Month: August 2016

Can 42 US, a free coding school run by a French billionaire, actually work?

Just across the bridge from Facebook HQ, a radical education experiment is underway.

Ars visits 42 US. Filmed by Chris Schodt/Edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

FREMONT, Calif.—As you read these words, hundreds of students are hunched over iMacs in a massive computer lab. Most of them have little, if any, programming experience, and they haven’t paid a cent to get here.

And yet, here they sit, just 7.6 miles directly across the Dumbarton Bridge from Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, dreaming of joining Silicon Valley’s legions of programmers. Each day, the students get new programming assignments, but there are no teachers. There is a help desk, or rather a “help” desk—which really, really doesn’t want students to ask for guidance—all in the name of “peer-to-peer learning.”

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IS-Chat-Botschaften: NSA entschlüsselt für deutsche Ermittler

Weil sie verschlüsselte Botschaften an Attentäter nicht dekodieren konnten, haben sich deutsche Strafverfolger an den US-Geheimdienst NSA gewandt. Der hat geholfen. (NSA, Verschlüsselung)

Weil sie verschlüsselte Botschaften an Attentäter nicht dekodieren konnten, haben sich deutsche Strafverfolger an den US-Geheimdienst NSA gewandt. Der hat geholfen. (NSA, Verschlüsselung)

Torrentz Remains Down, But The Clone Wars Are On

Without prior warning, popular meta-search engine Torrentz closed its doors for good last week. While many users were still staring at the farewell message in disbelief, several torrent site operators sprung into action to get their Torrentz clones ready, leveraging the goodwill built by the popular brand.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

torrentzMere hours after Torrentz.eu announced its farewell last week, various clones and mirrors juggled into position to take over.

As one of the oldest and largest torrent sites around, Torrentz had an active following of millions of users. This is something a lot of site owners envy, and these people see the demise of Torrentz as an opportunity.

Taking over an established brand is something the torrent community has seen before in recent years.

When isoHunt was shut down by the MPAA, Isohunt.to quickly took its place, and remains one of the most popular torrent sites today. Similarly, YTS.ag and others took over when YIFY was forced to stop, with success.

This week we have seen a flurry of Torrentz clones appear online. These sites hope to pick up where the original site left off, all offering similar meta-search engine functionality while copying the Torrentz look and feel.

As with previous cases, the success of these takeovers relies on getting a healthy number of eyeballs. Promotion on social media helps, as does a viral Reddit thread and news coverage.

Some clone operators are even willing to pay hard cash to get covered, as we’ve experienced first hand. A few days ago TorrentFreak received an offer to do a “paid” news article. This is something we would never do of course, but it shows that this is a serious business.

So who are these clones? Without endorsing any site, or falsely claiming that “Torrentz is back” as other news outlets have done, here are some of the alternatives we’ve encountered.

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Torrentz2.eu has been widely reported as a Torrentz alternative and the site itself bills itself as an upgrade. With a massive 63 sites in their index, with a total of 59,658,880 torrents, it certainly has a wide coverage.

For now the site doesn’t have any extra features such as bookmarks, voting or commenting options.



torrentz2

Torrentz.ec is another clone that popped up this week. The site has a more modest index than Torrentz2.eu but still covers 25 sites, good for a total 27,508,811 active torrents.

The voting functionality appears to work too, but users are not able to log in, at least when we checked. Interestingly, the site claims to index more torrents and sites on its help page, but perhaps the frontpage still has some catching up to do.

Torrentzeu.to is another clone but unlike the other sites it doesn’t advertise itself as such. Instead, the number of indexed sites and torrents mentioned on the frontpage are just copied from the original site.

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The above are just a few examples. It’s not our goal to give a complete overview, but it’s clear that several sites are in the race to become the next ‘Torrentz.’

In a way, it is sad to see others taking over the ‘goodwill’ that a site like Torrentz took years to establish. However, judging from public responses, many people don’t care about these sentiments as long as they can get their torrents.

The question that remains, however, is how resilient and trustworthy these new sites are.

Some site owners may have good intentions, but there are also plenty of scammers, phishing for credit card details, or serving malicious content. As is often the case with torrent sites, money is a big motivator for those people.

