jggimi - Slashdot User

Submission + - MS Learned of IE Zero-Day Flaw Last September (wired.com)

Submitted by N!NJA on Friday January 22, 2010 @02:21PM

N!NJA writes: Microsoft was aware months ago of a critical security vulnerability well before hackers exploited it to breach Google, Adobe and other large U.S. companies but did not patch the hole until Thursday.

The software giant had intended to release a patch for the flaw in February — more than four months after learning about it — but had to speed up that plan and role it out this week in the wake of news that Google and others had been hacked through the flaw, the world’s largest software maker acknowledged Thursday.

Meron Sellen, a security researcher at BugSec, an Israeli firm, quietly reported the vulnerability to Microsoft in September, according to security firm Kaspersky.

Submission + - Is good video over Wi-Fi possible? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

bednarz

on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:55PM

" rel="nofollow">bednarz writes: "Video over Wi-Fi can be iffy, buggy, blurry and jittery. But Cisco has new code that uses three tools to compensate for Wi-Fi weaknesses that degrade video quality. 1) It takes a new approach to video multicasting by using access points to convert a multicast transmission into multiple, separate unicasts. 2) It can assign different priorities to individual streams, so a video by the company president gets a higher priority than a clip from a sports broadcast. 3) It can block new video requests if they will cause video quality for the new request, or for the overall network, to erode."

Submission + - Why 'Running IT as a Business' Is a Bad Idea (infoworld.com) 2

Submitted by snydeq on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:53PM

snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Bob Lewis dispels the familiar litany that 'IT should be run as a business,' instead offering insights into what he is calling a 'guerilla movement' to reject conventional 'IT wisdom' and industry punditry in favor of what experience tells you will work in real organizations. 'When IT is a business, selling to its "internal customers," its principal product is software that "meets requirements." This all but ensures a less-than-optimal solution, lack of business ownership, and poor acceptance of the results,' Lewis writes. 'The alternatives begin with a radically different model of the relationship between IT and the rest of the business — that IT must be integrated into the heart of the enterprise, and everyone in IT must collaborate as a peer with those in the business who need what they do.' To do otherwise is a sure sign of numbered days for IT, according to Lewis. After all, the standard 'run IT as a business' model found its origins in the IT outsourcing industry, 'which has a vested interest in encouraging internal IT to eliminate everything that makes it more attractive than outside service providers.'

Submission + - Getting Google Anonymity (googlesharing.net) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:26PM

An anonymous reader writes: Moxie Marlinspike, the security researcher who has published several SSL/TLS exploits, has just launched a Google anonymity service called GoogleSharing. From the site: "GoogleSharing is a special kind of anonymizing proxy service, designed for a very specific threat. It ultimately aims to provide a level of anonymity that will prevent google from tracking your searches, movements, and what websites you visit. GoogleSharing is not a full proxy service designed to anonymize all your traffic, but rather something designed exclusively for your communication with Google. Our system is totally transparent, with no special "alternative" websites to visit. Your normal work flow should be exactly the same."

Submission + - Sherlock Holmes and the copyright tangle (nytimes.com) 2

Submitted by spagiola on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @03:22PM

spagiola writes: The New York Times has an interesting piece on the copyright travails of Sherlock Holmes: "At his age, Holmes would logically seem to have entered the public domain. But not only is the character still under copyright in the United States, for nearly 80 years he has also been caught in a web of ownership issues so tangled that Professor Moriarty wouldn't have wished them upon him."

Submission + - Sitting down too long is bad even if you exercise. (google.com)

Submitted by

Ant

on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @02:43PM

Ant writes: "The Register and many more sources on Google News report that sitting down too long, even with exercises, is bad — "Swedish scientists have warned that too much sitting on your backside can provoke cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

That's pretty obvious, you might think, but the researchers from the Karolinska Institute and the Swedish School of Sport and Health warn that the excessively sedentary are running serious risks, irrespective of how much exercise they do when they're not plonked behind a desk, or lying on the sofa...""

Submission + - IE Bug Used to Hack Google Now Used for Drive-bys

Submitted by CWmike on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @02:20PM

CWmike writes: Attackers are exploiting the bug in Microsoft's Internet Explorer that is alleged to have been used last month by the Chinese to break into Google's corporate network, security company Websense said on Monday. The news came on the heels of warnings by the French and German governments, which recommended IE users switch to an alternate browser until Microsoft fixes the flaw. Websense said the attack code it spotted is the same as the exploit that went public last week. That code was quickly turned into an exploit module for Metasploit, the open-source penetration testing framework, by HD Moore, the creator of Metasploit. Microsoft acknowledged last week that the flaw had been used to hack Google's network and others. Meanwhile, China is asking, 'What Gmail hack?' spinning news of the real threat: Google. Denying a role in the attacks, reported to have possibly been carried out by Google employees in China, China argued it was, in fact, the biggest victim of cyberattacks.

