Stories in the Pipe

Our friends over on SoylentNews are going through some things:

• 2023-05-20 SoylentNews Site Shutdown
• 2023-05-22 The Future
• 2023-05-22 SoylentNews To Shut Down On June 30th
• 2023-05-24 Discussions About SN Past the 30th
• 2023-05-26 A Roadmap
• 2023-05-26 SoylentNews Shutdown Status - A Show of Faith
• 2023-04-27 SoylentNews May Not Be Shutting Down June 30th

The pipe has just become a haven for spam bots, and there's no easy facility for monitoring and blocking it. After all my work closing out the current flood of spam, I'm going to disable story submissions entirely so I don't have to do it again. I have no objection if Bryan wishes to reverse this, but I don't plan to do this kind of clean-up again. I still regularly check for new comments, so feel free to chime-in.

Salesforce announced that it is teaming up with Apple to drive new mobile apps for its business. The news broke out mere hours before Salesforce’s tech conference “Dreamforce”. Dreamforce is one of the top 5 tech events in the world and all anyone could talk about was what Salesforce and Apple have in store for their customers. Details regarding this strategic partnership still have people on their toes but we can make a couple of guesses as to what this could mean, for both Apple and Salesforce.

Salesforce Einstein + Siri?
Salesforce Einstein is the resident AI for all Salesforce platforms. It leverages machine learning and deep learning analytics to provide sales and marketing teams with a comprehensive 360 degree view of customers. Salesforce Einstein is embedded in all Salesforce Cloud platforms and provides predictive analysis functionalities to maximize conversions from the sales cycle.

Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff, while talking about the partnership with Apple, said that Siri is the frontend and Salesforce will be the backend. Benioff hinted that users will be able to ask Siri to do a range of new tasks i.e. control lights, temperature of a room with their voice. Salesforce Einstein will leverage the data by tweaking itself depending on customer interactions and will consequently provide Siri with accurate and smarter data. It seems Siri will also be incorporated into Salesforce (Siri with Salesforce Support sounds nice!). Perhaps if we’re lucky, Salesforce Developers might be able to We’ve got our fingers crossed on more details that are sure to come in the weeks ahead!

New Salesforce App for iOS
The joint statement from the two companies stated that Salesforce will soon be redesigning their app for iOS platforms. This will provide a rich experience to customers exclusively on iOS. The app will be integrated with Siri, face ID, and business chat. Salesforce plans on taking its app to new heights by tailoring it for industries to serve their customer needs as well. The tech industry is quickly moving towards a voice specific interactive medium, this strategic partnership between Salesforce and Apple only goes to show how they’re both looking ahead of the curve!

Our Two Bits!
Knowing Salesforce and Apple, the sky is literally the limit in terms of what they can do with this partnership. The question, however, arises over how effectively this could transform both of their businesses. They’re off to a good start and the maiden collaboration over Siri seems to have quite a few practical benefits. Here’s hoping the rest of the road ahead is just as seamless!

Source: https://www.rolustech.com/blog

The Australian government gave notice to online retailers that they must collect tax on behalf of the Australian Tax Office and submit the tax collected to the ATO for purchases made by Australians overseas. Surprisingly, online retailers objected to this and at the time threatened to block Australian shoppers. Now Amazon has taken the step of preventing Australians from purchasing from their site and sending parcels to Australia. Amazon have stated that Australians can now purchase products from the Australian Amazon site, which while true comes with a significant markup of in some cases of 160 per cent or more over the price of the product in the US Amazon site. This does not prevent Australians from working around this technicality by engaging with a shipping company in America to bounce products through their warehouse and having the parcels forwarded on to an Australia address. In the mean time, from July 1st 2018 Amazon will no longer ship products to an Australian address.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics is now tracking people using their mobile phone data. After screwing up the 2016 Australian Census to the point where the census data collected may well be useless, the ABS may now be infringing people's privacy and potentially impacting people's security. The ABS has admitted to tapping into mobile phone information provided by an Australian communications company from the 18th of April to the 1st of May 2016. The full extent of the tracking is not known, and it is unknown if the ABS is still tracking people using their mobile phone data as a key data point. The ABS has been asked which company provided the data, did the people provide consent, was a privacy impact statement undertaken, what method if any was used to anonymise the data, was the data matched to the last census data, has any of the data been on-sold, and why this information is not being made available but the ABS has refused to answer. The ABS engaging in tracking Australians using their mobile device data has been describes as "ethically dubious" by Electronic Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren.

https://www.simform.com/mvc-mvp-mvvm-android-app-development/

In a completely expected move Facebook banned a far right group in the UK on the grounds of inciting racism. This comes after Facebook refused to act when the head of the Australian halal association posted on Facebook telling Australian men to kill themselves. To date Facebook has failed to act against the muslim bigots. Is Facebook policy fair? Is it equal? Why did Facebook kick out the UK far right group but not the halal group inciting people to end their life?

