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Submission + - PayPal responds to fury over robocalls, will now allow users to opt-out (bgr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week, PayPal was lambasted for its new user agreement which allowed the online payments company to robocall and autotext customers at will. What was particularly jarring about the user agreement — set to go into effect on July 1 — is that PayPal reserved the right to contact customers not just for account problems, but also for surveys and promotions. Even worse, PayPal brazenly advised users who weren’t on board with the new agreement that they should simply close their account and move it along.

Naturally, news of PayPal’s new TOS caused something of an uproar online. Thankfully, PayPal has since realized that forcing users to accept automated texts and phone calls wasn’t the wisest of business decisions.

Submission + - Supreme Court may decide the fate of API's, Klingonese, Dothraki... (slate.com)

Submitted by nerdpocalypse
nerdpocalypse writes: In a larger battle than even Godzilla V Mothra, Google V Oracle threatens not only Japan but the entire Nerd World. What is at stake is how a language can be patented. This affects not just programming languages, API's, and everything that runs..well...everything, but also the copyright status of new languages such as Klingon and Dothraki

Submission + - Siri, Cortana and Google Now Have Nothing On SoundHound Speech Recognition Tech (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Your digital voice assistant app is incompetent. Yes, Siri can give you a list of Italian restaurants in the area, Cortana will happily look up the weather, and Google Now will send a text message, if you ask it to. But compared to Hound, the newest voice search app on the block, all three of the aforementioned assistants might as well be bumbling idiots trying to outwit a fast talking rocket scientist. At its core, Hound is the same type of app — you bark commands or ask questions about any number of topics and it responds intelligently. And quickly. What's different about Hound compared to Siri, Cortana, and Google Now is that it's freakishly fast and understands complex queries that would have the others hunched in the fetal position, thumb in mouth. Check out the demo. It's pretty impressive.

Submission + - Opening Fixed-Code Garage Doors With a Toy in 10 Seconds

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: It may be time to upgrade your garage door opener. Security researcher Samy Kamkar has developed a new technique that enables him to open almost any garage door that uses a fixed code–and he implemented it on a $12 child’s toy.

The attack Kamkar devised, known as OpenSesame, reduces the amount of time it takes to guess the fixed code for a garage door from several minutes down to less than 10 seconds. Most openers in commercially available garage door openers have a set of 12 dip switches, which are binary, and provide a total of 4,096 possible code combinations. This is a highly limited keyspace and is open to brute-force attacks. But even on such a small keyspace, those attacks take some time.

With a simple brute-force attack, that would take 29 minutes, Kamkar said. To begin reducing that time, he eliminated the retransmission of each code, bringing the time down to about six minutes. He then removed the wait period after each code is sent, which reduced the time even further, to about three minutes. Looking to further reduce the time, Kamkar discovered that many garage door openers use a technique known as a bit shift register. This means that when the opener receives a 12-bit code, it will test that code, and if it’s incorrect, the opener will then shift out one bit and pull in one bit of the next code transmitted.

Kamkar implemented an algorithm known as the De Bruijn sequence to automate this process and then loaded his code onto a now-discontinued toy called the Mattel IM-ME. The toy was designed as a short-range texting device for kids, but Kamkar reprogrammed it using the GoodFET adapter built by Travis Goodspeed. Once that was done, Kamkar tested the device against a variety of garage door openers and discovered that the technique worked on systems manufactured by several companies, including Nortek and NSCD. It also works on older systems made by Chamberlain, Liftmaster, Stanley, Delta-3, and Moore-O-Matic.

Comment Re:Long battery life plus ease of use (Score 1) 66

After having a smartphone for ~5 years - I'm growing tired of the touch screen concept. My first smartphone had a slide out keyboard - my current iPhone is 100% touch. Before that a flip phone.

Oh how I yearn for the simple "UI" of the flip phone. It rings?! flip it open. Works whether your hands are wet or dry. My slide out Palm Pre - when it was wet the touch screen didn't work well --- but okay just slide out the keyboard and it acted like a flip to answer the call. iPhone doesn't have plan B.

Last week I had an emergency and the on-call doctor called me. It was lightly raining and I couldn't swipe to answer the call. It was a panicked few minutes while I attempted to dry my fingers and screen to answer the call. Normally I can wait a few minutes for these screen problems (i.e. change my env). But in an emergency it needs to work.

