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Communications

Submission + - Best web hosts reviews (besthostsreview.com)

Submitted by
Patrick
Patrick writes: "To properly host a lot of websites, expensive equipments and installations are required. Your personal home computer that you use to visit the Internet or play some games would not be enough for these companies. They need the most performing computers available on the market and those must be constantly upgraded as their hosting service becomes more and more popular. All of these servers use a very big amount of power and are producing a lot of heat. Usually, all the servers will be hosted in a room and this room's temperature will be constantly controlled via air conditioning so that the servers don't overheat and crash. The servers are mounted in racks or blades to save more room and are usually installed on a raised floor. This is so that they don't get damaged by water if a plumbing problem would occur in the building. Most of the web hosting companies also have some industrial backup generators to deal with power failures. To compare the best web hosting companies on the Internet, visit http://besthostsreview.com/"
Security

Submission + - SSL Flaw by (Browser) Design? (startcom.org)

Submitted by
Eddy Nigg
Eddy Nigg writes: "A while ago, the two security "white hats" Alexander Sotirov and Mike Zusman announced that they are going to publish a tool for exploiting EV SSL secured sites at the Black Hat Security Conference at the end of this month. Some sites reported the alleged attack on EV SSL secured sites as a means to prove that Extended Validation (EV) digital certificates aren't any more secure than regular SSL certificates. That's obviously an interesting claim since EV certificates traditionally costs quite a lot more than those that don't turn the address bar of the browsers green.

But is it really an attack on EV SSL secured sites? Does it indicate that such web sites aren't any more secure than others?"
Novell

Submission + - SPAM: Novell makes a run at cloud security

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Novell is trying to secure cloud services with technology that maps corporate security policies to service providers' clouds so applications and databases get the same protection they do in corporate owned facilities. Novell Cloud Security Service is in private beta and is scheduled to be commercially available this fall, the company says, and a proof of concept of the technology will be demonstrated at the Burton Group's Catalyst conference next week. Providers that buy into the cloud security service can offer services that enforce their customer's security standards within the providers' cloud, Novell says.
Link to Original Source
Government

Submission + - NSA to Use Cloud Model For Intelligence Analysis

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Information Week reports that the National Security Agency is taking a cloud computing approach on commodity hardware and "largely" on commercial software in developing a new collaborative intelligence gathering system that will link disparate intelligence databases geographically distributed in data centers around the country. The system will house streaming data, unstructured text, large files, and other forms of intelligence data and analysts will be able to add metadata and tags that, among other things, designate how securely information is to be handled and how widely it gets disseminated. For end users, the system will come with search, discovery, collaboration, correlation, and analysis tools. The intelligence agency is using the Hadoop file system, an implementation of Google's MapReduce parallel processing system, to make it easier to "rapidly reconfigure data" and for Hadoop's ability to scale. The NSA's decision to use cloud computing technologies isn't about cutting costs or seeking innovation for innovation's sake; rather, cloud computing is seen as a way to enable new scenarios and unprecedented scalability. "The object is to do things that were essentially impossible before," says Randy Garrett, director of technology for NSA's integrated intelligence program."
Security

Submission + - 4 million British identities: up for sale on Web (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Highly sensitive financial information, including credit card details, bank account numbers, telephone numbers and even PINs are available to the highest bidder. The information being traded on the web has been intercepted by a British company and collated into a single database for the first time. The Lucid Intelligence database contains the records of four million Britons, and 40 million people worldwide, mostly Americans. Security experts described the database as the largest of its kind in the world.The database is held by Colin Holder, a retired senior Metropolitan police officer, who served on the fraud squad. He has collected the information over the past four years. His sources include law enforcement from around the world, such as British police and the FBI, anti-phishing and hacking campaigners and members of the public. Mr Holder said he had invested £160,000 in the venture so far. He plans to offset the cost by charging members of the public for access to his database to check whether their data security has been breached.
Networking

Submission + - When Accredited Domain Name Registrars Drop Dead! 1

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "What do you do when your accredited domain name registrar drops dead? What happens to your domain? Mouzz Interactive at mouzz.com is an ICANN accredited registrar, but on July 19 their domain name expired and their website disappeared. I found out because I have domains registered with them, and I was in the process of renewing a domain name that expires next month, when I was unable to complete the transaction. Now their site is unreachable, so I have no access to my control panel. I cannot renew my domain, and because it's locked, I cannot transfer it. I cannot contact Mouzz because none of their contact emails will work. So now my site, which is listed on google's front page for imporatnt search terms, is going to disappear too. I have contacted ICANN and pointed out that they are listing an accredited registrar that doesn't exit, but they have made no response. I have complained to InterNic whose response is that they will forward my complaint to the registrar (duh... how they didn't say) How am I going to get my domains back? How many people like me are now completely screwed because they have lost control of their domains? If you don't think this is an interesting story then consider this. It could happen to your domain, or even slashdot.org"
Space

Submission + - Thirty Meter Telescope to be Built in Hawaii (tmt.org) 1

Submitted by
Shag
Shag writes: "The planners of the Thirty Meter Telescope have chosen a plateau near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii as the site where the telescope will be constructed. (Cerro Armazones, in Chile, was the other possibility.) The telescope will use a mirror of hexagonal segments, like those first used at the Keck Observatory, but where each Keck telescope mirror is made up of 36 segments, the TMT mirror will have 494. Construction is expected to take close to a decade, once the permitting process is completed."
Programming

