Law & Disorder | Ars Technica

Russia’s only aircraft carrier damaged after crane falls on it | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-military-ship/russias-only-aircraft-carrier-damaged-after-crane-falls-on-it-idUSKCN1N410U

http://c4defence.com/ImageM/bb4c614d-4f74-4c02-ac4c-eb195e6f7338.jpg

Russia’s only aircraft carrier was damaged while undergoing repairs in the north of the country after the floating dock holding it sank in the early hours of Tuesday and a crane crashed onto its deck, tearing a gash up to 5 meters wide.

The Admiral Kuznetsov has seen action in Russia’s military campaign in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad with its planes carrying out air strikes against rebel forces.

It was being overhauled on one of the world’s biggest floating docks in the icy waters of the Kola Bay near Murmansk close to where Russia’s Northern Fleet is based and was due to go back into service in 2021.

Maria Kovtun, Murmansk’s governor, said in a statement that a rescue operation had been launched and 71 people evacuated after the floating dock holding the ship had begun to sink.

The warship had been successfully extracted from the dock before it completely sank, she said.

#Google : Sorry professor, old #Beethoven recordings on #YouTube ar...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/7670211

#Google : Sorry professor, old #Beethoven recordings on #YouTube are #copyright ▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/how-contentid-knocked-down-decades-old-recordings-of-beethoven warning to #eu with its #censorship filters fantasy

Net neutrality will be repealed Monday unless Congress takes action | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/net-neutrality-will-be-repealed-monday-unless-congress-takes-action

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/getty-paul-ryan-760x380.jpg

With net neutrality rules scheduled to be repealed on Monday, Senate Democrats are calling on House Speaker Paul Ryan to schedule a vote that could preserve the broadband regulations.

The US Senate voted on May 16 to reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of net neutrality rules, but a House vote—and President Trump’s signature—is still needed. Today, the entire Senate Democratic Caucus wrote a letter to Ryan urging him to allow a vote on the House floor.
Further Reading
Senate votes to overturn Ajit Pai’s net neutrality repeal

“The rules that this resolution would restore were enacted by the FCC in 2015 to prevent broadband providers from blocking, slowing down, prioritizing, or otherwise unfairly discriminating against Internet traffic that flows across their networks,” the letter said. “Without these protections, broadband providers can decide what content gets through to consumers at what speeds and could use this power to discriminate against their competitors or other content.” The letter was spearheaded by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai led a commission vote to repeal the rules in December 2017, but the rules remain on the books because the repeal was contingent on US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval of modified information-collection requirements. The OMB approval came last month, allowing Pai to schedule the repeal for Monday, June 11.

#Neutralité_Internet

Can blockchain technology help poor people around the world?
▻http://theconversation.com/can-blockchain-technology-help-poor-people-around-the-world-76059

In my work as a scholar of business and technology focusing on the impact of blockchain and other modern technologies such as cloud computing, big data and the Internet of Things on poor people, I see four main ways blockchain systems are already beginning to connect some of the world’s poorest people with the global economy.

The downside of blockchain
▻http://www.infodrivenbusiness.com/post.php?post=/2016/04/29/the-downside-of-blockchain

by Robert Hillard

Imagine an invention that deliberately wasted resources. Maybe a car that burns oil just to create smoke that is easy to see or an electric light that uses twice as much energy to avoid burning out. That’s exactly what blockchain is doing, consuming large amounts of electricity for no purpose other than making fraud prohibitively expensive.

I recently had the privilege of collaborating with my colleagues from the Australian Deloitte Centre for the Edge on a report looking into distributed ledgers and the blockchain technology. Reading the result, it is striking how far we still have to go to invent our digital business future.

As a quick reminder, blockchain is a technology to support the exchange of value or contracts in an environment where anonymity is important and no one is to be trusted. The best known application of blockchain is in the exchange of Bitcoins, a virtual currency.

Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index - Digiconomist
▻https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

Key Network Statistics

Description Value
Bitcoin’s current estimated annual electricity consumption* (TWh) 51.82
Annualized global mining revenues $8,109,412,566
Annualized estimated global mining costs $2,590,786,398
Country closest to Bitcoin in terms of electricity consumption Uzbekistan
Estimated electricity used over the previous day (KWh) 141,960,899
Implied Watts per GH/s 0.232
Total Network Hashrate in PH/s (1,000,000 GH/s) 25,475
Electricity consumed per transaction (KWh) 772.00
Number of U.S. households that could be powered by Bitcoin 4,797,753
Number of U.S. households powered for 1 day by the electricity consumed for a single transaction 26.09
Bitcoin’s electricity consumption as a percentage of the world’s electricity consumption 0.23%
Annual carbon footprint (kt of CO2) 25,390
Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2) 378.2

Bitcoin’s insane energy consumption, explained | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/bitcoins-insane-energy-consumption-explained

Bitcoin’s energy use should decline in the long run

Blockchain scalability - O’Reilly Media
▻https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/blockchain-scalability

The three main stumbling blocks to blockchain scalability are:

1. The tendency toward centralization with a growing blockchain: the larger the blockchain grows, the larger the requirements become for storage, bandwidth, and computational power that must be spent by “full nodes” in the network, leading to a risk of much higher centralization if the blockchain becomes large enough that only a few nodes are able to process a block.
2. The bitcoin-specific issue that the blockchain has a built-in hard limit of 1 megabyte per block (about 10 minutes), and removing this limit requires a “hard fork” (ie. backward-incompatible change) to the bitcoin protocol.
3. The high processing fees currently paid for bitcoin transactions, and the potential for those fees to increase as the network grows. We won’t discuss this too much, but see here for more detail.

#énergie #environnement #gaspillage #électricité #bitcoin #blockchain #pauvreté #économie

“Sites log your keystrokes and mouse movements in real time, before you click submit.”
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/an-alarming-number-of-sites-employ-privacy-invading-session-replay-scri

Another example: the account page for clothing store Bonobos leaked full credit card details—character by character as they were typed—to FullStory. Adding insult to injury, Yandex, Hotjar, and Smartlook all offer dashboards that use unencrypted HTTP when subscribing publishers replay visitor sessions, even when the original sessions were protected by HTTPS.

#privacy

London regulator announces Uber ban | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/london-regulator-announces-uber-ban

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/uberlisting.jpg

Uber has 21 days to appeal the ruling, which could affect 40,000 drivers.
TIMOTHY B. LEE - 9/22/2017

London’s taxi regulator is revoking Uber’s license to operate in the city, the agency announced on its Twitter feed on Friday morning. “Uber’s approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility,” Transport for London wrote.

The agency cited Uber’s “approach to reporting serious criminal offenses” as one problem with the company’s conduct. It also pointed to Greyball, a controversial software program Uber allegedly used to mislead regulators about the locations of its cars, making it more difficult for regulators to ticket Uber vehicles.

Uber’s license expires on September 30. However, it has 21 days to appeal the agency’s ruling, and it can continue operating in the city during the appeal process.

London’s Licensed Taxi Drivers Association praised the decision. “Since it first came onto our streets Uber has broken the law, exploited its drivers and refused to take responsibility for the safety of passengers,” a spokesman told the Independent.

Uber’s London manager vowed to challenge the decision, arguing that it would hurt 40,000 Uber drivers in the city. “To defend the livelihoods of all those drivers, and the consumer choice of millions of Londoners who use our app, we intend to immediately challenge this in the courts,” he said.

In the last couple of years Uber has had an acrimonious relationship with regulators across Europe. Two years ago, French regulators arrested two Uber executives, and Uber was fined in France last year for running an illegal transport service. Uber also briefly faced a ban in Italy that was reversed by courts in May.

Uber has faced bans in Germany and Spain but was able to return to both countries after agreeing to employ licensed taxi drivers.

#London #Uber

Chelsea Manning, newly-freed from military prison, speaks in San Francisco
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/chelsea-manning-we-must-think-critically-about-how-code-can-be-misused

Speaking at the Noisebridge hackerspace Tuesday evening, Chelsea Manning implored a crowd of makers, nerds, and developers to be ethical coders. “As a coder, I know that you can build a system and it works, but you’re thinking about the immediate result, you’re not thinking about that this particular code could be misused, or it could be used in a different manner.” Source: Ars Technica

Kaspersky Lab turns the tables, forces “patent troll” to pay cash to end case | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/kaspersky-lab-turns-the-tables-forces-patent-troll-to-pay-cash-to-end-c

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/kaspersky.2-760x380.jpg

“Why don’t you pay us $10,000 ?”

