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Comment Technology first, Security later (Score 1) 269

by ripvlan (#49276563) Attached to: Fraud Rampant In Apple Pay

Seems that the concept of re-inventing the wheel causes the folks new to the picture to either be ignorant of, or discounting all existing risk.

I can hear product management now: "Get the feature out - all of those concerns from the big fat banks aren't important - this is new! none of those problems will occur this time around !!!"

Comment Re:Ok That's Pretty Freaky (Score 1) 157

by ripvlan (#49234595) Attached to: Strange Stars Pulse To the Golden Mean

Or - the aliens are so smart that they have placed into the very universe this cool repeating pattern trying to communicate with us. As in "Yo! dude... blink blink blink - here we are!" Everywhere we look - this thing keeps appearing... nature, math, planets. Maybe there is a commonality.

Wow - imagine some super alien that could have intelligently designed such a feature into the universe. [big smirk]

Comment Re:Bullshit (Score 1) 209

Rebuild it without the bullshit? I can't see how rebuilding it would get us to a different location - we are here because this is what we wanted to build. Having a life full of regret where you wouldn't live it the same way again is looking back and wishing for a better existence.

Will it morph to go somewhere else because that's what we want? The article argues that there are at least two forces: the walled gardens that offer us candy - and our desire to consume whatever looks new & hot.

And big data will fill the gaps. Plus - we will want this data. It references a BBC claim that by 2019 a large % of us will WANT to use apps that record & archives our spoken conversations. It isn't that some secretive group will build these time lines - WE will do it. WE will want to do it.

It sounds rather dystopian. I've read old (1970's) sci fi novels on similar subjects. Those who have managed to stay out of the system and those who are in it. Even The Matrix wants to extract people from the system - and there's a whole underground world living outside of it.

Comment Wasn't that DirectX or XNA? (Score 1) 66

While MS has always had XBox separate from Windows OS - haven't they always had a toolkit/library/framework strategy that promised an almost-write-once game experience across platofrms? And it was weak?

I've heard interviews with developers who used XNA to built mobile games that also run on XBox - with a few, uh, gaps - or caveats.

What is missing is that single game store. A few years ago MS promised this flying game that looked amazing (Simulator replacement?). I signed up for the beta but wasn't accepted - and later received a notice that it was generally available. It was called an XBox game !! So I searched for it and couldn't find it on the Xbox store. After a week of half-assed Google searching I discovered that it was a Windows game (and possibly used the Kinect inputs for those who had the USB version). Talk about confusing. It wasn't available on the XBox.

Personally I'd like to buy a game via my PC or mobile device and have it delivered to my XBox. Kind of like the method for buying music.

Submission + - Apple And Google 'FREAK Attack' Leaves Millions Of Users Vulnerable

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The Guardian reports that millions of people may have been left vulnerable to hackers while surfing the web on Apple and Google devices, thanks to a newly discovered security flaw known as “FREAK attack.” Researchers blame the problem on an old government policy, abandoned over a decade ago, which required US software makers to use weaker security in encryption programs sold overseas due to national security concerns. Many popular websites and some internet browsers continued to accept the weaker software, or can be tricked into using it, according to experts at several research institutions who reported their findings. According to Ars Technica a scan of more than 14 million websites that support the secure sockets layer or transport layer security protocols found that more than 36 percent of them were vulnerable to the decryption attacks: "The so-called FREAK attack—short for Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys—is possible when an end user with a vulnerable device—currently known to include Android smartphones, iPhones, and Macs running Apple's OS X operating system—connects to a vulnerable HTTPS-protected website. Vulnerable sites are those configured to use a weak cipher that many had presumed had been retired long ago. At the time this post was being prepared, most Windows and Linux end-user devices were not believed to be affected."

The flaw resulted from a former U.S. government policy that forbade the export of strong encryption and required that weaker “export-grade” products be shipped to customers in other countries, say the researchers who discovered the problem. These restrictions were lifted in the late 1990s, but the weaker encryption got baked into widely used software that proliferated around the world and back into the United States, apparently unnoticed until this year.

