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The Internet

BBC To Create Internet Protocol TV Standard 128

Posted by Soulskill from the five-years-too-late dept.
Robadob sends word that the BBC has been granted approval for Project Canvas, "a partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4, and TalkTalk to develop a so-called Internet Protocol Television standard." The approval came with several interesting requirements: "Project Canvas must always remain free-to-air but users 'may be charged for additional pay services that third parties might choose to provide via the Canvas platform, for example video on demand services, as well as the broadband subscription fees.' Access to Project Canvas must not be 'bundled with other products or services' and 'listing on the electronic program guide will be awarded in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner." In addition, a preliminary draft of the tech specs for the project must be published within 20 working days, in order to allow broadcasters and manufacturers of set-top boxes to adopt the new standards. Significantly, "Other broadcasters and content providers must have access to the platform."
Networking

VPN Flaw Shows Users' IP Addresses 124

Posted by Soulskill from the illusion-of-privacy dept.
AHuxley writes "A VPN flaw announced at the Telecomix Cyphernetics Assembly in Sweden allows individual users to be identified. 'The flaw is caused by a combination of IPv6, which is a new Internet protocol due to replace the current IPv4, and PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol)-based VPN services, which are the most widely used. ... The flaw means that the IP address of a user hiding behind a VPN can still be found, thanks to the connection broadcasting information that can be used to identify it. It's also relatively easy to find a MAC address (which identifies a particular device) and a computer's name on the network that it's on.' The Swedish anti-piracy bureau could already be gathering data using the exploit."
Google

Submission + - Britain's BPI goes after Google -- with US DMCA ! (p2pnet.net) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BPI, the RIAA's UK counterpart, has gone up against the Holiest of Holies, American online advertising conglomerate Google, says Chilling Effects. The BPI contributed to the British government's Digital Ecomy bill, complete with its ACTA Three Strikes and you're Off The Net element, with hardly a murmur from the UK lamescream media. Now Chilling Effects quotes a missive directed at Gargle by the BPI. It states, in part, "We have identified the following links that are available via Google's search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members ... " And what's even more interesting is: this British 'trade' outfity is using the American DMCA to attack Google. Can it do that?
Security

Submission + - Turning attackers tool against them (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Tasha26
Tasha26 writes: BBC has an interesting web security snippet from the SyScan 2010 security conference in Singapore. In a presentation, security researcher Laurent Oudot released details of bugs found in commonly used attack-kits such as Neon, Eleonore and Sniper, proving that not only are they not secure but these loopholes could be exploited to get more information about the attackers, perhaps identifying them, stealing their tools and methods, or even following the trail back to their own computer.

Submission + - Manning Turned in To Stroke Lamo's Own Ego (salon.com)

Submitted by Binary Boy
Binary Boy writes: Bradley Manning, the US Army Private arrested recently by the Pentagon for providing classified documents — including the widely seen Apache helicopter video — may have been duped by wannabe hacker Adrian Lamo, according to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Lamo told Manning he could provide protection under both journalist shield laws, and the clergy-lay confidentiality tradition, and instead immediately turned him in to authorities in an act of apparent shameless self-promotion.
Canada

Submission + - CRIA Copyright Astroturf Site Gamed By U.S. Execs (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that the recording industry's copyright astroturfing site, which has been encouraging users to flood blogs and media articles, has been gamed by U.S. record executives. While promoted as a Canadian site, members include U.S.-based record company executives. The site has also added a mandatory letter for recording industry employees to elected officials that cannot be edited.
Security

Submission + - Apple silently updates Mac malware protection (sophos.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple's recent Mac OS X 10.6.4 upgrade included at least one security update that they didn't document — an update to Snow Leopard's anti-virus protection.

Sophos researchers say that Apple secretly updated the OS's rudimentary malware protection — delivered through a file called XProtect.plist — to include detection of a backdoor trojan horse known as HellRTS or OSX/Pinhead-B.

If it successfully infects a Mac, the trojan can send spam email from your Mac, take screenshots of what you are doing, access your files and clipboard.

