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The Internet

Submission + - Why didn't the internet save the last decade? (pbs.org) 2

Submitted by tcd004
tcd004 writes: Open communication, new markets, no boundaries. There was so much promise in the first ten years of the internet, why didin't that translate into more jobs, more freedom, and more overall happiness? Esther Dyson, Paul Saffo, and Jaron Lenier discuss the last ten years of technology and what we can expect in the next ten years.
Security

Submission + - Encryption Cracked on NIST Certified Flash Drives (h-online.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: USB Flash drives with hardware based AES 256-bit encryption manufactured by Kingston, SanDisk and Verbatim have reportedly been cracked by security firm SySS. These drives are advertised to meet security standards suitable for use with sensitive US Government data (unclassified, of course) as emphasized by the FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certificate issued by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It looks likes the Windows based password entry program always sends the same character string to the drive after performing various crypto operations.

Submission + - Background Checks at smaller companies?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: My employer has announced that they will be implementing background checks for all current employees effective immediately, plus as a condition of hire for new employees. I have a basic problem with this — we aren't involved with National Security or public safety, though we are required to be HIPAA compliant. I expect corporate behemoths to treat their employees this way, but not smaller (< 500 employee) companies. Are such background checks now the norm for smaller companies?

Submission + - PhD student from India sentenced due to website

Submitted by parallel_prankster
parallel_prankster writes: Vikram Buddhi, a PhD student in Purdue University was arrested three years ago and since then he has been languishing in a jail in United States. He was arrested for writing anti-Bush content and publishing it through university’s website, allegedly. Literally fighting his own battle, Buddhi said his lawyer "did not discuss the case properly with him but only touched upon some issues superficially. He also did not discuss with me what he is going to present in court and did not do any meaningful research". The URL for the story is here http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/indians-abroad/IITian-Vikram-Buddhis-sentencing-postponed-to-Friday/articleshow/5326011.cms and here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/15/vikram-buddhi-anti-bush-b_n_322111.html

Submission + - Global MS Office 2003 outage? 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It's been hush hush so far, but there should be a patch sometime today....

Cc: MSSolve Case Email
Subject: Prem\Windows Rights Management\Users are unable to secure documents using RMS

Hello Gentlemen,

The issue you are experiencing with RMS protected Office 2003 documents, is an issue that was encountered by all RMS/Office 2003 customers as of last night. This is not something that you caused. It is something that was determined to be an issue with Office 2003. That product group is actively engaged on the issue and they are committed to coming out with a public fix that should be out today. I will let you know the second I hear anything about a public statement and/or a public fix. Please let me know if you have any questions and/or concerns. Have a great day!!

Thank You,

Jess Huber, Security Support Engineer
CSS Security
Microsoft Corporation

Submission + - DOE Launches New Website to Bring Energy Technolog (energy.gov)

Submitted by lazystoner
lazystoner writes: WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary Chu announced today that the Department of Energy is launching Open Energy Information (www.openEI.org) — a new open-source web platform that will make DOE resources and open energy data widely available to the public.
Hardware

Submission + - Nanotech ink turns paper into a low-cost battery

Submitted by jangel
jangel writes: Stanford University researchers have demonstrated a way to turn ordinary paper into a battery, which may be crumpled or pressed into any form. It's said the technology promises greater durability, higher efficiency, and faster energy transfer than traditional batteries.

The technique uses special ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires. Thanks to the small diameters of these materials, the ink sticks strongly to the fibrous paper, allowing the battery to be extremely durable. The paper battery could last through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles — at least an order of magnitude more than lithium batteries. The nanomaterials also make ideal conductors because they move electricity along much more efficiently than ordinary materials, it's claimed.

According to the researchers, the paper batteries will be low-cost, may be crumpled or folded, and can even be soaked in acidic or basic solutions, yet their performance does not degrade. "We just haven't tested what happens when you burn it," one of the researchers quipped.

See http://www.windowsfordevices.com/c/a/News/Stanford-creates-highly-conductive-paper/
Earth

Submission + - Quake Threat Halts Swiss Geothermal Project

Submitted by
Ponca City, We love you
Ponca City, We love you writes: "The NY Times reports that a $60 million project to extract renewable energy from the hot bedrock deep beneath Basel, Switzerland, has been shut down permanently after a government study determined that earthquakes generated by the project were likely to do millions of dollars in damage each year. The report concluded that residents of Basel would have felt from 14 to 170 earthquakes over the 30-year life of the project and although few if any of those earthquakes would likely cause bodily harm, the report found a 15 percent chance that the project could set off an earthquake that could cause over half a billion dollars in damage. The findings deal a serious blow to hopes that advanced geothermal energy could substantially cut the world’s use of emissions-causing fossil fuels and comes as the United States Energy Department is preparing its own review of the safety of a closely related project, by a start-up company called AltaRock Energy, in the hills north of San Francisco. The AltaRock project has been plagued with technical problems and US government seismologists confirm that earthquakes around Anderson Springs were far less frequent in the past and that the geothermal project produces as many as 1,000 small earthquakes a year as the ground expands and contracts like an enormous sponge with the extraction of steam and the injection of water to replace it. “If they were creating tornadoes, they would be shut down immediately,” says resident Douglas Bartlett. “But because it’s under the ground, where you can’t see it, and somewhat conjectural, they keep doing it.”"
Politics

