Will Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance impact US-Saudi relations? AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 11:30 pm)

US President Donald Trump has acknowledged for the first time Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi is likely dead.
US indicts Russian over attempt to interfere in November election AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 11:30 pm)

Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova is accused of taking part in a Kremlin-backed plan to conduct 'information warfare'.
Macedonian parliament votes to approve name change AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 11:30 pm)

Two-thirds of the MPs vote in favour of changing the country's name.
UN reassesses which Syrian refugees in Lebanon will receive aid AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 11:30 pm)

Every year, UN surveys Syrian refugee families in Lebanon to decide who need aid payments and who may survive without.
DRC police 'detain' five journalists over critical reporting AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 11:30 pm)

Around 20 journalists have been harassed or arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo this year.
3D Printers Have 'Fingerprints', a Discovery That Could Help Trace 3D-Printed Guns: Slashdotby msmash on printer at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 11:05 pm)

Like fingerprints, no 3D printer is exactly the same. That's the takeaway from a new University at Buffalo-led study that describes what's believed to be the first accurate method for tracing a 3D-printed object to the machine it came from. From the study: The advancement, which the research team calls "PrinTracker," could ultimately help law enforcement and intelligence agencies track the origin of 3D-printed guns, counterfeit products and other goods. "3D printing has many wonderful uses, but it's also a counterfeiter's dream. Even more concerning, it has the potential to make firearms more readily available to people who are not allowed to possess them," says the study's lead author Wenyao Xu, PhD, associate professor of computer science and engineering in UB's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. [...] To understand the method, it's helpful to know how 3D printers work. Like a common inkjet printer, 3D printers move back-and-forth while "printing" an object. Instead of ink, a nozzle discharges a filament, such as plastic, in layers until a three-dimensional object forms. Each layer of a 3D-printed object contains tiny wrinkles -- usually measured in submillimeters -- called in-fill patterns. These patterns are supposed to be uniform. However, the printer's model type, filament, nozzle size and other factors cause slight imperfections in the patterns. The result is an object that does not match its design plan.

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Buggy Software in Popular Connected Storage Drives Can Let Hackers Read Private Data Slashdotby msmash on storage at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 10:35 pm)

Security researchers have found flaws in four popular connected storage drives that they say could let hackers access a user's private and sensitive data. From a report: The researchers Paulos Yibelo and Daniel Eshetu said the software running on three of the devices they tested -- NetGear Stora, Seagate Home and Medion LifeCloud -- can allow an attacker to remotely read, change and delete data without requiring a password. Yibelo, who shared the research with TechCrunch this week and posted the findings Friday, said that many other devices may be at risk. The software, Hipserv, built by tech company Axentra, was largely to blame for three of the four flaws they found. Hipserv is Linux-based, and uses several web technologies -- including PHP -- to power the web interface. But the researchers found that bugs could let them read files on the drive without any authentication. It also meant they could run any command they wanted as "root" -- the built-in user account with the highest level of access -- making the data on the device vulnerable to prying eyes or destruction.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DHS Seized Aftermarket Apple Laptop Batteries From Independent Repair Expert Slashdotby msmash on apple at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 10:05 pm)

Louis Rossmann says US Customs and Border Patrol seized $1,000 worth of laptop batteries, claiming they were counterfeit. From a report: Earlier this year, Louis Rossmann, the highest-profile iPhone and Mac repair professional in the United States, told Motherboard that determining "the difference between counterfeiting and refurbishing is going to be the next big battle" between the independent repair profession and Apple. At the time, his friend and fellow independent repair pro, Jessa Jones, had just had a shipment of iPhone screens seized by Customs and Border Patrol. Rossmann was right: His repair parts were also just seized by the US government. Last month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized a package containing 20 Apple laptop batteries en route to Rossman's store in New York City. The laptop batteries were en route from China to Rossmann Repair Group -- a NYC based repair store that specializes in Apple products. "Apple and customs seized batteries to a computer that, at [the Apple Store], they no longer service because they claim it's vintage," Rossmann, the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group, said in a YouTube video. "They will not allow me to replace batteries, because when I import batteries that are original they'll tell me the they're counterfeit and have them stolen from by [CBP]." CBP seized the batteries on September 6, then notified Rossmann via a letter dated October 5. Rossmann produced the letter in its entirety in his video.

