Tag: advertising

DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015

An anonymous reader writes: Github’s transparency report for 2015 shows that the site received many DMCA notices that removed more than 8, 200 projects. “In 2015, we received significantly more takedown notices, and took down significantly more content, than we did in 2014, ” Github reports. For comparison, the company received only 258 DMCA notices in 2014, 17 of which responded with a counter-notice or retraction. In 2015, they received 505 takedown notices, 62 of which were the subject of counters or withdrawals. TorrentFreak reports: “Copyright holders are not limited to reporting one URL or location per DMCA notice. In fact, each notice filed can target tens, hundreds, or even thousands of allegedly infringing locations.” September was a particularly active month as it took down nearly 5, 834 projects. “Usually, the DMCA reports we receive are from people or organizations reporting a single potentially infringing repository. However, every now and then we receive a single notice asking us to take down many repositories, ” Github explains. They are called ‘Mass Removals’ when more than 100 repositories are asked to be removed. “In all, fewer than twenty individual notice senders requested removal of over 90% of the content GitHub took down in 2015.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View the original here:
DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015

DoNotPay Bot Has Beaten 160,000 Traffic Tickets — and Counting

Khari Johnson, writing for VentureBeat:A bot made to challenge traffic tickets has been used more than 9, 000 times by New Yorkers, according to DoNotPay maker Joshua Browder. The bot was made available to New Yorkers in March. In recent years and decades, residents of The Big Apple have seen a persistent increase in traffic fines. A record $1.9 billion in traffic fines was issued by the City of New York in 2015. Since the first version of the bot was released in London last fall, 160, 000 of 250, 000 tickets have been successfully challenged with DoNotPay, Browder said. “I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society, ” said Browder. “These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government.” Browder, who’s 19, hopes to extend DoNotPay to Seattle this fall. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original:
DoNotPay Bot Has Beaten 160,000 Traffic Tickets — and Counting

Physicists Confirm a Pear-Shaped Nucleus, and It Could Ruin Time Travel Forever

An anonymous reader writes from a report via ScienceAlert: Physicists have confirmed the existence of pear-shaped nuclei, which challenges the fundamental theories of physics that explain our Universe. “We’ve found these nuclei literally point towards a direction in space. This relates to a direction in time, providing there’s a well-defined direction in time and we will always travel from past to present, ” Marcus Scheck from the University of the West of Scotland told Kenneth MacDonald at BBC News. Until recently, it was generally accepted that nuclei of atoms could only be one of three shapes: spherical, discus, or rugby ball. The first discovery of a pear-shaped nucleus was back in 2013, when physicists at CERN discovered isotope Radium-224. Now, that find has been confirmed by a second study, which shows that the nucleus of the isotope Barium-144 is also asymmetrical and pear-shaped. In regard to time travel, Scheck says that this uneven distribution of mass and charge caused Barium-144’s nucleus to “point” in a certain direction in spacetime, and this bias could explain why time seems to only want to go from past to present, and not backwards, even if the laws of physics don’t care which way it goes. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View article:
Physicists Confirm a Pear-Shaped Nucleus, and It Could Ruin Time Travel Forever

Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Quora Account Hacked

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is the latest high-profile victim of a hacking group called OurMine. Earlier today, the group managed to get hold of Pichai’s Quota account, which in turn, gave them access to his Twitter feed as well. In a statement to The Next Web, the group said that their intention is to just test people’s security, and that they never change the victim’s passwords. Looking at the comments they left after hacking Pichai’s account, it is also clear that OurMine is promoting its security services. The same group recently also hacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more here:
Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Quora Account Hacked

A New ‘Quake’ Episode Appears 20 Years Later

An anonymous reader quotes this report from Motherboard: The months leading up to this year’s phenomenal reboot of Doom were stuffed with all kinds of fun developments surrounding the original series, whether it was mods that let you play as Duke Nukem or whole new levels from famed designer John Romero. There’s now a new Quake game in the works, and already it appears to be enjoying a similar renaissance. Yesterday MachineGames, the studio behind Wolfenstein: The New Order, released an entirely new episode for the original Quake in celebration of its 20-year anniversary, and you can play it entirely for free. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original post:
A New ‘Quake’ Episode Appears 20 Years Later

