"Controversial Chinese technology firm Huawei and its Santa Clara-based subsidiary Futurewei allegedly stole trade secrets from San Jose tech giant Cisco and used them to copy Cisco routers," reports the San Jose Mercury News, citing the federal indictment released Thursday. The U.S. Department of Justice claimed in its racketeering indictment and a news release that Huawei and its Silicon Valley subsidiary stole operating system code and other data needed to make routers, and used the pilfered secrets to make Huawei-branded routers sold in the U.S. The indictment also alleges that five other unnamed U.S. firms were targeted. Cisco is not mentioned by name in the indictment, which refers to "Company 1." But the indictment cites a lawsuit filed in Texas against Futurewei and Huawei over the alleged router-data theft... The indictment alleges that when the Texas litigation started, Futurewei and Huawei claimed to have already removed misappropriated code from products, and recalled routers containing that code. However, the firms had erased the memory drives of the recalled routers and sent them to China before they could be accessed, "thus destroying evidence of Huawei and Futurewei's illicit conduct," the indictment claims. "Also, in an effort to destroy evidence, Futurewei attempted to remotely access Huawei routers that had already been sold in the United States and erase the misappropriated source code contained therein," the indictment alleges, without saying whether the government believes the attempted erasure was successful. The indictment does not make clear how U.S. prosecutors believe Futurewei and Huawei obtained the copyrighted code, but it claims the two companies had "hired or attempted to hire Company 1 employees and directed these employees to misappropriate Company 1 source code...." The two companies also engaged in "flagrant plagiarism" of Cisco's user manuals for routers, the suit alleged. While the allegations of stolen Cisco secrets concern routers sold in the U.S. in 2002, the indictment charges Huawei, Futurewei and two other Huawei subsidiaries with running a scheme from 2000 to the present "to operate and grow the worldwide business of Huawei and its parents, global affiliates and subsidiaries through the deliberate and repeated misappropriation of intellectual property of companies headquartered or with offices in the United States."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Slashdot reader golden_donkey quotes Forbes: Are you booting up your Windows 10 machine and discovering you can't log in to your profile? It appears you're not alone. Reports are increasing across Twitter and Microsoft forums that following the most recent Patch Tuesday update (KB4532693), users are complaining that their profiles and desktop files are missing, and that custom icons and wallpaper have all been reset to their default state... The KB4532693 update is allegedly causing much more serious headaches for some users. A newer report by Windows Latest cites multiple users in their comments section complaining that the data is nowhere to be found and allegedly not recoverable. Microsoft has now "yanked KB4524244 from its update servers..." reports ZDNet, "after acknowledging reports of 'an issue affecting a sub-set of devices.'" Microsoft says customers who have successfully installed the update don't need to take any further steps. Those who have configured PCs to defer installation of updates by at least four days should also be unaffected. For those who are experiencing issues related to this update, Microsoft recommends uninstalling the update. Forbes also shared a video "on a related note." Its title? "How To Choose A Linux Distro That's Right For You..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Someday you'll tune into Maddow and it'll be like this.

Podcast here. And there's an outline. This is like Katrina, we knew this was coming, it was the inevitable outcome of the road that we were on. The road we were on leads to this place.

