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Submission + - NSA Has Full Access to the iPhone 1

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Der Spiegel reported on the NSA’s access to smartphones and, in particular, the iPhone back in September. Today, these reports expand to the NSA’s apparent ability to access just about all your iPhone data through a program called DROPOUTJEEP, according to security researcher Jacob Appelbaum. The NSA claims a 100% success rate in installing the malware on iPhones. Functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted. It is unknown whether the backdoor was developed in cooperation with Apple, but Appelbaum doubts it. Video of Appelbaum's full speech is included in the article.

Submission + - Init wars: Debian inclining towards upstart as default (itwire.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: More than a month and a half after Debian leader Lucas Nussbaum asked the technical committee to decide on the init system to be used in the next release, Jessie, the discussion is still ongoing. But some committee members have taken positions and at this stage it looks like upstart will end up being the default.

Submission + - The Year We Broke the Internet 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Reporter Luke O'Neil writes that 2013 was journalism's year of bungles: the New Jersey waitress who received a homophobic comment on the receipt from a party she had served; Samsung paying Apple $1 billion in nickels; former NSA chief Michael Hayden’s assassination; #CutForBieber; Nelson Mandela’s death pic; that eagle snatching a child off the ground on YouTube; Jimmy Kimmel’s “twerk fail” video; and Sarah Palin taking a job with Al-Jazeera America (an obviously satirical story that even suckered in The Washington Post). All these stories had one thing in common: They seemed too tidily packaged, too neat, “too good to check,” as they used to say, to actually be true. "Any number of reporters or editors at any of the hundreds of sites that posted these Platonic ideals of shareability could’ve told you that they smelled, but in the ongoing decimation of the publishing industry, fact-checking has been outsourced to the readers," writes O'Neil. "This is not a glitch in the system. It is the system. Readers are gullible, the media is feckless, garbage is circulated around, and everyone goes to bed happy and fed." O'Neil says that the stories he's written this year that took the least amount of time and effort usually did the most traffic while his more in-depth, reported pieces didn’t stand a chance against riffs on things predestined to go viral. That’s the secret that Upworthy, BuzzFeed, MailOnline, Viral Nova, and their dozens of knockoffs have figured out: You don’t need to write anymore—just write a good headline and point. "As Big Viral gets bigger, traditional media organizations are scrambling to keep pace, concludes O'Neil. "We the media have betrayed your trust, and the general public has taken our self-sanctioned lowering of standards as tacit permission to lower their own."

Submission + - How Ya Gonna Get 'Em Down on the UNIX Farm? 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In 1919, Nora Bayes sang, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" In 2013, discussing User Culture Versus Programmer Culture, CS Prof Philip Guo poses a similar question, "How ya gonna get 'em down on UNIX after they've seen Spotify?" Convincing students from user culture to toss aside decades of advances in graphical user interfaces for a UNIX command line is a tough sell, Guo notes, and one that's made even more difficult when the instructors feel the advantages are self-evident. "Just waving their arms and shouting 'because, because UNIX!!!' isn't going to cut it," he advises. Guo's tips for success? "You need to gently introduce students to why these tools will eventually make them more productive in the long run," Guo suggests, "even though there is a steep learning curve at the outset. Start slow, be supportive along the way, and don't disparage the GUI-based tools that they are accustomed to using, no matter how limited you think those tools are. Bridge the two cultures."

Submission + - Document Management system for home use? 3

Submitted by mrkimile
mrkimile writes: I'm looking for a Document Management system that would help me reduce the amount of papers I need to have lying around.
The general idea would be to have all the incoming papers scanned and 'stored' into the DMS — with references to the filing cabinets/folders in my 'storage' area. I'd like to use it for most of the stuff I keep receiving at my household — for instance, all the government/IRS related stuff. Then, all the work orders from car repair shop(s), house appliance maintenance lads (for instance: I had a refrigerator fixed, under warranty, and currently I have the receipts stored in a 'Refrigirator' folder in my folder-cabinet, along with the warranty cards and all of it), etc. etc.
Also, now that I have a newborn coming along I'd like to keep all his papers in the DMS (the birth certificate, vaccination stuff, all the medical papers that I'll be receiving from various specialists), etc, etc. (I do live in Croatia and we still receive TONS of papers from various government offices/departments).

I've checked several of them, but those are either too complicated, or seem like an overkill (Alfresco), or don't have the necessary functionality (openKM — no way to add additional metadata, and then link documents via that metadata, etc, etc).

