v3rgEz writes: It's currently Sunshine Week, a chance to celebrate government transparency, or, this year, the lack thereof, as it came out that the Obama administration secretly undermined Congressional FOIA reform despite pledges to be the "most transparent administration in history." Transparency site MuckRock has compiled a list of the all-time most egregious redactions to honor the administration's hard work.

mdsolar writes: For the first time, a team of researchers looked at ongoing population growth in areas where the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has created flood maps that more accurately reflect local conditions. What they found was startling: projections that failed to factor in population growth in dense states like Florida hugely underestimated the number of people at risk and the cost of protecting them. Combined with the findings from a 2015 report, that means Florida can claim two titles: most property at risk, and now, most people.

mdsolar writes: The Obama administration will abandon its plan to allow new offshore oil drilling on the U.S. southeast coast, dealing a blow to petroleum companies that had hopes of tapping new reserves. The Interior Department is set to announce today that it will not auction off certain drilling rights for Atlantic Ocean waters off the coast of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The reversal comes after environmentalists, coastal residents, and the U.S. military vocalized opposition to the plan. It also comes amid declining industry investment in new exploration and production activities as oil prices fell by about 70% since late 2014 -- although the industry is still seeking long-term investment opportunities under the assumption that oil prices will recover.

An anonymous reader writes from an article posted on iDownloadBlog: The DoJ is demanding that Apple create a special version of iOS with removed security features that would permit the FBI to run brute-force passcode attempts on the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5c. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has made public where he stands on the Apple vs. FBI case, which has quickly become a heated national debate. In the court papers, DoJ calls Apple's rhetoric in the San Bernardino standoff as "false" and "corrosive" because the Cupertino firm dared suggest that the FBI's court order could lead to a "police state." Footnote Nine of DoJ's filing reads:

"For the reasons discussed above, the FBI cannot itself modify the software on the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone without access to the source code and Apple's private electronic signature. The government did not seek to compel Apple to turn those over because it believed such a request would be less palatable to Apple. If Apple would prefer that course, however, that may provide an alternative that requires less labor by Apple programmers."

As Fortune's Philip-Elmer DeWitt rightfully pointed out, that's a classic police threat. "We can do this [the] easy way or the hard way. Give us the little thing we're asking for -- a way to bypass your security software -- or we'll take [the] whole thing: your crown jewels and the royal seal too," DeWitt wrote. "With Apple's source code, the FBI could, in theory, create its own version of iOS with the security features stripped out. Stamped with Apple's electronic signature, the Bureau's versions of iOS could pass for the real thing," he added.

Reader v3rgEz writes: International customers are becoming increasingly concerned about the U.S.'s data snooping practices, and it appears Microsoft has devised a solution to make them happy: Set up Azure cloud in a foreign region. Because it's under the technical ownership of a German company named Deutsche Telekom, even Microsoft doesn't have access to the data. The move is not surprising, but it could set a precedent that encourages others to move their corporate data away from U.S. shores to countries that take a friendlier view of encryption and data privacy. From the official blog post, "Microsoft has -- in this new model -- no rights at all to access customer data. Only for special purpose like a support call from a customer a temporary access will be granted by the Data Trustee to the Microsoft engineer, and only for the specified area. After that time (using a technology similar to what you might know as JIT) all access is revoked automatically. So to repeat: Access is granted to the Microsoft engineer only by the Data Trustee. Microsoft has no way to grant that access to itself."

