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Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 205

by kyriacos (#29184203) Attached to: Facebook App Exposes Abject Insecurity

But, every time you install an FB app, it DOES ask you if you wish to allow the app to have full access to your information. So, if you don't feel comfortable, don't click that button!

That's true, but when I add a friend, I get no warning that this person has so many apps installed, and that these apps can have access to my information through this person.
Idle

Submission + - iPhone App Tracks Sex Offenders

Submitted by
The Narrative Fallacy
The Narrative Fallacy writes: "All 50 states in the US require the 50,000 people convicted of sexual offenses to sign a register so that their whereabouts can be tracked and monitored. The Telegraph reports that now users of the iPhone Offender Locator application can search for sex offenders living nearby a friend or colleague whose address is stored in their Apple iPhone address book, or they can type in a street address to generate a list of convicted sex offenders in the local area. "Offender Locator gives everyone the ability to find out if registered sex offenders live in their area," says the application developer, ThinAir Wireless, on its iTunes page. "Knowledge equals safety. They know where you and your family are...now it's time to turn the tables so that you know where they live and can make better decisions about where to allow your kids to play." Offender Locator uses the iPhone's built-in GPS to pinpoint the user's location, and then provide a map listing sex offenders in the local area. Tapping on one of the 'pins' dropped on to the map brings up a photograph of the offender, as well as their address, date of birth and list of convictions."
Security

Submission + - McAfee emails 1400 customer details on bulk list (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by
Robbie Burbanks
Robbie Burbanks writes: "Security vendor McAfee has mistakenly sent out a bulk email blast attached with a document that lists the contact details and company demographics of some 1400 security experts that attended its recent Strategic Security Summit in Sydney. McAfee claims that because it discovered its mistake halfway through the send, it cannot know how many people the bulk email was sent to. Check out the Flickr screen-grabs of the offending bulk email send and an interview with McAfee's Asia Pacific vice president for more."
Microsoft

Submission + - Bada Bing! Microsoft rolling out new search (pcworld.com) 3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: PC World reports that Microsoft's new search engine, code-named Kumo, has tentatively been rebranded as "Bing" and will be rolled out shortly, backed by a US$80-$100 million ad campaign. The new engine will try to out-do Google with photos and links to related categories returned for popular searches. As the article suggests, perhaps Microsoft is hoping users will talk about "binging" this or that, instead of googling for everything.
Cellphones

Submission + - Using WiMAX to replace a phone? (lazyelegance.com)

Submitted by
vigmeister
vigmeister writes: "I've decided to explore the possibility of using a netbook/MID as a phone while eschewing the services of a cellphone provider. Now that Atlanta (where I live) has WiMAX from Clear, I ought to be connected everywhere within the city to the internet (once I sign up). Theoretically, this should mean that I will be able to use my netbook as a cell phone. Of course, there are some very real issues to overcome and I am simply putting this experiment together to see if it is something that is realistically possible. This could possibly extend to uncapped 3G connections (if they exist anymore) as well. Are there any obvious problems you would foresee? Is there anything I have missed or any other questions I should attempt to answer in this 'experiment' of mine? A major issue is, of course, the fact that my pseudo-netbook has to be carried everywhere and left always on. I've asked slashdot for advice regarding the best OS for this machine. However, if the experment is somewhat succesful, it seems as if using your netbook/MID as a phone might require a relatively customized OS which could possibly be a 'remix' of a suitable Linux distro. Something like Maemo, but not as hardware specific. Thoughts, suggestions?"
Programming

Submission + - microsoft banishes memcpy

Submitted by
kyriacos
kyriacos writes: "Microsoft is planning to remove unsafe commands from their C++ compiler, according to this article. I was wondering how advanced C/C++ programmers view this move. Do you find this having a negative impact on the flexibility of the language, and do you think it will restrict the creativity of the programmer?"
The Courts

Judge Rules WoW Bot Violates DMCA 498

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bot-having-trouble-climbing-the-slippery-slope dept.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Blizzard has added another victory in their campaign against World of Warcraft bots. A federal judge has ruled that not only did the Glider bot break the EULA, it can be classified as a circumvention device under the DMCA. "As we've noted before, Blizzard's legal arguments, which Judge David G. Campbell largely accepted, could have far-reaching and troubling implications for the software industry. Donnelly is not the most sympathetic defendant, and some users may cheer the demise of a software vendor that helps users break the rules of Blizzard's wildly popular role playing game. But the sweeping language of Judge Campbell's decision, combined with his equally troubling decision last summer, creates a lot of new uncertainty for software vendors seeking to enter software markets dominated by entrenched incumbents and achieve interoperability with legacy platforms."
Security

Skype Messages Monitored In China 223

Posted by CmdrTaco from the privacy-in-stereo dept.
Pickens writes "Human-rights activists have discovered a huge surveillance system in China that monitors and archives Internet text conversations sent by customers of Tom-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese wireless operator and eBay. Researchers say the system monitors a list of politically charged words that includes words related to the religious group Falun Gong, Taiwan independence, the Chinese Communist Party and also words like democracy, earthquake and milk powder. The encrypted list of words inside the Tom-Skype software blocks the transmission of these words and records personal information about the customers who send the messages. Researchers say their discovery contradicts a public statement made by Skype executives in 2006 that 'full end-to-end security is preserved and there is no compromise of people's privacy.' The Chinese government is not alone in its Internet surveillance efforts. In 2005, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency was monitoring large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of an eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks. 'This is the worst nightmares of the conspiracy theorists around surveillance coming true,' says Ronald J. Deibert, an associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto. 'It's "X-Files" without the aliens.'"
Security

New Approach To Malware Modifies Linux Kernel 170

Posted by timothy
Hugh Pickens writes "Professor Avishai Wool has unveiled a program to watch for malware on servers with a modification to the Linux kernel. 'We modified the kernel in the system's operating system so that it monitors and tracks the behavior of the programs installed on it,' says Wool. Essentially, Wool says, his software team has built a model that predicts how software running on a server should work (pdf). If the kernel senses abnormal activity, it stops the program from working before malicious actions occur. 'When we see a deviation, we know for sure there's something bad going on,' Wool explains. Wool cites problems with costly anti-virus protection. 'Our methods are much more efficient and don't chew up the computer's resources.'"
Medicine

Safe Stem Cells Produced From Adult Cells 207

Posted by Soulskill from the spare-parts dept.
hackingbear writes "Wired, citing a paper published in Science magazine, reports that Harvard scientists may have found a safer way of giving a flake of skin the biologically alchemical powers of embryonic stem cells by turning adult cells into versatile, embryonic-like cells without causing permanent damage. The technique involves 'adding cell-reprogramming genes to adenoviruses, a type of virus that infects cells without affecting their DNA.' Four-month trials on mice demonstrated that the resulting stem cells are free from unpredictable cancer-inducing mutations. This is definitely a breakthrough in stem cell research." Additional coverage is available at Yahoo, and Science hosts the research paper, although you'll need a subscription to see more than the abstract.

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