"The blockchain method primarily used by those engaging in cryptocurrency transactions is a decentralized mechanism where all the information is stored in blocks, can be viewed and altered by registered users. In the case of Sierra Leone elections, allows the votes to be seen by voters who are registered within the system, in the public ledgers, but only allowed authorized persons to make any changes, this, in turn, prevents the chances of fraud since the voting information is available to all the blockchain users."

URL: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sierra-Leone-Announces-Run-Off-Elections-Becomes-First-Country-With-Blockchain-Powered-Elections-20180314-0013.html

I would personally like it if they would explain the mechanics of their so-called "blockchain" to us mortals.

As I understand a blockchain, it is an extensible data structure that (when used in a bitcoin context) incorporates sequentially applied, recursively structured self-referential checksum mechanisms to counter efforts at tampering with the contents of the blocks; usually, via recursive encryption.

~childo

Quick fix Microsoft print to PDF driver missing in windows 10. Enable Microsoft print to PDF option using these following steps. See how
https://everything4comp.blogspot.com/2018/03/microsoft-print-to-pdf-driver.html

Yes, you heard that right. Turns out that one in five Australians have dropped a mobile phone on their own face causing injuries such split lips and cracked teeth. Just when you thought Australia could not get more dangerous.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/08/bruce_perens_grsecurity_anti_slapp/
http://perens.com/2018/02/08/bruce-perens-seeks-mandatory-award-of-legal-fees-for-his-defense-in-open-source-security-inc-and-bradley-spengler-v-bruce-perens/

Having defeated a defamation claim for speculating that using Grsecurity's Linux kernel hardening code may expose you to legal risk under the terms of the GPLv2 license, Bruce Perens is back in court.

This time, he's demanding Bradley Spengler – who runs Open Source Security Inc and develops Grsecurity – foots his hefty legal bills, after Spengler failed to successfully sue Perens for libel.

Perens, a noted figure in the open source community, and his legal team from O’Melveny & Myers LLP – as they previously told The Register – want to be awarded attorneys' fees under California's anti-SLAPP statute, a law designed to deter litigation that aims to suppress lawful speech.

That deterrence takes the form of presenting unsuccessful litigants with the bill for the cost of defending against meritless claims.

"Plaintiffs Open Source Security, Inc. and Bradley Spengler sued Defendant Bruce Perens to bully him from expressing his opinions that Plaintiffs’ business practices violate Open Source licensing conditions and to discourage others from expressing the same opinions," Perens' latest filing, submitted to a US district court in San Francisco today, declared.

"Rather than allowing the public to judge Plaintiffs’ contrary opinions through public debate, Plaintiffs tried to 'win' the argument on this unsettled legal issue by suing him."
Significant dollar value

Perens is asking for $667,665.25 in fees, which covers 833.9 hours expended on the litigation by numerous attorneys and a $188,687.75 success fee agreed upon to allow Perens to retain representation he might not otherwise have been able to afford.

Court documents indicate the hourly billing rate of those involved in Perens's defense ranged from $125 to $975.

If the award is granted by San Francisco magistrate judge Laurel Beeler, it could be ruinous for Spengler and his company. According to GovTribe, a site that tracks government contractors, Open Source Security has annual revenue of $350,000 and a single employee.

Spengler may also be personally liable for costs, if approved by the court, because both he and his company are listed as plaintiffs in the case.

Spengler sought $3m in damages from Perens. He is appealing Judge Beeler's decision to dismiss his claim, but the fee award does not have to wait for a decision by the appeals court.

At least one member of the Linux community predicted Spengler's lawsuit would not go well.

In a LWN.net post arising from The Register's initial coverage of the case last August, an individual posting under the name "rahvin" wrote, "Grsecurity is going to deeply regret filing this. Bruce has a very high caliber law firm on his side, this type of firm can bill a million dollars in a week. And when you win an anti-SLAPP motion you are practically guaranteed to win legal fees, particularly in California where the suit was filed. I'm not aware of a single anti-SLAPP motion that was won in Cali that didn't result in an award of legal fees."

Judge Beeler in a previous court filing indicated that she believed the anti-SLAPP statute would have to be considered. "[T]he court has difficulty seeing how the present claims can elude California’s anti-SLAPP statute," she said.

