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- US Navy spends millions to stay low-tech
- US spooks think Google Mail is public
- Beats headphones teardown makes mockery of the price
- Chip making and PC figures a load of old Tosh
- Google has no street view of desire
| US Navy spends millions to stay low-tech Posted: 23 Jun 2015 02:54 AM PDT
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which runs the Navy's communications and information networks, signed a US$9.1 million contract earlier this month for continued access to security patches for Windows XP, Office 2003, Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003. This will be worth $30.8 million to Microsoft and extend into 2017. All of those products have been deemed obsolete by Microsoft by July 14. It is good for Microsoft as it will continue to offer security updates on a paid basis for customers like the Navy. It has to do the security updates anyway because it still has a fair number of Government customers who have also been slow to upgrade. The Navy tried to sail away from XP in 2013, but it seemed to hit some headwind with the project as of May this year it still had approximately 100,000 workstations running XP or the other software. Steven Davis, a spokesman for the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego said that the Navy relies on a number of legacy applications and programs that are reliant on legacy Windows products. "Until those applications and programs are modernised or phased out, this continuity of services is required to maintain operational effectiveness." Microsoft applications affect "critical command and control systems" on ships and land-based legacy systems. Affected systems are connected to NIPRnet, the US government's IP network for non-classified information, and SIPRnet, the network for classified information. |
| US spooks think Google Mail is public Posted: 23 Jun 2015 02:52 AM PDT
The Justice Department won an order forcing Google to turn over more than one year's worth of data from the Gmail account of Jacob Appelbaum, a developer for the Tor online anonymity project who has worked with WikiLeaks as a volunteer. The order gagged Google, preventing it from notifying Appelbaum that his records had been provided to the government. What is a little alarming for Google mail uses is that the Government won its court order based on an argument that if Appelbaum was using Gmail he had no right to expect privacy. Rather than seeking a search warrant that would require it to show probable cause that he had committed a crime, the government instead sought and received an order to obtain the data under a lesser standard, requiring only "reasonable grounds" to believe that the records were "relevant and material" to an ongoing criminal investigation. Google did its best to challenge the demand, and wanted to immediately notify Appelbaum that his records were being sought so he could have an opportunity to launch his own legal defence. This was particularly true because Appelbaum was a hack and the spooks antics "may implicate journalistic and academic freedom" because they could "reveal confidential sources or information about WikiLeaks' purported journalistic or academic activities." However according to the Justice Department asserted that "journalists have no special privilege to resist compelled disclosure of their records, absent evidence that the government is acting in bad faith," and refused to concede Appelbaum was in fact a journalist. Which is interesting because we don't consider Paul Revere was a journalist but most of the US press laws are based around defending his anti-British magazines. Google's attempts to fight the surveillance gag order hacked off the government which expected compliance. The Justice Department stating that the company's "resistance to providing the records" had "frustrated the government's ability to efficiently conduct a lawful criminal investigation." But Google's attempt to overturn the gagging order was denied by magistrate judge Ivan D. Davis in February 2011. The company launched an appeal against that decision, but this too was rebuffed, in March 2011, by District Court judge Thomas Selby Ellis. Appelbaum, an American citizen who is based in Berlin, told The Intercept that the case was "a travesty that continues at a slow pace" and said he felt it was important to highlight "the absolute madness in these documents." He commented: "After five years, receiving such legal documents is neither a shock nor a needed confirmation. … Will we ever see the full documents about our respective cases? Will we even learn the names of those signing so-called legal orders against us in secret sealed documents? Certainly not in a timely manner and certainly not in a transparent, just manner." |
| Beats headphones teardown makes mockery of the price Posted: 23 Jun 2015 02:52 AM PDT
Beats are pretty expensive, which is one of the reasons that they are now part of the Apple stable. According to some new in-depth analysis put together by engineer Avery Louie, the most expensive thing about the headphones is the box it comes in. Louie figures that a pair of Beats headphones that retails for $199 costs about $17 to produce which is bad enough. But the packaging including the manual, soft case, box, and sleeve run about $7. The speakers themselves cost less than $10 each. In other words, rather than getting what you pay for, you are getting a $10 pair of headphones and $7 worth of marketing for nearly $200. To be fair, Dr Dre who was behind the outfit, said that "if you ain't in it for the money then get out the game" so he did warn people he was ripping them off. Apparently what makes a cheap pair of headphones feel better is that they are loaded with metal to add weight. The added heft can go a long way toward convincing shoppers that a product is worth a few extra bucks. In the case of these headphones, just four little pieces of metal account for 30 percent of the total weight. Louie says there's no real reason they need to be made from metal. It's all about creating an illusion. The tear down can be seen here
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| Chip making and PC figures a load of old Tosh Posted: 23 Jun 2015 02:50 AM PDT
In May, Toshiba set up a third-party committee to expand a probe into other businesses after an internal investigation found “accounting problems” related to infrastructure and construction work. Although the figures took a bit of a tumble when they were recalculated by someone who was good with numbers few people batted so much as an eyelid. The Nikkei Business Daily has been asking people in the know and found out that the same creative book-cooking antics had been found in Tosh's PC and chip making operations. Finding the same thing in the rest of the business will not only force the Japanese industrial conglomerate to revise down profit further, it shows that the problem is much worse than expected. So far the "inappropriate book-keeping" had led to profits being overstated by $438 million in recent years. A Toshiba spokeswoman said the Nikkei report was not based on anything that the company had announced and that the third-party investigation was ongoing. |
| Google has no street view of desire Posted: 22 Jun 2015 07:02 AM PDT
A company called Vederi took legal action against Google in 2010 for allegedly infringing four of its patents used in its Street View mapping software. Google, according to Reuters, wanted the highest court in the land to hear an appeal after the Court of Appeals said that a district judge ruled in Google's favour. Now the case will have to return to a regular court where Vederi will pursue its claims that Street View software infringes its patents. Google will be disappointed by the ruling, no doubt. Reuters said in its report that the Obama administration had suggested the court not take the case, for reasons that remain unclear. The law will grind slowly to a conclusion as the lawyers continue to pocket their fees. |
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