I'd prefer to use opensource web based Linux running system (so that both my wife and myself have easy access to the stuff), but i'm fine with desktop-based solution (either Linux or Windows). Also, I'd like it to be self-hosted, I kind-of don't want to share my documents with cloud-based services.

Comment Re:in other news (Score 2) 698

by multisync (#45713855) Attached to: NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware

NSA wrote the malware and implicated China

That was my thought. The only countries who have attempted something on the scale of what the NSA is alleging are (allegedely) the United States and Isreal, who (allegedely) unleashed Stuxnet on the world.

And I agree with the poster above - why would China wish to cripple the economy of one of the largest customers of its goods.

This isn't passing the smell test.

Submission + - Chinese Chang'e-3 lunar rover is on its way to the moon after successful launch (nasaspaceflight.com)

Submitted by savuporo
savuporo writes: The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 1:30 a.m. (12.30 p.m. EDT).
Landing is expected on December 14, at a landing site called Sinus Iridium (the Bay of Rainbows), a relic of a huge crater 258 km in diameter.
Coverage of the launch was carried live on CCTV, with youtube copies available.

Submission + - Google's Tour of Middle Earth: LOTR From a Great Eagle's POV (thehobbit.com)

Submitted by Press2ToContinue
Press2ToContinue writes: Middle Earth is an amazing fictional world, but if you want to really get to know it, you've got to read a lot of words. So if you're in the mood for a little Tolkien fantasy without hunkering down for a serious reading session, Google's brand new tour of Middle Earth is a beautiful (and effortless) way to get your fix.

Submission + - And Now For Something Completely Different: Monty Python Reunion Planned (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The Telegraph reports, "The original members of Monty Python will reunite more than 30 years after the comedy troupe last worked together. John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin will officially announce their reformation at a London press conference on Thursday. The five surviving members have reportedly been in months of secret talks about getting the Flying Circus back on the road. The reunion comes after several failed attempts to reform by the group. However, according to The Sun, the surviving members realised “it was now or never”, and had decided to embark upon “a fully-fledged reunion”. " — Related Telegraph stories: commentary, "best of", and a pan.

Submission + - Musk Lashes Back at Tesla Fire Controversy (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: A small handful of Tesla electric cars have caught fire, driving down the company’s stock price, and finally prompting CEO Elon Musk to tackle the issue in a new blog posting. “Since the Model S went into production last year, there have been more than a quarter million gasoline car fires in the United States alone, resulting in over 400 deaths and approximately 1,200 serious injuries (extrapolating 2012 NFPA data),” he wrote in that posting. “However, the three Model S fires, which only occurred after very high-speed collisions and caused no serious injuries or deaths, received more national headlines than all 250,000+ gasoline fires combined.” Responsible journalism on the matter, he added, has been “drowned out” by “an onslaught of popular and financial media seeking to make a sensation out of something that a simple Google search would reveal to be false.” According to his own figures, Tesla suffers an average of one fire per 6,333 cars, versus a rate of one fire per 1,350 gasoline-powered cars. Every Tesla vehicle includes internal walls between the battery modules, in addition to a firewall between the battery pack and the passenger compartment—enough shielding, in the event of a fire, to prevent pens and papers in the glove compartment from combusting. “Despite multiple high-speed accidents, there have been no deaths or serious injuries in a Model S of any kind ever,” Musk continued. “Of course, at some point, the law of large numbers dictates that this, too, will change, but the record is long enough already for us to be extremely proud of this achievement.” Tesla is about to push an “over-the-air update” to its vehicles’ air suspension that will create more ground clearance at highway speeds. In theory, that could reduce the chances of impact damage to the underbody, should the vehicle roll over an object—and that, in turn, could lower the chances of fire.

Submission + - OSS Advocates: Let Us Help You Fix Healthcare.gov

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: As experts hired by the U.S. government scramble to fix the much-maligned healthcare.gov website, the corps of independent kibitzers are chiming in from around the world, offering patches to fix the flaws. Sam Reed, a JavaScript developer, is one of the driving forces in the effort. Immediately after launch of healthcare.gov, he downloaded key parts of the code, shared it into a repository at GitHub and set about analyzing and improving it. Last Friday, White House economic adviser Jeff Zients, who has been tasked with fixing the site, said that QSSI would oversee the job. Reed, however, said he has already produced a simpler, cleaner version of the software that could run on the desktops of personal computers, allowing them to create accounts, browse insurance plans and sign up for coverage. 'If we can get the open-source community involved in the issue, people in the trenches (working for the government) can see the fixes,' says Reed confidently and invites other open source people to join the effort.

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