Xavyor - Slashdot User

Submission + - 12 Days in Xinjiang - China's surveillance state (wsj.com)

Submitted by b0s0z0ku on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @10:39AM

b0s0z0ku writes: China has turned Xinjiang, the Northwestern part of the country surrounding Urumqi, into one of the most advanced surveillance states in the world. Officially, the purpose is to prevent terrorism and control resistance to the government in one of the few parts of China where ethnic Chinese are a minority.

From routine use of facial recognition cameras, to police checkpoints where people's cell phones randomly are checked for unauthorized software, to needing to swipe an ID card and be photographed to buy gasoline and other necessities, the level of technology — and control — is frightening and awe-inspiring.

Submission + - Republican Lawmaker Introduces Net Neutrality Legislation (variety.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @09:15PM

An anonymous reader writes: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) introduced net neutrality legislation on Tuesday that prohibits internet providers from blocking and throttling content, but does not address whether ISPs can create so-called “fast lanes” of traffic for sites willing to pay for it. The legislation also would require that ISPs disclose their terms of service, and ensure that federal law preempts any state efforts to establish rules of the road for internet traffic. “A lot of our innovators are saying, ‘Let’s go with things we have agreement on, and other things can be addressed later,'” Blackburn told Variety. She said that she was “very hopeful” about the prospects for the legislation because “an open internet and preserving that open internet is what people want to see happen. Let’s preserve it. Let’s nail it down. Let’s stop the ping-ponging from one FCC commission to another. This is something where the Congress should act.” Blackburn chairs a House subcommittee on communications and technology.

Submission + - Oumuamua Appears To Be Wrapped In An Organic Insulation Layer (theguardian.com)

Submitted by dryriver on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @07:32PM

dryriver writes: Oumuamua is the cigar shaped object — about 400m long and only 40m in the other dimensions — that originated from somewhere else in the Galaxy and visited our Solar system while moving at nearly 130,000 MPH. Scientists do not know where Oumuamua came from or what it is made of — it is not shaped like commonly seen asteroids, and unlike comets, it does not leave a trail behind it, not even when it flew past the Sun. Oumuamua seems to be wrapped in a strange organic coat made of carbon-rich gunk that it likely picked up on its long travels through space. The coat, which gives Oumuamua a dark red appearance according to scientists, was examined by using spectroscopy, which looks at the light being reflected from its surface and splits it down into its wavelengths. By looking at those measurements, scientists can work out what the object might be composed of. Scientists regard it as likely that Oumuamua may be of icy composition on the inside, but that the ice doesn't come off the object due to the thick organic crust that is wrapped around it. Oumuamua has also got extraterrestrials watchers excited. Some believe that its strange, long shape suggests that it is a spaceship of some sort passing through our Solar system. Whatever Oumuamua turns out to be, it certainly has researchers and space watchers around the world fascinated and puzzled at the same time.

Comment Re:Drive-throughs (Score 1) 435

by Xavyor on Tuesday May 12, 2015 @01:34PM (#49675065) Attached to: Will Robot Cars Need Windows?

I've been on a plane where a passenger noticed a brown liquid leaking from the engine just prior to take-off. They pressed the button and alerted the flight attendant who passed it to the pilot. We turned around and went back so that the mechanics could take a look at it. It turned out to be normal condensation draining properly but they did receive the message and act on it.

Comment Re:Restaurant (Score 1) 731

by Xavyor on Tuesday February 11, 2014 @01:19PM (#46219009) Attached to: Death Hovers Politely For Americans' Swipe-and-Sign Credit Cards

In Europe, most restaurants have a mobile reader that the server will bring to the table. You complete the transaction using that and never lose sight of your card.

Submission + - Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations (phoronix.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun on Monday August 09, 2010 @06:24PM

suraj.sun writes: Canonical Begins Tracking Ubuntu Installations, On a Daily Basis

Just uploaded to the Ubuntu Lucid repository for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (and we imagine it will appear shortly in Maverick too for Ubuntu 10.10) is a new package called canonical-census, which marks its initial release. Curious about what this package provides, we did some digging and found it's for tracking Ubuntu installations by sending an "I am alive" ping to Canonical on a daily basis.

When the canonical-census package is installed, the program is to be added to the daily Cron jobs to be executed so that each day it will report to Canonical over HTTP the number of times this system previously sent to Canonical (this counter is stored locally and with it running on a daily basis it's thereby indicating how many days the Ubuntu installation has been active), the Ubuntu distributor channel, the product name as acquired by the system's DMI information, and which Ubuntu release is being used. That's all that canonical-census does, at least for now. Previously there haven't been such Ubuntu tracking measures attempted by Canonical.

Phoronix: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODQ5MA

Comment Air Force IDEA program (Score 3, Informative) 281

by Xavyor on Friday February 13, 2009 @04:45PM (#26848975) Attached to: How To Encourage Workers To Suggest Innovation?

The US Air Force has the IDEA program that allows anyone who works for them suggest changes to anything. If that change ends up saving money, they cut a check for a percentage of that savings to the person/group who submitted the change.

Submission + - Controversial security paper nixed from Black Hat (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Thursday June 28, 2007 @10:15AM

coondoggie writes: "A presentation scheduled for Black Hat USA 2007 that promised to undermine chip-based desktop and laptop security has been suddenly withdrawn without explanation. The briefing, "TPMkit: Breaking the Legend of [Trusted Computing Group's Trusted Platform Module] and Vista (BitLocker)," promised to show how computer security based on trusted platform module (TPM) hardware could be circumvented. "We will be demonstrating how to break TPM," Nitin and Vipin Kumar said in their abstract for their talk that was posted on the Black Hat Web site but was removed overnight Monday. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/062707-black -hat.html"

Submission + - Manners maketh man.

Submitted by akintayo on Sunday April 08, 2007 @10:37PM

akintayo writes: The New York Times reports that in response to the recent brouhaha, some technology bloggers have suggested raising the level of civility on tech blogs by implementing a code of conduct. Kathy Sierra, a technology blogger and friend of O'Reilly was subjected to threats and insults from readers and other bloggers. In partial response, O'Reilly and others have proposed a code of conduct which could include restrictions like the outlawing of anonymous accounts.

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