pushf popf - Slashdot User

Cloudflare Launches a Low-Cost Domain Registrar, Which Will Also Offer Free Privacy To Customers (arstechnica.com) 122

Posted by msmash on Sunday September 30, 2018 @07:30PM from the marching-forward dept.

Cloudflare, which is celebrating its eighth birthday has announced yet another service: an at-cost domain registrar. From a report: While Cloudflare had already been handling domain registration through the company's Enterprise Registrar service, that service was intended for some of Cloudflare's high-end customers who wanted extra levels of security for their domain names. The new domain registrar business -- called Cloudflare Registrar -- will eventually be open to anyone, and it will charge exactly what it costs for Cloudflare to register a domain. As Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince wrote in a blog post this week, "We promise to never charge you anything more than the wholesale price each TLD charges." That includes the small fee assessed by ICANN for each registration.

Prince said that he was motivated to take the company into the registrar business because of Cloudflare's own experience with registrars and by the perception that many registrars are in the business mostly to up-sell things that require no additional effort. "All the registrar does is record you as the owner of a particular domain," Prince said. "That just involves sending some commands to an API. In other words, domain registrars are charging you for being a middle-man and delivering essentially no value to justify their markup." Charging overhead for that sort of service, Prince said, "seemed as nutty to us as certificate authorities charging to run a bit of math." (Cloudflare also provides free SSL certificates.)

Comment When you're right, you're right. (Score 5, Interesting) 560

by pushf popf on Friday September 21, 2018 @11:24AM (#57354492) Attached to: 'It Just Seems That Nobody is Interested in Building Quality, Fast, Efficient, Lasting, Foundational Stuff Anymore'

Nobody has a clue anymore whether they're building on a poured concrete foundation or a bag of cats.

Submission + - Amazon Plants Fake Packages In Delivery Trucks As Part of Undercover Ploy (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20, 2018 @05:19PM

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon uses fake packages to catch delivery drivers who are stealing, according to sources with knowledge of the practice. The company plants the packages — internally referred to as "dummy" packages — in the trucks of drivers at random. The dummy packages have fake labels and are often empty.

Here's how the practice works, according to the sources: During deliveries, drivers scan the labels of every package they deliver. When they scan a fake label on a dummy package, an error message will pop up. When this happens, drivers might call their supervisors to address the problem, or keep the package in their truck and return it to an Amazon warehouse at the end of their shift. Drivers, in theory, could also choose to steal the package. The error message means the package isn't detected in Amazon's system. As a result, it could go unnoticed if the package were to go missing. "If you bring the package back, you are innocent. If you don't, you're a thug," said Sid Shah, a former manager for DeliverOL, a courier company that delivers packages for Amazon.

Comment Up Next, "The Hand Cranked Car Awards!" (Score 1) 93

by pushf popf on Tuesday September 18, 2018 @03:21PM (#57336696) Attached to: Emmys: Broadcast TV Airs Its Own Funeral As Netflix, HBO, Amazon and FX Dominate

I have a TV antenna.

Just for grins I switched to broadcast TV a few weeks ago. For about 30 seconds.

Someone should put them out of my misery.

Adobe's Next Major Creative Cloud Release Won't Support Older OSes (petapixel.com) 308

Posted by BeauHD on Friday August 31, 2018 @03:00AM from the decisions-decisions dept.

nehumanuscrede writes: Adobe ruffled a lot of feathers when they decided to cease selling their standalone products and go subscription only. While a lot of folks complained, it doesn't seem to have had much (if any) of a negative impact on Adobe financially. Now, according to PetaPixel, Adobe is poised to cease support for older operating systems by depriving those users of upgrades and updates beyond the cut-off date, even though those users are paying customers (and have been for years). I'm curious if those impacted will upgrade to the more modern OS, or simply find an alternative to Adobe software (paid or otherwise).

