Wednesday walm wanchancy

 China's growing nation status has Japan reconsidering its 70-year old ban on military research projects, as Japanese defense circles actively seek to take advantage of the country's vanguard position in robotic technology.

 Pressure from the government is also mounting, as authorities try to find means to bring university researchers into the defense fold — particularly to meet the challenge of a more aggressive Chinese military.

 Funding cuts in Japanese higher education, combined with a weakened economy and governmental austerity measures, may make the allure of military funding irresistible to researchers and academic institutions.

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iBuypower Revolt2 nice...

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A Simple Method Yields A Wrinkly, Durable, Water-Repellent Coating 

Superhydrophobic coatings that make water droplets dance and roll off of a surface show promise for applications such as self-cleaning cars, buildings, and food processing equipment.

 A new method creates a durable superhydrophobic coating by combining two common materials -- Teflon and a shrinkable plastic -- in a few simple steps. 

The researchers took inspiration from work done with the polystyrene material found in Shrinky Dinks -- the children's crafting kit. 

They deposited Teflon onto a similar material called PolyShrink, heated it, and found that the Teflon formed a crinkled surface that caused water to bead and roll off easily. 

 The best results came from polyolefin shrink wrap coated with a 10mm-thick layer of Teflon.

 What's more, the surface is durable, having about the same scratch resistance as an aluminum coating, and repels water even after being scratched.

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My most excellent idea for water in areas where there is no water has just come that much closer to reality! 

The geoengineers that have been cursing Californians for the last four years with deliberate man engineered drought won't like my idea at all.

 Plots of land in the mountains and the deserts could have my idea set up and produce large quantities of pure clean water out of thin air for little cost in materials!   

Desalination plants cost millions and cost a lot to produce even small amounts of water. 

While my idea cost very little in materials and cost hardly anything to operate and maintain. 

But just like J.P. Morgan pulling the plug on Tesla's plan of producing free power and giving it away, my idea will have no takers because of the free water source.

Or will we one day see it produced and implemented? 

Time will tell.
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 On Tuesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its official assessment of December, January, and February's temperatures across the United States, and the results are striking:

 Not a single state in the U.S. had a cooler than average winter. (NOAA treats Alaska and Hawaii separately, due to shorter weather data records there -- though both states were significantly warmer than normal this winter. 

Weather records for the contiguous United States go back to 1895.) NOAA blames the recent warm weather on a record-strength El Nino "and other climate patterns," most notably, global warming.

 As a whole, this winter in the lower 48 was about 4.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average: a sharp contrast to the previous back-to-back frigid polar vortex winters, especially in the Northeast. 

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Evans Data Corp., in a survey of 550 software developers, asked them about the most worrisome thing in their careers.

 A plurality, 29%, chose this answer:

 "I and my development efforts are replaced by artificial intelligence."

 Surprisingly, this concern about A.I. topped the second-most identified worry, which was that the platform the developer is working on will become obsolete (23%), or doesn't catch on (14%). 

Concerns about A.I. replacing software developers has academic support.

 A study by Oxford University, The Future of Employment, warned that the work of software engineers may soon become computerized. 

Machine learning advances allow design choices that can be optimized by algorithms.

 According to Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data, the thought of obsolescence due to A.I., "was also more threatening than becoming old without a pension, being stifled at work by bad management, or by seeing their skills and tools become irrelevant."

Their fears are not unfounded...

Google's AlphaGo Beats Lee Se-dol In the First Match 

 "A huge milestone has just been reached in the field of artificial intelligence:

 AlphaGo, the program developed by Google's DeepMind unit, has defeated legendary Go player Lee Se-dol in the first of five historic matches being held in Seoul, South Korea. Lee resigned after about three and a half hours, with 28 minutes and 28 seconds remaining on his clock. "

Lee will face off against AlphaGo again tomorrow and on Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday. 

Also at the New York Times. Science magazine says the loss may be less significant than it seems at first.

