timothy - Slashdot User

Submission + - Wired and wireless LANs in Cuba

Submitted by lpress on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @05:10PM

lpress writes: Cuba has developed a hacker/maker culture out of necessity and neighborhood local area networks are one manifestation of that culture. The networks are used for file sharing, game playing, and discussion of sports, culture, technology, etc., but not politics. We all stand to benefit from Cuban innovation.

Submission + - Rematch--Newegg beats patent troll over SSL and RC4 encryption (newegg.com)

Submitted by codguy on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @12:05PM

codguy writes: After a previous failed attempt (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/11/26/1927254/jury-finds-newegg-infringed-patent-owes-23-million) to fight patent troll TQP Development in late 2013, Newegg has now beaten this troll in a rematch (http://blog.newegg.com/newegg-vs-patent-trolls-when-we-win-you-win/). From the article:

"Newegg went against a company that claimed its patent covered SSL and RC4 encryption, a common encryption system used by many retailers and websites. This particular patent troll has gone against over 100 other companies, and brought in $45 million in settlements before going after Newegg."

This follows on Intuit's recent success in defending itself against this claim (http://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/06/26/1353216/intuit-beats-ssl-patent-troll-that-defeated-newegg).

Submission + - The First Airplane on Mars

Submitted by braindrainbahrain on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @11:54AM

braindrainbahrain writes: Undergoing research by NASA, the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Land on Mars, or Prandtl-M (not-so-coincidentally named after German aeronautical engineer Ludwig Prandtl) program is developing an airfoil with the ultimate goal of flying in the Martian atmosphere. The program has flown 12-ft. span models, the Prandtl-D1 and -D2, in Earth's atmosphere to prove that the flying wing design could overcome adverse yaw effects without including a tail. A larger 25 ft. model will be tested shortly and further tests call for prototypes to be balloon dropped at 85,000 feet and later at 115,000 feet to simulate Martian atmospheric density. If all goes well, it could be deployed from a cubesat container after hitching a ride to Mars with a rover in 2022.

Alternate, non-pay walled source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ar...

Submission + - Microsoft's Windows 10 now live

Submitted by mrspoonsi on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @11:37AM

mrspoonsi writes: Right on schedule, Microsoft has begun prompting users of Windows 7 and 8.1 to upgrade their machines to Windows 10. The process has begun in the parts of the world where it is already July 29th; this includes China. The company began taking reservations for Windows 10 back in June, and as we reported earlier this morning, it is already starting to pre-load the OS on to those machines. While not everyone will get the OS tomorrow through the upgrade program, it does appear that there will be quite a few users who will be able to install the OS as a free upgrade on the 29th. Windows 10 is expected to be installed on a billion devices within the next three years and to achieve that milestone, they will need to upgrade a significant number of devices to the new OS from Windows 7 or 8.1.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: How hackers can take control of your Android with one text message - Christian Science Monitor (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @11:33AM

Christian Science Monitor

How hackers can take control of your Android with one text message
Christian Science Monitor
A flaw in the Android operating system could give hackers easy access to 95% of Android devices, according to cyber security firm Zimperium. By Gretel Kauffman, Staff July 28, 2015. Save for later Saved. close. A hostess displays the Samsung Galaxy S6...
Stagefright: Android phone flaw may let hackers in via text messageSyracuse.com
Millions of Android phones at risk of being sent malware-infected textsTelegraph.co.uk
Android Flaw Allows Hacks Via Text MessageDiscovery News
ABC News-CBS Local-BBC News
all 438 news articles

Submission + - Advertising companies accused of deliberately slowing page-load times for profit (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @10:32AM

An anonymous reader writes: An industry insider has told Business Insider [http://www.businessinsider.com/conspiracy-web-pages-load-slowly-because-they-make-more-money-that-way-2015-7] of his conviction that ad-serving companies deliberately prolong the 'auctioning' process for ad spots when a web-page loads in order to maximise revenue by allowing automated 'late-comers' to participate beyond the 100ms limit placed on the decision-making process. The unnamed source, a principal engineer at a global news company (whose identity and credentials were confirmed by Business Insider), concluded with the comment "My entire team of devs and testers mostly used Adblock when developing sites, just because it was so painful otherwise,". Publishers use 'daisy-chaining' [http://www.masternewmedia.org/online-advertising-management-ad-network-defaulting-and-daisy-chaining-for-ad-revenue-optimization/#ixzz2bKLfDIU9] to solicit bids from the most profitable placement providers down to the 'B-list' placements, and the longer the process is run, the more likely that the web-page will be shown with profitable advertising in place.

Submission + - Why your software project is failing (opensource.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @10:04AM

An anonymous reader writes: At OSCON this year, Red Hat's Tom Callaway gave a talk entitled "This is Why You Fail: The Avoidable Mistakes Open Source Projects STILL Make." In 2009, Callaway was starting to work on the Chromium project—and to say it wasn't a pleasant experience was the biggest understatement Callaway made in his talk.

Callaway said he likes challenges, but he felt buried by the project, and reached a point where he thought he should jut quite his work. (Callaway said it's important to note that Chromium's code is not bad code; it's just a lot of code and a lot of code that Google didn't write.) This was making Callaway really frustrated, and people wanted to know what was upsetting him. Callaway wanted to be able to better explain his frustration, so he crafted this list which he called his "Points of Fail."