schwit1 shared this report from Ars Technica: This is a consequential hire for SpaceX — it is difficult to overstate the influence Gerstenmaier has over human spaceflight both in the United States and abroad. He led NASA's space shuttle, International Space Station, commercial crew, and exploration programs for more than a decade. He immediately brings credibility to the company's safety culture. Former Space Shuttle Program Manager Wayne Hale, who now chairs the human spaceflight committee of NASA's Advisory Council, told Ars last summer, "Bill was recognized by everybody as being technically well-grounded and very astute. He was known to listen carefully and to make his judgments based on good technical reasons...." Although the role is officially a consultancy, it is expected to become a full-time position. SpaceX is poised to launch the first crewed mission of its Dragon spacecraft by June of this year. [Or possibly even in early May.] Gerstenmaier will play a key role in ensuring the safety of those missions and helping SpaceX secure certification for the Crew Dragon vehicle. The hiring could have longer-term implications as well. Few people in the global aerospace community have as much gravitas as Gerstenmaier or as much understanding of how to build coalitions to explore space... In December 2008, Gerstenmaier saved a cash-strapped SpaceX with a Commercial Resupply Service contract for operational cargo missions to the International Space Station. Gerstenmaier's decision to maintain two competitors as part of the commercial crew program in 2014 (SpaceX and Boeing) was also essential, although it was not a company-saving move. Boeing was lobbying hard for all of the funds and very nearly got them. Gerstenmaier was the deciding official who kept two providers in the competition. It has proven to be a smart decision, as SpaceX is poised to beat Boeing into space by months, if not years, at 50 percent less cost.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Controversial Chinese technology firm Huawei and its Santa Clara-based subsidiary Futurewei allegedly stole trade secrets from San Jose tech giant Cisco and used them to copy Cisco routers," reports the San Jose Mercury News, citing the federal indictment released Thursday. The U.S. Department of Justice claimed in its racketeering indictment and a news release that Huawei and its Silicon Valley subsidiary stole operating system code and other data needed to make routers, and used the pilfered secrets to make Huawei-branded routers sold in the U.S. The indictment also alleges that five other unnamed U.S. firms were targeted. Cisco is not mentioned by name in the indictment, which refers to "Company 1." But the indictment cites a lawsuit filed in Texas against Futurewei and Huawei over the alleged router-data theft... The indictment alleges that when the Texas litigation started, Futurewei and Huawei claimed to have already removed misappropriated code from products, and recalled routers containing that code. However, the firms had erased the memory drives of the recalled routers and sent them to China before they could be accessed, "thus destroying evidence of Huawei and Futurewei's illicit conduct," the indictment claims. "Also, in an effort to destroy evidence, Futurewei attempted to remotely access Huawei routers that had already been sold in the United States and erase the misappropriated source code contained therein," the indictment alleges, without saying whether the government believes the attempted erasure was successful. The indictment does not make clear how U.S. prosecutors believe Futurewei and Huawei obtained the copyrighted code, but it claims the two companies had "hired or attempted to hire Company 1 employees and directed these employees to misappropriate Company 1 source code...." The two companies also engaged in "flagrant plagiarism" of Cisco's user manuals for routers, the suit alleged. While the allegations of stolen Cisco secrets concern routers sold in the U.S. in 2002, the indictment charges Huawei, Futurewei and two other Huawei subsidiaries with running a scheme from 2000 to the present "to operate and grow the worldwide business of Huawei and its parents, global affiliates and subsidiaries through the deliberate and repeated misappropriation of intellectual property of companies headquartered or with offices in the United States."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When Jon Stewart went on CNN to plead that they give a shit.

b-dayyy quotes Linux Security: As AI becomes more and more ingrained in our daily lives through consumer products, we can't help but be concerned that proprietary software will comprise the market. And we are not talking about a million-dollar market, but a bigger one that may reach US$118.6 billion by 2025. Many industries and end-users would thus benefit from more open-source AI projects and tools for developers' use. That would save tons of individuals and companies money to build their own AI-powered apps. In this post, we explore five open-source AI projects or tools that are compatible with Linux and delve into the pros and cons of open-source AI and AI in general. The list includes TensorFlow by Google's AI research team, as well as Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit. The article points out that open-source AI "is also being explored in developing hardware, specifically microprocessors that are more secure," and suggests some other possible transformative uses (including smart farming technologies "that aid in livestock and crop monitoring, irrigation, weather forecasting, and overall farm management... [H]ealthcare becomes more factual than intuitive, increases in revenue can be seen more clearly in marketing efforts, and food security becomes a reality rather than a dream. "However, we should not discount the fact that AI can also be weaponized, empowering the wrong people. Cybersecurity systems must also be upgraded to counter AI-powered cyberattacks. And when developing AI-powered machines, it is critical to ensure that they are not vulnerable to attacks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes The Verge: Tesla has restored the Autopilot driver assistance features it remotely disabled on a used Model S, just days after Jalopnik published a story about the customer's ordeal. The owner, who Jalopnik simply referred to as Alec, confirmed to The Verge that the features are back after The Next Web spotted new Tesla Motors Club forum posts he wrote earlier this week. Alec said he was contacted by a Tesla customer experience rep who "apologized for my troubles, told me that Tesla has restored all missed options" and "cited a miscommunication" as the reason why the company pulled the Autopilot features in the first place. Jalopnik also reported that Tesla's message boards "have stories from other owners who have experienced similar incidents."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Free Software Foundation sent Microsoft a hard drive for Valentine's Day -- along with a petition calling for the release of the source code for Windows 7 (which is no longer supported by Microsoft): It's as easy as copying the source code, giving it a license notice, and mailing it back to us. As the author of the most popular free software license in the world, we're ready to give them all of the help we can. All they have to do is ask. We want them to show exactly how much love they have for the "open source" software they mention in their advertising. If they really do love free software -- and we're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt -- they have the opportunity to show it to the world. We hope they're not just capitalizing on the free software development model in the most superficial and exploitative way possible: by using it as a marketing tool to fool us into thinking that they care about our freedom. Together, we've stood up for our principles. They can reject us, or ignore us, but what they cannot do is stop us. We'll go on campaigning, until all of us are free.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

