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Space

Hubble Discovers Water Plumes Over Europa 74

Posted by samzenpus from the thar-she-blows dept.
astroengine writes "Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have found plumes of water vapor shooting off the southern pole of Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter that is believed to have an underground ocean. If confirmed — so far the plumes have only been spotted once — the finding could have implications for the moon's suitability for life and help explain why its surface appears relatively young and crater-free. "The plumes are incredibly exciting, if they are there. They're bringing up material from in the ocean, perhaps there's organic material that will be laying on the surface of the south pole. Those are the things that we want to know about," James Green, head of NASA's planetary science programs, told reporters at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Thursday."
Technology

Engineering the Perfect Coffee Mug 145

Posted by timothy from the wish-it-was-a-perfect-unblemished-cylinder dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "From the annals of Really Important Science comes word that a research assistant who picked up his B.S. just seven months ago has invented a coffee mug designed to keep java at just the right piping-hot temperature for hours. Logan Maxwell, who got his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University in May, created the "Temperfect" mug as part of his senior design project for the College of Engineering. Most insulated mugs have two walls separated by a soft vacuum that insulates the temperature of a liquid inside from the temperature of the air outside. Maxwell's design has a third layer of insulation in a third wall wrapped around the inner basin of the mug. Inside is a chemical insulator that is solid at room temperature but melts into a liquid at 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The insulator – which Maxwell won't identify but swears is non-toxic – turns to liquid as it absorbs the extra heat of coffee poured into the mug at temperatures higher than 140 F, cooling it to a drinkable temperature quickly. As the heat of the coffee escapes, the insulating material releases heat through the inner wall of the mug to keep it hot as long as possible; a graph mapping the performance of a prototype shows it could keep a cup of coffee at between 128 F and 145 F for as long as 90 minutes. "Phase-change" coffee-mug insulation was patented during the 1960s, but has never been marketed because they are difficult and expensive to manufacture compared to simpler forms of insulation. While working on the Temperfect design, Maxwell met Belgian-born industrial designer Dean Verhoeven, president of consulting form Ancona Research, Inc., who had been working on a similar design and had already worked out how to manufacture a three-walled insulated mug cost effectively. The two co-founded a company called Joevo to manufacture the mugs." According to the Joevo Kickstarter page, you can get one starting at $40. For that much, I'd like a clever lid like this Contigo has.
Science

Open Source Beehives Designed To Help Save Honeybee Colonies 172

Posted by samzenpus from the won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-bees dept.
Lemeowski writes "Honeybees are disappearing at an alarming rate, with a third of U.S. honeybees vanishing last year. Since bees pollinate many fruits and vegetables, the disappearance of honeybees could cause the United States to lose $15 billion worth of crops, and even change the American diet. The honey bee disappearance is called Colony Collapse Disorder, a serious problem of bees abruptly leaving their hives. A new open source effort called the Open Source Beehives project hopes to help by creating "a mesh network of data-generating honey bee colonies for local, national, and international study of the causes and effects of Colony Collapse Disorder." Collaborators have created two beehive designs that can be downloaded for free and milled using a CNC machine, then filled with sensors to track bee colony health."

Submission + - 1% of World's Bitcoins Stolen in Largest Electronic Heist in History (intellihub.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nearly $100M in Bitcoins have been stolen in what has been termed as the biggest electronic heist in history. Some say inside job.

(INTELLIHUB) — While each Bitcoin peeked at $1,203 last week, the currency took a massive dip over the weekend dropping to almost $200 after a $96M heist was carried out onto SheepMarketplace.

At this time it is only speculation that the heist caused the dip in Bitcoin’s value as dips after a high peak are somewhat common in other markets, but most would agree.

SheepleMarketplace is essentially a black market. Brian Donohue writing for Threat Post explained the firm as an “underground marketplace located within the Tor Hidden Services that caters to the sale of drugs, weapons, and other illicit goods”.[1]

Submission + - China Creates Air Defence Zone Over Japan-Controlled Islands - Issues War Threat (france24.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: France24 reports, "Beijing on Saturday announced it was setting up an "air defence identification zone" over an area that includes islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China, in a move that could inflame the bitter territorial row. Along with the creation of the zone in the East China Sea, the defence ministry released a set of aircraft identification rules that must be followed by all planes entering the area, under penalty of intervention by the military. Aircraft are expected to provide their flight plan, clearly mark their nationality, and maintain two-way radio communication allowing them to "respond in a timely and accurate manner to the identification inquiries" from Chinese authorities. The outline of the new zone ... covers a wide area of the East China Sea between South Korea and Taiwan that includes the Tokyo-controlled islands known as the Senkakus to Japan and Diaoyous to China. "China's armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions," according to the ministry. " — The Politico adds, "Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Saturday the United States is “deeply concerned” over China’s move to establish an air defense zone over a string of disputed islands in the East China Sea. “We view this development as a destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region,” Hagel said in a statement. “This unilateral action increases the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculations.”" — Spiegel Online has background on the conflict with Japan and on related regional issues. — This announcement follows the recent publication in Chinese state media of maps showing nuclear strike plans against the US.
DRM