Submission + - Chrome Extension Thwarts User Profiling Based On Typing Behavior

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @10:04AM

An anonymous reader writes: Per Thorsheim, the founder of PasswordsCon, created and trained a biometric profile of his keystroke dynamics using the Tor browser at a demo site. He then switched over to Google Chrome and not using the Tor network, and the demo site correctly identified him when logging in and completing a demo financial transaction. Infosec consultant Paul Moore came up with a working solution to thwart this type of behavioral profiling. The result is a Chrome extension called Keyboard Privacy, which prevents profiling of users by the way they type by randomizing the rate at which characters reach the DOM. A Firefox version of the plugin is in the works.

Submission + - .NET 4.6 optimizer bug causes methods to get wrong parameters

Submitted by tobiasly on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @09:56AM

tobiasly writes: A serious bug in the just-released .NET 4.6 runtime causes the JIT compiler to generate incorrectly-optimized code which results in methods getting called with different parameters than what were passed in. Nick Craver of Stack Exchange has an excellent write-up of the technical details and temporary workarounds; Microsoft has acknowledged the problem and submitted an as-yet unreleased patch.

This problem is compounded by Microsoft's policy of replacing the existing .NET runtime, as opposed to the side-by-side runtimes which were possible until .NET 2.0. This means that even if your project targets .NET 4.5, it will get the 4.6 runtime if it was installed on that machine. Since it's not possible to install the just-released Visual Studio 2015 without .NET 4.6, this means developers must make the difficult choice between using the latest tools or risking crippling bugs such as this one.

Submission + - Pentagon: Poor testing generated Army shipping live anthrax. (esbtrib.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @09:54AM

An anonymous reader writes: Some sort of Pentagon research blames substandard killing in addition to testing of anthrax specimens one of many main factors behind why a great Army laboratory mistakenly sent live spores for just a decade that found themselves at 183 labs in the us and abroad, according to your report unveiled Thursday on the military’s investigation from the blunders.

Submission + - Discovery of a 200 000 year old metropolis in South Africa (viewzone.com)

Submitted by BuFf0k_SPQA on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @08:10AM

BuFf0k_SPQA writes: South African amateur pilots and farmers have been aware of the stone circles for years, always attributing them to some unknown earlier culture but never examining them. Only when South African pilot; Johan Heine teamed up with researcher and author Michael Tellinger did they discover the scope of these designs, buildings, mines and roads covering 10 000 square miles of inland South Africa.

Submission + - Planned Parenthood calls on FBI in alleged employee data hack (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @07:59AM

An anonymous reader writes: Healthcare provider Planned Parenthood has notified the FBI and Department of Justice of an alleged data breach that could compromise the ‘privacy and safety of staff members.’ Company representatives on Monday revealed that hackers were attacking Planned Parenthood IT systems in an attempt to gain unauthorised access to its employee database and leak the personal data of its staff. “Planned Parenthood is the most trusted women’s healthcare provider in this country, and anti-abortion extremists are willing to do anything to stop women from accessing the reproductive healthcare they are seeking,” said executive VP at Planned Parenthood America, Dawn Laguens.

Submission + - UK to give 18-year-olds right to delete embarrassing online past (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @05:59AM

An anonymous reader writes: People aged 18 and older could soon be allowed to delete embarrassing photographs of themselves from social networks as part of a government-backed scheme.

The iRights campaign will allow young adults to remove incriminating photos of themselves from Twitter and Facebook which could affect them in later life. The move is similar to legislation which came into force in California this year that gave teens rights to delete personal information online.

However, unlike in California, there are currently no plans to introduce a law in the UK forcing technology companies to oblige.

Submission + - Republican presidential candidates cluster accounts at bank with only 1 branch i (bluecheddar.net)

Submitted by philadelphiaplumber9 on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @03:03AM

philadelphiaplumber9 writes: Hmmmmm. From Bloomberg: According to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings, Chain Bridge is the sole bank serving Jeb Bushâ(TM)s presidential campaign, which reported raising $11.4âmillion as of June 30, and his allied super-PAC, Right to Rise, which says itâ(TM)s raised $103 million so far. Donald Trumpâ(TM)s campaign banks at Chain Bridge, and itâ(TM)s more Â
You just finished reading Republican presidential candidates cluster accounts at bank with only 1 branch in McLean, Virginia! Consider leaving a comment!

Visit bluecheddar.net for more news and opinion. You can contact blue cheddar through twitter or facebook. Blue Cheddar is a progressive blog in Wisconsin.

Submission + - OnePlus 2 - The New Flagship Killer Without NFC (informationweek.com)

Submitted by dkatana on Tuesday July 28, 2015 @01:09AM

dkatana writes: Last night ShenZhen, China-based startup OnePlus launched its second smartphone, the highly anticipalted OnePlus 2.

The OnePlus 2 is equipped with the Snapdragon 810 SoC, 64 GB eMMC 5.0 flash memory, 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and an Adreno 430 GPU. A 16GB model is available for $329, and a 64GB version is priced at $389.

But an important feature has been left out: NFC support. In an email to InformationWeek, OnePlus said the reason for dropping NFC was that most people never use it. A spokesperson wrote: "While NFC acceptance is growing, it is not as widespread as originally thought. We built the best device focusing on what users really need and use."

OnePlus shook the high-end smartphone market last year when it produced a well-designed smartphone with the same (or better) specs than premium models — such as the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S6 — and sold it for half the price. With its slogan "Never Settle," OnePlus has been praised by some industry observers for delivering a superb smartphone and selling it directly to its fan base without any retail partners.

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