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Submission + - 'Lax' Crossdomain Policy Puts Yahoo Mail At Risk (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267
msm1267 writes: A researcher disclosed a problem with a loose cross-domain policy for Flash requests on Yahoo Mail that put email message content, contact information and much more at risk. The researcher said the weakness is relatively simple to exploit and puts users at high risk for data loss, identity theft, and more.

Yahoo has patched one issue related to a specific .swf file hosted on Yahoo’s content delivery network that contained a vulnerability that could give an attacker complete control over Yahoo Mail accounts cross origin. While the patch fixed this specific issue, the larger overall configuration issue remains, meaning that other vulnerable .swf files hosted outside the Yahoo CDN and on another Yahoo subdomain could be manipulated the same way.

Submission + - Congress grants US authorities unlimited access to every person's communications (infowars.com) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The legislation was passed yesterday 325-100 via a voice vote, a green light for what Congressman Justin Amash describes as “one of the most egregious sections of law I’ve encountered during my time as a representative”.

The bill allows the private communications of Americans to be scooped up without a court order and then transferred to law enforcement for criminal investigations.

The legislation effectively codifies and legalizes mass warrantless NSA surveillance on the American people, with barely a whimper of debate.

Submission + - U.S. Passenger Vehicle Fleet Dirtier After 2008 Recession (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice
MTorrice writes: The 2008 recession hammered the U.S. auto industry, driving down sales of 2009 models to levels 35% lower than those before the economic slump. A new study has found that because sales of new vehicles slowed, the average age of the U.S. fleet climbed more than expected, increasing the rate of air pollutants released by the fleet.

In 2013, the researchers studied the emissions of more than 68,000 vehicles on the roads in three cities—Los Angeles, Denver, and Tulsa. They calculated the amount of pollution released per kilogram of fuel burned for the 2013 fleet and compared the rates to those that would have occurred if the 2013 fleet had the same age distribution as the prerecession fleet. For the three cities, carbon monoxide emissions were greater by 17 to 29%, hydrocarbons by 9 to 14%, nitrogen oxide emissions by 27 to 30%, and ammonia by 7 to 16%.

Comment Re:2% is nothing (Score 3, Informative) 121

by Tumbleweed (#48569027) Attached to: NASA Gets 2% Boost To Science Budget

Warthogs? A-10s are some of the least-expensive, easiest to maintain aircraft in the USAF inventory, and their role in CAS is unrivaled.

Cut a handful of F-35s and you've saved about as much money and probably made our military more combat ready.

Sadly, no new A-10s have been made since the mid-80s. I'm not against keeping the A-10 around, but to do so effectively requires re-starting long-dead production for planes and parts, which is no small - or cheap - matter.

Comment don't believe the electric company mouthpieces (Score 3, Insightful) 461

by Tumbleweed (#48531849) Attached to: Why Elon Musk's Batteries Frighten Electric Companies

They do not like anything that winds up with them selling fewer electrons. They don't even like cogeneration. When I was a reporter, writing about the electric industry about ten years ago, at the time the industry was saying they would help large businesses implement cogeneration to achieve greater efficiency, I learned about the "cogen killers" - people working for the electric producers who would on the sly, go and pressure large businesses to NOT implement cogeneration. This industry is rife with this kind of thing, so I would suggest you take anything one of their PR people says with a gigantic grain of salt, and then start following the money.

Submission + - Mathematicians Study Effects of Gerrymandering on 2012 Election 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Gerrymandering is the practice of establishing a political advantage for a political party by manipulating district boundaries to concentrate all your opponents votes in a few districts while keeping your party's supporters as a majority in the remaining districts. For example, in North Carolina in 2012 Republicans ended up winning nine out of 13 congressional seats even though more North Carolinians voted for Democrats than Republicans statewide. Now Jessica Jones reports that researchers at Duke are studying the mathematical explanation for the discrepancy. Mathematicians Jonathan Mattingly and Christy Vaughn created a series of district maps using the same vote totals from 2012, but with different borders. Their work was governed by two principles of redistricting: a federal rule requires each district have roughly the same population and a state rule requires congressional districts to be compact. Using those principles as a guide, they created a mathematical algorithm to randomly redraw the boundaries of the state’s 13 congressional districts. "We just used the actual vote counts from 2012 and just retabulated them under the different districtings," says Vaughn. "”If someone voted for a particular candidate in the 2012 election and one of our redrawn maps assigned where they live to a new congressional district, we assumed that they would still vote for the same political party."

The results were startling. After re-running the election 100 times with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election — four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations. "If we really want our elections to reflect the will of the people, then I think we have to put in safeguards to protect our democracy so redistrictings don't end up so biased that they essentially fix the elections before they get started," says Mattingly. But North Carolina State Senator Bob Rucho is unimpressed. "I'm saying these maps aren't gerrymandered," says Rucho. "It was a matter of what the candidates actually was able to tell the voters and if the voters agreed with them. Why would you call that uncompetitive?"

Comment I went from Cyanogenmod 11 to Lollipop last night (Score 1) 178

by Tumbleweed (#48380069) Attached to: Android 5.0 'Lollipop' vs. iOS 8: More Similar Than Ever

I had forgotten how featureless the stock launcher is. Gads. I feel crippled. I also really liked CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard feature.

I will not miss the bugs of CyanogenMod, though, that's for sure.

I'll be searching for a replacement launcher ASAP. Any recommendations? I used to use ADW back in my Gingerbread/Froyo days...I'll have to see if it's been updated for Lollipop/ART.

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