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Government

Submission + - HIPPA will bite over health-care privacy blunders (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Healthcare organizations that are performing risk assessments as a way to craft patient-privacy policies might want to consider a new potential attack vector: federal regulators. Later this year, the Department of Health and Human Services is expected to start auditing up to 150 health providers at random through December 2012 in an effort to find medical entities that fail to comply with HIPAA and HITECH regulations about how personal data must be handled securely."
Transportation

Submission + - DoT Grants $15M to Test Car-to-Car Communication (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Car-to-car communications is about to get its first large-scale, real-world test in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute will be putting as many as 3,000 cars equipped with short-range radio on the roads, thanks to a $14.9 million grant it just got from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation. DoT reports predict that up to 82 percent of serious accidents among unimpaired drivers can be eliminated or reduced by a little car-to-car negotiation, or early warning that a sedan three cars ahead just hit the brakes even though you can't see it through the giant SUV directly in front of you."

Submission + - Man Faces 75 Year Sentence For Recording Police (youtube.com) 3

Submitted by esocid
esocid writes: 42-year-old Michael Allison of Illinois could spend the rest of his life in prison for recording police in public. He faces five counts of eavesdropping, a class one felony. The Illinois Assistant Attorney General has joined the case and told the judge that citizens do not have the constitutional right to record police.
Censorship

Submission + - False DMCA notices erase Justin Bieber (tmz.com)

Submitted by Imagix
Imagix writes: In a fine case of how blind the DMCA is, a user submitted DMCA notices to YouTube over Justin Bieber's videos. In accordance to their DMCA policy, the videos were all yanked.
Security

Submission + - Kernel.org Trojan Attack Unnoticed for 17 Days (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The attack that compromised the Linux kernel.org site went unnoticed for 17 days and was only discovered when one developer noticed an odd error message on his personal machine.

""Earlier today discovered a trojan existing on HPA's personal colo machine, as well as hera. Upon some investigation there are a couple of kernel.org boxes, specifically hera and odin1, with potential pre-cursors on demeter2, zeus1 and zeus2, that have been hit by this," an email from a kernel.org admin says.

The email says that the attack apparently happened on Aug. 12 and the Trojan was discovered on Aug. 29.
Businesses

Submission + - Bank of America in battle with bloggers (computerworlduk.com) 1

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: Bank of America (BoA) has taken on two prominent blog sites after accusing them of spreading incorrect rumours.

The bank last week faced two difficult stories on consecutive days, and moved to publicly correct them after the sites shocked investors and the company’s stock price seemed to be affected.

The bank refutes suggestions that its strong response to both blogs was a personal attack on the writers, according to sources close to the situation.

Nevertheless, it publicly attacked Henry Blodget’s credentials in particular, noting he was banned from the securities industry eight years ago after settling fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator.

Submission + - Possible Habitable Planet 36 Lightyears Away (nationalgeographic.com)

Submitted by rubycodez
rubycodez writes: HD85512b, a planet found by the European Southern Observatory's High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) in Chile, is at the right distance and of the right mass (3.6 times Earth) to possibly harbor life. It is only the second planet found with the right distance and mass parameters to be a viable candidate for further study for life signs.
Businesses

Submission + - H-P Orders More TouchPads (wsj.com)

Submitted by kgeiger
kgeiger writes: Stunned by the overwhelming demand for TouchPads at firesale prices, H-P has ordered another production run. The Wall Street Journal reports H-P lost $207 on every unit sold; perhaps they hope to make up the loss on volume. From the article: 'The decision to manufacture a second run, however, left analysts scratching their heads. The introductory model of the TouchPad costs $306 to manufacture, according to an estimate from research firm IHS iSuppli, suggesting a loss of roughly two-thirds if it is sold for $99.'
China

Submission + - Chinese want to capture an asteroid (dvice.com)

Submitted by
geekmansworld
geekmansworld writes: "Dvice reports that the Chinese want to capture an asteroid into earth's orbit and mine it. From the article: "At first glance, nudging an asteroid closer to Earth seems like one of those "what could possible go wrong" scenarios that we generally try and avoid, and for good reason: large asteroid impacts are bad times. The Chinese, though, seem fairly optimistic that they could tweak the orbit of a near-Earth asteroid by just enough (a change in velocity of only about 1,300 feet-per-second or so) to get it to temporarily enter Earth orbit at about twice the distance as the Moon.""
The Internet

Submission + - The Fastest ISPs in the U.S 1

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: PCMag conducted their sixth annual test for the fastest ISPs in the U.S. Partnering with Ookla and its popular product Speedtest.net, they conducted 58,300 tests over the course of nearly three months. The data collected used the final download and upload speed to generate an index number to pick the winners, weighting downloads at 80 percent and uploads at 20 percent in terms of importance. What's interesting about the result is that when broken down by regions, states or even cities, Verizon and Charter Communications did really well however neither one of them were the fastest ISPs in the Nation.

Submission + - Justice Department blocks AT&T-T-Mobile merger (forbes.com) 1

Submitted by AngryDeuce
AngryDeuce writes: The Justice Department is blocking AT&T's $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA, saying the acquisition of the No. 4 wireless carrier in the country by No. 2 AT&T would reduce competition and raise prices.

The deal has faced tough opposition from consumer groups and No. 3 carrier Sprint since it was announced in March.

Submission + - Physicist's Algorithm Speeds Airplane Boarding (cnet.com)

Submitted by cheezitmike
cheezitmike writes: Fermilab astrophysicist Jason Steffen, waiting for a flight to leave, noticed that airlines wasted a lot of time boarding passengers and figured there had to be a better way: "Steffen considered various methods, such as boarding people in blocks, at random, and in window seats first. He set up a model using an algorithm based on the Monte Carlo optimization method used in statistics and mathematics. He found that the most efficient boarding method is to board alternate rows at a time, beginning with the window seats on one side, then the other, minimizing aisle interference. The window seats are followed by alternate rows of middle seats, then aisle seats. He also found that boarding at random is faster that boarding by blocks."
Facebook

Submission + - A new history of censorship in the West? (aljazeera.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The debate over freedom vs. safety on the net. Should governments be allowed to cut off social networks or cell service in the interest of public order? The UK riots earlier this month and the BART scandal in San Francisco proved that authoritarian governments are not the only ones interested in controlling the Internet and social media specifically. Are we moving towards a more regulated Internet? Do you prefer freedom or security?
Science

Submission + - Car Makers Explore EEG Headrests (technologyreview.com) 1

Submitted by mrtr
mrtr writes: A number of car makers are looking at whether EEG devices built into headrests could prevent accidents by sensing when a driver is in danger of drifting off. The technology comes from Neurosky, which already makes commercial EEG units for use in gaming and market research. Other approaches, such as using cameras to spot drooping eyelids have proven too unreliable so far. From the story: "Fatigue causes more than 100,000 crashes and 40,000 injuries, and around 1,550 deaths, per year in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Some studies suggest drowsiness is involved in 20 to 25 percent of all crashes on monotonous stretches of road."

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