Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:And this is good why? (Score 1, Informative) 150

Dang this is NOT A STORY and the claim that this can work against all Microsoft Wireless Keyboards is 100% BS, and has been since 2007, when the issue was first uncovered; covered in depth by Schneier, and remedied in all versions of the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard created since then, which use at minimum 128-bit AES; NOT XOR.

Comment 8 years late to the party (Score 1) 150

Dang this is NOT A STORY and the claim that this can work against all Microsoft Wireless Keyboards is 100% BS, and has been since 2007, when the issue was first uncovered; covered in depth by Schneier, and remedied in all versions of the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard created since then, which use at minimum 128-bit AES; NOT XOR.

It's 2015, not 2007 people...
Security

Wireless Keylogger Masquerades as USB Phone Charger 150

msm1267 writes: Hardware hacker and security researcher Samy Kamkar has released a slick new device that masquerades as a typical USB wall charger but in fact houses a keylogger capable of recording keystrokes from nearby wireless keyboards. The device is known as KeySweeper, and Kamkar has released the source code and instructions for building one of your own. The components are inexpensive and easily available, and include an Arduino microcontroller, the charger itself, and a handful of other bits. When it's plugged into a wall socket, the KeySweeper will connect to a nearby Microsoft wireless keyboard and passively sniff, decrypt and record all of the keystrokes and send them back to the operator over the Web.

Comment Let's hear it for permanent death! (Score 1) 222

I never understood the appeal of a game where you can be continually blasted with machine gun fire for a period of time before actually dying; and then that death is not a restart from the beginning, but a continuation from that point with a new life. Where is the skill in that? One bullet == death requires developing mad skills and makes a game much more realistic. The way most games are programmed these days is akin to playing online no limit hold-em with fake money; people take chances they would never consider otherwise.

Comment Big surprise (Score 1) 1

Gee, big surprise, for-profit health care doing all it can to maximize profits. In fact for-profit healthcare is a misnomer, drop healthcare and then you have an accurate designation for what is going on in the United States.

I for one will be ecstatic when the majority of my countrymen finally become educated instead of ignorant and understand this single fact:

Socialized medicine != Communism

Equating socialized medicine with communism is perhaps one of the greatest disservices perpetrated on US Citizens by their appointed representatives and those who stand to make a profit from it.

Submission + - Millions of spiders seen in mass dispersal event using wind currents (www.cbc.ca)

Freshly Exhumed writes: A bizarre and oddly beautiful display of spider webs have been woven across a large field along a walking trail in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. "Well it's acres and acres; it's a sea of web," said Allen McCormick. Prof. Rob Bennett, an expert on spiders who works at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, BC, Canada, said tiny, sheet-web weaver spiders known as Erigoninae linyphiidae most likely left the webs. Bennett said the spiders cast a web net to catch the wind and float away in a process known as ballooning. The webs in the field are the spiders' drag lines, left behind as they climb to the top of long grass to be whisked away by the wind. Bennett said it's a mystery why these spiders take off en masse. Perhaps The Green Goblin or Doc Oc are in the vicinity?

Submission + - If You Want Better Cybersecurity, Break Up The NSA (readwrite.com)

electronic convict writes: People often forget that the NSA has a second mission beyond surveillance (or surveillance-plus): It's also supposed to take the lead in protecting federal information systems and critical national infrastructure from criminals and foreign attackers.

If the recent spate of cyberattacks is any indication, though, the NSA has bungled that job pretty badly. And small wonder: As we've known for a year, the agency actively works to introduce vulnerabilities into encryption systems, to discourage the use of strong security and to use its industry-outreach program to further both aims. So why should anyone trust it to help actually guard against hackers?

There's a simple, if currently impractical solution: Break up the NSA.

This isn't an entirely new idea; Bruce Schneier, for instance, has been pushing for an NSA breakup since February, primarily on the grounds that the agency is simply too large and out of control. His proposed division, however, would still task the NSA with both security and surveillance, keeping its inherent conflict of interest intact. A better solution would be to move the security function out of the NSA entirely, allowing its staff to plug holes as fast as their offense-minded NSA peers can create them.

