Daily Archives: May 31, 2017

In the US Net Neutrality race, fake comments are being placed in their thousands, supporting the inane idea of getting rid of net neutrality.

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Fourteen Americans (with the help of an advocacy group) are complaining to the FCC that their names were used without permission to file fake comments on the proposed net neutrality overhaul.

A letter [PDF] sent to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and signed by the 14 people claims that their names and addresses were used to post comments in support of the planned Title II elimination for ISPs.

“We are disturbed by reports that indicate you have no plans to remove these fraudulent comments from the public docket,” they write.

“Whoever is behind this stole our names and addresses, publicly exposed our private information without our permission, and used our identities to file a political statement we did not sign onto.”

The letter does not name any specific company or group as being behind the filings.

A quick check of the names on the letter with the FCC’s comment site found that nearly all were indeed used to file form comments. One of the signed names does not appear to be associated with any comments on file right now, while another name was connected with eight identical comments.

The letter is part of a campaign being conducted by digital rights group Fight for the Future to expose what it claims are hundreds of thousands of fake comments posted by or on behalf of telcos who support Ajit Pai’s planned overhauls.

Source: US citizens complain their names were used for FCC robo-comments • The Register

‘Do not tell Elon’: Ex-SpaceX man claims firm cut corners on NASA part tests

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A fired SpaceX worker has accused the company of leaning on its employees to forge test records for parts destined for NASA.

Jason Blasdell told his wrongful firing court hearing in California that although he complained to the HR department about being pressured into creating false test passes, the company ignored him – and he even tried to take matters to CEO Elon Musk in person.

Blasdell told the Los Angeles court that he spoke to SpaceX HR manager Carla Suarez in early 2014 to say he was having problems with his immediate management.

“I told her that in the avionics test lab that managers had been pressuring us, pressuring me, to falsify test documents. And that management is trying to point to me as being the problem instead of acknowledging and discussing actual falsification of documents as being the real problem,” he said, as reported by legal website Law360.

The former US Marine, who was trained in aviation electronics in the service before spending four years at SpaceX, also said that his supervisors would “chastise” him for not signing off parts as having passed required testing in SpaceX’s avionics test lab.

SpaceX managers, his lawyer said, responded to his attempts to escalate his concerns by branding him a “chronic complainer”. In spite of this Blasdell managed to get a personal audience with the president of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell.

The technician testified that Shotwell’s response to his concerns was “Don’t tell Elon, do not tell Elon. If he finds out about this, we will all get fired.”

In return, SpaceX’s lawyers told the court that, over time, Blasdell became disrespectful towards colleagues and managers alike and that this made some “afraid for their safety”. The firm also suggested that amphetamines Blasdell was taking for attention deficit disorder may have affected his behaviour, as well as saying he was annoyed at being passed over for promotion.

The firm also stated that Blasdell’s safety-related complaints only emerged after he was fired, stating that until that point his complaints were all about the “inefficiency” of testing

Source: ‘Do not tell Elon’: Ex-SpaceX man claims firm cut corners on NASA part tests • The Register

Researchers Discover a Method That Could Triple Our Screen Resolutions

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The researchers have outlined the technical details in a new study published in Nature. Basically, what they’ve done is figure out a method to control subpixels with voltage. Each pixel on an LCD screen contains three subpixels. Each of those subpixels handles one of three colors: red, green or blue. A white backlight shines through the pixel and the LCD shutter controls which subpixel is viewable. For instance, if the pixel should be blue, the LCD shutter will cover the red and green subpixels. In order to make purple, the shutter only needs to cover the green subpixel. The white backlight determines how light or dark the color will be.

The team at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center has demonstrated a way of using an embossed nanostructure surface and reflective aluminum that could eliminate the need for subpixels entirely. On a test device, the researchers were able to control the color of each subpixel individually. Rather than one subpixel being dedicated to blue, it can produce the full range of color that the TV is capable of displaying. With each subpixel suddenly doing the work of three, the potential resolution of the device is suddenly three times as high. Additionally, this would mean that every subpixel (or in this case, a tinier pixel) would be on whenever displaying a color or white. That would lead to displays that are far brighter.