Security bloggers at Sophos have speculated that Apple may have deliberately not announced the update to Mac OS X's anti-malware feature for "marketing reasons":

"Shh! Don't tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!"



Mind you, you have to wonder if Sophos is also discussing the update for marketing reasons too..
Security

Submission + - BBC Amazing article: Fighting back against attacks (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hi-tech criminals are not very good at securing the tools they use to attack websites, suggests research.

Security experts have found that many of the kits used by cyber criminals are riddled with bugs and vulnerabilities.
Censorship

Submission + - Thailand shuts down 43,000 more websites (bangkokpost.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Bangkok Post reports that the Thai government has now shut down over 43,000 websites deemed defamatory to the royal institution. Thai ISP's are warned to cooperate 'voluntarily' or lose their license. This is in addition to 17,000+ that were recently blocked for 'national security', including both Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Submission + - Being Wrong is What Makes Humans Smart 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Kathryn Schulz has an interesting article in the Boston Globe about how the more scientists understand about cognitive functioning, the more it becomes clear that our capacity to make mistakes is utterly inextricable from what makes the human brain so swift, adaptable, and intelligent and recognize that human fallibility is part and parcel of humans' brilliance. Neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition — the decisions you make every day, as well as how you learned almost everything you know about the world and that we use inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect in the physical, biological, and psychological realms. "The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren’t necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false," writes Schulz. "Because we reason inductively, we will sometimes get things wrong." Schulz recommends that we respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity and demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. "Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy.""

Submission + - Zuckerberg sued for blasphemy 1

Submitted by Earthquake Retrofit
Earthquake Retrofit writes: The Register is running a story about a Pakistani laywer who filed blasphemy charges, carrying a death penalty, against Mark Zuckerberg over the Facebook hosting a "Draw Muhammad" contest on its site late last month. There's a typo, "publishable by death" and a lot of deleted comments. Maybe we could keep our discussion more civil?
Power

Hong Kong Company Develops Solar-Powered Lightbulb 222

Posted by timothy from the works-best-at-night dept.
hussain_mkj writes "A Hong Kong-based company, Nokero, has introduced what it claims is the world's first solar powered lightbulb. Nokero is trying to replace traditional kerosene lamps in developing countries with its solar-powered N100 LED lightbulbs. The bulb is about the same size as normal incandescent bulbs, and will shine for two hours when charged for a day. The company claims that the new bulb is five times as bright as a kerosene lamp and uses 1/200th the energy. It will cost $15 for one and $480 for 48."
Iphone

Submission + - Apple Eases Restrictions On iPhone Developers (macrumors.com)

Submitted by WrongSizeGlass
WrongSizeGlass writes: MacRumors has a story on a report by Apple Outsider's Matt Drance that Apple is easing their restrictions on interpreted code used in iPhone development, a change which allows game developers in particular to continue to use interpreted languages such as Lua in their App Store applications. The change comes alongside Apple's further modifications of its iOS developer terms that again allow for limited analytics data collection to aid advertisers and developers, but appear to shut out non-independent companies such as Google's AdMob from receiving the data.

It's not enough of an 'about face' to let Adobe or Google back in the picture but they've backpedaled enough to let the little guys squeeze through.
Cellphones

Submission + - AT&T to Get HTC Android Phone (tekgoblin.com) 1

Submitted by artimaticus8
artimaticus8 writes: A video made by AT&T has been released, showing how they go about testing their phones, and to show us, they use an HTC Android Phone. AT&T currently does not offer one, so it appears that they soon will be. What can be seen in the video is that it is made by HTC, is using HTC's Sense UI, and it is running Android.

Submission + - UAE Banker creates unbreakable code (gulfnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Gentleman Banker says he has created an unbreakable cipher that no one can break. Dubai has grand buildings but he has built the next big thing that will be a tall mountain to climb for the NSA

Qoute from Gulf News
Mohammad Gaith Bin Mahah Al Mazroui is challenging skilled coders, hackers and cryptographers to break the encryption of his cipher.

Hoping /. will tear him a new code
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/emirati-ex-banker-builds-unbreakable-code-1.639940

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