Comment To boil it down to one quote: (Score 1) 282
From TFA
"If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks," said a military official.
Skype Issues Software Fix For Windows and Mac Users 61
jbrodkin writes "Skype has released a new version of its Windows software to fix the problem that has kept some Skype users from logging in and making calls yesterday, and plans to issue a similar update to Mac users later today, the company said. Skype, which is in the process of being sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, previously gave users instructions on how to fix the problem, which involved deleting a 'shared.xml' file. While Windows and Mac users are being given a software fix, Linux users still have to fix the problem manually (but they can handle it). Still unknown is what caused the Skype outage. Skype said it affected only a small percentage of users, but hasn't explained the cause. Skype has at least updated its status page to reflect the outage, however. Even after issuing yesterday's fix instructions, the status page had claimed for a while that sign in and registration were 'all working normally.'"
Submission + - Hardware Vendor Offers Backdoor with Every Product (threatpost.com)
Nameisyoung007 writes: A support page, titled "Backdoor Password for Allied Telesis Devices" recently turned up on Google. The page, labeled ***INTERNAL ONLY*** was written to answer customer questions like "'How do I obtain a backdoor password for my Allied Telesis device?'" and includes instructions on accessing a "built in Backdoor function" on any Allied Telesis device.
Probably a good time to double check your devices, just to make sure you're not affected.
Probably a good time to double check your devices, just to make sure you're not affected.
Submission + - Frist attack using RSA breach ? (networkworld.com)
jeffviper writes: Ouch.... we all knew it was a bad thing for RSA and here is the first casualty : Lockheed Martin
Lockheed responded to questions about the incident with this written statement: "We have policies and procedures in place to mitigate the cyber threats to our business, and we remain confident in the integrity of our robust, multilayered information systems security," said spokesman Jeffery Adams.
Lockheed responded to questions about the incident with this written statement: "We have policies and procedures in place to mitigate the cyber threats to our business, and we remain confident in the integrity of our robust, multilayered information systems security," said spokesman Jeffery Adams.
Computer De-Evolution: Awesome Features We've Lost 662
jfruhlinger writes "If you listened to tech marketing departments, you'd believe that advances in computers have been a nonstop march upwards. But is that really true? What about all the great features early hackers had in the '70s and '80s that are now hard to find or lost forever, like clicky keyboards and customizable screen height? This article looks at much beloved features that lost the evolutionary war."
Skype Crashes and Burns In Worldwide Outage 347
Stoobalou writes "VoIP and instant messaging service Skype has disappeared from the Internet, nary a fortnight after Microsoft snaffled up the outfit in a $8.5 billion deal."
Submission + - Cattle Disease Rinderpest Eradicated (reuters.com)
eldavojohn writes: Bovines rejoice, rinderpest has been eradicated worldwide. The rinderpest virus has plagued Europe, Africa and Asia for centuries causing indirect famine in countries as hundreds of millions of cattle fell victim. This is the first time in recorded history that humankind has completely eradicated an animal disease.
Submission + - DOD Releases Open Source Development Guide (pcworld.com)
BrandiCook writes: "The Department of Defense (DoD) has weighed in with its own support for open source. The DoD provides a nice analogy: “Imagine if only the manufacturer of a rifle were allowed to clean, fix, modify or upgrade that rifle. The military often finds itself in this position wit taxpayer funded, contractor developed software: one contractor with a monopoly on the knowledge of a military software system and control of the software source code.” Open technology offers increased agility and flexibility, fast delivery, increased innovation, reduced risk, lower cost and information assurance and security, the DoD asserts."
Tunnel Boring Machine Completes Hole Under Niagara Falls 193
abhatt writes with news that "Big Becky," a 4,000-ton tunnel boring machine, has finished chewing through over 10 kilometers of rock underneath Niagara Falls, Ontario, a project that's been underway since 2006.
"The 10.2 kilometer tunnel is 14.4 meters in diameter. Big Becky ate through 1.6 million cubic meters of rock to reach her goal. That’s enough rock, officials said, to fill the Rogers Centre in Toronto. And the cement used to line the tunnel would build a sidewalk stretching from Windsor to Quebec City. ... The project took longer and cost more because Becky ran into unexpected conditions. She’s designed to go through solid rock, but encountered a stretch of loose, crumbling material that was unsuitable for tunneling. That forced a long and expensive detour."
A Court's Weak Argument For Blocking IP Subpoenas 220
Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes to point out some unfortunate holes in a judge's recent ruling that was largely welcomed 'round these parts:
"A federal judge has ruled that a Canadian adult film producer cannot subpoena the identities of ISP users that were alleged to be sharing its copyrighted movies. Regardless of whether one supports the conclusion, the judge's reasoning was pretty weak. But the real hurdle is convincing people that a non-lawyer is entitled to call out a federal judge on their logic in the first place."
Read on for the rest of Bennett's thoughts.
Signs of Dark Matter From Minnesota Mine 158
thomst writes "Juan Collar, team leader of COGENT, an experimental effort to detect WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), recently presented a paper detailing 15 months of data collected via a pure germanium detector located deep in a Minnesota mine which seems to confirm similar results reported by a European effort called DAMA/LIBRA. The results are particularly intriguing, because they appear to show a seasonal variation in the density of WIMPs that accords with models which predict Earth should encounter more WIMPs in Summer (when its path around the Sun moves in the same direction as the Milky Way revolves) than in Winter (when it goes the opposite direction). The most interesting thing about the COGENT experiment is that the mass of the WIMP candidates it records is significantly less than most particle physicists had predicted, according to popular models. (Ron Cowen wrote an earlier article about COGENT last year that goes into a lot more detail about how COGENT works, what its team expects it to find, and why.)"
Submission + - LastPass Servers Possibly Compromised (lastpass.com)
An anonymous reader writes: LastPass thinks its DB was compromised and may have lost email addresses and password salts.
Submission + - LastPass Pasword Service Hacked (threatpost.com)
Trailrunner7 writes: LastPass, a popular Web based password management firm, advised its customers to change the password they use to access the service following what the company said are signs that its network may have been compromised.
Comment Re:Other OS (Score 1) 329
In all fairness, Nintendo and MS never made any attempt to allow that type of thing.
You also didn't see the US Air Force or other research institutions buying clusters of Nintento Wii's or XBOX 360's for their cluster computing platforms.
Submission + - Endeavour launch scrubbed for 48 hours
shuz writes: At 10:15 am Eastern time the launch of Endeavour has been scrubbed for a minimum of 48 hours. The scrub is due to 2 failed Axillary Power Unit heaters.
