September 2020 – Page 8 – news.buyenne.com

Facebook needs to enforce misinfo rules against Trump, Biden campaign says

Trump campaign posts violate Facebook rules, Biden says, so why are they still up?

After being used as a platform for massive voter-interference campaigns in 2016, Facebook promised this time would be better. The company changed its policies and swore up and down that it would work hard to mitigate the spread of misinformation and support Americans' rights to get out and vote this fall. But with five weeks to go before Election Day—and early voting already underway in some states—critics allege Facebook is not keeping up with the challenge.

The latest person to accuse Facebook of failing to manage misinformation is the Democratic candidate for president, former Vice President Joe Biden. The Biden campaign said in a letter to Facebook (PDF) last night that the company is not only failing to take long-promised additional actions, but is in fact regressing in how well it handles falsehoods.

"Facebook's continued promise of future action is serving as nothing more than an excuse for inaction," Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon wrote. "Millions of people are voting. Meanwhile, your platform is the nation's foremost propagator of disinformation about the voting process."

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Lilbits: Atari VCS is ready to ship, iPhone 12 is coming soon, and more

I know, I’m surprised too. But it looks like three years after it was first announced, two years after its name was changed, and more than a year after it was first supposed to ship, the Atari VCS is actually a real thing that’s about to s…

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How Internet-connected voter check-in devices can create election chaos

Voting machines aren’t the only digital devices to worry about on November 3.

A polling-place worker holds an "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker during the primary election on June 9, 2020 in Atlanta.

A federal judge in Georgia has ordered election officials to print paper backups of voter data so that voting can proceed even if the digital system for checking in voters fails. This is a win for plaintiffs who have argued that flaws in Georgia's electronic-poll-book (EPB) system hampered voting in the June primary and could do so again in November.

Over the last 20 years, a lot of discussion has revolved around the risk that electronic voting machines pose to the security and integrity of elections. But there has been less attention paid to electronic poll books—another digital system that can undermine election integrity if they malfunction.

Pollworkers use EPBs to verify a voter's eligibility and then check the voter in. Malfunctions in these systems can slow down the voting process so much that some people give up voting altogether. By targeting precincts where most people vote for a particular candidate or party, a hacker could potentially swing a close election just by triggering malfunctions in electronic poll books. And while voting machines are supposed to be kept off the Internet, electronic poll books are often online throughout election day.

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Studying clay-pot residues could help scientists recreate ancient recipes

Ceramic pots retained remnants of last meal cooked, plus clues as to earlier meals.

Archaeologists are fascinated by many different aspects of cultures in the distant past, but determining what ancient people cooked and ate can be particularly challenging. A team of researchers spent an entire year analyzing the chemical residues of some 50 meals cooked in ceramic pots and found such cookware retained not just the remnants of the last meal cooked, but also clues as to earlier meals, spanning a pot's lifetime of usage. This could give archaeologists a new tool in determining ancient diets. The researchers described their results in a recent paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.

According to co-author Christine Hastorf, an archaeologist at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), the project has been several years in the making. Hastorf has long been interested in the relationships between people and plants throughout history, particularly as they pertain to what people ate in the past. Back in 1985, she co-authored a paper examining the isotopes of charred plant remains collected from the inside of pots. She has also long taught a food archaeology class at UCB. A few years ago, she expanded the course to two full semesters (nine months), covering both the ethnographic aspects as well as the archaeological methods one might use to glean insight into the dietary habits of the past.

The class was especially intrigued by recent molecular analysis of pottery, yet frustrated by the brevity of the studies done to date on the topic. Hastorf proposed conducting a longer study, and her students responded enthusiastically. So they devised a methodology, assigned research topics to each student, and located places to purchase grain (maize and wheat from the same region of the Midwest), as well as receiving venison in the form of donated deer roadkill. She even bought her own mill so they could grind the grains themselves, setting it up in her home garage.

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Lenovo’s new ThinkBook laptops available with Intel or AMD (and integrated wireless earbuds)

Lenovo plans to launch 8 new ThinkBook laptops in the next month or two, with starting prices ranging from $549 to $939 depending on the model. Five of the new laptops will be available with 11th-gen Intel Core “Tiger Lake” processors, whi…

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Accused Movie Pirate Couple End Up in Court After Profane Tirade

Two movie companies have filed a lawsuit accusing an Arizona couple of downloading and sharing its movies through the YTS website. The husband and wife pair initially appeared to resolve the issue with an out-of-court settlement. However, instead of paying up, the husband lashed out in a tirade against the movie companies’ lawyer, while accusing him of spying on their three-year-old kid.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

caution Piracy warnings come in all shapes and sizes. While some notices have no teeth, others should be handled with extreme caution.

Typically, alarm bells should go off when a letter is sent by a lawyer who knows who you are.

One such warning was sent to Mrs. Parks in early June, both by first class mail and e-mail. The Arizona woman is one of the people whose personal details were shared by the torrent site YTS, an issue we addressed in detail earlier.

Exposed by YTS Database Info

This YTS database ended up in the hands of anti-piracy attorney Kerry Culpepper, who’s actively exploiting it. The lawyer represents several movie companies and has used the information in the database to request out of court settlements from pirates.

