Comment Re:Crossing my fingers... (Score 1) 575
Incidentally, you can get a nice even distribution from 3-30 by using d20*3 + d6/2 (rounding up) - 1. You still get some results above 30, but I just throw those out.
Submission + - Phishing for bank info without any pesky malware! (darkreading.com)
Emb3rz writes: "DarkReading.com brings us news of a new approach to phishing that targets online banking sites. Here's the novel part of it: it doesn't involve any of the typical attack vectors we all know and love. Instead, it uses JavaScript from a remote page to detect if you have a banking site open, and prompts you for info via popup if you do. Read on for full details.
http://www.darkreading.com/security/attacks/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212900161"
Submission + - My friend was tricked into buying OpenOffice
mldkfa writes: "Recently I told a friend about OpenOffice and how it was a great alternative to the big name pay office suites. She went home and searched on Google for it and thought she found the website, filled typical registration information, and downloaded OpenOffice.org 3.0. The next time she opened her e-mail she found a request for 98 for her 1 year subscription to OpenOffice.org 3.0 from the company that she downloaded it from. Apparently the EULA stated this cost and here in Germany she is required to pay up. So I thought I would ask Slashdot, should she pay? On the OpenOffice.org German website there is a warning of these schemes being legal. Shouldn't Sun change the license of OpenOffice.org to protect their fans or are they doing this to protect someone else? It has really made me think about recommending it to any more friends."
Submission + - Apps using Google App Engine (eweek.com)
falmouthrr writes: It's been almost a year since Google jumped into cloud computing with the beta of Google App Engine, trying to compete with the likes of Amazon Web Services. eWEEK Labs took a look at some of the applications built using the Google technology, and found some pretty cool tools, such as one that helps track the delivery of packages regardless of the carrier and another that lets people create wish lists, a la Amazon. That said, the folks at eWEEK Labs are still waiting to see how Google App Engine does when someone tries to create a powerful application that can be used by hundreds of thousands of people at the same time, like a Facebook or a Twitter.
Submission + - SPAM: NASA puts wings on unmanned aircraft experiments
coondoggie writes: "NASA today unveiled the first unmanned aircraft system it will use to conduct high-altitude, long-endurance science research. The 44-foot long Northrop Grumman Global Hawk weighs nearly 26,000 pounds when fully equipped and can fly 11,000-nautical-mile range at altitudes up to 65,000 feet for more than 30 hours at a time. NASA said its is the ability of the Global Hawk to autonomously fly long distances, remain aloft for extended periods of time, and carry large payloads brings a new capability to the science community for measuring, monitoring and observing remote locations of Earth not feasible or practical with piloted aircraft, most other robotic or remotely operated aircraft or space satellites.
[spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Hawaii tries out online health care (cnet.com)
mytrip writes: For people in Hawaii, going to see the doctor just got as easy as booting up their PC.
The state is the first to offer online physician visits statewide, under a program that kicks off Thursday. Residents can chat with a doctor over a standard Web browser (IE 7 or Firefox 2) or carry out their visit over the telephone. Those with a Webcam can also use that to share video with the doctor. The service will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (with a few monthly maintenance outages during low-volume times).
Doctors in the system are told to apply the same standards of care and address only the kinds of things that can be handled over the phone or Web. Doctors are allowed to issue prescriptions for most medications, but in some cases will not be able to offer a definitive diagnosis within the 10-minute visit.
The state is the first to offer online physician visits statewide, under a program that kicks off Thursday. Residents can chat with a doctor over a standard Web browser (IE 7 or Firefox 2) or carry out their visit over the telephone. Those with a Webcam can also use that to share video with the doctor. The service will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (with a few monthly maintenance outages during low-volume times).
Doctors in the system are told to apply the same standards of care and address only the kinds of things that can be handled over the phone or Web. Doctors are allowed to issue prescriptions for most medications, but in some cases will not be able to offer a definitive diagnosis within the 10-minute visit.
Submission + - SPAM: China has highest internet users in 2008
is4110 writes: China now has the highest number of internet users in the world and had the largest growing online population of 2008, a report suggests.
