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Submission + - Netflix Stealthy Reduces Service, Keeps Prices the Same

Submitted by Nom du Keyboard
Nom du Keyboard writes: After seeing a drop in my DVD service from Netflix I got a customer service representative tonight to confirm that Netflix has ceased processing DVD returns on Saturdays nationwide. And that they did this without either notifying their customers, nor reducing prices to compensate for the reduced service. Given that the DVD selection still far outstrips their streaming selection, this may be news to others like myself who don't find streaming an adequate replacement for plastic discs. My experience up until recently, unlike Netflix's promise of a 1-3 day turnaround at their end which gives them lots of wiggle room to degrade service even further, had been of mailing in a DVD on day one, having them receive it and mail out my next selection on day two, and receiving it on day three. Now with them only working 5 days and many US Post Office holidays, they're still getting the same money for significantly less. Is Netflix still the good guy here?

Submission + - Russia shows proof of warplanes In MH17 vicinity,demands answers from US/Kiev (zerohedge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ukraine hasn’t said how it immediately knew rebels downed Malaysian plane, notes the Russian Foreign Ministry, as it unveils 10 awkward questions for Ukraine (and perhaps the US 'snap judgment') to answer about the MH17 disaster. However, what is perhaps more concerning for the hordes of finger-pointers is that:
[1] Russia has images of Ukraine deploying BUK rockets in east
[2] Ukraine moved BUK near rebels in Donetsk on July 17th
[3] Russia detected Ukrainian fighter jet pick up speed toward MH17

Aside from the fake YouTube clips, these would deal another unpleasant blow to US foreign policy.

Submission + - Members of previously uncontacted tribe infected with flu (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Brazil’s Indian affairs department has announced an event that many anthropologists and medical researchers had feared. In the remote Brazilian state of Acre, members of a long-isolated Amazon tribe have contracted influenza after making voluntary contact with the outside world a few weeks ago. Some researchers now fear that the contacted individuals will spread the potentially fatal virus to other nonimmunized members of their tribe.

Submission + - "Canvas Fingerprinting" Online Tracking Difficult To Block (propublica.org)

Submitted by globaljustin
globaljustin writes: First documented in a forthcoming paper by researchers at Princeton University and KU Leuven University in Belgium, this type of tracking, called canvas fingerprinting, works by instructing the visitor’s Web browser to draw a hidden image. Because each computer draws the image slightly differently, the images can be used to assign each user’s device a number that uniquely identifies it.

[The] fingerprints are unusually hard to block: They can’t be prevented by using standard Web browser privacy settings or using anti-tracking tools such as AdBlock Plus.

The researchers found canvas fingerprinting computer code, primarily written by a company called AddThis, on 5 percent of the top 100,000 websites.

Submission + - Researcher Finds Hidden Data-Dumping Services in iOS

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: There are a number of undocumented and hidden features and services in Apple iOS that can be used to bypass the backup encryption on iOS devices and remove large amounts of users’ personal data. Several of these features began as benign services but have evolved in recent years to become powerful tools for acquiring user data.

Jonathan Zdziarski, a forensic scientist and researcher who has worked extensively with law enforcement and intelligence agencies, has spent quite a bit of time looking at the capabilities and services available in iOS for data acquisition and found that some of the services have no real reason to be on these devices and that several have the ability to bypass the iOS backup encryption. One of the services in iOS, called mobile file_relay, can be accessed remotely or through a USB connection can be used to bypass the backup encryption. If the device has not been rebooted since the last time the user entered the PIN, all of the data encrypted via data protection can be accessed, whether by an attacker or law enforcement, Zdziarski said.

Zdziarski discussed his findings in a talk at the HOPE X conference recently and published the slides and paper, as well. The file_relay service has been in iOS for some time and originally was benign, but Zdziarski said that in recent versions it has turned into a tool that can dump loads of user data on command. The file_relay tool can dump a list of the email and social media accounts, the address book, the user cache folder, which contains screenshots, offline content, copy/paste data, keyboard typing cache and other personal data. The tool can also provide a log of periodic location snapshots from the device.

Submission + - MIT's Ted Postol presents more evidence on Iron Dome failures (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: In a controversial article last week, MIT physicist Ted Postol again questioned whether Israel's vaunted Iron Dome rocket defense system actually works. This week, he comes back with evidence in the form of diagrams, photos of Iron Dome intercepts and contrails, and evidence on the ground to show that Iron Dome in fact is effective only about 5% of the time. Postol believes the real reason there are so few Israeli casualties is that Hamas rockets have very small warheads (only 10 to 20 pounds), and also Israel's outstanding civil defense system, which includes a vast system of shelters and an incredibly sophisticated rocket attack warning system (delivered through smart phones, among other ways).

