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Submission + - Why open source needs accessibility standards (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As the user base of open source software continues to grow, developers have the responsibility of making their software accessible to all potential users, including people with disabilities. While programs designed specifically to provide accessibility exist in the development sphere of open source software, most applications have little to no native accessibility support.

A definitive step forward in improving the convenience of open source software is to consider a wider variety of input and output peripherals available to potential users. While developing a program for use with a mouse, keyboard, and computer monitor is an obvious standard, user experience designers need to look at less conventional methods of hardware interaction. Designing an application with the intent of the user employing a screen reader requires an entirely different development procedure and focus.

Submission + - Jamie Oliver's Website Serving Malware (malwarebytes.org) 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: While routinely checking the latest exploited websites, Malwarebytes came across a strange infection pattern that seemed to start from the official site of British chef Jamie Oliver. Contrary to most web-borne exploits we see lately, this one was not the result of malicious advertising but rather carefully placed malicious JavaScript injection in the site itself. This, in turn, has been used to serve visitors a delicious meal consisting an exploit kit downloading the Dorkbot trojan. Malwarebytes has contacted the administrators immediately upon discovery of this infection.

Submission + - US May Sell Armed Drones (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nations allied with the United States may soon be able to purchase armed, unmanned aircraft, according to an updated U.S. arms policy. Purchase requests will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and foreign military bodies would have to agree to a set of "proper use" rules in order for the U.S. to go ahead with the sale. For example: "Armed and other advanced UAS are to be used in operations involving the use of force only when there is a lawful basis for use of force under international law, such as national self-defense." These rules have done nothing to silence critics of the plan, who point out that the U.S. has killed civilians during remote strikes without much accountability. The drones are estimated to cost $10-15 million.

Submission + - Bill Nye Botches Deflate-Gate Science 1

Submitted by spiedrazer
spiedrazer writes: It looks like America's favorite non-scientist science authority has weighed in on the physics of the NE Patriots Deflate-Gate "scandal", saying that to change the pressure in a football, you need to have a needle to either let air in our out. This, of course, completely ignores the Ideal Gas Law and the effect that changing temperature would have on the pressure of the gas within the ball. MIT did a "slightly" more scientific look at the physics here and found a pretty significant effect.

I didn't realize that Bill Nye had so little science background, but from his wikipedia page: "Nye began his professional entertainment career as a writer/actor on a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle, Washington, called Almost Live!. The host of the show, Ross Shafer, suggested he do some scientific demonstrations in a six-minute segment, and take on the nickname "The Science Guy".[14] His other main recurring role on Almost Live! was as Speedwalker, a speedwalking Seattle superhero."

Submission + - GCHQ intercepted emails from The New York Times, Reuters, BBC, and others (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: GCHQ's bulk surveillance of electronic communications has scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the US and UK's largest media organisations, analysis of documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Emails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post were saved by GCHQ and shared on the agency's intranet as part of a test exercise by the signals intelligence agency.

Submission + - AltSlashdot is coming (altslashdot.org) 3

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: I've registered "AltSlashdot.org". I intend to run a site much like Slashdot used to be — better articles, less decoration and less "in your face" functionality. I'm reviewing and getting comfortable with slashcode right now. I'm looking for volunteers to help with setup and running the site. If the site becomes profitable, I intend to hire from the pool of volunteers. If you've ever wanted to participate in a site like Slashdot, here's your chance! I'm particularly in need of people who can:
  • Set up and manage a high-traffic site (servers, load-balancers, data sites, &c)
  • Edit story submissions
  • HTML, CSS, and script creation/bugfix/repair

Contact me if interested John (at) AltSlashdot (dot) org

Submission + - ReactOS 0.3.16 has been released (reactos.org) 1

Submitted by jeditobe
jeditobe writes: The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.3.16. A little under a year has passed since the previous release and a significant amount of progress has been made. Some of the most significant include completion of the CSRSS rewrite and the first stages of a shell32 rewrite. 0.3.16 is in many ways a prelude to several new features that will provide a noticeable enhancement to user visible functionality. A preview can be seen in the form of theme support, which while disabled by default can be turned on to demonstrate the Lautus theme developed by community member Maciej Janiszewki. Another user visible change is a new network card driver for the RTL8139, allowing ReactOS to support newer versions of QEMU out of the box. Release images can be found in the usual spot here.

And for those of you that have not heard of it yet, the project is running a Kickstarter campaign in the form of the Thorium Cloud Desktop. If you want to help the project raise the funds to hire multiple full time developers and bring ReactOS to a state where it can be used for day to day activities, then please spread the word and put up a few bucks to back us.

Submission + - AMC theatres call FBI to arrest a Google Glass user (the-gadgeteer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Google Glass user is interrogated without legal counsel for a couple of hours under suspicion that he may have been recording a film in the AMC movie theater. Although the matter could have been cleared in minutes, federal agents insisted on interrogating the user for hours. So long for our constitutional freedoms.

