Dr. Nathan P. Myhrvold has an eclectic range of interests. The ex-Microsoft CTO is a physicist, a proponent of "modernist cuisine," a multi-millionaire, and the head of the controversial "patent troll" Intellectual Ventures. He also knows a lot about dinosaurs. More, he thinks, than dedicated dinosaur researchers. Dr. Myhrvold has alleged that reports published by some of the biggest names in paleontology are riddled with "serious errors and inaccuracies."
Part of the funding bill passed by Congress this week includes provisions that call for the Department of Defense to formally consider the creation of a part-time civilian force to assist in times of cyberattacks. As NextGov reports, the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) calls for the DOD to conduct a formal evaluation of the role that the National Guard and the Army, Air Force, and Naval Reserve could play in bolstering network defenses against attack, including the hiring of additional civilian "technicians."
Some countries already have volunteer civilian "cyber militias"—Estonia, for example, has a civilian cyber reserve that it put together after cyberattacks on the country's national Internet infrastructure that appeared to originate from Russia. Maryland has created a cyberwarfare unit as part of its Air National Guard. But the Defense Department has resisted previous efforts by members of Congress to establish National Guard "Cyber and Computer Network Incident Response Teams" in every state.
The 2014 NDAA's language, buried deep in the funding bill's 1,100+ pages, is specifically tailored to prevent the DOD from cutting back funding for state cyber units, and it puts a freeze on the reduction of personnel in Air National Guard cyber units. And the law's wording is an effort to prod the DOD into relying more heavily on the Reserves and National Guard for cyberwarfare operations that don't require deployment overseas, calling for a full report on how the DOD would recruit, organize, and train such a force, and what it would cost.
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Financial damage of data leaks must be considered by firms
    
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Presented by the industry as the most damaging form of piracy, camcording of movies in theaters has been going on for more than three decades.
Instances of recording can be traced back to theaters all around the world due to the forensic marking employed by film companies. No longer the force it once was, occurrences in the United States have reduced in recent years due to tough local laws and increased security at theaters.
Over in the UK, where movies are often released a little later than in the US, cinema workers are given cash incentives to keep an eye out for would-be cammers. In a scheme in operation since 2006, staff can earn up to £500 each if they manage to stop a potential pirate in his or her tracks.
As can be seen from the image above, there are strict rules governing whether an individual is awarded a few hundred pounds for stopping “millions” in movie piracy. Perhaps the most interesting one is calling the police, since simply recording a movie is not illegal in the UK. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 can only be used against a suspected cammer when there is proof that the recording was part of a commercial operation or that there was intent to later upload it.
Nevertheless, the police do get called and according to stats released today by FACT, since April 2013 police have attended a dozen suspected camming instances in the UK on movies including Gravity, Captain Phillips, Rush, One Direction: This Is Us, Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and Monsters University. A total of 15 vigilant staff will collect rewards of up to £500 each as a result.
“Cinema staff are the frontline in protecting films from being pirated and I am always pleased to be able to recognize their work,” said Kieron Sharp, FACT Director General, announcing what could amount to a total reward handout of £7,500.
“FACT’s strategy funded by the film distributors seeks to prevent the initial recording that seeds piracy globally. We continue to work together with UK cinema operators to support the success of the cinema experience and to allow continued investment by FACT’s members in exciting entertainment for all audiences.”
There can be little doubt that stopping recording in theaters by any means will be FACT’s goal (and they will no doubt be pleased with the results this year), but the details underline the weakness in the law which isn’t likely to be changed anytime soon.
Of a total 12 incidents (which by default must’ve included at least 12 people and probably many more) police arrested only five people and issued another nine with cautions. Just two are currently on police bail. Notably there is no mention of a single prosecution or conviction.
But despite the law favoring would-be pirates, FACT are still able to get the police to take camming seriously, especially when the allegations go beyond simple recording and into distribution. Earlier this year, police responded in large numbers to detain the same alleged movie pirate not once, but twice.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.
A Senate committee released a report this week that goes to great lengths to determine all of the things that data brokers, the companies that trade in consumer data, don’t want to talk about. The 35-page report describes some of the companies’ strategies for collecting and organizing data, but significant portions of the report discuss what the companies are unwilling to talk about: namely, where they get a lot of their data and where that data is going.
