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Submission + - Home theatre LAN security non existent and never will be 1

Submitted by TomSawyerIsmyname
TomSawyerIsmyname writes: I recently purchased a new home theatre and noticed an ethernet connection in the back of the system, so I plugged it to my network and started to have fun with a software called icontrolAV5 (I'll let you guess the maker of the home theatre) turning my iphone into a remote control for my home theatre system, very convenient software, the more I played with it the more I realized there was no network password protection in the setup, I searched the Internet, I read all the manuals, I tried to contact the company... Nothing to be found on that topic, I finally was able to contact one of the company's engineer, he confirmed that there was no options in the firmware to protect my system from the network with a password and there was no need for it because he thinks that no one will ever know how or spend time hacking a home theatre... (my thinking is, why does a man climb a mountain? because it's there...) so in conclusion, some one could make a virus (nice computer school project) that would infect a computer on the same network as the home theatre, sniff out the system's IP than send telnet commands (yes the application use telnet protocols and the system execute them without a password) turn ON the system, select FM source, scan for a channel than set the volume to 200 at 2 o'clock in the morning... the good thing about that virus is you would know who's infected in your neighborhood if you happened to be outside and suddenly hear an FM station blasting out loud at precisely 2am ha ha!

Submission + - Antitrust case against Google thrown out of SF court (betanews.com)

Submitted by Mark Wilson
Mark Wilson writes: Just a few days ago Google was threatened with legal action for anti-competitive behavior in Russia. While we don't yet know if that will amount to anything, there has been some better news for the search giant in the US. A San Francisco judge dismissed a case brought against the firm by two men who thought the inclusion of Google services in Android pushed up the prices of their handsets.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: parental content control for free OSs?

Submitted by m.alessandrini
m.alessandrini writes: Children grow up, and inevitably they will start using internet and social networks, both for educational and recreational purposes. And it won't take long to them to learn to be autonomous, especially with all the smartphones and tablets around and your limited time.
Unlike the years of my youth, when internet started to enter our lives gradually, now I'm afraid of the amount of inappropriate contents a child can be exposed to unprepared: porn, scammers, cyberbullies or worse, are just a click away.
For Windows many solutions claim to exist, usually in form of massive antivirus suites. What about GNU/Linux? Or Android? Several solutions rely on setting up a proxy with a whitelist of sites, or similar, but I'm afraid this approach can make internet unusable, or otherwise be easy to bypass. Have you any experiences or suggestions? Do you think software solutions are only a part of the solution, provided children can learn hacking tricks better than us, and if so, what other "human" techniques are most effective?

Submission + - Sony could exit TVs, phones .. (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sony Corp (6758.T) aims to boost operating profit 25-fold within three years .. would no longer pursue sales growth in areas such as smartphones ...

Submission + - Sony Offering Smart Glasses At Half The Cost Of Google Glass (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: With Google retooling its Glass offering, Sony appears to have jumped into the breach to offer an Android-compatible wearable face-computer. SmartEyeglass is relative bargain at only $840, although it must be manipulated with a separate, wired controller unit that houses a microphone, speakers and an NFC module.

Submission + - Payments Startup Offering Free Chip-And-PIN Reader In Europe (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: European credit card processing generally relies on chip-and-PIN readers, which are considered more secure than the card-swiping devices that prevail in the United States. But security comes at a cost, and up to 20 million small European businesses don't accept credit cards because of the expense of a chip-and-PIN reader. Now a European payments startup is offering the readers for free.

Submission + - World most dangerous toy 'Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab' goes on display at museum (techienews.co.uk)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab — dubbed as the world's most dangerous toy — has gone on display at the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland. The toy has earned the title of most dangerous toy because it includes four types of uranium ore, three sources of radiation, and a Geiger counter that enables parents to measure just how contaminated their child had become. The Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab was only available between 1951 and 1952 and was the most elaborate atomic energy educational kit ever produced. The toy was one of the most costly toy of the time retailing at $50 — said to be equivalent to $400 today.

