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Submission + - US Teen Pleads Guilty To Teaching ISIS About Bitcoin Via Twitter

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Ali Shukri Amin, a 17-year-old from Virginia, has pled guilty to charges that he aided ISIS by giving the group advice about using bitcoin. An odd and potentially troubling aspect of the charges is that this all took place in public — he Tweeted out links to an article on his blog about bitcoin and Darknet could help jihadi groups, making it difficult to say whether he was publishing information protected under free speech or was directly advising the terrorist organization.

Submission + - Missing files cause A400M deadly crash. (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Think you had a bad day when your software drivers go missing? Rejoice, you get to live!
A fatal A400M crash was linked to data-wipe mistake during an engine software update. A military plane crash in Spain was probably caused by computer files being accidentally wiped from three of its engines, according to investigators. Plane-maker Airbus discovered anomalies in the A400M's data logs after the crash, suggesting a software fault.And it has now emerged that Spanish investigators suspect files needed to interpret its engine readings had been deleted by mistake.This would have caused the affected propellers to spin too slowly causing loss of power and eventually, a crash.

Submission + - PHP at 20: From Pet Project to Powerhouse

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Ben Ramsey provides a look at the rise of PHP, the one-time ‘silly little project’ that has transformed into a Web powerhouse, thanks to flexibility, pragmatism, and a vibrant community of Web devs. 'Those early days speak volumes about PHP’s impact on Web development. Back then, our options were limited when it came to server-side processing for Web apps. PHP stepped in to fill our need for a tool that would enable us to do dynamic things on the Web. That practical flexibility captured our imaginations, and PHP has since grown up with the Web. Now powering more than 80 percent of the Web, PHP has matured into a scripting language that is especially suited to solve the Web problem. Its unique pedigree tells a story of pragmatism over theory and problem solving over purity.'

Submission + - Solar Power Capacity Installs Surpass Wind and Coal for Second Year 1

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Residential rooftop solar installations hit a historical high in the first quarter of 2015, garnering an 11% increase over the previous quarter and a 76% increase over the Q1, 2014. New installations of solar power capacity surpassed those of wind and coal for the second year in a row, accounting for 32% of all new electrical capacity, according to a new report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. Residential solar installation costs dropped to $3.46 per watt of installed capacity this quarter, which represents a 2.2% reduction over last quarter and a 10% reduction over the first quarter of 2014.

Submission + - Nuclear blasts shed light on how animals recover from annihilation (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, France detonated four nuclear bombs on the Fangataufa atoll—a ring-shaped island of coral in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The detonations—the largest, a hundred times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki—destroyed just about all life in the region, setting up an “unthinkable” ecological experiment: If life had to start fresh, would it develop the same way again? A new study of the aftermath of the blasts suggests it would not.

Submission + - Bug Bounties in the Crosshairs of Wassenaar Rules

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Bug bounties have gone from novelty to necessity, not only for enterprises looking to take advantage of the skills of an organized pool of vulnerability hunters, but also for a slew of independent researchers who make a living contributing to various vendor and independent bounty and reward programs.

The proposed U.S. rules for the Wassenaar Arrangement pose a real challenge for all sides of that equation.

Under the rules, researchers who find a zero-day vulnerability and develop a PoC exploit triggering the issue, would have to apply for an export license in order to privately disclose their findings with the vendor in question. As a result, there will be occasions when a foreign researcher, for example, would have to share details on a zero-day with their government before the vendor in question.

“There are lots of concerns from researchers if this gets implemented,” said Kymberlee Price, senior director of operations at Bugcrowd, a private company that provides a platform for organizations wishing to start bug bounty programs. “Is it worth the effort to continue to report vulnerabilities if you have to go through a government and are likely to have to disclose details on that vulnerability? Do we want foreign governments knowing about it before it’s reported directly to the vendor so it can be patched?”