Internet users in China soared nearly 42 percent to 298 million by the end of 2008 from the previous year, making them the world's largest Internet population, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said.
Submission + - SPAM: Sci-Tech 2009: What to look forward to
mizanbdit writes: "2009 promises to be yet another promising year for the world of Science and Technology. 2009 has already been declared the 'International year of Astronomy' and many other high tech gadgets, automobiles and electrical appliances, due to hit the markets all through the year, promises a great year ahead of us."
Link to Original Source
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Short Video: "Stimulus or Ripoff?" - ISPs (vortex.com)
Lauren Weinstein writes: "Very shortly, the dominant ISPs in the U.S. may be offered massive tax credits as part of the economic stimulus package. In the third installment of "Network Neutrality in 30 Seconds" — Stimulus or Ripoff — we take a rather, uh, "tongue in cheek" look at this issue."
Submission + - Anti-terror tech shown off (silicon.com)
An anonymous reader writes: European tech and defence company EADS has been showing off its vision for combating terrorists at major events. The tech features an unmanned aerial vehicle, body scanners and RFID tracking technology. Make you feel any safer?
Submission + - Should Microsoft Kill Patch Tuesday? (channelinsider.com)
buzzardsbay writes: "After five years of Microsoft releasing patches on the second Tuesday of the month, there's evidence that hackers are gaming the release cycle to their advantage. Seems like a good time for Microsoft to change its pattern. As this analysis of the efficacy and shortcomings of Patch Tuesday points out, the program has more or less served its purpose since 2003, when MS instituted it in response to criticism of what had been chaotic and unpredictable security patching. But now, hackers are waiting for Patch Tuesday to see what fixes are released and what remains vulnerable before unleashing new exploit code. The bad guys either release existing exploits or reverse engineer the patch to create an exploit before the fix is widely deployed. A pretty strong argument for shaking up the process."
Submission + - Wiretapping Program Legal
BuhDuh writes: "The New York Time is carrying a story concerning that well known bastion of legal authority the "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance" court, which has ruled that the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping program was perfectly legal.
A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, is expected to issue a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a court order, even when Americans' private communications may be involved, according to a person with knowledge of the opinion.
Given that the largely derided administration of the last 8 years is expiring, should we be surprised? Should we even care?"
Comment Re:Get out now (Score 1) 1055
I think that it would cost more in terms of accounting to deal with the complexity of carrying over 4 hours from the first week to the second week than they would gain in some nefarious extra labor benefit. However, I worked a 9/80 schedule for years, and LOVED it. However, it was successful largely because my manager was great about respecting the Friday off. Also, I didn't deal with customers outside of the company.
Researcher Publishes Industrial Complex Hack 190
snydeq writes "Security researcher Kevin Finisterre has published code that could be used to take control of computers used to manage industrial machinery, potentially giving hackers a back door into utility companies, water plants, and even oil and gas refineries. The code exploits a flaw in supervisory control and data acquisition software from Citect. The vendor has released a patch and risk arises only for systems connected directly to the Internet without firewall protection. Finisterre, however, sees the issue as indicative of a 'culture clash' between IT and process control engineers, who are reluctant to bring computers off-line for patching due to the potential havoc wreaked by downtime. 'A lot of the people who run these systems feel that they're not bound by the same rules as traditional IT,' Finisterre said. 'Their industry is not very familiar with hacking and hackers in general.'"
Automated News Crawling Evaporates $1.14B 546
cmd writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Google News crawled an obscure reprint of an article from 2002 when United Airlines was on the brink of bankruptcy. United Airlines has since recovered but due to a missing dateline, Google News ran the story as today's news. The story was then picked up by other news aggregators and eventually headlined as a news flash on Bloomberg. This triggered automated trading programs to dump UAL, cratering the stock from $12 to $3 and evaporating 1.14 billion dollars (nearly United's total market cap today) in shareholder wealth. The stock recovered within the day to $10 and is now trading at $9.62, a market cap of $300M less than before Google ran the story." The article makes clear that Google's news bot only noticed the old story because it has been voted up in popularity on the site of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper. The original thought was that stock manipulation may have been behind the incident, but this suspicion seems to be fading.
