Month: May 2016

(credit: Christiaan Colen)

Federal prosecutors urged a federal appeals court late Monday to keep a child-porn suspect behind bars—where he already has been for seven months—until he unlocks two hard drives that the government claims contains kid smut.

The suspect, a Philadelphia police sergeant relieved of his duties, has refused to unlock two hard drives and has been in jail ever since a judge ordered him to do so seven months ago—and after finding him in contempt of court. The defendant can remain locked up until a judge lifts the contempt order.

The government said Monday he should remain jailed indefinitely until he complies. The authorities also said that it's not a violation of the man's Fifth Amendment right against compelled self incrimination because it's a "foregone conclusion" that illegal porn is on the drives, and that he is only being asked to unlock the drives, not divulge their passcodes.

Oracle CEO Safra Catz, speaking at Oracle OpenWorld in 2011. (credit: KIMIHIRO HOSHINO / AFP / Getty Images.)

SAN FRANCISCO—Oracle CEO Safra Catz took the stand in federal court today as her company makes its case that Google should pay billions of dollars for using 37 Java APIs in its Android operating system.

Oracle, which acquired Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems, sued Google over the APIs in 2010. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. Now Oracle may seek up to $9 billion in damages, while Google is arguing that its use of the 37 APIs constitutes "fair use."

Catz, who is co-CEO together with Mark Hurd, began by running through the basics of her background. Born in Israel, she moved to the US with her parents in 1967 and became an American citizen in 1972. She joined Oracle in 1999 and rose through the ranks to become president, the role she had during the 2012 trial against Google. Questioned by Oracle attorney Annette Hurst, Catz explained how her company reached the decision to purchase Sun Microsystems.

Duke University Prof. Owen Astrachan in his office. Astrachan testified at the Oracle v. Google trial that Android's used of Java APIs is "fair use." (credit: Owen Astrachan / Duke University)

SAN FRANCISCO—Today was the sixth day of the Oracle v. Google trial, and Google has finished making its argument that it's not a copyright scofflaw for using 37 Java APIs in the Android operating system.

Oracle, which acquired Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems, sued Google over the APIs in 2010. In 2012, a judge ruled that APIs can't be copyrighted at all, but an appeals court disagreed. Now Oracle may seek up to $9 billion in damages, while Google is arguing that its use of the 37 APIs constitutes "fair use."

Today's court action began with a kind of mini opening statement, with lead lawyers from each side presenting the jury with a seven-minute update of where their case stands. After opening statements, Android programmer Dan Bornstein offered about 30 minutes of testimony, responding to issues that Oracle raised on Friday about licensing and "scrubbing" source code. Following a succession of Oracle employees that testified by video and deposition, Google's case drew to a close with the presentation of an expert witness.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)

Last week, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a stern letter to EMVCo—an organization equally owned by six global payment networks that's responsible for providing standards for chip-based credit and debit cards in the US. Durbin took issue with EMVCo's handling of the chip card roll out, accusing the standards organization of stalling retailers' efforts to get certified and putting off a requirement for PIN authorization in order to line card networks' pockets.

Durbin also sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), asking it to “examine how flaws and delays in the certification process can be addressed.”

Card networks agreed to transition the US from using magnetic stripe credit and debit cards to using chip-based cards years ago. With the backing of the US government, the card networks decided that by October 2015, all retailers in the US would have to have new terminal hardware to accept chip cards, or face liability when fraud occurred on outdated machines. Many other countries in the world have been using chip-based cards for a decade or more.

(credit: Flickr user Rachel.)

Most modern conflicts are civil wars—wars that tear countries apart, sometimes even pitting friends and family against each other. After the fighting dies down, nations are left with a divided populace and are faced with the difficult task of reconciliation. A study published in Science magazine found that post-war reconciliation efforts can lead to an increase in national social capital, but this benefit comes at the expense of individual citizens’ psychological well being.

The researchers examined the consequences of a truth and reconciliation effort in Sierra Leone using a randomized controlled trial approach. The recent civil conflict in Sierra Leone resulted in more than fifty thousand deaths, and more than half of the population was displaced. Violence occurred between neighbors within the same village, and the rebel group frequently recruited and deployed child soldiers.

After the war, the new government set up a national truth and reconciliation program, but this program only covered a small fraction of the war-related trauma. To study the effects of these types of programs, the researchers implemented their own truth and reconciliation effort. It was built around forums where victims of the civil war could describe the violence that they had experienced, and the perpetrators of these crimes could seek forgiveness for their actions.

(credit: Shawn Campbell)

Reports and rumors about changes to Twitter's famous character-count limit became more concrete on Monday thanks to a new report, and the alleged change appears to split the difference between the current model and an unlimited post size.

Bloomberg's report credits "a person familiar with the matter" in claiming that Twitter posts will soon begin serving links and images that do not eat into a post's 140-character limit. The report's source indicated that the change could happen "in the next two weeks" but was unable to offer any firmer timeline. Currently, Twitter automatically shortens any URL or uploaded image into a link that takes up approximately 21 characters.

Many users, including Ars Technica's official Twitter feed, have begun relying on attached, text-filled images to show longer text passages, pull quotes, and the like. We imagine the tiny boost of 21 characters for image posts will simply encourage more users to follow suit, though it remains to be seen how such links will be served, particularly to any users who rely solely on character-limited SMS access. In January, Ars' Peter Bright argued that such image-posting capabilities, combined with a 140-character limit, would preserve Twitter's best attributes better than a previously rumored plan to open posts up to a much larger 10,000-character limit.

(credit: Xbox)

Are you the type to dash madly toward any new online service’s sign-up page even if you think you’ll never touch it again, just to lock down your username of choice? As any good geek knows, handles are a precious commodity, especially for free services that don’t have explicitly advertised nickname-recycling policies.

One online ecosystem, Xbox Live, may have a respite in store for users who want to remove extraneous numbers or characters from their Gamertag of choice. A Monday announcement from Xbox Live PR chief Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb confirmed that a slew of “nearly one million” dormant Gamertags will be made available for qualified Xbox Live Gold members starting on Wednesday, May 18, at 2pm EDT.

Microsoft has apparently been careful about what “dormant” means. This pile of names has been freed from a pool of Gamertags that were created on the original Xbox console and remained unused since that console’s servers went offline in 2010, meaning they were never used to log onto either newer console or through Microsoft’s Web-browser interface. Gamertags have always been free to create, even before Microsoft introduced separate “silver” and “gold” tiers of Xbox Live service on the 360 console, so certain juicy-sounding handles may very well have been created by original Xbox owners who had no intention of remaining longtime Xbox Live gamers. (Microsoft released dormant Xbox Live handles from the original-Xbox era in 2011 as well, but not as many.)