In an email to The Register, Rohit Chhabra, Open Source Security's legal counsel, said the hours spent and fees claimed "are ridiculous and outrageous from any reasonable standard. We will be addressing this in detail in our responsive filing and have full confidence that the Court will determine a fair and reasonable award." ®

--

Bruce Perens Seeks Mandatory Award of Legal Fees For His Defense in Open Source Security, Inc. and Bradley Spengler v. Bruce Perens

In August, Open Source Security, Inc. brought a lawsuit against me in federal court, seeking over $3 million, and later added Bradley Spengler as a plaintiff. Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler sued me because they disagreed with my blog posts and Slashdot comments which expressed my opinions that their policies regarding distribution of their Grsecurity product could violate the GPL and lead to liability for breach of contract and copyright infringement.

This lawsuit should never have been brought. My blog post and Slashdot comments are first amendment speech protected by the California anti-SLAPP law. While Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler were free to disagree with my opinions, they were not free to sue me to try to stop me from expressing them. The anti-SLAPP law requires recovery of attorneys’ fees and costs–precisely to deter actions like this one that chill the exercise of first amendment rights. Fee recovery also encourages private representation in anti-SLAPP cases so that defendants may obtain quality representation without being bankrupted. Thus, the law provides for successful defendants to recover fees and costs from plaintiffs who bring meritless suits.

The court has now ruled in my favor that Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler’s claims are not meritorious. Today, I am asking the court to award my legal fees and costs so far, which will go to O’Melveny, the law firm I retained.

The cost of my defense well exceeded half a Million dollars.

When I got sued, I called upon the best attorney I know in the Open Source world, Heather Meeker, who I have known for 20 years and worked with professionally. Heather is the author of Open (Source) for Business: A Practical Guide to Open Source Software Licensing — Second Edition and three other books. Heather formed a team including Melody Drummond Hansen, a Silicon Valley partner with experience in Open Source and defamation matters, Cara Gagliano, an associate focused on copyright and speech issues, and two bright first-year associates, Marissa Rhoades and Eric Ormsby .

I sought this high-quality team because the stakes were high. Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler sought at least $3 Million and also attacked my professional reputation and integrity. While the fees incurred in this case are significant, they are based on the standard rates charged for attorneys of similar experience and caliber. In my experience, this team is well worth it. Also, the amount of fees reflect Open Source Security’s and Mr. Spengler’s litigation tactics, which unnecessarily increased the time spent defending this case by forcing responses to the many filings and shifting theories they pursued.

Had Open Source Security and Mr. Spengler not filed their suit, they would not be facing this expense at all. For example, had they engaged in the spirit of reasoned debate rather than filing a lawsuit, the fees could have been avoided entirely. And had they not greatly complicated the suit, the fees would be much smaller. Plaintiffs now also are appealing the case, which will further increase my legal costs.

Fee awards under anti-SLAPP are mandatory and they are meant to deter unnecessary suits like this one–to protect everyone’s freedoms to engage in public debate without fear of being sued.

Generally, I would prefer not to talk about a lawsuit in progress. My desire to keep the Open Source community informed is my reason for making this statement. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make any further statements about the case for now.

Australia's spy agencies were so concerned about the security and strategic risks posed by a plan for Chinese firm Huawei to build an internet cable linking the Solomon Islands to Sydney that the Australian government will now build the Solomon undersea cable itself which will cost tens of millions of dollars to be funded through the Australian overseas aid program. The Solomon Islands currently rely on satellites for internet access. Huawei has previously been banned from providing hardware for the Australian National Broadband Network on the advice of the ASIO security agency. The project to connect the Solomon Islands will now also include a new cable connecting Papua New Guinea with Australia. Jonathan Pryke, a Pacific islands expert at the Lowy Institute, applauded Australia's move, saying that it made strategic and security sense while also providing much-needed development.

A recent revival of the much loved 80's show Monkey has been mired with claims of whitewashing. The director of the new show has responded to the whitewashing claims saying that the cast is really diverse, with more than half of them being non-European including people that are Chinese-Thai, South Korean, Maori, and Tongan. Of the four main leads, Luciane Buchanan and Josh Thomson both have Tongan heritage while Hansen is Australian-Thai-Chinese and half of the main characters are now female leads. The New Legends of Monkey is set in a world in which the demons have ruled the realm for centuries and hope is starting to fade of a better time. The New Legends of Monkey airs on ABC ME from Sunday January 28 2018.

