27734798
submission
sfcrazy writes:
Now, SOPA has got attention of a heavyweight in the US politics — Republican Ron Paul, who despite being a Republican is known for his 'liberal' views. Paul may or may not fully understand the 'implications' of the dangerous bill but he did point out that the bill will "take over the Internet" and "monitor everything we do". 'I fear the undermining of protection of the right here at home.'
27733134
submission
PolygamousRanchKid writes:
Caught on an infra-red camera, this panda eating an antelope is a rare sight, as panda stomachs have evolved to digest the complex cellulose found in bamboo stalks. However nature, ever red in tooth and claw, means that if pandas are hungry, they will eat meat. It's unlikely that the panda stalked and killed his antelope snack though. In May, a panda was caught killing and eating a peacock at a zoo in China.
Although a panda's diet is 99% bamboo, they do belong to the species group Carnivora, or carnivores. They have to eat vast quantities of the hollow plant to gain enough energy and nutrition to survive. Panda behaviour has evolved to cope with their weak bamboo diet, which is why they often appear to be slow, lumbering beasts.
27652784
submission
smitty777 writes:
Unless something bad happens in the next two days, we are on track for having a new record for airline safety. The new record of one death for every 7.1 million passengers beats the 2004 record of 1 to 6.4m. The WSJ also notes:
— Another low is the total number of passenger deaths; as of today that number stands at 401. Though it was lower in 2004, when 344 passengers were killed in commercial aviation accidents, that year saw 30% fewer passengers as well as far fewer flights.
— Western-built planes have fared best, with one major crash per 3 million flights, the best number since the International Air Transport Association began tracking crashes in the 1940s. When factoring in other types of airliners, the crash rate is about two per million flights.
— We are also in the midst of the longest period without a fatal airliner accident in modern aviation; nobody has died in an airliner since an Oct. 13 propeller plane crash in Papua New Guinea. The previous record was 61 days in 1985.
There was also the North American and Russian numbers as well — the only country that saw a drop.
2011 also seemed to break the record for unusual airline travel events as well.
27652530
submission
Rambo Tribble writes:
As reported by the BBC, the journal, Neurology, is set to release the findings of a study in Oregon on diet and brain shrinkage in Alzheimer's victims. The upshot is: a diet rich in vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial; trans fat and fast food are detrimental.
27652178
submission
wiredmikey writes:
New research from Kaspersky Labs has revealed that the platform dubbed "tilded" (~d), which was used to develop Stuxnet and Duqu, has been around for years. The researchers say that same platform has been used to create similar Trojans which have yet to be discovered.
Alexander Gostev and Igor Sumenkov have put together some interesting research. The key point being the person(s) behind what the world knows as Stuxnet and Duqu, have actually been using the same development platform for several years.
"The drivers from the still unknown malicious programs cannot be attributed to activity of the Stuxnet and Duqu Trojans," explained Alexander Gostev, Chief Security Expert at Kaspersky Lab. "The methods of dissemination of Stuxnet would have brought about a large number of infections with these drivers; and they can’t be attributed either to the more targeted Duqu Trojan due to the compilation date." “We consider that these drivers were used either in an earlier version of Duqu, or for [an] infection with completely different malicious programs, which moreover have the same platform and, it is likely, a single creator-team,” Gostev explained.
"The platform continues to develop, which can only mean one thing – we’re likely to see more modifications in the future," the research concluded.
27651932
submission
DJRumpy writes:
Americans Elect, which has raised $22 million so far, is harnessing the power of the Internet to conduct an unprecedented national online primary next spring. If all goes according to plan, the result will be a credible, nonpartisan ticket that pushes alternative centrist solutions to the growing problems America's current political leadership seems unwilling or unable to tackle.
The theory: If you break the stranglehold that more ideologically extreme primary voters and established interests currently have over presidential nominations, you will push Washington to seriously address tough economic and other issues. Even if the group's ticket doesn't win, its impact will force Democrats and Republicans in the nation's capital to start bridging their cavernous ideological divide.
27617258
submission
jayman5070 writes:
An email I received:
Dear Sir/Miss,
You may have heard about Protect-IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act
(SOPA) currently under consideration in Congress. If passed, among other
things, SOPA requires Web hosting companies like 1&1 to police websites in
order to prevent them from communicating copyrighted information on the
internet. We would like to make sure you are aware of 1&1’s official
position on SOPA.
As a global provider of domains and hosting services, we oppose the Stop
Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or Protect-IP (PIPA) Acts currently under
consideration. While we observe the concerns of those who are troubled by
the potential impact on protecting intellectual property online, 1&1 feels
there is an urgent need to strike a balance between dissemination of and
access to information and protection against its illegal use within the
public domain.
The US government is currently reviewing SOPA and PIPA as possible ways to
prevent unlawful distribution of copyrighted materials available on the
internet. These current proposals, if passed, would allow for significant
interventions into the technological and economical basis of the internet.
This could put the vast benefits and economic opportunities of entirely
legal and legitimate e-business models at risk. Generally, companies
offering technological services should not be forced to be the executor of
authority in such matters. If they were to act upon every implication of
content infringement without any judicial research into the actual usage of
its customers, the integrity behind their customer’s freedom of
information and speech would be enormously harmed.
1&1 Internet, Inc. has worked through associations and with related
companies to ensure that these aspects are taken into account. Thus, we
welcome the serious consideration by the US Congress of the potential
harmful effects on Internet freedom should SOPA and / or PIPA be passed as
law, and hope the stability of the Internet’s domain name system (DNS)
remains intact.
We encourage every Internet user concerned about these plans to contribute
to the debate and to raise their voice with their local representatives in
the House or Senate. One way to express your concerns could be to use one
of the websites that emerged to protect user interests in the current
legislative debate, such as http://fightforthefuture.org/.
At 1&1 we support you, our customer, and an open internet. If you find that
you are supporting a company that encourages SOPA and wish to drop them as
a provider, please follow the simple instructions contained on the website
linked below.
Thank you for being one of our extremely valued customers, and for taking
the time to read this.
Best regards,
Frederick Iwans
General Manager 1&1 Internet Inc.
link: http://order.1and1.com/DomaininfoMove?ac=BE.US.US263K22814T7073a
27617162
submission
wiredmikey writes:
In a rare move, Microsoft is breaking its normal procedures and will issue an emergency out-of-band security update on Thursday to address a hash collision attack vulnerability that came into the spotlight yesterday, and affects various Web platforms industry-wide.
The vulnerability is NOT specific to Microsoft technologies and has been discovered to impact PHP 5, Java, .NET, and Google’s v8, while PHP 4, Ruby, and Python are somewhat vulnerable.
Microsoft plans to release the bulletin on December 29, 2011, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time, and said it would addresses security vulnerabilities in all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.
“The impact of this vulnerability is similar to other Denial of Service attacks that have been released in the past, such as the Slowloris DoS or the HTTP POST DoS,” said security expert Chirs Eng. “Unlike traditional DoS attacks, they could be conducted with very small amounts of bandwidth. This hash table multi-collision bug shares that property. What’s particularly unique about this bug is that it affects a broader range of platforms and technologies in a virtually identical way.”
27617076
submission
Hephaestus writes:
An interesting item in today's Guardian about the changing face of simulation used to train the UK military.
