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Submission + - US Bill to Ensure A Free Internet (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: The United States Congress is working on proposing a bill intended to "promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet".

A primary intent of this bill is to demonstrate an opposition to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), however many critics believe that ulterior motives behind the new proposition include limiting the authority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

One US Representative, Marsha Blackburn, states, "With all the problems we face domestically and internationally, the last thing we need is to back away from aggressively defending Internet freedom. Failing to [pass the bill] would send an incredibly bad and discouraging message to the rest of the world and put our innovators here at home in a very difficult position".

Many supporters of the bill claim that the primary concern of the bill is to send a message to the world that the US is opposed to a takeover of Internet governance by the United Nations' ITU.

Many critics worry that the bill, with it's current wording, would hinder attempts to combat cyber crime and to maintain a safe, free flow of information on the Internet. However, the bill is currently still in the development stages, so this wording may soon change.
Privacy

Submission + - US Law Requiring Logging of SMS Messages (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "A proposal is being presented to the United States Congressional Panel today which would require mobile providers to store copies of SMS messages in case they are needed by police for investigative purposes. If passed, this new requirement would be an amendment to the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).

This PDF document, http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/113th/03192013_2/Littlehale%2003192013.pdf, contains prepared key points and remarks by Richard Littlehale, a supervisor within the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who will be making the presentation to Congress. These statements include remarks detailing how wide-spread the use of SMS is and how vital text messages could be in investigations into various crimes.

Mr. Littlehale's argument is that providers should be required to maintain this information and have quick availability of it so that law enforcers are able to maximize their investigative options. Littlehale also plans to propose that the existing "emergency" clause should be updated to allow police the possibility to demand records without a search warrant in emergency situations."
Networking

Submission + - Cisco and Arbor Networks Join to Fight DDoS (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "Due to the large number of network attacks the past few years connected with groups such as Anonymous, xl3gi0n, and Wikileaks, network security specialists have had to focus their attention towards methods to mitigate the risks of such attacks. Cisco, a company which makes network availability its business has devoted some time and manpower to this task.

The software giant has attempted to solve this problem (at least to an extent) by integrating into its routers technology developed by a company called Arbor Networks which specializes in network security software. This software called the Arbor Peakflow SP Threat Management System has been licensed by Cisco to embed into its Cisco Carrier-Grade Services Engine on its CRS-1 carrier class routers. By directly embedding this software into the routers, businesses can save time and resources due to the effect of not having to route attack traffic to dedicated centers to be cleaned up. Cisco has stated that each CGSE module will support 10Gbps of DDoS mitigation capability."
Medicine

Submission + - First Bionic Hand That Can Feel (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception.

The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors.

Dr Micera said that the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves, the median and the ulnar nerves.

This should allow the man to control the hand by his thoughts, as well as receiving sensory signals to his brain from the hand’s sensors. It will effectively provide a fast, bidirectional flow of information between the man’s nervous system and the prosthetic hand."
Technology

Submission + - Oxford Tests Self-Driving Cars (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "Using advances in 3D laser mapping technology, Oxford University has developed a car that is able to drive itself along familiar routes. This new self-driving automobile uses lasers and small cameras to memorize everyday trips such as the morning commute. This car is not dependant on GPS because this car is able to tell where it is by recognizing its surroundings. The intent is for this car to be capable of taking over the drive when on routes that it has travelled before.

While being driven, the car is capable of developing a 3D model of its environment and learning routes. When driving a particular journey a second time, an iPad on the dashboard informs the driver that it is capable of taking over and finishing the drive. The driver can then touch the screen and the car shifts to 'auto drive' mode. The driver can reclaim control of the car at any time by simply tapping the breaks.

The Oxford researchers are in the process of working on getting approval from the UK Department of Transportation to get permission to test drive it on the road. In the meantime, the team has developed a special testing environment with small roads and road markings.

The intent is to eventually mass-produce cars such as this and market them to consumers at low-cost to reduce driving stress. At the moment the system costs roughly 5000 pounds, but Professor Newman from the Oxford Department of Engineering hopes to eventually be able to lower the price to as low as 100 pounds."
Technology

Submission + - Researchers Develop Self-Repairing Computers (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "At University College London (UCL) there is a new computer system which is able to repair itself to keep critical systems in working order. This new technology works by linking data with instructions for how to handle it. For example, it would link the temperature outside with what to do when it's too hot, and then divide the results into a pool of 'systems'. Each system has a memory with context-sensitive data (meaning it can other interact with other similar systems). Instead of using a counter, systems are executed based on a pseudorandom number generator which attempts to introduce the randomness of nature into the system. Systems then carry out their instructions simultaneously rather than using a queue.

This system contains multiple copies of its instructions, spread across many subsystems so that if any one of them fails or becomes corrupted, the computer can access a clean copy to repair its own code. Instead of crashing like a typical computer system upon encountering an error, this system continues on because each subsystem has its own memory."
Software

Submission + - Ancient Languages Reconstructed by Computers (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "Researchers have developed a new software which can be used to reconstruct dead, ancient languages using probabilistic models of sound change.

This new software was tested by taking 637 Austronesian languages currently spoken in Asia and the Pacific, and attempting to reconstruct the ancient languages they're based on. The system was found to have provided a relatively accurate, large-scale automatic reconstruction of the protolanguages. A language believed to be roughtly seven thousand years old was reconstructed using a database of 142,000 words.

