How Facebook Is Censoring Content in the United States

Facebook vows to be transparent, and yet the Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that the company is hiding all the ways that it blocks access in the United States, on behalf of law enforcement. Read more…

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How Facebook Is Censoring Content in the United States

Researchers Find Major Keychain Vulnerability in iOS and OS X

An anonymous reader notes a report from El Reg on a major cross-app resource vulnerability in iOS and Mac OS X. Researchers say it’s possible to break app sandboxes, bypass App Store security checks, and crack the Apple keychain. The researchers wrote, “specifically, we found that the inter-app interaction services, including the keychain and WebSocket on OS X and URL Scheme on OS X and iOS, can all be exploited by [malware] to steal such confidential information as the passwords for iCloud, email and bank, and the secret token of Evernote. Further, the design of the App sandbox on OS X was found to be vulnerable, exposing an app’s private directory to the sandboxed malware that hijacks its Apple Bundle ID. As a result, sensitive user data, like the notes and user contacts under Evernote and photos under WeChat, have all been disclosed. Fundamentally, these problems are caused by the lack of app-to-app and app-to-OS authentications.” Their full academic paper (PDF) is available online, as are a series of video demos. They withheld publication for six months at Apple’s request, but haven’t heard anything further about a fix. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Find Major Keychain Vulnerability in iOS and OS X

The World’s Thinnest 4 TB External Drive Doesn’t Need Extra Power

Chances are if you’ve opted for an ultra-portable laptop , you’ve made a few compromises when it comes to on-board storage. So an external hard drive for archiving your mountains of media is a must, and Samsung’s now squeezed four terabytes of storage inside a housing that matches your computer’s svelte dimensions. Read more…

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The World’s Thinnest 4 TB External Drive Doesn’t Need Extra Power

Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Frosty P writes: BMI claims Amici III in Linden, New York didn’t have a license when it played four tunes in its eatery one night last year, including the beloved “Bennie and the Jets” and “Brown Sugar, ” winning $24, 000 earlier this year, and over $8, 200 in attorney’s fees. Giovanni Lavorato, who has been in business for 25 years, says the disc DJ brought into the eatery paid a fee to play tunes. “It’s ridiculous for me to pay somebody also, ” he said. “This is not a nightclub. This is not a disco joint . . . How many times do they want to get paid for the stupid music?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Restaurateur Loses Copyright Suit To BMI

Why Mathematicians Are Hoarding This Special Type of Japanese Chalk

This spring, an 80-year-old Japanese chalk company went out of business . Nobody, perhaps, was as sad to see the company go as mathematicians who had become obsessed with Hagoromo Fulltouch Chalk, the so-called “Rolls Royce of chalk.” Read more…

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Why Mathematicians Are Hoarding This Special Type of Japanese Chalk

Google’s Masterplan to Make Chrome Suck Less

Google Chrome has this slight problem where it hoards RAM and battery like Smaug hoards shiny things. It sucks, and it completely ruins an otherwise perfect browser. Apparently, Google is aware of Chrome’s problems, and it has a 12-step program to fix things. Read more…

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Google’s Masterplan to Make Chrome Suck Less

Finally, Someone’s Designing a Fix for the Nightmarish Open Plan Office

When the door slid closed, everything went silent. I couldn’t hear any of the chatter or construction outside. It was weirdly cozy. I was sitting in a tiny pod—wrapped in a deep green felt, with its own built-in bench, desk, and lighting—designed a company waging war the open office. Read more…

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Finally, Someone’s Designing a Fix for the Nightmarish Open Plan Office

Hands-on with YouTube Gaming—Google built itself a Twitch Killer

NEW YORK—YouTube Gaming is coming! YouTube’s Twitch Killer was announced on Friday , so we stopped by the YouTube Space in Manhattan to try out a pre-release version of the service. (And we took a  ton of screenshots, see below.) YouTube says the service will launch “this summer”—it’s kind of “this summer” right now— and sure enough, the version we tried out seemed 99% finished. We spent most of our time with the desktop website, and we weren’t even on a developer sandbox—it was just the live gaming.youtube.com site with a properly-flagged account. Let’s get started! The Interface Ron Amadeo An open live stream, complete with chat. It’s Twitch! Note the “-1:43” tooltip: you can rewind the stream! 3 more images in gallery In its blog post, YouTube neglected to show the most important screenshot: the live streaming video page, so that was the first place we explored. The live video page is an all-dark interface with a large video player and a tabbed interface to the right. The tabs house chat, the typical YouTube related videos list (which should be great for discovery), and a description tab. Read 27 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Hands-on with YouTube Gaming—Google built itself a Twitch Killer

A Map That May Have Led Columbus To America Is Finally Being Deciphered

The primary way we share ideas today is the internet. In the 15th century, it was cartography. And now, researchers at Yale are giving us a glimpse of one of the most influential maps in history—parts of which, up until now, had been too faded and aged to read. Read more…

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A Map That May Have Led Columbus To America Is Finally Being Deciphered

Fake Mobile Phone Towers Found To Be "Actively Listening In" On Calls In UK

New submitter nickweller writes: More than 20 Stingray fake phone towers which can collect data from passing devices and listen in on calls have been discovered operating in the UK. The Metropolitan Police have refused to say who is controlling the IMSI catchers, also known as Stingrays, or what is being done with the information they are gathering. Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: “If people imagine that we’ve got the resources to do as much intrusion as they worry about, I would reassure them that it’s impossible.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fake Mobile Phone Towers Found To Be "Actively Listening In" On Calls In UK