pilardi - Slashdot User

Civil Liberties Expert Argues Snowden Was Wrong (usnews.com) 209

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday May 21, 2016 @02:29PM from the changing-your-mind dept.

An anonymous reader writes that in 2014, Geoffrey Stone was given access to America's national security apparatus as a member of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Last week Stone, a staunch civil liberties supporter, moderated a live discussion with Edward Snowden from Russia, and this week he actually praised the NSA in a follow-up interview: "The more I worked with the NSA, the more respect I had for them as far as staying within the bounds of what they were authorized to do. And they were careful and had a high degree of integrity... I came to the view that [the programs] were well intentioned, that they were designed in fact to collect information for the purpose of ferreting out potential terrorist plots both in the U.S. and around the world and that was their design and purpose...

"I don't doubt that Snowden was courageous and did what he did for what he thought were good reasons. But I think he was unduly arrogant, didn't understand the limitations of his own knowledge and basically decided to usurp the authority of a democracy."
Meanwhile, a new documentary about Julian Assange opened at the Cannes film festival this week, revisiting how Wikileaks warned Apple that iTunes could be used as a backdoor for spies to infiltrate computers and phones.

Malvertising Campaign Used a Free Certificate From Let's Encrypt (csoonline.com) 123

Posted by timothy on Thursday January 07, 2016 @10:37AM from the oh-do-let's dept.

itwbennett writes: On Wednesday, Trend Micro wrote that it discovered a cyberattack on Dec. 21 that was designed to install banking malware on computers. The cybercriminals had compromised a legitimate website and set up a subdomain that led to a server under their control, wrote Joseph Chen, a fraud researcher with Trend. The subdomain used an SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security) certificate issued by Let's Encrypt, the first large-scale project to issue free digital certificates. which is run by the ISRG (Internet Security Research Group) and is backed by Mozilla, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cisco, and Akamai, among others. The incident has sparked disagreement over how to deal with such abuse, writes Jeremy Kirk.

USS Enterprise Takes Its Final Voyage 455

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 11, 2012 @02:39PM from the looking-for-nuclear-wessels dept.

westlake writes "The AP is reporting that the world's first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, U.S.S. Enterprise, is to be retired after fifty years of active service — the longest of any warship in U.S. naval history. Its final deployment will take it to the Middle East and last for seven months. The big ship has become notoriously difficult to keep in repair. As an old ship and the only one in its class, breakdowns have become frequent and replacement parts often have to be custom made. Despite its place in naval history and popular culture, Enterprise will meet its end at the scrap yard rather than being preserved at a museum. This is expected to happen in 2015, after the nuclear fuel has been removed."

New NASA Data Casts Doubt On Global Warming Models 954

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 28, 2011 @07:41PM from the but-scientists-love-models dept.

bonch writes "Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere than is assumed in current models. 'There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,' said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama." Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.

Bitcoin Mining Tests On 16 NVIDIA and AMD GPUs 403

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday July 13, 2011 @07:00PM from the mine-faster dept.

Vigile writes "For users that have known about the process of bitcoin mining the obvious tool for the job has been the GPU. Miners have been buying up graphics cards during sales across the web but which GPUs offer the most dollar efficient, power efficient and quickest payoff for the bitcoin currency? A series of tests over at PC Perspective goes through 16 different GPU configurations including older high-end cards through modern low-cost options and even a $1700+ collection with multiple dual-GPU cards installed. The article gives details on how the mining programs work, why GPUs are faster than CPUs inherently and why AMD seems to be so much faster than NVIDIA."

Bitcoin Price Crashes 642

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday June 19, 2011 @06:41PM from the black-bit-sunday dept.

Beardydog writes "Bitcoin trading site MtGox.com has suspended operations for the rest of the day after illicit access to at least one account resulted in a steep drop in the price of Bitcoins on the site. Commenters to the support page for the event are reporting that a list of usernames and associated email addresses and password hashes have been posted online. MtGox are currently planning to roll back all of the day's trading, email notices to all affected users, and require replacement passwords for affected accounts."

Comcast Hounded By Collections Agency 142

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 23, 2011 @05:00PM from the turnabout-is-fair-play dept.

Bob the Super Hamste writes "According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Comcast is being taken to court for non-payment by a bill collection agency it used to collect past-due payments from customers. The suit alleges that Comcast agreed to pay $5 for each account it closed and that for each account the collection agency handled Comcast would pay 33% of the collected funds. The suit is seeking $314,210 for account cancellations and estimates Comcast owes them $50,000 for delinquent funds collected."

Comment Re:I'll hold out (Score 1) 232

by pilardi on Thursday March 04, 2010 @12:57PM (#31359426) Attached to: Privacy With a 4096 Bit RSA Key — Offline, On Paper

The point still stands that you were confusing symmetric and asymmetric keys. The largest RSA symmetric key that has been cracked is 64 bits, and that took ten years of an organized distributed process. Even taking Moore's law into account, 128bit keys will be secure for about 100 years. Only an unexpected breakthrough (such as quantum computing or discovered serious flaw in the algorithm) would speed that up.