Having a second dumb phone with a battery that lasts all week would be nice. Maybe I just need a "Mini" tablet and simple phone. Imagine that - a dumb phone with wifi hotspot (because two data plans are expensive).

Comment Re:Someone Please Provide a Better Explanation (Score 1) 392

While I agree that one might assume the Pedestrian detection system might be part of the City package - I have to say that the owner was a dumbass.

Did you go out and try the airbags to show them off to your friends?

As for anti-lock brakes - when I purchased a car with this feature, Yes, I did try them out. I never had them before. First I found an empty parking lot and drove slowly, tried them, drove faster, tried them again. Drove in a circle - tried them. Each time making sure there was enough room *just in case* something didn't work as expected. I did NOT drive full tilt at a wall !!!

Maybe these features are complicated enough we need training.

I remember the first time my traction control was activated in a time of need. My car has a lot of horsepower - but the Stability system turns the engine down and applies the brakes to bring the car under control. Not a wonderful feature when trying to pull into a lane and "full power" is required. The car went idle and coasted for a few seconds because the wheels spun on black-ice. Thankfully there was room for this mistake. Now I know and anticipate it. The system can't tell the difference between "I'm out of control" and "Get me out of here now!" Just need to be quick on the "ESP" on/off button.

Submission + - Insurer denies healthcare breach claim citing lack of minimum required practices (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: In what may become a trend, an insurance company is denying a claim from a California healthcare provider following the leak of data on more than 32,000 patients. The insurer, Columbia Casualty, charges that Cottage Health System did an inadequate job of protecting patient data.

In a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in California, Columbia alleges that the breach occurred because Cottage and a third party vendor, INSYNC Computer Solution, Inc. failed to follow “minimum required practices,” as spelled out in the policy. Among other things, Cottage “stored medical records on a system that was fully accessible to the internet but failed to install encryption or take other security measures to protect patient information from becoming available to anyone who ‘surfed’ the Internet,” the complaint alleges.

Disputes like this may become more common, as insurers anxious to get into a cyber insurance market that's growing by about 40% annually use liberally written exclusions to hedge against 'known unknowns' like lax IT practices, pre-existing conditions (like compromises) and so on. (http://www.itworld.com/article/2839393/cyber-insurance-only-fools-rush-in.html)

Submission + - Ways to travel faster than light without violating relativity

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: It’s one of the cardinal laws of physics and the underlying principle of Einstein’s relativity itself: the fact that there’s a universal speed limit to the motion of anything through space and time, the speed of light, or c. Light itself will always move at this speed (as well as certain other phenomena, like the force of gravity), while anything with mass — like all known particles of matter and antimatter — will always move slower than that. But if you want something to travel faster-than-light, you aren’t, as you might think, relegated to the realm of science fiction. There are real, physical phenomena that do exactly this, and yet are perfectly consistent with relativity.

Submission + - 25 Years today - Windows 3.0 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Windows 3.0 was launched on 22 May 1990 — I know, coz I was there as a SDE on the team. I still have, um, several of the shrink-wrapped boxes of the product — with either 3.5 inch and 5.25 floppies rattling around inside them — complete with their distintive 'I witnessed the event' sticker!

It was a big deal for me, and I still consider Win 3 as *the* most significant Windows' release, and I wonder what other /.ers think — looking back on Win 3?

Comment Security Rehash Part Deux (Score 1) 82

The more I see this happen - the more I think we need to change the economy for stolen data. Remember when they stopped arresting prostitutes and targeted the John's ? Locks can be picked and there to keep honest people honest. Credit monitoring must be pretty cheap as more companies buy it as an insurance product. This data is going to be stolen !

Now we need to make it worthless.

In the world of digital "signup on the web" stolen data can be used pretty quickly. Like the bad checks loop hole (popular on Craigslist and others). The detection of bad id's needs to be easier and products for purchase harder to get. There are days that I believe the 3 credit reporting agencies are responsible - they created a market & product that is easy to abuse. Yes - I can flag my credit rating (even "lock" it) - but then my life becomes difficult.

Maybe a smartApp that allows easier monitoring and blocking of requests. My AMEX credit card already gives real time purchase details on my phone. This might aid in detection.

Now - how to reduce the value of the products? (or increase the cost to acquire).
And just maybe - make it expense for the companies that hold this data to the point they find another way.

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