An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Geothermal power sources come in many forms, and they're typically much more subtle than steam shooting out of the ground. In reality, geothermal energy could be a big player in our future mix. That is made clear by the U.S. Department of Energy's recently released "GeoVision" report. The report follows similar evaluations of wind, solar, and hydropower energy and leans on information from national labs and other science agencies. It summarizes what we know about the physical resources in the U.S. and also examines the factors that have been limiting geothermal's deployment. Overall, the report shows that we could do a whole lot more with geothermal energy -- both for generating electricity and for heating and cooling -- than we currently do.

There are opportunities to more than double the amount of electricity generated at conventional types of hydrothermal sites, where wells can easily tap into hot water underground. That's economical on the current grid. But the biggest growth potential, according to the report, is in so-called "enhanced geothermal systems." These involve areas where the temperatures are hot but the bedrock lacks enough fractures and pathways for hot water to circulate freely -- or simply lacks the water entirely. Advancing enhanced geothermal techniques alone could produce 45 gigawatts of electricity by 2050. Add in the more conventional plants, and you're at 60 gigawatts -- 26 times more than current geothermal generation. And in a scenario where natural gas prices go up, making geothermal even more competitive, we could double that to 120 gigawatts. That would be fully 16 percent of the total projected 2050 generation in the U.S. The report also estimates that installations of traditional ground-source heat pumps, which circulate fluid through loops in the ground to provide cooling in the summer and heating in the winter, could be increased 14 times over, to 28 million homes by 2050, "covering 23 percent of national residential demand." When factoring in the limitations for how quickly the market could realistically change, the number only goes down to 19 million homes -- still a massive increase.

Meanwhile, district heating systems, where a single, large geothermal installation pipes heat to all the buildings in an area, could be more widely deployed to more than 17,000 locations, covering heating needs for 45 million homes.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Dozens of U.S. government websites appear to contain a flaw enabling anyone to generate URLs with their domains that redirect users to external sites, a handy tool for criminals hoping to infect users with malware or fool them into surrendering personal information. Gizmodo first reported a year ago that a wide variety of U.S. government sites were misconfigured, allowing porn bots to create links that redirected visitors to sites with colorful names like "HD Dog Sex Girl" and "Two Hot Russians Love Animal Porn." Among those affected was the Justice Department's Amber Alert site, links from which apparently redirected users to erotic material.

Gizmodo first reported a year ago that a wide variety of U.S. government sites were misconfigured, allowing porn bots to create links that redirected visitors to sites with colorful names like "HD Dog Sex Girl" and "Two Hot Russians Love Animal Porn." Among those affected was the Justice Department's Amber Alert site, links from which apparently redirected users to erotic material. The ability to generate malicious links that appear to lead to actual government websites can be a handy pretense for criminals conducting phishing campaigns. What's more, these malicious redirects may be used to send users to websites masquerading as official government services, encouraging them to hand over personal information, such as names, addresses, and Social Security numbers.

Troy Hunt, the owner and founder of the well-known and respected data breach notification website "Have I Been Pwned," announced today that he's actively looking for a buyer.

"To date, every line of code, every configuration and every breached record has been handled by me alone. There is no 'HIBP team,' there's one guy keeping the whole thing afloat," Hunt wrote. "It's time for HIBP to grow up. It's time to go from that one guy doing what he can in his available time to a better-resourced and better-funded structure that's able to do way more than what I ever could on my own." Motherboard reports: Over the years, Have I Been Pwned has become the repository for data breaches on the internet, a place where users can search for their email address and see whether they have been part of a data breach. It's now also a service where people can sign up to get notified whenever their accounts get breached. It's perhaps the most useful, free, cybersecurity service in the world. Hunt said he's already had informal conversations with some organizations that might be interested in buying the service. Hunt said he's engaged the financial consulting firm KPMG to look for a buyer.

In the post, Hunt shared some staggering numbers that explain just how big Have I Been Pwned has become: 8 billion breached records, nearly 3 million people subscribed to notifications, who have been emailed about a breach 7 million times, 150,000 unique visitors to the site on a normal day, 10 million on an abnormal day. Regardless of who buys the site, Hunt made a series of commitments on the future of Have I Been Pwned: searches should remain free for consumers, the platform should expand and grow, and, finally, he wants to stay involved in some capacity.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Ten states led by New York and California filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to stop T-Mobile's $26 billion purchase of Sprint, warning that consumer prices will jump due to reduced competition. The complaint comes as the U.S. Justice Department is close to making a final decision on the merger, which would reduce the number of nationwide wireless carriers to three from four. The all-Democratic attorneys general from the 10 states, including Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin, say the reduced competition would cost Sprint and T-Mobile subscribers more than $4.5 billion annually, according to the complaint. If the states' lawsuit goes forward, the courts would have the last say, not the Justice Department, Blair Levin, an analyst with New Street Research, said in a note on Tuesday. The next two big steps will be determining the position of Makan Delrahim, head of the Justice Department's antitrust division, and the identity of the judge assigned to the states' lawsuit, Levin wrote.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday that Canada will ban many single-use plastic items by 2021, including bags, straws, cutlery and stirring sticks, to cut harmful waste damaging the country's ecosystems. CNN reports: Trudeau announced the measures Monday, describing "a problem we simply can't ignore." "Plastic waste ends up in our landfills and incinerators, litters our parks and beaches, and pollutes our rivers, lakes, and oceans, entangling and killing turtles, fish, and marine mammals," the Canadian leader said in a statement. "Less than 10 per cent of plastic used in Canada gets recycled. Without a change in course, Canadians will throw away an estimated $11 billion worth of plastic materials each year by 2030." Trudeau said his government will work with companies that use or create plastic products to set targets on waste.