Tag Archives: Technology

Flytenow Shuts Down After Court Rules Against Flightsharing Startups

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“Airplane ridesharing startup Flytenow today announced that it is shutting down after a court recently upheld the FAA’s power to regulate what does (and does not) constitute a commercial aviation operation.  This is pretty much the end of the road for services like Flytenow. Ridesharing startups like Uber were able to muscle their way into virtually every city, even when local regulations didn’t always allow them to operate there. Unsurprisingly, the FAA wasn’t going to just let this one go. Even though the Flytenow team says it plans to look into ways to appeal this decision, it seems rather unlikely that the FAA’s rules around flightsharing will get disrupted anytime soon.”

http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/22/flytenow-shuts-down-after-court-rules-against-flightsharing-startups/

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China Launches Frightening ‘Social Credit’ Game; Soon Mandatory

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“‘Going under the innocuous name of Sesame Credit, China has created a score for how good a citizen you are,’ explains Extra Credits’ video about the program. ‘The owners of China’s largest social networks have partnered with the government to create something akin to the U.S. credit score — but, instead of measuring how regularly you pay your bills, it measures how obediently you follow the party line.‘ In the works for years, China’s ‘social credit system’ aims to create a docile, compliant citizenry who are fiscally and morally responsible by employing a game-like format to create self-imposed, group social control. In other words, China gamified peer pressure to control its citizenry.”

http://theantimedia.org/china-just-launched-the-most-frightening-game-ever-and-soon-it-will-be-mandatory/

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Thai Man Faces 37 Years in Prison For “Insulting” the King’s Dog Online

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“In America, we worry mostly only about the ‘slap on the wrist’ of probably being placed on a watch list.  A man in Thailand, however, faces 37 years in prison for criticizing the king’s dog on the internet, as well as allegedly insulting the monarchy. Thanakorn Siripaiboon, a factory worker, faced trial this week in a military court for making a ‘sarcastic’ comment about the king’s dog online. Though officials declined to cite any specific statements, CBS News reports the man shared an ‘inappropriate’ picture of the dog and liked a photo disparaging to the king.”

http://theantimedia.org/thai-man-faces-37-years-in-prison-for-insulting-the-kings-dog/

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Facebook’s Free Basics Banned In India, Now Shuts Down in Egypt

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“Egypt ​has now become​ the second country to shut down Facebook’s controversial free internet service after India did the same last week, according to a report from the Associated Press today. The service, called Free Basics, is part of Facebook’s Internet.org initiative that aims to bring internet access to developing nations. Because Free Basics provides access to Facebook and a number of non-Facebook websites at no cost, some regulators and internet activists believe it violates the principles of net neutrality by creating a ‘walled garden’ that prioritizes some sites over others.”

http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/30/10690714/faceboo-free-basics-internet-service-shut-down-egypt

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Library’s Tor relay—pulled after feds noticed—now restored

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“A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent first learned of the plan after reading Ars’ July 30 article and then forwarded it on as a heads-up to a local police officer on the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children task force. That, in turn, led to a meeting between local law enforcement, city officials, and the library. (HSI is the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security.) Sean Fleming, the library’s IT director, told Ars before the Tuesday vote that there was ‘no pressure from the feds at all.'”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/small-town-library-restores-tor-relay-which-had-gone-dark-for-weeks/

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Blackberry CEO: Apple has gone to a “dark place” with pro-privacy stance

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“‘Our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals,’ Chen wrote in a blog post.  In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, Apple chief Tim Cook decided not to build backdoor access to locked devices running iOS 8 and iOS 9. Earlier versions, like iOS 7, can be accessed by Apple. The Justice Department has frowned on Cook’s actions.  Chen insinuated that if a Blackberry phone was at issue in the case Ars wrote about, he would comply with the search warrant.”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/12/blackberry-ceo-says-apple-has-gone-to-dark-place-with-pro-privacy-stance/

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Debian founder allegedly suicides following brutal altercation with SFPD

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“Ian Murdock, 42, has died, according to Docker. He will be remembered as the founder of Debian and the creator of apt-get, and his death this week has touched the entire software community.  In the past, Murdock also worked at Sun Microsystems, where he created a packaging system for the Solaris operating system. He also served as the CTO of the Linux Foundation.  Murdock had tweeted distressing messages on Monday evening, alleging the San Francisco police department had assaulted him.  ‘The rest of my life is to fight against the police.. they are NOT friends, so don’t ever believe otherwise,’ he tweeted on Monday.”

http://sdtimes.com/ian-murdock-has-died/

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11 Bitcoin Startups That Went Bust in 2015

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“After what you might call a ‘Wild West’ period (when it seemed everyone with the urge was setting up their own bitcoin-based service), the space is now rapidly becoming more dominated by bigger, more professional outfits, often with serious funding to get them off to a solid start.  And while some big bitcoin names made the news this year for positive reasons, some firms had to report that they were closing down.  A variety of reasons brought about these failures, from increased competition, to a lack of cash or even, perhaps, fraudulent practices.  In 2015, around 11 bitcoin firms went belly up. Here’s our look at what happened.”

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-startup-shut-down-2015/

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Juniper Networks backdoor confirmed, password revealed, NSA suspected

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“The next mystery to solve is where this unauthorized code comes from. Security advisories usually relate to vulnerabilities arising from defects — mistakes programmers made. In this case, someone deliberately inserted a backdoor password into Juniper’s devices. That’s a huge deal. If it’s the NSA (which looks possible, given one leak about a program called ‘FEEDTROUGH’ that installs persistent backdoors in Juniper devices) then it will mean that the US government deliberately sabotaged tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of networks that were protected by products from a US company that is the second-largest provider of networking equipment in the world, after Cisco.”

https://boingboing.net/2015/12/21/juniper-networks-backdoor-conf.html

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CIA director fumes over teen who hacked his AOL email account

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“The head of the CIA says he was ‘outraged’ by a teenager’s hacking of his personal AOL email account.  Brennan didn’t explain why someone in his position still has an AOL account that a teenager was able to access.  The hacker said he used a reverse phone-number lookup to determine that Brennan has a Verizon Wireless account.  He then called the company, posing as a technician whose ‘tools were down’ to get details about the account, including Brennan’s AOL email address.  With that information, the teen called AOL and convinced a representative to reset the password, using Brennan’s personal details provided by Verizon.”

http://nypost.com/2015/10/27/cia-director-outraged-with-teenager-who-hacked-him/

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