Submission + - Rosetta snaps a picture of its own shadow on the comet below (cnet.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: The ESA released an image Tuesday of the comet-orbiting Rosetta leaving a fleeting mark on the comet: its shadow. The space agency describes it as being "encircled in a wreath of light." It was a rare confluence of circumstances that enabled the image to exist as the sun, spacecraft and comet all came into alignment.

The shadow is diffuse, rather than sharp. The ESA explains this by noting, "If you were standing on the surface with Rosetta high above you, there would be no place in the shadow where the entire Sun would be blocked from view, which explains why there is no fully dark core to the shadow."

The image was taken during a close flyby of the comet on February 14, but the ESA just now brought it to the public's attention. Rosetta — which was launched back in 2004 and sent on a mission to approach and study Comet 67P — was at a distance of about 3.7 miles from the comet's surface at the time.

What's so intriguing about the shadow image is that it's something familiar happening in an alien place, 317 million miles away. We're all used to seeing our shadows here on Earth. Rosetta casting a shadow on a comet puts its epic space adventure into a more human perspective.

Submission + - A paralyzed woman flew an F-35 fighter jet in a simulator — using only her (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: Over at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, also known as DARPA, there are some pretty amazing (and often top-secret) things going on. But one notable component of a DARPA project was revealed by a Defense Department official at a recent forum, and it is the stuff of science fiction movies.

According to DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar, a paralyzed woman was successfully able use her thoughts to control an F-35 and a single-engine Cessna in a flight simulator.

It's just the latest advance for one woman, 55-year-old Jan Scheuermann, who has been the subject of two years of groundbreaking neurosignaling research.

First, Scheuermann began by controlling a robotic arm and accomplishing tasks such as feeding herself a bar of chocolate and giving high fives and thumbs ups.

Then, researchers learned that — surprisingly — Scheuermann was able to control both right-hand and left-hand prosthetic arms with just the left motor cortex, which is typically responsible for controlling the right-hand side.

After that, Scheuermann decided she was up for a new challenge, according to Prabhakar.

"Jan decided that she wanted to try flying a Joint Strike Fighter simulator," Prabhakar said, prompting laughter from the crowd at the New America Foundation's Future of War forum. "So Jan got to fly in the simulator."

Unlike pilots who use the simulator technology for training, Scheuermann wasn't thinking about controlling the plane with a joystick. She thought about flying the plane itself — and it worked.

"In fact," Prabhakar noted, "for someone who's never flown — she's not a pilot in real life — she's in there flying a simulator directly from neurosignaling."

Submission + - First Satellites With All-Electric Propulsion Call Home (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: The launch of two new communications satellites may not seem like news these days, but it is when they're the first satellites with all-electric propulsion. Boeing announced that the two 702SP small platform satellites, called ABS-3A and EUTELSAT 115 West B, that launched on Sunday evening are sending back signals to mission control as they power towards geosynchronous orbit under ion drive.

Submission + - Photo First: Light Captured as Both Particle and Wave (discovery.com)

Submitted by mpicpp
mpicpp writes: It’s one of those enduring Zen koans of science that we’ve all grown up with: Light behaves as both a particle and a wave—at the same time. Einstein taught us that, so we’re all generally on board, but to actually understand what it means would require several Ph.D.s and a thorough understanding of quantum physics.

What’s more, scientists have never been able to devise an experiment that documents light behaving as both a wave and a particle simultaneously. Until now.

That’s the contention of a team of Swiss and American researchers, who say they’ve succeeded in capturing the first-ever snapshot of light’s dual behavior. Using an advanced electron microscope – one of only two on the planet – at the EPFL labs in Switzerland, the team has generated a kind of quantum photograph of light behaving as both a particle and a wave.