Submission + - FTL Currents May Power Pulsar Beams (universetoday.com)

Submitted by thomst on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @01:46PM

thomst writes: Space.com is just now getting around to reporting a story that Spaceref.com reported on January 5 (and Universe Today reported on the 6th) about papers presented at the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on a new model explaining the beam emissions from pulsars as products of superluminal currents within the spinning neutron stars' atmospheres. (The actual papers are here, here, and, especially here — all from Cornell University's arXiv.org open archive of half a million or so "eprints" in physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance and statistics.)

According to the authors' model, the current generated is, itself, faster than light, although the particles that compose it never individually exceed the universal speed limit, thereby preventing Einsteinian post-mortem rotation. The new model is a general explanation of the phenomenon of pulsar beam emissions that explains emissions at all observed frequencies (and different pulsars emit everything from radio waves to x-rays), which no previous model has done.

Submission + - China pays citizens to report porn (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by oxide7 on Tuesday January 19, 2010 @12:38PM

oxide7 writes: China is paying citizens to report online porn to authorities, with nearly 200 people already compensating as the government cracks down on what it considers undesirable content.

Submission + - Japanese Researchers Create See-Through Goldfish (dailytech.com)

Submitted by ultranerdz on Monday January 11, 2010 @03:27PM

ultranerdz writes: South Korean scientists may have created a glowing cat, but Japanese researchers have successfully developed a transparent goldfish.
The clear goldfish allows observers to see the tiny fish's beating heart, which allows scientists to observe living creatures and reduces the numbers of dissections. I wonder when they will start to make transparent humans.

Submission + - Canada battles homeless population with bird poop (vancouversun.com)

Submitted by quatin on Monday January 11, 2010 @12:32PM

quatin writes: A city in Canada has resorted to using bird poop as a desperate measure to rid itself of the homeless population. The idea behind it is very simple, because bird poop smells. Like really, really smells. City workers have spread chicken manure around city buildings and public parks to make them less "appealing" for the homeless to loiter. Officials have not responded to inquiries of whether a smell test was imposed on public policy plans before implementation.

Submission + - Pirates get naked to protest terahertz scanners

Submitted by Kleiba on Monday January 11, 2010 @12:26PM

Kleiba writes: Members and supporters of the German Pirate Party have pulled a publicity stunt at a number of German airports yesterday, where they spontaneously stripped down to their underwear in order to protest against plans to introduce terahertz full body scanners. Motto of the flashmobs: "No need to scan us — we're already naked!" (German site). The scanners "do not improve security, but pose a threat to the personal rights of the travelers", says Simon Lange, speaker of the Pirate Party. Full body scanners have re-entered the public discussion after the Christmas Day incident over Detroit — according to German magazine "Der Stern" (German site), 63% of the Germans are in favor of implementing mandatory full body scans for all air travelers.

Submission + - Here We Go Again: Video Standards War 2010 (consortiuminfo.org)

Submitted by Andy Updegrove on Monday January 11, 2010 @09:39AM

Andy Updegrove writes: Think of the words "standards war," and if you're of a certain age you're likely to think of the battle between the Betamax and VHS video tape formats. Fast forward, and you'll recall we just finished another video standards war between most of the same companies, this time between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Well, here we go again, except this time its the movie studios that are duking it out, and DRM issues is a big part of it. On the one side are five of the six major studios, dozens of cable, hardware, software, distribution and device vendors, and on the other side there's just Disney — and maybe Apple as well, and that's enough to have the other side worried.

Submission + - Google Applies to become Energy Marketer

Submitted by necro81 on Friday January 08, 2010 @09:11AM

necro81 writes: Google consumes massive amounts of electrical energy to power its data centers across the country and world. Now it has created a subsidiary, Google Energy LLC, and applied (pdf) to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to become a utility-scale energy trader. Google's stated aim is to be able to purchase renewable energy directly from producers at bulk rates, pursuing its goal of becoming carbon neutral. It is likely that Google Energy would also permit Google's own renewable energy projects to sell their energy at more favorable rates. Google reportedly does not have plans to actively become an energy broker, a la Enron.

Submission + - Should you hang onto those Avatar glasses? (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 08, 2010 @06:47AM

An anonymous reader writes: In terms of tech buzz at CES, there's none bigger this year than 3D TV. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Toshiba all announced 3D TVs to go onsale in 2010, and ESPN announced a 3D sports channel. But with hardly any 3D movies to watch, and questions over price, and whether people will really want to sit in their own lounge rooms, every week, watching TV while looking somewhat vaguely like Roy Orbison — remains to be seen. This article summarises some of the big basic questions hovering over the 3D TV trend.

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