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+ - 309 Why Your Sysadmin Hates You->

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes "We've learned many lessons in the fallout from Edward Snowden's whistleblowing and flight to Hong Kong, but here's an important one: Never piss off your sysadmin. Even if your organization isn't running a secret, civil-rights violating surveillance program, you're probably managing to annoy your admins in a number of more pedestrian ways that might still have blowback for you. Learn to stay on their good side by going along with their reasonable requests and being specific with your complaints."
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+ - 265 BT Chief To Become British Government Minister->

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes "BT chief Ian Livingston is leaving the British telecom provider to become a government minister. The executive has been appointed a seat in the House of Lords, which enables him to become Minister for Trade and Investment without having to be elected as a Member of the lower house of Parliament. Livingston has seen BT go from a £134 million loss in 2008 when he was appointed, to a profit of £2.5 billion in 2012. It still has a monopoly over certain sectors of the British telecom market, and has won all the contracts so far for rolling out broadband to rural areas."
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+ - 102 Thwarting Facial Recognition Systems With Privacy Visors

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Despite Google announcement that it won't allow facial recognition on Google Glass (yet) and Facebook turning it off in Europe, every person should be aware that it is only a matter of time until the option is widely used — and not just on social networks or futuristic projects. So far, you can't do much about it except keep your head down, covered with a wide-brimmed hat, and hope that someone won't snap a clear photo of you. But that's not a great solution if you don't want your life dramatically changed and your interactions with the world and the people in it made difficult. Professor Echizen has developed a device he dubbed "privacy visor", which uses 11 near-infrared LEDs to thwart face detection systems."

+ - 106 Makala Habba at Inventure Academy->

Submitted by samiras
samiras writes "Makala Habba was the celebration for Kindergarteners where they performed plays on the stage.it was a special treat for the kids parents as well who were present to witness their children's event"
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+ - 94 Sagita's Hot Air-Powered Sherpa Rethinks the Ultra-Light Helicopter->

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes "Certainly one of the more intriguing things on display at this year's Paris Air Show, the Sherpa by Belgian startup Sagita aims to make the helicopter simpler, more efficient, more reliable and more affordable. The helicopter's rotors are directly driven by turbines which are themselves powered by hot air and fumes from the helicopter's power plant. Sagita claims that this makes the the aircraft approximately 85 percent efficient while doing away with the need for a tail rotor."
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+ - 103 Project proposes stripped-down ARM processor->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Professor David May, of Bristol University, has a project to develop a version of the ARM Thumb instruction set based on the 30 or so most useful instructions, and which can be documented in just a few pages. Professor May wants simplicity to help him teach students how processors work but also believes such architectures will prove more efficient than contemporary ones, which have become encumbered with special case additions."
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+ - 114 The House wants a 'sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars'->

Submitted by MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes "Politico reports in a June 18, 2013 story that House Republicans have added a Mars base to its demands for a lunar base in the draft 2013 NASA Authorization bill. Both the Bush era Constellation program and President Obama space plan envisioned eventual human expeditions to Mars. But if Politico is correct, the new bill will be the first time an official piece of legislation will call for permanent habitation of the Red Planet.

The actual legislative language states, “The [NASA] Administrator shall establish a program to develop a sustained human presence on the Moon and the surface of Mars.”"
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+ - 114 AR glasses let profs know if students are understanding their lectures->

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes "Despite university professors telling their students to shout out if they don’t understand what’s being said in a lecture, few students are likely to feel comfortable raising their hand in front of the class and saying “I don’t get it.” Scientists at Spain’s la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid are hoping to address that situation, with a set of augmented reality glasses that let profs see who’s “not getting it,” without those students having to say so verbally."
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+ - 101 The Big Picture: How do I Affect the Environment?->