Years ago Telstra caught the rising edge of the TV box wave with it's T-Box to keep customers with Telstra and snag new customers. Now Telstra has decided to kill the smart TV features in its ageing T-Box, leaving long-time customers fuming as they begin the search for a new set-top box to rule the lounge room. The T-Box was launched in 2010 with PVR, streaming movie rentals, and online TV streaming capabilities as an alternative to VCRs which by that time were a dying industry. With traditional TV viewership dropping and the flood of TV boxes now available on the market Telstra's decision to disable all of its streaming video apps and cancel T-Box subscriptions is puzzling in the face of the rise of Netflix.

Is the site dead now? Or just sleeping?

With the TPP revived several countries are now deliberating whether or not to accept the controversial trade agreement from which the US pulled out of. The Australian Labor Party has signaled that it will block Australia from adopting the TPP unless it passes interdependent modelling for worthiness. While the Australian Prime Minister believes that the TPP would create thousands of jobs" the opposition is not convinced saying to Treasurer Scott Morrison that he should start acting like a treasurer saying “If it’s a good deal for Australians, let’s see the evidence, and we’ll back it 100 per cent. If it’s a dud deal, then the worst that’s happened is we’ve stopped a dud deal from going through.". Given that before the TPP first fell through the benefits were calculated as being minimal with significant determinable conditions it is unlikely that an independent review of the TPP in its current form will pass.

2017 will be remembered as the year of data breaches. Millions of accounts across the world were exposed, hacked, or just left open for anyone to read. From AWS accounts not being locked, companies being hacked or phished, to plain stupidity, 2017 saw it all. In response to these massive data loss events the Australian Government has changed the Privacy Act making disclosure of data breaches mandatory. Companies like KPMG are reorientating to align with this new law in preparation for the data breaches yet to come in 2018 and beyond. From February 22, 2018, all entities covered by the Australian Privacy Principles will have clear obligations to report eligible data breaches within 30 days. If an eligible data breach is confirmed, entities must provide a statement to each of the individuals whose data was breached or who are at risk, and notify the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Facing a ban in the alcohol free zone of the Tairua estuary in the Coromandel New Zealand a group of people built a new island, mounted a table and declared it to be in international waters therefore outside of New Zealand law. The local police were bemused by the effort going with Waikato eastern area commander Inspector John Kelly saying that if he had known about the plan he probably would have joined them.

In a widely lauded move the Australian government has introduced new cyber sabotage laws which increases the penalty to 15 years jail. Attorney-General George Brandis said the sabotage changes to the Criminal Code would "transform an outdated wartime law into world-leading provisions crafted to protect Australia's national critical infrastructure in the digital age".

A new Free and Open-Source project called "Exodus" scans Android apps and already has found many advertising trackers:

"Researchers at Yale Privacy Lab and French nonprofit Exodus Privacy have documented the proliferation of tracking software on smartphones, finding that weather, flashlight, rideshare, and dating apps, among others, are infested with dozens of different types of trackers collecting vast amounts of information to better target advertising.

Exodus security researchers identified 44 trackers in more than 300 apps for Google’s Android smartphone operating system. The apps, collectively, have been downloaded billions of times. Yale Privacy Lab, within the university’s law school, is working to replicate the Exodus findings and has already released reports on 25 of the trackers.

Yale Privacy Lab researchers have only been able to analyze Android apps, but believe many of the trackers also exist on iOS, since companies often distribute for both platforms. To find trackers, the Exodus researchers built a custom auditing platform for Android apps, which searched through the apps for digital “signatures” distilled from known trackers. A signature might be a tell-tale set of keywords or string of bytes found in an app file, or a mathematically-derived “hash” summary of the file itself.

The findings underscore the pervasiveness of tracking despite a permissions system on Android that supposedly puts users in control of their own data. They also highlight how a large and varied set of firms are working to enable tracking."

The statement by Yale Privacy Lab summarizes the situation, and the story has seen coverage by Cory Doctorow and Le Monde. Private search engine Qwant has removed trackers in its app and Protonmail is under fire.

Recently users noticed that when they visited The Pirate Bay their CPU maxed out at 100% which led to the discovery that TPB was using JavaScript to mine bitcoins. This led to some users being very upset with TPB disabling the bitcoin mining. In the wake of this websites looking for alternate revenue streams are using the bitcoin mining JavaScript library to generate funds to supplement or replace traditional advertising banners. Plugin developers have responded by releasing addons for Firefox and Chrome like CoinBlock and making guides on how to block bitcoin mining at the source. The unethical practice of using visitor's CPU cycles to generate bitcoin funds is called "Cryptojacking".

