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Transportation

Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared" 382

Posted by samzenpus from the nailing-dow-the-time dept.
Advocatus Diaboli writes "Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system." Update: 03/14 11:41 GMT by S : The WSJ has since updated its report to say the data was from the plane's satellite-communication system. However, Malaysian authorities have denied both scenarios, saying neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce received data past 1:07am (the flight initially disappeared off radar at 1:30am).
Encryption

University of Cambridge Develops Potentially More Secure Password Storage System 70

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the tpm-minus-bad-things dept.
An anonymous reader writes "University of Cambridge's S-CRIB Scrambler resides in a Raspberry Pi and performs a hash-based message authentication code (HMAC). 'The secret 10-character key used to generate the HMAC resides solely on the dongle. Because it's not included in password tables that are stored on servers, the key could remain secret even in the event of a major security breach.' There are pros and cons associated with this method, of course, ranging from scalability to loss of access due to device hardware failure. As with all current options for password security, there's no guarantee that even this system remains secure."
Communications

Yik Yak, After Complaints From Schools, Suspends Its Service In Chicago 167

Posted by timothy from the best-kind-of-publicity dept.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Yik Yak, a mobile app that can (among other things) be used for anonymous communications, has drawn complaints from several local schools, who are unhappy that students can use it to bully or pester others. "'The problem, as you might imagine, is that the anonymity is empowering certain individuals to post comments about others that are hurtful, harassing and sometimes quite disturbing,' Joseph Ruggiero, head of the Upper School at Francis W. Parker School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, wrote in an email to parents last week. ... In light of the controversy, Yik Yak's co-founder said the company was disabling the app in the Chicago area and will attempt to specifically prevent it from being used on high school or middle school grounds."
Science

Computer Program Allows the Blind To "See" With Sound 56

Posted by samzenpus from the flipper-vision dept.
sciencehabit writes "Scientists have developed an algorithm that converts simple grayscale images into musical soundscapes. Even people blind from birth can use the technology to 'see' their surroundings and navigate around a room. Equally intriguing, the part of the subject's brain responsible for vision was active during these tasks, suggesting our thinking about how the brain works may be wrong. Instead of a 'vision center' of the brain, for example, we may actually have a region that helps us 'see', whether that input comes from sight or sound."

Comment you have to use thin glass (Score 1) 769

by YesIAmAScript (#46392573) Attached to: The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM"

Thick glass will fracture when you pour boiling water in. The inside of the glass heats up and expands while the outside is still cool and that creates internal stresses and breaks it.

By making the glass/ceramic thin the whole thing expands with the heat which causes no significant stresses.

You could double-wall it or insulate it as others mentioned.

Comment they don't care (Score 1) 769

by YesIAmAScript (#46391213) Attached to: The Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee With a Dash of "DRM"

DRM doesn't have to be undefeatable. The point is simply that the number of people who have hacked machines which bypass the DRM is much smaller than the total installed base of machines.

So this makes it hard to make a viable business model by selling 3rd party cups. Even if you and everyone you know can run un-DRMed cups, companies still can't viably make generic cups.

Comment Re:is the USB 'bug' fixed, at this point? (Score 3) 77

I gave up on BBB and went to rpi because BBB couldn't come up with a distro that worked.

Got tired of dd'ing my SD storage space back to stock and starting over when the unit ceased to boot after installing another stock apt.

And that's assuming it even worked when clean which it didn't, at least not at first (I got one of the first batch).

Tor Is Building an Anonymous Instant Messenger 109

Posted by samzenpus from the most-private-of-messages dept.
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a new anonymous instant messenger client on the way from Tor. "Forget the $16 billion romance between Facebook and WhatsApp. There's a new messaging tool worth watching. Tor, the team behind the world's leading online anonymity service, is developing a new anonymous instant messenger client, according to documents produced at the Tor 2014 Winter Developers Meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland."

Comment how many productions moved overseas? (Score 1) 131

by YesIAmAScript (#46352485) Attached to: Visual Effects Artists Use MPAA's Own Words Against It

The VFX workers may eventually have to come to grips with the idea that if you can't do it better you can't charge more for it. And thus they will probably have to cut their rates to compete.

This is basically the end game of the guild system Hollywood uses. You can keep people from undercutting you within the country by requiring guild membership and declaring union shops (or productions), but then the production just moves overseas. How many films are produced overseas nowadays to mitigate labor costs?
NASA

The Rescue Plan That Could Have Saved Space Shuttle Columbia 247

Posted by Soulskill from the if-only dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In February, 2003, space shuttle Columbia was lost upon atmospheric re-entry. Afterward, NASA commissioned an exhaustive investigation to figure out what happened, and how it could be prevented in the future. However, they also figured out exactly what would have been required for a repair and rescue mission using Atlantis. Lee Hutchinson at Ars Technica went through the report and wrote a lengthy article explaining what such a mission would look like. In short: risky and terribly complex — but possible. 'In order to push Atlantis through processing in time, a number of standard checks would have to be abandoned. The expedited OPF processing would get Atlantis into the Vehicle Assembly Building in just six days, and the 24/7 prep work would then shave an additional day off the amount of time it takes to get Atlantis mated to its external tank and boosters. After only four days in the Vehicle Assembly Building, one of the two Crawler-Transporters would haul Atlantis out to Launch Complex 39, where it would stage on either Pad A or Pad B on Flight Day 15—January 30. ... Once on the pad, the final push to launch would begin. There would be no practice countdown for the astronauts chosen to fly the mission, nor would there be extra fuel leak tests. Prior to this launch, the shortest time a shuttle had spent on the launch pad was 14 days; the pad crews closing out Atlantis would have only 11 days to get it ready to fly.'"

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