Companies covered in the report include well-known firms, like Datalogix and Acxiom, as well as credit reporting companies that also trade in consumer data, like Experian and TransUnion. In the report, the committee sets out to answer four questions: what data is collected, how specific it is, how it’s collected, and how it’s used. While the first two questions turned out to be reasonably easy to answer, the companies all but stonewalled the committee on substantial answers to the latter two.
The report harkens back repeatedly to the good old days of data collection, when many of the same companies queried used demographic information like zip codes to help marketers figure out where to send catalogs or area codes to figure out which towns to telemarket to. These days, our many interactions with the Internet—particularly financial ones—have resulted in an onslaught of data for these data brokers to not only collect, but to resell to interested parties.
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NASA's spacewalk yesterday was a tactical success, as astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Michael Hopkins removed a bad valve from the ammonia pump in five hours and 28 minutes—an hour faster than the 6.5-hour exercise originally planned. However, midway through the procedure, Mastracchio encountered an issue with his spacesuit that has caused NASA to delay the second of three possible missions until Tuesday.
Mastracchio started experiencing unusually cold toes during the operation, pumping up the heat inside his boots in order to continue in relative comfort. Based on the two astronaut's efficiency, NASA initially intended to get ahead of schedule with extra work yesterday. However, about two hours after Mastracchio started experiencing difficulty, he respectfully declined when Mission Control spoke of additional work. "I'd like to stow this old module and kind of clean up and call it a day," he said.
According to NPR, the suits worn on Saturday had already been altered in response to helmet flooding that nearly drowned an Italian astronaut during the summer. So Mastracchio and Hopkins went into yesterday's mission with extra safety gear—snorkels in their suits and water-absorbent pads within their helmets.
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“The pioneering work of Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman was a crucial step in the long scientific journey that led to the development of nuclear technology as we understand it today.”
De Saudische koning Abdullah heeft zijn zoon Mishaal per decreet benoemd tot gouverneur van de provincie Mekka. Het is een prestigieuze post, omdat jaarlijks zo'n drie miljoen moslims tijdens de hadj naar de heilige stad Mekka reizen.
De 43-jarige prins Mishaal is nu verantwoordelijk voor het ongestoorde verloop van deze massale pelgrimstocht. In de stad staat de heilige zwarte steen, de Kaaba, waar de hadj-gangers biddend omheen cirkelen.
De vorige gouverneur van Mekka, prins Khalid, moet als nieuwe minister van Onderwijs de moeizame onderwijshervormingen in Saudi-Arabië op gang helpen.
Keizer Akihito is jarig. Hij viert vandaag zijn 80ste verjaardag, maar is nog niet van plan te stoppen met zijn keizerlijke werkzaamheden.
Ook zijn vader Hirohito bleef na zijn 80ste doorwerken, zei Akihito vorig jaar al. Alleen als het echt nodig is, zullen zijn zoons Naruhito en Akishino taken overnemen. "Ik bewaar de status quo", zei de keizer, die daarmee bedoelde dat hij zijn gebruikelijke agenda zal afwerken.
Wel gaat hij in mei op de Dag van het Kind met keizerin Michiko voor het laatst naar een crèche. "Het leeftijdsverschil met de kinderen is nu wel heel groot", vindt de keizer. Die taak wordt overgenomen door kroonprins Naruhito.
Ook het jaarlijkse bezoek aan een bejaardentehuis op de Dag van Respect voor Ouderen komt na 2014 te vervallen. "Maar met mijn gezondheid heeft dat niets te maken", zei Akihito.
De keizer heeft een bypassoperatie gehad en is behandeld voor prostaatkanker, maar verklaarde dat hij zich voor zijn leeftijd fit voelt. Op 7 januari 2014 zit hij precies 25 jaar op de Chrysantentroon. Akihito en keizerin Michiko zijn volgend jaar 55 jaar getrouwd.
It probably wasn't the weekend Justine Sacco thought she was heading into when she clicked send on the tweet below and then shut off her phone for a 12-hour international flight.
By that afternoon, the tweet had been posted to Valleywag and the internet was abuzz. Sacco was still in the air, and the tweet was still on her feed. Would there be an apology when she landed? Would the PR boss of IAC (parent company of Tinder, Vimeo and OkCupid) lose her job? One hashtag made its way to the top of the trending list on Twitter: #HasJustineLandedYet.
