Free Republic

JENNIFER LUDDEN, HOST: Human ears, gun parts, bars of chocolate, musical instruments, robots - just a few of the things that have recently been created from scratch by 3-D printers. Apparently and amazingly, you just put in the materials, upload a design and press start. My printer doesn't even work with just old paper and ink. But we'll hear more about this potential. The possibilities seem endless. Some believe 3-D printing will revolutionize manufacturing, but the technology is also raising thorny questions about copyright and regulation. If you use 3-D printing, tell us what you make. Our numbers are 800-989-8255....

Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds. For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all. Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone...

The White House is poised to release a cybersecurity executive order on Wednesday, two people familiar with the matter told The Hill. The highly anticipated directive from President Obama is expected to be released at an event Wednesday morning at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where senior administration officials will provide an update about cybersecurity policy. The White House began crafting the executive order after Congress failed to pass cybersecurity legislation last year. Officials said the threat facing the United States was too great for the administration to ignore.

An interesting article caught my eye at jobstractor.com — the programming language trends review. The company analyzed more than 60,000 job vacancies during 2012 to produce a chart of the most sought-after technologies: Language Jobs PHP 12,664 Java 12,558 Objective C 8,925 SQL 5,165 Android (Java) 4,981 Ruby 3,859 JavaScript 3,742 C# 3,549 C++ 1,908 ActionScript 1,821 Python 1,649 C 1,087 ASP.NET 818 Despite developer complaints, demand for PHP and Java (server/Android) remains strong. You would also expect those jobs to require some SQL knowledge although that has a strong showing in its own right. ActionScript is a dying art...

For the last four months, Chinese hackers have persistently attacked The New York Times, infiltrating its computer systems and getting passwords for its reporters and other employees. After surreptitiously tracking the intruders to study their movements and help erect better defenses to block them, The Times and computer security experts have expelled the attackers and kept them from breaking back in. The timing of the attacks coincided with the reporting for a Times investigation, published online on Oct. 25, that found that the relatives of Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, had accumulated a fortune worth several billion dollars through business...

Windows 8 pro review (upgrade XP to Windows 8 with Classic Shell)I am writing this hasty and imperfect review of Windows 8 for fellow Freepers (etc.) in case someone is looking into buying it, and as the 39.99 (about 42.00 with taxes) upgrade ends tonight. Better late then never i suppose. And the the media center upgrade is only fre till then ($10.00 afterward) which should be standard. And no, I have no affiliation with MS. My review is on how W/8 runs this old PC (used mainly for Christian ministry). This is a 2005 Sony VGC-RA840G (Asus P5LP-VX 64...

The latest rallying cry emanating from the DPRK's newDear Leader Kim Jong Un (they call this one 'Supreme Leader') -who apparently seeks to develop computer skills amongst the zombified populace he inherited- is the super-catchy (their translation) 'Rapider, More, and Exacter!' Confusion grows as you hear the plan is based on the BIG rollout what they say is a 'North Korean-built' notebook... one that looks an awful lot like the $70 Chinese-made Sylvania 7-inch 'netbook' sold at CVS (a surprise perhaps only to those who thought the Norks made their own Lincoln Continentals). The DPRK has also introduced their own operating system/search engine- dubbed 'Red Star/My Country', both designed...

Such a case came about in 2012. The scenario was as follows. We received a request from a US-based company asking for our help in understanding some anomalous activity that they were witnessing in their VPN logs. This organization had been slowly moving toward a more telecommuting oriented workforce, and they had therefore started to allow their developers to work from home on certain days. In order to accomplish this, they’d set up a fairly standard VPN concentrator approximately two years prior to our receiving their call. In early May 2012, after reading the 2012 DBIR, their IT security department...

Computer activist Aaron H. Swartz committed suicide in New York City yesterday. The news was first reported by the MIT newspaper The Tech, citing both his uncle and his attorney. Swartz was 26.

[No quote due to Reuters source. Title is accurate representation of article. Please see link.]

