Daily Archives: August 9, 2016

Dutch Olympians not allowed to drink? Are they reformed religious fanatics?

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Yuri van Gelder, Dutch gymnast, went out for a few to celebrate making the final. Apparently he got carried away and had some alcohol (shock! horror!) and came home at some time in the morning. So the Dutch team have sent him home, without allowing him to participate in the final. His behaviour sounds slightly irresponsible for an athlete in the Olympic final, but then again, if he got there and he’s good enough to perform drinking alcohol that’s his business. It’s not like he was doing anything illegal. And I can understand the urge to celebrate as well. this performance by the Dutch Olympic Sports Bond sounds like a reformed church Christian religious fanatic throwback.

Source: Van Gelder misdraagt zich in Rio en moet naar huis – Olympische Spelen 2016 | NOS

Meat Eaters mapped

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When the world’s population passed seven billion people in 2011 we humans weighed, in total, 350 million tonnes. That weight is rising rapidly as our numbers are still growing and we are getting heavier. Back in 2011 each of us weighed, on average, just under eight stone. Around two billion of us were children then, and there were more people underweight than overweight worldwide. Since then, the number that are overweight has risen dramatically. The proportion of the population who are children has been falling, as fertility itself has fallen. Peak baby was in 1990, but the human population continues to rise because of ageing. Most of the growth in human population predicted in the next few decades will be as a result of that ageing.

The heaviest animals on the planet are the ones we farm for their meat. This includes some 1.4 billion cattle that weigh 520 million tonnes at any one time. After that there are the 1.1 billion sheep making up 65 million tonnes in total planetary sheep weight.

Then there are the 18.6 billion chickens weighing 40 million tonnes worldwide, being by far the most populous birds on the planet today. If we ignore fish in the oceans and insects, then the vast majority of animal life on Earth by weight is either us, or what we farm to eat. We have taken over the planet.→

Source: Meat Eaters – Views of the World

Edit 14/1/25: It has been pointed out to me that there were in fact 26.56 billion chickens on this earth in 2022. Source: How Many Chickens Are In The World – For All Those Who Are Lovin’ It! – WorldAnimalFoundation.org

Public Wi-Fi hotspots and you: Busting the many legal myths in the UK

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Ars investigates legal advice for hotspot operators—most are ill-informed; the rest invented.
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According to the experts we consulted, anyone attempting to follow the recommendations could in practice be creating data protection liabilities that they’re ill-equipped to discharge. Others may be put off altogether by dire warnings about legal risks that simply don’t exist.

Source: Public Wi-Fi hotspots and you: Busting the many legal myths

More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure

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“We believe that online voting, especially online voting in large scale, introduces great risk into the election system by threatening voters’ expectations of confidentiality, accountability and security of their votes and provides an avenue for malicious actors to manipulate the voting results,” Neil Jenkins, an official in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security, said at a conference of the Election Verification Network this spring.

Thirty-two states have some form of electronic transmission of ballots over the Internet, compared with no states with online voting in 2000. In Alaska, for example, all voters can submit an absentee elections ballot online from computers in their own homes.

Missouri offers electronic ballots for members of the military who are serving in a “hostile zone” overseas. North Dakota permits overseas citizens or military members deployed overseas to vote online. And in 20 other states and the District of Columbia, certain voters living abroad will be allowed to return their absentee ballots via email or fax in the upcoming presidential election.

Source: More than 30 states offer online voting, but experts warn it isn’t secure – The Washington Post

Well, it isn’t secure and it can’t be made to be. However, is showing up to vote that secure? Is handcounting that secure? In the US, Florida has consistently shown that the current process is corrupt and unreliable. How do the risks weigh up?

7(!) remote vulnerabilities (RCE, bof) in Nuuo NVR and NETGEAR Surveillance products

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The web interface contains a number of critical vulnerabilities that can be abused by unauthenticated attackers. These consist of monitoring backdoors left in the PHP files that are supposed to be used by NUUO’s engineers, hardcoded credentials, poorly sanitised input and a buffer overflow which can be abused to achieve code execution on NUUO’s devices as root, and on NETGEAR as the admin user.

Source: Full Disclosure: Multiple remote vulnerabilities (RCE, bof) in Nuuo NVR and NETGEAR Surveillance

That’s a disaster! And the manufacturers are not responding!

New ransomware mimics Microsoft activation window

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A new ransomlock variant, which mainly affects the US, tricks users into calling a toll-free number to reactivate their Windows computer.
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Victims of this threat can unlock their computer using the code: 8716098676542789

Source: New ransomware mimics Microsoft activation window | Symantec Connect Community

It also turns out that calling the support number on the screen no longer has people picking up.

White hat Hackers Make the First-Ever Ransomware for Smart Thermostats

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The thermostat in question has a large LCD display, runs the operating system Linux, and has an SD card that allows users to load custom settings or wallpapers. The researchers found that the thermostat didn’t really check what kind of files it was running and executing. In theory, this would allow a malicious hacker to hide malware into an application or what looks like a picture and trick users to transfer it on the thermostat, making it run automatically.

Source: Hackers Make the First-Ever Ransomware for Smart Thermostats

UK copyright extension on designed objects is “direct assault” on 3D printing. Also, how much money was UK gov paid to extend it 70+ years?

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A recent extension of UK copyright for industrially manufactured artistic works represents “a direct assault on the 3D printing revolution,” says Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge. The UK government last month extended copyright for designs from 25 years to the life of the designer plus 70 years. In practice, this is likely to mean a copyright term of over 100 years for furniture and other designed objects.
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Falkvinge points out a crucial difference between the previous UK protection for designs, which was based on what are called “design rights” plus a short copyright term, and the situation now, which involves design rights and a much-longer copyright term. With design rights, “you’re absolutely and one hundred percent free to make copies of it for your own use with your own tools and materials,” Falkvinge writes. “When something is under copyright, you are not. Therefore, this move is a direct assault on the 3D printing revolution.”
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“Moving furniture design from a [design right] to copyright law means that people can and will indeed be prosecuted for manufacturing their own furniture using their own tools,” Falkvinge claims.

Source: UK copyright extension on designed objects is “direct assault” on 3D printing

So aside from the (possibly) unintended consequences, who thought it would be a good idea to belly up before big business and extend copyright for such unearthly amounts of time? Why should copyright holders be able to stop working once they hold a successful copyright? Why should humanity have to kowtow to the whims of a copyright holder for years on end, when we could be advancing by building on existing designs?