Website builder Wix acquires art community DeviantArt for $36M

Found on Techcrunch on Saturday, 25 February 2017
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Wix said that it will continue to operate DeviantArt as a standalone site, but it will also use it to boost its own business in a couple of ways.

Wix will open up DeviantArt’s repository of art and creative community to the Wix platform, giving Wix’s users access to that work to use in their own site building.

Next time you upload your artwork to some website, check the small printed TOS; then you might think twice about granting full rights to your work to someone else who can just sell it to another third party which allows users to make Flash-based websites. Flash, seriously?

Google: 99.95% of Recent ‘Trusted’ DMCA Notices Were Bogus

Found on Torrentfreak on Friday, 24 February 2017
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“For example, in January 2017, the most prolific submitter submitted notices that Google honored for 16,457,433 URLs. But on further inspection, 16,450,129 (99.97%) of those URLs were not in our search index in the first place.”

A proactive takedown of a non-existent URL necessarily happens in advance of any determination of whether that URL is infringing, which goes way beyond any legislation currently being demanded.

That is pretty obviously a plain abuse of the system and should result in the termination of the submitter's account.

Router hacker suspect arrested at Luton Airport

Found on BBC News on Friday, 24 February 2017
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"He is accused of being the mastermind behind the attack," Cologne public prosecutor Dr Daniel Vollmert told the Press Association.

Once hijacked, the routers would be used to mount what is known as "distributed denial of service" attacks. These attempt to knock sites and servers offline by sending them more data than they can handle.

Fake news day? Telekom's problem was completely home-made because they decided to expose TR-069 to just everybody on the Internet; and along with a massive input validation failure that allowed an expected hostname string to be replaced by backticked shell commands caused this entire mess. They hype the suspect as a mastermind to distract from their own big mistakes.

PewDiePie's apology sequel: A video about shooting Hitler

Found on CNet News on Thursday, 23 February 2017
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Felix Kjellberg, better known by his YouTube identity, PewDiePie, came under fire for allegations of anti-Semitic messages in videos last week.

This time, the video -- titled "I KILL HITLER! *notclickbait*" -- shows him playing a WWII-style first-person-shooter, as he fields calls from "PR" about how killing Nazis in the game is helping to erase modern day Nazis.

He honestly cannot believe that his followers are stupid enough to not realize that he does that only because the reactions from Disney and Youtube are hurting him financially and showing them the middle finger did not change their stance. Now he delivers an attempted apology and grovels, after so proudly claiming that all the big mainstream media are just afraid of him.

Ars Technica Live: What to do when border officials ask for your passwords

Found on Ars Technica on Wednesday, 22 February 2017
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What exactly are your rights at the border, and should you really hand over your social media passwords to a customs agent?

If you're curious about your rights at the border, how ICE's future deportations will work, and the longest amount of time any US citizen has been detained by border agents, you need to watch this conversation.

Just tell them that you do not have any social media accounts. As long as "in dubio pro reo" still exists, they have to prove that you have accounts.

Top Gear teases its new season, starting in March

Found on Ars Technica on Tuesday, 21 February 2017
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Hang in there, because the BBC's Top Gear is almost back. Last season ended in some ignominy. Ratings were awful, and Chris Evans took responsibility and duly fell on his sword.

Lest we forget, the magic that was Clarkson, Hammond, and May firing on all cylinders also took some time to develop. Nor is that trio immune to making boring TV, either; there was plenty not to enjoy about The Grand Tour as its season wore on.

Top Gear is dead. Plain and simple. The BBC ended it by firing Clarkson, justified or not.

Is your child a hacker? Liverpudlian parents get warning signs checklist

Found on The Register on Monday, 20 February 2017
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The programme, which encourages youngsters to develop useful computer skills, is also informing parents of the signs they may encounter if their children are on the path to becoming cybercriminals.

While readers may be unconcerned that their children are doing illegal things online, Warrington told the Echo that "children as young as eight have gotten involved in hacking, and most often it starts with online gaming."

That is by far one of the most retarded list of "signs". Got more than one email address? Then they have some bad news for you.

SpaceX successfully launches rocket after Saturday setback

Found on BBC News on Sunday, 19 February 2017
Browse Astronomy

It was the first mission by the company since one of its vehicles exploded on the launch pad in September.

The company also has a long queue of customers all waiting for a ride to orbit - including America's civil space agency (Nasa), the US military and multiple outfits in the commercial sector.

It's somewhat depressing: decades ago men were sent to the moon (unless you believe it was faked in Hollywood). Today, with decades of advancing technology, it's not even certain if a rocket will launch without blowing up.

Op-ed: Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto is a political trainwreck

Found on Ars Technica on Saturday, 18 February 2017
Browse Politics

Zuckerberg begins by claiming we're in an historic moment similar to "our great leaps from tribes to cities to nations." Then he adds that we need social media to "reach the next level." That next level is some kind of ill-defined global community which will come into being by using Facebook as a platform.

But coming on the heels of his comments about politicians with Facebook engagement, he sounds like he's floating the idea of turning Facebook into the infrastructure for managing elections.

Voting on FB? Seriously? On the antisocial network which collects every bit of data it can get about you to make as much money as it can with your profile? On a network which routinely ignores your rights for privacy?

Cloudflare Puts Pirate Sites on New IP Addresses, Avoids Cogent Blockade

Found on Torrentfreak on Friday, 17 February 2017
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Last week the news broke that Cogent, which operates one of the largest Internet backbone networks, blackholed IP-addresses that were linked to several notorious sites including The Pirate Bay.

It seems likely that the change of IP-addresses is an intentional response from Cloudflare to bypass the blocking. The company has a reputation of fighting overreach and keeping its subscribers online so that it would be fitting.

Cogent only has one job: to keep the data flowing. There is no room for dubious vigilante justice by plaing Internet police.