Mrs. Parks, who allegedly downloaded the film “Lost Child,” was given the chance to resolve her case for $1,000 in four separate payments. If the first three payments arrived on time, the final $250 would be waived.

This same tactic is being used on dozens if not hundreds of alleged YTS users. It’s not clear how many people settle, but Mrs. Parks and her husband Mr. Dabney initially seemed willing to take the deal, which was confirmed over the phone and via email on June 8.

Agreement to Settle for $1,000

After this initial agreement, communications stopped for a while. Parks and Dabney never sent back the signed settlement agreement and a reminder on August 31 remained unanswered.

This course of events was written up in a complaint filed at a federal court in Arizona yesterday. The plan was to resolve the matter outside of court, even after the same IP-address shared another movie last week.

“On or about September 21, 2020, after still having received no communication from Defendants, Plaintiffs’ counsel determined that the same IP address Defendants used to download the torrent file for Lost Child (47.216.212.227) was used to download and share copies of the motion picture Saving Christmas,” Culpepper informs the court.

The complaint lists both Mrs. Parks and Mr. Dabney as the defendants. They are accused of using one and the same YTS account and allegedly downloaded the film “Lost Child” last year and “Saving Christmas” a few days ago, after which the attorney sent another settlement request.

“On September 21, 2020, Plaintiffs’ counsel sent Defendant Dabney a demand by email for the full $1000 of the settlement agreement and an additional $750 as damages for infringing the motion picture Saving Christmas,” the complaint reads.

Husband Responds With Tirade

After weeks of silence, Mr. Dabney responded to that request. He was not open to any settlements, however, and accused the lawyer of being “a fraud and a scam,” threatening to take action against the lawyer and his “fake law firm.”

The movie companies’ attorney responded by confirming that he would indeed file a lawsuit, reminding the alleged pirate that he wouldn’t get far in court with such scandalous language. That didn’t change the man’s tone, however, on the contrary.

“Look here. You will NOT get a dime out out [sic] me. You think that language was bad you ain’t seen sh*t fa**ot. That’s not a threat that’s a f*ckin promise. Put that in your records f*ckin bitch ni**a. Dude with a girls [sic] name. Get the f*ck out here and leave me family alone,” he replied.

In a follow-up email, Mr. Dabney further urged the attorney to “…stop looking at [his] IP address…” while accusing him of “…watching [his] 3 year old through the camera…”

Case Goes to Court

Instead of backing off, the attorney quoted these emails in the complaint he filed at the US District Court of Arizona. Representing the owners of the films “Lost Child” and “Saving Christmas,” he accuses the two defendants of both direct and contributory copyright infringement.

In addition, the complaint also includes a “breach of contract” allegation against Mrs. Parks, who allegedly failed to honor the settlement agreement that was agreed on earlier.

In court, the husband and wife now face damages claims that may end up being substantially higher than the original settlement. In addition to the damages claim, the complaint also requests compensation for legal costs and attorneys’ fees.

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A copy of the complaint, filed on behalf of Santa Files Productions LLC, and Laundry Films Inc is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

MINISFORUM EliteMini H31G now available for $399 and up (mini PC with NVIDIA graphics)

About a week after announcing plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign for a small desktop computer with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics and a 65-watt, 9th-gen Intel Core processor, MINISFORUM has begun taking pre-orders for the EliteMini H31G fo…

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Chuwi CoreBox Pro is a small PC with Intel Ice Lake

Chinese PC maker Chuwi plans to launch a small desktop computer next month with a 10th-gen Intel Core i3-1005G1 Ice Lake processor. The upcoming Chuwi CoreBox Pro has the same chassis as the company’s older HiGame computer, but a newer (and less…

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Daily Deals (9-29-2020)

Amazon is running a sale on DOSS Bluetooth speakers. AliExpress has a sale on Anker audio gear. And Newegg is running a 10-percent off sale on USB hard drives when you use the code EMCDRFR59 at checkout. Here are some of the day’s best deals. Au…

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D-Wave releases its next-generation quantum annealing chip

What’s it take to make a chip with over a million Josephson junctions?

Image of a chip surrounded by complicated support hardware.

Today, quantum computing company D-Wave is announcing the availability of its next-generation quantum annealer, a specialized processor that uses quantum effects to solve optimization and minimization problems. The hardware itself isn't much of a surprise—D-Wave was discussing its details months ago—but D-Wave talked with Ars about the challenges of building a chip with over a million individual quantum devices. And the company is coupling the hardware's release to the availability of a new software stack that functions a bit like middleware between the quantum hardware and classical computers.

Quantum annealing

Quantum computers being built by companies like Google and IBM are general-purpose, gate-based machines. They can solve any problem and should show a vast acceleration for specific classes of problems—or they will, as soon as the gate count gets high enough. Right now, these quantum computers are limited to a few-dozen gates and have no error correction. Bringing them up to the scale needed presents a series of difficult technical challenges.

D-Wave's machine is not general-purpose; it's technically a quantum annealer, not a quantum computer. It performs calculations that find low-energy states for different configurations of the hardware's quantum devices. As such, it will only work if a computing problem can be translated into an energy-minimization problem in one of the chip's possible configurations. That's not as limiting as it might sound, since many forms of optimization can be translated to an energy minimization problem, including things like complicated scheduling issues and protein structures.

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