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Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla Jetpack: API for standards-based add-ons

Submitted by revealingheart
revealingheart writes: Mozilla Labs have released a prototype extension called Jetpack: An API for allowing you to write Firefox add-ons using existing web technologies technologies to enhance the browser (e.g. HTML, CSS and Javascript), with the goal of allowing anyone who can build a Web site to participate in making the Web a better place to work, communicate and play. Example add-ons are included on the Jetpack website.

While currently only a prototype, this could lead to a simpler and easier to develop add-on system, which all browsers could potentially implement.
Space

Submission + - Life may have originated billions of years earlier (examiner.com)

Submitted by mmmscience
mmmscience writes: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m5d21-Life-may-have-originated-millions-of-years-earlier A new theory states that life as we know it may have started much earlier than previously thought. Contrary to previous beliefs, a computer model shows life would have survived a large asteroid event 3.9 billion years ago, meaning life could have started as early as 4.4 billion years ago when the oceans first formed. This theory helps explain the geological evidence of life at 3.83 billion years ago--life which shouldn't have existed if the Late Heavy Bombardment (which threw Kansas-sized asteroids at the Earth) managed to wipe out all living things during its 20-200 million asteroid-happy era.
Businesses

Submission + - Warner Bros. bids on Midway, Mortal Kombat (midway.com)

Submitted by Midway Newcastle Employee
Midway Newcastle Employee writes: Midway has issued a press release revealing Warner Bros. Entertainment as its "stalking horse" bidder (the first announced bidder that all others are against) for $33 million. This bid covers the Mortal Kombat franchise and the Seattle and Chicago development studios, but leaves the TNA franchise, and the San Diego and Newcastle studios open to purchase. Here's hoping that the Midway Newcastle studio does get sold, because I'm out of a job otherwise...
Google

Submission + - Court to Google: taking music is evil

Submitted by pcause
pcause writes: Google has been told to pay up for use of music on YouTube. This is another in a continuing series of Court decisions that add up to telling Google that its business practices just aren't legal. This case, the suit by Viacom over pirated content on YouTube, the book scanning settlement, and the like, all point to the fact that Google takes the attitude that if the law is inconvenient to what it sees as in its business interests, the law doesn't matter. If you don't agree sue them.

This really raises the question of what the much talked about slogan, "Do no evil", really means. Perhaps the question no one has asked is "Who decides what is evil?" Seems the Google folks have a broken moral compass when it comes to rights of content owners. What should really worry /. is what they're really doing to your privacy.
Security

Submission + - Flaw made public in OpenSSH encryption (zdnet.com) 1

Submitted by
alimo20
alimo20 writes: "Researchers at the Royal Holloway, University of London have discovered a flaw in Version 4.7 of OpenSSH on Debian/GNU Linux. According to ISG lead professor Kenny Patterson, an attacker has a 2^{-18} (that is, one in 262,144) chance of success. Patterson tells that this is more significant than past discoveries because "This is a design flaw in OpenSSH. The other vulnerabilities have been more about coding errors"

The vulnerability is possible by a man-in-the-middle intercepting blocks of encrypted material as it passes. The attacker then re-transmits the data back to the server and counts the number of bytes before the server to throws error messages and disconnects the attacker. Using this information, the attacker can work backwards to figure out the first 4 bytes of data before encryption. "The attack relies on flaws in the RFC (Request for Comments) internet standards that define SSH, said Patterson"

"Patterson said that he did not believe this flaw had been exploited in the wild, and that to deduce a message of appreciable length could take days.""
Government

Submission + - FCC's Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

"Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference," says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

The FCC claims it derives its warrantless search power from the Communications Act of 1934, though the constitutionality of the claim has gone untested in the courts.

But refusing the FCC admittance can carry a harsh financial penalty. In a 2007 case, a Corpus Christi, Texas, man got a visit from the FCC's direction-finders after rebroadcasting an AM radio station through a CB radio in his home. An FCC agent tracked the signal to his house and asked to see the equipment; Donald Winton refused to let him in, but did turn off the radio. Winton was later fined $7,000 for refusing entry to the officer. The fine was reduced to $225 after he proved he had little income.
United States

Submission + - Jobless IT pro buys radio ads to find work 1

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "The 65-year-old software engineer has worked for a who's who of industry and government entities, yet his phone that used to ring regularly with work offers has gone silent. So, Larry Fowler figures that what works for car dealerships and furniture stores just might find work for him. He's paid out $1,500 to buy a series of radio ads touting his technical skills and achievements ... delivered in his own everyman voice. You can listen to the commercial and judge for yourself.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/42019"
Data Storage

