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Security

Submission + - Adobe Warns of Flash, Reader, Acrobat 0day

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Adobe Systems Inc. warned late Friday that malicious hackers are exploiting a previously unknown security hole present in current versions of its Adobe Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player software, writes Krebsonsecurity.com. Adobe said the vulnerability exists in Flash Player 10.0.45.2 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Solaris operating systems, and a component (authplay.dll) of Adobe Reader and Acrobat versions 9.x for Windows, Mac and UNIX operating systems. The Adobe advisory is light on details but suggests Flash users upgrade to new release candidate 10 and to disable or delete the vulnerable component in Reader and/or Acrobat.

Submission + - Scientists: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated (nytimes.com)

Submitted by cyclocommuter
cyclocommuter writes: From the NYT article: Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University who is an expert in the analysis of oil slicks, said he had made his own rough calculations using satellite imagery. They suggested that the leak could “easily be four or five times” the government estimate, he said.
The Internet

Submission + - VPN providers target censorship-shy Aussies (apcmag.com)

Submitted by asylumm
asylumm writes: Australia's contentious Internet filter hasn't even been legislated yet, but that hasn't stopped enterprising VPN providers from marketing their services directly to Aussies.

Hot on the heels of revelations that there will be no legal repercussions for people that circumvent Stephen Conroy’s proposed Internet filter, it appears overseas virtual private network providers are wasting no time building a market for one-click filter circumvention.
Censorship

Submission + - NSF Censors US Poll on Evolution, Big Bang (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Just how likely is it that an American accepts the idea that humans evolved from earlier species or that the universe started with a big bang? How about that data compared with citizens of the rest of the world? The results were apparently best left out of a report on indicators of our understanding of science released by the National Science Foundation (overseen by the National Science Board). This omission in 2010's Science and Engineering Indicators, understandably, drew criticism from a number of scientists and even the White House but the figures were released: '45% of Americans in 2008 answered true to the statement, "Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals." The figure is similar to previous years and much lower than in Japan (78%), Europe (70%), China (69%), and South Korea (64%). The same gap exists for the response to a second statement, "The universe began with a big explosion," with which only 33% of Americans agreed.' Louis Lanzerotti, an astrophysicist at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and chair of the board who decided to omit these numbers, claimed that the questions (which have been in use for 25 years by the way) were "flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs." I guess our understanding of science can only be measured as long as it doesn't threaten a given religion or perhaps ignorance is a very painful thing to admit to. Let's hope that none of these questions revolve around math, a form of witchcraft that my god explicitly forbids.
Censorship

Venezuela Bans Hostile Videogames and Toys 335

Posted by timothy from the hostile-autocrats-still-ok dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to 'help improve child education and prevent misconduct,' the Venezuelan government began enforcing a law on March 3rd banning war videogames and toys, imposing a fine and 2.5 years in prison on the production, distribution, sale, hiring and use of video games and toys inciting violent behavior. Alberto Federico Ravell, former director of opposing news network Globovision, has already come on twitter denouncing the authorities for seizing imported Gameboy, Wii and PlayStation 3 consoles, due to considering them violent."
Space

Signs of Water Found On Saturnian Moon Enceladus 79

Posted by Soulskill from the moon-names-that-make-me-hungry dept.
Matt_dk writes "Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus. Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons."

Submission + - Blizzard adds timestamps to armory (wowarmory.com)

Submitted by Kharny
Kharny writes: In a move that could cause quite serious privacy problems, blizzard added timestamps and a rss feed to world of warcraft characters in their online armory. This new feature will mean that anyone can follow "realtime" developements in a world of warcraft character, and if the user behind the character would be know, even add time and date to playing habits. Many players have already complained about the fact that there is no opt-out option and this opens very big possibilities for online stalking.
Bug

Submission + - D-Link warns of vulnerable routers 1

Submitted by wiedzmin
wiedzmin writes: D-Link announced today that the problem, discovered by security researchers SourceSec, affects three of its wireless routers: DIR-855 (hardware version A2), DIR-655 (versions A1 to A4) and DIR-635 (version B) and lies in D-Link's implementation of Cisco's Home Network Administration Protocol (HNAP), which allows remote router configuration. The scope of the vulnerability is greatly reduced by the fact that the above routers have not been shipped with the affected firmware by default, so only those customers who updated their firmware could be affected. Or at least this was indicated in the company's response to the SourceSac claim that all D-Link routers sold since 2006 were affected.

Submission + - How do you find out how much your site is worth? 3

Submitted by gilgsn
gilgsn writes: Many of us own websites. For some it is just a hobby, but we all hope to cash in sometime after years of efforts and much money spent. I tried to got to website value calculators online, not expecting miracles, and I got values from $82 to $16,549.41. Do any of these sites come close to approximating a site value? How do you estimate a site's selling price? Advertising revenue, number of visitors, pagerank? What is the best way?
Privacy

MiFi Attack Exploits GPS To Reveal User's Location 62

Posted by timothy from the wish-it-was-easy-for-non-attackers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Security researcher Adam Baldwin has identified that the Sprint and Verizon MiFi devices are vulnerable to a multitude of attacks. Combining these attacks together, an attacker can gain the GPS location of the MiFi device without the user becoming immediately aware. The attack can be successfully executed without authentication and even if the GPS has been disabled by the administrator." There's a video, but a handy text summary, too. Upshot: "Any MiFi user that visits a specially crafted page will give up their GPS location to the attacker."
Networking

Submission + - AT&T Glitch Connects Users to Wrong Accounts (boston.com) 2

Submitted by
CAE guy
CAE guy writes: "The Boston Globe reports: 'A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information. The glitch — the result of a routing problem at the family's wireless carrier, AT&T — revealed a little known security flaw with far reaching implications for everyone on the Internet, not just Facebook users.' Who needs to worry about man-in-the-middle attacks when your service provider will hijack your session for you?"
The Courts

Antitrust Case Against RIAA Reinstated 163

Posted by kdawson from the collusion-and-restraint dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "After Starr v. SONY BMG Music Entertainment was dismissed at the District Court level, the antitrust class action against the RIAA has been reinstated by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In its 25-page opinion (PDF), the Appeals court held the following allegations sufficiently allege antitrust violations: 'First, defendants agreed to launch MusicNet and pressplay, both of which charged unreasonably high prices and contained similar DRMs. Second, none of the defendants dramatically reduced their prices for Internet Music (as compared to CDs), despite the fact that all defendants experienced dramatic cost reductions in producing Internet Music. Third, when defendants began to sell Internet Music through entities they did not own or control, they maintained the same unreasonably high prices and DRMs as MusicNet itself. Fourth, defendants used MFNs [most favored nation clauses] in their licenses that had the effect of guaranteeing that the licensor who signed the MFN received terms no less favorable than terms offered to other licensors. For example, both EMI and UMG used MFN clauses in their licensing agreements with MusicNet. Fifth, defendants used the MFNs to enforce a wholesale price floor of about 70 cents per song. Sixth, all defendants refuse to do business with eMusic, the #2 Internet Music retailer. Seventh, in or about May 2005, all defendants raised wholesale prices from about $0.65 per song to $0.70 per song. This price increase was enforced by MFNs.'"
Image

Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus from the 9cm-edited dept.
sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"

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