Submitted by Philip Presley
Philip Presley writes "It’s impossible to read through a newspaper without encountering one or two articles about the changing global environmental climate. It’s hard to imagine your own role in the macroenvironment, but it’s definitely possible. Have you ever wondered about your personal impact on the environment? There are many possible ways to interpret the environmental impact on everyday things like water consumption and driving. The average American will own up to 15 computers during a lifetime—a figure that will only increase with the widespread adoption of computers. An average American also throws away 43,371 cans during one liftime and creates about 500 pounds of dirty laundry a year. Even if you decide to recycle every single bottle of water you decide to purchase, energy is still going into turning your waste into something that can be used again for a different purpose. Doing laundry also uses lots of water and energy; if you do a load of laundry every two days for a year, that’s enough energy to fly roundtrip from Washington DC to Boston (including the 15 minute taxi ride from your home to the airport)."
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+ - 104 Aviation Experts: "TWA 800 brought down by ordinance explosions"->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A group of whistleblowers, including a number of aviation experts, have come forward in a new documentary to claim that the official explanation for the crash of TWA Flight 800 was wrong and a gas tank explosion did not bring down the flight off the coast of Long Island 17 years ago.

âoe..This team of investigators who actually handled the wreckage and victimsâ(TM) bodies, prove that the officially proposed fuel-air explosion did not cause the crash, ...They also provide radar and forensic evidence proving that one or more ordinance explosions outside the aircraft caused the crash.â

The whistleblower team, which includes investigators-at the time-from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), TWA, and the Airline Pilots Association, have since retired from their positions. They claim that at the time, they were placed under a gag order by the NTSB, which they charged falsified the official conclusion of the cause of the crash. They indicated they would elaborate more in a Wednesday media briefing."
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+ - 198 Sagita Displays Hot Air Powered Helicopter

Submitted by rcastro0
rcastro0 writes "Gizmag reports on the Sherpa, an interesting helicopter design at this year's Paris Air Show. As the article explains "Rather than driving the rotors directly, the Sherpa's engine instead powers a compressor with an air intake at the rear of the helicopter." There's no tail rotor. This approach is supposed to be more efficient, more reliable and more affordable than the traditional. A one-fifth scale model was shown to fly. Sagita, the 2008 startup behind the project, has yet to build a full scale prototype. They plan to sell a Sherpa two-seater for around US$ 200k in 3 years."

+ - 191 Source Code for Carberp Trojan Up for Sale->

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes "Researchers have found the source code for the Carberp Trojan for sale in underground forums and allegedly includes the full source code of Carberp with comments, Web injects, all the modules used by Carberp, the source code of RDPxTerm and Gazavar (the worm module), the admin panel for the command-and-control server, the bootkit module, among others.

Interestingly, a seller going by the name of "madeinrm" had the price set at $5,000, while researchers from Trusteer came across what appears to be a different seller offering Carberp source code, but with a hefty $50,000 price tag, and said to be sold in coordination with the Carberp author.

Researchers from Trusteer suggest that a "breach of contract by a Carberp seller could have caused a buyer to take revenge and sell the source code.

Earlier this year, Russian authorities claimed to have captured the mastermind behind the Carberp banking Trojan and other members of the criminal gang. The cybercrime ring, led by a 28-year old Russian national, allegedly has been in operation since 2009 and has stolen approximately $250 million. In March 2012, authorities arrested and broke up a gang that used Carberp to steal $2 million from over 90 individual bank accounts.

It's very likely that once the code is sold, the new buyers would add on new features and distribute those variants to create newer versions of sophisticated malware."
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+ - 313 NSA's Role In Terror Cases Concealed From Defense Lawyers

Submitted by Rick Zeman
Rick Zeman writes ""Confidentiality is critical to national security." So wrote the Justice Department in concealing the NSA's role in two wiretap cases. However, now that the NSA is under the gun, it's apparently not, according to New York attorney Joshua Dratel: “National security is about keeping illegal conduct concealed from the American public until you’re forced to justify it because someone ratted you out" as the first he heard of the NSA's role in his client's case was "....when [FBI deputy director Sean] Joyce disclosed it on CSPAN to argue for the effectiveness of the NSA’s spying.
Dratel challenged the legality of the spying in 2011, and asked a federal judge to order the government to produce the wiretap application the FBI gave the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify the surveillance.
“Disclosure of the FISA applications to defense counsel – who possess the requisite security clearance – is also necessary to an accurate determination of the legality of the FISA surveillance, as otherwise the defense will be completely in the dark with respect to the basis for the FISA surveillance,” wrote Dratel.