When Sacco landed in South Africa, she rapidly deleted the tweet, and then her entire account.
IAC announced Sacco had been fired.
Now, Sacco has spoken out herself with an apology, ABC reports, which she first sent to a South African newspaper The Star:
Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet," Sacco said in the statement. "There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand.
For being insensitive to this crisis -- which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly -- and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed.
This is my father's country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused.
ABC also notes that someone bought the domain www.justinesacco.com, which brings up a donation page for Aid for Africa.
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Maxim Bange..about time
A group of developers that go by the name evasi0n came up with a way to hack Apple's latest version of iPhone and iPad software, iOS 7.
The process is called jailbreaking, and it gives you access to a third-party app store called Cydia that is full of a bunch of unauthorized apps and software modifications for iPhones and iPads. For example, some Cydia apps will let you change the icon designs on your home screen or add widgets that update with real-time information.
Until now, no one has figured out how to jailbreak iOS 7. But jailbreaking was very popular on older versions of the iPhone and iPad software.
It's a relatively simple process that requires you to install some software on you computer and then sync it with you iPhone or iPad by plugging it in with a USB cable. You can get started here. However, please note that jailbreaking can void your warranty, so if you run into any problems and ruin your device, Apple has the right to refuse to fix it for you.
Most people don't need to jailbreak. It's mostly for people who like to customize their phones beyond what Apple normally lets you do. In fact, iOS 7 already has a lot of features built in that jailbreakers used to love, like the ability to adjust basic settings like brightness, WiFi, and airplane mode from a control panel that pops up from the bottom of your screen.
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De Russische voormalige oliemagnaat Michail Chodorkovski gaat zich inzetten voor de vrijlating van politieke gevangenen in Rusland. Dat maakte hij bekend tijdens een persconferentie in Berlijn.
"Ik was niet de laatste politieke gevangene van het Kremlin", zei Chodorkovski in de richting van westerse regeringsleiders die een goede relatie onderhouden met Rusland. De zakenman zei in de toekomst een publieke rol te willen spelen, maar zeker geen politieke machtsstrijd met de autoriteiten aan te willen gaan.
Chodorkovski sprak met journalisten bij Checkpoint Charlie, de bekendste grensovergang tussen het voormalige West-Berlijn en het communistische Oost-Berlijn. Zijn bejaarde ouders waren ook aanwezig bij de persontmoeting die plaatsvond in het Muurmuseum bij de voormalige grensovergang.
Chodorkovski begon zijn verklaring met een dankwoord voor de Duitse oud-politicus Genscher en bondskanselier Merkel. Genscher heeft bemiddeld in de gratieverlening door president Poetin.
De ex-oliemagnaat zei desgevraagd geen haat- of wraakgevoelens jegens Poetin te voelen, omdat hij heeft besloten zich "pragmatisch" op te stellen.
Op een vraag over de Olympische Winterspelen antwoordde hij dat zo'n sportief evenement niet bedorven mag worden door politiek activisme. Enkele regeringsleiders hebben al laten weten niet naar de Winterspelen te gaan uit protest tegen de anti-homowetgeving in Rusland.
Chodorkovski verklaarde voorlopig in Berlijn te blijven vanwege familieomstandigheden. Zijn moeder wordt er behandeld voor kanker. Hij voegde eraan toe dat hij meer zekerheden van de Russische autoriteiten nodig heeft voordat hij terug kan keren naar zijn vaderland.
Chodorkovski wees erop dat een nieuwe, derde rechtszaak tegen hem nog niet volledig is uitgesloten. In de afgelopen jaren heeft hij twee keer terechtgestaan wegens diefstal, corruptie en witwassen van geld.
Algemeen werd aangenomen dat Chodorkovski om politieke redenen werd vastgehouden, wegens zijn verzet tegen Poetin. Hij kreeg vrijdag onverwacht gratie.
Morgan Freeman earned high praise for his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the 2009 film "Invictus."
