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Networking

Submission + - Social Network Built from Medieval Land Records (arxivblog.com)

Submitted by
KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: "The world's oldest social network has been reconstructed from medieval land records in southwest France. A team of scientists and historians used this dataset, which record the date, the type of transaction and the people involved, to work out the network of links between medieval peasants in the area between 1260 and 1340 AD . These kinds of networks could provide anthropolgists with an exciting new way to study historical societies by asking how this medieval network differs from the kind of networks we see in the 21st century. The team promise an analysis soon (abstract). All that's left is to christen the new science of the study ancient social networks. Any suggestions?"
Cellphones

Submission + - Opera Mini 4.1 - 50% Faster than previous version (opera.com)

Submitted by
coxy
coxy writes: "Opera Mini 4.1 launched today and I don't know how they've done it, but those crazy Norweigens have managed to pack some punch into this version — they cite that it's 50% faster than their previous version and my phone is loving it. It's an excellent browser because it's fast and reduces network internet usage charges because of its compression (which is done well)... and it's a free download. Mmm.

There's a little preview video on Daily Motion:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4x8n7_opera-mini-41-guided-tour_tech"
Announcements

Submission + - Videos and report from Embedded Linux Conference (free-electrons.com)

Submitted by
Thomas Petazzoni
Thomas Petazzoni writes: "From April 15th to April 17th was held the fourth edition of Embedded Linux Conference in Mountain View, California. With more than fifty talks and tutorials around the use of Linux in embedded devices, this conference covered a wide range of topics: power management, debugging techniques, system size reduction, flash filesystems, embedded distributions, realtime, graphics and video, security, etc. For those who could not attend the conference, Free Electrons has published under a free license videos of nineteen talks and an extensive report of them. You can for example watch Andrew Morton's keynote, Klaas van Gend's talk about the real time version of the Linux kernel, or Mike Anderson's tutorial on the use of JTAG probes for kernel debugging. Enjoy !"
Security

Submission + - Quantum cryptography broken - and fixed (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Quantum cryptography — commonly lauded as an absolutely secure avenue of data transfer — has been broken.

The advanced technology was thought to be unbreakable due to laws of quantum mechanics that state that quantum mechanical objects cannot be observed or manipulated without being disturbed. But a research team at Linköping University in Sweden claim that it is possible for an eavesdropper to extract the quantum cryptographic key without being discovered.

In a research paper, published in the international engineering journal IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, the researchers propose a change in the quantum cryptography process that they expect will restore the security of the technology.
NASA

Submission + - New Aussie technology may help find life on Mars (idg.com.au)

Submitted by
StonyandCher
StonyandCher writes: "The CSIRO's leading exploration and mining scientist, Dr Brent McInnes, has just completed work with the team at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre to collaborate on the Alphachron development — an exploration technology currently employed by the Australian minerals industry — which could help the Nasa team ascertain if there was Life on Mars.The scientist spoke to Australian PC World saying, the highest priority is to understand when liquid water was present on Mars. "The same minerals that can be found in WA — and in Australia as a whole — can also be found on Mars," McInnes said. Accordingly, by using the Alphachron to date minerals on Mars and thus tell when liquid water may have been present, it can be inferred when life may have been sustainable near the surface of the planet."
Security

Submission + - Just how Effective is System Hardening? (arnnet.com.au) 1

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "Recent Coverage of what the NSA went through to create SELINUX raises an interesting question as to just how effective system hardening is at preventing successful attack?

When Jay Beale presented at DefCon 14, he quoted statistics that Bastille protected against every major threat targeting Red Hat 6, before the threats were known. With simple techniques for the every day user which can start them on the path towards system hardening, just how effective have you found System and network hardening to be?

