55727549
submission
judgecorp writes:
The group of security experts who urged people to boycot the RSA conference (over allegations that the security firm RSA has taken a $10 million bribe from the NSA to weaken ithe security of its products) have put together a rival conference called TrustyCon just down the road from Sand Francisco's Moscone Center, where the EMC-owned firm will have its conference at the end of February
55726699
submission
judgecorp writes:
Entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, still wanted in the US for allegedly enabling copyright infringement, has previewed a music service called Baboom to compete with the likes of Spotify, and also launched his own debut album, which will be available on iTunes and Google Play as well as Baboom, of course. Now, nobody pirate the album, ok?
55572199
submission
judgecorp writes:
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has launched China OS, a Linux-based operating system for smartphones, PCs and other devices intended to combat the dominance of Google Android, Apple's iOS and Microsoft Windows. Although Linux based, the OS will not be open source — and CAS claims everything above the kernel was developed independently. The OS follows unsuccessful efforts such as Red Flag and Ophone, but has interesting backing from Taiwan's HTC.
55570105
submission
judgecorp writes:
The US CERT has warned that the Network Time Protocol (NTP) is being used to amplify Denial of Service attacks. The attack uses a monitoring service, part of NTP, which allows a site to query the NTP server about who else is using the service. One NTP request with a spoofed return address can generate a much larger return (a list of the last 600 sites to ask the time) and NTP packets look innocuous, says the warning.
55537169
submission
judgecorp writes:
Yahoo COO has sacked Henrique de Castro the Google executive she brought across to Yahoo only three months after she made the move from Google last summer. de Castro was one of the high-prodile (and high-salary) appointments with which she hoped to turn Yahoo around — but fifteen months later, he is out of the door. No reasons have been given for his departure. but it's definitely a sacking: Mayer said "During my reflection, I made the difficult decision that our COO, Henrique de Castro, should leave the company."
55535687
submission
judgecorp writes:
Syed Hussain, already serving time for helping to plot attacks against UK targets, got another four months for refusing to divulge the password of a USB stick the police and GCHQ wanted to examine. The USB was believed to contain data about a suspected fraud unconnected with national security, and Husein claimed to have forgotten it under stress, He later remembered it and it turned out to be a password he had used on other systems investigated by the police.
55477403
submission
judgecorp writes:
Famed cryptography activist Phil Zimmerman is set to launch Blackphone, a privacy-oriented phone which allows secure calls and messages. The phone is a joint venture between Zimmerman's Silent Circle communications provider and Geeksphone, the creator of the first Firefox phone, and will run PrivatOS, a secure version of Android. Zimmerman says the venture will be taking orders for the devices from February 24, after it is unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
55438265
submission
judgecorp writes:
Recycling charity Computer Aid has been granted a Royal Warrant for computer recycling — which means it can display the Royal coat of arms, in recognition of its work for The Queen, cleaning up and refurbishing discarded computers, and shipping them to charity projects, often in developing countries. The charity has revealed that Buckingham Palace donated 1400 old machines in the last five years, which works out at 280 per year.
55366569
submission
judgecorp writes:
Anonymous took down an MIT website on the anniversary of the death of Aaron Swartz, and urged visitors to the defaced page to support next month's protest against NSA surveillance, known as "The Day We Fight Back". That's a separate issue to the copyright policing which led to Swartz' death, but Anonymous says " If Aaron were alive he’d be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings.”
55359571
submission
judgecorp writes:
According to reports HP is set to launch a smartphone next week. You don't need a huge memory to know that the company's already tried this a few times; if not, the words iPaq and Palm may ring some bells, and TechWeek has a gallery. This time round HP is going for a low-cost Android device, so all it's got to do now is succeed where others are failing and compete with Samsung....
55154361
submission
judgecorp writes:
The French privacy regulator, CNIL, has handed its biggest ever fine to Google over the search giant's privacy changes and cookie policy. The €150,000 ($200k) fine is a fleabite for Google, but the company will have to post an apology on its French homepage. The ruling may have stung a little — Google's top privacy officer Peter Fleischer has railed against the "failed" European data protection policies on his blog and urged politicians and regulators to go back to the drawing board.
55119339
submission
judgecorp writes:
A $350 case which turns an iPhone into a thermal imaging camera has been launched at CES in Las Vegas. It sounds an expensive toy but the maker, FLIR, says it has serious applications, such as spotting waste heat from homes or offices (or data centres) or for home security.
55118413
submission
judgecorp writes:
Two media reports suggest that the Universal Credit scheme to overhaul Britain's welfare programme is in trouble. The IT project to support Universal Credit was launched by the Cabinet Office, and it will be completed and run by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) — but the Guardian says the Cabinet Office has pulled out its elite experts too soon, while a different leak told Computer Weekly that the four original suppliers — HP, IBM, Accenture and BT — have been effectively frozen out in an internal change. It's the biggest change to Britain's benefits system for many years, and all the evidence says it's not going well.
55118243
submission
judgecorp writes:
Kanye West has sent a cease and desist letter to Conye West, the Kanye-themed cryptocurrency that (apparently) started as a chatroom joke. The group's response? To bring forward the launch date, and make some changes which might soothe Kanye's anger, while allowing the scheme to profit from the media exposure and persuade people to buy Coinyes with their Bitcoins. The currency has now lost the "West", its graphic image is more "satirical" (with a South Park inspired fish tail), and the server is in India.
55114613
submission
judgecorp writes:
Two people face jail after pleading guilty for their part in a torrent of Twitter abuse which hit feminist campainer Caroline Criado-Perez during her successful campaign to have Jane Austen commemorated on the British £10 note. British paper currency depicts national heroes as well as the Queen, and featured no women,after Winston Churchill replaced social reformer Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note.
