Refuse to just let it die and give people some form of privacy. Does the US never learn?
House Dem revives major cyber bill | TheHill.
4th Reich revives CISPA yet again
Reply
Indian Science Congress doing well.
There were a lot of controversies generated at the Indian Science Congress earlier this month, including claims of ancient aircraft in India, the use of plastic surgery there, and ways to divine underground water sources using herbal paste on the feet. One argument that could be tested using some form of evidence was the assertion by Science Minister Harsh Vardhan that the Pythagorean theorem was discovered in India
via Fields Medal Winner Manjul Bhargava On the Pythagorean Theorem Controversy – Slashdot.
UK Tory gov wants to give criminals access to everybodies secret data
By installing a back door into encrypted communications and storage, they not only allow the government unfettered access, but also criminals. Although I’m not sure where the distinction lies, nowadays.
The problem with Android not really being open source: Google won’t fix bug hitting 60 percent of Android phones | Ars Technica
Basically they say they won’t touch anything older than the current OS and also smartphone vendors then need to update their old devices, which they won’t do either.
Google won’t fix bug hitting 60 percent of Android phones | Ars Technica.
KeySweeper – a DIY usb wall charger that logs keystrokes from MS wireless keyboards
KeySweeper is a stealthy Arduino-based device, camouflaged as a functioning USB wall charger, that wirelessly and passively sniffs, decrypts, logs and reports back all keystrokes from any Microsoft wireless keyboards (which use a proprietary 2.4GHz RF protocol) in the area.
Keystrokes are sent back to the KeySweeper operator over the Internet via an optional GSM chip, or can be stored on a flash chip and delivered wirelessly when a secondary KeySweeper device comes within wireless range of the target KeySweeper. A web based tool allows live keystroke monitoring.
via KeySweeper.
Antibiotic Pulled From Dirt Ends 25-Year Drug Drought – Bloomberg
Scientists have discovered an antibiotic capable of fighting infections that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year, a breakthrough that could lead to the field’s first major new drug in more than a quarter-century.The experimental drug, which was isolated from a sample of New England dirt, is called teixobactin. It hasn’t yet been tested in people, though it cured all mice infected with antibiotic-resistant staphylococci bacteria that usually kills 90 percent of the animals, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Bacteria appear to have a particularly difficult time developing resistance to the drug, potentially overcoming a major problem with existing antibiotics.
via Antibiotic Pulled From Dirt Ends 25-Year Drug Drought – Bloomberg.
C3TV – 31C3: talks online Chaos Computer Club Christmas
new role for proteins: assembling amino acids without DNA and RNA
Results from a study published on Jan. 2 in Science defy textbook science, showing for the first time that the building blocks of a protein, called amino acids, can be assembled without blueprints – DNA and an intermediate template called messenger RNA (mRNA). A team of researchers has observed a case in which another protein specifies which amino acids are added.
via Defying textbook science, study finds new role for proteins.
Besides Lifestyle and Inherited Genes, Cancer Risk Also 66% Tied to Bad Luck
The researchers, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, analyzed published scientific papers to identify the number of stem cells, and the rate of stem-cell division, among 31 tissue types, though not for breast and prostate tissue, which they excluded from the analysis. Then they compared the total number of lifetime stem-cell divisions in each tissue against a person’s lifetime risk of developing cancer in that tissue in the U.S.
The correlation between these parameters suggests that two-thirds of the difference in cancer risk among various tissue types can be blamed on random, or “stochastic,” mutations in DNA occurring during stem-cell division, and only one-third on hereditary or environmental factors like smoking, the researchers conclude. “Thus, the stochastic effects of DNA replication appear to be the major contributor to cancer in humans,” they wrote.
via Besides Lifestyle and Inherited Genes, Cancer Risk Also Tied to Bad Luck – WSJ.
F-35 Can’t Fire Its Gun Until 2019 – And even then hardly
America’s $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, is slated to join fighter squadrons next year—but missing software will render its 25mm cannon useless.
