ICT news

• Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo Release Patches for 'Looney Tunables' Linux Vulnerability

  08-10-2023 23:35 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  Thursday ZDNet reported...As security holes go, CVE-2023-4911, aka "Looney Tunables," isn't horrid. It has a Common Vulnerability Scoring System score of 7.8, which is ranked as important, not critical.
  On the other hand, this GNU C Library's (glibc) dynamic loader vulnerability is a buffer overflow, which is always big trouble, and it's in pretty much all Linux distributions, so it's more than bad enough. After all, its discoverers, the Qualys Threat Research Unit, were able to exploit "this vu
  
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• 'I'm a Luddite - and Why You Should Be One Too'

  08-10-2023 22:10 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Los Angeles Times technology columnist Brian Merchant has written a book about the 1811 Luddite rebellion against industrial technology, decrying "entrepreneurs and industrialists pushing for new, dubiously legal, highly automated and labor-saving modes of production."
  In a new piece he applauds the spirit of the Luddites. "The kind of visionaries we need now are those who see precisely how certain technologies are causing harm and who resist them when necessary."
  The parallels to the modern day
  
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• Will the Placebo Effect Mold How We See AI?

  08-10-2023 20:34 via slashdot.org
  
  "The preconceived notions people have about AI — and what they're told before they use it — mold their experiences with these tools," writes Axios, "in ways researchers are beginning to unpack..."A strong placebo effect works to shape what people think of a particular AI tool, one study revealed. Participants who were about to interact with a mental health chatbot were told the bot was caring, was manipulative or was neither and had no motive. After using the chatbot, which is based
  
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• California Becomes First US State to Ban Four 'Toxic' Food Additives

  08-10-2023 19:34 via yro.slashdot.org
  
  Nearly 12% of America's population is in California. And the Los Angeles Times is predicting changes to what they eat:California became the first state in the nation to prohibit four food additives found in popular cereal, soda, candy and drinks after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a ban on them Saturday. The California Food Safety Act will ban the manufacture, sale or distribution of brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben and red dye No. 3 — potentially affecting 12,000 prod
  
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• OpenAI to Release Its Python SDK

  08-10-2023 18:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "OpenAI has unveiled the Beta version of its Python SDK," reports Analytics India Magazine, "marking a significant step towards enhancing access to the OpenAI API for Python developers."The OpenAI Python library offers a simplified way for Python-based applications to interact with the OpenAI API, while providing an opportunity for early testing and feedback before the official launch of version 1.0. It streamlines the integration process by providing pre-defined classes for API resources, dynam
  
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• States Are Calling For More K-12 CS Classes. Now They Need the Teachers.

  08-10-2023 17:34 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "42 states to go!" exclaimed Code.org to its 1+ million Twitter followers as it celebrated victorious efforts to pass legislation making North Carolina the 8th state to pass a high school computer science graduation requirement, bringing the tech-backed nonprofit a step closer to its goal of making CS a requirement for a HS diploma in all 50 states. But as states make good on pledges made to tech CEOs to make their schoolchildren CS savvy, Education Week
  
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• Cryptographer Announces $12K Bounty to Find the Lost Seeds to 5 NIST Elliptic Curves

  08-10-2023 16:34 via it.slashdot.org
  
  Long-time Slashdot reader mejustme writes: The NIST elliptic curves that power much of modern cryptography were generated in the late '90s by hashing seeds provided by the NSA. Rumor has it that they are in turn hashes of English sentences, but the person who picked them, Dr. Jerry Solinas, passed away in early 2023 leaving behind a cryptographic mystery."
  That's from the blog of Filippo Valsorda, who was in charge of cryptography and security on the Go team at Google until 2022, (and was on the
  
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• NChain's CEO 'Departs', Claims Evidence Craig Wright Manipulated Bitcoin Creation Documents

  08-10-2023 13:34 via slashdot.org
  
  Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto may or may not be businessman Craig Wright, who in 2015 founded the blockchain-tech company nChain.
  But nChain's recently-departed CEO Christen Ager-Hanssen's thinks Wright is not Satoshi — and that's just the beginning. According to Forbes Ager-Hanssen went as far as "to leak emails suggesting former gambling billionaire Calvin Ayre, who has heavily backed the company doesn't believe Wright, nChain's chief scientist, is Satoshi Nakamoto.
  The alleged email
  
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• Greg Kroah-Hartman Chastises Critic, Says Linux Foundation Strongly Supports Kernel Developers

  08-10-2023 09:34 via linux.slashdot.org
  
  It started when Linux blogger Bryan Lunduke complained about how the Linux Foundation was reducing the six-year long-term support (LTS) window for the Linux kernel to two years.Lunduke argued that the Foundation seemed more interested in funding compliance best practices — as well as artificial intelligence and blockchain projects.
  In an online discussion, Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman had this response:
  Did anyone think to actually ask the developer who is maintaining the lon
  
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• 7% of Python Developers Are Still Using Python 2, Annual Survey Finds

  08-10-2023 06:39 via developers.slashdot.org
  
  "Python 3 was by far the choice over Python 2 in a late-2022 survey of more than 23,000 Python developers," reports InfoWorld, "but the percentage of respondents using Python 2 actually ticked up compared to the previous year."Results of the sixth annual Python Developers Survey, conducted by the Python Software Foundation and software tools maker JetBrains, were released September 27. The Python Developers Survey 2022 report indicates that 93% of respondents had adopted Python 3, while only 7%
  
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• Germany Will Keep Keep Its Coal Power Plants on Standby For Another Winter

  08-10-2023 03:34 via hardware.slashdot.org
  
  An anonymous reader writes: Amidst a winter marked by scarce gas supplies, the German government has opted to retain its lignite coal power plants on standby for another season. Originally, Germany had planned a phased shutdown of coal plants in exchange for a portion of the government's €40 billion coal phase-out fund. However, last year, disruptions in Russian gas supplies post-Ukraine war prompted an emergency decision to keep coal plants operational. This measure is now extended for the
  
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• How Edwin Hubble Expanded the Universe 100 Years Ago

  08-10-2023 00:34 via science.slashdot.org
  
  Black Parrot (Slashdot reader #19,622) pointed out a historic anniversary this week:On October 6, 1923, Edwin Hubble got a photo of Andromeda that showed that it contained a variable star, and therefore was an actual galaxy, ending the Great Debate over whether the universe consisted of anything beyond our own galaxy. Unless you're more than 100 years old you grew up with a completely different understanding of the universe than anyone who lived before. Even Einstein did not know about it when h
  
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