430148
submission
Intron writes:
According to the mailing list NetBSD has succeeded in porting to an IBM RS/6000 Micro Channel PowerPC system. This is the holy grail of hobbyists with an old G30 in their garage. Other porting attempts have been defeated by the lack of documentation on booting and the system internals, but BSD prevailed. Only a limited number of different models are supported, but there are enough people with old hardware who might like to try it out.
429800
submission
DeeQ writes:
Microsoft plans to bundle a cryptographically flawed pseudo random number generator in its upcoming service pack for Windows Vista.
The cryptographically weak Dual_EC_DRBG approach, which is based on the mathematics of elliptic curves, was one of four "deterministic random bit generators", approved by the NIST in March.
Flaws in the approach (Dual_EC_DRBG) first emerged in August at the Crypto 2007 conference when cryptographers Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson demonstrated that two constants in the standard used to define the algorithm's elliptic curve have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers.
Anyone who had access to the second set of numbers would have a kind of skeleton key able to unlock any instance of Dual_EC_DRBG. Suspicions that this weakness might be used as a backdoor have been fueled by the NSA's support of Dual_EC_DRBG in the standards-setting process.
Random number generators are important because the correct operation of SSL and other protocols relies on their randomness.Crypto guru Bruce Schneier, who previously described the weakness as a backdoor, notes that the Dual_EC_DRBG approach will be implemented in Windows Vista SP1.
429796
submission
BosstonesOwn writes:
Seven of the world's leading chip makers are collaborating on chips which contain transistors with features just 32 billionths of a metre wide.
IBM, Toshiba, AMD, Samsung, Chartered, Infineon and Freescale have formed the alliance to cut development costs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7149704.stm
Looks Like AMD found a way to retool to get back into the processor race with Intel.
205235
submission
FoxNSox writes:
A statement recently posted on the Canadian Blood Services Homepage notes that Canadian Blood Services 'announced its decision on the policy of indefinitely deferring any male from donating blood if he has had sex with another male, even once, since 1977 (MSM).'
To reiterate this statement, the Canadian Blood Services committee announced that if any man has had sex with another man since 1977, that man may not donate blood. Put more bluntly, 'if you are gay, we don't want your blood.'
This will certainly add some more wood on the fire for gay rights activists.
