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Security

AOL's Embarassing Password Woes 192

Posted by CmdrTaco from the top-sekrit dept.
An anonymous reader writes "AOL.com users may think they have up to sixteen characters to use as a password, but they'd be wrong, thanks to this security artifact detailed by The Washington Post's Security Fix blog: "Well, it turns out that when someone signs up for an AOL.com account, the user appears to be allowed to enter up to a 16-character password. AOL's system, however, doesn't read past the first eight characters." This means that a user who uses "password123" or any other obvious eight-character password with random numbers on the end is in effect using just that lame eight-character password."
The Courts

Submission + - US makes Gattaca-like discrimination illegal

Submitted by Soulshift
Soulshift writes: NewScientist reports that a law has been passed in the US that prevents companies from denying jobs or insurance to citizens based on the results of genetic tests. This purportedly addresses scenarios where corporations might employ people preferentially based on their genetic "fitness." From the article: "Clearly the House finally understood the incredible significance this has. The American public can now access genetic tests, feel safe about their genetic information not being misused and participate in research that involves genetic information."

The full text of the bill can be found here.
NASA

Submission + - Digging Moon Dirt for $250,000--anyone want a job?

Submitted by
nlhouser
nlhouser writes: "How would it feel to be paid a huge pile of money to move a huge pile of simulated moon soil by using an autonomously operating system? Teams from Rancho Palos Verdes, California; Livermore, California; Berkeley, California; Fulks Run, Virginia; Rolla, MO; Berkley, Michigan, Milwaukee; Vancouver and British Columbia, have all registered to find out. The Regolith Excavation Challenge on May 12, 2007, will pay a team to excavate and deliver as much dirt as possible in 30 minutes — administered by the California Space Education and Workforce Institute, part of the California Space Authority in Santa Maria, California. This is one of seven challenges by NASA, and must use less than 30 W of power, while weighing less than 40k and excavate more than 150 kg of the required simulated moon dirt. This challenge is extremely important, as it is the first necessary step toward uncovering what is considered important in the moon's resources in the most economical and quickest way possible. Entitled the NASA's "2007 Regolith Excavation Centennial Challenge Overview", the challenge will be in a specific "head to head" competition format: Each team's excavation system must be fully autonomous Systems will perform in a square sandbox with compressed lunar regolith simulant Mass of the system cannot exceed 40 kilograms 30 Watts of DC power will be provided to the system Each system will have 30 minutes to excavate as much regolith as possible and deliver it to the fixed collector adjacent to the sandbox The total purse of $250,000 will go to the winning teams excavating the most regolith above 150 kilograms Where proposals were the original solution to ongoing NASA programs, recently it was found that "making awards based on actual achievements" resulted in novel and lower-cost solutions. The end challenge to this particular competition is the actual moon atmosphere. Resistance to penetration and blocking properties are due to the planet's exposure to the space environment — not because of the traditional influences of water, wind, or volcanic processes, as on Earth. According to NASA and the Centennial Challenge program, additional challenges are the lunar regolith's properties of weight, power, and time limitations from interplanetary travel. At this time, the lunar excavation requirements are unmet by any of the challenging teams for excavation technologies that are developed for any terrestrial use as they are still heavy, using lots of power, and still require a human operator. What is still needed is something lighter, more power efficient, while still being able to operate autonomously — all will be needed when excavating the real moon dirt in the near future."
Security

Submission + - Defacing High profile web site to start cyber war

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: according to the web defacements blog of serapis.net several days ago a sub domain that belongs to the Kentucky secretary of state have been defaced, however since then it has been defaced once again and the content was replaced. if you look on the content of the web site you can see that the defacer simply declared a cyber war against other Latin groups of defacers. original post can be found here: http://calima.serapis.net/blogs/index.php?/archive s/4-Defacing-High-profile-web-site-to-start-a-war. html
The Media

Submission + - Einstein's notorious bee declaration untrue

Submitted by
gelfmag
gelfmag writes: "In all of the hullabaloo generated by the recent honeybee disappearance, one continuously-cited fact has been completely overlooked by the press — it wasn't Albert Einstein who predicted mankind's demise within 4 years of a bee extinction. Gelf Magazine recently published a story on the infamous, ominous quote about honeybees wrongly attributed to the immortal physicist:



Einstein was not, however, an alien visitor, nor a professional basketball player, nor president of the United States. Nor a biologist. Nor an entomologist. Nor an ecologist. Nor a beekeeper. Roni Grosz, curator of the Albert Einstein Archives of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, tells Gelf, "There is no proof of Einstein ever having said or written it." While Grosz notes that it is extremely difficult to disprove a quote, he "could not remember even one reference to bees in Einstein's writings."
"
Space

