Animal rights? Monkey selfie case may undo evolution of the Internet

Found on Ars Technica on Saturday, 15 July 2017
Browse Legal-Issues

To be sure, if Naruto is deemed the owner of these infamous selfies, the monkey has the right to sue the photographer for copyright infringement. That's because David Slater, the photographer, has self-published the photos in a book, Wildlife Personalities.

PETA, in a scorched Earth litigation approach, is also suing Blurb, the online publishing platform Slater chose to create his e-book and hard-cover book.

Would it be too far-fetched to assume that PETA, in case it wins, would volunteer to represent all those animals, act on their behalf, collect all the royalties and manage those funds? Of course you would have to take their word for it, because said animals cannot express their demands in front of a court; how convenient. Who knows, that monkey even might have put the images in question under a creative commons license, but that makes no money for PETA, who happily kills most of the animals that were given to them.

Carmakers want China to soften electric car quota

Found on Automotive News Europe on Friday, 14 July 2017
Browse Technology

"The proposed rules' ambitious enforcement date is not possible to meet, and if unchanged would lead to a widespread disruption of the product portfolio of most automakers operating in China. At a minimum, the mandate needs to be delayed a year and include additional flexibilities," the letter said.

They said banning carmakers who fail to meet the quotas from importing and producing non-NEV vehicles would be an unprecedented step which would lead to significant disruptions and dislocations within the Chinese and global automotive industries.

"This preference for domestic automakers over import automakers undermines the environmental goals of the regulation, puts imports at a competitive disadvantage, and risks opening China up to international trade disputes," the letter said.

After they lied for years to customers about their engines, the carmakers suddenly run into the Great Wall of China and instead of trying to take the chance, they whine and demand to have the rules changed in their favor, because China does "not think of their business".

Facebook Messenger gets adverts added to app

Found on BBC News on Thursday, 13 July 2017
Browse Internet

For now, adverts will appear only in the app's inbox list of recent chats and not within the conversations themselves.

"So, Facebook has been looking around for different ways to make money from Messenger and has obviously shifted its strategy a bit to think people will accept some ads within it."

Not only is your data sold to advertisers, you're also receiving more ads. Zucky is milking and butchering his cows.

Minneapolis airport fails 95 percent of security tests, sources say

Found on Fox 9 on Wednesday, 12 July 2017
Browse Various

When put to the test, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport failed 95 percent of security tests conducted at the airport last week, according to Fox 9 sources.

In most cases, they succeeded in getting the banned items though. 17 out of 18 tries by the undercover federal agents saw explosive materials, fake weapons or drugs pass through TSA screening undetected.

Two sources said that the tests carried out Thursday were eventually stopped after the failure rate reached 95 percent.

When asked about Thursday’s failing grade, the TSA said, “TSA cannot confirm or deny the results of internal tests and condemns the release of any information that could compromise our nation’s security."

TSA should be renamed to TFA: The Failure Agency. Such catastrophic results should be enough reason to call it quits and end this embarrassing project.

Sharing firm loses most of its 300,000 umbrellas

Found on BBC News on Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Browse Various

Sharing E Umbrella had left 300,000 brollies in public places in 11 cities, including Shanghai and Nanjing.

The umbrellas were probably taken home by people, suggested the firm's founder Zhao Shuping in an interview with Chinese website, the Paper.

Seems like the concept needs a little bit of polishing.

2,939 new Teslas were registered in Hong Kong in March—none in April

Found on Ars Technica on Monday, 10 July 2017
Browse Technology

Hong Kong levies a new-car tax at the time of sale that can be quite hefty, in some cases as much as the car itself. The EV exception previously made Hong Kong one of Tesla’s most popular markets, but the autonomous territory decided to start imposing the tax on EVs again earlier this year as a way to combat traffic congestion.

A report from the International Energy Agency earlier this year noted that in 2016, Denmark reinstated registration taxes for new EVs and consequently saw adoption drop by 68 percent that year.

As long as those cars won't be noticeable cheaper than those with traditional engines, they won't catch on. Not to mention the required infrastructure for fast recharging.

Warning: Grsecurity: Potential contributory infringement and breach of contract risk for customers

Found on Bruce Perens on Sunday, 09 July 2017
Browse Software

Currently, Grsecurity is a commercial product and is distributed only to paying customers. My understanding from several reliable sources is that customers are verbally or otherwise warned that if they redistribute the Grsecurity patch, as would be their right under the GPL, that they will be assessed a penalty: they will no longer be allowed to be customers, and will not be granted access to any further versions of Grsecurity. GPL version 2 section 6 explicitly prohibits the addition of terms such as this redistribution prohibition.

GrSec kernels are often a cause for problems when trying to debug issues. If they really would care about security, they should just file bugs and patches, like everybody else does.

Crashed RadioShack flogs off its IPv4 stash

Found on The Register on Saturday, 08 July 2017
Browse Internet

The 32,000-odd addresses will be sold off in /24 and /20 subnets by auction site IPv4Auctions.com, which specializes in the sale and resale of the increasingly valuable online space.

In April of this year, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology threw open the doors on that approach when it announced it wanted to sell its very large /8 block of 16 million addresses in order to fund expansion of its IPv6 network.

Free market at work. Although IPv6 has been around for so long, IPv4 is still alive and kicking; and will be for many more years.

Stream-ripping is 'fastest growing' music piracy

Found on BBC News on Friday, 07 July 2017
Browse Internet

Record labels claim that "tens, or even hundreds of millions of tracks are illegally copied and distributed by stream-ripping services each month".

"As soon as we think we've come up with an innovative solution [to piracy], the pirates seem to come up with an even more innovative infringement tactic," said Pippa Hall, Chief Economist at the IPO.

Sounds like a new Betamax case is coming up.

CNN implied threat against redditor over Trump-CNN GIF ignites Internet

Found on Ars Technica on Thursday, 06 July 2017
Browse Censorship

CNN reported on the source, who uses the Reddit username "HanAssholeSolo," and reserved the right to expose his identity later if he did not change his online behavior.

That implied threat led to a widespread negative response, with some accusing CNN of bullying or blackmail. CNN later issued a statement, saying that the individual's name had been withheld for his safety and no deal was reached.

Freedom of speech not so much it seems. While it is okay to walk over everybody when it seems newsworthy, CNN seems to have a really thin skin when it is at the receiving end of the laughter; and then decides to threaten. CNN just lost a ton of reputation.