An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Howard University announced on Monday that it has been hit with a ransomware attack, forcing the school to shut down classes on Tuesday, according to a statement from the prominent HBCU. The school said that on September 3, members of their technology team noticed "unusual activity" on the university's network and shut it down in order to investigate the problem. They later confirmed it was a ransomware attack but did not say which group was behind the attack. "The situation is still being investigated, but we are writing to provide an interim update and to share as much information as we safely and possibly can at this point in time, considering that our emails are often shared within a public domain," Howard University said in a statement. "ETS and its partners have been working diligently to fully address this incident and restore operations as quickly as possible; but please consider that remediation, after an incident of this kind, is a long haul -- not an overnight solution." The school has contacted law enforcement and is working with forensic experts on the issue. They claim there is "no evidence of personal information being accessed or exfiltrated" but noted that the investigation is ongoing. The school was forced to cancel all classes on Tuesday in order to address the issue and the campus is only open to essential employees. Even the campus Wi-Fi is down. They noted that some cloud applications will remain accessible to students and that they will continue to update students and faculty at 2pm each day. "This is a moment in time for our campus when IT security will be at its tightest. We recognize that there has to be a balance between access and security; but at this point in time, the University's response will be from a position of heightened security," the school added. "This is a highly dynamic situation, and it is our priority to protect all sensitive personal, research and clinical data. We are in contact with the FBI and the D.C. city government, and we are installing additional safety measures to further protect the University's and your personal data from any criminal ciphering. You will receive additional communications from ETS over the course of the next few hours and continuing into the next few days, especially surrounding phishing attempts and how to protect your data online beyond the Howard University community."

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Some scientists have called it "superhuman immunity" or "bulletproof." But immunologist Shane Crotty prefers "hybrid immunity." "Overall, hybrid immunity to SARS-CoV-2 appears to be impressively potent," Crotty wrote in commentary in Science back in June. From a report: No matter what you call it, this type of immunity offers much-needed good news in what seems like an endless array of bad news regarding COVID-19. Over the past several months, a series of studies has found that some people mount an extraordinarily powerful immune response against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19. Their bodies produce very high levels of antibodies, but they also make antibodies with great flexibility -- likely capable of fighting off the coronavirus variants circulating in the world but also likely effective against variants that may emerge in the future. "One could reasonably predict that these people will be quite well protected against most -- and perhaps all of -- the SARS-CoV-2 variants that we are likely to see in the foreseeable future," says Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at Rockefeller University who helped lead several of the studies. In a study published online last month, Bieniasz and his colleagues found antibodies in these individuals that can strongly neutralize the six variants of concern tested, including delta and beta, as well as several other viruses related to SARS-CoV-2, including one in bats, two in pangolins and the one that caused the first coronavirus pandemic, SARS-CoV-1. "This is being a bit more speculative, but I would also suspect that they would have some degree of protection against the SARS-like viruses that have yet to infect humans," Bieniasz says.

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Intel plans to build new chip-making facilities in Europe valued at up to $95 billion, responding to a cross-border race to add manufacturing capacity at a time of a global chip-supply crunch. From a report: Intel Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger Tuesday said the company was planning two chip factories at a new site in Europe and could potentially expand it further, with the increases raising the total investment over about a decade to the equivalent of as much as 80 billion euros. The facilities would cater to meteoric demand for semiconductors as computers, cars and gadgets become more chip-hungry. "This new era of sustained demand for semiconductors needs bold, big thinking," he said at an auto-industry event in Munich. Rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world largest contract chip maker, this year said it would spend a record $100 billion over the next three years to increase production capacity. South Korean rival Samsung Electronics last month said it plans to boost investments by one third to more than $205 billion over the next three years, in part to pursue leadership in chip manufacturing. The global chip shortage has hit auto makers particularly hard. Ford Motor and General Motors last week said they were curtailing production because of a dearth of chips. Japan's Toyota Motor last month said that it would cut production by 40% world-wide in September. Intel said it plans to commit manufacturing capacity at a factory in Ireland to the auto-chip sector. And it is standing up a chip-design team to help others adapt designs so they can use Intel's manufacturing capabilities. Intel's contract chip-making business has been courting potential customers in Europe, including automotive companies, the company said Thursday.

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All the nasty fascist crap that's surfacing now has always been there, handed down lovingly from generation to generation. Every family no matter how good or bad, depraved, sociopathic, narcissistic, everything -- they all think they're the best, smartest, luckiest and the worst treated. What makes people different is how they deal with those beliefs. I'm including my own family. I don't honestly think there's anything that can be done to break this, family is the strongest force for determining our view of the world.

I just remembered that Apple basically merged with the music industry, so it's not surprising that it's difficult if not impossible to copy MP3s from my Mac to my iPhone so I can program my own music.