#troll #patent #brevets via @maliciarogue

More free publicity for Nazi sites that use #censorship for #Streis...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/5929515

More free publicity for Nazi sites that use #censorship for #StreisandEffect ▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/spurned-by-major-firms-daily-stormer-returns-with-help-from-a-startup

▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/google-and-facebook-lob...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/5917776

▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/05/google-and-facebook-lobbyists-try-to-stop-new-online-privacy-protection #google #facebook #fb #privacy #lobbyists

Le gouvernement américain veut identifier plus d’un million de visiteurs d’un site anti-Trump

▻http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2017/08/15/le-gouvernement-americain-veut-identifier-plus-d-un-million-de-visiteurs-d-u

Le 20 janvier, 1,3 million d’internautes s’étaient rendus sur un site qui organisait des manifestations hostiles à l’investiture du nouveau président.

http://img.lemde.fr/2017/08/15/139/0/3499/1748/644/322/60/0/ed31d75_3135-15f37a2.lb9lj9vn29.jpg

Le gouvernement américain cherche à se procurer des informations sur tous les visiteurs d’un site Internet critique envers Donald Trump. Un mandat a été présenté par le ministère de la justice le 17 juillet à Dreamhost, l’entreprise hébergeant le site disruptj20.org (« perturbez le 20 janvier »), créé pour organiser les manifestations en marge de la cérémonie d’investiture du 45e président américain.

Cette demande concerne 1,3 million d’internautes s’étant rendus sur le site et a pour but d’obtenir leur adresse IP (l’identifiant sur Internet de l’appareil utilisé pour se connecter) ainsi que le jour et l’heure de leur visite.

Une adresse IP peut permettre au gouvernement d’obtenir l’identité de l’internaute qui l’utilise. Dreamhost a contesté cette demande devant la justice et a rendu publique cette procédure lundi 14 août.

« Ces informations peuvent être utilisées pour identifier toute personne qui est allée sur ce site pour exercer et exprimer sa liberté d’expression politique, protégée par la Constitution », écrit l’entreprise sur son site, qualifiant la demande du gouvernement « d’alarmante », « un exemple d’abus de pouvoir de la part du gouvernement ».

Google gendergate aka #anti-diversitymanifesto(plus ou moins dans l’ordre)
A Google employee wrote an anti-diversity ‘manifesto’ that’s going viral inside the company
The document has been widely condemned by company employees
▻https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/5/16101978/google-employee-wrote-anti-diversity-manifesto

Google on Anti-Diversity Manifesto: Employees Must ’Feel Safe Sharing Their Opinions’
▻https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vbv54d/google-on-anti-diversity-manifesto-employees-must-feel-safe-sharin

The ugly, pseudoscientific history behind that sexist Google manifesto
Ex-Googler James #Damore’s biologically deterministic manifesto is the latest in a long lineage of #pseudoscience
▻http://www.salon.com/2017/08/08/the-ugly-pseudoscientific-history-behind-that-sexist-google-manifesto

Here Are the Citations for the Anti-Diversity Manifesto Circulating at Google
▻https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evzjww/here-are-the-citations-for-the-anti-diversity-manifesto-circulatin

What the Google gender ‘manifesto’ really says about Silicon Valley
▻http://theconversation.com/what-the-google-gender-manifesto-really-says-about-silicon-valley-8

Google engineer fired over memo files labor complaint
▻https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/9/16117616/google-engineer-diversity-memo-files-complaint-damore

Google fires engineer who “crossed the line” with diversity memo

Google says the post “advanced incorrect assumptions about gender.”
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/google-fires-engineer-who-crossed-the-line-with-diversity-memo
Legal experts say the case may have legs
The perfect culture war: how conservative pundits reacted to Google’s fired engineer

Pundits identify with James Damore, who wrote a 10-page manifesto suggesting gender inequality in Silicon Valley was natural
▻https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/09/google-fired-engineer-gender-sexism-conservative-reaction
Google CEO Cancels Gender-Diversity Meeting After Employees Targeted Online
▻http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-gender-diversity-meeting-controversy-employees-targeted-1202523696

#genre #alphabet

Alexandra Elbakyan, une chercheuse du Kazakhstan qui a créé un outil pour libérer les recherches scientifiques.
►http://www.lemonde.fr/festival/article/2017/07/27/alexandra-elbakyan-la-kazakhe-pirate-d-articles-scientifiques_5165479_441519
#paywall

Linguistic analysis of body-cam footage shows police bias against black people | Ars Technica
▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/linguistic-analysis-of-body-cam-footage-shows-police-bias-against-black

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/13325091184_90ba1c0b88_b-760x380.jpg

The first major US study of body-cam footage concluded that police, at least in Oakland, California, showed more respect to white people than to black people.