The Pentagon’s newest stealth jet, the nearly $400 billion Joint Strike Fighter, won’t be able to fire its gun during operational missions until 2019, three to four years after it becomes operational.
Even though the Joint Strike Fighter, or F-35, is supposed to join frontline U.S. Marine Corps fighter squadrons next year and Air Force units in 2016, the jet’s software does not yet have the ability to shoot its 25mm cannon. But even when the jet will be able to shoot its gun, the F-35 barely carries enough ammunition to make the weapon useful.
New U.S. Stealth Jet Can’t Fire Its Gun Until 2019 – The Daily Beast.
hahahahaha this programme is a joke! Except it’s so expensive to taxpayers!
What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?
Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author’s death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication. But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1958 would enter the public domain on January 1, 2015, where they would be “free as the air to common use.” Under current copyright law, we’ll have to wait until 2054.1 And no published works will enter our public domain until 2019. The laws in other countries are different—thousands of works are entering the public domain in Canada and the EU on January 1
via What Could Have Entered the Public Domain on January 1, 2015?.
So, the family of dead people are still being paid sometimes huge amounts of money for creativity they didn’t display themselves. Copyright is crazy.
United Airlines and Orbitz resort to suing Skiplagged.com which is better and takes advantage of airlines’ stupid fee structure
Skiplagged.com found out that you can buy a cheaper ticket from A – B if you buy a ticket to C where B is a stop on the way (A – B – C) and then just get off at B.
For example, a customer buying a ticket from New York to Los Angeles, where competition is high, could get a lower rate than a flight to Chicago, but could simply get off the plane during a stop in Chicago and avoid a higher fare.
United and Orbitz are going all ballistic on Aktarer Zaman’s (Skiplagged.com) arse because of not liking a) their own stupidity exposed and b) not liking competition.
Airline, travel site sue over 'hacked' airfares.
Skiplagged is taking contributions to his legal defence, he probably needs it.
There is some encryption the NSA really cannot crack
Hint: Truecrypt, Tor, PGP, ZRTP
Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
The latest in fingerprint forgery: Use a camera
A rundown on the state of current cluster bomb technology
Five Mechanical Gaming Keyboards Compared
When you’re on the path to becoming a power user, you begin to notice certain things that the average person might not. One of those is the difference between typing on a sweet mechanical keyboard with luxurious key action versus pounding away on a run-of-the-mill squishy plank that relies on mushy membranes to register your keystrokes. The difference may seem subtle to the uninitiated, though even casual typists can recognize that there’s something inherently superior about typing on a mechanical keyboard, even if they can’t pinpoint what exactly it is.Of course, we know it’s the mechanical key switches that are responsible for elevating the typing experience. These are better than the rubber domes found in membrane keyboards that used to dominate the market in a number of ways, including feel, responsiveness, and durability.
via Know Your Type: Five Mechanical Gaming Keyboards Compared.
Dutch gov sends cops to 3 times as many houses as there are guilty parties at those houses, scares 4500 people witless, will scare 30000 next year
Ah the wonders of big data. Needlessly scaring twice as many people as guilty people you find with a valid search warrant and invasion of innocent people’s privacy is being lauded as a success by the NL Government and will result in 30000 people’s houses being needlessly searched next year.
30.000 onschuldige Nederlanders opgejaagd door overheid – Webwereld.
UK gov putting a massive internet censorship scheme online
BT, Sky, and Virgin Media are hijacking people’s web connections to force customers to make a decision about family-friendly web filters. The move comes as the December deadline imposed by prime minister David Cameron looms, with ISPs struggling to get customers to say yes or no to the controversial adult content blocks.
The messages, which vary by ISP, appear during browser sessions when a user tries to access any website. BT, Sky,TalkTalk and Virgin Media are required to ask all their customers if they want web filters turned on or off, with the government saying it wants to create a "family friendly" Internet free from pornography, gambling, extreme violence and other content inappropriate for children. But the measures being taken by ISPs have been described as "completely unnecessary" and "heavy handed" by Internet rights groups.
via BT, Sky, and Virgin “hijacking” browsers to push porn blocks | Ars Technica.