NASA's Cashflow Problem Puts Moon Trip In Doubt 357

Posted by kdawson on Friday August 14, 2009 @01:14PM from the as-for-mars-talk-to-the-hand dept.

krou writes "According to the Guardian, the Augustine panel is going to declare that there is simply no money to go back to the moon, and the next-generation Ares I rocket is likely to be scrapped unless there is more funding. The $81B Constellation Program's long-term goal of putting a human on Mars is almost certainly not going to be possible by the middle of the century. The options outlined by the panel for the future of NASA 'are to extend the working life of the aging space shuttle fleet beyond next year's scheduled retirement until 2015, while developing a cheaper transport to the moon; pressing ahead with Constellation as quickly as existing funding allows; or creating a new, larger rocket that would allow exploration of the solar system while bypassing the moon.' All of this means that NASA won't be back on the moon before the end of the next decade as hoped, 'or even leaving lower Earth orbit for at least another two decades.' Another result of the monetary black hole is that they don't have the '$300m to expand a network of telescopes and meet the government's target of identifying, by 2020, at least 90% of the giant space rocks that pose a threat to Earth.'"

High Court Allows Remote-Storage DVR System 112

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 29, 2009 @09:36PM from the score-one-for-the-cable-guy dept.

Immutate and several other readers noted that Cablevision will be allowed to go ahead with deploying a remote-storage DVR system, when the US Supreme Court declined (without comment) to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that went against movie studios and TV networks. (We discussed this case a few months back.) "Cable TV operators won a key legal battle against Hollywood studios and television networks on Monday as the Supreme Court declined to block a new digital video recording system that could make it even easier for viewers to bypass commercials. The justices declined to hear arguments on whether Cablevision Systems Corp.'s remote-storage DVR system would violate copyright laws. That allows the... company to proceed with plans to start deploying the technology this summer."

The Flying Giant Is 40 Years Old 366

Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 10, 2009 @01:55PM from the ah-nostalgia dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "Four decades ago, Boeing's prototype 747 took to the skies over Washington State for a 75-minute flight that helped bring cheap airline travel to millions of people and would remain the world's largest commercial aircraft for 37 years until the advent of the double-decker Airbus A380. What made the 747 unique was that it was the first 'wide body' aircraft with more than one aisle — a big step towards reducing the sense of traveling in a narrow tube, and inducing a sense more equivalent to flying in a large room with high ceilings. But back in the 1960s, convincing people that the 747 would fly was a tough call. Joe Sutter, the director of engineering on the project, even spent an hour with Charles Lindbergh, going over all the data to prove that the jumbo would not flip over or become unstable at high speeds. Boeing has sold more than 1,400 jumbos in the past four decades, worth, at today's prices, more than $350 billion and although we might complain of traveling in 'cattle class' we have the 747 to thank for being able to do so at affordable prices."

MIT Researchers Create a Cheap "6th Sense" Device 125

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 05, 2009 @07:17PM from the it-will-tickle-your-fancy-if-you-tell-it-to dept.

thefickler writes "MIT researchers have combined a mobile projector with a webcam and mobile phone to create a device that draws information from the environment. For example, the gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information. The sixth-sense device was cobbled together from common parts costing just $300. While the gadget is not being primed for mass release, it represents a forward-thinking way of blending technology with our environment."

Obama Sides With Bush In Spy Case 906

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 23, 2009 @03:59PM from the disappointment-for-civil-liberties dept.

palegray.net is one of many who writes "President Obama has publicly sided with the Bush administration on the question of whether the President should be allowed to establish warrantless wiretapping programs designed to monitor US citizens. The President has asked a federal judge to stay a ruling that would allow key evidence into the domestic spying case against the government. 'Thursday's filing by the Obama administration marked the first time it officially lodged a court document in the lawsuit asking the courts to rule on the constitutionality of the Bush administration's warrantless-eavesdropping program.'" jamie points out that Obama's views and opinions were made clear through his Senate vote and numerous public statements, but many others see this as a disappointing start to an administration promising transparency and openness.

Comment Not significant (Score 1) 222

by pilardi on Thursday January 22, 2009 @12:08AM (#26556189) Attached to: Fujitsu To Show Off "Zero-Watt" PC At CeBIT

My computer uses 3w in standby. That corresponds to 2kWh/month. Which costs about 40cents. It's not worth that much effort to save 40cents/month.

Overall, I average 400w at home (~300kWh/month). Using a zero-watt standby computer would reduce my power consumption by less than 1%. That is not very significant.

I can see how this might help for business that have lots of computer, but in most cases, those companies don't even put their computers in standby when not in use currently, so a zero-watt standby mode won't help them either.

There are much better ways of saving power, like encouraging companies to put desktops in standby when not is use for any length of time. That would save much more than 3w per computer.

Flying Car Ready To Take Off 315

Posted by timothy on Monday January 12, 2009 @07:42AM from the fill-up-on-windshield-fluid-please dept.

ChazeFroy writes "The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds, is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months' time. Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank of unleaded petrol at a cruising speed of 115mph. Even at $200,000 per automobile, they have already received 40 orders."

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