Don’t throw your old computer just yet. Use a lightweight Linux distro and revive that decades-old system. https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-linux-beginners/

One of the many ways to speed up Ubuntu system is to use lightweight alternatives of the popular applications. We have already seen must have Linux application earlier. we’ll see the lightweight alternative applications for Ubuntu and other Linux distributions. https://itsfoss.com/lightweight-alternative-applications-ubuntu/

The KDE version of Linux Mint 18.3 that will be released soon will be the last to feature a KDE Plasma Edition. Which means Linux Mint 19 and above will not have KDE edition. Continue reading (https://itsfoss.com/linux-mint-drops-kde/)

One of the best lightweight Linux distributions, antiX has just released its latest version, antiX-17 code-named “Heather Heyer”. Continue on https://itsfoss.com/antix-17-release/

Jayden Seyfarth, a known celebrity stalker, had admitted to fraudulently gaining entry to Virgin Australia's VIP lounge by printing the boarding passes for Sophie Monk and Stu Laundy. This deception is bad timing for Sydney Airport which is still reeling from the recent air traffic control outage and bomb threat. This incident has given weigh to forcing passengers to provide biometric information such as retina and finger prints as an additional layer of security trending Australia further towards American style invasive airport security theater and delays.

How secure is your credit card information after a transaction? What information is your bank giving retailers? A chocolate shop in Adelaide admitted to spying on customer data using credit card information. The average person believes credit card transactions to be safe and secure with only a minimal amount of information available to the vendor. This is not the case. Banks make a variety of datum available to retailers for every credit card transaction. As this article shows it allows businesses to track where customers live. In this day and age where data is the new gold banks should be protecting our privacy not handing it over to every business we buy from.

Australia may scan all faces in crowds and collect licence ID information for big events in the wake of the latest mass shooting in Las Vegas. Public debate on the potential for a national facial recognition database for real time identification reminiscent of 1984 has started with morning television hosts weighing in. Police in Queensland already use data from the the public transport smartcard system obtained without a warrant to find witnesses to crimes which allows them to corner people to make a statement.

Just when you thought Apple fanatics could not get any idiotic someone has lowered the bar again. A man designated as "The Apple Idiot" lined up for days outside an Apple store for the wrong phone. The man thought he was lining up for an iPhone X, only to find after days of waiting that the phone he was waiting to buy was the iPhone 8, a phone he doesn't like. A true Apple fanatic, the man complained about the upcoming iPhone X costing between $1579 and $1829 while praising it yet to be confirmed features while confirming that he will line up again when the iPhone X is actually due to be released.

Iphonex

For the last few years an added stress when flying has been having security rifle through your phone and laptop looking for incriminating information. Being haranged for your social media credentials, your phone password, and email is now a thing of the past. Airport security can unlock your iPhone X by holding it up to your face. This should speed up the security checks at airports considerably. Security already take passenger phones, they just need to hold it up to each person's face to unlock the phone so the data can be extracted. Thanks, Apple.

Java is the trend languages of programming and you should know which IDE to use when you are about to start java programming or if you want to change the development environment to make it smoother and easier then you should check these java IDE, this article has some of the finest IDEs to use which is useful for beginners as well as professionals.

https://youprogrammer.com/best-java-ide-for-windows-mac-and-linux/

Two-factor authentication is touted as being the best type of security currently available for everyday users as it puts a password or token out of reach of thieves. Until recently, this method of security was annoying but somewhat reliable. Not now. Mobile phone porting is being used to defeat two-factor authentication to gain access to people's bank accounts, their social network and whole lives via email accounts. Hundreds of complains have been made to authorities about phone numbers being hijacked. Port jackers have successfully stolen thousands of dollars from victims with the number of reports for this type of theft increasing. In a statement Australia Telco said that they recognise the threat and are working on it.

Concerns have been raised that the Australian Bureau of Statistics is going to use the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey to verify the failed 2016 census with the intent on penalising those who dodged the census or provided false information, use the the information collected to generate funds and may link the vote to each person. The ABS has denied this. Given the #CensusFAIL of the ABS in 2016 Australians are wondering why this task was given to an agency for which is not widely trusted by the population.

This tutorial is very useful for beginners to learn Java Programming, JSP, Java Applets etc with example programs..
http://www.java-tutorial.com/

Hi all
This tutorial is very useful for beginners to learn C programming. C language topics identifiers, keywords, tokens, datatypes, constants, dynamic memory allocation, constants, arrays, structure, union, functions, type casting etc are explained with example programs.

http://c-language.com/

Australia is considering the implementation of full body scanners, aka pornoscanners, in all domestic airports after two Muslims were prevented from attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device on a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi. The proposed changes have been described as security theater mimicking American airline practices. Khaled Mahmoud Kayat and Mahmoud Kayat have been charged with preparation for or planning a terrorist act after attempting to smuggle an IED onto a plane. Authorities have confirmed that a brother of the accused terrorists is a known islamic state commander. In response to this incident the Australian government is considering implementing biometric checks by iris or fingerprint. Given that the Australian government is already aware of key factors of terrorism the proposed increased security measures are being labelled as security theater for which will do nothing more than increase costs to fly, increase the time required to board flights, annoy passengers and further erode the privacy of passengers.

