Google's DNS-Over-HTTPS Plans Scrutinized By US Congress Slashdotby EditorDavid on google at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at September 29, 2019, 11:46 pm)

Google's plans to implement DNS over TLS in Chrome are being investigated by a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Justice Department has "recently received complaints" about the practice, according to the Wall Street Journal. An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: While Google says it's pushing for adoption of the technology to prevent spying and spoofing, House investigators are worried this would give the internet giant an unfair advantage by denying access to users' data. The House sent a letter on September 13th asking if Google would use data handled through the process for commercial purposes... Internet service providers are worried that they may be shut out of the data and won't know as much about their customers' traffic patterns. This could "foreclose competition in advertising and other industries," an alliance of ISPs told Congress in a September 19th letter... Mozilla also wants to use the format to secure DNS in Firefox, and the company's Marshall Erwin told the WSJ that the antitrust gripes are "fundamentally misleading." ISPs are trying to undermine the standard simply because they want continued access to users' data, Erwin said. Unencrypted DNS helps them target ads by tracking your web habits, and it's harder to thwart DNS tracking than cookies and other typical approaches.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google's DNS-Over-HTTPS Plans Scrutinized By US Congress Slashdotby EditorDavid on google at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at September 29, 2019, 11:46 pm)

Google's plans to implement DNS over TLS in Chrome are being investigated by a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Justice Department has "recently received complaints" about the practice, according to the Wall Street Journal. An anonymous reader quotes Engadget: While Google says it's pushing for adoption of the technology to prevent spying and spoofing, House investigators are worried this would give the internet giant an unfair advantage by denying access to users' data. The House sent a letter on September 13th asking if Google would use data handled through the process for commercial purposes... Internet service providers are worried that they may be shut out of the data and won't know as much about their customers' traffic patterns. This could "foreclose competition in advertising and other industries," an alliance of ISPs told Congress in a September 19th letter... Mozilla also wants to use the format to secure DNS in Firefox, and the company's Marshall Erwin told the WSJ that the antitrust gripes are "fundamentally misleading." ISPs are trying to undermine the standard simply because they want continued access to users' data, Erwin said. Unencrypted DNS helps them target ads by tracking your web habits, and it's harder to thwart DNS tracking than cookies and other typical approaches.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Algerian army chief: Won't back any leader in presidential polls AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 11:00 pm)

Army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah says the military will not support any candidate in presidential polls expected in December.
Algerian army chief: Won't back any leader in presidential polls AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 11:00 pm)

Army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah says the military will not support any candidate in presidential polls expected in December.
Lebanon: Protests over worsening economic crisis AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 10:57 pm)

Demonstrators march in front of government headquarters and block roads in Beirut, decrying economic crisis.
Lebanon: Protests over worsening economic crisis AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 10:57 pm)

Demonstrators march in front of government headquarters and block roads in Beirut, decrying economic crisis.
Liberal Arts Majors Eventually Earn More Than STEM Majors Slashdotby EditorDavid on education at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at September 29, 2019, 10:35 pm)

The conventional wisdom that liberal arts majors earn less than compsci majors may be true for the first job, but not necessarily for an entire career, reports the New York Times, in an article shared by jds91md (and republished by Indiana State's College of Arts and Sciences). "By age 40 the earnings of people who majored in fields like social science or history have caught up." This happens for two reasons. First, many of the latest technical skills that are in high demand today become obsolete when technology progresses. Older workers must learn these new skills on the fly, while younger workers may have learned them in school. Skill obsolescence and increased competition from younger graduates work together to lower the earnings advantage for STEM degree-holders as they age. Second, although liberal arts majors start slow, they gradually catch up to their peers in STEM fields. This is by design. A liberal arts education fosters valuable "soft skills" like problem-solving, critical thinking and adaptability. Such skills are hard to quantify, and they don't create clean pathways to high-paying first jobs. But they have long-run value in a wide variety of careers. Some other interesting stats from the article: STEM salaries grew more slowly -- and the field experienced a higher exit rate. "Between the ages of 25 and 40, the share of STEM majors working in STEM jobs falls from 65 percent to 48 percent. Many of them shift into managerial positions, which pay well but do not always require specialized skills." High-paying jobs in management, business and law raise the average salary of all social science/history majors.

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Libre-RISC-V 3D CPU/GPU Seeks Grants For Ambitious Expansion Slashdotby EditorDavid on opensource at January 1, 1970, 1:00 am (cached at September 29, 2019, 10:16 pm)

The NLNet Foundation is a non-profit supporting privacy, security, and the "open internet". Now the open source Libre RISC-V hybrid CPU/GPU is applying for eight additional grants from the NLNet Foundation, according to this update from the project's Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton (Slashdot reader #517,947): Details on each Grant Application are on the newly-opened RISC-V Community Forum. The general idea is to kick RISC-V into a commercially-viable mass-volume high gear by putting forward funding proposals for NEON/SSE-style Video Acceleration to be upstreamed for use by ffmpeg, vlc, mplayer and gstreamer; hardware-assisted Mesa 3D (a port of the RADV Vulkan Driver to RISC-V), and a hardware-accelerated OpenCL port to RISC-V. This all in a "Hybrid" fashion (a la NEON/SSE) as opposed to the "usual" way that 3D and Video is done, which hugely complicate both software drivers and applications debugging. In addition, the Libre RISC-V SoC itself is applying for grants to do a gcc port supporting its Vectorisation Engine including auto-vectorisation, and, crucially, to do an entirely Libre-licensed ASIC Layout using LIP6.fr coriolis2, working in tandem with Chips4Makers to create a 180nm commercially-viable single-core dual-issue test ASIC. The process takes approximately 2-3 months for approval. Once accepted, anyone may be the direct (tax-deductible) recipient of NLNet donations, for sub-tasks completed. Worth noting: Puri.sm is sponsoring the project, and, given NLNet's Charitable Status, donations from Corporations (or individuals) are 100% tax-deductible.

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Is the Afghanistan election credible? AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 9:48 pm)

Taliban attacks and other concerns contribute to a low voter turnout in Saturday's presidential polls.
Syrian Kurds criticise UN envoy over new committee AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 9:16 pm)

A Kurdish official says having 'a couple of Kurds' from northeast Syria on the committee is not enough.
[no title] Scripting News(cached at September 29, 2019, 9:05 pm)

Dropbox has a huge lead as the personal and corporate network storage system. Building on that is no mystery, we have 50+ years experience. The problem is they’re doing it all internally. Let a thousand flowers bloom. Thread on Twitter.
Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah arrested again amid crackdown AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 8:54 pm)

Prominent Egyptian dissident arrested even as he was serving his overnight probation, family and rights activists say.
Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah arrested again amid crackdown AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 8:54 pm)

Prominent Egyptian dissident arrested even as he was serving his overnight probation, family and rights activists say.
UK MPs plan vote of no-confidence in Boris Johnson AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 8:51 pm)

Johnson faces not only Brexit pressure but also calls for his resignation over corruption allegations from his time as London's mayor.
UK MPs plan vote of no-confidence in Boris Johnson AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)(cached at September 29, 2019, 8:51 pm)

Johnson faces not only Brexit pressure but also calls for his resignation over corruption allegations from his time as London's mayor.