Yes, the USA Freedom Act just went down in flames, and the odds of serious NSA reform look about as dim as ever. But wouldn't everyone be better off if some of the best cryptographers and security experts in the U.S. weren't working side-by-side with the spies bent on undermining their work?

Submission + - Dark Energy Might Be Eating the Glue Holding the Universe Together 1

rossgneumann writes: Dark energy is eating dark matter. Bit by bit, the supreme attractive force of the universe, gravitationally speaking, is being superseded by the supreme repulsive force. This is the theory, at least, being advanced in a new paper in Physical Review Letters describing a rather ominous-sounding “dark sector” interaction.

Submission + - How Medical Care Is Being Corrupted in the US 1

HughPickens.com writes: Pamela Hartzband And Jerome Groopman write in an op-ed in the NYT that hidden financial forces are beginning to corrupt medical care in the US and undermine the bond of trust between doctors and patients because insurers, hospital networks and regulatory groups have put in place rewards and punishments that can powerfully influence your doctor’s decisions. "For example, doctors are rewarded for keeping their patients’ cholesterol and blood pressure below certain target levels. For some patients, this is good medicine, but for others the benefits may not outweigh the risks. Treatment with drugs such as statins can cause significant side effects, including muscle pain and increased risk of diabetes," write the authors. "Physicians who meet their designated targets are not only rewarded with a bonus from the insurer but are also given high ratings on insurer websites. Physicians who deviate from such metrics are financially penalized through lower payments and are publicly shamed, listed on insurer websites in a lower tier."

According to Hartzband and Groopman these measures are clearly designed to coerce physicians to comply with the metrics. Thus doctors may feel pressured to withhold treatment that they feel is required or feel forced to recommend treatment whose risks may outweigh benefits. Some insurers are offering a positive financial incentive directly to physicians to use specific medications. For example, WellPoint, the largest for-profit managed health care company in the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, recently outlined designated treatment pathways for cancer and announced that it would pay physicians an incentive of $350 per month per patient treated on the designated pathway (PDF). The authors propose a public website to reveal the hidden coercive forces that may specify treatments and limit choices through pressures on the doctor. "Medical care is not just another marketplace commodity. Physicians should never have an incentive to override the best interests of their patients."

Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 253

This is such a joke, America is an employee wasteland, enslaved to their corporate masters in part by huge amounts of debt assumed due to an increasingly higher cost of funding higher education, we've basically become a country of indentured servitude, and this is totally unnecessary if the people would only wake up and refuse this system that's been thrust upon them by the greedy 1%

Germany, which has one of the strongest economies on earth, is a nation where employees work 35 hour weeks, are given 6 weeks of vacation standard, and women may take as much time off as they need for motherhood, then return to their jobs. Not to mention that, they are considering making it illegal for your employer to email you after 6pm.

Germany's a perfect example of an extremely successful economy based on the idea of working to live, not just working, and their economy, vastly better than the US, shows this sort of philosophy works.

Comment Pretty cool (Score 1) 1

That's pretty cool and serves as just another reminder that sharks are not simple indiscriminate killing machines, nor for the most part are they dangerous to humans. Shark attacks on humans are unfortunate anomalies and continued drone and helicopter sightings like this will prove that point once and for all. Sharks have been among us surfers undetected all along, the only difference now is that sometimes we are finally able to see what they are up to.

Submission + - Drone spots massive shark circling surfers (suasnews.com) 1

garymortimer writes: This picture was taken on the Central Coast on September 17 at Killcare by drone pilot Tom Caska.

It shows a massive shark following a pod of dolphins right near where people are surfing. They are on 3m long SUP boards, which gives an indication of its size.

There’s no word yet on what kind of shark it was but it’s not the first sighting of a large one on this stretch of coast this month.

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Working...