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Security

Submission + - Hackers' Flying Drone Now Eavesdrops On GSM Phones (forbes.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: At the Black Hat and Defcon security conferences in Las Vegas next week, Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins plan to show the crowd of hackers a year’s worth of progress on their Wireless Aerial Surveillace Platform, or WASP, the second year Tassey and Perkins have displayed the 14-pound, six-foot long, six-foot wingspan unmanned aerial vehicle. The WASP, built from a retired Army target drone converted from a gasoline engine to electric batteries, is equipped with an HD camera, a cigarette-pack sized on-board Linux computer packed with network-hacking tools including the BackTrack testing toolset and a custom-built 340 million word dictionary for brute-force guessing of passwords, and eleven antennae.

On top of cracking wifi networks, the upgraded WASP now also performs a new trick: impersonating the GSM cell phone towers used by AT&T and T-Mobile to trick phones into connecting to the plane’s antenna rather than their carrier, allowing the drone to record conversations and text messages on a 32 gigs of storage.
NASA

Submission + - NASA Study Shows Faster Heat Release (forbes.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”
Movies

Submission + - Wal-Mart Jumps in the Stream (latimes.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: Today Wal-Mart has added streaming video to their website. What better a time than now to compete with Netflix? Now that Netflix have raised their prices.

On Wal-Mart's website, the movies will be available the same day the DVDs go on sale in stores. Rental prices range from 99 cents to 599 cents. Digital purchases are priced from $4.99 to $24.99.

Walmart.com general manager Steve Nave said the retailer is following its customers as they increasingly embrace digital movie rentals and purchases.

"We know customers are starting to shift their behavior, in terms of how they consume their media," Nave said, adding, "As as customers make that change, we don't want to lose that customer as they shift to digital."

Wal-Mart, long the nation's leading seller of DVDs, signaled its intent to double down on digital movie distribution in February 2010, when it spent a reported $100 million to acquire Vudu, a Silicon Valley start-up that was gradually being added to home entertainment devices.
The Courts

Submission + - Federal Court Rejects EPIC's Challege (wsj.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a privacy group's constitutional challenge to the Transportation Security Administration's use of full-body scanners to screen passengers at U.S. airports.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the full-body scans did not violate the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches. "The need to search airline passengers to ensure public safety can be particularly acute, and, crucially, an AIT scanner, unlike a magnetometer, is capable of detecting, and therefore of deterring, attempts to carry aboard airplanes explosives in liquid or powder form," the court said in a 3-0 ruling.

The court said the TSA had already taken steps to protect passenger privacy, and it noted that passengers can opt out of the screening in favor of a pat down instead. The court also rejected arguments that the scans violated other federal laws. The ruling, however, was not a total victory for the TSA. The appeals court said the agency should have followed routine administrative procedures in adopting the use full-body scanners, which would have given the public an opportunity to file comments with the agency. The court ordered the agency "to cure the defect" in its handling of the full-body scan regulations. But it also left the agency's current screening practices in place, citing the need for continuity in airport security operations.

The ruling came in a case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy group based in Washington that challenged the screening procedures. Ginger McCall, an attorney with the group, said the court's decision that TSA should seek public comments was "fantastic."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best PDF Reader with Gesture Support

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: I am wanting to use a laptop that is connected to a touchscreen to show potential customers products at trade shows. This is so a potential customer can 'flip' through our on screen catalog by sliding their finger across the touch screen. I have done some Google searching, but have not been able to find a solution so far. So is there any software Slashdot readers could recommend that supports this gesture function I am asking about?

Submission + - Earthquake Causes River to Disappear (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: Following a series of moderate earthquakes that struck the country Tuesday, residents around the Guacalito River in Costa Rica discovered that the river had disappeared. Earthquake-report.com reported that sometime after the earthquakes, villagers living near the river, which is located near Armenia de Upala, discovered that the river was dry.

It was not immediately known if the waters of the river had disappeared due to sinkhole activity that can occur after earthquakes or if the earth shaking caused damming that dried up the river near the Miravalles volcano. The quakes were centered near the Nicaragua and Costa Rica border in the same vicinity as the Miravalles volcano.

UPDATE 13/07 – 14:31 UTC : Just after the earthquake, villagers living near the Río Guacalito at Armenias de Upala were surprised that the river was suddenly dry! Villagers believe that a dam was created on the slopes of of the Miravalles volcano which dried up the river.
Iphone

Submission + - Apple Pays for Track iPhone User (reuters.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: (Reuters) — Apple Inc's Korean unit has paid compensation to a user of its popular iPhone after collecting location data without consent, lawyers and court officials said, the first payout by the company over these complaints.

