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Security

Submission + - Hackers infect site with MS zero-day vulnerability (sophos.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hackers are infecting websites using a Microsoft zero-day vulnerability that was controversially made public by a Google engineer only five days after he had informed Microsoft about the problem.

Tavis Ormandy, a Google security researcher, was criticised last week for not giving Microsoft enough time to fix the vulnerability which he discovered in Windows XP's Help and Support Center, after he published exploit code to the Full Disclosure mailing list. And now malicious hackers have infected a legitimate website with malware that exploits the vulnerability, according to Sophos.

Security blogger Graham Cluley asks Ormandy: "Do you feel proud of your behaviour? Do you think that you have helped raise security on the internet? Or did you put your vanity ahead of others' safety?"

Submission + - FBI Monitoring Facebook (bbc.co.uk) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports that armed police were called to a UK school earlier today after being advised of a potential threat by the FBI. The school stated that the FBI "raised the alarm after internet scanning software picked up a suspicious combination of words", strongly implying that they are carrying out routine, automated surveillance of social networking sites. While in this case it does appear that there may have been a genuine threat, the story nonetheless raises significant privacy concerns.
United States

Bill Gives Feds "Emergency" Powers To Secure Civilian Nets 505

Posted by samzenpus from the all-your-nets-are-belong-to-us dept.
ziani writes "Joe Lieberman wants to give the federal government the power to take over civilian networks' security if there's an 'imminent cyber threat.' From the article: 'Lieberman and Collins' solution is one of the more far-reaching proposals. In the Senators' draft bill, "the President may issue a declaration of an imminent cyber threat to covered critical infrastructure." Once such a declaration is made, the director of a DHS National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications is supposed to "develop and coordinate emergency measures or actions necessary to preserve the reliable operation, and mitigate or remediate the consequences of the potential disruption, of covered critical infrastructure."'"

Comment Re:Simple reason (Score 2) 490

by soup4you2 (#31284144) Attached to: The Sad History and (Possibly) Bright Future of TiVo
When I purchased my TiVo i was given the option for the lifetime service. It was somewhere around $300 however it has paid for it's self in savings of not having to pay for the cable company's DVR capabilities. I love my TiVo box now, and the fact that I don't have any extra monthly bills makes it even better. 2 cable cards is still cheaper than 1 HD box rental. and I'm not really missing the on-demand. I have Netflix for that.
Media

3D Blu-ray Spec Finalized, PS3 Supported 157

Posted by Soulskill from the but-at-least-one-dimension-will-have-drm dept.
Lucas123 writes "The Blu-ray Disc Association announced today that it has finalized the specification for Blu-ray 3-D discs. The market for 3-D, which includes 3-D enabled televisions, is expected to be $15.8 billion by 2015. Blu-ray 3-D will create a full 1080p resolution image for both eyes using MPEG4-MVC format. Even though two hi-def images are produced, the overhead is typically only 50% compared to equivalent 2D content. The spec also allows PS3 game consoles to play Blu-ray 3-D content. 'The specification also incorporates enhanced graphic features for 3D. These features provide a new experience for users, enabling navigation using 3D graphic menus and displaying 3D subtitles positioned in 3D video.'"

Comment Useful feature gone. (Score 1) 446

by soup4you2 (#30390152) Attached to: Facebook Masks Worse Privacy With New Interface
With the new privacy controls added in, it seems a feature that would have now been useful for this change is now gone. and thats the ability to view your Wall as one of your friends. Since you can now restrict posts to groups, it would be nice to have this feature to see what all information each group is seeing. You still have the ability to view your information as one of your friends, but they removed the wall tab.
The Internet

Lockheed Snags $31 Million To Reinvent the Internet, Microsoft To Help 326

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the reinventing-the-wheel dept.
DARPA has awarded a $31 million contract to megacorp Lockheed Martin which will, with some assistance from Microsoft, attempt to reinvent the Internet and make it more military-friendly. "The main thrust of the effort will be to develop a new Military Network Protocol, which will differ from old hat such as TCP/IP in that it will offer 'improved security, dynamic bandwidth allocation, and policy-based prioritization levels at the individual and unit level.' Lockheed will be partnered with Anagran, Juniper Networks, LGS Innovations, Stanford University and — of course — Microsoft in developing the MNP. Apart from that, Lockheed's own Information Systems & Global Services-Defense tentacle will work on amazing new hardware."
Linux Business

How Nokia Learned To Love Openness 180

Posted by Soulskill from the deviant-corporate-practices dept.
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Once Sebastian Nyström laid out the logic of moving to open source, there was very little resistance within Nokia to doing so. I think that's significant; it means that, just as the GNU GPL has been tested in various courts and found valid, so has the logic behind open source — the openness that allows software to spread further, and improve quicker, for the mutual benefit of all. That idea is also increasingly accepted by hard-headed business people: it's become self-evident that it's a better way."

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