In Shell’s view, this means avoiding the costly tasks of building a pipeline to the Australian coast and of constructing an LNG facility that might face a long series of planning battles, and require a host of new infrastructure on a remote coastline.
So Prelude will be parked above the gas field for a projected 25 years and become not merely a rig, harvesting the gas from down below, but also a factory and store where tankers can pull alongside to load up with LNG.
How Laws Restricting Tech Actually Expose Us to Greater Harm
Code always has flaws, and those flaws are easy for bad guys to find. But if your computer has deliberately been designed with a blind spot, the bad guys will use it to evade detection by you and your antivirus software. That’s why a 3-D printer with anti-gun-printing code isn’t a 3-D printer that won’t print guns—the bad guys will quickly find a way around that. It’s a 3-D printer that is vulnerable to hacking by malware creeps who can use your printer’s “security” against you: from bricking your printer to screwing up your prints to introducing subtle structural flaws to simply hijacking the operating system and using it to stage attacks on your whole network.
via How Laws Restricting Tech Actually Expose Us to Greater Harm | WIRED.
This amounts to a criminal sanction for telling people about vulnerabilities in their own computers. And because today your computer lives in your pocket and has a camera and a microphone and knows all the places you go; and because tomorrow that speeding car/computer probably won’t even sport a handbrake, let alone a steering wheel—the need to know about any mode that could be exploited by malicious hackers will only get more urgent. There can be no “lawful interception” capacity for a self-driving car, allowing police to order it to pull over, that wouldn’t also let a carjacker compromise your car and drive it to a convenient place to rob, rape, and/or kill you.
Hotel group asks FCC for permission to block some outside Wi-Fi
However, the FCC did act in October, slapping Marriott with the fine after customers complained about the practice. In their complaint, customers alleged that employees of Marriott’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville used signal-blocking features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system to prevent customers from connecting to the Internet through their personal Wi-Fi hotspots. The hotel charged customers and exhibitors $250 to $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network.
via Hotel group asks FCC for permission to block some outside Wi-Fi | Network World.
How a Massachusetts man invented the global ice market
To this day, Europeans rarely put ice in their drinks, but Americans do. Thanks to the low price of ice in the United States, Rees said, people here “developed a taste for cold drinks faster and stronger than anyone else.” This required active involvement from Tudor, who sent operatives to go from bar to bar trying to convince owners to incorporate his product into drinks. To make the sale, Tudor committed to giving some bartenders free ice for a year, figuring that customers would so enjoy the clink in their glasses that other local bars would feel pressure to put in orders. “The object is to make the whole population use cold drinks instead of warm or tepid,” Tudor wrote in his diary. “A single conspicuous bar keeper…selling steadily his liquors all cold without an increase in price, render it absolutely necessary that the others come to it or lose their customers.” According to Gavin Weightman, who wrote a 2003 book about the New England ice trade, Tudor was celebrated for half a century after his death by scholars at the Harvard Business School, who “admired him for creating a demand where it didn’t exist before.”
via How a Massachusetts man invented the global ice market – Ideas – The Boston Globe.
The Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is Flimsy
Attribution Is Difficult If Not Impossible
First off, we have to say that attribution in breaches is difficult. Assertions about who is behind any attack should be treated with a hefty dose of skepticism. Skilled hackers use proxy machines and false IP addresses to cover their tracks or plant false clues inside their malware to throw investigators off their trail. When hackers are identified and apprehended, it’s generally because they’ve made mistakes or because a cohort got arrested and turned informant.
Nation-state attacks often can be distinguished by their level of sophistication and modus operandi, but attribution is no less difficult. It’s easy for attackers to plant false flags that point to North Korea or another nation as the culprit.
via The Evidence That North Korea Hacked Sony Is Flimsy | WIRED.
A list of previous Sony Hacks here.
Sony Hackers ‘Completely Owned This Company’
“It’s really a phenomenally awesome hack—they completely owned this company,” Schneier, who is regularly consulted by the federal government on security issues, said. “But, I think this is just a regular hack. All the talk, it’s hyperbole and a joke. They’re [threatening violence] because it’s fun for them—why the hell not? They’re doing it because they actually hit Sony, because they’re acting like they’re 12, they’re doing it for the lulz, no one knows why.”
via Bruce Schneier: Sony Hackers ‘Completely Owned This Company’ | Motherboard.
Unless you know how infiltrators got into Sony’s system there is no way figuring out the who behind the hack. So far details of this has been lacking and as far as potential culprits targeting Sony, North Korea is probably least capable from an education standpoint and logistics. Social engineering, getting people inside Sony to cooperate is usually behind successful infiltrations. Sony’s Playstation network was taken down awhile ago. I suspect whoever did that probably is behind this despite what movie is about to be released soon.
Touring A Carnival Cruise Simulator: 210 Degrees Of GeForce-Powered Projection Systems
Overall, this was a fascinating example of how improvements in GPU hardware have allowed companies to build simulation centers that weren’t really possible before. Shipping companies and airlines have used some type of simulation for decades, but the type and nature of the environments those simulations can include is rapidly expanding — and such improvements at the industrial scale inevitably trickle down to consumer hardware and applications.
via Touring A Carnival Cruise Simulator: 210 Degrees Of GeForce-Powered Projection Systems.
What Can A Raspberry Pi Do In Space?
The Astro Pi board is a Raspberry Pi HAT and will comprise the following:
- Gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer sensor
- Temperature sensor
- Barometric pressure sensor
- Humidity sensor
- Real time clock with backup battery
- 8×8 RGB LED display
- Several push buttons
It will also be equipped with both camera module and an infra-red camera.
via Astro Pi – What Can A Raspberry Pi Do In Space?.
During his mission Tim Peake will deploy the Astro Pis, upload the winning code whilst in orbit, set them running, collect the data generated and then download it to be distributed to the winning teams.
Marines dump Microsoft for Linux OS on Northrop Grumman radar
In a statement released Friday, she said Microsoft Windows XP is no longer supported by the software developer and the shift to a DOD approved Linux operating system will reduce both the complexity of the operating system and need for future updates.
via Marines dump Microsoft for Linux OS on Northrop Grumman radar – capitalgazette.com.
Apple, IBM partnership yields first results: 10 mobile apps
The plan calls for IBM will resell Apple devices with its software pre-installed. IBM activation, management and security software are also involved in the deal. The partnership aims to give Apple the credibility it still has not quite achieved in IT departments and bring IBM into a popular mobile ecosystem.
via Apple, IBM partnership yields first results: 10 mobile apps | ITworld.