The study from Stanford University researchers analyzed the transcribed text from 981 traffic stops caught on body cams by 245 Oakland Police Department officers in 2014. White people pulled over were more likely to be called “ma’am” or “sir,” and they were more likely to hear the words “please” and “thank you” from police officers. Black people, however, didn’t get as much respect, and they were more likely to be called by their first names and even “my man.”

#police #caméras #racisme #États-Unis

Suspected American, Harold T. Martin III, has potentially stolen 50Tb of data, among which 75% of NSA’s TAO tools
He used to work at NSA via Booz Allen Hamilton (just like Snowden)

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/prosecutors-to-seek-indictment-against-former-nsa-contractor-as-early-as-this-week/2017/02/06/362a22ca-ec83-11e6-9662-6eedf1627882_story.html

▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/02/former-nsa-contractor-may-have-stolen-75-of-taos-elite-hacking-tools

#TAO : Tailored Access Operations #NSA
#Shadowbrokers

Internet Backbone Provider Cogent Blocks Pirate Bay and other “Pirate” Sites

Si c’est la vrai, ça n’est pas rien.

▻https://torrentfreak.com/internet-backbone-provider-cogent-blocks-pirate-bay-and-other-pirate-s

Several Pirate Bay users from ISPs all over the world have been unable to access their favorite torrent site for more than a week. Their requests are being stopped in the Internet backbone network of Cogent Communications, which has blackholed the CloudFlare IP-address of The Pirate Bay and many other torrent and streaming sites.

[...]

The sites in question all use CloudFlare, which assigned them the public IP-addresses 104.31.18.30 and 104.31.19.30. While this can be reached just fine by most people, users attempting to pass requests through Cogent’s network are unable to access them.

The issue is not limited to a single ISP and affects a small portion of users all over the world, the United States and Europe included. According to Cogent’s own backbone routing check, it applies to the company’s entire global network.

[...]

For now, however, we can only speculate what the reason or target is. Since so many of the sites involved are accused of facilitating copyright infringement, it seems reasonable to view that as a possible cause. However, this remains unconfirmed for now.

#net_neutrality
#the_pirate_bay
#Cogent #AS174

NSA leaker Ed Snowden’s life on Ars Technica
(June 2013)

Snowden used as alias TheTrueHOOHA for his Ars Technica posts

▻https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/nsa-leaker-ed-snowdens-life-on-ars-technica

Snowden as a teen online: anime and cheeky humor
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-security-snowden-anime-idUSBRE95B14B20130613

“I really am a nice guy,” Snowden wrote on his profile page. “You see, I act arrogant and cruel because I was not hugged enough as a child, and because the public education system turned it’s (sic) wretched, spiked back on me.”

Reuters viewed the website on Tuesday and contacted former company employees for comment. On Wednesday, the website had been taken down.

#Edward_Snowden #Snowden

Quelques pensées radicales à propos de Sci-Hub, le Robin des bois des sciences, par Kevin Smith (Les blogs du Diplo, 10 mars 2016)
►http://blog.mondediplo.net/2016-03-10-Quelques-pensees-radicales-a-propos-de-Sci-Hub #st

http://blog.mondediplo.net/IMG/png/sci-hub.png

#Sci-Hub est à l’#édition_scientifique ce que Pirate Bay est à l’industrie culturelle : un moteur de recherche proposant gratuitement au téléchargement des publications payantes. Censuré une première fois avant de réapparaître sur la Toile, la controverse qu’il a suscitée ne va pas encore assez loin.

#droit_d'auteur #copyright #piratage #partage

▻http://zinc.mondediplo.net/messages/20225 via Le Monde diplomatique