Lenovo Warns Users To Upgrade Pre-Installed Tool With Severe Security Holes

Long-time Slashdot reader itwbennett writes: Lenovo is advising users to upgrade to version 3.3.003 of Lenovo Solution Center (LSC), which includes fixes for two high-severity vulnerabilities in the tool. [The tool] allows users to check their system’s virus and firewall status, update their Lenovo software, perform backups, check battery health, get registration and warranty information and run hardware tests. The CVE-2016-5249 vulnerability allows an attacker who already has control of a limited account on a PC to execute malicious code via the privileged LocalSystem account. And the CVE-2016-5248 vulnerability allows any local user to send a command to LSC.Services.SystemService in order to kill any other process on the system, privileged or not. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View original post here:
Lenovo Warns Users To Upgrade Pre-Installed Tool With Severe Security Holes

After Death, Hundreds of Genes Spring Back to Life

Two surprising studies reveal new information about what genes do after death. Slashdot reader gurps_npc writes: You think your body stops after death, but up to two days later certain genes may turn on and start doing stuff for another two days before they give up the ghost. We are all zombies for up to four days after death. Gizmodo reports that in fact “hundreds” of genes apparently spring back to life. “[P]revious work on human cadavers demonstrated that some genes remain active after death, but we had no idea as to the extent of this strange phenomenon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continue reading here:
After Death, Hundreds of Genes Spring Back to Life

Austin Is Conducting Sting Operations Against Ride-Sharing Drivers

Since the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing apps stopped service in Austin, drunk driving has increased, riders are hunting for alternatives, and the police are conducting undercover sting operations against unauthorized ride-sharing drivers. With Chicago also considering new restrictions on ride-sharing apps, Slashdot reader MarkWhittington shares this report from Austin: With thousands of drivers and tens of thousands of riders who once depended on ride-sharing services in a lurch, a group called Arcade City has tried to fill the void with a person-to-person site to link up drivers and riders who then negotiate a fare. Of course, according to a story on KVUE, the Austin city government, and the police are on the case. The Austin Police Department has diverted detectives and resources to conduct sting operations on ride-sharing drivers who attempt to operate without official sanction. Undercover operatives will arrange for a ride with an Arcade City driver and then bust them, impounding their vehicle and imposing a fine. “The first Friday and Saturday after Uber was gone, we were joking that it was like the zombie apocalypse of drunk people, ” one former ride-sharing driver told Vocative.com. Earlier this month the site compared this year’s drunk driving arrests to last years — and discovered that in the three weeks since Uber and Lyft left Austin, 7.5% more people have been arrested for drunk driving. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read More:
Austin Is Conducting Sting Operations Against Ride-Sharing Drivers

Tesla Model S Floats Well Enough To Act As a Boat, According To Elon Musk

It appears a Tesla Model S car can float and effectively drive on water. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a video of a Model S car which was able to float well through a flooded tunnel in Kazakhstan. Musk also noted that the company “definitely” doesn’t recommend trying this — but still vouched for the availability of this feature. The Guardian reports: The car appears to power through the water using the thrust of the wheels turning in the water, as the bow wave laps over the car’s bonnet. Most internal combustion engine cars are sunk in water when the exhaust becomes flooded, which is why serious off-roaders have big exhaust scoops leading to the roof. Electric cars don’t suffer from that particular issue, but how the rest of the car will react is unknown. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More here:
Tesla Model S Floats Well Enough To Act As a Boat, According To Elon Musk

New ‘Hardened’ Tor Browser Protects Users From FBI Hacking

An anonymous reader quotes an article from Motherboard: According to a new paper, security researchers are now working closely with the Tor Project to create a “hardened” version of the Tor Browser, implementing new anti-hacking techniques which could dramatically improve the anonymity of users and further frustrate the efforts of law enforcement… “Our solution significantly improves security over standard address space layout randomization (ASLR) techniques currently used by Firefox and other mainstream browsers, ” the researchers write in their paper, whose findings will be presented in July at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in Darmstadt, Germany. The researchers say Tor is currently field-testing their solution for an upcoming “hardened” release, making it harder for agencies like the FBI to crack the browser’s security, according to Motherboard. “[W]hile that defensive advantage may not last for too long, it shows that some in the academic research community are still intent on patching the holes that their peers are helping government hackers exploit.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Follow this link:
New ‘Hardened’ Tor Browser Protects Users From FBI Hacking