Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Google Announces Image Recognition Advance

Rambo Tribble writes: Using machine learning techniques, Google claims to have produced software that can better produce natural-language descriptions of images. This has ramifications for uses such as better image search and for better describing the images for the blind. As the Google people put it, "A picture may be worth a thousands words, but sometimes it's the words that are the most useful..."

Comment Steering clear (Score 1) 2

if the human brain is a Turing machine, then humans can never decide this issue either...

There's your problem right there. The optimizer replaces that on the first pass with

if FALSE then humans can never decide this issue either...

Then on the second pass, it deletes the statement entirely, leaving

One curious corollary is that: a point that the authors deliberately steer well clear of

Submission + - Crowdfunded Linux Voice Magazine Releases First Issue CC-BY-SA

M-Saunders writes: Linux Voice, the crowdfunded GNU/Linux magazine that Slashdot has covered previously, had two goals at its launch: to give 50% of its profits back to the community after one year, and release each issue's contents under the Creative Commons after nine months. Well, it's been nine months since issue 1, so the whole thing is now online and free to share. Readers and supporters have also made audio versions of articles, for listening to on the commute to work.

Submission + - Microsoft releases out-of-band security patch for Windows

mrspoonsi writes: Microsoft has announced today that they will be pushing an out-of-band security patch today. The patch, which affects nearly all of the company's major platforms, is rated 'critical' and it is recommended that you install the patch immediately. The patch is rated 'critical' because it allows for elevation of privileges and will require a restart. The platforms that are affected include: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT and Windows RT 8.1 and Windows 10 Technical Preview customers are affected too.

Submission + - 81% of Tor users can be de-anonymized by analysing router information (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A former researcher at Columbia University’s Network Security Lab has conducted research since 2008 indicating that traffic flow software included in network routers, notably Cisco's 'Netflow' package, can be exploited to deanonymize 81.4% of Tor clients.

Professor Sambuddho Chakravarty, currently researching Network Anonymity and Privacy at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, uses a technique which injects a repeating traffic pattern into the TCP connection associated with an exit node, and then compares subsequent aberrations in network timing with the traffic flow records generated by Netflow (or equivalent packages from other router manufacturers) to individuate the 'victim' client. In laboratory conditions the success rate of this traffic analysis attack is 100%, with network noise and variations reducing efficiency to 81% in a live Tor environment.

Chakravarty says: “it is not even essential to be a global adversary to launch such traffic analysis attacks. A powerful, yet non- global adversary could use traffic analysis methods [] to determine the various relays participating in a Tor circuit and directly monitor the traffic entering the entry node of the victim connection.”

Submission + - Patent troll hits major pharma company (seekingalpha.com)

walterbyrd writes: We often hear of patent trolls in the tech industry, but rarely see this from major pharma companies. However, the term applies perfectly to AbbVie's strategy to either prevent Gilead from selling Harvoni or compelling royalties. . .

AbbVie cannot commercialize Harvoni since they do not own any patents to the individual drugs that make up the combination, sofosbuvir and ledipasvir. However, it is perfectly legal to apply for and obtain "method of use" and "utility" patents for products that a company does not own and this is what ABBV has accomplished with its five patents.

Submission + - Windows Gets Patch for Ancient Flaw

jones_supa writes: Via last Patch Tuesday, Microsoft patched a critical flaw in Windows that has existed in every version since the introduction of Windows 95 more than 19 years ago. IBM security researchers discovered the flaw earlier this year and notified the software giant privately in May. The rare bug allows attackers to remotely execute code on an affected system. Internet Explorer 3.0 onwards can be used as an attack vector by convincing users to visit an URL. The actual vulnerability lies in the OLE Automation library (OLEAUT32.DLL).

Comment Close, but no cookie - crowdsource it! (Score 1) 698

Thousands of dollars per school would mean a system just won't be provided to poor schools, a simply unconscionable form of economic discrimination. Fortunately there's a way better answer.
Put an app on many of those smart phones, enabled by the reverse 911 lockdown message. By the time the cops show up on scene, each such phone can have responded to report its GPS position and a half-second timestamped audio clip of the sound of (presumed) shots as heard through each classroom door. Centrally process those clips to determine the time offsets as the sound goes down the hall from one classroom to the next. You don't need to put any special hardware in the school, though having a floorplan on record would improve accuracy. Once the approach works, it can be rolled out for nearly no cost, practically overnight, everywhere that reverse 911 is in place.
I'm happy to release this idea into the public domain for anyone who'll code it as free (Libre and beer) software. Who wants to put together a quick little project?

Slashdot Top Deals

"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side." -- Frank Zappa

Working...