The Australian Government has a plan to access encrypted messages by changing laws to force telecommunications and technology firms to help authorities decrypt suspect messages. Instead of trying to decrypt messages in transit they plan on capturing message content at either end.

Five students at Caltech Space Challenge present their idea on the benefits of such a station. They proposed their designs what a lunar launch and supply station for deep space missions.
Read full: Gas Station in Space

Google has developed an artificial neural network to mimic the way the brain learns. The system is called as AutoML, that can develop networks that are more powerful, efficient, and easy to use.
Read full story here: Google AI

The UK is taking a step down the slippery slope with the announcement of the intention to lock down access to the internet in the UK which will result in a controlled, filtered, monitored and punitive style of internet access of restricted use similar to that of Iran's "Halal Internet". From the documents available, Theresa May promises to impose another era of Victorian morality on England based on the values her party deems to be ideal. Whether or not this will be extended outside of the internet, which would force brothels, sex toy shops, adult book shops, and massage parlours to close and may cancel Christmas, is unknown. May's party has not disclosed how far they intend to apply their moral code on UK society.

I wonder if anyone could help me with this. I really enjoy netflix series however i only know http://www.netflix-aanbod.nl and not so many other website to see what's new on netflix. Anyone ??

Is 2017 going to be remembered as "Year of the Security Breach"? Security researchers have discovered a keylogger in a HP audio driver. The keylogger has probably been active since 2015. 28 models of HP laptops are affected. Given that HP has 20% of the PC market millions of people could be affected.

The creation of a new fiber based broadband network in Australia has received a lot of bashing recently with the government switching from the original plan of fiber to the premises to fiber to the node to fiber to the curb and "multi technology mix using existing and new copper cabling. NBN Co. has been repeatedly criticized for going over budget and over time while costing the taxpayers money for damage to existing facilities and unnecessary work. The NBN is supposed to deliver a fiber network with next generation speeds to boost Australia's position in the internet fueled global economy. In the midst of this national embarrassment local ISP iinet is now offering a VDSL2 service with comparable speeds to the NBN. This is a bloody nose for the beleaguered NBN Co. who are years behind their schedule and may not even finish the proposed fiber network. With up to 80Mbps on an unlimited data plan, can the NBN compete?

When mobile payment systems were first introduced in Australia there was a huge kerfuffle about Apple entering the market with Apple having to fight to play in the Aussie mobile banking space. With the players now in the market the overall picture of how Australians are adapting to paying by phone is clear: not at all. Due to the existing range of options and mistrust of mobile phone security Australians are largely avoiding smartphone payment systems. This may more to do with the entrenched easy to use tap and pay system already in place than other factors. While cash withdrawals in general are declining most Australians look to be set to continue using cash and tap and pay for the foreseeable future.

General agreement is that copyright law has far exceeded its original intent and that it needs to be scaled back. Pundits wonder why the government fails to do so, instead passing laws that extend copyright. Perhaps it is because it does not affect them. They just don't care. The government of a country is untouchable. An example of this is being played out in New Zealand where Eninem is suing the NZ government for using his song without permission. Who watches the watchers? Who holds a government to account? Why should they even care what this singer does? After all, they pass these laws for people to be held accountable, not politicians.

Have you ever wanted something looking over your shoulder watching everything you do that you can't get rid of? Samsung thinks you do. The latest flagship product from Samsung has an assistant program baked into the operating system for which cannot be disabled by the owner of the device. This is a receipe for privacy violations and data leakage. In comparison, most other programs including Google Services can be disabled. Is it time to pass a law requiring companies to hand over root access for devices to consumers?

eBay has responded to the Australian Government initiative to collect GST for all internet purchases by proposing to block Australians from using eBay on the grounds that the changes demanded by the ATO are unworkable. While the Australian Treasurer has stated that this measure is to ensure local Australian businesses are not disadvantaged by the availability of overseas goods, the bill does not address that goods not available in Australia will also be taxed. The cost to businesses around the world to collection and be audited for GST may be excessive enough for many businesses to simply block Australians from purchasing. Local stores including Harvey Norman and Premier Investments are being blamed for supporting this change providing the government a platform to reap more taxes. Should this occur, and eBay does block Australian buyers, then the Australian government may find itself facing a backlash from millions of voters that it is not in the position to manage.