Submission + - Virtual money for real lobbying (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by ogaraf
ogaraf writes: Here is an article on how the health-insurance industry group 'Get Health Reform Right' paid Facebook users with virtual currency to be used in Facebook games in exchange for lobbying their Congressional Rep. From the article:

Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:

"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have." "
News

Submission + - New Google tech will help battle deforestation (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today Google demonstrated a new technology prototype that enables online, global-scale observation and measurement of changes in the earths forests. A type of Google Maps for forests if you will.
IT

Submission + - Denying IT Staff Admin Rights?! 1

Submitted by Kungpaoshizi
Kungpaoshizi writes: I work for a rather large international corporation that does insurance... Just recently I discovered that the higher-ups are trying to strip the on-site IT support staff in every location, of their admin privelages... As of right now we do not have local admin privelages on machines, which is a hinderance, but not entirely crippling, but to remove our admin rights all together?! Has anyone else ever experienced this in their company? Personally I think it's one of the biggest soon-to-be blunders I've ever heard of, but it definately shows that managers don't know jack about the real work that goes on in an IT job... Thanks~

Submission + - Judges can’t “friend” Lawyers in 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that Florida's Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has found in a recent opinion that judges and lawyers can no longer be Facebook friends. The committee says that when judges “friend” lawyers who may appear before them, it creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, since it “reasonably conveys to others the impression that these lawyer ‘friends’ are in a special position to influence the judge.” Stephen Gillers, a legal ethics expert at New York University, says the Florida rule goes too far. “In my view, they are being hypersensitive" because in the case of a truly close friendship between a judge and a lawyer involved in a case, the other side can simply seek to disqualify the judge. Judges do not “drop out of society when they become judges,” Gillers says. “The people who were their friends before they went on the bench remained their friends, and many of them were lawyers.” Still, legal sycophants can take heart: lawyers can declare themselves Facebook “fans” of judges, the committee says, “as long as the judge or committee controlling the site cannot accept or reject the lawyer’s listing of himself or herself on the site.”"
Apple

Submission + - Apple Countersues Nokia for Copying iPhone (allthingsd.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has responded to Nokia’s patent suit against it with a suit of its own. In it, Apple accuses Nokia of attempting to copy the iPhone and infringing 13 of its patents.

Submission + - Secure email with French military and Thunderbird (trustedbird.org)

Submitted by
Fred_A
Fred_A writes: "The French military have for a while both evaluated and in a number of cases switched to FOSS.
When the DGA (lang=fr) needed a secure email client and couldn't find a commercial one, they naturally also used FOSS and used Thunderbird to create Trustedbird.
The email client supports a number of useful features such as triple wrapping (sign, crypt, sign), signed receipts, delivery status notification...
As expected from users of FOSS, the new developments are being open sourced and could well end up in a Thunderbird near you one of these days.

And just so that it's out of the way, " (.deb, .tar, .exe and src), FOSS crypto email client, only dropped once".
(Disclaimer : despite my being French, I have nothing whatsoever to do with the project)"
Security

Submission + - Generating the Slashdot Effect using CSRF (skeptikal.org)

Submitted by shewfig
shewfig writes: Skeptikal.org has an article imagining the impact of wide-spread use of CSRF. While it isn't a new web vulnerability, it has the potential to cheat the web in new ways. For example: "Wired Magazine is in the running for AdweekMedia's "Best of the 2000s" top magazine of the decade.[...] While gaming such systems isn't usually very hard, I laugh even harder when I notice the application is vulnerable to CSRF.[...] It probably raises some ethical issues to perform this kind of attack, and I certainly wouldn't condone this kind of thing.[...] For demonstration purposes only, here's a bit of HTML that you could theoretically place in your own website"

So how to stuff the ballot box? Traditional methods:
  • Embed the link on your own site
  • Use XSS to embed the link on another site
  • Build a Samy-style worm to spread the link for you

"But why should we restrict ourselves to web browsers? Lots of other applications make HTTP requests, and we can certainly use those ones. favicon.ico and robots.txt are some of the most common URLs for non-web-clients to hit. A few .htaccess rules can be used to help herd bots, malware, and non-browser RSS readers in the right direction[...]"

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