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Natural gas is leaking from city pipes, but spotting leaks is getting easier.

Repairing the largest 20% of leaks could cut emissions in half.

Researchers from Colorado State University have been working with Google Street View to map pervasive natural-gas leaks. These leaks come from pipes that can be buried three-to-four feet below city streets. Many of the millions of miles of piping that deliver natural gas locally to urban and suburban homes are decades old—in some cases piping can be more than a century old. Older pipes can be made of cast-iron or bare steel, and they are often corroded or broken in places. But because they’re buried and because natural gas is invisible, it’s hard to tell when a pipe is leaking underneath a sidewalk. Sometimes, digging up and replacing a pipe isn’t worthwhile for the utility that owns it if the leaks isn’t an immediate risk to life and limb.

Besides the occasional explosion, there’s not much of a health risk associated with small natural-gas leaks. But natural gas is mostly comprised of methane (CH₄), a greenhouse gas. Although carbon dioxide sticks around in the atmosphere longer than methane does, it’s much more potent at warming the Earth in the short term than carbon dioxide.

That should make fixing the aging, leaking pipes under our cities a municipal priority. Although utilities will sometimes send employees out to neighborhoods to measure gas leaks from their pipes, they’re not always keen to share that data with citizens or even researchers. Even if utility workers are willing to share, making a complete census of all the leaks can be challenging.

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Windows 10 Mobile: Da waren es nur noch 13

Microsoft hat die Liste der Smartphones veröffentlicht, auf denen das Creators Update läuft. Demnach wurden auf älteren Geräten mit Windows 10 Mobile bei Tests keine guten Ergebnisse mehr erzielt. (Windows 10, Microsoft)

Pipo launches X11 touchscreen mini PC and X10 with pen support

Pipo’s been selling a line of weird mini-desktop computers featuring built-in touchscreen displays. They’re kind of like thick tablets with lousy battery life and full-sized ports. But there are a few good reasons for the design: they qualify for the free Windows licenses Microsoft offers for small touchscreen devices (which are usually tablets), and you […]

Pipo launches X11 touchscreen mini PC and X10 with pen support is a post from: Liliputing

Nach Dieselgate: VW baut Schnellladenetz in den USA

Die neue VW-Tocher Electric America will das Ladenetz für Elektroautos in den USA deutlich ausbauen. Dabei sollen Schnelllader mit bis zu 320 Kilowatt flächendeckend aufgestellt werden. (Elektroauto, Technologie)

Osteraktion: Verbrauchersschützer warnen vor Abofallen bei GMX und Web.de

Mit einem Klick zu einem kostenpflichtigen E-Mail-Konto? Die Verbraucherzentralen warnen vor aktuellen Angeboten von GMX und Web.de und erläutert, wie man sie wieder los wird. (Verbraucherschutz, E-Mail)

Andrea Voßhoff: Keine Einwände gegen Gesichtserkennungstest in Berlin

Die deutschen Datenschützer haben große Bedenken gegen einen flächendeckenden Einsatz von Gesichtserkennungssoftware in Bahnhöfen. Tests zu deren Vorbereitung findet die Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragte Andrea Voßhoff hingegen akzeptabel. (Gesichtserkennung, Datenschutz)

Court Sentences Movie Downloaders to 45 Days in Jail

File-sharers all over the world understand that their activities might get them into a little trouble, but for 18 individuals in front of a court in Nigeria last week, things escalated extremely quickly. After downloading and sharing local movies without permission, each was sentenced to 45 days in jail. But why?

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

What’s the appropriate way to deal with online piracy? Education? Fines? Jail sentences? All of these things are possible in today’s world, depending on scale of offending and location.

In the United States, for example, educational warnings formed part of the Copyright Alerts program, but with that having fallen by the wayside, fines (aka settlement demands) are the most common form of punishment. People can still be taken to court though, and with statutory damages of $150,000 per title on the table, things can get hairy pretty quickly.

On the whole, jail sentences are uncommon and are usually saved for the more serious offenders, such as site operators and release groups. On the rare occasions, a custodial is handed out, they tend to be measured in months and years, not days and weeks. Over in Nigeria, it appears things are done a little differently.

Following a complaint from the local Hausa Film Makers Association, 18 people were arrested under suspicion of online piracy of so-called Kannywood films, movies produced by the Hausa-language film industry based in the north of the country.

The Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), a paramilitary agency of the Nigerian government, took care of the prosecution. The accused appeared in court last week charged with unlawfully downloading and sharing the movies. According to a report from The Nation, things escalated quickly.

“When the one-count charge of piracy was read to them, they all pleaded guilty,” said Ibrahim Idris of the NSCDC.

“The Chief Magistrate, Sanusi Usman, thereafter sentenced them to 45 days imprisonment or to pay a fine of N12,000 each.”

While the $40 fine might be an option for some, any period in jail for sharing a movie seems particularly harsh, particularly in Nigeria, a country that places no priority on burglary offenses and chooses not to enforce its own traffic laws.