An anonymous reader writes from an Ars Technica article: Customers who sued ATT over its practice of throttling unlimited data plans will not be able to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. ATT argued that the customers could not only have their complaints heard individually in arbitration, and Judge Edward Chen of US District Court in Northern California has sided with the cellular company. Chen accepted ATT's argument, noting that the Supreme Court previously upheld ATT's arbitration provision in a 2011 decision. In the 2011 case, ATT Mobility v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court found that the Federal Arbitration Act preempted a California state law that limited the power of companies to force customers into arbitration. [Chen's ruling granting ATT's motion to compel arbitration was issued on February 29 and highlighted in a MediaPost article Friday.] "Plaintiffs argue that the Concepcion Court never addressed the specific issues now raised -- i.e., that enforcement of the arbitration agreements would violate their rights as protected by the Petition Clause of the First Amendment," Chen wrote. "Because there is no state action in the instant case, Plaintiffs lack a viable First Amendment challenge to the arbitration agreements. As Plaintiffs have not challenged the arbitration agreements on any other bases, the Court grants ATT's motion to compel arbitration."
ATT is still being punished by the FCC and FTC. Ars Technica writes, "The FCC last year proposed a $100 million fine to punish ATT for throttling the wireless Internet connections of customers with unlimited data plans without adequately notifying the customers about the reduced speeds. Separately, the FTC sued ATT in an attempt to gain millions of dollars worth of refunds for customers who paid for unlimited data and had their speeds throttled."

An anonymous reader writes from Business Insider's article: Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous hacktivist collective have vowed to relaunch cyber-operations against US presidential candidate Donald Trump [on April Fools' Day]. They threaten to "dismantle his campaign" by taking his election websites offline in a large-scale and orchestrated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. In December 2015, Anonymous officially "declared war" on Trump after a radical speech in which he said Muslims should be banned from entering the United States. The operation at the time resulted in a number of websites being targeted by hackers, but failed to have lasting impact. A new video statement has been posted to YouTube which claims the "loyalists and veterans" of Anonymous have decided to ramp up cyber-operations against Trump -- dubbed #OpTrump -- on a far larger scale than ever before. "Dear Donald Trump, we have been watching you for a long time and what we see is deeply disturbing. Your inconsistent and hateful campaign has not only shocked the United States of America [but] you have shocked the entire planet with your appalling actions and ideas. You say what your audience wants to hear but in reality you don't stand for anything except for your personal greed and power."
The websites targeted in the attack (so far) include trump.com, donaldjtrump.com, and trumphotelcollection.com. In addition, the hacktivists are also planning to release some of Donald Trump's personal information including a SSN, phone number, and contact information of his agent and legal representative.

jones_supa writes: The Obama administration is seeking public comments on its open source policy. They have released for public comment a draft Federal Source Code policy to support improved access to custom software code. From the policy document: "This policy requires that, among other things: (1) new custom code whose development is paid for by the Federal Government be made available for reuse across Federal agencies; and (2) a portion of that new custom code be released to the public as Open Source Software (OSS)." Tony Scott, Federal CIO of the US government, mentioned one of the strengths of open source – cost saving. Scott wrote on the White House blog that the U.S. government "can save taxpayer dollars by avoiding duplicative custom software purchases and promote innovation and collaboration across Federal agencies."

theodp writes: In an exclusive interview with Education Week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked about why he is shifting his K-12 giving priorities to personalized learning. While acknowledging that there's not yet any independent, large-scale research to show personalized learning's effectiveness, Zuck argues that "the model just intuitively makes sense." But just days later, Fordham University professor Mark Naison wrote in the Washington Post about why the personalized learning efforts of 'a growing number of those with investment capital seeking profitable outlets,' which presumably includes Zuck, make him 'incredibly pessimistic' about the future of public education. That Zuck — like fellow personalized learning cheerleaders/funders Bill Gates and former U.S. Education Chief Arne Duncan — seemed to be unaware of studies on personalized learning studies that date back to the '70s is troubling. But people don't "Like" 40+ year-old Ed.gov papers, so Zuck could be forgiven for not seeing them and, as a result, believing that the personalized learning plan dashboard his Facebook engineers knocked out truly is the ground-breaking solution to 'one of education's biggest problems' that Melinda Gates cracks it up to be.

