score2 – Page 23

LinkedIn (Temporarily) Backs Down After Uproar At Contact Export Removal

Mark Wilson writes: LinkedIn caused a storm a couple of days ago when it removed the option to instantly download contacts. Many users of the professional social network were more than a little irked to discover that while contact exporting was still available, a wait of up to three days had been put in place. Unsurprisingly, users revolted, having been particularly upset by the fact the change was implemented with no warning or announcement. But the company has managed to turn things around by quickly backtracking on its decision after listening to a stream of complaints on Twitter. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read this article:
LinkedIn (Temporarily) Backs Down After Uproar At Contact Export Removal

Tomb, a Successor To TrueCrypt For Linux Geeks

jaromil writes: Last day we released Tomb version 2.1 with improvements to stability, documentation and translations. Tomb is just a ZSh script wrapping around cryptsetup, gpg and other tools to facilitate the creation and management of LUKS encrypted volumes with features like key separation, steganography, off-line search, QRcode paper backups etc. In designing Tomb we struggle for minimalism and readability, convinced that the increasing complexity of personal technology is the root of many vulnerabilities the world is witnessing today — and this approach turns out to be very successful, judging from the wide adoption, appreciation and contributions our project has received especially after the demise of TrueCrypt. As maintainer of the software I wonder what Slashdot readers think about what we are doing, how we are doing it and more in general about the need for simplicity in secure systems, a debate I perceive as transversal to many other GNU/Linux/BSD projects and their evolution. Given the increasing responsibility in maintaining such a software, considering the human-interface side of things is an easy to reach surface of attack, I can certainly use some advice and criticism. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View post:
Tomb, a Successor To TrueCrypt For Linux Geeks

Experiment: Installing Windows 10 On a 7-Year-Old Acer Aspire One

jones_supa writes: Windows 10 will launch in less than a week and it is supposed to work flawlessly on devices already powered by Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, as Microsoft struggled to keep system requirements unchanged to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Device drivers all the way back to Windows Vista platform (WDDM 1.0) are supported. Softpedia performed a practical test to see how Windows 10 can run on a 7-year-old Acer Aspire One netbook powered by Intel Atom N450 processor clocked at 1.66 GHz, 1 GB of RAM, and a 320 GB mechanical hard disk. The result is surprising to say the least, as installation not only went impressively fast, but the operating system itself also works fast. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the original article here:
Experiment: Installing Windows 10 On a 7-Year-Old Acer Aspire One

US Court: ‘Pocket-Dialed’ Calls Are Not Private

itwbennett writes: In a case of a pocket-dialed call, a conscientious secretary, and sensitive personnel issues, a federal appeals court in Ohio has ruled pocket-dialers shouldn’t have any expectation of privacy. ‘Under the plain-view doctrine, if a homeowner neglects to cover a window with drapes, he would lose his reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to a viewer looking into the window from outside of his property, ‘ the court said. The same applies to pocket-dialed calls, according to the court. If a person doesn’t take reasonable steps to keep their call private, their communications are not protected by the Wiretap Act. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gmail Spam Filter Changes Bite Linus Torvalds

An anonymous reader points out The Register’s story that recent changes to the spam filters that Google uses to pare down junk in gmail evidently are a bit overzealous. Linus Torvalds, who famously likes to manage by email, and whose email flow includes a lot of mailing lists, isn’t happy with it. Ironically perhaps, it was only last week that the Gmail team blogged that its spam filter’s rate of false positives is down to less than 0.05 per cent. In his post, Torvalds said his own experience belies that claim, and that around 30 per cent of the mail in his spam box turned out not to be spam. “It’s actually at the point where I’m noticing missing messages in the email conversations I see, because Gmail has been marking emails in the middle of the conversation as spam. Things that people replied to and that contained patches and problem descriptions, ” Torvalds wrote. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Visit site:
Gmail Spam Filter Changes Bite Linus Torvalds

AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

An anonymous reader writes: In past years the AMD Catalyst Linux driver has yielded better performance if naming the executable “doom3.x86” or “compiz” (among other choices), but these days this application profile concept is made more absurd with more games coming to Linux but AMD not maintaining well their Linux application profile database. The latest example is by getting ~40% better performance by renaming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Linux. If renaming the “csgo_linux” binary to “hl2_linux” for Half-Life 2 within Steam, the frame-rates suddenly increase across the board, this is with the latest Catalyst 15.7 Linux driver while CS:GO has been on Linux for nearly one year. Should driver developers re-evaluate their optimization practices for Linux? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post:
AMD Catalyst Linux Driver Performs Wildly Different Based On Program’s Name

Company Aims To Launch Spacecraft On Beams of Microwaves

MarkWhittington writes: The quest for cheap access to space, to make space travel as inexpensive as air travel, has eluded engineers, government policy makers, and business entrepreneurs from before the beginning of the space age. It has become axiomatic, almost to the point of being a cliché, that the true space age will not begin until launch costs come down significantly. Forbes reported about a company called Escape Dynamics that has a unique approach to the problem. The company proposes to launch payloads into low Earth orbit on beams of microwaves. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Welcome Shift: Spam Now Constitutes Less Than Half of All Email

An anonymous reader writes: According to Symantec’s latest Intelligence Report, spam has fallen to less than 50% of all email in June – a number we haven’t seen in over a decade. Of all emails received by Symantec clients in June, junk emails only accounts for 49.7% down from 52.1% in April which shows a huge drop. Year over year, spam has decreased as well due to internet providers doing a better job at filtering and shutting down spam bots. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View the original here:
A Welcome Shift: Spam Now Constitutes Less Than Half of All Email

Paralyzed Man Hits the Streets of NYC In a New Exoskeleton

the_newsbeagle writes: Robert Woo was paralyzed in 2007 when a construction crane dropped a load of steel on him. Yesterday, he put on the newest “exoskeleton, ” essentially a pair of smart robotic legs, and strolled out into a busy Manhattan sidewalk. He was demoing the ReWalk 6.0, a $77, 000 device that he plans to buy for home use. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continue reading here:
Paralyzed Man Hits the Streets of NYC In a New Exoskeleton

Google Accidentally Reveals Data On ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Requests

Colin Castro points out an article from The Guardian, who noticed that Google’s recent transparency report contained more data than intended. When perusing the source code, they found data about who was making requests for Google to take down links under the “right to be forgotten” law. The data they found covers 75% of all requests made so far. Less than 5% of nearly 220, 000 individual requests made to Google to selectively remove links to online information concern criminals, politicians and high-profile public figures, the Guardian has learned, with more than 95% of requests coming from everyday members of the public. … Of 218, 320 requests to remove links between 29 May 2014 and 23 March 2015, 101, 461 (46%) have been successfully delisted on individual name searches. Of these, 99, 569 involve “private or personal information.” Only 1, 892 requests – less than 1% of the overall total – were successful for the four remaining issue types identified within Google’s source code: “serious crime” (728 requests), “public figure” (454), “political” (534) or “child protection” (176) – presumably because they concern victims, incidental witnesses, spent convictions, or the private lives of public persons. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken May

Tag: score2