NL Gov decides Police can break into houses with (almost) no cause

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All that is needed to break into and search a Dutch residence is a “suspicion” that there “may be” an illegal immigrant in there. Once inside, the (military) police is allowed to search through absolutely everything in a violent manner, stopping short of breaking down walls. You can stop them by showing your identity papers (“Ausweiss, Bitte!”) but they can of course claim that they suspect there are more people hiding under beds, in cupboards, etc. until they have satisfactorily destroyed your belongings.

Obviously there is no way that the <sarcasm>incredibly competent</sarcasm> NL Police force would misuse this power, just as there is no abuse of CCTV footage, telecoms tapping, airport pervert scanners etc etc. In this case personal vendettas are an easy thing to fix, but scarier is the race targeting they could do. Considering this is part of anti-immigrant legislation, this may be a portent of Fred Teeven and the VVD / PvdA coaltion governments plans.

See you freedom, welcome police state!

Teeven breidt mogelijkheden vreemdelingentoezicht uit | Nieuwsbericht | Rijksoverheid.nl.

OZONE Widget Framework

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A customizable open-source web application that assembles the tools you need to accomplish any task and enables those tools to communicate with each other.

It allows you to take information from different web based software packages you might have and turn them into widgets on a centralised website dashboard.

OZONE is a web application that allows users to easily access all their online tools from one location. Not only can users access websites and applications with widgets, they can group them and configure some applications to interact with each other via widget intents.

via OZONE Platform.

Data visualisation packages

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To bring your data to life, there are plenty of options around.

D3 is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML, SVG and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to DOM manipulation.

As you can see, there are loads of different graphs, graphics, plots, etc you can generate to display your data differently.

Bokeh is a Python interactive visualization library for large datasets that natively uses the latest web technologies. Its goal is to provide elegant, concise construction of novel graphics in the style of Protovis/D3, while delivering high-performance interactivity over large data to thin clients

The advantage these packages have over, say, IBM ManyEyes is that they are locally installed and you don’t give your data away.

Drugs and cheating: Half of U.S. nuclear missile wing implicated!

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Just over half (92) of the 183 nuclear missile launch officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana have been implicated in a widening exam cheating scandal, the Air Force said on Thursday, acknowledging it had “systemic” problem within its ranks.

The cheating was discovered during an investigation into illegal drug possession among airmen, when test answers were found in a text message on one missile launch officer’s cell phone. The Air Force initially said 34 officers either knew about the cheating or cheated themselves.

After, an investigation was started and all work personal were investigated. Due to the 2018 DOT drug testing regulations, each and all work personal had to take an obligatory drug test. Thankfully, the company, USA Mobile Drug Testing, offers their services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, all employees were pulled aside for a total of 15 minutes to get tested.

 

 

 

via UPDATE 1-Half of U.S. nuclear missile wing implicated in cheating | Reuters.

DARPA Open Software catalog

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DARPA Open Catalog contains a curated list of DARPA-sponsored software and peer-reviewed publications. DARPA funds fundamental and applied research in a variety of areas including data science, cyber, anomaly detection, etc., which may lead to experimental results and reusable technology designed to benefit multiple government domains.

via .

Police will have ‘backdoor’ access to health records despite opt-out, says MP

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The database that will store the entire nation’s health records has a series of "backdoors" that will allow police and government bodies to access people’s medical data.

David Davis MP, a former shadow home secretary, told the Guardian he has established that police will be able to access the health records of patients when investigating serious crimes even if they had opted out of the new database, which will hold the entire population’s medical data in a single repository for the first time from May.

via Police will have 'backdoor' access to health records despite opt-out, says MP.

This despite the UK’s long and torrid history of giving out huge unencrypted centralised databases on USB sticks and laptops to seemingly whoever wants them. Don’t they realise the backdoor will also be usable for hackers, insurance companies, etc? It also shows the mission creep these centralised databases allow themselves to be misused for.

NL Court rules Pirate Bay blockade is illegal

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After many court cases, it looks like BREIN (the Dutch RIAA) and Tim Kuyk have finally suffered a humiliating defeat. In a victory for common sense and freedom, they were made to pay EUR 326000,- in legal fees to the providers, who showed that not only was a blockade completely unenforcable, there were plenty of alternatives to TPB. This means there is no reason to limit the freedom providers have to run their businesses.

Haags Hof heft Pirate Bay-blokkade providers op – Webwereld.

Objet500 Connex3 – High Resolution Full Colour, Multi material 3D Printing

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Brilliant Color

The Objet500 Connex3 lets you incorporate as many as 46 colors into one prototype, from true jet black to sunny yellow to shocking magenta and hundreds of beautiful blended hues. Pick from ten color palettes — including rich opaque and stained-glass-like translucent — for vibrant, repeatable color that will wow your colleagues and impress your toughest clients.

A Multitude of Materials

With exponentially more multi-material options than any other 3D printer, you can create ultra-realistic prototypes. The Objet500 Connex3 lets you build rigid, rubber-like and clear parts into one model and offers hundreds of composite materials, blended right in the 3D printer. You get exactly the properties you need, even in demanding industries like consumer products.

Only the Objet500 Connex3 lets you combine the strongest PolyJet photopolymer, Digital ABS, with another material of your choice. This enables prototypes that contain rigid and soft-touch components or overmolding to be stronger than ever, and lets you incorporate clear and Digital ABS features into one build.

via Objet500 Connex3 – High Resolution 3D Printing | Stratasys.

China Eastern Airlines passenger uses first class ticket for free meals

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The man used his first-class ticket to score free meals and drinks at a VIP airport lounge nearly every day for a year, the Kwong Wah Yit Poh reported.

He changed his flight itinerary more than 300 times within the year so he could enjoy the facilities at the Xi’an Airport in Shaanxi, China.

What’s more, he cancelled his ticket for a refund when its validity was about to expire.

via China Eastern Airlines passenger uses first class ticket for free meals | News.com.au.

Insecure healthcare.gov allowed hacker to access 70,000 records in 4 minutes

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70,000 was just one of the numbers that I was able to go up to. And I stopped after that. You know, and I’m sure it’s hundreds of thousands, if not more and it was done within about a four-minute time frame. So, it’s just wide open. You can literally just open up your browser, go to this and extract all this information without actually having to hack the website itself.

via Insecure healthcare.gov allowed hacker to access 70,000 records in 4 minutes | Computerworld Blogs.

Many top notch hackers blasted the site and the lack of any basic security. An audit found 17(!) vulnerabilies originally, and after ‘fixes’ an extra 20+