New submitter ShawnX writes: If David Graham sounds familiar, you might know him better as cdlu (short for "confused debian linux user"). For years, cdlu was my colleague at Linux.com and Newsforge and well-known in Debian circles as well. Since then, he has been a presence in the back rooms of the Liberal Party until, in the federal election in October 2015, he was elected for the first time. He now describes himself (no doubt correctly) as "the only Member of Parliament to be in the Debian key ring." (And here's video of Graham discussing greater use of Open Source in government, from the perspective of someone with a foot in each of those worlds.)

An anonymous reader writes: The study, published in The Lancet, used a cross-sectional, state-level dataset relating to a host of topics associated with firearm mortality including gun ownership and even unemployment from across the U.S. to examine the relationship between recorded gun deaths and gun-control legislation. The study found that some laws, such as those that restrict gun access to children through locks and age restrictions, were simply ineffective while others, such as the stand-your-ground law that allows individuals to use deadly force in self-defense, actually increase gun-related deaths significantly. According to the study's model, a federal law expanding background checks for all gun purchases could reduce the national gun death rate by 57%, lowering it from 10.35 to 4.46 per 100,000 people while background checks for all ammunition purchases could lower the rate by 81% to 1.99 per 100,000 and firearm identification could reduce it by 83% to 1.81 per 100,000. If the federal government implemented all three laws, the scholars predict that the overall national rate of firearm deaths would drop by over 90% to 0.16 per 100,000.

An anonymous reader writes: The North Korean regime lost contact with one of its submarines earlier this week, three U.S. officials familiar with the latest information told CNN. According to CNN, the U.S. military had been observing the submarine operate off North Korea's east coast when the vessel stopped, and U.S. spy satellites, aircraft and ships have been secretly watching for days as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub. The U.S. is unsure if the missing vessel is adrift under the sea or whether it has sunk, the officials said, but believes it suffered some type of failure during an exercise. This comes after North Korea has threatened to use nuclear weapons at any time and turn its military posture to "pre-emptive attack" mode.

dcblogs writes: About 300 Hertz IT employees, most located in Oklahoma City, are being impacted [by] a decision to expand its outsourcing to IBM. About 75 will be hired by IBM and those workers [are expected] to receive offers this week while others are facing layoffs. The news was a shock for IT employees. There was "anger, resentment," especially by employees who "sacrificed that work/life balance to keep things going here," said one employee. Hertz took precautions. On the day that IT employees learned that their work was shifting to IBM, employees noticed Oklahoma sheriff patrol vehicles in the building's parking lot. They believed plainclothes officers were inside the building.
"We consider the safety and security of our people whenever there are circumstances or events that could increase the risk of a disturbance or some form of workplace violence," said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman. "Knowing that this was a difficult announcement, we had additional security on hand," said Masterson. "Going forward, Hertz IT resources will be focused on development of future products and services for customers," he said. The majority of services will be cloud-based. According to the Computerworld article, along with severance pay, benefits also include three months of outplacement assistance. IT employees can receive up to $4,000 toward retraining or skill certification, said Masterson. IBM India Private Limited, a IBM subsidiary, has filed paper for H-1B visa workers for Hertz Technology offices.

itwbennett writes: Sky News reports that it was handed a USB stick with 'tens of thousands of documents' detailing phone numbers and family contacts of Islamic State members by 'a disillusioned convert' to Islamic State. 'One of the files marked 'Martyrs' detailed a brigade manned entirely by fighters who wanted to carry out suicide attacks and were trained to do so,' according to Sky News. CSO Online's Steve Ragan had a little fun at ISIS' expense and worked up a data breach notification that ISIS HR is free to use should they so choose.

cold fjord writes: Steven Hawking, 150 fellows of the Royal Society (three Nobel laureates among them), and the Astronomer Royal, are warning that exit from the EU by the UK could be a disaster for science in the UK. An immediate issue would be restrictions on travel and how that would result in scientists from around the EU no longer coming to the UK to work. That would make the UK less competitive for new talent. It would also mean that scientists in the EU with grant money would be less likely to bring their research and grant money to the UK to perform their work. Switzerland is listed as an example of the resulting harm. The scientists make the point that freedom of travel for scientists is as important for science as free trade is for economies.

