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Enlarge / Close-up of cables and LED lights in the data center of T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG. (credit: Thomas Trutschel/Getty Images)

The Justice Department is demanding that a federal judge sanction Google for failing to abide by court orders to turn over data tied to 22 e-mail accounts. "Google's conduct here amounts to a willful and contemptuous disregard of various court orders," the government wrote (PDF) in a legal filing to US District Judge Richard Seeborg of California.

The government added in its Wednesday brief:

Google is entitled to have its own view of the law and to press that view before a court of competent jurisdiction. However, when faced with a valid court order, Google, like any other person or entity, must either comply with such an order or face consequences severe enough to deter willful noncompliance. The issue before this court is what sanction is sufficient to achieve that goal.

Google said it wasn't complying with the order because it was on appeal. Google also said it was following precedent from a New York-based federal appellate court that ruled Microsoft doesn't have to comply with a valid US warrant for data if the information is stored on overseas servers. Google is appealing the California warrant to the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals on the same grounds. However, neither Seeborg nor the 9th Circuit is bound by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals' decision—which the government has appealed to the US Supreme Court. (The US circuit courts of appeal are not bound to follow rulings by their sister circuits, but they all must obey precedent from the Supreme Court.)

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(credit: Bob Embleton)

For more than six years, the SHA1 cryptographic hash function underpinning Internet security has been at death's door. Now it's officially dead, thanks to the submission of the first known instance of a fatal exploit known as a "collision."

Despite more than a decade of warnings about the lack of security of SHA1, the watershed moment comes as the hash function remains widely used. Git, the world's most widely used system for managing software development among multiple people, relies on it for data integrity. The GnuPG e-mail encryption program still deems SHA1 safe. And hundreds if not thousands of big-name software packages rely on SHA1 signatures to ensure installation and update files distributed over the Internet haven't been maliciously altered.

A collision occurs when the two different files or messages produce the same cryptographic hash. The most well-known collision occurred sometime around 2010 against the MD5 hash algorithm, which is even weaker than SHA1. A piece of nation-sponsored espionage malware known as Flame used the attack to hijack the Windows update mechanism Microsoft uses to distribute patches to hundreds of millions of customers. By forging the digital signature used to cryptographically prove the authenticity of Microsoft servers, Flame was able to spread from one infected computer to another inside targeted networks.

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VIDEO: HOW CONTROL ROOMS IN MOVIES AND TV HAVE CHANGED WITH THE TIMES.

Your iPhone has more processing power than the computers depicted in these early Hollywood control rooms from films such as The Andromeda Strain and THX-1138.

There are sparkling glacial lakes, breathtaking sunsets, mountains disappearing into clouds, as well as a few cameos from the park’s animal inhabitants.

YOU CAME IN THAT THING? YOU’RE BRAVER THAN I THOUGHT: The Smithsonian’s 3D virtual model of the Apollo 11 Command Module, fully explorable right in your browser.

Nathalie McGloin was involved in a car accident as a teenager, leaving her with a major spinal cord injury. But that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a hardcore Porsche racing driver, because she is fucking awesome.

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If you’re new to using Microsoft Excel, or an experienced user looking for a good visual reference, this handy cheat sheet covers eight helpful tricks for becoming a spreadsheet pro.

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Snaps from strolling around the little harbor village last Saturday

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How do you systematically identify the sources of jitter and remove them one by one in a low-latency trading system? That was the question asked on the mechanical-sympathy email list. 

Gil Tene, Vice President of Technology and CTO, Co-Founder, Azul Systems gave the sort of answer that comes from the accumulated wisdom born from lots of real-life experience. It's an answer that needed sharing. And here it is:

Finding the cause of hiccups/jitters in a a Linux system is black magic. You often look at the spikes and imagine "what could be causing this". 

Based on empirical evidence (across many tens of sites thus far) and note-comparing with others, I use a list of "usual suspects" that I blame whenever they are not set to my liking and system-level hiccups are detected. Getting these settings right from the start often saves a bunch of playing around (and no, there is no "priority" to this - you should set them all right before looking for more advice...).

My current starting point for Linux systems that are interested in avoiding many-msec hiccup levels is:

Rhythm Necklace is a simple toy for exploring complex rhythms.

The post A Sweet App That Helps You Visualize Complex Rhythms appeared first on WIRED.

Along with the actual wheels, the manual transmission is among the least-evolved components of a modern car. A brand-new 2015 model’s stick shift has a whole lot in common with the three-speed gearbox you’d find in a car built 70 years ago. While the technology may be abidingly familiar to us enthusiasts, it can never hurt to take a refresher course in the basics. That’s why we love this vintage educational film from 1936, which nicely details how our beloved human-shifted gearboxes work.

This is just another gem from the treasure trove of Jam Handy films, created to explain the high-tech mechanical concepts of the day in a way that just about anybody could understand. It has all the trademark features of a Jam Handy production: brilliant visual aids, excellent mechanical analysis, and charming old-timey voice-over work.

Henry Jamison “Jam” Handy was a real character, a rambunctiously productive former Olympic swimmer who made a career out of producing short informational films for soldiers, salesmen, mechanics, and the average layperson. This film, “Spinning Levers,” was commissioned by Chevrolet in 1936 to explain how a manual transmission works—and, as a side benefit, to highlight the then-new synchromesh technology that was a highlight of the ’36 Chevy lineup. It’s basically one of the first advertorials.

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• It’s Simple, Really: How a Differential Works, Explained By a Vintage Film
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• 10 Cars that Made Complexity a Virtue
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• Video: 105-Year-Old Engine That You Start with a Blowtorch
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Anyway, take a 10-minute educational break and learn the basics of what’s going on inside most stick-shift transmissions. Even if you understand the concept implicitly, we’re certain you’ll learn something from the irrepressible Jam Handy.