New submitter unarmed8 shares a report from CyberScoop: Three Democratic senators introduced legislation on Thursday requiring companies to notify customers of data breaches within thirty days of their discovery and imposing a five year prison sentence on organizations caught concealing data breaches. The new bill, called the Data Security and Breach Notification Act, was introduced in the wake of reports that Uber paid $100,000 to cover up a 2016 data breach that affected 57 million users. The scope of what kind of data breach falls under this is limited. For instance, if only a last name, address or phone number is breached, the law would not apply. If an organization “reasonably concludes that there is no reasonable risk of identity theft, fraud, or other unlawful conduct,” the incident is considered exempt from the legislation.

“We need a strong federal law in place to hold companies truly accountable for failing to safeguard data or inform consumers when that information has been stolen by hackers,” Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said in a statement. “Congress can either take action now to pass this long overdue bill or continue to kowtow to special interests who stand in the way of this commonsense proposal. When it comes to doing what’s best for consumers, the choice is clear.”

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Source: Slashdot – Democrat Senators Introduce National Data Breach Notification Law

dryriver writes: CNN has put up a slickly produced and somewhat alarming 360-degree browser video experience that allows the viewer to see firsthand what arctic melt looks like in Greenland. The video takes the viewer to the “Ground Zero” of climate change. Throughout the 7-minute long video, the viewer can interactively look around the locations visited. Voice narration and various scientists featured in the video explain what is happening in the Arctic, what causes the melting, and what the potential consequences are for the world.

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Source: Slashdot – CNN Visualizes Climate Change-Driven Arctic Melt With 360-Degree VR Video

wyattstorch516 writes: Real competition may finally be on the way for the residential broadband market. Verizon will be the first company to introduce 5G wireless broadband in a select number of cities. This will give residential customers an alternative to cable/fiber offerings. 5G wireless can offer speeds in the range of hundreds of megabits per second. Full technical specifications as well as pricing plans have yet to be determined. The launch is scheduled for the second half of 2018.

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Source: Slashdot – Verizon Will Launch 5G Home Internet Access In 2018

System76 is rolling out a firmware update for its recent laptops that will disable the Intel Management Engine altogether. The decision comes after a major security vulnerability was discovered that would allow an attacker with local access to execute arbitrary code. Liliputing reports: What’s noteworthy in the System76 announcement is that the PC maker isn’t just planning to disable Intel ME in computers that ship from now on. The company will send out an update that disables it on existing computers with 6th, 7th, or 8th-gen Intel Core processors. System76 also notes that Intel ME “provides no functionality for System76 laptop customers and is safe to disable.” Right now the firmware update will only be available for computers running Ubuntu 16.04 or later or a related operating system with the System76 driver. But the company says it’s working on developing a command line tool that should work on laptops running other GNU/Linux-based operating systems. System76 says it will also release an update for its desktop computers… but on those machines the update will patch the security vulnerability rather than disabling Intel ME altogether.

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Source: Slashdot – System76 Will Disable Intel Management Engine On Its Linux Laptops

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A 60-year-old electrician in Perth, Western Australia had his termination upheld by a labor grievance commission when it was determined he had been abusing his position and technical knowledge to squeeze in some recreation during working hours. Tom Colella used mylar snack bags to block GPS tracking via his employer-assigned personal digital assistant to go out to play a round of golf — more than 140 times — while he reported he was offsite performing repairs.

In his finding against Colella, Australia Fair Work Commissioner Bernie Riordan wrote: “I have taken into account that Mr Colella openly stored his PDA device in an empty foil ‘Twisties’ bag. As an experienced electrician, Mr Colella knew that this bag would work as a faraday cage, thereby preventing the PDA from working properly — especially the provision of regular GPS co-ordinate updates Mr. Colella went out of his way to hide his whereabouts. He was concerned about Aroona tracking him when the Company introduced the PDA into the workplace. He protested about Aroona having this information at that time. Mr Colella then went out of his way to inhibit the functionality of the PDA by placing it in a foil bag to create a faraday cage.”

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Source: Slashdot – Australian Man Uses Snack Bags As Faraday Cage To Block Tracking By Employer

According a report from Defense One, a United Nations meeting in Geneva earlier this month on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) was derailed when Russia said they would not adhere to any prohibitions on killer robots. “The U.N. meeting appeared to be undermined both by Russia’s disinterest in it and the framework of the meeting itself,” reports International Business Times. “Member nations attempted to come in and define what LAWS’ systems would be, and what restrictions could be developed around autonomous war machines, but no progress was made.” From the report: In a statement, Russia said that the lack of already developed war machines makes coming up with prohibitions on such machines difficult. “According to the Russian Federation, the lack of working samples of such weapons systems remains the main problem in the discussion on LAWS… this can hardly be considered as an argument for taking preventive prohibitive or restrictive measures against LAWS being a by far more complex and wide class of weapons of which the current understanding of humankind is rather approximate,” read the statement.

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Source: Slashdot – Russia Says It Will Ignore Any UN Ban of Killer Robots