January 19, 2038 is for Linux what Y2K was for mainframe and PC computers in 2000, reports ZDNet. It's the day that the value for time "runs out of numbers" and, in the case of 32-bit Unix-based operating systems like Linux and older versions of macOS, "starts counting time with negative numbers..." "But the fixes are underway to make sure all goes well when that fatal time rolls around." nickwinlund77 shared their report: Linux developers have seen this coming for decades. So, Linux kernel developer Arnd Bergmann and others have been working on a repair. These corrections are now in the forthcoming Linux 5.6 kernel. Bergmann explained, "Linux-5.6, or my backport of the patches to 5.4, should be the first release that can serve as a base for a 32-bit system designed to run beyond year 2038." There are some caveats: - All user space must be compiled with a 64-bit time_t, which will be supported in the coming musl-1.2 and glibc-2.32 releases, along with installed kernel headers from Linux-5.6 or higher. - Applications that use the system call interfaces directly need to be ported to use the time64 syscalls added in Linux-5.1 in place of the existing system calls. - Applications that use a private copy of kernel uapi header files or their contents may need to update to the Linux-5.6 version. - A few remaining interfaces cannot be changed to pass a 64-bit time_t in a compatible way, so they must be configured to use CLOCK_MONOTONIC times... After we fix this, we won't have to worry about 64-bit Linux running out of seconds until 15:30:08 GMT Sunday, December 4, 29,227,702,659. Personally, I'm not going to worry about that one.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I just released a new version of Concord, the first since 2013. This is the core outliner of LO2. Native file format is OPML.

The future scientific relationship is the European Research Council's biggest challenge, new head says.

It's great that Bloomberg is spending huge money on good advertising that correctly positions the Dems vs Trump. But it's only half the job. The other half is organizing the electorate so we are always mobilized and ready for action.

"Billionaire Bill Gates has not commissioned a hydrogen-powered superyacht from designer Sinot," reports the BBC, citing their direct confirmation from the company itself. It has been widely reported that Mr Gates ordered a £500m ($644m) luxury vessel, based on the concept which was displayed in Monaco in 2019. Sinot said it had "no business relationship" with Bill Gates. It added that that the concept yacht, called Aqua, was "not linked" to either him or any of his representatives. "Aqua is a concept under development and has not been sold to Mr. Gates," a spokeswoman said. The Guardian has now removed their original article. But here's what they'd originally reported: Bill Gates has ordered the world's first hydrogen-powered superyacht, worth an estimated £500m ($644m) and featuring an infinity pool, helipad, spa and gym... The boat has five decks and space to accommodate 14 guests and 31 crew members. In a further environmentally friendly feature, gel-fuelled fire bowls allow guests to stay warm outside without having to burn wood or coals. But its most cutting-edge feature is tucked away below decks – two 28-tonne vacuum-sealed tanks that are cooled to -423F (-253C) and filled with liquid hydrogen, which powers the ship. The fuel will generate power for the two one-megawatt motors and propellors via on-board fuel cells, which combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity. Water is a byproduct.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.