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Comment Re:Well, half and half. (Score 1) 417

by box4831 (#37638550) Attached to: I typically run Windows ...

Poll: I typically run Windows ...

OTOH, WTF is up with the choices on this one? No Linux, on a site like this? Where is the "Which distro do you run" survey? That one should be up every six months.

I wasn't aware Microsoft made a Windows Linux.
Security

Submission + - Apple Laptops Vulnerable to Battery Firmware Hack (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Security researcher Charlie Miller, widely known for his work on Mac OS X and Apple's iOS, has discovered an interesting method that enables him to completely disable the batteries on Apple laptops, making them permanently unusable, and perform a number of other unintended actions. The method, which involves accessing and sending instructions to the chip housed on smart batteries could also be used for more malicious purposes down the road.

Miller discovered the default passwords set on the battery at the factory to change the battery into unsealed mode and developed a method that let him permanently brick the battery as well as read and modify the entire firmware.

"You can read all the firmware, make changes to the code, do whatever you want. And those code changes will survive a reinstall of the OS, so you could imagine writing malware that could hide on the chip on the battery. You'd need a vulnerability in the OS or something that the battery could then attack, though," Miller said.

Submission + - Judge Prevents 23,322 Does from Being Sued For Now (slyck.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Judge overseeing the US Copyright Group's lawsuit against 23,000 individuals sharing "The Expendables" has shut the door on progress. In a ruling made yesterday, the Judge has ordered the US Copyright Group to show cause as to how all 23,322 fall under his Court's jurisdiction. Considering the US Copyright Group's failure in the past to show cause on jurisdiction, this could be the beginning of the end.
Space

Submission + - The most distant object in the Universe. Maybe. (discovermagazine.com)

Submitted by
The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: "A gamma-ray burst seen in 2009 may be the single most distant object ever seen. If the estimates pan out, it's at a whopping 13.4 billion light years away. The estimates look good, though the exact distance isn't known. If it holds up, this explosion occurred when the Universe was only 2% of its current age."

Submission + - Dutch provider KPN using DPI to bill customers ext (wirelessfederation.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: KPN is using DPI to see whether or not traffic is extra billable. KPN (who made a big profit; & is buying back a lot of stock while complaining about their profits on the SMS & cell-phone voice calls & threatening to transfer half of their staff to India for more profit) is now using DPI to see if traffic is being generated that would cause customers to pay less.. Usng free SMS? then u have to pay extra.. using VoiP? same deal; coz they need the profits.. KPN is breaking the dutch privacy & net neutrality laws while doing so & is currently losing more than 4000 customers per DAY.
Science

Submission + - Signs of Dark Matter from Minnesota Mine (sciencenews.org)

Submitted by
thomst
thomst writes: "Ron Cowen of Science News reports that on May 2nd, at the American Physical Society meeting in Anaheim, CA, Juan Collar, team leader of COGENT, an experimental effort to detect WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), 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 that predict that 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. If the interactions recorded by COGENT are eventually confirmed as WIMP encounters, wholesale revisions to the so-called "Standard Model" may be required. (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."

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