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Comment Re:A (hidden) communication channel is not an atta (Score 2) 121

by RevWaldo (#47222147) Attached to: The Computer Security Threat From Ultrasonic Networks
I was wondering how this speed compared to a telegraph operator sending Morse Code. Googling about, words per minute, based on the standard five characters per word plus spaces and punctuation, works out to about bps * 1.2.

http://superuser.com/questions...

So 20 bps is about 24 words per minute. Compare this to a skilled telegraph operator, who can manage 40 wpm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

So yeah, it's slow, BUT for keylogging it couldn't keep up only if users typed constantly, which they don't. Plenty of time in between to do some catch up.

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Comment Emperor Walmartine and Amazon Skywalker (Score 1) 210

by RevWaldo (#47217147) Attached to: Amazon Dispute Now Making Movies Harder To Order
Yesss...yesss...feel the power of the Dark Side flowing through you...hate those who would defy you...squeeze your suppliers, force them to cut costs, wages and benefits in order to remain profitable. Make them in turn go to even cheaper sources for low-quality parts and materials. Soon you will join me by my side and together we will rule both retail and online and crush any so-called worldwide labor movement!

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Businesses

GoDaddy Files For $100 Million IPO 110

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.
mpicpp (3454017) writes with news that GoDaddy has filed to make an initial public offering "This is the second time GoDaddy has tried to go public. It went this route back in 2006, but then backed out when it didn't get the pricing it wanted." The SEC Filing indicates that they are not in the greatest financial condition. Quoting CNN: "GoDaddy hasn't made a profit since 2009. The company lost $279 million in 2012. It bled another $200 million last year. This year doesn't look much better, with another $51 million lost in the first quarter." Founder Bob Parsons, currently executive chairman, will be stepping down but remaining on the board of directors.
Education

Parents Mobilize Against States' Student Data Mining 139

Posted by Soulskill from the you-can-trust-us dept.
theodp writes 'Politico reports that parents have mobilized into an unexpected political force to fight the data mining of their children, catapulting student privacy to prominence in statehouses. Having already torpedoed the $100 million, Bill Gates-funded inBloom database project, which could have made it easier for schools to share confidential student records with private companies, the amateur activists are now rallying against another perceived threat: huge state databases being built to track children for more than two decades, from as early as infancy through the start of their careers. "The Education Department," writes Stephanie Simon, "lists hundreds of questions that it urges states to answer about each child in the public school system: Did she make friends easily as a toddler? Was he disciplined for fighting as a teen? Did he take geometry? Does she suffer from mental illness? Did he go to college? Did he graduate? How much does he earn?" Leonie Haimson, a NY mother who is organizing a national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy says, "Every parent I've talked to has been horrified. We just don't want our kids tracked from cradle to grave." For their part, ed tech entrepreneurs and school reformers are both bewildered by and anxious about the backlash — and struggling to craft a response, having assumed parents would support their vision: to mine vast quantities of data for insights into what's working, and what's not, for individual students and for the education system as a whole. "People took for granted that parents would understand [the benefits], that it was self-evident," said Michael Horn, a co-founder an education think tank."
Movies

Pixar To Give Away 3D RenderMan Software 147

Posted by Soulskill from the building-a-community dept.
nairnr sends this news from the BBC: 'The 3D rendering software behind films such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc and Harry Potter is to be given away free for non-commercial use. RenderMan, which is developed by Pixar, has faced increased competition from rival animation rendering programmes such as VRay and Arnold. Although Pixar, which is owned by Disney, produces its own films, it licenses RenderMan to rival studios. In a statement, the firm said it would release a free version of RenderMan "without any functional limitations, watermarking, or time restrictions." "Non-commercial RenderMan will be freely available for students, institutions, researchers, developers, and for personal use," it added.'

Comment Re:This guy reads too much sci-fi. (Score 1) 323

by RevWaldo (#47122259) Attached to: 'Curiosity' Lead Engineer Suggests Printing Humans On Other Planets
The trick is differentiating between the not currently possible but we could see the pathways to get there and the not currently possible and we haven't the first clue how to practically pull it off.

We can see the paths that may make seeding planets, duplicating and assembling humans from raw materials, and so on possible.
FTL starships? Time travel? Teleportation? Let us get back to you.

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United States

Iranian Hacker Group Created Fake News Organization For Social Engineering 57

Posted by timothy from the won't-you-be-my-neighbor dept.
itwbennett (1594911) writes "A suspected Iranian hacker group seeded Facebook and LinkedIn with bogus profiles of attractive women and even created a fake online news organization to get digitally closer to more than 2,000 U.S. military members, defense contractors and lobbyists it wanted to spy on, according to a report by security consultancy iSight Partners. The group is suspected to be in Iran, based on their working patterns and the location of their command-and-control infrastructure, said Patrick McBride, vice president of iSight's marketing and communications. Their activity is consistent with government-sponsored espionage campaigns, but 'we don't have anything specific tying them back to the government,' he added." Adds reader wiredmikey (1824622): "The recently uncovered activity, which iSIGHT Partners calls NEWSCASTER, was a 'brazen, complex multi-year cyber-espionage that used a low-tech approach to avoid traditional security defenses–exploiting social media and people who are often the 'weakest link' in the security chain.' ... Working undetected since 2011, targets included senior U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, congressional personnel, Washington D.C. area journalists, U.S. think tanks, and defense contractors in the U.S. and Israel."
Earth

Researchers Experiment With Explosives To Fight Wildfires 80

Posted by Soulskill from the my-kind-of-stupid dept.
aesoteric writes: "Australian researchers are a step closer to demonstrating whether explosives — rather than water — can be used to extinguish an out-of-control wildfire. The research uses a blast of air to knock the flame off its fuel source — a technique used in the oil & gas industry for decades. The latest tests were conducted in New Mexico. Firefighters are reported to be quietly optimistic about the research's potential."
Crime

Ask Slashdot: Anti-Theft Products For the Over-Equipped Household? 408

Posted by timothy from the exploding-dye-packs dept.
First time accepted submitter Dufflepod (3656815) writes "After yet another hardware purchase last week, I realized with some alarm just how drastically an enterprising burglar could increase the crapulence quotient of my life if they ever made off with my hardware. The house is alarmed, but much to my annoyance it isn't always set when people go out for any length of time. Ideally I want to 'alarm' the expensive items among my various PCs, UPS, NAS box, test equipment, and some of the sundry other gadgets & gizmos I require to stroke my inner geek. Over the past few days I have spent hours Googling for every combination of "anti-theft perimeter alarm radius motion detector vibration wireless" etc etc.. I have found various possible solutions, though the cost of some of them does make my eyes water (eg SonicShock @ €150/box). Has anyone out there decided to bite-the-bullet and protect their kit with decent alarms, and do you have any suggested 'do's & don'ts'?" So how would you secure valuable items, as opposed to securing the entire place?
Communications

Proton-M Rocket Carrying Russia's Most Advanced Satellite Crashes 160

Posted by timothy from the tough-thing-to-get-right dept.
schwit1 (797399) writes "When it rains it pours: A Russian Proton rocket crashed Friday nine minutes after launch. Considering the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over space, combined with the increasing competition for the launch market created by SpaceX's lower prices, another Proton failure now is something the Russians could do without. Moreover, the Russians were planning a lot of Proton launches in the next few months to catch up from last year's launch failure. Many of these scheduled launches were commercial and were going to earn them hard cash. This failure definitely hurts, and will certainly be used as justification by their government in increase its control over that country's aging aerospace industry."

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