When compared to the results of linguists specializing in Austronesian languages, more 85% of the system's reconstructions were found to be within one character of the manual reconstruction. These are very promising results, however a linguist is still able to produce a higher accuracy, so this will be likely to become a tool used by linguists rather than a replacement for them."

Submission + - Watching Porn is Bad For Mobile Devices (cnn.com)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "A web security firm called Blue Coat has discovered that nearly one-quarter of malware on mobile devices comes from porn websites. They found that less than 1% of mobile traffic is porn-related, however when users do visit porn sites their risk of downloading malware triples.

Part of the problem, Blue Coat said, is that the nature of mobile devices makes differentiating legitimate sites from malicious ones a tricky task. There is no way to hover over shortened URLs to reveal their true destination, for example.

Security experts predict that broader-based cybercrime schemes are likely to appear on smartphones and tablets soon. For now though, mobile attacks appear to be mirroring techniques used on traditional computers. In addition, major security firms have widely predicted that this will be the year mobile devices will finally emerge as a major target for cybercriminals."
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook Sued For Stealing 'Like' Button (cnet.com)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "A patent company called Rembrandt Social Media has decided it holds the patent for liking things online and a few other aspects of Facebook.

It claims that a Dutch programmer called Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, creator of Surfbook and who died in 2004, registered two patents over which Facebook has infringed.

The plaintiffs claim that Facebook "bears a remarkable resemblance, both in terms of its functionality and technical implementation" to Van Der Meer's personal diary."
Security

Submission + - Critical cURL Buffer Overflow Vulnerability (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "Last week a critical buffer overflow vulnerability was discovered and patched in the cURL library. The vulnerability is present when an application is using cURL or libcurl over the POP3, SMTP, or IMAP protocols. The vulnerability lies in the function used to handle SASL DIGEST-MD5 authentication, and the versions affected by this are 7.26.0 through 7.28.1. Here is a detailed description of the vulnerability:

When negotiating SASL DIGEST-MD5 authentication, the function Curl_sasl_create_digest_md5_message() uses the data provided from the server without doing the proper length checks and that data is then appended to a local fixed-size buffer on the stack. This vulnerability can be exploited by someone who is in control of a server that a libcurl based program is accessing with POP3, SMTP or IMAP. For applications that accept user provided URLs, it is also thinkable that a malicious user would feed an application with a URL to a server hosting code targeting this flaw.

To rectify this issue, libcurl 7.29.0 was released last Wednesday, so everyone using cURL should update their library."

Submission + - Scientists Create Human Embryonic Stem Cells With 3D Printer (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have developed a cell printer that can be used to print living embryonic stem cells. The printer is able to print uniform-size droplets of cells in a careful enough way such as to keep the cells alive and able to develop into other kinds of cells. These new techniques could potentially be used to make realistic human tissues for testing new drugs and for growing new replacement organs.

Human embryonic stem cells are obtained from human embryos, and are capable of growing into any other kind of human cell. Because of this, stem cells have been of great interest to scientists for research and for their potential to be used for regenerative medicine such as organ replacement, repairing damaged cells, etc.

In the study, 95% of the cells were found to have survived 24 hours after being printed which indicates that the printing process is relatively safe for the cells. After three days, more than 89% of the cells remained alive, and they tested positive for a marker of their pluripotency (which is their potential to develop into other kinds of cells)."
Facebook

Submission + - New Facebook Token Hijacker Malware On The Loose (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "There's a new vairant of the Facebook Token Hijacker malware on the loose, and this time it's improved. The new version of the malware now has improved obfuscation techniques to keep its code hidden from anti-malware software.

This malware sends the target user a post on Facebook claiming a special offer on UGG boots, and the user is asked to post her access token after logging into an application using Facebook's oAuth (the app ID is 350685531728). After successfully logging in, the malware hijacks the user's token and starts posting on her wall. In addition to posting, this malware also attempts to create an event and invite all the victim's friends to it.

Unlike typical phishing attacks, this attack starts exploiting the victim immediately and automatically (without being challenged by Facebook's Identity and Access Management Controls) after obtaining the necessary data."
Security

Submission + - Researchers devise new attack techniques against SSL (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The developers of many SSL libraries are releasing patches for a vulnerability that could potentially be exploited to recover plaintext information, such as browser authentication cookies, from encrypted communications.The patching effort follows the discovery of new ways to attack SSL, TLS and DTLS implementations that use cipher-block-chaining (CBC) mode encryption. The new attack methods were developed by researchers at the University of London's Royal Holloway College. The men published a research paper and a website http://www.isg.rhul.ac.uk/tls/ on Monday with detailed information about their new attacks, which they have dubbed the Lucky Thirteen. They've worked with several TLS library vendors, as well as the TLS Working Group of the IETF, to fix the issue.
Japan

Submission + - Japanese Police Infiltrating Hacking Communities (halls-of-valhalla.org)

Submitted by
halls-of-valhalla
halls-of-valhalla writes: "The Japanese National Police Agency have decided to take a new approach to fighting cybercrime. Police officials will join hacking communities and create relationships with hackers to collect information.

The agency will also be hiring and training more staff with technical knowledge in fields relating to the Internet, smartphones, and information security.

This new policy also specifically mentions Tor, an onion routing network which uses multiple layers of encryption to preserve anonymity while browsing the web. This new strategy by the Japanese police states that they will consider limiting access to connections using tools like Tor."

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