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Submission + - XSS Flaw in Popular Video-Sharing Site Enabled DDoS Attack (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Attackers exploited a vulnerability in a popular video-sharing site to hijack 22,000 browsers and launch a large-scale DDoS attack, according to researchers from Web security firm Incapsula. The attack happened Wednesday and was the result of a persistent cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. The XSS flaw allowed attackers to create a new account with rogue JavaScript code injected into the img tag corresponding to its profile picture. 'As a result, every time the image was used on one of the the site's pages (e.g., in the comment section), the malicious code was also embedded inside, waiting to be executed by every future visitor to that page,' the Incapsula researchers said Thursday in a blog post.

Submission + - Hackathon Gold: How To Win a Job Offer in a Coding Competition (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Hackathons have stirred up their share of controversy — mostly around too-big prizes and the inevitable cheating that follows. But for some developers they also can be the ultimate job interview — not just a coding test, but an opportunity to show off your people skills. Take the case of the January 2014 GlobalHack contest in St. Louis that was initially attended by several hundred programmers. The story of the contest isn't who took away the top $50,000 prize but about the other participants who didn't finish in the money but came away with something else that is arguably more important.

Submission + - Wearables Are Already Wearing Out Their Welcome (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: In a new white paper based on an Internet survey of 'thousands of Americans', the consulting firm Endeavor Partners has concluded that wearables (at least in their current incarnation) may already be on their way out. The survey found that one-third of American consumers who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. Meanwhile, eBay is rapidly filling with second-hand smartwatches: At the time of this writing, an eBay search turned up 2,465 results for 'Samsung Galaxy Gear'.

Submission + - China Cracks Down On Bitcoin, Cuts Off Exchanges' Bank Access (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Bitcoin has made many governments and regulators uncomfortable, and the Chinese government is responding to the challenge it poses with its usual lack of subtlety. Two Chinese bitcoin exchanges have found themselves cut off from the money economy, as Chinese banks, under pressure from the government, refuse to do business with them.

Submission + - Intel To Bring Exclusive Content To Intel-Powered Devices (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: One of the storylines of the rise of smartphones and tablets has been the collapse of Intel's near-monopolistic dominance of the chips that power everyday computing devices. The chipmaking giant isn't taking this all lying down, though, as it tries to fight its way into the mobile market using any means available, and the company's software chief Doug Fishe hinted at one troubling-sounding method: creating exclusive content that only works on Intel-powered gadgets. Fisher gave the example of more detailed backgrounds on games, but otherwise was short on details of what sort of content might be used in this program and how artists would be coaxed into providing it and locking it down.

Submission + - Security Researcher: Tesla Passwords Too Easy To Hack (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: One of the things Tesla owners love about their cars is that you can connect your teslamotors.com account to a smartphone app that can remotely unlock the car's doors, locate it, close and open its roof, flash its lights or honk its horn. But considering how much control your account gives you, that account is far too easy to hack, says security researcher Nitesh Dhanjani. Among other problems, Tesla doesn't impose adequate complexity requirements on passwords, and doesn't lock the account after a certain number of failed attempts.

Submission + - U.S. Navy to test humanoid robotic firefighters (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Some day, if there's a fire on a U.S. naval ship, a humanoid robot may rush in to put it out.That's the vision coming out of the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research, which will host a test of robotic firefighters this summer. Firefighting robots would take on high-risk tasks, such as going into an intensely hot and smoky environment, that a human sailor would normally have to do. The Navy plans to test the robots on the USS Shadwell, a decommissioned landing ship docked in Mobile, Ala., where the Navy conducts some of its damage control research. The Navy has been on a roll with high tech investments of late, including for a laser-powered weapon. http://www.networkworld.com/co...

Submission + - Dinosaurs Live! The (mostly) cool 50-year history of the IBM mainframe (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: In its history the IBM mainframe has been hailed and vilified. It has been born, reborn (many times) and pronounced dead. And yet the Big Iron remains a key computing resource for many large companies and will do so for many years. Here we take a look at the mainframe’s long history, from its use with the US space program to its prominence inside large business data centers.

Submission + - Judge Overrules Samsung Objection To Jury Instructional Video (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh on Sunday overruled Samsung Electronics' objections to showing jurors a recent instructional video on how patents work, ahead of a trial in a patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. The new video, called "The Patent Process: An Overview for Jurors," was developed by the Federal Judicial Center to provide jurors with an introduction to the patent system. Samsung's objection is to several scenes in which Apple products are depicted and used (and, by extension, seen as patentable and innovative).

Submission + - Smartphone Kill-Switch Could Save Consumers $2.6 Billion (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Creighton University professor William Duckworth has released a report finding that kill-switch technology that remotely makes a stolen smartphone useless could save American consumers up to $2.6 billion per year — mostly from reduced insurance premiums. Duckworth estimated that Americans currently spend around $580 million replacing stolen phones each year and $4.8 billion paying for handset insurance. If a kill-switch led to a sharp reduction in theft of phones, most of the $580 million spent on replacing stolen phones would be saved. And a further $2 billion in savings could be realized by switching to cheaper insurance plans that don't cover theft.

Submission + - Fujitsu Adding Emotinal Tones To Synthesized Voices (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: In Japan, everything from escalators to trucks issue automated voice warnings to users or people nearby, and so humans need to be able to grasp which robotic speech is most urgent to listen to. Fujitsu is working on technology that will autmatically add emotional tones to auto-generated voice messaging — for instance, a warning system could inform factory workers about a mechanical failure in an increasingly urgent tone of voice.

Submission + - Classified X-37B Space Plane Breaks Space Longevity Record (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: A little-known U.S. space plane quietly broke its own space endurance record this week as its current unmanned mission surpassed 469 days in space. What it was doing up there for so long is a secret closely held by the Air Force, but Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an authority on satellites and launches, thinks it's serving a similar role as the space shuttle by carrying a science or intelligence payload. 'I believe it's testing some kind of experimental sensor for the National Reconnaissance Office; for example, a hyperspectral imager, or some new kind of signals intelligence package,' said McDowell. 'The sensor was more successful than expected, so the payload customer asked the X-37 folks to keep the spacecraft in orbit longer.'

Submission + - How To Fix Android's Share Function (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: The functionality that allows users to share data from one Android app to another is incredibly powerful, with many more options than its iOS equivalent. But it's also overwhelming, confusing, and hard to customize. Blogger Kevin Purdy has some suggestions on how to tweak Android sharing so that users can get the most out of it, by allowing user customization and giving more scope for app devs to guide users to show them what they're missing.

Submission + - U.S. Court: Chinese Search Engine's Censorship Is "Free Speech" (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: You will probably not be surprised to learn that Chinese search giant Baidu censors a wide range of content, particularly political material deemed to be pro-democracy — and does so for users everywhere, not just in China. A group of activists filed suit against Baidu in New York for violating free speech laws, but the judge in the case declared that, as a private entity in the United States, Baidu has the right to provide whatever kind of search results it wants, even for political reasons.

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