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(Via.) Samsung Galaxy Note 8: Rumors, specs, release date, price - CNET: "
Friday, July 07, 2017
Thursday, July 06, 2017
Wednesday, July 05, 2017
Darknet 101: Your guide to the badlands of the internet - CNET
"Hacked login details, cybersecurity exploits for hire, guns, drugs and ammo -- if there's something shady going on online, chances are it's happening on the darknet.
But for those of us used to opening Chrome or Safari to get online, the darknet is an entirely different beast. How does it work? How is it different to the "surface web"? And what do you need to know before you wade in?
The deep web
The first thing to remember: The darknet is not the same as the "deep web."
The deep web refers to any part of the internet that isn't discoverable by a search engine. But that doesn't mean it's suspicious -- there are plenty of sites you visit in your day-to-day browsing that fall into this category.
When you log in to internet banking, you've navigated to a specific location online, but one that's not served up in Google results. The same goes for the different pages that pop up in webmail services, like Gmail, or academic databases on a university network.
It's hard to estimate just how big the deep web is, but the commonly-cited research (albeit from 2001) puts the deep web at 400 to 550 times the size of the "surface web."
The darknet
If the surface web is the tip of the iceberg and the deep web is what's below the water, then the darknet is what you'll find deep in the blackest waters below. The darknet is the network itself, whereas the dark web is the content that is served up on these networks.
This is where you'll find the kind of marketplaces that ply their trade in illicit wares -- what security researcher Brian Krebs calls the "hidden crime bazaars that can only be accessed through special software that obscures one's true location online."
Anonymity is the key here. Whistleblowers, activists and political dissidents certainly have good reason to obscure their online location and post with anonymity on the deep web and the darknet, but that level of secrecy is also sought by criminals.
Browsing the darknet
This isn't just a matter of heading to darknet.com and having a snoop -- you'll need specific software and a dedicated browser. Tor (and its dedicated Tor Browser) is probably the most famous of these, though there are others, including I2P and Freenet.
Darknet 101: Your guide to the badlands of the internet - CNET
Tuesday, July 04, 2017
Monday, July 03, 2017
OnePlus 5's jelly scrolling possibly caused by upside-down screen
"Some OnePlus 5 owners have reported encountering a strange "jelly-like" scrolling effect over the past few days since the phone was released. According to their posts on Reddit and other social networks, the text and images on their screen expand and shrink as they swipe in the opposite direction. The issue became big enough for the phonemaker to make a formal statement, wherein it said that the "subtle visual effect" when scrolling is totally natural. In other words, you can't expect a fix for it, since it's technically not a defect. But why does the OnePlus 5 exhibit the behavior in the first place? We might not get an answer out of OnePlus, but based on XDA Developers' investigation, it's because the device's screen was apparently mounted upside down.
Regulars on the OnePlus subreddit originally guessed that the device's screen wasn't quite mounted the usual way after being able to replicate the jelly effect on other phones when they're flipped. Sure enough, XDA found proof in the phone's kernel source code instructing the display controller to compensate by 180 degrees. Upon looking up teardowns of the OnePlus 5 and the older 3T, Reddit user Tasssadar found images proving that the 5's display really is in an inverted position."
OnePlus 5's jelly scrolling possibly caused by upside-down screen
Steve Jobs' Life Is the Perfect Opera | WIRED
"Steve Jobs was a visionary, perfectionist, tyrant, and genius. Now the late technologist is something new: a baritone. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, an original opus by Pulitzer Prize–winning librettist Mark Campbell and DJ-slash-composer Mason Bates, premieres at the Santa Fe Opera in July. “Too often people think of opera as this stupid old European art form that has nothing to do with our lives,” Campbell says. In fact, Jobs’ story is just as torrid as anything in Carmen or La Traviata—unchecked ambition, fickle love, rivalry, betrayal, death, and redemption. The Silicon Valley saga gets a wonky boost from Bates’ electronic score, punctuated by clicks from a Macintosh Plus. Bravissimo, tech bros!"
Steve Jobs' Life Is the Perfect Opera | WIRED
Sunday, July 02, 2017
Saturday, July 01, 2017
A Way to Own Your Social-Media Data - The New York Times - An interesting idea for copyright in the internet idea.
"What many users do not fully appreciate is that they do pay for these services, in the form of very valuable information. And those who appreciate this cost have no choice: There is no major search engine that does not store our past searches or collect information on our activities, and there is no significant social media platform that does not retain our preferences. That is the cost of using these technologies. Lack of competition also means lack of choice, which is ultimately lack of freedom. But what can be done?
For a 21st-century problem, we suggest a 21st-century solution: a reallocation of property rights via legislation to provide more incentives to compete. In fact, the idea is not new. Patent law, for example, attributes the right to an invention to the company a scientist works for, to motivate companies to invest in research and development. Similarly, in the mobile industry, most countries have established that a cellphone number belongs to a customer, not the mobile phone provider. This redefinition of property rights (in jargon called “number portability”) makes it easier to switch carriers, fostering competition by other carriers and reducing prices for consumers.
The same is possible in the social network space. It is sufficient to reassign to each customer the ownership of all the digital connections that she creates — what is known as a “social graph.” If we owned our own social graph, we could sign into a Facebook competitor — call it MyBook — and, through that network, instantly reroute all our Facebook friends’ messages to MyBook, as we reroute a phone call.
If I can reach my Facebook friends through a different social network and vice versa, I am more likely to try new social networks. Knowing they can attract existing Facebook customers, new social networks will emerge, restoring the benefit of competition.
Today Facebook provides developers with application-program interfaces that give them access to its customers’ social graph, Facebook Connect and Graph A.P.I. Facebook controls these gates, retaining the right to cut off any developer who poses a competitive threat. Anticipating this outcome, very few developers invest seriously in creating alternatives, eliminating even the threat of competition.
By guaranteeing access to new customers’ data and contacts, a Social Graph Portability Act would reduce the network externality dimension of the existing digital platforms and ensure the benefits of competition.
Google and Facebook will no doubt display their enormous lobbying power to kill this idea in its infancy. But they would do so at their own risk. If their monopoly is not curbed by competition, it will eventually be curbed by regulation, and experience suggests that will be worse, not only for consumers, but also for Google and Facebook themselves."
A Way to Own Your Social-Media Data - The New York Times
Friday, June 30, 2017
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