The United States classifies the country as having a “critical” crime rate so why piracy receives any attention isn’t clear, despite the country’s reported “zero tolerance” stance. There might, however, be a little clue in the way the Internet pirates were charged.

“The convicts were accused of downloading and sending of Hausa films, an act that contravenes a section of Kano State Censorship Board laws 2001,” Idris says.

Nigeria’s Censorship Board takes its responsibilities seriously, and while it appears to have responded to complaints of Internet piracy from an industry group, other areas of law may have come into play.

“The primary responsibility of the board is to filter any viewable, audible, or readable material produced by the mass media, or via the internet or performed on the stage,” the Board says in its mission statement.

“It is the duty of the board to censor such materials before they are released for public consumption; educate the stakeholders and the general public; and to prosecute the defaulters.”

When one begins to grasp the level of control commanded by the Board, it becomes clear that file-sharing networks are almost completely incompatible with its mission. It regularly bans songs and forbids their downloading so little surprise that when it suits the authorities, the big guns can be brought out to deal with the information-spreading public.

“The cheapest way of corrupting our cultural base is through the use of tools of mass media namely, the internet, television, adverts, movies, other cinematographs and through assorted literary works,” the Board explains.

“These tools of mass mind control and corruption are targeted on the youths of our developing countries on whose shoulders lie the future of this generation and yet unborn ones.”

The claims that pirates in the United States are merely destroying the film industry clearly pale in comparison…..

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

Onyx Boox Typerwriter is an E Ink 2-in-1 laptop

As expected, Onyx is showing off several new products at the Hong Kong Global Sources Fair this week… including a laptop with an E Ink display. But it turns out the Onyx Boox Typewriter isn’t just a laptop. It’s actually a 2-in-1 device featuring a tablet section and a detachable keyboard. Oh, and it supports pen […]

Onyx Boox Typerwriter is an E Ink 2-in-1 laptop is a post from: Liliputing

FBI Uses BitTorrent to Find and Catch Child Porn Offenders

The FBI is using BitTorrent clients, specifically modified for law enforcement purposes, to track down people who share child porn and prosecute them. The software in question is configured to download complete files from a single suspect, to confirm that this person has the illegal content in his or her possession.

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

To combat the distribution of child pornography on the Internet, U.S. law enforcement is using BitTorrent to track down and catch perpetrators.

File-sharing networks and tools are used to transfer all sorts of files, including pornographic footage of children.

The Department of Justice in the U.S. sees these cases as a high priority and has successfully prosecuted many cases in recent years. Several of these, were concluded with help from P2P file-sharing software.

A few years ago applications with shared folders, such as Limewire, allowed the FBI to pinpoint infringers who were actively sharing illegal content. The evidence in these cases was relatively strong and led to many convictions.

However, now that Limewire and other popular “shared folder” applications are no longer available, law enforcement has switched to BitTorrent.

While there have been similar cases before, this week we first spotted an indictment where BitTorrent was used to find someone sharing these files. In the affidavit, signed by a Homeland Security Investigations agent, the process is explained in detail.

The agent describes BitTorrent as a “very popular” file-sharing network that users typically connect to, through torrents they download from search engines such as Isohunt or The Pirate Bay.

These torrent sites don’t store any material themselves, the affidavit clarifies, but the perpetrators and law enforcement can use these sites to find illegal content.

“Law enforcement can search the BitTorrent network in order to locate individuals sharing previously identified child exploitation material in the same way a user searches this network,” the affidavit reads.

“By searching the network for these known torrents, law enforcement can quickly identify targets in the searcher’s jurisdiction.”

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies use these search engines to find torrents that are known to link to child porn. They then load the torrent files in modified torrent clients and obtain IP-addresses and other information from the associated trackers.

The software in question is modified to download complete files from a single source, so the investigator knows that the person on the other end has a full copy.

“There is law enforcement-specific BitTorrent network software which allows for single-source downloads from a computer at a single IP address, meaning that an entire file or files are downloaded only from a computer at a single IP address as opposed to obtaining the file from multiple peers/clients on the BitTorrent network.

“This procedure allows for the detection and investigation of those computers involved in sharing digital files of known or suspected child pornography on the BitTorrent network,” the affidavit adds.

In the present case a search by FBI special agent David Hand led to a Simi Valley man, who was arrested and indicted by a federal grand jury last week.

In addition to distributing child pornography, a follow-up investigation unveiled more gruesome details. The indictment alleges that the man also took 83 images and three videos of a 6-year-old girl with his iPhone.

Based on the above, the man faces lengthy prison terms for producing, distributing and possession of child pornography.

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

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 mit Kampagne und mächtigen Helden angekündigt

Hauptfigur ist eine Soldatin des Imperiums, aber Spieler sollen in der Kampagne von Star Wars Battlefront 2 auch Luke Skywalker und Kylo Ren steuern können. Außerdem soll es in dem Actionspiel sowohl Multiplayergefechte für bis zu 40 Teilnehmer als auch groß angelegte Weltraumschlachten geben. (Star Wars Battlefront 2, Electronic Arts)