Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?
def con The electronic badges at DEF CON have long been a hot commodity for attendees, tinkerers, and collectors, though this year they’re getting attention for an entirely different reason.…
36 years ago today, Zero Cool hacked all those banks across state lines. From his house. Crashed 1,507 systems in one day. Biggest crash in history. Front page New York Times, August 10, 1988. Naturally, that means it’s time for our latest installment of CYBERDELIA. Yo, check it. DNA. Fri Sep 6. This is the 29th Anniversary of HACKERS, so as per tradition, we will have: A screening of Hackers at 8pm; Hackers costume contest at 11pm; Head-to-head Wipeout XL competition throughout the night; Skate ramps! Rollerblades welcome! Electro / big beat / cyberpunk dance party to follow. And if you like this…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2024/08/10.html
You know, when you’ve written as much as I have about trademark disputes, there are times when you think you’ve seen everything, only to have the universe remind you that the depth of silliness around trademarks can always get deeper. The subject of today’s conversation is going to be a certification mark. While afforded similar protections to a trademark, they are primarily used by a third party, with permission of the owner of a trademarked product, to validate that a product meets certain agreed upon quality standards from the trademark owner. You can find some examples here, but one that is easy to understand is the Energy Star certification mark. To have an Energy Star stamp…
Prominent Wake Democrats and the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus are urging the larger county party not to make endorsements in this year’s nonpartisan Raleigh City Council races. All city council seats and the mayor’s seat are up for election in November, and in several races, multiple Democrats are in the running. Since 2011, the party has endorsed one of those candidates. But this year, some are calling for the party not to weigh in, and candidates’ positions on the Israel-Hamas conflict appear to be the main reason. In a letter sent to Wake County Democratic Party Chair Kevyn Creech and executive director Wesley Knott on Friday, more than 20…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://indyweek.com/news/wake/endorsements-split-wake-county-dems/
Texas is one of eight states that have enacted laws that force adults to prove their age before accessing porn sites. Soon it will try to persuade the Supreme Court that its law doesn’t violate the First Amendment.
Good luck with that.
These laws are unconstitutional: They deny adults the well-established right to access constitutionally protected speech.
Texas’ H.B. 1181 forces any website made up of one-third or more adult content to verify every visitor’s age. Some adult sites have responded to the law by shutting down their services in Texas. The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, arguing that mandatory age verification does more than keep minors away from porn — the law nannies adults as well, barring…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/08/age-gating-access-to-online-porn-is-unconstitutional/
Raspberry Pi’s first foray into the world of microcontrollers, the RP2040, was a very interesting chip. Its standout features were the programmable input/output units (PIOs) which enabled all sorts of custom real-time shenanigans. And that’s not to discount the impact of the Pi Pico, the $4 dev kit built around it.
Today, they’re announcing a brand-new microcontroller: the RP2350. It will come conveniently packaged in the new Pi Pico 2, and there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the new chip is better in every way, and that the Pico form factor will stay the same. The bad news? It’s going to cost 25% more, coming in at $5. But in exchange for…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/08/08/raspberry-has-a-new-pico-and-the-rp2350/
Enlarge / EUS panel test weld at the Michoud Assembly Facility on Tuesday, February 9, 2021. (credit: Michael DeMocker/NASA)
The NASA program to develop a new upper stage for the Space Launch System rocket is seven years behind schedule and significantly over budget, a new report from the space agency’s inspector general finds. However, beyond these headline numbers, there is also some eye-opening information about the project’s prime contractor, Boeing, and its poor quality control practices.
The new Exploration Upper Stage, a more powerful second stage for the SLS rocket that made its debut in late 2022, is viewed by NASA as a key piece of its Artemis program to return humans to the…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=2041826
The ‘CRT Effect’ myth says that the reason why pixel art of old games looked so much better is due to the smoothing and blending effects of cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays, which were everywhere until the early 2000s. In fits of mistaken nostalgia this has led both to modern-day extreme cubism pixel art and video game ‘CRT’ filters that respectively fail to approach what pixel art was about, or why old games looked the way they did back with our NES and SNES game consoles. This is a point which [Carl Svensson] vehemently argues from a position of experience, and one which is likely shared by quite a few of our readers.
Although there is some possible…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://hackaday.com/2024/08/03/pixel-art-and-the-myth-of-the-crt-effect/
Small stay of execution in ‘exceptional circumstances’ promised as lawsuits start to fly
As the DigiCert drama continues, we now have a better idea of the size and scope of the problem – with the organization’s infosec boss admitting the SSL/TLS certificate revocation sweep will affect tens of thousands of its customers, some of which have warned that the short notice may have real-world safety implications and disrupt critical services.…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/31/digicert_certificates_extension/
Automattic’s self-immolation continues apace. They are about to find out that pivoting from “here’s some mildly-convenient free image hosting to put an avatar on your email address” to “Enterprise-ready, planet-incinerating cryptocurrency grift” is not going to go the way that they think it will. Today might be a good day to install my “Mirror Gravatar” WordPress plugin, before the mass exodus. Gravatar blog: “Mastering Decentralized Identity for Business”: The internet is evolving into Web 3.0, with a shift that brings decentralized applications and services to the forefront. […] Blockchain technology is fundamental to decentralized identity systems. Here’s why: […] For instance, Ethereum’s smart contract functionality lets you create complex identity management systems that operate autonomously…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/07/gravatar-dunning-krugerrands/
Today’s links
A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement: Actual property rights are less important than the metaphorical property rights of “IP.”
Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2019, 2023
Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
Recent appearances: Where I’ve been.
Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em.
Colophon: All the rest.
A profoundly stupid case about video game cheating could transform adblocking into a copyright infringement (permalink)
Here’s a weird consequence of our societal shift from capitalism (where riches come from profits) to feudalism (where riches come from rents): increasingly, your rights to your actual property (the physical…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/29/faithful-user-agents/
Web puzzles don’t protect against bots, but humans have spent 819 million unpaid hours solving them
Updated Google promotes its reCAPTCHA service as a security mechanism for websites, but researchers affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, argue it’s harvesting information while extracting human labor worth billions.…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/24/googles_recaptchav2_labor/
Barely six weeks after the XScreenSaver for Android Privacy Policy fiasco, Google, is up to brand new fuckery. As far as I can tell, they’re saying that if I don’t give them a copy of my driver’s license, they’re going to remove XScreenSaver and XDaliClock from their “Play” [sic] store.
So that’s obviously not going to happen.
And gosh, I’m all broken up about the consequences.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/07/your-personal-information-is-very-important-to-us-part-two/
Spotted one in the wild!
This is definitely an improvement. Now the extremely loud fan is running 24/7 to display a PSA against using MICROS~1 products, instead of whatever advertising bullshit was there before.
Advertising shits in your head, so thanks for enabling this upgrade, MUNI!
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/07/i-agree-with-this-message-5/
Logical replication is a powerful feature in PostgreSQL that allows for real-time data replication between databases. It can be used for performing major version upgrades using a blue/green setup where you have two databases, allowing you to test and switch over to a new version with minimal downtime. Logical replication can also be use to facilitate database migrations between different environments, using the same technique and tooling.
In this post, I will describe the process of setting up simple replication and switchover between two databases using pg_easy_replicate.
External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6zV
The US Postal Service has been retaining metadata on snail mail for years. Back before mass scanning of every piece of mail was a reality, law enforcement requests had to be a bit more targeted. Investigators had to put in requests that required the postal service to log information about any mail sent to/from certain addresses or between certain addresses.
These days it’s far less complicated. As millions of Americans know, you have the option to have photos of all your incoming mail sent to your email, giving you a glimpse into the very near future in terms of mail service.
More than a decade ago, the technology finally achieved what law enforcement entities have always wanted:…
PostgreSQL major versions are released every year, with each release delivering better performance and new features. With such rapid innovation, it is inevitable that there will be a need to upgrade from one version to another. Upgrade procedures are usually very complex and require thorough planning. With the 2.4.0 release of Percona Operator for PostgreSQL, […]
External feed Read More at the Source: https://postgr.es/p/6zI
Retailers are actively exploring and deploying facial recognition and analysis as part of their security and loss-prevention strategies to safeguard their customers and employees, margins and profitability. Corsight AI provides both face biometrics and computer vision analytics, and has a major new client to showcase its capabilities. Mall of America (MOA) has integrated facial recognition into its security infrastructure, joining forces with Corsight AI to implement its facial recognition system, which MOA lauds for its high accuracy, reliability, and privacy protection. There have been several firearms incidents at MOA over the past several years. The biometric system identifies Persons of Interest (POIs), including banned individuals or those trespassing at the mall, people who may pose…
Well, we’ll see how long ShotSpotter/SoundThinking will keep making that New York money. The outlook is not good. A lot of this will depend on how well the NYPD can defend the useless product it’s spending millions on, but at the end of the day, the city still holds the purse strings and it has the power to terminate contracts that simply aren’t worth paying for.
The NYC comptroller performed an audit of the NYPD and ShotSpotter not with the intent of burying them, but simply to determine whether or not the NYPD was paying its bills on time and whether or not ShotSpotter was fulfilling the obligations of its contract.
The answer to both questions…
External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/2024/06/27/nyc-comptroller-report-says-shotspotter-is-just-wasted-money/
Today, the Supreme Court declined to issue a ruling in Idaho and Moyle, et al. v. United States. Instead, it sent the case back down to the lower courts where anti-abortion extremists will continue to fight to strip pregnant people of the basic right to emergency care, including when their life is at risk.
While the court’s decision temporarily restores the ability of doctors in Idaho to provide emergency abortions required under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act —EMTALA— by dismissing the case without affirming once and for all that pregnant people have a right to the emergency abortion care they need to protect their health and lives, the court continues to put pregnant patients…
