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Submission + - War, no thanks we're British

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a shock vote British MP's voted against joining a coalition in a war against Syria. Some members of the ruling Conservative party revolted against the gov't with concerns about the accuracy of the evidence and with an unwillingness to head in to a war that the British people are against.

Submission + - Raspberry Pi, Smart Highways Win World's Biggest Design Prize (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last night the €500,000 INDEX: Award was awarded to 5 designs that can improve life for millions of people around the world — including high-tech highways that light up at night, the $25 Raspberry Pi computer, and a simple piece of paper that can cut food waste by extending the life of fresh produce by 2-4 weeks.

Submission + - Secret Service Will Post All Aaron Swartz Files On Website, First Batch Up Now (firedoglake.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I just finished speaking to an official at the Secret Service’s FOIA office who told me that all of the Aaron Swartz files that are to be released will be posted to the Secret Services’ FOIA Library. The entire FOIA process has been frustrating and annoying, but thanks to a lawsuit by Kevin Poulsen over at Wired, not fruitless. Without that lawsuit it’s likely the Secret Service would have denied all requests, or as they did to me, kept people in limbo for the foreseeable future.

The first batch of files the Secret Service released is 104 pages out of what will apparently be over 14,000 pages. Please download them and distribute them widely in case of re-classification.

Submission + - Huge Canyon Discovered Under Greenland Ice (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The BBC reports, "One of the biggest canyons in the world has been found beneath the ice sheet that smothers most of Greenland. The canyon — which is 800km long and up to 800m deep — was carved out by a great river more than four million years ago ... It was discovered by accident as scientists researching climate change mapped Greenland’s bedrock by radar. The British Antarctic Survey said it was remarkable to find so huge a geographical feature previously unseen. The hidden valley is longer than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. ... The ice sheet, up to 3km (2 miles) thick, is now so heavy that it makes the island sag in the middle (central Greenland was previously about 500m above sea level, now it is 200m below sea level)."

Submission + - Samsung Invents a Clever Cardboard Printer That Folds Up (superperolas.org)

Submitted by superperolas
superperolas writes: Lately, the future of printing has been all about 3-D. Every day there seems to be a new advancement that is supposed to totally revolutionize the way we live and create things. It’s almost enough to forget that actual printers (Remember those? The old-school kind that spit out ink and paper?) are advancing, too. Designers are still pushing the boundaries of what we can do in the realm of at-home printing, and the ideas they’re coming up with are actually pretty cool.

Submission + - Injectable oxygen can replace breathing 1

Submitted by Dave Jurgensen
Dave Jurgensen writes: We are on the way to becoming Human Fish. With the innovation of Injectable Oxygen, we may all be able to swim around underwater for up to 30 minutes a pop. But this technology wasn't desired for recreational use — it was designed to save lives. After the death of a 9-year old girl that died from oxygen deprivation, Dr Kheir was inspired by one idea: "Could we have given her intravenous oxygen?”.

With injectable oxygen, patience who suffer full respiratory failure can be kept stable for up to 30 minutes. The applications are broad and exciting, where a future has oxygen syringes on crash carts, ambulances, airplanes, military units, and Tiny Tim who likes explorer the backyard pool.

Submission + - Is Science Destined to Follow a Hype Cycle? (wavewatching.net)

Submitted by quax
quax writes: The controversy to what extend Quantum Computing is over-hyped, has been supercharged with the recent success of D-Wave selling their version of a quantum computer. This caused a significant backlash from some researchers, who argue that the machine is not 'quantum' enough and doesn't conclusively demonstrate a speed-up over classical computing.

This kind of heated argument is part and parcel of the scientific discourse, yet often leads to abandonment cycles that see promising research avenues neglected, only to be rediscovered decades later. Is this inevitable? Simple human nature reasserting itself? Or is there a more rational way to determine where to focus research?

Submission + - GNUstep Kickstarter Campaign Launched (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by borgheron
borgheron writes: The maintainer of GNUstep has launched a kickstarter campaign to get the time to make GNUstep more complete and get it's APIs up to at least a Mac OS 10.6 level of compatibility. This will allow applications for Mac OS X to run on Linux with a simple recompile using new tools developed by the GNUstep team to directly build from xcodeproj project files. If the kickstarter project is funded beyond it's $50,000 goal, it's possible that WebKit and Darling might also be completed allowing applications built on Mac OS X to run without the need for a recompile... think WINE-like functionality for Mac OS X applications on other platforms... including Windows, Linux, BSD, etc.

