Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Stupid Patent of the Month: A Patent on Using Mathematical Proofs In some fields, software bugs are more than the proverbial pain in the neck. When software has to ensure that an airplane lands safely, or that a pacemaker keeps operating, there’s no room for error. The idea that mathematical proofs could be used to prove that software is error-free has been around since the 1970s , and is known as “formal verification.” But like a lot of technologies that some visionaries saw coming, it took time to develop. In recent years, computing power has become cheap enough for formal verification to become practical for more software applications . Unfortunately, last month, the field had a monkey wrench thrown into it, in the form of U.S. Patent No. 10,109,010 , which the patent office awarded to a U.K.-based company called Aesthetic Integration Ltd. Claim 1 of the patent describes creating mathematical “axioms”—formal mathematical statements—that describe a computerized trading forum....

Yes, the EU’s New #CopyrightDirective is All About Filters When the EU started planning its new Copyright Directive (the “Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive”), a group of powerful entertainment industry lobbyists pushed a terrible idea: a mandate that all online platforms would have to create crowdsourced databases of “copyrighted materials” and then block users from posting anything that matched the contents of those databases. At the time, we, along with academics and technologists explained why this would undermine the Internet, even as it would prove unworkable. The filters would be incredibly expensive to create, would erroneously block whole libraries’ worth of legitimate materials, allow libraries’ more worth of infringing materials to slip through, and would not be capable of sorting out “fair dealing” uses of copyrighted works from infringing ones. The Commission nonetheless included it in their original draft. Two years later, after the European Parliamen...

Data trends, statistics and quantifiable indicators had been a part of supply chain management for long. But all is changing now in a very rapid form. The type of real time analysis, which is available, out of large gathered unstructured data is making the difference.  The big data analysis can uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful information that can help organizations make more informed business decisions at all levels. Data analysis options are readily available and can be used in areas of inventory management, transportation, logistics and forecasting. In warehouses, digital cameras are used to monitor stock levels. This is taken further for forecasting. The same data from camera can be used through machine learning algorithms to be fed in an intelligent stock management system to predict ordering levels. In other words, the whole setup of warehouses and distribution centers can run on its own with very little hu...

House Intelligence Committee’s NSA Surveillance Bill Includes New Threats and Old Thrown last-minute into a torrent of competing legislation, a new bill meant to expand the NSA’s broad surveillance powers is the most recent threat to American privacy. It increases who is subject to surveillance, allows warrantless search of American communications, expands how collected data can be used, and treats constitutional protections as voluntary. The bill must be stopped immediately. There is little time: despite the bill’s evening release yesterday, November 29, a committee is scheduled to markup the bill tomorrow, December 1. The bill is called the FISA Amendments Reauthorization Act of 2017 , and it was introduced by Rep. Nunes (R-CA), the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It shares the same name as another bill introduced in the Senate in October. Both bills are attempts to reauthorize Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, a powerful surveillance auth...

When Tweets Are Governmental Business, Officials Don’t Get to Pick and Choose Who Gets To Receive, Comment On, And Reply to Them. That Goes For the President, Too We’ve taken a stand for the First Amendment rights of individuals to receive and comment on social media posts from governmental officials and agencies. We’ve received a lot of good questions about why we believe that public servants—mayors, sheriffs, senators, even President Donald Trump—can’t block people whose views they dislike on Twitter without violating those persons’ free speech rights. Some question why citizens have a right to receive an official’s private Twitter account—@realdonaldtrump, for example. Others point out that Twitter isn’t a government forum with an obligation to allow users access to Trump’s messages, and others say users can still use workarounds to see the tweets of those who have block...

According to the World Economic Forum, digital transformation in the Oil & Gas industry could unlock approximately $1.6 trillion of value for the industry, its customers and wider society. Digital transformation is emerging as a business strategy that leverages digitalization to lower costs and increase profitability across the business. As a broad technological movement, digitalization implies a high degree of connectivity and analysis of data and a vast acceleration in the ability to quickly assess fluid business situations and to make accurate predictions and decisions.  The amount of time and degree of investment required in the past to perform such work was prohibitive. Today, acquiring such abilities is both affordable and a prerequisite for remaining competitive. The digital transformation trend is spawning new developments in the areas of simulation and virtual and augmented reality, particularly in the areas of oil and gas engineering and training operations. On the e...