The NSA does have some excellent guides to help harden not only your OS but also your browser and network equipment."
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Crowther's original ADVENTURE to be read/discussed

Submitted by Cosmicbandito
Cosmicbandito writes: Remember when they found the original source for Crowther's ADVENTURE on an old backup? Do you want to get together with other fans and academics to read the complete text of the game and talk about it? Here's your chance. MITH, the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities, is hosting a table-read of the full text of the game. Everyone with an interest in gaming is welcome, and tasty food will be served. Bring your own lamp.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - 2008 Kinetic Sculpture Race: Engineering Meets Art (kineticbaltimore.com)

Submitted by
YetAnotherName
YetAnotherName writes: "None other than Tom Jones has got the scoop on the 2008 Race of the annual Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race, a challenge where teams combine artistic skill, engineering prowess, personal endurance, and a healthy dose of humor to drive bizarre amphibious contraptions across 21 km (13 mi) of road, mud, and water. Extensive photos detail the winners of various categories — and, of course, the return of perennial team 'Fifi'. Other entrants included team 'Running with Scissors', 'Otter Chaos', and '99% Chimp' (who won the Best Bribes award for bribing the race judges the best, of course)."
Security

Submission + - Hey Verizon, Why is my WEP Key my MAC Address? (wordpress.com) 2

Submitted by A complete newb
A complete newb writes: WEP can be cracked in a few minutes with the right tools. But why bother trying to crack it when Verizon sets the default WEP key to the Access Point's MAC address? All you need is the right card in monitor mode and you can get all your neighbors WEP keys. The access point that comes with Fios has the capabilities for WPA but few people bother to change the default settings. With the gaining popularity of Verizon FiOS, customers could be faced with the increased possibility of personal data being stolen from their PC or having their broadband connection hijacked.
Space

Submission + - ESA: no bias against UK astronauts

Submitted by
Smivs
Smivs writes: "The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed that it will consider UK nationals as astronauts, despite the British government's long-standing decision not to fund or engage in manned space flight.Esa's astronaut selection campaign, the first for more than 10 years, will open on Monday 19 May. An expected 50,000 applicants will be whittled down to four astronauts, who are destined to spend time on the ISS.
A BBC News article goes into some detail of how this might work, and also gives a glimmer of hope that the UK authorities may be softening their stance that only robotic space exploration is worthwhile.
The first and only astronaut to fly as a Briton with a Union flag on the spacesuit was Helen Sharman in 1989. Since her privately organised trip to the Russian Mir space station, the UK has been a spectator in the human spaceflight arena.
Britain does not contribute to the voluntary Esa programme, which has the effect also of locking British companies out of the big industrial contracts to build space station equipment. This could all change. A number of reports recently have argued that the nation's strictly robots-only approach should be more flexible; and the government itself has agreed to review the situation."
Announcements

Submission + - World population to pass 6,666,666,666 today (census.gov)

Submitted by
suso
suso writes: ""The estimated population of the world will pass 6,666,666,666 today. No doubt an interesting number for people everywhere (not referring to any religion connotations). 5,555,555,555 was passed about 14 years ago. You may not realize that only a 80 years ago, the population of the Earth was only around 2 billion. This shows how the population of the world has increased at an alarming rate in recent times. Although the growth rate is almost half what it was at its peak in 1963, when it was 2.2%. Unrelated but also an interesting coincidence, the estimated number of available IPv4 addresses is getting very close to 666,666,666. It should cross over today as well.""
The Courts

Submission + - Skype backs down - GPL wins (gnumonks.org)

Submitted by Lardmonster
Lardmonster writes: Harald Welte reports that Skype have backed down in the Skype v Welte case in Germany. They had claimed that the GPL violated German anti-trust legislation, but wanted to use GPL'd software anyway.
The judge strongly suggested that any judgement would probably rule against Skype, who then decided to revoke its appeals case and accept the previous judgement of the lower court.
Security

Submission + - Recovering Redacted PDF Documents now Easier (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "The dangers associated with Track Changes in Word documents are well known, as is the ease by which redacted information can be retrieved from a PDF document when black rectangles are being used for redaction. Recent work by Didier Stevens has uncovered techniques that allow anyone armed with a text editor (or a hex editor in the worst case) to recover the original form of a PDF document.

It is nothing that can't be gained from reading the PDF specification, but who takes the time to read in depth the technical specification for the data format that they are using?"

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