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Viktoria Marinova: Murder suspect admits attacking journalist AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 9:30 pm)

If convicted on rape and murder charges, 21-year-old Severin Krasimirov could be sentenced to life in prison.
Justice Department Charges Russian Woman With Interference in Midterm Elections Slashdotby msmash on usa at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 9:05 pm)

The Justice Department on Friday charged a Russian woman for her role in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2018 U.S. election, marking the first criminal case prosecutors have brought against a foreign national for interfering in the upcoming midterms. From a report: Elena Khusyaynova, 44, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States. Prosecutors said she managed the finances of "Project Lakhta," a foreign influence operation they said was designed "to sow discord in the U.S. political system" by pushing arguments and misinformation online about a whole host of divisive political issues, including immigration, the Confederate flag, gun control, and the NFL national anthem protests. The charges against Khusyaynova came just as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that it was concerned about "ongoing campaigns" by Russia, China and Iran to interfere with the upcoming Midterm elections and even the 2020 race -- an ominous warning that comes just weeks before voters head to the polls.

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Click Farms Are Gaming Apple's Top Podcasts List Slashdotby msmash on business at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 8:35 pm)

A new report sheds some light on the issue of paid click farms gaming Apple's long-running list of Top Podcasts. From a report: Earlier this month, Apple's long-running list of Top Podcasts began to exhibit some unusual issues -- no-name podcasts vaulting over popular, well-established ones -- but the company appeared to quickly fix its chart. Unfortunately, the problems have popped up again, and an analysis from podcast industry tracker Chartable suggests that paid click farms are now gaming the list, which it calls "the closest thing to the Billboard Top 100 in the podcast world." In theory, Apple's podcast popularity rankings might not matter -- podcasts are free, and Apple's only one source of such rankings. But after introducing its Podcast Directory in 2005, Apple became the world's largest aggregator of such programming, and its rankings serve two purposes: showing listeners what's hot, and helping advertisers determine which shows to support, thereby keeping their creators afloat. The core problem is that Apple's Top Podcasts chart appears to use a poor and easily manipulated ranking metric. Chartable believes that it's based entirely upon a podcast's total number of new subscribers over the past week, with weights assigned to movement in the past one to three days.

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In an Unprecedented Move, Apple CEO Tim Cook Calls For Bloomberg To Retract Its Chin Slashdotby msmash on security at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at October 19, 2018, 8:05 pm)

John Paczkowski and Joseph Bernstein, reporting for BuzzFeed News: Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an interview with BuzzFeed News, went on the record for the first time to deny allegations that the company was the victim of a hardware-based attack carried out by the Chinese government. And, in an unprecedented move for the company, he called for a retraction of the story that made this claim. Earlier this month Bloomberg Businessweek published an investigation alleging Chinese spies had compromised some 30 US companies by implanting malicious chips into Silicon Valley bound servers during their manufacture in China. The chips, Bloomberg reported, allowed the attackers to create "a stealth doorway" into any network running on a server in which they were embedded. Apple was alleged to be among the companies attacked, and a focal point of the story. [...] "We turned the company upside down," Cook said. "Email searches, datacenter records, financial records, shipment records. We really forensically whipped through the company to dig very deep and each time we came back to the same conclusion: This did not happen. There's no truth to this."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rise in UK descendants of Nazi victims seeking German passports AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 7:30 pm)

Number goes up from 43 in 2015 to 1,667 in 2017 following Brexit vote, according to official German figures.
The power of Ethiopia's gender-balanced cabinet AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 7:30 pm)

Ethiopia's gender balanced cabinet is sending women around the country a clear message: the patriarchy can be beaten.
Trump rebuked for praising Republican who body-slammed reporter AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at October 19, 2018, 7:30 pm)

Groups call on Trump to apologise after saying Greg Gianforte is 'my kind of guy' for body-slamming reporter in 2017.