bananas
bananas's JournalUber used secret tool, extraordinary measures to sidestep government officials
Source: Washington Post
Uber, the ride-hailing service that has become one of the tech industry’s most emulated companies, has smashed into a painful wall of reality in recent weeks, capped by a report Friday that the company has taken extraordinary measures to evade government officials in places where the service was restricted or banned.
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Friday’s twist came from a story in the New York Times about how Uber worked to identify and defeat government officials in a years-long game of cat and mouse that spanned several nations. Uber mined customer geolocation data, credit-card information, app-usage habits and even social-media profiles to identify those working for city governments or driving for rival ride-hailing services.
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Uber used a tool, code-named Greyball, in 2014 to identify Portland, Ore., officials who posed as regular customers to request rides in order to gather evidence that the company was operating illegally in the city, according to the Times report. But rather than procuring a driver for the “customer,” the service showed officials fake versions of the Uber app, complete with fake drivers. Any real ones who did respond to the requests for rides would quickly cancel, sometimes after direct intervention from Uber officials to drivers, allowing the service to avoid detection in a city where it was banned.
“This program denies ride requests to fraudulent users who are violating our terms of service, whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers,” Uber said Friday in a statement.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/03/03/the-latest-bad-news-for-uber-shows-just-how-far-its-willing-to-go-to-get-its-way/?utm_term=.963c61a72010
New American Spy Satellite Launches on Classified Mission
Source: Space.com
A new American satellite soared into Earth orbit today (March 1), kicking off a reconnaissance mission that's shrouded in secrecy.
The NROL-79 satellite launched into space atop a two-stage United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket at 12:49 p.m. EST (1749 GMT) today, rising off a pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
NROL-79 will be operated by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which oversees the United States' fleet of spy satellites. It's unclear what NROL-79 will be doing, or where it will be orbiting; details about the spacecraft and its mission are classified. [Launch Photos: NROL-79 Spy Satellite Soars to Orbit]
After lifting off, the Atlas V headed south, hugging the coasts of California and the Mexican state of Baja California as it rose into the sky. If everything went according to plan, the rocket reached Mach 1 the speed of sound, about 767 mph (1,234 km/h) 81 seconds into flight, according to a ULA mission-description video. The booster's main engine cut off 4 minutes and 3 seconds after liftoff, and the rocket's two stages separated 6 seconds later. The payload fairing protecting NROL-79 was jettisoned 4 minutes and 27 seconds after launch.
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Read more: http://www.space.com/35874-american-spy-satellite-nrol-79-launch-success.html
Mission patch: http://www.americaspace.com/2017/02/28/atlas-v-nro-79-intruder-mission-readied-for-wednesday-launch-to-track-ships/
Alternative Facts And Snake Oil From The SLS Mafia
Alternative Facts And Snake Oil From The SLS Mafia
By Keith Cowing on February 28, 2017 6:46 PM.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/if-you-think-nasa-is-frustrated-with-spacex-youre-probably-right/
If you think NASA is frustrated with SpaceX, you're probably right
Ars Technica
"A more blunt assessment was offered by Mary Lynne Dittmar, who is familiar with the thinking of NASA's human spaceflight program managers. "I find it extraordinary that these sorts of announcements are being made when SpaceX has yet to get crew from the ground to low-Earth orbit," she told The New York Times. Dittmar serves as executive director of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration, the organization formed by the principal contractors behind NASA's SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft. These are the old-guard aerospace firms, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin, whose government contracts are threatened by SpaceX. Orion, in particular, appears to be particularly vulnerable if SpaceX can show that Dragon is capable of performing the same kind of deep space missions and high velocity returns from the Moon. With his latest proposal, Elon Musk is playing a dangerous, but potentially winning, game with his lower-cost alternatives to NASA's existing programs. He recognizes that NASA has nurtured his company, and on Monday night, he remained publicly appreciative of the space agency. However by talking about Mars and now the Moon, he not only indicates that his company isn't entirely focused on its most important contract - commercial crew- but also is making a play for NASA's future deep space exploration plans."
Keith's note: FYI The Coalition for Deep Space Exploration is not an "organization". It is not incorporated anywhere. Dittmar is paid with funds that come directly from these aerospace companies. It is hypocritical in the extreme for her to criticize SpaceX for having not done things when in fact SLS has never flown and a stripped-down Orion test article flew just once on a rocket that it will never fly on again.
Meanwhile, Dragons launched on Falcon 9 rockets have made multiple visits to ISS and Falcon Heavy, composed of three of those Falcon 9's, has a significant flight record and is slated to launch this year - years ahead of SLS. SLS will fly only once every several years until the middle of the next decade - and only once or twice a year after that. Meanwhile Falcon 9s will soon be flying monthly. NASA studies looking at moving a crew onto EM-1 will soon show just how expensive and inflexible SLS/Orion actually is while the Falcon/Dragon product line continues to expand its capability without the ever-increasing costs that plague SLS/Orion.
No one is going to get (back) to the Moon fueled with alternative facts and snake oil.
Energy Department issues scathing evaluation of nuclear project
Source: Washington Post
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On Dec. 5, the NNSA completed a scathing evaluation that branded several of the company’s claims about the state of the project “misleading” and “inaccurate.” The agency said CB&I Areva’s claims that the project is 70 percent complete “are patently false.” A separate September 2016 Energy Department report said construction was only 28 percent complete.
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President Obama tried to kill the Savannah River plant. In the president’s proposed 2017 budget, the administration said it would “pursue a dilute and dispose approach as a faster, less-expensive path to meeting the U.S. commitment to dispose of excess weapons grade plutonium.” It proposed cutting spending to from $345 million to $275 million to begin winding it down.
One of the project’s sharpest critics Tom Clements, director of the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch, obtained the December NNSA assessment through a Freedom of Information Act request. He called the evaluation “devastating.”
“I have never seen an asessment like that. It all but calls them liars,” he said.
The Savannah River project, however, has an important ally in Congress: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has defended this method of converting nuclear weapons fuel. In addition, hundreds of jobs in his state depend on the project moving forward. For a time, Graham held up the confirmation vote on Ernest Moniz as energy secretary over the Obama administratin’s intentions for the Savannah River MOX project.
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But the Obama administration continued to say the MOX plant at Savannah River wasn’t practical. What started as a $620 million project in 1999 with a 2006 starting date has become a $17 billion project still decades away from a start state. By some estimates, it would require a $1 billion a year appropriation, which the Obama administration said was unlikely at best.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/energy-department-issues-scathing-evaluation-of-nuclear-project/2017/02/28/8af4d11a-fd2c-11e6-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html
Obama and Tom Clements have it right - this is a boondoggle that should be canceled.
Naturally, anti-science Republicans want to keep it alive, because nuclear is magic.
You just can't trust the nuclear industry - or Republicans.
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