Personally, I'm still rocking Windows 7 because, in my opinion, there isn't anything wrong with it. So, in the near future, it seems I'm going to have a choice to make: Drop my Creative Cloud subscription, upgrade to an OS I absolutely loathe like Windows 10, or continue paying full price for apps that will cease receiving updates (which was Adobe's whole argument for going with the subscription method in the first place so folks will always have the latest updated software). What are your thoughts? "Your Windows won't be supported if you haven't upgraded beyond the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (v1607) that was released to the public on August 2, 2016," reports PetaPixel. "And if you're on a Mac, you won't be supported if you haven't upgraded beyond Mac OS 10.11 (El Capitan), which was released on September 30, 2015."

Is Your Email Address Holding You Back? (wsj.com) 354

Posted by msmash on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @04:31PM from the keep-in-mind dept.

Whether you're freelancing or on the job hunt, don't let a poorly conceived online handle limit your career prospects A quick glance at any group email confirms what recruiters and hiring managers know too well: Not everyone sheds their adolescent email addresses when they enter adulthood, instead maintaining allegiance to digital monikers based on the music, videogames and contraband they once held dear. From a report: Though rebranding yourself online can be a pain (as those who've been through the ordeal of changing their contact info know), the practice is often better for your career trajectory, said Chris Swanson, a career and college counselor at Bremerton High School in Washington state. "It's just like the idea that a handshake and eye contact makes a good impression. That's the first thing that comes across someone's desk." Even so, many Americans still use curious handles for professional exchanges, either by virtue of inertia or nostalgia or because they've never had an employer-issued handle and don't know any better -- they only know Dave Matthews rules.

[...] It might be ironic to send missives from @aol.com, but it doesn't suggest an exceedingly tech-savvy candidate. Actually, "It weirds me out," said Ms. Moore. "Why are you still using AOL? Gmail is definitely the winner." Don't even get her started on Hotmail. When updating a resume it's a good time to evaluate if an email address seems dated, especially if applying for a tech gig.

As PHP 5.6, Still Used By a Large Number of Websites, Approaches Its End of Life Deadline, Some Worry About the Consequences (linkedin.com) 151

Posted by msmash on Thursday August 23, 2018 @11:20AM from the ticking-time-bomb dept.

An anonymous reader writes: I know PHP isn't to some devs liking, but chances are you know people who work with PHP or have sites that are built with it. PHP 5.6 and 7.0 are shortly coming to the end of the support period for security patches, so what plans have you made to migrate code and sites to newer platforms? With apparently huge numbers (80%) of sites still running PHP 5.6, there appears to be little industry acknowledgement of the issue. Is there a ticking PHP Time Bomb waiting to go off?

Spyware Company Leaves 'Terabytes' of Selfies, Text Messages, and Location Data (vice.com) 58

Posted by msmash on Thursday August 23, 2018 @10:40AM from the privacy-woes dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Spyfone, a company that sells surveillance software to parents and employers left 'terabytes of data' including photos, audio recordings, text messages and web history, exposed in a poorly-protected Amazon S3 bucket. News outlet Motherboard verified that the researcher could access anyone's data by creating a free account and installing the spyware on a test device. After a few hours, the researcher sent me back a picture I took.

New Study Finds It's Harder To Turn Off a Robot When It's Begging For Its Life (theverge.com) 327

Posted by BeauHD on Friday August 03, 2018 @09:00AM from the soft-spot-for-circuitry dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: [A] recent experiment by German researchers demonstrates that people will refuse to turn a robot off if it begs for its life. In the study, published in the open access journal PLOS One, 89 volunteers were recruited to complete a pair of tasks with the help of Nao, a small humanoid robot. The participants were told that the tasks (which involved answering a series of either / or questions, like "Do you prefer pasta or pizza?"; and organizing a weekly schedule) were to improve Nao's learning algorithms. But this was just a cover story, and the real test came after these tasks were completed, and scientists asked participants to turn off the robot. In roughly half of experiments, the robot protested, telling participants it was afraid of the dark and even begging: "No! Please do not switch me off!" When this happened, the human volunteers were likely to refuse to turn the bot off. Of the 43 volunteers who heard Nao's pleas, 13 refused. And the remaining 30 took, on average, twice as long to comply compared to those who did not not hear the desperate cries at all.

