Tag: ad-choices

North Korean defector to airdrop DVD, USB copies of The Interview

A well-known North Korean defector has announced that he will launch 100,000 DVDs and USB sticks with copies of The Interview as part of his regularly scheduled balloon launches into the Hermit Kingdom. Sony Pictures pulled the theatrical release of the film in the wake of hacks against its corporate networks . In an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday, Park Sang-hak said that his next launch is planned for late January and will be in partnership with the Human Rights Foundation, which did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. “North Korea’s absolute leadership will crumble if the idolization of leader Kim breaks down,” Park told the AP, which noted that the dispatched versions will have Korean subtitles. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the original:
North Korean defector to airdrop DVD, USB copies of The Interview

Comcast just upped its cable modem rental fee from $8 to $10 per month

Comcast users in various parts of the country have already gotten (or may soon get) a lovely holiday present from their ISP—a seemingly inexplicable increase in the cable modem rental fee, from $8 to $10 per month. Eric Studley, of Boston, who posts on reddit as Slayer0606, first pointed out the increase on Tuesday. After reading Studley’s post, Ars encouraged readers who rent Comcast modems to check their bills and found that the increases seem to have taken place as far back as October 2014, while others took effect as of December 20, 2014 and January 1, 2015. The company did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View article:
Comcast just upped its cable modem rental fee from $8 to $10 per month

Pope to push for action on climate change

Over the weekend, The Guardian reported that Pope Francis will issue an encyclical urging Catholics to push for action on climate change. The push will coincide with the efforts to follow up on the Lima agreement in the hope that they will lead to binding agreements for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Although the Vatican has not confirmed that the document is in the works, the article quotes several authorities by name, and they speak as if it is a done deal. The document would be in keeping with the Pope’s messages on environmental stewardship; the article quotes Francis as telling an audience in Latin America, “Climate change, the loss of biodiversity and deforestation are already showing their devastating effects in the great cataclysms we witness.” It’s also consistent with his general high regard for scientific findings. The Pope will join a variety of voices pushing for action next year and will undoubtedly add to the political pressure for an agreement. A more relevant question may be whether Francis can sway anyone who wasn’t already interested in seeing progress made on the climate. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Pope to push for action on climate change

California DMV will miss its deadline for driverless car regulations

This week, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced that it will miss a state Senate deadline to establish public regulations for self-driving cars by January 1, 2015. The Los Angeles Times reports safety concerns are the main motivation behind the delay. Possible regulations will now be discussed at a public workshop in Sacramento in late January, and the DMV will gather feedback from industry, academic, and consumer groups in the meantime.  The   LA Times  notes  ” there are currently no federal safety standards or independent organizations that test the safety of these vehicles.” So according to  USA Today , that leaves the state’s DMV essentially with three courses of action: follow the current US system (manufacturers self-certifying vehicles), opt for a European system (independent companies provide verification), or get into the Herculean task of providing its own testing. Despite the lack of standards for the public, 2014 was a banner year for the advancement of driverless cars. In May, Google publicly revealed the prototype for its in-house built self-driving car , which initially did not include traditional components like a steering wheel, accelerator, brakes, mirrors, or soundsystem. The cars were capped at 25mph and did not allow humans to take over piloting. (Google revealed the first genuine build of its prototype last Monday in a blog post.) Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the article:
California DMV will miss its deadline for driverless car regulations

North Korea suffers another Internet outage, hurls racial slur at Pres. Obama

With its latest response in the country’s on-going flap with the US, Agence France-Presse reports North Korea called President Barack Obama a “monkey” today. The racial slur comes after a recent double blow to North Korea: the country suffered yet another Internet outage Saturday and  Sony officially released The Interview , its fictional Kim Jong-Un assassination film, on Thursday. North Korea has fingered Washington for the outages and insists President Obama encouraged US theaters to re-embrace  The Interview.  “Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,” a spokesman for North Korea’s National Defence Commission said in a statement published by the country’s official KCNA news agency. “If the US persists in American-style arrogant, high-handed, and gangster-like arbitrary practices despite repeated warnings, the US should bear in mind that its failed political affairs will face inescapable deadly blows.” An apparent DDoS attack knocked North Korea off the ‘net earlier this week, and it experienced another mass outage Saturday evening. This one even affected North Korea’s telecommunication networks, according to Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency (via AFP ). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit site:
North Korea suffers another Internet outage, hurls racial slur at Pres. Obama

