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Security

Submission + - VPN Service for Deployed US Navy Ship 3

Submitted by
shinjikun34
shinjikun34 writes: "I am currently stationed on a US Navy ship deployed in a country with restrictive internet policies. We are currently in the process of setting up an entertainment internet connection for the crew to use in their downtime. I suggested, and thereby tasked with finding, a vpn service that would support 100 to 500 devices, have an end point inside the Continental United States, is reasonably priced, and secure/trustworthy. Something that is safe to use for banking and other financial affairs. Fast enough to support several voip calls (skype, google voice, etc) along side online gaming, with possible movie/music streaming. Has an end point in the US to allow for use of Google Books, Netflix, Hulu, and other services that restrict access based on region. I, in all honesty, have no idea where to begin searching and I ask the good folks of /. to aid me in my quest. One of the main requirements I was given is the company has to be trustworthy (and a company). A computer in someone's closet hosting a vpn isn't acceptable.

What services would /. recommend?
(I understand that our connection without a vpn probably won't be able to handle the described load but I would prefer a vpn service that offers capacity above our need. That way when T/S'ing the connection the vpn can be at least partially ruled out.)"
Businesses

Submission + - Apple Transitions Hardware Leadership (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "Apple will begin transitioning the leadership role within its hardware engineering department, now that Bob Mansfield, who led the engineering of many of Apple's most successful products since 2005, has decided to retire. Apple was quick to name Dan Riccio — currently the VP of hardware engineering for the iPad — as Mansfield's successor, mentioning that Riccio will learn the new role over several months. During that time, the hardware engineering team will continue to report to Mansfield."
PHP

Submission + - The PHP Singularity (codinghorror.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror has a post about the awfulness of PHP — or, rather, a post about posts about the awfulness of PHP. He points out that PHP has been the whipping boy for the developer community for years, and while everybody seems happy to complain about it, nobody seems willing to do anything about it. He writes, 'From my perspective, the point of all these "PHP is broken" rants is not just to complain, but to help educate and potentially warn off new coders starting new codebases. Some fine, even historic work has been done in PHP despite the madness, unquestionably. But now we need to work together to fix what is broken. The best way to fix the PHP problem at this point is to make the alternatives so outstanding that the choice of the better hammer becomes obvious.'
Censorship

Submission + - Twitter Clampdown Could Impede Anonymous Tweets (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by
judgecorp
judgecorp writes: "Twitter is going to clamp down on abuse and "trolling" according to its CEO Dick Costolo. Actions could include hiding replies from users who do not have any followers or biographical information. The difficulty is that moves to stop trolling could also curtail the anonymous Tweets which have been useful for protest in repressive regimes."
The Internet

Submission + - ICANN Cancels 'Digital Archery' Program (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "ICANN announced today that it has canceled the Digital Archery contest that it had planned to use to decide which gTLD applications would be evaluated first and gave no indication of what it will do instead. In making the announcement, Cherine Chalaby, chair of the gTLD Program Committee, said, 'We will not make a decision in Prague but will take all of the ideas into account and build a roadmap,' adding that the roadmap will detail the next steps and timelines as well as assess implications to applicants and the risk to the program."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - A Cashless, High-Value, Anonymous Currency: How? (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruh
jfruh writes: "The cashless future is one of those concepts that always seems to be just around the corner, but never quite gets here. There's been a lot of hype around Sweden going almost cashless, but most transactions there use easily traceable credit and debit cards. Bitcoin offers anonymity, but isn't backed by any government and has seen high-profile hacks and collapses in value. Could an experiment brewing in Canada finally take us to cashless nirvana?"
Security

Submission + - Radical Reduction in Online Vulnerabilities (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: WhiteHat Security reviewed serious vulnerabilities in websites during 2011, examining the severity and duration of the most critical vulnerabilities from 7,000 websites. Their research suggests that the average number of serious vulnerabilities found per website per year in 2011 was 79, a substantial reduction from 230 in 2010 and down from 1,111 in 2007. Despite the significant improvement in the state of website security, organizational challenges in creating security programs that balance breadth of coverage and depth of testing leave large-scale attack surfaces or small, but very high-risk vulnerabilities open to attackers.
Google

Submission + - Lone Grad Student Scooped the Government (motherjones.com)

Submitted by Pigskin-Referee
Pigskin-Referee writes: Jonathan Mayer had a hunch.