Could Black Holes Be Portals to Other Universes? 277

Posted by Zonk from the oh-sliders-you've-taught-us-so-much dept.
David Shiga writes "Astronomers have identified many objects out there that they think are black holes. But could they be portals to other universes called wormholes, instead? According to a new study by a pair of physicists, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They have discovered that wormholes with the right shape would look identical to black holes from the outside. But while a trip into a black hole would mean certain death, a wormhole might spit you out into a parallel universe with its own stars and planets. Exotic effects from quantum physics might produce wormholes naturally from collapsing stars, one of the physicist says, and they might even be produced in future particle accelerator experiments."
Caldera

Submission + - SCO Given Delisting Notice

Submitted by
SCO Delenda Est
SCO Delenda Est writes: "The SEC has given SCO notice that they will be delisted from the NASDAQ if they cannot keep their share price above $1 sometime in the next 180 days. Although they may be able to avoid delisting for a while, their small market capitalization will hinder their efforts. Given their other financials, this just goes to show how desperate their current financial situation is."
Education

Student Attempting To Improve School Security Suspended 282

Posted by Zonk from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept.
TA_TA_BOX writes "The University of Portland has handed a one-year suspension to an engineering major after he designed a program to bypass the Cisco Clean Access (CCA). According to the University of Portland's Vice President of Information Systems, the purpose of the CCA is to evaluate whether the computers are compliant with current security policies (i.e., anti-virus software, Windows Updates and Patches, etc.). Essentially the student wrote a program that could fool the CCA to think that the computers operating system and anti-virus were fully patched and up to date. 'In the design of his computer program, Maass looked at the functions CCA provides and identified vulnerabilities where it could be bypassed. He wrote a program that emulated the same functions as CCA and eliminated some security issues. He says that the method he chose is "one of six that I came up with." Maass says his intent was not malicious. Rather, the sophomore says he was examining vulnerabilities so that they could be fixed. "I was planning on going to Cisco with the vulnerability this summer," Maass says. '"
Science

Cell Phones Aren't Killing Bees After All 253

Posted by Zonk from the most-reassuring dept.
radioweather writes "A couple of weeks ago, there was a nutty idea discussed in The Independent that claimed the electromagnetic radiation from cell phones was causing bees to become disoriented, preventing them from returning to the hive. The flimsy cell phone argument was used to explain Colony Collapse Disorder. Today the LA Times reports that researchers at UC San Francisco have uncovered what they believe to be the real culprit: a parasitic fungus. Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country."
OS X

Submission + - Apple delays Leopard to get iPhone done on time

Submitted by
mrZ0g
mrZ0g writes: "Apple released this tid-bit today in regards to the iPhone and Leopard release dates

iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. We can't wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is. However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price — we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned. While Leopard's features will be complete by then, we cannot deliver the quality release that we and our customers expect from us. We now plan to show our developers a near final version of Leopard at the conference, give them a beta copy to take home so they can do their final testing, and ship Leopard in October. We think it will be well worth the wait. Life often presents tradeoffs, and in this case we're sure we've made the right ones.
"
Media

Submission + - Blogger spurs US radio host's firing

Submitted by jas_public
jas_public writes: The Wall Street Journal reports on the controversial events which ultimately led to the firing of radio shock jock Don Imus.

At 6:14 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4, relatively few people were tuned into the "Imus in the Morning Show" when Don Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's."

Ryan Chiachiere was. A 26-year-old researcher in Washington, D.C., for liberal watchdog organization Media Matters for America, he was assigned to monitor Mr. Imus's program. Mr. Chiachiere clipped the video, alerted his bosses and started working on a blog post for the organization's Web site.
The Courts

Submission + - Ex-CEO of Computer Associates to pay $52M

Submitted by
B. Galliart
B. Galliart writes: "USAToday article states:

'A judge has signed off on a restitution agreement requiring the former chief executive of Computer Associates International (CA) to pay at least $52 million — including proceeds from the sale of his yacht and pair of Ferraris — to victims of a huge accounting fraud at one of the world's largest software companies.'
"
Science

Architect Claims to Solve Pyramid Secret 209

Posted by Zonk from the that's-one-way-to-do-it dept.
Alreadybutnotyet writes "A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built — with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place. 'The most widespread theory had been that an outer ramp had been used by the Egyptians, who left few traces to help archeologists and other scientists decode the secret to the construction. Houdin said he had taken into account the copper and stone tools available at the time, the granite and limestone blocks, the location of the pyramid and the strength and knowledge of the workers.'"

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