New York Threatens To Kick Charter Out of State After Broadband Failures (arstechnica.com) 83

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday July 26, 2018 @05:40PM from the taking-a-stand dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Charter Communications could lose its authorization to operate in New York State because of its failure to meet merger-related broadband deployment commitments, a key government official said. NY Public Service Commission (PSC) Chairman John Rhodes said that "a suite of enforcement actions against [Charter] Spectrum are in development, including additional penalties, injunctive relief, and additional sanctions or revocation of Spectrum's ability to operate in New York State," according to a PSC announcement last week. Charter agreed to expand its network in exchange for state approval of its 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable (TWC). New York officials say that Charter has failed to meet its commitments, even though Charter claims it has. Rhodes accused Charter of "gaslighting" and noted that the PSC has already ordered Charter to stop making misleading claims about its broadband deployment progress. The PSC last month ordered Charter to pay a $2 million fine and complete the promised network construction. If Charter doesn't meet its merger-related obligations, the company will "face the risk of having the merger revoked," the commission said at the time. A revocation of the merger could force Charter to spin off its Time Warner Cable division in New York, but it wouldn't affect Charter's ownership of TWC in other states.

Sprint Follows Rivals By Complicating Its Unlimited Mobile Data Plans (fortune.com) 55

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday July 12, 2018 @09:25PM from the everybody-else-is-doing-it dept.

Sprint on Thursday unveiled a new, more complicated lineup of unlimited mobile data plans. Sprint goes from having one plan starting at $60 per month to four different options costing $50 to $70 a month. "The main price hike hits customers who want to watch streaming video at HD quality instead of being reduced to DVD quality," reports Fortune. From the report: A new "Unlimited Plus" plan most resembles the carrier's current one, with subscribers allowed to use up to 15 GB monthly before experiencing slowed download speeds, receiving HD-quality streaming video, and getting free Hulu and Tidal subscriptions. It costs $70 for one line, rising to $180 for four lines. But Sprint also added a "limited time" promotion that cuts the price to $50 to $100 per month for customers who buy a new phone or bring their own device. A cheaper "unlimited basic" plan, starting at $60 for one line and up to $140 for four lines, slows downloads to 3G speeds after just 500 MB, downgrades streaming to DVD-quality, and offers just a Hulu subscription, but no Tidal account.

Although consumers no longer get cut off or have to pay expensive overage charges when they run through a monthly data allowance, they face an increasing array of restrictions and conditions on all but the most expensive unlimited plans, including slowed download speeds. Sprint's four-page press release announcing the new plans included 11 footnotes, signaling just how complicated they are.

Game Company Fires Two Employees Who Complained About 'Mansplaining' on Twitter (theverge.com) 1056

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday July 08, 2018 @03:34AM from the antisocial-media dept.

An anonymous reader quotes the Verge: On July 3rd, narrative designer Jessica Price tweeted a 29-tweet thread dissecting the challenges of writing player characters in an MMORPG. A streamer who goes by Deroir responded, "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly," and shared a three-tweet explanation of how narrative design influences player expression in the sort of games that Price narratively designs. Price both replied directly to Deroir, tweeting "thanks for trying to tell me what we do internally, my dude," and retweeted his response with the caption "today in being a female game dev: 'Allow me -- a person who does not work with you -- to explain to you how you do your job....'"

Price's suggestion that Deroir was mansplaining game development -- an area where he does not have the same knowledge or experience -- sparked anger among the ArenaNet community. She subsequently responded to those criticizing her on Twitter. [Here's the first lines of that tweet. "Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I'm not on the clock here. I'm not your emotional courtesan just because I'm a dev. Don't expect me to pretend to like you here. The attempts of fans to exert ownership over our personal lives and times are something I am hardcore about stopping."] Price was fired shortly after. Although many fans are comparing this to something like working in a restaurant -- be polite to the customer, or get fired -- Price says it's impossible to talk about this incident without larger context about systematic online harassment, particularly the sometimes abusive relationship between fans and game developers and the failure of game companies to address it. "Game companies are generally unwilling to be honest with themselves about how they're complicit in creating and sustaining that environment," she tells The Verge...