Don't be evil. A motto to live by. A goal to achieve. A vision. A stupid utterance made by an exec before Google dominated the internet. Google has announced a new product named Google Hire which will allow a potential employee to see your internet search history. Privacy advocates are warning that now is a good time to clear your Google search history and take preventative measures. Google Hire will links events from your Google account, Youtube history, and other sources to give employers a deeper understanding of applicants. Google Hire will allow employers to employers to post job listings, and accept and manage applications similar to StackExchange and other sites.

Proving once again that criminals are just stupid a group of thieves has stolen an iPhone then taken selfies which automatically uploaded to the cloud. The phone's owner posted the pictures on Facebook and handed them to the police in the hope of catching the criminals. Years after the first news story where an idiot used a stolen phone not realizing that the pics were being uploaded it appears that thieves are still targeting these valuable devices. When will a universal kill switch be implemented to make this type of crime not worthwhile?

Microsoft is in damage control after admitting how much data Windows 10 actually takes. The admission has sickened privacy groups fears and confirmed the rumours of how bad Windows 10 actually is. Microsoft intend to make the situation worse in the soon to be released, the Creators Update, will report all details of a windows machine to Microsoft down to the hardware serial numbers and colour of the machine. This is the type of information advertisers have been clawing to get for years. No word at time this on how much Microsoft would sell this data for.

In a shock move, the Australian Customer Care and Cardiology department of the Australian Department is going to respond to repeated calls for the still-being-built National Broadband Network to be re-done due to complains of inconsistent speed and bad dropouts in the new fiber network. This will involve NBN victims^WCUSTOMERS putting a hardware device on their NBN line to report statistics in real time. around 4000 households will be tested to see exactly how bad the NBN is. Since its inception the NBN has been lambasted for its approach and implementation to build what is meant to be the fastest public infrastructure for the future ever seen in Australia for which is meant to last generations. In related news, a recent poll showed that less than half the country wants the NBN, and one third of the people polled think that they can just refuse the NBN when it is connected and keep using their existing copper line.

The latest Samsung Galaxy 8 will have facial recognition for payments, a 3.5mm audio jack and no home button. Samsung needs the Galaxy 8 to be a success after the shocking problems with the Note 7. With cheaper smartphones entering the mobile arena Samsung needs to capitalize on its market dominance to stay ahead.

A customer took their iPhone in to be repaired only to have the iPhone 6 explode in their hand as they pressed the screen. The screen blew right off. The shop had to be shut for the day due to the fumes created by the burning device. Beware of lithium-ion batteries in phones.

The Australian arm of Dominos is battling a lawsuit over its use of GPS technology to track pizza deliveries with Precision Tracking who claim that Dominos reversed their technology after initial talks fell through. Dominos claims to have gone with a superior GPS technology solution provider, Navman Wireless, who they are now suing, for which themselves have lodged a counterclaim against Precision Tracking making this a three way lawsuit. If Precision Tracking does not put up AU$200,000 as security then its case against Dominos will be halted. This three way stoush over the implementation method of using GPS to track pizza delivery shows how close Australia has become to following in America's footsteps in having legal battles over software patents for obvious inventions, tie up courts and harm innovation.

A class action lawsuit has resulted in a leading vibrator manufacturer paying out up to $10,000 for any person who used their We-Vibe app after hackers discovered that personal data was being recorded by the company. While the company has claimed that it has done nothing wrong, anyone who owns a We-Vibe is entitled to part of the settlement based on that dates and times of use as well as vibration mode and pattern was being sent to servers owned by Innovation Standards using personally-identifiable email addresses as keys. As the data collected was deemed to be 'highly sensitive' the company will destroy all data collected.

With the recent rash of popularity of old style phones Nokia has licenced the old style 3310 candybar style phone to be ressurected. Sadly this phone is not useful in some countries like Australia where the 2G networks are being dismantled. If this retro phone does take off there is hope of a 3G or 4G version for diehard enthusiasts and people who appreciate a phone with 22 hours of talk time and one month standby.

Australian introduced SmartGates a decade ago to scan passports automatically reducing the time required to process passengers through international airport security. Now the Australian Government is planning to spend 94M for a five year project to process 90% of travellers processed automatically. Passengers would not need to show their passports, instead being processed by biometric recognition of their faces, irises and/or fingerprints.

Recent experiments have demonstrated the lovely patterns that can be formed from skittles and hot water. Now, the BOS shows how to mix hot water and m&m candy to create colorful patterns. Next up: hot water and jelly beans.