Submission + - The All-Time Dirtiest Jobs in IT

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: Carcasses in computer hardware, endless streams of anatomical close-ups, the occasional encounter with fecal matter both real and metaphoric — IT is an industry of consummate professionals willing to go to almost any length (or depth) in the name of technology. 'If there's anything we've learned along the way, it's that when it comes to IT, there will never be a shortage of nasty work to get done. Compiled here you will find the worst of the worst — a Hall of Shame, if you will, highlighting the unsung heroes of the unseemly side of IT.'

Submission + - Banks' Anti-Mule Ops Behind Drop In Cash Out Fraud? (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: Mules are the “last mile” in many online fraud operations: the unwitting dupes, or witting co-conspirators who lend their legitimate bank account (and reputation) to fraudsters who are looking for a way to cash out funds from a compromised account. Mules – lured with promises of “work-from-home” riches-- receive fraudulent transactions and then immediately withdraw the funds and wire them to the fraudsters, minus a healthy “commission.”

(It's worth noting that Brian Krebs has done the most thorough reporting on the subject, including interviews with more than 150 money mules. Krebs concludes that most fall into one of two categories: the stupid and the willfully oblivious. http://krebsonsecurity.com/?s=money+mules&x=0&y=0)

In recent years, there has been ample coverage in the media of cyber crime and fraud and the role of money mules in scams. And yet, the supply of mules seems to be endless. Or is it? According to researchers at the security firm RSA, bank account cash-out attacks are becoming less common online, and a sharp increase in busts on money mules may be the cause.

Writing on Tuesday, Idan Aharoni, RSA’s Head of Cyber Intelligence, said that his team has seen a sharp (90%) reduction in offers for fraudulent “cash out services” in criminal forums. (https://blogs.rsa.com/is-cashing-out-bank-accounts-getting-harder/)

The problem isn’t a lack of money mules. Rather ”mule accounts have become much more volatile” because banks are doing a much better job identifying and shutting down mule accounts. That, in turn, has forced mule “herders,” who recruit the accomplices who will carry out fraudulent transfers, to become more picky about who they work with, in an attempt to avoid burning a good money mule in a scheme that is likely to get broken up, Security Ledger reports.

Submission + - Math Advance Suggest RSA Encryption Could Fall Within 5 years (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by holy_calamity
holy_calamity writes: The two encryption systems used to secure the most important connections and digital files could become useless within years, reports MIT Technology Review, due to progress towards solving the discrete logarithm problem. Both RSA and Diffie-Hellman encryption rely on there being no efficient algorithm for that problem, but French math professor Antoine Joux has published two papers in the last six months that suggest one could soon be found. Security researchers that noticed Joux's work recommend companies large and small begin planning to move to elliptic curve cryptography, something the NSA has said is best practice for years. Unfortunately, key patents for implementing elliptic curve cryptography are controlled by BlackBerry.

Submission + - 'Crabster' Bot To Search Ocean Floor For Treasure (singularityhub.com)

Submitted by kkleiner
kkleiner writes: A large hexapod robot named Crabster has been designed by the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology to navigate the ocean floors. Attached via power cable to a vessel on the surface, a four-person team of operators will use the bot to scout the seafloor and search for shipwrecks in hopes of returning some valuable booty.

Submission + - Apple announces a trade-in program for 3rd party chargers 1

Submitted by EliSowash
EliSowash writes: In response to recent reports of safety concerns around 3rd party chargers for iDevices, Apple announced today that beginning August 16, 2013, you can trade in your 3rd party adapter and purchase an official Apple charger at a “special price” — $10 USD.

From their website: “To qualify, you must turn in at least one USB power adapter and bring your iPhone, iPad, or iPod to an Apple Retail Store or participating Apple Authorized Service Provider for serial number validation. The special pricing on Apple USB power adapters is limited to one adapter for each iPhone, iPad, and iPod you own and is valid until October 18, 2013.”

Submission + - Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Malware planted on the servers of Freedom Hosting—the "hidden service" hosting provider on the Tor anonymized network brought down late last week—may have de-anonymized visitors to the sites running on that service. This issue could send identifying information about site visitors to an Internet Protocol address that was hard-coded into the script the malware injected into browsers. And it appears the IP address in question belongs to the National Security Agency (NSA).

This revelation comes from analysis done collaboratively by Baneki Privacy Labs, a collective of Internet security researchers, and VPN provider Cryptocloud. When the IP address was uncovered in the JavaScript exploit—which specifically targets Firefox Long-Term Support version 17, the version included in Tor Browser Bundle—a source at Baneki told Ars that he and others reached out to the malware and security community to help identify the source.

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