Submission + - Open Source Languages Rumble at OSCON (oreillynet.com)

Submitted by
blackbearnh
blackbearnh writes: "Everybody knows what the best programming language is, it's whatever one you like the most. But is there a best language overall? Or even a best language for a given purpose? This question has plagued software engineering since the first time there were two languages to choose from. The argument is still going on, of course, but maybe a little light will be shed on the issue this week at OSCON. On Wednesday night at 7PM Pacific, representatives of the 5 major open source languages (perl, PHP, Python, Java and Ruby), as arbitrarily decided by O'Reilly, will meet to debate the merits of their various languages. If you happen to be at OSCON, you can attend the session, or you can watch it live on a webcast and pose questions or comments to the participants. The representatives are:
  • Python: Alex Martelli — Google
  • Ruby: Brian Ford — Engine Yard
  • PHP: Laura Thomson — Mozilla
  • Perl: Jim Brandt — Perl Foundation
  • Java: Rod Johnson — SpringSource
"
Security

Submission + - Security Threats 3 Levels Beyond Kernel Rootkits

Submitted by GhostX9
GhostX9 writes: Tom's Hardware recently interviewed security expert Joanna Rutkowska. Many think that kernel rootkits are the most dangerous attacks, but Joanna and her team have been studying exploits beyond Ring 0 for some time. Joanna is most well known for the red pill/blue pill virtualization attack (Ring -1) and in this interview chats a little bit about Ring -2 and Ring -3 attacks that go beyond kernel rootkits. What's surprising is how robust the classic BluePill proof-of-concept is:

'Many people tried to prove that BluePill is "detectable" by writing various virtualization detectors (but not BluePill detectors). They simply assumed that if we detect a virtualization being used, this means that we are "under" BluePill.This assumption was made because there were no products using hardware virtualization a few years ago. Needless to say, if we followed this way of reasoning, we might similarly say that if an executable makes network connections, then it must surely be a botnet.'
Programming

Submission + - SPAM: freeware undelete

Submitted by
freeware undelete
freeware undelete writes: "Offering diagnostic mode data restoration program for missing pictures, office documents and audio video music files. Get back all MS office Word, Excel, Power point documents, multimedia and audio video files from corrupted hard disk storage media."
Link to Original Source
The Internet

Submission + - Integrating Wikipedia with a local intranet Wiki 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I work for a large company taking a preliminary look at developing an honest-to-goodness wiki. We have tried to launch a company wide wiki before, but with little success. The technical domains of each part of the company are different, thus each article needs a good deal of background to be useful. Of course, due the proprietary nature of our work we cannot share our articles outside of the intranet.

What we would like to do is leverage existing wiki's by augmenting our internal wiki with an external wiki. When a user accesses wikipedia from inside our intranet they receive the wikipedia content, plus the local domain specific information. For example, links to company specific wiki pages would be available in wikipedia pages.

Has anyone else tried to do something like this? I know it sounds like a logistical nightmare, are there any thoughts on how to make this successful?
Supercomputing

Submission + - Top 20 Apps for an Infinitely Fast Computer (skytopia.com) 5

Submitted by
Twinbee
Twinbee writes: "What would you do if you had access to an infinitely fast computer with infinite memory and zero latency? The question has rarely been asked before, but the implications could prove interesting. Some of the applications include more obvious things such as weather prediction, and games featuring incredible path-traced graphics with worlds made from molecules. But more subtle ideas explore what a programming language may look like, how graphics creation may fundamentally change, and the chance to use sheer brute force to find a Grand Unified Theory for the universe."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Suggestions for learning FPGA development at home?

Submitted by Doug
Doug writes: I've recently been inspired to take up amateur electronics, specifically with FPGAs. I have an understanding of the basics, plus a solid programming background. From my research so far I've concluded that I should start with a simple FPGA development board and a couple of books on Verilog and/or VHDL and go from there. I found this Ask Slashdot discussion on Verilog vs VHDL very useful, but it focuses more on the development language rather than hardware. I'd be very interested in hearing peoples recommendations for an entry-level kit that is simple, flexible, and affordable (sub-£200), and preferably Linux-friendly, and indeed any other wise words that any experienced FPGA developers (professional or amateur) might have for a novice just starting out in the world of circuit design.
Space

Submission + - Tomorrow's Science Heroes?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As a kid (and still now) I was heavily influenced by Carl Sagan and a little later by Stephen Hawking. Now as I have started a family with two kids (currently age 5 and 2) I am wondering who out there is popularizing science. Currently, my wife and I can get the kids excited about the world around them, but I'd like to find someone inspiring from outside the family as they get older. Sure, we'll always have 'Cosmos,' but are there any contemporaries who are trying to bring science into the public view in such a fun and intriguing way? Someone the kids can look up to and be inspired by? Where is the next Science hero?
Networking

Submission + - your neighbor springs for your bandwith 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: a family friend has asked me to install a high speed, low-latency network so he can install video conferencing in his home office. he lives on a private road with about 10 houses on it, and wants to offer his neighbours acceess to the same. the houses are each on 2 acres, on some hilly land, so in total are pretty far apart. what would you suggest for him, and what would you suggest he offer his neighbours ?

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