In May, Apple Korea was ordered by the court to pay 1 million won ($946) in compensation to Kim Hyung-suk, a lawyer, two officials at Changwon District Court told Reuters on Thursday. They declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

Mirae Law said it was now preparing a class action lawsuit against Apple for the unauthorized data collection. A website for class action sign-up has been set up but was paralyzed due to heavy traffic. (www.sueapple.co.kr)
Google

Submission + - Larry Page's Quarterly Earning Remarks (google.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: Larry page just posted on Google+ his remarks on Google's quarterly earnings:

Good afternoon everyone--thanks for joining us today. It’s exciting to be on the call today and to share directly with you the progress we have made in my first quarter as CEO.

As you will have seen from our press release we had a great quarter--with revenue up by 32 per cent year on year and a new record for quarterly revenue at over $9 billion!

We have substantially increased our velocity and execution this quarter--a key goal of mine since taking over as CEO. It’s why I created a new, product focused management structure--with a clear leader responsible for each product area.

This new management team is working together fabulously and has already achieved a lot in just three months. First we launched Google+ to field trial invitation only. Our goal with Google+ is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life, as well as to improve the overall Google experience.

Circles let you choose with precision who you are sharing with. Not surprisingly this has been very well received, because in real life, we share different things with different people.

Hangouts allow for serendipitous interactions. Like in real life when you run into a few friends. It gives you seamless and fun multi user video and it’s really amazing!

Last quarter, we launched the +1 button in search results and ads--enabling users to recommend stuff they liked, and have those recommendations show up in the search results of people they know.

This quarter, we released +1 buttons to the entire web, and many sites like Huffington Post, the Washington Post and Best Buy have added +1 buttons.

Google+ is still only in field trial with limited access as we scale the system. Users have to be invited, sign up with a profile in order to use it. However, the growth on Google+ has been great--and I’m excited to release some new metrics for you today. Over 10M people have joined Google+. Great achievement for the team.

There’s also a ton of activity. We are seeing over 1 billion items shared and received in a single day. Our +1 button is already all over the web. It’s being served 2.3 billion times a day.

So while we have a lot of work still to do, we are really excited about our progress with Google+. Google+ is also a great example of another focus of mine--beautiful products that are simple and intuitive to use and was actually was one of the first products to contain our new visual redesign.

We also launched that beautiful, consistent and simpler design on our home page, Gmail and calendar with many more products soon to come. Greater focus has also been another big feature for me this quarter--more wood behind fewer arrows

Last month, for example, we announced that we will be closing Google Health and Google PowerMeter. We’ve also done substantial internal work simplifying and streamlining our product lines. While much of that work has not yet become visible externally, I am very happy with our progress here.

Focus and prioritization are crucial given our amazing opportunities. Indeed I see more opportunities for Google today than ever before. Because believe it or not we are still in the very early stages of what we want to do.

Even in search which we’ve been working on for 12 years there have never been more important changes to make. For example this quarter we launched a pilot that shows an author’s name and picture in the search results, making it easier for users to find things from authors they trust.

Of course when we started doing search, people thought we were crazy--they said there was no money to be made in search over and above a bit of banner advertising. Most new internet businesses have had the same criticism. Fast forward to today--it feels like we are watching the same movie again in slow motion.

We have tremendous new businesses being viewed as “crazy”.
Android. We actually have a new metric to report of 550,000 Android Devices activated a day! That’s a HUGE number even by Google’s standards. Chrome. It’s the fastest growing browser. With over 160 million users.

People rightly ask how we will monetize these businesses? And of course I understand the need to balance the short term with the longer term needs because our revenues and growth serve as the engine that funds our innovation.

But our emerging high usage products can generate huge new businesses for Google in the long run, just like search.
And we have tons of experience monetizing successful products over time. Well run technology businesses with tremendous consumer usage make a lot of money over the long term. I think about our products in three separate categories.

First, there is search and our ads products, the core driver of revenue for the company. Nikesh and Susan are going to talk more about ads later in the call.

Next, we have products that are enjoying high consumer success--YouTube, Android and Chrome. We are investing in these in order to optimize their long-term success.

Then we have our new products--Google+ and Commerce and Local. We are are investing in them to drive innovation and adoption.

Overall, we are focused on long term absolute profit and growth, as we have always been--and I will continue the tight financial management we have had in the last two years, even as we are making significant investments in our future. I would like to finish on our people
Great companies are no greater than the efforts and ingenuity of their people.