Oh really?

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Suprise suprise

Former NSA, CIA Director Michael Hayden Sides With Apple Over FBI

 General Michael Hayden (Retired), who served as head of both the NSA and CIA, has taken a position supporting Apple in its conflict with the FBI. 

 Apple is fighting a court order to assist the FBI in breaking into the government owned phone used by one of the two dead terrorists responsible for the recent San Bernardino massacre.

 General Hayden stated, "You can argue this on constitutional grounds. 

Does the government have the right to do this?

 Frankly, I think the government does have a right to do it. 

You can do balancing privacy and security dead men don't have a right to privacy.

 I don't use those lenses. 

My lens is the security lens, and frankly, it's a close but clear call that Apple's right on just raw security grounds.

 ... I get why the FBI wants to get into the phones but this may be a case where we've got to give up some things in law enforcement and even counter terrorism in order to preserve this aspect, our cybersecurity."

Common sense finally from a government former NSA, CIA man.

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And on another front:

FBI Quietly Changes Its Privacy Rules For Accessing NSA Data On Americans

 The FBI has quietly revised its privacy rules for searching data involving Americans' international communications that was collected by the NSA, US officials have confirmed to the Guardian.

 The classified revisions were accepted by the secret US court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies' broad surveillance powers.

 The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA's sweeping "Prism" program to collect internet data.

 Section 702 falls under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and is a provision set to expire later this year.

 A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices.

 The PCLOB's new compliance report, released last month, found that the administration has submitted "revised FBI minimization procedures" that address at least some of the group's concerns about "many" FBI agents who use NSA-gathered data. 

Sharon Bradford Franklin, a spokesperson for the PCLOB, said the rule changes move to enhance privacy.

 She could not say when the rules actually changed -- that, too, is classified.

 Last February, a compliance audit alluded to imminent changes to the FBI's freedom to search the data for Americans' identifying information. 

"FBI's minimization procedures will be updated to more clearly reflect the FBI's standard for conducting US person queries and to require additional supervisory approval to access query results in certain circumstances," the review stated. 

 The reference to "supervisory approval" suggests the FBI may not require court approval for their searches -- unlike the new system Congress enacted last year for NSA or FBI acquisition of US phone metadata in terrorism or espionage cases.

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 Too Bad Your Not On Linux

OwnCloud Server 9.0 is without any doubt the biggest release of the world's leading file sharing and sync solution, which is used by over 8 million users around the globe.

 It promises to bring the collaboration and federation features to new levels thanks to the addition of new, innovative tools, as well as to improve the software's scalability.

One of ownCloud 9.0's new features is code signing, which promises to offer users with a safer home for all their data by verifying the integrity of their ownCloud installations during upgrades or when installing apps, which also need to follow the new code signing specifications.

 The community edition of ownCloud Server 9.0 is available for download right now via Softpedia as a source package that you can deploy on your Linux kernal-based server, or straight from the project's website as binary packages for various GNU/Linux operating systems.

 OwnCloud Server 9.0 Enterprise Edition will be released in April 2016. 

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 A Free Honeypot!

Dell SecureWorks researchers have developed a tool that allows Windows system administrators to detect network intrusion attempts and pinpoint them to the original source (i.e. a compromised endpoint), and have made it available for everybody.

 The tool is called DCEPT (Domain Controller Enticing Password Tripwire). It consists of: The DCEPT Generation Server, which creates unique honeytoken credentials for Active Directory (AD), the Windows component used by network administrators to manage accounts, processes, and permissions on devices within their domain.

 The DCEPT Agent, which introduces them daily into the memory of each endpoint on the network. 

 The DCEPT Sniffer, which looks for Kerberos pre-authentication packets destined for the AD domain controller that match the honeytoken username. 

If it detects one, it alerts the network administrator and points towards the compromised workstation.

 DCEPT has been open sourced and is available on GitHub, along with instructions for deployment.