While the pandemic supercharged streaming, a few people decided to swim against the current and go back to the familiar format of VHS. It isn't the easiest of hobbies. From a report: VCR players haven't been in production within the last five years, and using the player on a current smart TV requires an expensive customized setup of several devices. Looking for a recent film on VHS format? It's likely you'll only find films from the 1980s and 90s, direct-to-VHS specials and home videos. That hasn't stopped die-hards. A small community of VHS fanatics has sprung up around the country, trading tapes and tips on how to watch. Much of it is organized around small boxes where people can drop off or pick up tapes. The "Free Blockbuster" boxes started in Los Angeles and spread. There are VHS tape trading events and auctions. In the late 1990s, Hollywood studios began selling films on DVDs and VHS rentals lost their grip on home viewings. Blu-ray took over in the early 2000s. By 2010 Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy protection. To try to re-create a bit of the video-store experience, Brian Morrison started Free Blockbuster in 2019. The group turns former newspaper boxes into free little libraries of movies. VHS die-hards hope the effort encourages the exchange of home entertainment with strangers in their neighborhood. A film fan who worked at various video stores throughout his teenage years, Mr. Morrison, 37, stocked his first Free Blockbuster box in Los Angeles with old VHS tapes, hoping to create community around film watching. Though DVDs and videogames showed up later in some boxes, he says VHS tapes were the more interesting draw for Free Blockbuster users. Mr. Morrison connects tape fanatics in different places, who maintain their own boxes. VHS tapes "aren't just DVDs' older cousins," Mr. Morrison says, "they're an art form in many ways." The 69 Free Blockbuster boxes, now located across the U.S. and in Canada and Australia, are maintained by a network of fans. Mr. Morrison said he received a request from Blockbuster, which is owned by Dish Network, last year that he change the name of his organization. He said he asked if the company would consider licensing out the name but hasn't heard back.

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Animals are increasingly "shapeshifting" because of the climate crisis, researchers have said. From a report: Warm-blooded animals are changing their physiology to adapt to a hotter climate, the scientists found. This includes getting larger beaks, legs and ears to better regulate their body temperature. When animals overheat, birds use their beaks and mammals use their ears to disperse the warmth. Some creatures in warmer climates have historically evolved to have larger beaks or ears to get rid of heat more easily. These differences are becoming more pronounced as the climate warms. If animals fail to control their body temperature, they can overheat and die. Beaks, which are not covered by feathers and therefore not insulated, are a site of significant heat exchange, as are ears, tails and legs in mammals if not covered by fur. The review, published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, found that the differences are particularly pronounced in birds. The author of the study, Sara Ryding of Deakin university, a bird researcher, said: "Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is fine. "It just means they are evolving to survive it -- but we're not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are, or indeed that all species are capable of changing and surviving." While the scientists say it is difficult to pinpoint climate breakdown as the sole cause of the shapeshifting, it is what the instances studied have in common across geographical regions and across a diverse array of species. Examples include several species of Australian parrot that have shown a 4-10% increase in bill size since 1871, positively correlated with the summer temperature each year.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, OpenStack, the open-source, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud {and related projects such as Airship, open-source tools for cloud provisioning, and Zuul, the Ansible-based continuous integration (CI) system} has hovered between what Gartner calls the Trough of Disillusionment and Slope of Enlightenment. Now with Microsoft joining the Open Infrastructure Foundation, it should be clear to anyone that OpenStack and its related technologies have jumped to the Plateau of Productivity. Why? Because together they can advance and profit from using these cloud technologies to further the hybrid cloud and, an OpenStack specialty, 5G. Microsoft is joining the Open Infrastructure Foundation as a Platinum Member. This move makes perfect sense. According to the 2021 OpenStack User Survey, which will be released shortly in Superuser Magazine, 40% of OpenStack users running their deployment in a multi-cloud configuration are already running OpenStack on Azure. Clearly, OpenInfra and Microsoft belong together.

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CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus, who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

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Apple's next event, during which it will likely unveil its next slate of devices, including the seventh-generation Apple Watch and a new iPhone, is happening Sept. 14 at 10 a.m. PT, the company confirmed Tuesday. The event, like all previous ones over the last year and a half, will be held entirely online amid continued concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: Apple's invite includes the phrase "California streaming." It features a neon outline of the Apple logo set atop a silhouette of a mountain range. The company's flashy event is its most important of the year, setting its product lineup for the holiday shopping season. Last year, Apple held three major product releases in the second half, separating out announcements for its latest Apple Watches, iPads, iPhones and Mac computers. The releases helped propel Apple's sales and profit to their highest levels, setting new revenue records for the company's iPhones, iPads and Mac computers. It's unclear just what products Apple will announce and if it will repeat last year's tactic of holding multiple events throughout the second half. The iPhone 13 is almost assuredly going to make an appearance. The rumored Apple Watch 7 could as well.

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Microsoft is launching Microsoft Start today, a personalized news feed that integrates into Windows 11 and is accessible online and on iOS and Android. Microsoft Start is very similar to the MSN feed that exists today and to Microsoft News. Microsoft is rebranding these into Microsoft Start and integrating the feed into the Windows 11 widgets section and the Windows 10 taskbar. From a report: Much like Microsoft News, Microsoft Start includes news and media channels from more than 1,000 publishers. Microsoft uses AI and machine learning algorithms to sort through which news is presented to users and to personalize content based on interests and how you engage with content. There's also some "human moderation" involved, but Microsoft did layoff dozens of journalists and editorial workers at its Microsoft News and MSN organizations last year, so it's not clear how involved editors will be. Microsoft Start will surface top stories, personalized recommendations, and sports scores or the weather in its feed.