Source: Researchers Discover a Method That Could Triple Our Screen Resolutions

Refresh rates are a bit low, but the biggest hurdle will probably be your TV manufacturer refusing to incorporate this into a software update: they would much rather have you buy a new TV.

Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used by private contractor on US soil, Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies”

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A shadowy international mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures, collaborating closely with police in at least five states, according to internal documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents provide the first detailed picture of how TigerSwan, which originated as a U.S. military and State Department contractor helping to execute the global war on terror, worked at the behest of its client Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, to respond to the indigenous-led movement that sought to stop the project.

Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as “an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component” and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters. One report, dated February 27, 2017, states that since the movement “generally followed the jihadist insurgency model while active, we can expect the individuals who fought for and supported it to follow a post-insurgency model after its collapse.” Drawing comparisons with post-Soviet Afghanistan, the report warns, “While we can expect to see the continued spread of the anti-DAPL diaspora … aggressive intelligence preparation of the battlefield and active coordination between intelligence and security elements are now a proven method of defeating pipeline insurgencies.”

More than 100 internal documents leaked to The Intercept by a TigerSwan contractor, as well as a set of over 1,000 documents obtained via public records requests, reveal that TigerSwan spearheaded a multifaceted private security operation characterized by sweeping and invasive surveillance of protesters.

Source: Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies”

It’s just like cowboys and indians again!

EU axes geo-blocking: Upsets studios, delights consumers

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The European Parliament has approved a draft law that geo-blocking, the act of offering an online content service in one European Union (EU) country and that country alone, will be scrapped in the first half of next year.

Coupled with the recent law to end mobile roaming charges in the EU as of next month, the OTT industry as a whole stands to flourish in Europe over the next few years. However, the losers here will be the content creators, which argue that the removal of geo-blocking will weaken the financial value of content, as well as the pay TV operators, as the ruling will trigger a small spate of cord cutting for consumers with two or more properties in multiple EU countries. But the move is also a hammer blow to content pirates.

Source: EU axes geo-blocking: Upsets studios, delights consumers • The Register

There is a lot more worthwhile on the pros and cons – overall I am happy to see the digital single market catch up to the physical single market.

EU wants content filtering by entertainment industry on everything posted online

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De Europese Commissie wil dat internetaanbieders en hostingpartijen, maar ook platformen zoals Facebook, monitoren wat hun gebruikers publiceren. Elke tekst, foto en filmpje dat gebruikers wil zetten zou dan eerst door een filter van de entertainmentindustrie gehaald moeten worden. Hoe zoiets in de praktijk zou moeten werken is volstrekt onduidelijk.

Source: Massaal verzet tegen omstreden EU contentfilters – Emerce

They want ISPs and hosts as well as content providers such as Facebook to filter all posted content through an entertainment industry filter before posting online. How this will work – technically as well as who has oversight over what the entertainment industry deems inappropriate – is unclear. This kind of censorship on a massive scale is exactly why we fought the Nazis and the Cold War: for a free and open society.

Supreme Court rules Lexmark sales exhausted patent rights domestically and internationally

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When a patent owner sells a product the sale exhausted patent rights regardless of any restrictions the patentee attempts to impose on location of the sale.

Source: Supreme Court rules Lexmark sales exhausted patent rights domestically and internationally – IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Patent Law

Earlier this morning the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion in Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc., a case requiring the Court to revisit the patent exhaustion doctrine. In an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, and joined by all members of the Court except Justice Ginsburg (concurring in part and dissenting in part) and Justice Gorsuch (taking no part in the case), the Supreme Court determined that when a patent owner sells a product the sale exhausted patent rights in the item being sold regardless of any restrictions the patentee attempts to impose on the location of the sale. In other words, a sale of a patented product exhausts all rights — both domestic and international.

– This is great news for innovation and companies that offer value on other companies’ products. It represents an almost unique show of sanity in patent law.