As of six months ago the Department of Human Services started spewing out 20,000 letters per week to people claiming that they owe Centrelink a debt. This is the same number of letters Centrelink, a part of DHS, used to send out per year. This is due to a new system implemented by the DHS for which pulls back five years of data from the Australian Tax Office then compares the amount of benefits paid to each person resulting in a calculation for if the person was potentially overpaid welfare. Due to the period of time many people have moved on and were not contactable by the DHS, so Centrelink sent the letters of demand to debt collectors when people could not be contacted to resolve the question of whether a debt was owed. Now, with Christmas approaching, thousands of people are being hunted down by debt collectors for debts they know nothing about and for in several cases debts that are not real. Understandably, many people are not happy about this. In response to the overwhelming negative response by the public to this situation Centrelink boss Hank Jongen has asked people to email him directly to discuss their issues. This is just the latest in a series of publicly humiliating incidents the DHS has faced in 2016 with special focus on its baneful MyGov and My Health Record systems and the outsourcing of the Bowel Cancer Screening Register. On the bright side, there are only 10 days left in 2016. What else can possibly go wrong this year.

In a move widely regarded as being a step in the right direction, Australia is considering adopting fair use provisions in cooyright law. However, restrictive Free Trade agreements prevent decreasing the length of copyright terms. This will bring Australian in line with America for fair use of copyrighted content, reduce the cost of dealing with infringements and may address other costly issues currently caused by existing laws.

Yet another company has followed in the footsteps of internet giants which currently claim to operate out of Ireland for tax purposes. From January 2017 online voucher powerhouse Groupon Australia will move its data and possibly some staff to Lower Ground Floor‚ Connaught House‚ 1 Burlington Road‚ Dublin 4‚ 216410 Ireland. Whether or not this will trigger recent ATO tax haven measures or result in a Australian Privacy Principle violation is yet to be determined.

The outsourcing of Australian IT jobs to indian nationals failed badly today with key systems offline directly attributed to ATO's failed agile implementation and the outsourcing of many positions to Indian nationals. While ATO management have attempted to shift blame to "those who did not get onboard" the evidence of this failure is clear: outsourcing key functionality of the ATO is a failure. The attempted shift to agile is partly to blame with the implementation of agile using the SAFe methodology being proven to be an abject faikule. Most of the problems are centered with the employees sourced from India hired into key positions.

After years of constant, grinding, development the libre-videogame and fork of Xonotic known as Chaos-Esque Anthology has reached version 100.

The project has expanded Xonotic's original cast of 18 weapons to over 130 weapons, has added new textures, and maps, aswell as a list of other features including: city generation subsystem (with interiors), building subsystem (build buildings, furnishings, doors, blocks, the buildings have interiors and function similar to RTS buildables), marshaling subsytem, foliage subsystem, aswell as mounted weapons and more vehicles. Additionally hand-to-hand fighting was added for those wishing for a Mortal-Kombat feel in a libre 3d video-game.

More information can be found on the project's Linux Game Database page including changelog and download link of the ISO: https://lgdb.org/game/chaosesque-anthology

(Note: Chaos-Esque Anthology name was decided upon after input from the lead developer of Xonotic, many moons ago)

After downgrading the promised Australian fiber network to a 'mixed technology' which was promised to be delivered faster and cheaper the NBN Co. has run out of money. NBN Co. had loaned 20bn from the Australian Government to complete the NBN rollout. Even with this cash injection NBN Co. will still be unable to deliver the fiber network promised to the Australian people when the project first began.

Following on from the terrible ABS performance during the Australian 2016 Census the ACT Elections Result page consistently threw a HTTP Error 404. The requested resource is not found. message. Given the current negative feedback of online government services with a range of failures from MyGOV through to the 2016 Census it is clear that Australian government departments need to up their game.

The Australian privacy watchdog has been called on to investigate a breach of Australian Medicare data. This breach gives more weight to the privacy concerns surrounding the recent Australian 2016 census where the ABS has announced it will keep data permanently as a "linked key", store data for longer, and match data across government agencies. The Department of Health is the last in a list of Australian agencies to allow confidential data to be accessible.

With the recent theft of millions of users passwords and increased reliance on secondary authentication the need for educating users about insecure passwords has never been more important. With this in mind the people behind Dashlane Free Password Manager have released a web page that shows how long it takes to crack a password. The idea here is simple; users can see effective their password combination is and see in real time how long it would take today's computer systems to crack that password. What is being sought here is for users to choose longer passwords. This should be something which should be taught to kids in school.