The government fought the request in a remarkable 60-page reply, some of it redacted as classified in the public docket. The Justice Department argued that the defendants had no right to see any of the filings from the secret court, and instead the judge could review the filings alone in chambers. “Confidentiality is critical to national security,” the government wrote."

+ - 126 Ask Slashdot: Choosing a snooping-free VPS

Submitted by jeconom
jeconom writes "The latest PRISM story / scandal / revelation confirmed what everyone in the IT world already knew: that US agencies have unlimited access to all data stored in every US company. As Trevor Pott notes, the 'Not subject to American law' label may soon become the next desirable IT feature.
I plan to launch a web service that will contain a lot of users’ documents and data. I have to buy a VPS hosting, and although choosing a non-US company seems the obvious choice, I know that many countries have close ties to the US as the recent Megaupload raid highlighted. Which companies (or countries) would you propose as a reasonably safe haven with respect to data protection from US agencies?"

+ - 113 Lobster, a new game programming language, now available as Open Source

Submitted by Aardappel
Aardappel writes "Lobster ( http://strlen.com/lobster ) is a new programming language targeting game programming specifically, building on top of OpenGL, SDL 2 and FreeType. The language looks superficially similar to Python, but is its own blend of fun features. Open Source (ZLIB license) and available on GitHub ( https://github.com/aardappel/lobster )."

+ - 102 BlackBerry Z10 Incurs 'Critical' Security Warning->

Submitted by alancronin
alancronin writes "BlackBerry has issued a security advisory notice to those who have bought its flagship Z10 touchscreen smartphone — the first BlackBerry 10 device to launch following the company's bid for revival, back in February. The advisory, which was issued last week, notes a bug that relates to BlackBerry Protect, its security and backup utility, rather than the phone's operating system itself. According to the advisory, an escalation of privilege vulnerability exists in the software of some Z10 phones that could allow a malicious app to "take advantage" of weak permissions in the in-built security software. This could allow a hacker to gain access to the device's password, and intercept and prevent the device from being wiped. The "critical" factor is that the security flaw could dupe the device's user into installing an app which resets the device password through BlackBerry Protect. Though the device may be in the user's hands, its data is under the control of the hacker."
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+ - 120 Self-Hosted Gmail Alternatives for the PRISM Age->

Submitted by reifman
reifman writes "Revisiting this post on Gmail alternatives for the post-Snowden-NSA era, I've written up a detailed tutorial for migrating from gmail to open source iRedMail in the cloud. One key takeaway is that securing the bulk of your email from government snooping beyond the per-message level is a task whose complexity far exceeds the capacity of the average person. Conversely, it remains quite easy for really bad people to encrypt their most private communications."
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+ - 120 Why Taliban would talk as U.S. withdrawal looms->

Submitted by zhubaobao
zhubaobao writes "The United States will have its first formal meeting with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, on Thursday, a source close to the talks who did not want to be named told CNN.

Meanwhile, the Taliban told reporters in Doha that they want to improve relations with the world. CNN's Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson explains what's happening and why now."
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+ - 242 Google's crazy lack of focus: Is it really serious about enterprise?->

Submitted by curtwoodward
curtwoodward writes "Driverless cars. Balloon-based wireless networks. Face-mounted computers. Gigabit broadband networks. In recent months, Google has been unveiling a series of transformative side projects that paint a picture of the search pioneer expanding far beyond an online advertising company. At the same time, Google has been trying to convince enterprise software buyers that it's finally, really, truly serious about competing with Microsoft for their business. Which version of Google's future should you believe?"
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