A gifted computer scientist, Mayer suspected that online advertisers might be getting around browser settings that are designed to block tracking devices known as cookies. If his instinct was right, advertisers were following people as they moved from one website to another even though their browsers were configured to prevent this sort of digital shadowing. Working long hours at his office, Mayer ran a series of clever tests in which he purchased ads that acted as sniffers for the sort of unauthorized cookies he was looking for. He hit the jackpot, unearthing one of the biggest privacy scandals of the past year: Google was secretly planting cookies on a vast number of iPhone browsers. Mayer thinks millions of iPhones were targeted by Google.
Software

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What Defines Good Developer Culture?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We are a team of 6 people developing applications for mobile devices (Android & iOS). In our company, which consists of many teams responsible for "classic" software development, business intelligence, virtualization, hardware, etc., we are kind of a small startup because we were the first to use agile methods like Scrum and we are open to new technologies and methods. Also our team is pretty young with me being the oldest with 30 years.

We would like to further raise productivity and motivation and thus are currently collecting points which make up a good developer/hacker culture and which may be improved in our team/company. This can be points that we can either improve ourselves or have to pass on to management.

I would like to know what in your opinion defines good, modern developer culture? What does developer culture consists of?

For example is it

- clearly defined career opportunities
- geeky office
- benefits like trips to extraordinary conferences like WWDC or Google I/O
- ...

Please let me know.

Submission + - 7000 Irish e-voting machines to be scrapped (independent.ie)

Submitted by lampsie
lampsie writes: You may recall back in January 2012 that the Irish government had deemed their stock of 7000 e-voting machines 'worthless'. Turns out they are not — after spending upwards of €54 million euro purchasing them almost a decade ago, all 7000 will now be scrapped for €70,000 (just over nine euros each). The machines were scrapped because 'they could not be guaranteed to be safe from tampering [...] and they could not produce a printout so that votes/results could be double-checked.'
Books

Submission + - UK company demos colour video animation on electronic paper (techworld.com)

Submitted by sweetpea86
sweetpea86 writes: Plastic electronics company Plastic Logic has demonstrated colour video animation on a flexible plastic display, which it claims is the first example of an organic thin-film transistor (OTFT) driving electronic paper at video rate. The demonstration proves that the potential uses of electronic paper extend far beyond monochrome text-based e-readers to more sophisticated tablet-style devices that can run colour video, while still keeping power consumption low.
Google

Submission + - Google Onshores Manufacturing of the Nexus Q (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Etched into the base of Google's new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A. The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. "We've been absent for so long, we decided, 'Why don't we try it and see what happens?' "
Space

Submission + - Titan may harbour a hidden ocean of water (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Data gathered by NASA’s Cassini probe as it repeatedly swept past Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, offers the best evidence yet that the smog-swaddled satellite has a substantial ocean of water sloshing beneath a thick icy crust.
Analyses of probe data suggest that the surface of the moon can rise and fall by up to 10 metres during each orbit. The most likely explanation for that kind of movement is that an icy shell dozens of kilometres thick floats atop a global ocean. The new analysis, together with the results of previous studies, hint that Titan’s ocean may lie no more than 100 km below the moon’s surface (abstract)."
Science

Submission + - Exxon CEO: Warming Happening, Society Will Adapt, But Public Too Dumb

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: In a speech Wednesday, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said. And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said. Tillerson blamed a public that is "illiterate" in science and math, a "lazy" press, and advocacy groups that "manufacture fear" for energy misconceptions in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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