The experiment involves firing laser light at a microscopic metallic nanowire, causing light to travel — as a wave — back and forth along the wire. When waves traveling in opposite directions meet, they form a “standing wave” that emits light itself — as particles. By shooting a stream of electrons close to the nanowire, the researchers were able to capture an image that simultaneously demonstrates both the wave-nature and particle-nature of light.

“This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics — and its paradoxical nature — directly,” says lead researcher Fabrizio Carbone of EPFL, on the lab’s project page. The study is to be officially published this week in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment Re:If you're in the United States, get a lawyer (Score 1) 230

Yes - this is always a sticky situation. "We" want to report the issue but have plenty of tales of people killing the messenger.

My very serious solution - print out all of the details on a sheet of paper. Pop it in an envelop, drive to the next town, and mail it in.

And use an older printer that doesn't put signature marks in the pixels. Or drive to a street, hike through the woods, to a payphone - and call them.

You've done your job and aren't involved. Of course - you've already exercised the bug - they do have the logs and can go looking to see if anybody ever tried this. But maybe they won't, or at least maybe just maybe won't find you.

You have a responsibility to keep it a secret.

Plan B is to talk loudly at a hacker convention and let somebody else "stumble" across it.

Comment Re:Just y'know... reconnect them spinal nerves (Score 1) 210

by ripvlan (#49148535) Attached to: Surgeon: First Human Head Transplant May Be Just Two Years Away

I heard an interview with this surgeon on BBC this morning. He definitely is a glass half full person - nothing is impossible. No matter what difficulty the reporter asked was waved away with (in essence) "bah - that is a minor detail"

2 years? Snake-oil or real possibility?

Pragmatically there may be a few small hills to climb. My magic 8-ball says, "Unlikely."

But hey - we could be on the edge of a major breakthrough.

Comment Re:from a psychologist that has helped children gr (Score 1) 698

yes and....

Update family photos. Label who her (great--xxx) grandparents are. Take out that felt marker and write on the back of old photos. If you have siblings or cousins - they can help when she gets older. How many times have you been at a family event and somebody asks "who is that?" in some old photo. This allows for some history.

Also - I'd make it known to both my wife and children that it is okay to move on. That there may be somebody else in the future - and that is okay. That person will help guide in his own way - taking over where I left off. Not a replacement - but don't ignore that person simply because he isn't me (you).

Submission + - Fighting Scams Targeting the Elderly With Old-School Tech (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Sharp is launching a pair of landline phones designed to counter a growing form of fraud in Japan that preys upon the elderly. The 'ore ore' ('it’s me, it’s me') fraudsters pretend to be grandchildren in an emergency and convince their victims to send money, generally via ATM. Sharp’s new phones are designed to alert seniors to the dangers of unknown callers. When potential victims receive that are not registered in the internal memory of Sharp's new phones, their LED bars glow red and the phones go into anti-scam mode. An automated message then tells the caller that the call is being recorded and asks for the caller to state his or her name before the call is answered.

Comment Re:Sigh... Yet another scam (Score 1) 233

by ripvlan (#49067679) Attached to: Mars One: Final 100 Candidates Selected

Well - if they had the original 200k people to send on the mission -- maybe 40 would still be alive when the spaceship arrived.

As for financing - they plan to sell all of it as a Reality TV show. Here's an NPR writeup from 2013 "This one-way trip to Mars is brought to you by": http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...

No new technology? Pretty sure there are several "known unknowns" that haven't been figured out. Gamma Ray protection tops the list. I remember one of the moon astronauts describing the strange flashes of light that they would see during the trip. Leaving earth's protection completely is expected to be even worse.

I remember hearing an interview on the radio with an "expert" after Prez Obama made his Mars declaration. This expert listed some absolutely fascinating problems, even basics, that still need to be solved. Some of the issues were things I wouldn't have thought of - ever. Wish I could find that interview - it was also on NPR but I can't remember which show.

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