DRM To Be Used In Renault Electric Cars 231

Posted by timothy from the insert-coin-to-continue dept.
mahiskali writes with this interesting news via the EFF's Deep Links "The new Renault Zoe comes with a 'feature' that absolutely nobody wants. Instead of selling consumers a complete car that they can use, repair, and upgrade as they see fit, Renault has opted to lock purchasers into a rental contract with a battery manufacturer and enforce that contract with digital rights management (DRM) restrictions that can remotely prevent the battery from charging at all. This coming on the heels of the recent Trans-Pacific Partnership IP Rights Chapter leak certainly makes you wonder how much of that device (car?) you really own. Perhaps Merriam-Webster can simply change the definition of ownership."
Privacy

Report: Britain Has a Secret Middle East Web Surveillance Base 237

Posted by samzenpus from the what-do-you-got-there dept.
wiredmikey writes "Britain is running a secret Internet surveillance station in the Middle East, according to a recent report citing the latest leaked documents obtained by fugitive US security contractor Edward Snowden. The Independent newspaper said it was not disclosing the country where the base is located, but said the facility can intercept emails, telephone calls and web traffic for the United States and other intelligence agencies and taps into underwater fibre-optic cables in the region, the newspaper said. The Independent did not disclose how it obtained the details from the Snowden files."

Submission + - Half of TOR Sites Compromised, Including TORMail. (twitlonger.com)

Submitted by elysiuan
elysiuan writes: "The founder of Freedom Hosting has been arrested in Ireland and is awaiting extradition to USA.

In a crackdown that FBI claims to be about hunting down pedophiles, half of the onion sites in the TOR network has been compromised, including the e-mail counterpart of TOR deep web, TORmail"

The FBI has also embedded a 0-day Javascript attack against Firefox 17 on Freedom Hosting's server. It appears to install a tracking cookie and a payload that phones home to the FBI when the victim resumes non-TOR browsing. Interesting implications for The Silk Road and the value of Bitcoin stemming from this. The attack relies on two extremely unsafe practices when using TOR: Enabled Javascript, and using the same browser for TOR and non-TOR browsing. Any users accessing a Freedom Hosting hosted site since 8/2 with javascript enabled are potentially compromised.

Submission + - The Latest Security Vulnerability: Your Toilet!

Submitted by NobleSavage
NobleSavage writes: We all new it was just a matter of time. With the rush to put more and more appliances on-line Japanese toilet maker Satis, one of Japan's largest commode companies, has finally networked the toilet.

Just as you would have predicted, the information security company Trustwave Holdings has published an advisory regarding Satis-brand toilets. According to Trustwave, every Satis toilet has the same hard-coded Bluetooth PIN, which means any person using the 'My Satis' [Android] application can control any Satis toilet.

Submission + - Post Without Worry - Anonymouth Hides Your Identity (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: An open source project to combat "stylometry", the study of attributing authorship to documents based only on the linguistic style they exhibit, is proving that it is possible to change writing style so as to evade detection.
Artificial Intelligence techniques are routinely used to detect plagiarism and recently were employed to reveal that Harry Potter author J K Rowling is indeed the author of The Cuckoo's Calling published under the byline of Robert Galbraith. Now software is tackling the opposite problem — anonymizing writing style to protect the identity of the originator.
The JStylo-Anonymouth (JSAN) framework is work in progress at Privacy, Security and Automation Lab (PSAL) at Drexel University.It anaylizes a written text and detects features which could be used to identify the author. It then suggests changes that need to be made to avoid the authors stylistic fingerprint appearing in the work.
So next time you want to post something to the world and remain anonymous remember to use anonymouth.

Submission + - Arizona gears up to tax and regulate cannabis.

Submitted by LavishRadish111
LavishRadish111 writes: ABC15 reports, "The intent of the initiative is to legalize marijuana in Arizona and to treat it as we treat alcohol," said Dennis Bohlke, a Phoenix computer engineer who is the treasurer of the group, Safer Arizona.
Supporters must collect 259,213 valid signatures from registered voters by July 3, 2014 to get the measure on the November 2014 ballot.
Organizers say the initiative campaign will be a grassroots effort relying on volunteers to collect signatures.
Bohlke acknowledged the lack of major funding will be a handicap.
He said it was the thought of young people getting arrested and having a criminal record because of the drug that got the ball rolling.
"To me there was just no other way to get this issue solved," he said. "I wanted to light a fire under the Legislature."

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