Submission + - Apple may no longer support older OS X versions (zdnet.com)

Submitted by lseltzer
lseltzer writes: Has Apple changed their policy on security updates for versions of OS X older than the current one? Apple has released Mavericks and disclosed the 50+ vulnerabilities fixed in it, but they have not released an update for Mountain Lion. Therefore, Mountain Lion users have 50+ unpatched vulnerabilities. The company has no policy on product lifecycle, but they have always released security updates for at least the prior version of OS X. The new approach indicates that they want to make the OS X lifecycle like the iOS one: There is only one current versions and if you want any support you will upgrade to it.

Submission + - Google's 'Project Shield' Will Offer Cyberattack Protection to At-Risk Web Sites

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Forbes Magazine reports that Google will offer free protection for websites serving media, elections and human rights related content against so-called “distributed denial-of-service” cyberattacks that flood them with junk traffic from hundreds or thousands of computers, taking them offline. The project, which is part of the company’s Google Ideas initiative to take on global problems, has already been working for months with at-risk sites around the world in countries like Iran, Syria, Burma and other places where sites with political content are often subject to attack, and will expand in its initial phase to hundreds of sites. “We’re able to take the people who face the greatest threats to [distributed denial of service] attacks and get them behind our protection,” says CJ Adams. “If they face an attack, it has to get through us first, and after years of working on this we’re pretty good at stopping these attacks.” The service is currently invite-only and is accepting applications from websites serving news, human rights or elections-related content. In addition to the Shield protection service, Google is also launching a digital attack map to show real-time cyberattacks around the world, pulling data from the DDOS analysis service Arbor Networks. Among the beta users of Project Shield are the Persian-language political blog Balatarin, a Syrian website called Aymta that provides early warnings of scud missile launches, and an election monitoring website in Kenya called the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission. “The thing that can take many of these sites offline is so small to us. We can absorb it,” says Adams. “That’s made this something we can provide fairly easily. It has a huge impact for them, and we can take the hit.”

Submission + - Your Next Network Operating System is Linux (infoworld.com)

Submitted by jrepin
jrepin writes: Everywhere you look, change is afoot in computer networking. As data centers grow in size and complexity, traditional tools are proving too slow or too cumbersome to handle that expansion. Dinesh Dutt is Chief Scientist at Cumulus Networks. Cumulus has been working to change the way we think about networks altogether by dispensing with the usual software/hardware lockstep, and instead using Linux as the operating system on network hardware. In this week's New Tech Forum, Dinesh details the reasons and the means by which we may see Linux take over yet another aspect of computing: the network itself.

Submission + - 'Real-Life Lightsabers' Created by Harvard-MIT Researchers (hngn.com)

Submitted by AnonyAss Coward
AnonyAss Coward writes: How far away are Star-Wars like light sabers? Maybe, one day we may see an actual light sabre. Based on research by Prof. Mikhail Lukin from Harvard University and Prof. Vladan Vuletic from MIT worked together in creating a new state of matter showing a very close similarity to the lightsaber Anakin Skywalker used to defend himself in Star Wars. According to the research, the research team has “managed to coax photos into binding together to form molecules,” thus creating ‘photonic molecules.’

Submission + - Google to Encrypt All Keyword Searches

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Danny Sullivan reports that in the past month, Google has quietly made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity to provide “extra protection” for searchers, and possibly to block NSA spying activity. In October 2011, Google began encrypting searches for anyone who was logged into Google. The reason given was privacy. Now, Google has flipped on encryption for people who aren’t even signed-in. In June, Google was accused of cooperating with the NSA to give the agency instant and direct access to its search data through the PRISM spying program, something the company has strongly denied. "I suspect the increased encryption is related to Google’s NSA-pushback," writes Sullivan. "It may also help ease pressure Google’s feeling from tiny players like Duck Duck Go making a “secure search” growth pitch to the media."

Submission + - Utility sets IT department on path to self-destruction (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Northeast Utilities has told IT employees that it is considering outsourcing IT work to India-based offshore firms, putting as many as 400 IT jobs at risk. The company is saying a final decision has not been made. But Conn. State Rep. and House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz, who is trying to prevent or limit the outsourcing move, says it may be a done deal. NU may be prompting its best IT employees to head to the exits. It also creates IT security risks from upset workers. The heads-up to employees in advance of a firm plan is "kind of mind mindbogglingly stupid," said David Lewis, who heads a Connecticut-based human resources consulting firm OperationsInc, especially "since this is IT of all places." The utility's move makes sense, however, if is it trying to encourage attrition to reduce severance costs.

Submission + - Investigating the Security of the Firefox OS

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Firefox OS is Mozilla’s foray into the mobile operating system field and promises a more adaptive mobile OS. But as mobile threats, in particular in the Android platform, has gained momentum, the question in everyone’s mind is – how safe is it? The Firefox OS uses uses a Linux kernel and boots into a Gecko-based runtime engine, which lets users run apps developed entirely using HTML, JavaScript, and other open web technologies. Overall, Firefox possesses good app permission management, but core processes (with more privileges) may become a target for exploits. In addition, HTML5 features may become sources of potential vulnerabilities.

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Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams

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