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Electronic Frontier Foundation

Computer Scientists Ask Supreme Court To Rule APIs Can't Be Copyrighted 260

Posted by Soulskill from the pleading-for-sanity dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The EFF, representing a coalition of computer scientists, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court yesterday hoping for a ruling that APIs can't be copyrighted. The names backing the brief include Bjarne Stroustrup, Ken Thompson, Guido van Rossum, and many other luminaries. "The brief explains that the freedom to re-implement and extend existing APIs has been the key to competition and progress in both hardware and software development. It made possible the emergence and success of many robust industries we now take for granted—for example, mainframes, PCs, and workstations/servers—by ensuring that competitors could challenge established players and advance the state of the art. The litigation began several years ago when Oracle sued Google over its use of Java APIs in the Android OS. Google wrote its own implementation of the Java APIs, but, in order to allow developers to write their own programs for Android, Google's implementation used the same names, organization, and functionality as the Java APIs."
Security

Home Depot Says Hackers Grabbed 53 Million Email Addresses 99

Posted by samzenpus from the reply-all dept.
wiredmikey writes Home Depot said on Thursday that hackers managed to access 53 million customer email addresses during the massive breach that was disclosed in September when the retail giant announced that 56 million customer payment cards were compromised in a cyber attack. The files containing the stolen email addresses did not contain passwords, payment card information or other sensitive personal information, the company said. The company also said that the hackers acquired elevated rights that allowed them to navigate portions of Home Depot's network and to deploy unique, custom-built malware on its self-checkout systems in the U.S. and Canada.

Comment Re:It's Fun (Score 1) 485

by theskipper (#48308521) Attached to: Silicon Valley Swings To Republicans

Don't know, not much of a history buff. So was just curious if you had a citation about the etymology of the term.

Regarding changing the term in common language, as an old fart I tend to not pay attention to political correctness efforts like that. If the change shows up in the USPTO trademark database then I'll consider changing the usage. Until then, it sounds to me like a bunch of old women arguing about Sally's new boyfriend over Sunday tea.

Comment Re:It's Fun (Score 1) 485

by theskipper (#48306845) Attached to: Silicon Valley Swings To Republicans

I must be missing something. According to Wikipedia, the term "Democratic Party" goes back to 1828. Are you saying it was Andrew Jackson who used it as a political strategy?

And to be honest, I didn't even know there was an effort to change the term to "Democrat Party". Is that a cable news/talk radio thing?

Comment Re:We can do that thing you like (Score 2) 230

by theskipper (#48262543) Attached to: Windows 10 Gets a Package Manager For the Command Line

Hang on a second. Microsoft is a proprietary software vendor and will attack anything that jeopardizes their revenue stream. They're putting the "free candy" sign on the outside of their van based on a business decision, not because they want to create some warm and fuzzy community effort (i.e. actually give out free candy!).

It's in their DNA to only promote things that will further generating revenue because their shareholders require it (and rightfully so, they are the owners).

Point being, they must have opened up that other stuff because some competitive threat existed, or there was a sound basis that it would create further lock-in and recurring revenue down the road. It doesn't follow that future software releases like this must be opened just because they opened other pieces of their software portfolio.
Government

Hackers Breach White House Network 98

Posted by Soulskill from the dozens-of-solitaire-games-compromised dept.
wiredmikey writes: The White House's unclassified computer network was recently breached by intruders, a U.S. official said Tuesday. While the White House has not said so, The Washington Post reported that the Russian government was thought to be behind the act. Several recent reports have linked Russia to cyber attacks, including a report from FireEye on Tuesday that linked Russia back to an espionage campaign dating back to 2007. Earlier this month, iSight Partners revealed that a threat group allegedly linked with the Russian government had been leveraging a Microsoft Windows zero-day vulnerability to target NATO, the European Union, and various private energy and telecommunications organizations in Europe. The group has been dubbed the "Sandworm Team" and it has been using weaponized PowerPoint files in its recent attacks. Trend Micro believes the Sandworm team also has their eyes set on compromising SCADA-based systems.
Security

JP Morgan Chase Breach Compromised Data of 76 Million Households 76

Posted by Soulskill from the go-big-or-go-home dept.
JakartaDean writes with news that the cyberattack on J.P. Morgan Chase this summer resulted in stolen information on 76 million households and 7 million businesses. The compromised data included names, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses. The bank said the attackers were unable to gather account numbers, social security numbers, or passwords. The hackers appeared to have obtained a list of the applications and programs that run on JPMorgan's computers — a road map of sorts — which they could crosscheck with known vulnerabilities in each program and web application, in search of an entry point back into the bank's systems, according to several people with knowledge of the results of the bank's forensics investigation, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity. ... Even if no customer financial information was taken, the apparent breadth and depth of the JPMorgan attack shows how vulnerable Wall Street institutions are to cybercrime.

Submission + - Former NBA Player Arrested For Stealing $14,000 Worth Of Apple Products (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by redletterdave
redletterdave writes: Police discovered Rex Chapman, the former Kentucky Wildcats star and NBA player, had stolen over $14,000 worth of goods from an Apple Store in Scottsdale, Ariz., and offloaded the lifted items at a nearby pawn shop. Chapman was arrested Friday on nine counts of organized retail theft and five counts of trafficking stolen property. According to police, Chapman, 46, repeatedly visited the Apple Store in the Scottsdale Quarter retail center and made it seem like he was paying for items with his iPhone’s Apple Store application, which contains a self-checkout system called 'Easy Pay' so customers can buy Apple products without an employee. Chapman, however, would then leave the store without actually paying for the items, and visit a local pawn shop to exchange the goods for cash. Police said these occurrences happened over period of 'a few months.'

Submission + - People Are Charging Their iPhone 6 In The Microwave After Falling For Hoax (gizmocrazed.com)

Submitted by Diggester
Diggester writes: Folks at 4Chan seem to have successfully trolled plenty of Apple iPhone owners. Some witty people spread the rumour that the new iPhone can now be charged in any microwave courtesy of the new and improved iOS 8. They decided to name this ‘hot’ feature the Apple Wave which was said to be a super-fast way of charging the device. It’s obvious how cleanly they went about advertising it the ‘Apple’ way.
Security

Hackers Break Into HealthCare.gov 150

Posted by samzenpus from the our-bad dept.
mpicpp is one of many to point out that hackers broke into the HealthCare.gov website in July and uploaded malicious software. "Hackers silently infected a Healthcare.gov computer server this summer. But the malware didn't manage to steal anyone's data, federal officials say. On Thursday, the Health and Human Services Department, which manages the Obamacare website, explained what happened. And officials stressed that personal information was never at risk. "Our review indicates that the server did not contain consumer personal information; data was not transmitted outside the agency, and the website was not specifically targeted," HHS spokesman Kevin Griffis said. But it was a close call, showing just how vulnerable computer systems can be. It all happened because of a series of mistakes. A computer server that routinely tests portions of the website wasn't properly set up. It was never supposed to be connected to the Internet — but someone had accidentally connected it anyway. That left it open to attack, and on July 8, malware slipped past the Obamacare security system, officials said.

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