Time will tell if and to what degree this applies to the clones that have emerged over the past days.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

No Man’s Sky für PC: Läuft nicht, stottert, nervt

Die PC-Version von No Man’s Sky legt keinen guten Start hin. Spieler sind enttäuscht, weil das Spiel entweder gar nicht startet oder schlecht läuft. Unsere Test-Ergebnisse einer Nacht mit No Man’s Sky auf dem PC. (No Man’s Sky, Spieletest)

Die PC-Version von No Man's Sky legt keinen guten Start hin. Spieler sind enttäuscht, weil das Spiel entweder gar nicht startet oder schlecht läuft. Unsere Test-Ergebnisse einer Nacht mit No Man's Sky auf dem PC. (No Man's Sky, Spieletest)

Compact Flash: Neuer CFX-Standard soll 8 GByte pro Sekunde übertragen

Die Compact Flash Association (CFA) möchte Speicherkarten für unkomprimierte 4K- und 8K-Videos etablieren. Der vorläufig CFX genannte Standard nutzt dafür mehrere PCIe-Lanes. (Compactflash, Server)

Die Compact Flash Association (CFA) möchte Speicherkarten für unkomprimierte 4K- und 8K-Videos etablieren. Der vorläufig CFX genannte Standard nutzt dafür mehrere PCIe-Lanes. (Compactflash, Server)

Guccifer 2.0 doxes hundreds of House Democrats with massive document dump

Trove includes home and cell phone numbers, e-mail addresses and some home addresses.

Guccifer 2.0, the online persona behind a high-profile hack of the Democratic National Committee, on Friday took credit for a separate breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and published a massive amount of personal information belonging to hundreds of Democratic representatives to prove it.

One Excel spreadsheet contains a dizzying amount of personal information—including work and cell phone numbers, home addresses, official and personal e-mail addresses, and names of staffers—for the entire roster of Democratic representatives. Several other documents contain passwords for various DCCC accounts. Other documents purport to be memos detailing fund raisers and campaign overviews.

"As you see the US presidential elections are becoming a farce, a big political performance where the voters are far from playing the leading role," Guccifer 2.0 wrote in a blog post accompanying the document dump. "Everything is being settled behind the scenes as it was with Bernie Sanders."

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Uni Promark View Highlighter

JetPens introduced a set of unique highlighter that you’ll love to have them if you are like unique stuffs. Tired of the ordinary marker and need something new? Uni Promark View marker is the answer! Unlike any ordinary highlighter/ marker pen that you can find in the market, this Jetpens’ version is so unique and […]

JetPens introduced a set of unique highlighter that you’ll love to have them if you are like unique stuffs. Tired of the ordinary marker and need something new? Uni Promark View marker is the answer! Unlike any ordinary highlighter/ marker pen that you can find in the market, this Jetpens’ version is so unique and […]

Court: US seizure of Kim Dotcom’s millions and 4 jet skis will stand

4th Circuit: Megaupload founder never came to US to face charges, so he’s a “fugitive.”

(credit: Kim Dotcom)

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday in favor of the American government’s seizure of a large number of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom’s overseas assets.

In the US civil forfeiture case, which was brought 18 months after the initial criminal charges brought against Dotcom and Megaupload, prosecutors outlined why the New Zealand seizure of Dotcom’s assets on behalf of the American government was valid. Seized items include millions of dollars in various seized bank accounts in Hong Kong and New Zealand, multiple cars, four jet skis, the Dotcom mansion, several luxury cars, two 108-inch TVs, three 82-inch TVs, a $10,000 watch, and a photograph by Olaf Mueller worth over $100,000.

After years of delay, in December 2015, Dotcom was finally ordered to be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges. But his appeal is set to be heard before the High Court in Auckland on August 29. Dotcom could conceivably appeal to the New Zealand Court of Appeals and to the Supreme Court of New Zealand (if it agrees to hear the case), a process that could take many more years.

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Raising your kid as a vegan could soon be a crime in Italy

Lawmaker seeks lengthy jail terms for parents who impose “dangerous” diet on kids.

(credit: Dave Crosby)

Visiting Italy and passing on the country’s world-class cheeses, meats, and seafood may seem like a ghastly travel crime. But if you live in the country and do the same with your kids, it could soon be a real crime.

Conservative lawmaker Elvira Savino recently proposed a law that would prohibit parents from keeping their kids on a strict vegan diet—that is, one that abstains from meat, fish, dairy products, and sometimes other animal products such as honey and gelatin. The text of the law describes such a diet as “devoid of elements essential for healthy and balanced growth.”

If the law is passed, parents found in violation would face up to a year in prison. But if a child becomes ill or dies on the diet, the parents would face boosted jail time of up to four or six years, respectively. The law applies to parents of kids 16 and under, with the harshest penalties going to parents of kids three and under.

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