"Google artificial intelligence beats champion at world’s most complicated board game" by Nsikan Akpan, PBS NewsHour 1/27/2016

Excerpt

An artificial intelligence program developed by researchers at Google can beat a human at the board game GO, which some consider to be the most complicated board game in existence.  And this AI program — dubbed AlphaGo — didn’t defeat any ol’ human, but the European Go champion Fan Hui in a tournament last October by five games to nil.  The findings, published today in the journal Nature, represent a major coup for machine learning algorithms.

“In a nutshell, by publishing this work as peer-reviewed research, we at Nature want to stimulate the debate about transparency in artificial intelligence,” senior editor Tanguy Chouard said at a press briefing yesterday.  “And this paper seems like the best occasion for this, as it goes- should I say, right at the heart of the mystery of what intelligence is.”

Known as wéiqí in Chinese and baduk in Korean, GO originated in China over 2,500 years ago.  The board consist of a 19 by 19 grid of intersecting lines.  Two players take turns placing black and white marbles on individual intersection points.  Once place, the stones can’t be moved, but they can be captured by completely surrounding an opponent’s marble.  The ultimate objective is control more than 50 percent of the board, but since the board is so intricate, there are numerous possibilities for moves.

“So Go is probably the most complex game ever devised by man.  It has 10^170 (that's 10 followed by 170 zeros) possible board configurations, which is more than the numbers of atoms in the universe,” said study author and AlphaGo co-developer Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind.

SPAM - More Than Ever

Ever since the expansion, and loosening of controls, of domain-names (especially in Europe) I've notice an vast proliferation of SPAM.

Example domains:

• @bborc.top
• @caorc.top
• @eeaorc.top
• @faorc.top
• @paorc.top

What I noticed (as shown in example above) is these sites only change the characters between "@" and 'dot-whatever' sometimes changing only one character.


REF:  The Spmhaus Project

ALSO:  Google's Fighting Spam

PC GAMING - Song From the Fallout Fan World

FALLOUT 4 SONG

"Some Things Never Change"

by Miracle Of Sound

PC GAMING - Tomb Raider 2013

Now that my PC Desktop rig is powerful enough I installed "Tomb Raider 2013" (Steam) and WOW what a game.

This is the first time I've seen a console game that was very well ported to PC.  With really usable PC controls.

The graphics are outstanding, the story line very consistent, and the 'puzzles' neat.

"Tomb Raider" is addictive.  Hail Lara Croft, ultimate survivor.

Down side, check-point saves and saves at campfires.

CYBER WARS - The New Law

"Will a new cybersecurity law make us safer?" PBS NewsHour 12/29/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Folded into the massive spending and tax cut bill was a significant and controversial new law on cybersecurity.  The act encourages private companies to share data about hacks with the government, but it's raising questions among security advocates and privacy groups alike.  Jeffrey Brown talks to James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Elissa Shevinsky of JeKuDo.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  Before the president and Congress left town for the holidays, they managed to enact a massive 2,000-page package of spending and tax cuts.  Typically, these laws draw attention only for the chaos they create, like shutting down the government.

But there’s a lot more deep inside, in this case, a significant and controversial new law governing cyber-security and Internet data.  The new law encourages private companies to share data about cyber-hacks with the government.  It protects companies from liability, and it also allows data to shared with other companies and with the Department of Homeland Security.

Lawmakers from both parties said it was a good deal.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-Calif.:  If someone sees a particular virus or harmful cyber-signature, they should tell others, so they can protect themselves.  That’s what this bill does.

REP. DEVIN NUNES, R-Calif.:  We believe that sharing is an area where you really can’t do any harm.  It doesn’t hurt anybody to have a way to talk.  But, right now, they can’t even talk.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-Maine:  Does it make sense that we require one case of measles to be reported to a federal government agency, but not a cyber-attack?

GWEN IFILL:  But there are some security advocates and privacy groups who say the law manages to go too far and not quite far enough.

Jeffrey Brown has that debate.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  To understand more, we’re joined by James Lewis, senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Elissa Shevinsky, founder of JeKuDo, a tech start-up designed to provide private communications to customers.