31,000 iPads this school year, rising to 640,000 Apple tablets by the end of 2014. Apple previously announced that the initiative would include 47 campuses and commence in the fall.
46189601
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Bruce Schneier, security expert (and rational voice in the wilderness), explains in an editorial on CNN, why "Connecting the Dots" is a "Hindsight Bias". In heeding calls to increase the amount of surveillance data gathered and shared, agencies like the FBI have impaired their ability to discover actual threats, while guaranteeing erosion of personal and civil freedom. "Piling more data onto the mix makes it harder, not easier. The best way to think of it is a needle-in-a-haystack problem; the last thing you want to do is increase the amount of hay you have to search through. The television show 'Person of Interest' is fiction, not fact."
45978945
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur. "The importance to us is pretty clear," says Andrew Weissmann, the FBI’s general counsel. "We don’t have the ability to go to court and say, 'We need a court order to effectuate the intercept.' Other countries have that." Under the draft proposal, a court could levy a series of escalating fines, starting at tens of thousands of dollars, on firms that fail to comply with wiretap orders, according to persons who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "This proposal is a non-starter that would drive innovators overseas and cost American jobs," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "They might as well call it the Cyber Insecurity and Anti-Employment Act."
42571531
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Blogger Adam Howard, at Port3000, has a post about Google's exposure of thousands of publicly accessible printers. "A quick, well crafted Google search returns "About 86,800 results" for publically accessible HP printers." He continues, "There's something interesting about being able to print to a random location around the world, with no idea of the consequence." He also warns about these printers as a possible beachhead for deeper network intrusion and exploitation. With many of the HP printers in question containing a web listener and a highly vulnerable and unpatched JVM, I agree that this is not an exotic idea. In the meanwhile? I have an important memo for all Starbucks employees. ;-)
42442021
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Researchers with the European Food Safety Authority discovered variants of the Cauliflower mosaic virus 35S in the most widely harvested varieties of genetically-modified crops, including Monsanto's RoundupReady Soy and Maze. According to researchers, Podevin and du Jardin, the particular "Gene IV" is responsible for a number of possible consequences that could affect human health, including inhibition of RNA silencing and production of proteins with known toxicity. The EFSA is endorsing "retrospective risk assessment" of CaMV promoter and its Gene VI sequences — in an attempt to give it a clean bill of health. It is unknown if the presence of the hidden viral genes were the result of laboratory contamination or a possible recombinant product of the resultant organism. There are serious implications for the production of GMO for foodstuffs, given either possibility.
36253439
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
The Electronic Privacy Information Center posted a brief and detailed notice about the removal of a petition regarding security screenings by the TSA at US airports and other locations.
At approximately 11:30 am EDT, the White House removed a petition about the TSA airport screening procedures from the White House "We the People" website. About 22,500 of the 25,000 signatures necessary for a response from the Administration were obtained when the White House unexpectedly cut short the time period for the petition. The site also went down for "maintenance" following an article in Wired that sought support for the campaign.
35444595
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
WalMart — the retail king of Big Data analytics — will be meeting Mark Zuckerberg for two days in Bentonville, to "deepen" their relationship with Facebook. The CEO-level strategy summit is intended to bolster the relationship between the world's No. 1 social network and the world's largest retailer. WalMart has been left in the dust online, by the behemoth Amazon. An alliance may be poised to challenge this dominance, particularly in light of Amazon's planned foray into same-day delivery, nationwide. The companies share James Breyer, who sits on the boards of both Facebook and Wal-Mart. Adding another angle to this, Yahoo's new CEO Marissa Mayer was elected to Wal-Mart's board in early June, while she was still at Google. Earlier this month, Facebook and Yahoo settled a patent dispute and announced plans to form another "strategic alliance" involving advertising and distribution. The implications for online privacy in this series of relationships are uncertain.
32010011
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
While conducting investigative reporting on civilian contractors in the Pentagon's "InfoOps" Internet propaganda operations, two reporters found themselves the subject of a highly targeted, professional media manipulation effort. Reporter Tom Vanden Brook and Editor Ray Locker found that Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created in their names, along with a Wikipedia entry and dozens of message board postings and blog comments. Websites were registered in their names. Some postings merely copied Vanden Brook's and Locker's previous reporting. Others accused them of being sponsored by the Taliban. "I find it creepy and cowardly that somebody would hide behind my name and presumably make up other names in an attempt to undermine my credibility," Vanden Brook said. If these websites were created using federal funds, it could violate federal law prohibiting the production of propaganda for domestic consumption.
31923455
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Khosrow Zarefarid warned of the security flaw in Iran’s banking system providing affected institutions of the details, including 1,000 captured bank accounts. When the affected banks, including the largest state institutions didn’t respond, Khosrow then hacked 3 million accounts across at least 22 banks. He then dropped these details — including card numbers and PINs — on his blog: ircard.blogspot.ca. Three Iranian banks Saderat, Eghtesad Novin, and Saman have already warned customers to change their debit card PINs. "Zarefarid is reportedly no longer in Iran, though it is unclear when he left."
31643455
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Dmitry Rybolovlev bought the most expensive apartment ever sold in New York City — the $88 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West — did much for local real estate values. But in Berezniki, the mining city where he made his fortune, properties have literally been plunging. "Imagine putting a sugar cube in a cup of tea," Mikhail A. Permyakov, the chief land surveyor for Uralkali, the company that owns the mine. "That is what happened under Berezniki." Berezniki is afflicted by sinkholes, hundreds of feet deep that can open at a moment's notice. So grave is the danger that the entire city is under 24-hour video surveillance. In 2008 a government commission cleared Mr. Rybolovlev of wrongdoing, blaming past unsafe practices for the sinkholes. A senior official close to Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin says that Mr. Rybolovlev bears some responsibility, even though he sold the mine after the occurrence of the first great openings.
28554815
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
Reporters Without Borders released its 2011 — 2012 global Press Freedom Index. The indicators for press freedom in the U.S. are dramatic, with a downward movement from 27th to 47th in the global ranking, from the previous year. Much of this is corellated directly to the arrest and incarceration of American journalists covering the "Occupy" protest movements in New York and across the country. "This is especially troubling as we head into an election year which is sure to spark new conflicts between police and press covering rallies, protests and political events." Only Chile, who dropped from 33 to 80, joined the U.S. in falling over 100% of their previous ranking. Similarly, Chile was downgraded for "freedom of information violations committed by the security forces during student protests."
22209362
submission
Jeremiah Cornelius writes:
According to a report by the Associated Press, protesters have been stopped in their tracks after Facebook aided Israel in cracking down on the group of activists from the UK, France and Belgium who planned their event using the popular social networking site. Facebook allowed government agents to track the activists activities and then create a black-list of people who participated in the planning of the protests. The black-listed group was then forwarded to airlines with instructions to prevent the activists from boarding air flights to Israel. Over 200 activists were prevented from flying after being added to the airlines terrorism watch list, according the the AP report. Was Julian Assange correct, when he warned that Facebook was a giant, 'appalling spy machine'?
