Monthly Archives: November 2019

Google wants to be your new bank

Source: Engadget

Article note: Oh boy! Banking with google so you can get locked out of your inadequately regulated pseudo-bank because someone got butthurt about a internet shitpost! That seems like a GREAT idea. /s
It's not just Apple and Facebook diving headlong into the financial world. Google has revealed plans to offer checking accounts in 2020 through a project nicknamed Cache. The search giant won't handle the actual underpinnings -- Citigroup and a cre...
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US violated Constitution by searching phones for no good reason, judge rules

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Yeah! It's a little narrower and much, much later than I'd like to see, but the legal process is showing signs of functioning.
US Customs and Border Protection agents participate in a training exercise at the border with Mexico.

Enlarge / US Customs and Border Protection agents participate in a training exercise at a vehicle entry point along the border with Mexico on November 5, 2018, in Hidalgo, Texas. (credit: Getty Images | Andrew Cullen)

The United States government violated the Fourth Amendment with its suspicionless searches of international travelers' phones and laptops, a federal court ruled today.

The ruling came in a case filed "on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at US ports of entry," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said today. The ACLU teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to fight the government on behalf of plaintiffs including 10 US citizens and one lawful permanent resident.

The order from a US District Court in Massachusetts limits what searches can be made by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

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More South Korean academics caught naming kids as co-authors

Source: Hacker News

Article note: In case that there was any remaining doubt that the academic prestige game is a meaningless Goodheart's law artifact; preemptively priming your children's E-Peen for competitive advantage.
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Google has access to detailed health records on tens of millions of Americans

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: Is google _trying_ to get regulated? Flaunt that they won't be? Just being creepy for the fuck of it?
Mountain View, Calif. - May 21, 2018: Exterior view of a Googleplex building, the corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc.

Enlarge / Mountain View, Calif. - May 21, 2018: Exterior view of a Googleplex building, the corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company Alphabet Inc. (credit: Getty Images / zphotos)

Google quietly partnered last year with Ascension—the country's second-largest health system—and has since gained access to detailed medical records on tens of millions of Americans, according to a November 11 report by The Wall Street Journal.

The endeavor, code-named "Project Nightingale," has enabled at least 150 Google employees to see patient health information, which includes diagnoses, laboratory test results, hospitalization records, and other data, according to internal documents and the newspaper's sources. In all, the data amounts to complete medical records, WSJ notes, and contains patient names and birth dates.

The move is the latest by Google to get a grip on the sprawling health industry. At the start of the month, Google announced a deal to buy Fitbit, prompting concerns over what it will do with all the sensitive health data amassed from the popular wearables. Today's news will likely spur more concern over health privacy issues.

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The ruggedized Raspberry Pi recovery kit #RaspberryPi @back7co

Source: adafruit industries blog

Article note: Unlike many of these projects, I can actually see applications for this one, and it is very neatly exectued. It needs a protective membrane under the keycaps and a few other minutia to be really suitable as a field computer, but damned if it isn't cool.

Jay at back7 shows that, while the Raspberry Pi is a great computer, it’s not set to go into the field as rugged equipment.

Building Internet-connected things seems obvious today, but what about when there’s no Internet?

The concept often feels like something out of a science fiction movie or a doomsday prepper’s handbook- and while this device can work in both scenarios, it’s also about understanding resiliency for your projects and being a good steward of the systems in place today.

The resulting project is perfection – a ruggedized, waterproof case holds the Pi securely. Structured wiring brings out the connections. A display is integrated and a custom keyboard allows for input.

See this post for all the details.

JAY01429.jpg

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Trippy T-Shirt Makes You Invisible To AI

Source: Slashdot

Article note: This was a plot point in a William Gibson novel some years ago (End of Zero History? It was one of the two pattern recognition sequels.). At the time I found it implausible that we'd widely adopt surveilence technology that stupid, but here we are.

In modern cities, we're constantly surveilled through CCTV cameras in both public and private spaces, and by companies trying to sell us shit based on everything we do. We are always being watched. But what if a simple T-shirt could make you invisible to commercial AIs trying to spot humans? Motherboard reports: A team of researchers from Northeastern University, IBM, and MIT developed a T-shirt design that hides the wearer from image recognition systems by confusing the algorithms trying to spot people into thinking they're invisible. Adversarial designs, as this kind of anti-AI tech is known, are meant to "trick" object detection algorithms into seeing something different from what's there, or not seeing anything at all. In some cases, these designs are made by tweaking parts of a whole image just enough so that the AI can't read it correctly. The change might be imperceptible to a human, but to a machine vision algorithm it can be very effective: In 2017, researchers fooled computers into thinking a turtle was a rifle. A T-shirt is a low-barrier way to move around the world unnoticed by AI watchers. Previously, researchers have tried to create adversarial fashion using patches attached to stiff cardboard, so that the design doesn't distort on soft fabric while the wearer moves. If the design is warped or part of it isn't visible, it becomes ineffective.

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Netflix is dropping support for older Samsung smart TVs in December

Source: Engadget

Article note: Regularly scheduled reminder that TVs (or cars, or other durable items) with built-in short-lived technology are a dumb fuckin' idea. Buy a _display_ and attach a gadget.
If you have an older Samsung or Vizio smart TV, you may have noticed a message from Netflix pop up on your screen. This week, Netflix began notifying customers that it will no longer support Samsung smart TVs, circa 2010 and 2011, or Vizio smart TV m...
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Why more than 168,000 Valentine’s day text messages arrived in November

Source: Ars Technica

Article note: In addition to the near fight with the girlfriend due to a 9 month old message appearing annoyance, that's some exceptional ineptitude from what is theoretically serious infrastructure.
Why more than 168,000 Valentine’s day text messages arrived in November

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty)

Did you get a Valentine's Day text message on November 7? If so, you can blame a company called Syniverse, which provides text-messaging services to major mobile carriers.

Syniverse helps deliver text messages via its intercarrier messaging service and boasts that it is "Connected to more than 300 operators" and processes 600 billion messages per month.

Syniverse says it delivers 99.8% of messages within one second. But a server failure caused many messages—exactly 168,149, according to The Washington Post—to be delivered nearly nine months late. (Update: Syniverse later acknowledged that the actual number of late messages was higher, but isn't saying exactly how many there were. See the update later in this article for more.)

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Anycubic Linear Kossel: Unofficial Owner’s Guide

Anycubic Kossel on its stand

I’ve been working with a number of Anycubic Linear Kossel / Kossel Plus (whatever branding they’re using when you look) 3D printers for the last couple months, including one I bought personally. While I’m overall extremely pleased with them, there are a whole bunch of notes, fixes, and improvements I feel like should be collected somewhere.

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Kentucky Voter Guide: Your guide to the race for governor and other statewide offices

Source: Kentucky.com -- State

Article note: Herald-Leader voter guide is up, everyone go do at least the absolute minimum citizenship.

It’s time to pay attention. Election day is Tuesday and it’s time to pick your candidates if you haven’t already. The nasty battle over who will be the next governor … Click to Continue »

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