NASA just e-mailed a wrench to space

When International Space Station  Commander Barry Wilmore needed a wrench,  NASA  knew just what to do. They “e-mailed” him one. This is the first time an object has been designed on Earth and then transmitted to space for manufacture. Made In Space, the California company that designed the 3D printer aboard the ISS, overheard Wilmore mentioning the need for a ratcheting socket wrench and decided to create one.  Previously, if an astronaut needed a specific tool it would have to be flown up on the next mission to the ISS , which could take months. This isn’t the first 3D-printed object made in space , but it is the first created to meet the needs of an astronaut. In November astronauts aboard the ISS printed a replacement part for the recently installed 3D printer. A total of 21 objects have now been printed in space, all of which will be brought back to Earth for testing. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
NASA just e-mailed a wrench to space

FBI claims North Korean involvement in Sony Pictures attack

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Washington press office has issued an update on the investigation into the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, including the conclusion that North Korea was behind it. “As a result of our investigation, and in close collaboration with other US government departments and agencies, the FBI now has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible for these actions,” the office said in a statement. However, the information cited by the FBI’s update may not be as conclusive as many would like. Other hints at the attribution were provided to news organizations off-the-record, but the FBI’s public statements are far from definitive. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View original post here:
FBI claims North Korean involvement in Sony Pictures attack

Activist group sues San Diego Police Department over “stingray” records

A legal advocacy group has sued the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) and the city of San Diego in an attempt to force the release of public records relating to stingrays, also known as cell-site simulators. Stingrays are often used covertly by local and federal law enforcement to locate target cellphones and their respective owners. However, stingrays also sweep up cell data of innocent people nearby who have no idea that such collection is taking place. Stingrays can be used to intercept voice calls and text messages as well. Earlier this week, a local judge in Arizona ruled that a local reporter could not receive similar stingray documents from the Tucson Police Department because disclosure “would give criminals a road map for how to defeat the device, which is used not only by Tucson but other local and national police agencies.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Originally posted here:
Activist group sues San Diego Police Department over “stingray” records

AnandTech snapped up by parent company of Tom’s Hardware and LaptopMag

Purch, Inc. announced  on Wednesday that it had purchased AnandTech.com, ending the site’s 17-year run as an independent publication. Purch also owns a number of other long-running technology sites, including LaptopMag (founded as Laptop Magazine in 1991), Tom’s Hardware (founded 1996), and a handful of other offshoot tech publications. Purch says the acquisition will help it “dominate the tech expert and enthusiast market.” Anand Shimpi, founder and original editor-in-chief of the site, left his post for Apple in late August. Shimpi says he is “happy to see [AnandTech] end up with a partner committed to taking good care of the brand and its readers.” Current Editor-In-Chief Ryan Smith says the site has “grown by leaps and bounds over the past several years” but that it was “nearing what’s possible as an independent company.” Smith goes on to say that Purch values AnandTech’s exhaustive hardware testing and reviews, and that Purch would enable the site to grow “without compromising the quality that made us who we are today.” Under Smith, AnandTech has continued to run reviews of individual PC components and, less frequently, complete consumer products like laptops, phones, and operating systems. While the site misses Shimpi’s voice and expertise (and that of former mobile editor Brian Klug, who also left for Apple this year), its coverage and testing procedures continue to be deep and thorough, and they will hopefully remain that way post-acquisition. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read More:
AnandTech snapped up by parent company of Tom’s Hardware and LaptopMag

ICANN e-mail accounts, zone database breached in spearphishing attack

Unknown attackers used a spearphishing campaign to compromise sensitive systems operated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a coup that allowed them to take control of employee e-mail accounts and access personal information of people doing business with the group. ICANN, which oversees the Internet’s address system, said in a release published Tuesday that the breach also gave attackers administrative access to all files stored in its centralized zone data system , as well as the names, postal addresses, e-mail addresses, fax and phone numbers, user names, and cryptographically hashed passwords of account holders who used the system. Domain registries use the database to help manage the current allocation of hundreds of new generic top level domains (gTLDs) currently underway. Attackers also gained unauthorized access to the content management systems of several ICANN blogs. “We believe a ‘spear phishing’ attack was initiated in late November 2014,” Tuesday’s press release stated. “It involved email messages that were crafted to appear to come from our own domain being sent to members of our staff. The attack resulted in the compromise of the email credentials of several ICANN staff members.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
ICANN e-mail accounts, zone database breached in spearphishing attack