73014735
submission
itwbennett writes:
Using payment cards with an embedded chip makes payments more secure in physical stores, but it’s still relatively easy for criminals to copy card details and use them online. Payment specialist Oberthur Technologies has another idea, which it will soon be testing in France. Oberthur’s Motion Code technology replaces the printed 3-digit CVV (Card Verification Value) code with a small e-paper display. The code changes periodically, reducing the time a fraudster has to act.
73011249
submission
itwbennett writes:
Google Tone is an experimental feature that could be used to easily and instantly share browser pages, search results, videos and other pages among devices, according to Google Research. 'The initial prototype used an efficient audio transmission scheme that sounded terrible, so we played it beyond the range of human hearing,' researcher Alex Kauffmann and software engineer Boris Smus wrote in a post on the Google Research blog.
73009169
submission
itwbennett writes:
NetUSB, a service that lets devices connected over USB to a computer be shared with other machines on a local network or the Internet, is implemented in Linux-based embedded systems, such as routers, as a kernel driver. Once enabled, it opens a server that listens on TCP port 20005 for connecting clients. Security researchers from a company called Sec Consult found that if a connecting computer has a name longer than 64 characters, a stack buffer overflow is triggered in the NetUSB service.
72973569
submission
jfruh writes:
Much of the history of computing products and services involves getting people desperate for better performance and faster results to pay a premium to get what they want. But Google has a new beta service that's going in the other direction — offering cheap cloud computing services for customers who don't mind waiting. Jobs like data analytics, genomics, and simulation and modeling can require lots of computational power, but they can run periodically, can be interrupted, and can even keep going if one or more nodes they're using goes offline.
72939693
submission
itwbennett writes:
Researchers from FireEye recently collected messages from a Web site set up by the creators of a ransomware program called TeslaCrypt to interact with their victims. The messages offer a rare glimpse into the mindset of these cybercriminals and the distress they cause. Among the victims: a father who has been robbed of his baby’s pictures; an employee who lost business files to the malware and now fears losing his job; a housecleaning business set up by maids who can’t afford to pay the ransom.
72939413
submission
itwbennett writes:
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has weighed in on the contentious issue of the proposed sale of consumer data by bankrupt retailer RadioShack, recommending that a model be adopted based on a settlement the agency reached with failed online toy retailer Toysmart.com. Jessica L. Rich, director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, said in a letter to a court-appointed consumer privacy ombudsman that the agency’s concerns about the transfer of customer information inconsistent with RadioShack’s privacy promises 'would be greatly diminished' if certain conditions were met, including that the data was not sold standalone, and if the buyer is engaged in substantially the same lines of business as RadioShack, and expressly agrees to be bound by and adhere to the privacy policies.
72836713
submission
itwbennett writes:
United Airlines is offering rewards to researchers for finding flaws in its websites but the company will not accept bugs found in onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment or avionics systems, which the U.S. government says may be increasingly targeted by hackers. And as a reward for their efforts, researchers won't get the piles of cash typically associated with such programs, but instead will get miles that can be used for the company’s Mileage Plus loyalty program.
72818869
submission
jfruh writes:
The Internet Of Things — the world of omnipresent embedded network devices that true believers think is just around the corner — is a potential gold mine to whatever tech vendors can grab an early lead in the market. And Qualcomm thinks it's uniquely positioned to do so, with its solid background in low-powered processors and wireless networking giving it a leg up.
72812783
submission
itwbennett writes:
The China-based hacking group, which security vendor FireEye calls APT17, created accounts on TechNet and then left comments on certain pages. Those comments contained the name of an encoded domain, which computers infected by the group’s malware were instructed to contact. The encoded domain then referred the victim’s computer to a command-and-control server that was part of APT17’s infrastructure, said Bryce Boland, FireEye’s chief technology officer for Asia-Pacific.
72783185
submission
itwbennett writes:
Slashdot readers will remember that back in February, electric car battery maker A123 Systems sued Apple for allegedly 'raiding' the Waltham, Massachusetts, company and hiring five employees, including two top-level engineers. The loss of these workers essentially forced A123 to shut down some of its main projects, the suit alleged. Now, according to court documents filed Monday, A123 and Apple 'have reached an agreement, signed a term sheet, and are in the process of drafting a final settlement agreement.'
72779065
submission
jfruh writes:
Starbucks inspires loyalty among its heavy users — so much so that they're willing to connect their Starbucks gift cards and phone apps directly to their credit or debit cards, auto-refilling the balance when it runs low. But this has opened up a hole hackers can exploit.
72776677
submission
itwbennett writes:
A year after the European Union’s top court gave Europeans a right to be forgotten by search engines, it is most likely that Google will still remember you after you filed a request to disappear from its search listings. In fact, chances are that the search result you want to have removed when someone Googles your name will stay visible. That happens in almost 60 percent of cases, the company’s online transparency tool showed.
72775405
submission
itwbennett writes:
In a blog post, Rado Kotorov, Chief Innovation Officer at Information Builders asserts that the creators of enterprise apps, not just developers, but anyone who is involved, from defining the concept, to requirements gathering, to final implementation, implicitly assume some of the responsibility for other people’s decision making. Thus, the creators of the app have an ethical obligation to ensure that people can reach the right conclusions from the facts and the way they are presented in the app.
72753589
submission
jfruh writes:
One of the main selling points of ridesharing services like Uber are that they streamline the payment process: everything is taken care of in the app, which is already linked to your credit card. But in many places in the developing world, most people are unbanked and use only cash, and Uber will have to accommodate them to achieve its global ambitions. Thus, the company is launching a pilot project in India where passengers can pay in cash.
72749365
submission
itwbennett writes:
Researchers at MIT and Google Research have developed a method to automatically remove reflections that appear when shooting photos through glass. The technique finds glass reflections in photos by using the fact that they're usually made up of two reflections, one slightly offset from the other. Since the second reflection is a set distance from the first, the researchers used an algorithm to distinguish the reflections from all the other data in the image.