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I spent about an hour today doing a factoring experiment, taking a promises-based API and transforming it into a callbacks-based API.

Well no surprise they're isomorphic. When you do the translation, you end up with the same thing with different names.

The promises syntax is slightly more compact. A long distance to go and a lot of introduced complexity for very little gain.

It's like getting nice fat clothes instead of just losing the weight.

I have a philosophy in programming, one I thought was stolen from, but actually mis-attributed to Einstein, who ironically said as much in a lot more words.

• "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."

This is a basic mathematics thing. They're always looking for a way to find one theorum that encapsulates and makes unnecessaray two or more. A more fundamental truth. The hope is ultimately to have one concise way of saying everything. A Rick and Morty kind of idea. But why do programmers always seem to do the opposite? Solving a problem of too much complexity by adding even more complexity.

I was a math major before I was a programmer, so I find this whole thing super frustrating.

At some point, instigated by Drummer perhaps, I hope we will have a great debate in the JavaScript community where our respected leaders explain to us why we need any of this stuff, and we can't have a language that behaves like all others, where asynchronous bits live underneath the interface that the langauge defines for the programmer.

Proof-of-concept exploit code was published online over the weekend for an unpatched Ghostscript vulnerability that puts all servers that rely on the component at risk of attacks. From a report: Published by Vietnamese security researcher Nguyen The Duc, the proof-of-concept code is available on GitHub and was confirmed to work by several of today's leading security researchers. Released back in 1988, Ghostscript is a small library that allows applications to process PDF documents and PostScript-based files. While its primary use is for desktop software, Ghostscript is also used server-side, where it is typically included with image conversion and file upload processing toolkits, such as the popular ImageMagick. The proof-of-concept code released by Nguyen on Sunday exploits this latter scenario, allowing an attacker to upload a malformed SVG file that escapes the image processing pipeline and runs malicious code on the underlying operating system. While Nguyen released the public exploit for this bug, he is not the one who discovered the vulnerability.

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I love one thing about Facebook. It gives the person who posted a piece absolute power over the existence of comments. I don't limit myself to just deleting abusive and personal comments, I delete ornery or challenging ones too. I hate online debates. I host a debate-free environment. If you want to debate, take your business elsewhere.

A 22-year-old Bitcoin millionaire wants Republicans to ditch their iPhones for a low-end handset that he hopes to turn into a political tool. From a report: It was a pitch tuned for a politically polarized audience. Erik Finman, a 22-year-old who called himself the world's youngest Bitcoin millionaire, posted a video on Twitter for a new kind of smartphone that he said would liberate Americans from their "Big Tech overlords." His splashy video, posted in July, had stirring music, American flags and references to former Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Donald J. Trump. Conservative pundits hawked Mr. Finman's Freedom Phone, and his video amassed 1.8 million views. Mr. Finman soon had thousands of orders for the $500 device. Then came the hard part: Building and delivering the phones. First, he received bad early reviews for a plan to simply put his software on a cheap Chinese phone. And then there was the unglamorous work of shipping phones, hiring customer-service agents, collecting sales taxes and dealing with regulators. "I feel like practically I was prepared for anything," he said in a recent interview. "But I guess it's kind of like how you hope for world peace, in the sense you don't think it's going to happen." For even the most lavishly funded start-ups, it is hard to compete with tech industry giants that have a death grip on their markets and are valued in the trillions of dollars. Mr. Finman was part of a growing right-wing tech industry taking on the challenge nonetheless, relying more on their conservative customers' distaste for Silicon Valley than expertise or experience. [...] To make a smartphone, however, he had to rely on Google. The company's Android software already works with millions of apps, and Google makes a free, open version of the software for developers to modify. So Mr. Finman hired engineers to strip it of any sign of Google and load it with apps from conservative social networks and news outlets. Then he uploaded the software on phones he bought from China. To unveil the phone, he recorded an infomercial in which he cast the tech companies as enemies of the American way. "Imagine if Mark Zuckerberg banned MLK or Abraham Lincoln," he said in the video. "The course of history would have been altered forever." [...] Thousands of people bought the $500 phone. Others, including some conservatives, quickly panned the animated pitch. Quickly, news outlets reported that the Freedom Phone was based on a low-cost handset from Umidigi, a Chinese manufacturer that had used chips shown to be vulnerable to hacks. Mr. Finman, who marketed the device as "the best phone in the world," was on the defensive. In an interview in July, Mr. Finman admitted that Umidigi made the phone but still said he was "100 percent" sure it was more secure than the latest iPhone. Apple has tens of thousands of engineers. Mr. Finman said he employed 15 people in Utah and Idaho.

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