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Submission + - Heartbleed bug affects phones and tablets too (digitaltrends.com)

Submitted by Velcroman1
Velcroman1 writes: The Heartbleed bug is bad and affects a huge portion of all websites — as much as 66 percent of all sites around the world. Unfortunately, your smartphone isn't safe either. The bug can be exploited on mobile devices, though the risks aren’t as great as they are on a desktop computer browsing the Web. Mobile security company Lookout downplayed the risks, saying: “The good news is that we have yet to see any attacks targeting a mobile device, and while this is a credible risk, the likelihood of you encountering an exploit is low.” iOS devices are safe, and Windows Phone OS is likely safe. BlackBerry is “investigating.” But Android is vulnerable if you have version 4.1.1, according to Google.

Submission + - Can The ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? (investors.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: When the Obama administration announced on April 1 that an estimated 7.1 million had signed up for ObamaCare by the end of March, it seemed a nearly impossible achievement.

To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month.

That's astounding enough, but an IBD review of existing ObamaCare enrollment data shows that the mathematical challenge of reaching 7.1 million sign-ups was even tougher.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Which Router Firmware for Bandwidth Management? 1

Submitted by DeathByLlama
DeathByLlama writes: Years ago I made the switch from DD-WRT to Tomato firmware for my Linksys router. I lost a couple features, but gained one of the best QoS and bandwidth management systems I have seen on a router to date. Admins can see graphs of current and historical bandwidth usage by IP, set minimum and maximum bandwidth limits by IP range, setup QoS rules, and see and filter graphs and lists of current connections by usage, class or source/destination — all from an elegantly designed GUI. This has allowed me to easily and intelligently allocate and adjust my network's bandwidth; when there is a problem, I can see where it's coming from and create rules around it. I'm currently using the Toastman's VPN Tomato firmware, which has about everything that I would want, except for one key thing: support for ARM-based routers (only Broadcom is supported). I have seen other firmware projects being actively developed in the last few years, so in picking a new 802.11ac router, I need to decide whether Tomato support is a deal-breaker. With solid bandwidth management as a priority, what firmware would you recommend? Stock Asuswrt? Asuswrt-Merlin? OpenWRT? DD-WRT? Tomato? _____?

Submission + - OpenDaylight Internship Targets Student Open Source SDN Developers (thevarguy.com)

Submitted by Mcusanelli
Mcusanelli writes: OpenDaylight, the open source software-defined networking (SDN) project sponsored by the Linux Foundation, turned one year old this week. And in the hope of celebrating many more birthdays to come, the project has announced a summer internship program designed to help grow the next generation of open source SDN developers.

Submission + - London's public bike data is telling everyone where you've been (blogspot.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I recently posted this article with a few vizualizations and a bit of analysis about the risks associated with open data sets. Thought it might be of interest of Slashdot readers:

"This article is about a publicly available dataset of bicycle journey data that contains enough information to track the movements of individual cyclists across London, for a six month period just over a year ago."

Submission + - Heartbleed coder: bug in OpenSSL was an honest mistake (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: The Heartbleed bug in OpenSSL wasn't placed there deliberately, according to the coder responsible for the mistake — despite suspicions from many that security services may have been behind it. OpenSSL logs show that German developer Robin Seggelmann introduced the bug into OpenSSL when working on the open-source project two and a half years ago, according to an Australian newspaper. The change was logged on New Year's Eve 2011.

"I was working on improving OpenSSL and submitted numerous bug fixes and added new features," Seggelmann told the Sydney Morning Herald. "In one of the new features, unfortunately, I missed validating a variable containing a length." His work was reviewed, but the reviewer also missed the error, and it was included in the released version of OpenSSL.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Linux in the workplace

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently my boss has asked me about the advantages of Linux as a desktop operating system and if it would be a good idea to install it instead of upgrading to Windows 7 or 8. About ten boxes here are still running Windows XP and would be too old to upgrade to any newer version of Windows. He knows that i am using Linux at work on quite outdated hardware (would have gotten a new PC but never requested new hardware — Linux Mint x64 runs quite well on it) and i always managed to get my stuff done with it. I explained to him that there are no licensing issues with Linux, there is no anti-virus software to deal with and that Linux is generally a bit more efficient on old hardware than operating systems from Microsoft. The boss seems interested. Since i am the only guy with Linux experience I would have to support the Linux installations. Now the problem is what works perfectly fine for me may be a horrible experience for some of my coworkers, and even if they would only be using Firefox, Thunderbird and LibreOffice I don't know if I could seriously recommend using Linux as a desktop OS in a business. Instead I want to set up one test machine for users to try it and ask THEM if they like it. The test machine should be as easy and painless to use as possible and not look too different compared to Windows. Which distro and what configuration should I choose for this demo box?