So continuing to hire the best, keeping them happy and well rewarded is crucial to our future. Many of you will be interested in hiring--whether we hired a few hundred more or less than you expected this quarter. But we will optimize headcount for the long term and the opportunities we see.

So I’m happy with the investments we’ve made in people, though we’re probably even a little ahead of where we need to be with headcount growth at the edge of what is manageable now. It is easy to focus on things we do that are speculative (e.g., driverless cars) but we spend the vast majority of our resources on the core products. We may have a few small speculative projects happening at any given time, but we’re very careful stewards of shareholder money — we’re not betting the farm on this stuff.

All of us at Google want to create services that people across the world use twice a day just like a toothbrush! And we strive to make those services beautiful, simple and easy to use.

That way we can provide huge benefit to the world. We have made a good start but we are at only 1 per cent of what’s possible Google is just getting started and that is why I am here--working hard to lead this company to the next level. Thank You. And again, we had a great quarter.
Apple

Submission + - Secret Service Raids Apple Store Webcam 'Artist' (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: The US Secret Service has raided the home of an artist who collected images from webcams in a New York Apple store.

Kyle McDonald is said to have installed software that photographed people looking at laptops then uploaded the pictures to a website.
Writing on Twitter, Mr McDonald said: "@secretservice just stopped by to investigate [web address removed] and took my laptop. Please assume they're reading any e-mails you send me."

Kyle McDonald's images were uploaded to a page on the blogging site Tumblr. In the description of People Staring at Computers, the project is described as: "A photographic intervention. Custom app installed around NYC, taking a picture every minute and uploading it if a face is found in the image.

"Exhibited on site with a remotely triggered app that displayed the photos full screen on every available computer." No arrests had been made in the case as of 8 July.

Submission + - NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal (nj.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today.

Based on the battle of a divorcing Gloucester County couple, the decision helps clarify the rules governing a technology increasingly employed by suspicious spouses — many of whom hire private investigators.

No state law governs the use of GPS tracking devices, and the ruling, which does not affect police officers, is the first to address the issue, said Jimmie Mesis, past president of the New Jersey Licensed Private Investigators Association.

“We only use it when we are sure we have the appropriate conditions,’’ Reed said, noting that investigators make sure GPS devises are installed in cars on public streets and not private areas, and that the spouse must have some legal or financial connection to the car.

Appellate Judge Joseph Lisa, Jack Sabatino and Carmen Alvarez said Villanova had no right to expect privacy because the GPS tracked his movements on public streets.

“There is no direct evidence in this record to establish that during the approximately 40 days the GPS was in the ... glove compartment the device captured a movement of plaintiff into a secluded location that was not in public view, and, if so, that such information was passed along by Mrs. Villanova to (Leonard),” Lisa wrote.

Submission + - Obama's Campaign Website Hacked (washingtonexaminer.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: The Obama campaign website was hacked on Tuesday and invited supporters to two fake anti-government events hosted by an unnamed "Commy Obama."

The campaign's application for mobile devices, such as iPhones and iPads, directed users to two events titled "Rules of Politics" scheduled for noon on Tuesday in Washington.

"1. Politicians and other public servants lie," reads the event description provided on the Obama campaign website. "2. Politicians tell you what you want to hear and offer to provide things for 'free' to get votes. 3. When government buys, the people pay."

The twenty-first note quotes the late Adrian Pierce Rogers, a Southern Baptist preacher who served two terms as president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1979 to 1988.

"'You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom,'" the author writes, quoting one of Rogers' more famous sermons. "'When half of the people get an idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.'”
Government

Submission + - Al Qaeda Communications Hacked by Government? (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by Endoflow2010
Endoflow2010 writes: (AP) WASHINGTON — A popular jihadist Internet forum has been knocked off the Internet, and counterterrorism experts say it appears it was hacked.

Cybersecurity analysts say the al-Shamukh forum appears to have been taken down by a fairly sophisticated cyberattack that hit not only the website, but the server — which is the main computer that enables people to access the site over the Internet.

Evan Kohlmann, a counterterrorism expert who tracks jihadist websites as a senior partner with Flashpoint Partners consultancy in New York, described the site as a key al Qaeda propaganda forum.

He said it bounces around between Internet hosts every few months, but has seemingly been allowed to exist as an open secret, possibly allowing a Western government to use it as an intelligence resource.

"These sites can be like spy satellites, they're great ways of gathering information about your adversaries," he said in an interview late Wednesday. "Bringing them down is like shooting at your own spy satellites. But there are others who don't agree with that."

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