It's a long way from hitting store shelves, but the new Papertab tablet debuting at CES shows where the technology is headed. Plastic Logic and the Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab's new PaperTabhuman media lab Queen's University Canada Computers are getting smaller and thinner all the time, and it's not hard to imagine one that eventually looks and feels like a sheet of paper. One company, Plastic Logic, is demonstrating an early prototype of just that this week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The company's Papertab tablet has a long way to go, but you can see what researchers envision...

The tech industry cheerleads the displacement and reconfiguration of huge institutions like the music industry and telecoms. The arms industry shares many of the attributes of those industries, and is poised for fundamental change that is much like the changes they have experienced. If the product of the arms industry were not arms, the inevitable upheaval would be anticipated and prophesied with glee by the usual pundits (this website included). It’s not, because the general availability of weapons is not something we as a community can agree on as an unmitigated good. For that matter, even free speech and assembly...

How to remove a computer virus QUICK SIMPLE VIDEO http://www.tvkim.com/watch/2555/kim-on-komand-how-to-remove-a-computer-virus?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=tvkim&utm_content=2012-12-14-article-screen-shot-b Computer viruses are the most dreaded inhabitants of the digital world! Here's how to kill them dead. Visit my security center for more detailed tips:      http://www.komando.com/securitycenter  

NOTE The following text is a quote: Alabama Men Arrested on Terrorism Charges U.S. Attorney’s Office December 11, 2012 Southern District of Alabama MOBILE, AL—U.S. Attorney Kenyen R. Brown of the Southern District of Alabama and Stephen E. Richardson, Special Agent in Charge of the Mobile Division of the FBI, announced that Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 25, and Randy Wilson, also known as Rasheed Wilson, 25, both U.S. citizens living in Mobile, were arrested today on terrorism charges filed in the Southern District of Alabama. A criminal complaint signed on December 10, 2012, charges Abukhdair and Wilson with conspiring to...

Some Republicans are siding with Democrats around the proposition that online sales should be taxed. Now, Congress is adding a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act that would allow such a tax. The so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, which also has a House counterpart, the Marketplace Equity Act, will allow states to collect sales taxes on retailers who are located out of state. This would be a fundamental expansion of states’ power to tax; it arguably violates the privileges and immunities clause, allowing states to set up tariffs against other states’ businesses...

  "German Islamists Target Youth on the Internet" By Christoph Sydow 11/01/2012 "Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan." PHOTO CAPTION: "A growing community of German-speaking Islamists has developed on the Internet. Aiming to find new recruits, they glorify jihad and call for attacks on Germany. A new study warns that such online propaganda might foster a new generation of terrorists." SNIPPET: "International terrorist groups like al-Qaida recognized the importance of the Internet for recruiting new supporters early on." SNIPPET: "Intelligence services can also take advantage of the anonymity of Internet forums to deliberately plant false information or obtain insider...

Based on the popular National Geographic Channel TV show by the same name, Doomsday Preppers challenges you to prepare for a new (and even more fabulous) life below the ground. Design a multi-level dream bunker complete with everything you need for post-apocalyptic bliss, from a gym to a greenhouse to a disco bar! Video at Link

Dan Crow, another former Apple employee from the 1990s, also says Apple has shown itself to be doomed without Steve Jobs, in a piece for The Guardian headlined “We’ve Passed Peak Apple”: Why do I think Apple has passed its peak? There are a number of signs. The most visible recent one is the Maps debacle. Replacing Google Maps with an obviously inferior experience shows how much Apple has changed. Apple’s success had been all about offering users the best possible experience; suddenly it is willing to give users a clearly worse experience to further its corporate interests - in...

Anyone know if there is a way to roll-back from Yahoo's new Homepage re-design that was just launched [NOT the Yahoo Mail re-design from a few years ago]? My Mom uses Yahoo - and just got switched over. Hates the re-design, wants her old Yahoo Homepage back. This is not the My Yahoo homepage.