Submission + - No RIF'd Employees Need Apply for Microsoft External Staff Jobs for 6 Months 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: So, what does Microsoft do for an encore after laying off 18,000 employees with a hilariously bad memo? Issue another bad memo — Changes to Microsoft Network and Building Access for External Staff — "to introduce a new policy [retroactive to July 1] that will better protect our Microsoft IP and confidential information." How so? "The policy change affects [only] US-based external staff (including Agency Temporaries, Vendors and Business Guests)," Microsoft adds, "and limits their access to Microsoft buildings and the Microsoft corporate network to a period of 18 months, with a required six-month break before access may be granted again." Suppose Microsoft feels that's where the NSA went wrong with Edward Snowden? And if any soon-to-be-terminated Microsoft employees hope to latch on to a job with a Microsoft external vendor to keep their income flowing, they best think again. "Any Microsoft employee who separated from Microsoft on or after July 1, 2014," the kick-em-while-they're-down memo explains, "will be required to take a minimum 6-month break from access between the day the employee separates from Microsoft and the date when the former employee may begin an assignment as an External Staff performing services for Microsoft."

Submission + - New York state proposes sweeping Bitcoin regulations

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Thursday, Benjamin M. Lawsky, the superintendent of financial services, announced proposed regulations for virtual currency companies operating in New York. The “BitLicense” plan, which includes rules on consumer protection, the prevention of money laundering and cybersecurity, is the first proposal by a state to create guidelines specifically for virtual currency. "We have sought to strike an appropriate balance that helps protect consumers and root out illegal activity—without stifling beneficial innovation,” he said in a statement.

Submission + - New map fingers future hot spots for U.S. earthquakes (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Earthquake risk assessments can seem pretty abstract at first glance, with their “percent probabilities” and “peak ground accelerations.” But the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) national hazard maps, updated periodically, pack a powerful punch: Insurance companies and city planners rely heavily on the maps, which influence billions of dollars in construction every year. Today, USGS scientists released the most recent earthquake hazard assessments for the country. Although the picture hasn’t changed much on a national scale since the last report in 2008, the devil is in the details, the report’s authors say—and some areas in the country are now considered to be at higher risk for powerful quakes than once thought.

Submission + - MIT may have just solved all your data center network lag issues (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A group of MIT researchers say they’ve invented a new technology that should all but eliminate queue length in data center networking. The technology will be fully described in a paper presented at the annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication. According to MIT, the paper will detail a system – dubbed Fastpass – that uses a centralized arbiter to analyze network traffic holistically and make routing decisions based on that analysis, in contrast to the more decentralized protocols common today. Experimentation done in Facebook data centers shows that a Fastpass arbiter with just eight cores can be used to manage a network transmitting 2.2 terabits of data per second, according to the researchers.

Submission + - Australia's web censorship law to be scrutinized

Submitted by Bismillah
Bismillah writes: A government inquiry has been launched into whether or not Australian authorities are using Section 313 of the Telecommunications Act inappropriately.

Last year, the Australian securities watchdog used Section 313 powers to force ISPs to block quarter of million web sites — this in order to prevent access to just 1,200 sites the authority deemed harmful.

Submission + - Book Review:Penetration Testing with bash shell by Keith Makan.

Submitted by gaurav63
gaurav63 writes: It is a good book for linux beginners as it drives them from basic linux commands to the kali linux specific. Also it would be great it an in depth explanation of important options of the commands wher covered. But at the last it is good book as it introduce me to kali linux bash specific commands.
Loved it.

Submission + - Fossils of Cambrian predator preserved with brain impressions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers on Wednesday described fossilized remains unearthed in China showing in fine detail the brain structures of a bizarre group of sea creatures that were the top predators more than half a billion years ago. The 520-million-year-old creature, one of the first predators of its day, sported compound eyes, body armor and two spiky claws for grabbing prey. "The animals of the Cambrian are noted for being a collection of oddballs that are sometimes difficult to match up with anything currently living on Earth. But even among these oddities, Anomalocarids stand out (as their name implies). The creatures propelled themselves with a series of oar-like paddles arranged on their flanks, spotted prey with enormous compound eyes, and shoveled them into a disk-like mouth with large arms that resided at the very front of their bodies—although some of them ended up as filter feeders."

Submission + - Has dark matter's final prediction just been verified?

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: On the largest scales — whether you're looking at the cosmic microwave background, large-scale structure or gravitational lensing — there's no viable alternative to a Universe with dark matter. But on the smallest scales, a number of predictions have gone unrealized for a long time. The worst culprit? The expectation of very small, low-surface-brightness dwarf galaxies as both satellites around larger galaxies and existing in isolation in what's presently identified as intergalactic space. Three years ago, we had nothing, and now we think we've found the first examples of both missing populations. If the Hubble Space Telescope's follow-up observations confirm this, dark matter will rule both the small-scales as well as the large ones!

Submission + - FreeBSD 9.3 Released

Submitted by k4w0ru
k4w0ru writes: The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/9 branch, which improves on the stability of FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE and introduces some new features.

  Some of the highlights: ZFS bookmarks, OpenSSL 0.9.8za, OpenSSH 6.6p1, SNI, BIND 9.9.5. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the online release notes and errata list, available at:

https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.3R/relnotes.html

https://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/9.3R/errata.html

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