New European Copyright Enforcement Plans Loom Large Even as Users Revolt Against Filter Proposal Today EFF joined over 80 groups in writing once again  [PDF] to European politicians about disastrous new EU copyright proposals. Along with human and digital rights organizations, media freedom organizations, publishers, journalists, libraries, scientific and research institutions, educational institutions including universities, creator representatives, consumers, software developers, start-ups, technology businesses and Internet service providers, we wrote to share our respectful but serious concerns that discussions in the Council and European Commission on the Copyright Directive are on the verge of causing irreparable damage to our fundamental rights and freedoms, our economy and competitiveness, our education and research, our innovation and competition, our creativity and our culture. Since we last wrote about these copyright discussions, the LIBE (Civil Liberties) comm...

EFF Demands Information About Secretive Government Tattoo Recognition Technology Government Program Is Aimed at Using Body Art to Identify Religions, Nationalities, and Political Beliefs Washington, D.C. – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Homeland Security today, demanding records about the agencies’ work on the federal Tattoo Recognition Technology program. This secretive program involves a coalition of government, academia, and private industry working to develop a series of algorithms that would rapidly detect tattoos, identify people via their tattoos, and match people with others who have similar body art—as well as flagging tattoos believed to be connected to religious and ethnic symbols. This type of surveillance raises profound religious, speech, and privacy concerns. Moreover, the limited information that EFF has been able to obtain about the program has already r...

As FCC Contemplates Repealing Net Neutrality Protections, Indian Telecom Regulator Reaffirms Support for Principles of Non-Discrimination Net neutrality is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without improper discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services. Even as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pushing a plan to end net neutrality protections in the U.S., India’s telecom regulator has called for strengthening the principle of non-discriminatory access to the Internet. This week the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended amending all existing ISP licenses in India to explicitly prohibit discriminatory traffic management practices. Having rules in place that restrict ISPs and telecom providers’ ability to control access to content via their networks is important for a free and an open Internet. Such rules prevent network providers from degrading the qual...

Tenta Browser Now Includes HTTPS Everywhere Securely browsing the Internet—even when you know what you’re doing—is tough. That’s partly why, nearly seven years ago, EFF worked together with The Tor Project to develop a privacy tool called HTTPS Everywhere, which automatically provides users with secure, encrypted connections to websites when available. While HTTPS Everywhere can be installed on a number of desktop browsers, there are fewer options for mobile devices. One mobile browser app has fixed that. Starting today, HTTPS Everywhere is now included by default, with no extra installation, in the mobile browser Tenta Browser, available on the Google Play Store. The integration of HTTPS Everywhere helps declutter the landscape of current mobile browser apps, many of which advertise themselves as security-focused, with promises of incognito mode, private browsing, secure tunnels, auto proxy abilities, VPN services, and more. EFF appreciates this move and the effort taken by Ten...

In previous posts I’ve covered the benefits the IIoT offers in food and beverage for both companies and consumers . But one thing we haven’t discussed is how easy it can be to get started with the IIoT. While the IIoT and digital transformation may sound intimidating, there are several factors that make these deployments less complicated than you might initially think, especially if you focus your efforts on extending the value of your current investments . This blog post will cover three reasons implementing the IIoT can be simple and straightforward. Shadow sensing One of the main benefits the IIoT offers is an alternate, non-intrusive path for data collection and analytics. This means upgrades can be completed without connecting, rewiring or changing existing equipment control systems and PLCs. IIoT devices and wireless connectivity can easily capture sensor data without dramatic wiring needs. These “shadow sensors” collect data directly from plant assets and production process...

House Internet Censorship Bill Is Just Like the Senate Bill, Except Worse SESTA and FOSTA Are Cut from the Same Cloth. Both Would Be Disastrous for Online Communities There are two bills racing through Congress that would undermine your right to free expression online and threaten the online communities that we all rely on. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, S. 1693 ) and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865 ) might sound noble, but they would do nothing to fight sex traffickers. What they would do is force online web platforms to police their users’ activity much more stringently than ever before, silencing a lot of innocent voices in the process. We’ve already written extensively about SESTA and the dangers it would pose to online communities, but as the House of Representatives considers moving on FOSTA , it’s time to reiterate that all of the major flaws in SESTA are in FOSTA too. Section 230 Protects Online Communitie...