Price adds that she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O'Brien. "He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me," she says. "I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it -- and we do, regularly -- so can he...."

"We can probably fire anyone on the GW2 dev team as long we make a big enough stink," wrote one user on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. "Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We're literally running the company now..." UPDATE (7/12/18): That user eventually clarified that their remark was satirical, identifying themself as an angry Reddit user who felt powerless and "surrounded by individuals who are so thoughtless and shitty I was hoping I'd appeal to some sort of sense of decency by writing the most vile shit I could think of... I took it down because I realized that nobody was going to disagree with me."
ArenaNet also fired Peter Fries, a writer who'd worked for them for 12 years, apparently for defending Price in a series of now-deleted tweets. (For example, "Here's a bit of insight that I legitimately hope [Deroir] reflects on: she never asked for his feedback.")

"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."

Submission + - Jonathan Blow: "C++ is a weird mess" (gamesindustry.biz) 2

Submitted by slack_justyb on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @12:13PM

slack_justyb writes: Jonathan Blow, an independent video game developer, indicated to gamesindustry.biz that while working on a recent project he stopped and considered how miserable programming can be. After some reflection Blow came to the realization as to why. [C++ is a] "really terrible, terrible language."

The main flaw with C++, in Blow's opinion, is that it's a fiendishly complex and layered ecosystem that has becoming increasingly convoluted in its effort to solve different problems; the more layers, the higher the stack, the more wobbly it becomes, and the harder it is to understand.
Blow is the developer of two games so far. Braid and The Witness and developed a new programming language known as Jai in hopes to help C++ game developers become more productive.
With Jai, Blow hopes to achieve three things: improve the quality of life for the programmer because "we shouldn't be miserable like many of us are"; simplify the systems; and increase expressive power by allowing programmers to build a large amount of functionality with a small amount of code.

Is Blow correct? Has C++ become a horrific mess that we should ultimately relegate to the bins of COBOL and Pascal? Are there redeeming qualities of C++ that justify the tangle it has become? Is Jai a solution or just yet another programming language?

Submission + - Vendor tracks LinkedIn profile changes to alert client employers (techtarget.com)

Submitted by dcblogs on Tuesday October 31, 2017 @04:07PM

dcblogs writes: IT managers have long had the ability and right to monitor employee behavior on internal networks. Now, HR managers are getting similar capabilities thanks to cloud-based services — but for tracking employee activity outside of their employer's network. A controversy and court fight is swelling over its potential impact on employee privacy.A San Francisco-based startup, hiQ Labs Inc., offers products based on its analysis of publicly available LinkedIn data. One is Keeper, which identifies employees at risk of being recruited away, and another is Skill Mapper, which analyzes employee skills.The profile data is collected by software bots. The clients of hiQ's service may learn whether a LinkedIn member is a flight risk thanks to an individual risk score: high (red), medium (yellow) or low (green), according to court papers. LinkedIn is in court fighting this, but so far it's losing. A federal judge recently took exception to the use of the CFAA in this case "to punish hiQ for accessing publicly available data." The judge warned such an interpretation "could profoundly impact open access to the internet."

Comment There's still no free lunch. (Score 3, Interesting) 303

by pushf popf on Saturday November 03, 2012 @10:11PM (#41869485) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Deal With a DDoS Attack?

Before I found that there was a lot more money and a lost less hours and stress doing consulting than being a cubicle drone, I worked for a large hosting company.

Handling a DDOS attack is a piece of cake. We handled a few a week and this was in the early 2000s. We would watch the router traffic graphs and see a spike that might be eating 5% or 10% of our capacity and just grin. All you need is money. Your ISP needs giant pipes, spare server capacity distributed around the world and sharp network guys, and for the right price, they'll simply make the problem go away for you.

However the cost of doing this means that if $1500 to Rackspace sounds like a lot of money, you're not in this league.

If you're at the "less than $200/month" level for hosting, your best course of action is to not piss people off, and if you're attacked just hope you can wait it out.

The "up side" of having a small site with cheap hosting is that it probably won't actually do much damage to your business if it's down for a few days.

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