An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has quietly revised its privacy rules for searching data involving Americans' international communications that was collected by the NSA, U.S. officials have confirmed to the Guardian. The classified revisions were accepted by the secret U.S. court that governs surveillance, during its annual recertification of the agencies' broad surveillance powers. The new rules affect a set of powers colloquially known as Section 702, the portion of the law that authorizes the NSA's sweeping "Prism" program to collect internet data. Section 702 falls under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and is a provision set to expire later this year. A government civil liberties watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, alluded to the change in its recent overview of ongoing surveillance practices. The PCLOB's new compliance report, released last month, found that the administration has submitted "revised FBI minimization procedures" that address at least some of the group's concerns about "many" FBI agents who use NSA-gathered data. Sharon Bradford Franklin, a spokesperson for the PCLOB, said the rule changes move to enhance privacy. She could not say when the rules actually changed -- that, too, is classified. Last February, a compliance audit alluded to imminent changes to the FBI's freedom to search the data for Americans' identifying information. "FBI's minimization procedures will be updated to more clearly reflect the FBI's standard for conducting U.S. person queries and to require additional supervisory approval to access query results in certain circumstances," the review stated. The reference to "supervisory approval" suggests the FBI may not require court approval for their searches -- unlike the new system Congress enacted last year for NSA or FBI acquisition of U.S. phone metadata in terrorism or espionage cases.

schwit1 writes: Guccifer, the infamous Romanian hacker who accessed emails of celebrities and top US officials, will be extradited to the United States after losing a case in his home country's top court. Reuters reports that Lehel will come to the US under an 18-month extradition order, following a request made by the US authorities. Details of the extradition have not been made public, however. Marcel Lehel, a 42-year-old hacker better known by his pseudonym "Guccifer," achieved notoriety when he released an email with images of paintings by former President George W. Bush, including a self-portrait in a bathtub. He also hacked and published emails from celebrities Leonardo DiCaprio, Steve Martin and Mariel Hemingway. Perhaps most notably, Lehel was also the first source to uncover Hillary Clinton's improper use of a private email account while she was Secretary of State, which the FBI is investigating as a potential danger to national security.

An anonymous reader writes: Anonymous has claimed that Twitter mistakenly shut down several of its activist accounts in a widespread cull of pages belonging to terrorist supporters. In an effort to rid the site of an extremist presence, Twitter has recently suspended over 125,000 accounts for 'threatening or promoting terrorist acts, primarily related to ISIS.' However, the international activist group Anonymous is now reporting that among this number were multiple member accounts, which were actively supporting the fight against the Islamic State and helping to seek out terrorist supporters and recruiters online. Twitter has typically re-opened the Anonymous accounts within a matter of hours, bombarded with requests by hacktivists and the wider online community.

An anonymous reader writes: Alphabet Chairman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is heading up a new effort to make the Pentagon more tech savvy. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carton on Wednesday appointed Schmidt the head of a new Defense Innovation Advisory Board, which will help the Pentagon keep up with the latest Silicon Valley ideas and apply them at the Department of Defense. The board will address problems in the way the Pentagon uses technology, and it will be tasked with offering "quick solutions." Schmidt's group will have no access to information about military operations strategy. Schmidt will oversee a group of up to 11 other board members, who also have led large private companies and public organizations.

An anonymous reader writes: Former first lady Nancy Reagan has died, according to a spokeswoman with the Reagan Library. She was 94. The cause of death was congestive heart failure, according to her rep Joanne Drake. "Mrs. Reagan will be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, next to her husband, Ronald Wilson Reagan, who died on June 5, 2004," Drake wrote in a statement. May she rest in peace.