Flash Drive Roundup 311

Posted by CmdrTaco from the how-can-they-be-smaller-and-bigger dept.
Braedley writes "When [Ars] last took an in-depth look at USB flash drives in 2005, the landscape was a bit different. A 2GB drive ran nearly $200, and speeds were quite a bit slower then. At the time, we noted that while the then-current crop of drives was pretty fast, they still were not close to saturating the bandwidth of USB2. To top it off, a good drive was still going to set you back $50 or $70--not exactly a cheap proposition. Since our first roundup, this picture has changed considerably, and it leads to a question: has the flash drive become an undifferentiated commodity, just like any other cheap plastic tsotschke that you might find at an office supply store checkout counter?"
The Internet

Cory Doctorow Says DIY Licensing Will Solve Piracy 189

Posted by samzenpus from the well-that-was-easy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The founding editor of Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow, has written a report about 'do-it-yourself' digital licensing, which he's touting as the panacea for piracy. Doctorow's solution for content creators is two-fold: get a Creative Commons license and append some basic text requiring those who re-use your work to pay you a percentage of their gross income. Doctorow refers to this as the middle ground between simply acquiring a Creative Commons license and hiring expensive lawyers for negotiations. He calls do-it-yourself licensing 'cheap and easy licensing that would turn yesterday's pirates into tomorrow's partners.'"
Space

An Australian Space Agency At Last? 189

Posted by samzenpus from the up-and-down-under dept.
Dante_J writes "In the Australian Federal budget presented last night, as well as big national infrastructure spending, an amount of $48.6 million over four years was allocated for an 'Australian Space Science Program.' Normally a space program is managed by a space agency. Does this now mean that Australia will follow the recommendations of the Senate Space Science report and give up its rather inadequate title of the only top-20 GDP nation not to have one? With nations like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Bulgaria forming or maintaining space agencies, this government infrastructure is obviously not limited to G-20 nations. Discussions to combine Australian and New Zealand airspace have been undertaken; should that translate to aerospace too, and both nations form an ANZAC space agency together?"
Security

Apple and Microsoft Release Critical Patches 194

Posted by Soulskill from the that-time-of-the-month dept.
SkiifGeek writes "Both Microsoft and Apple have released major security updates in the last 24 hours. Microsoft's single update (MS09-017) addresses fourteen distinct vulnerabilities across all supported versions of PowerPoint, but it isn't the number of patched vulnerabilities that is causing trouble. Instead, the decision to release the patch for Windows versions while OS X and Works versions remain vulnerable to the same remote code execution risks (including one that is currently being exploited) hasn't gone down well with some people. Microsoft have given various reasons why this is the case, but this mega-update-in-a-patch is still interesting for other reasons. Meanwhile, Apple has updated OS X 10.5 to 10.5.7 as part of the 2009-002 Security Update, as well as a cumulative update for Safari 3 and the Public Beta for 4. As well as addressing numerous significant security risks, the 10.5.7 update provides a number of stability and capability enhancements and incorporates the Safari 3 update patch. Probably the most surprising element of the Apple update is the overall size of it; 442MB for the point update, and 729MB for the ComboUpdate."
Privacy

Greece Halts Google's Street View 192

Posted by kdawson from the keep-the-lens-caps-on dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Greece's Data Protection Authority, which has broad powers of enforcement for Greece's strict privacy laws, has banned Google from gathering detailed, street-level images in Greece for a planned expansion of its Street View mapping service, until the company provides clarification on how it will store and process the original images and safeguard them from privacy abuses. The decision comes despite Google's assurances that it would blur faces and vehicle license plates when displaying the images online and that it would promptly respond to removal requests. In most cases, particularly in the US, Google has been able to proceed on grounds that the images it takes are no different from what someone walking down a public street can see and snap. And last month, Britain's privacy watchdog dismissed concerns that Street View was too invasive, saying it was satisfied with such safeguards as obscuring individuals' faces and car license plates. The World Privacy Forum, a US-based nonprofit research and advisory group, said the Greek decision could raise the standard for other countries and help challenge that argument. 'It only takes one country to express a dissenting opinion,' says Pam Dixon, the group's executive director. 'If Greece gets better privacy than the rest of the world then we can demand it for ourselves. That's why it's very important.'"

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