His performance was so convincing for a billboard designer in Tamil Nadu, India, that he accidentally dedicated a memorial to the actor instead of the late South African president who had fought against apartheid:
This Billboard in Tamil Nadu #India pays respect to Morgan Freeman instead of #NelsonMandela . . . . . . . pic.twitter.com/Xpqrt4SKce
— Che ™ (@FarrukhHussaini) December 19, 2013
The billboard reads "We should be proud that we were part of an era when they lived," and features portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Agence France-Presse was able to get in touch with billboard's owner, a shopkeeper who went only by Chandrashekhar.
He told the AFP that he ordered a billboard paying respect to Mandela, and that the mix-up was the mistake of the designer. He did not explain why he still put it up.
"We will replace it with the correct picture of Mandela," Chandrashekhar said.
Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh proclaimed Mandela "a true Gandhian" after he died on Dec. 5, and memorials in honor of the South African icon have sprung up across the country.
SEE ALSO: 7 Actors Who Have Played Nelson Mandela On Film
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This photograph of Mikhail Khodorkovsky arriving at Berlin's Schönefeld Airport is the first of him as a free man in over ten years.
It all happened so quickly. Just yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the jailed oligarch, perhaps his greatest enemy, was to be pardoned. This morning, the Khodorkovsky camp (who yesterday were saying they knew nothing about his pardon), announced that he was already free.
Russia Today reports that he was taken away from his prison camp in Segezha, Republic of Karelia, by helicopter, and that he later boarded a private plane to Germany. According to the Swiss website 20 Minuten, Khodorkovsky will first meet his mother in Germany where they will seek medical treatment, and he will then continue to Switzerland.
Right now it appears that Khodorkovsky thought his mother was in Germany, where she had been previously for treatment. Khodorkovsky's parents, rather sadly, were shocked when they were told by German reporters that he had landed in Berlin and not Moscow, but they will be traveling soon.
It's a remarkable escape for one of the most fascinating characters in Modern Russia. Khodorkovsky was once Russia's richest man but he was arrested in 2003 on charges that many international observers said were politically motivated.
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National Geographic has announced the winners of its 2013 Photography Contest.
More than 7,000 photographers from 150 countries submitted stunning images for this year's edition of the annual contest.
A panel of National Geographic photographers chose winners in three different categories: people, places, and nature.
The winning photos in each category will be published in an upcoming issue of National Geographic, and each photographer will receive a prize of $2,500. The grand prize winner overall receives $10,000 and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Contest rules required photos to be unaltered and in digital form.
National Geographic shared the honorable mentions and first-place winners with Business Insider.
Source: 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest
Source: 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest
Source: 2013 National Geographic Photography Contest
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In recent years YouTube has become a wonderful platform for individuals to create a product and generate revenue from it, often from the comfort of their own homes. Many provide services such as hints, tips and tutorials on anything from baking to flying a plane, but growing in popularity are YouTube-based reviewers.
One guy who has gone down that particular route is John Bain, an Englishman known online as TotalBiscuit. Bain is a great success and has almost 1.3 million subscribers to his PC gaming YouTube channel. However he now finds himself in a copyright takedown controversy sparked by his review of Wild Games Studio’s first-person survival game Day One: Garry’s Incident.
There’s no way to sugar-coat Bain’s review – he hated it, and quite rightly so. The 21 minute review ripped apart the graphics, gameplay and presentation of the game and it was quite obvious from Bain’s tone this wasn’t going to end well. Aside from the odd element receiving a lukewarm reception, the review concluded that the game is a complete turkey.
The video review became highly viewed very quickly, topping search results for the game on YouTube. But without warning it suddenly disappeared, only to be replaced by a copyright infringement notice, issued by none other than Wild Games Studio themselves.
At this point it’s worth pointing out that Bain is no stranger to the studio. They gave him a free key to access a review copy of the game on Steam and asked Bain to place a link in his review to where the game could be bought. It was perhaps appropriate then that the CEO of the studio decided to justify their takedown actions on the Stream forums themselves.
Well aware of the circumstances behind the review and his protections under copyright law to critique the game if he so chooses, Bain summed up the mess on Twitter.
“Long story short. Dev sends code, code used to make critique, dev dislikes critique, dev abuses system to censor critique,” he said.
“This happened 2 days ago, we contacted [Wild Games] for an explanation and have heard nothing. Giving them til Monday to respond before going nuclear. It should be pointed out that US Fair Use doctrine exists in particular to protect criticism from being censored in such a way.”