Submission + - US gov creates spyware that invades the firmware of HDDs

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: The US government has developed spyware that invades the firmware of hard drives and eavesdrops on everything the user does. The software has been found on the computers around the world. The latest spyware software was discovered by the Russian computer security company, Kaspersky Lab, which found computers of government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists were infected. The software was found in 30 countries, including Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. But only a few high-valued computers were infected. The firmware of hard drives is highly valued among spies and hackers as any malicious software that is stored there runs automatically every time a computer is turned on and the software is near impossible to remove, even when the hard drive is wiped completely. The spyware software works on most major hard drive manufacturers, including Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, IBM, Micron and Samsung.

Submission + - Patent trolls are morphing (venturebeat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Venturebeat reports on software to 'create' patents — " linguistically manipulate a seed set of a client’s patent claims by, for example, substituting in synonyms or reordering steps in a process, thereby generating tens of thousands of potentially patentable inventions.

Submission + - US gas pump hacked with 'Anonymous' tagline (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers at Trend Micro have uncovered a gas pump in the United States whose ID has been changed from 'DIESEL' to 'WE_ARE_LEGION' — the call-sign of the Anonymous hacking group. Following up recent revelations regarding the vulnerability of gas pump systems to online attackers, the researchers found 1,515 completely unprotected gas pump monitoring devices via the Shodan device-based search engine. The report notes that the exposed devices are capable of being protected via six-digit pins, but this security measure is not being used. The report concludes: "Our investigation shows that the tampering of an Internet-facing device resulted in a name change. But sooner or later, real world implications will occur, causing possible outages or even worse."

Submission + - Microsoft Fixes Critical Remotely Exploitable Windows Root-Level Design Bug

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released nine security bulletins to address 56 unique vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Server software. Of the nine security bulletins, three are rated Critical in severity, and among these three is one that addresses a years-old design flaw that can be exploited remotely to grant attackers administrator-level privileges to the targeted machine or device. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

Submission + - Has modern Linux lost its way? (complete.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Debian developer says that Linux is no longer "clean, logical, well put-together, and organized" after systemd.

Submission + - A decentralised global mesh internet where nothing can be censored - or removed (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Later this year the MaidSafe (Massive Array of Internet Disks — Secure Access For Everyone) project leaves nine years of quiet development to go into public beta. The initiative aims to create an ISP-free, decentralised global mesh network with an internal cryptocurrency which automatically rewards users who contribute more bandwidth or storage space. With a single protocol, end-to-end encryption and multiple redundancy built in at the core, uptake of the SAFE network would make TCP/IP, FTP and an avalanche of protocols and other network technologies redundant, as well as compromising the viability of the data center industry. Additionally the network would theoretically be resistant to all government censorship, but by the same token would make 'questionable' web content unerasable. In this interview MaidSafe co-founder Nick Lambert admits "With privacy and security, you either provide it or you don’t. You can’t pick and choose who gets it."
Businesses

How, and Why, Apple Overtook Microsoft 458

Posted by timothy from the paper-beats-rock dept.
HughPickens.com writes James B. Stewart writes in the NYT that in 1998 Bill Gates said in an interview that he "couldn't imagine a situation in which Apple would ever be bigger and more profitable than Microsoft" but less than two decades later, Apple, with a market capitalization more than double Microsoft's, has won. The most successful companies need a vision, and both Apple and Microsoft have one. But according to Stewart, Apple's vision was more radical and, as it turns out, more farsighted. Where Microsoft foresaw a computer on every person's desk, Apple went a big step further: Its vision was a computer in every pocket. "Apple has been very visionary in creating and expanding significant new consumer electronics categories," says Toni Sacconaghi. "Unique, disruptive innovation is really hard to do. Doing it multiple times, as Apple has, is extremely difficult." According to Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson, Microsoft seemed to have the better business for a long time. "But in the end, it didn't create products of ethereal beauty. Steve believed you had to control every brush stroke from beginning to end. Not because he was a control freak, but because he had a passion for perfection." Can Apple continue to live by Jobs's disruptive creed now that the company is as successful as Microsoft once was? According to Robert Cihra it was one thing for Apple to cannibalize its iPod or Mac businesses, but quite another to risk its iPhone juggernaut. "The question investors have is, what's the next iPhone? There's no obvious answer. It's almost impossible to think of anything that will create a $140 billion business out of nothing."

Submission + - Comcast Customer Service renames customer "Asshole" (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars reports that a Comcast customer in Spokane, Washington, who called to cancel the television portion of his service was initially hassled by "retention" specialist before receiving his next bill, with his first name changed to "Asshole".

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