I think the unnamed “Internet rights groups” would do better to criticise the Tory policy of censoring the internet at all.
World’s Biggest Data Breaches
Staples: Breach may have affected 1.16 million customers’ cards
Staples believes that point-of-sale systems at 115 Staples locations were infected with malware that thieves may have used to steal customers’ names, payment card numbers, expiration dates and card verification codes, Staples said on Friday. At all but two of those stores, the malware would have had access to customer data for purchases made between August 10 and September 16 of this year. At the remaining two stores, the malware was active from July 20 through September 16
via Staples: Breach may have affected 1.16 million customers' cards – Fortune.
The end of Democracy in NL
The Netherlands is now officially moving towards becoming a banana republic. Foreign media hasn’t really seemed to catch on to this, but there’s a very important cabinets crisis happening in the Netherlands at the moment. A translated version for English people: An incredibly stupid law* was stopped in the senate by 3 brave PvdA** senators led by Guusje ter Horst (who’s husband is a doctor) who actually stood up for their priciples. Upon hearing this apparently surprise result, the VVD minister who submitted the law stamped her little feet and threatened to resign. Of course, that would have made the VVD leave their coalition with the PvdA, bringing the whole parliamant down and forcing re-elections on two parties that are doing badly in the polls (I wonder why?). Yes, Dutch politics is not only that petty, but also that silly.
Now the majority parliament, consisting of the PvdA and the VVD*** seems to have found a way to push the law through anyway if the law is resubmitted and stopped in the senate again. They will use something called an AMvB, which translates to a general directive.
If they do this, then what is the point of the senate at all? Or the whole democratic process. Shameful that Diederik Samson and Mark Rutte, the NL heads of the left and right parties and their cronies are both taking down the rule of law and democratic process together.
Fortunately the minority parties (called a constructive minority because they will every so often support the coalition in the senate) are having none of it and will hopefully stop something like this from going through somehow.
* allowing insurance companies to determine which health organisations their clients could use and be reimbursed for. The net effect of this is to give insurance companies huge leverage in a market they already have too much power in. They can determine prices, treatments or threaten (small and large) hospitals (eg) with no more customers.
** Partij van de Arbeid is a bit like the UK labour party. It is left leaning.
*** VVD is like the UK conservatives or US republicans – a very right leaning party
Rresearchers may have stumbled upon the secret to youthful skin
Scientists at the University of B.C. searching for ways to slow the deterioration of blood vessels may have stumbled on to the key to youthful skin.
While exploring the effects of the protein-degrading enzyme Granzyme B on blood vessels during heart attacks, professor David Granville couldn’t help noticing that mice engineered to lack the enzyme had beautiful skin at the end of the experiment, while normal mice showed signs of age.
“This is one of those moments that we live for in science,” said Granville, a researcher for Providence Health Care.
“We were interested in the effects of aging on blood vessels; we had no idea (the absence of this enzyme) would have any effect on their skin.”
The discovery pushed Granville’s research in an unexpected new direction.
The researchers built a mechanized rodent tanning salon and exposed mice engineered to lack the enzyme and normal mice to UV light three times a week for 20 weeks, enough to cause redness, but not to burn.
At the end of the experiment, the engineered mice still had smooth, unblemished skin, while the normal mice were deeply wrinkled.
“About 80 to 90 per cent of visible skin aging is caused by sunlight,” said Granville. “We found that by knocking out this gene we could markedly protect against the loss of collagen and it prevented wrinkling in these mice.”
Am I unique? – see how identifiable you are by your browser fingerprint
This site looks at surprisingly few browser attributes to see how unique you are. Currently you are being compared to 37753 other browsers, but as more people check on the site, the representation will be more accurate. It’s pretty scary to see how individual your browser settings are, even with javascript disabled.
via Am I unique?.
Greenpeace goes around wrecking the Nazca Lines, a 2500 year old Peruvian landmark.
How Greenpeace Wrecked One of the Most Sacred Places in the Americas.
Fuck off Greenpeace, stop destroying shit in the name of your terrorist agenda.