Submission + - Photo web site offers a wall of shame for image stealers (stopstealingphotos.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: Stop Stealing Photos is a resource in the pro photographer community for protecting consumers. How? By identifying wannabes who use images in their portfolios that they did not create. In this case, one "photographer" built a massive social media presence, in many platforms including Linked In where he includes System Architecture in his skills. However, such advocacy web sites are very manual and often run by non-programmers. How can the tech community help consumers in protecting them from phoney on-line presences? Or is this vigilantism?

Submission + - Shoot evil Windows XP and Internet Explorer icons to death

Submitted by dmleonard618
dmleonard618 writes: Microsoft has launched a browser-based game that allows users to literally shoot outdated products to death. "Escape from Windows XP" is an arcade style shooting game that puts the user on a ground of broken desktop screens, flaming recycling bins and tanks supporting IE logos. “One man. One hero, still supporting IE6 on XP. Now, he’s fighting the final battle for his people—to destroy it once and for all. It’s time for his escape. Here. Now,” the game reads.

Submission + - The Smoke Detector for Meth Labs (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Your smoke detector seems like it's on your side, right? And your carbon monoxide detector is looking out for you. But in New Zealand, that extra box on your ceiling is looking out for your landlord. I guess the others were too—since fires and dead bodies are probably bad for property values—but I can't really find the upside for residents who live with a MethMinder in their homes that is waiting to call the authorities on them should they tamper with the box or, you know, break bad and cook some meth.

Ken Hetherington, a software engineer from Pakuranga, Auckland, designed the device after a friend was forced to spend $28,500 (AUS) to repair a vacation home that had been converted into a lab. The MethMinder runs on a long battery life and is fitted with a Vodafone SIM card that sends out a warning to both the police and the landlord if it smells something meth-y in the aira.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Hungry students, how common ? 1

Submitted by Gud
Gud writes: Opening the newspaper this morning this story hit me like bricks, as I recalled a number of these experiences from my time as grad student. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I remember choosing between eating, living in bad neighborhoods, putting gas in the car, etc. Me and my fellow students still refer to ourself as the "starving grad students." Today we laugh about these experiences because we all got good jobs that lifted us out of poverty, but not everyone is that fortunate.
I wonder how many students are having hard time concentrating on their studies due to worrying where the next meal comes from. In the article I found the attitude of collage admins to the idea of meal plan point sharing, telling as how little they care about anything else but soak students & parents for fees and pester them later on with requests for donations.
Last year I did the college tour for my first child, after reading the article, some of the comments I heard on that tour started making more sense. Like "During exams you go to the dining hall in the morning, eat and study all day for one swipe" or "One student is doing study on what happens when you live only on Ramen noodles!"
How common is "food insecurity in college or high school" ?
What tricks can you share with current students?

Submission + - Stung By File-Encrypting Malware, Researchers Fight Back (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: When Jose Vildoza's father became the victime of ransomware, he launched his own investigation. Diving into CryptoDefense's code, he found its developers had made a crucial mistake: CryptoDefense used Microsoft's Data Protection API (application programming interface), a tool in the Windows operating system to encrypt a user's data, which stored a copy of the encryption keys on the affected computer. Vildoza and researcher, Fabian Wosar of the Austrian security company Emsisoft, collaborated on a utility called the Emsisoft Decrypter that could recover the encrypted keys. In mid-March Vildoza had launched a blog chronicling his investigation, purposely not revealing the mistake CryptoDefense's authors had made. But Symantec then published a blog post on March 31 detailing the error.

Submission + - Canada Introduces Privacy Reforms That Encourage Warrantless Disclosure of Info (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week, the government introduced the Digital Privacy Act (Bill S-4), the latest attempt to update Canada's private sector privacy law. Michael Geist reports that the bill includes a provision that could massively expand warrantless disclosure of personal information. Organizations will be permitted to disclose personal information without consent (and without a court order) to any organization that is investigating a contractual breach or possible violation of any law. This applies both past breaches or violations as well as potential future violations. Moreover, the disclosure occurs in secret without the knowledge of the affected person (who therefore cannot challenge the disclosure since they are not aware it is happening). Consider it a gift to copyright trolls, who won't need the courts to obtain information on thousands of Internet users.

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