Submission + - Fracking Safe, Says EPA

Submitted by sycodon
sycodon writes: A long-awaited EPA report on hydraulic fracturing concludes that the extraction process has “not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”

Submission + - Supreme Court may decide the fate of API's, Klingonese, Dothraki... (slate.com)

Submitted by nerdpocalypse
nerdpocalypse writes: In a larger battle than even Godzilla V Mothra, Google V Oracle threatens not only Japan but the entire Nerd World. What is at stake is how a language can be patented. This affects not just programming languages, API's, and everything that runs..well...everything, but also the copyright status of new languages such as Klingon and Dothraki

Submission + - You thought NSA bulk data collection was dead?

Submitted by fustakrakich
fustakrakich writes: Guess again!
US officials confirmed to the Guardian that in the coming days they will ask a secret surveillance court to revive the program – deemed illegal by a federal appeals court – all in the name of “transitioning” the domestic surveillance effort to the telephone companies that generate the so-called “call detail records” the government seeks to access. The unconventional and unexpected legal circumstance depends on a section of the USA Freedom Act, which Obama signed into law on Tuesday, that provides a six-month grace period to prepare the surveillance and legal bureaucracies for a world in which the National Security Agency is no longer the repository of bulk US phone metadata. During that time, the act’s ban on bulk collection will not yet take effect.

Submission + - Bing sponsored results spoof Google URLs, taking users to adware sites (expertreviews.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Searching for Google Chrome on the UK version of Bing, we were hit with large ad box. While the top two hits were clearly for dubious download sites, it's the third link that made us pause: it showed a link that appeared to be from Google.com and listed the link as www.Google.com/Chrome.

Although the site looks legitimate, the URL is actually spoofed and clicking it leads to a completely different site (csoftonline.com). This is incredibly misleading and, while the main Bing search engine shows legitimate results, the differences between the sponsored and organic search listings won't be obvious to everyone. This means that people could end up on this site by mistake.

Submission + - How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds (quantamagazine.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Discoveries have shown that bird-specific features like feathers began to emerge long before the evolution of birds, indicating that birds simply adapted a number of pre-existing features to a new use. And recent research suggests that a few simple changes — among them the adoption of a more babylike skull shape into adulthood — likely played essential roles in the final push to bird-hood. Not only are birds much smaller than their dinosaur ancestors, they closely resemble dinosaur embryos. Adaptations such as these may have paved the way for modern birds’ distinguishing features, namely their ability to fly and their remarkably agile beaks. The work demonstrates how huge evolutionary changes can result from a series of small evolutionary steps.

Submission + - USA 'Freedom' Act passed by Senate 67-32, headed to WH (ap.org)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Congress has sent legislation to the president reviving and remaking a disputed post-9/11 surveillance program two days after letting it temporarily expire.

The vote in the Senate Tuesday was 67-32. The House already has passed the bill, and President Barack Obama plans to sign it quickly.

The legislation will phase out, over six months, the once-secret National Security Agency bulk phone records collection program made public two years ago by agency contractor Edward Snowden. It will be replaced by a program that keeps the records with phone companies but allows the government to search them with a warrant. Senate Republican leaders opposed the House bill but were forced to accept it unchanged after senators rejected last-ditch attempts to amend it.

Submission + - Who's behind mysterious flights over US cities? FBI (csmonitor.com)

Submitted by kaizendojo
kaizendojo writes: The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes' surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge's approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Submission + - Fuel Free Spacecrafts Using Graphene

Submitted by William Robinson
William Robinson writes: While using a laser to cut a sponge made of crumpled sheets of Graphene oxide, Researchers accidentally discovered that it can turn light into motion. As the laser cut into the material, it mysteriously propelled forward. Baffled, researchers investigated further. The Graphene material was put in a vacuum and again shot with a laser. Incredibly, the laser still pushed the sponge forward, and by as much as 40 centimeters. Researchers even got the Graphene to move by focusing ordinary sunlight on it with a lens.Though scientists are not sure why this happens, they are excited with new possibilities such as light propelled spacecraft that does not need fuel.

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