While Bain may have had the intention of not “goin nuclear” until today, things are now largely out of his hands. His follow-up video (embedded below) which explains events to date has already received more than 500,000 views and the backlash on Metacritic is something to behold, with the game currently receiving 0.6 out of 10 after 683 votes. It is very clear from the comments that the Metacritic reviewers know what the developer did to Bain.
“This highlights a wider problem and an issue that must be addressed. Look at how easily a company was able to censor the most-watched and prominent critique of their game by abusing YouTube’s copyright claim system,” Bain says. “Look at how they were able to completely flaunt the notion of networks policing their partners and using a shoot first, ask questions later form, to deny revenue to someone who they didn’t like.”
In order to draw attention to the issue, Bain says he will be donating all YouTube revenue generated by the ‘incident’ to the EFF.
In the meantime, anyone wanting to see the original review can find it on here on DailyMotion, ironically now being monetized by someone else.
Source: Game Devs Abuse Copyright to Censor Negative YouTube Review
But demand for PC chips continues to decline
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Maxim Bange==true
It travels only 20 metres, but it's a start
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Maxim BangeRSS RSS RSS RSS RSS
In May, The New Yorker revealed what hacktivist Aaron Swartz was building before his untimely death: an encrypted dead drop system that would whistleblowers leak documents to journalists without fear of exposing their identity. The New Yorker launched its own implementation, Strongbox, and other media outlets were free to do the same — but in August, noted security researchers at the University of Washington reported that DeadDrop wasn't quite ready for primetime, citing issues installing and using the software among many other things.That's where Aaron Swartz's legacy stood — until today.
Today, the Freedom of the Press Foundation has announced that it has taken over the project, specifically hiring computer security expert James...
Maxim BangeIAEA Peaceful Uses Initiative
Concluding an active year of imPACT Review Assessment missions in IAEA Member States, the IAEA Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT) conducted successive missions in Lebanon and Pakistan in late November and early December 2013.
Maxim BangePromising article
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Maxim BangeJustice?
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Maxim BangeWhat are they not learning?
Unknown hackers gained access to the Washington Post's servers for multiple days and stole employees' user names and passwords, the newspaper said today. Company officials are still trying to determine how much data was exposed, the paper said, but it appears that the hackers did not access any information about the paper's subscribers. This is the second time the newspaper's servers have been breached in the past three years.
The company learned of the breach today. As a precaution, all employees have been asked to change their usernames and passwords. Post officials believe the attack may be the work of Chinese hackers, who were implicated in the previous Post hacking incident. News of the intrusion came the same day that Target was...
One in every 1,155 U.S. homes received a foreclosure filing in November, according to the latest foreclosure data from RealtyTrac.
Foreclosure filings were down 37% from a year ago, but and down 15% from the previous month.
This was driven by a drop in foreclosure starts which fell to the lowest level since December 2005.
"While foreclosures will likely continue to stage a weak rally in certain markets next year as the last of the distress left over from the Great Recession is dealt with," said Daren Blomquist at RealtyTrac.
"It is highly unlikely that there will be a foreclosure comeback that poses any major threat to the solid housing recovery that has now taken hold."
But some states and cities continued to struggle with foreclosures.
At the state level, Florida continued to post the nation's highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 392 homes receiving a foreclosure filing. Delaware and Maryland rounded of the nation's three states with the highest foreclosure rates.
We drew on RealtyTrac's report to highlight the 14 metros with the highest foreclosure rate.
Note: The metros are ranked by foreclosure rate, i.e., one in every X homes received a foreclosure filing.
One in every 502 homes received a foreclosure filing in November 2013
Properties with foreclosure filings:
504
Change from October 2013:
+4.13%
Change from November 2012:
-21.98%
Source: RealtyTrac
One in every 496 homes received a foreclosure filing in November 2013
Properties with foreclosure filings:
331
Change from October 2013:
-7.80%
Change from November 2012:
+85.96%
Source: RealtyTrac
One in every 481 homes received a foreclosure filing in November 2013
Properties with foreclosure filings:
496
Change from October 2013:
+4.20%
Change from November 2012:
+30.18%
Source: RealtyTrac
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