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Submission + - The Milky Way has a skeleton, and its first "bone" may be huge

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Spiral galaxies contain high density dust at the centers of their spiral arms, forming the skeleton of galactic structure. While these arm-tracing infrared dark clouds had been seen in many galaxies external to our own, none had ever been discovered in the Milky Way. Until, that is, one of these “skeletal” features was discovered using the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2010. Recently, that “bone” was discovered to be even longer than suspected, and may be the central feature of the Scutum-Centaurus arm, the closest major spiral arm to the Sun.

Submission + - Cyber Attack Grounds Polish LOT Aeroplanes

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Around 1,400 unlucky travelers who were set to depart from Warsaw's Frederic Chopin Airport on Sunday had their flights cancelled or delayed for hours, as the computer system that issues flight plans for Polish airline LOT was hacked. It took some five hours to fix the problem, and in the meantime the passengers were either placed on other (non-LOT) flights or given vouchers to stay the night and depart the next morning.

Submission + - Your Toyota's Software has 10,000 Global Variables (safetyresearch.net)

Submitted by obscuro
obscuro writes: In 2013, Toyota settled an unintended acceleration lawsuit out of court for $3 million after software forensics experts explained that their system was run on Spaghetti code. This article is the first I'd heard of it and I thought it might also be /.'s first shot at it... or, at least, a chance to stroll down memory lane.

http://www.safetyresearch.net/...

Submission + - Researchers developed stretchable lithium-ion batteries

Submitted by jan_jes
jan_jes writes: An Arizona State University research team has used a variation of origami, called kirigami, as a design template for batteries that can be stretched to more than 150 percent of their original size and still maintain full functionality. The kirigami-based prototype battery was sewn into an elastic wristband that was attached to a smart watch. The battery fully powered the watch and its functions – including playing video – as the band was being stretched. Few months back Stanford University researchers have invented a bendable aluminium-ion battery(video)

Submission + - Pothole alert system can be a big boon to car owners (dqindia.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The 'Pothole Alert' research technology could help save motorists billions of pounds in punctures, vehicle damage and road accidents every year. Jaguar Land Rover has developed a new connected car technology that will allow a vehicle to identify the location and severity of potholes, broken drains and manhole covers, and then share this data in real-time via the cloud with other vehicles and with road authorities to help them prioritize repairs.

Submission + - Encryption Would Not Have Protected Secret Federal Data Says DHS

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Sean Gallagher reports at Ars Technica that Dr. Andy Ozment, Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity in the Department of Homeland Security, told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that in the case of the recent discovery of an intrusion that gave attackers access to sensitive data on millions of government employees and government contractors, encryption would "not have helped" because the attackers had gained valid user credentials to the systems that they attacked—likely through social engineering. Ozment added that because of the lack of multifactor authentication on these systems, the attackers would have been able to use those credentials at will to access systems from within and potentially even from outside the network. "If the adversary has the credentials of a user on the network, they can access data even if it's encrypted just as the users on the network have to access data," said Ozment. "That did occur in this case. Encryption in this instance would not have protected this data."

The fact that Social Security numbers of millions of current and former federal employees were not encrypted was one of few new details emerged about the data breach and House Oversight member Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) was the one who pulled the SSN encryption answer from the teeth of the panel where others failed. "This is one of those hearings where I think that I will know less coming out of the hearing than I did when I walked in because of the obfuscation and the dancing around we are all doing here. As a matter of fact, I wish that you were as strenuous and hardworking at keeping information out of the hands of hackers as you are in keeping information out of the hands of Congress and federal employees. It's ironic. You are doing a great job stonewalling us, but hackers, not so much."

Submission + - Notepad++ Leaves SourceForge (notepad-plus-plus.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: SourceForge was a good place; unfortunately, sometimes good places don't last.

Recently SF hijacked its hosted projects to distribute their wrapped crapware:

        SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows' account, wraps installer in bundle-pushing adware
        Black “mirror”: SourceForge has now taken over Nmap audit tool project
        What happened to Sourceforge? The full story between VLC and Sourceforge

Obviously, the paid component per installation system is one of their important income generating scams. I would be fine with that, if they were the actual owners of the legitimate software. The real problem is, they are polluting these open source software installations for the purpose of filling their pockets by this scam, and worst of all, without even notifying the authors/creators of this software, while the creators are struggling against such parasitic software in order to keep their installers cleaner and safer.

Such a shameless policy should be condemned, and the Notepad++ project will move entirely out of SourceForge.

I humbly request that Notepad++ users not encourage such scams, and educate others not to download any software from SourceForge. I request as well that the project owners on SourceForge move out of SourceForge, in order to preserve the purpose of the Open Source Community and encourage the works of true authors/creators.

Submission + - 49 Suspected Members Of Cybercriminal Group Arrested In Europe

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A joint international operation led to the dismantling of a group of cybercriminals active in Italy, Spain, Poland, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Georgia, who are suspected of committing financial fraud involving email account intrusions. The operation resulted in the arrest of 49 suspected members of the criminal group, 58 properties were searched, and authorities seized laptops, hard disks, telephones, tablets, credit cards and cash, SIM cards, memory sticks, forged documents and bank account documents.

Submission + - Germans must overcome big data fear, says Merkel (thestack.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Germans need to learn to embrace the trend towards big data and mass collection of personal information or they will risk being left behind in the global economy, Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. Merkel, famously outspoken on the activities of U.S. tech giants such as Google, urged that the country overcomes its ingrained fear of large-scale data gathering. The Chancellor particularly called on national family-owned business, known as the Mittelstand, not to trail behind in this respect. The Mittelstand is pinned as the ‘backbone’ of Germany’s economy. The companies are typically run by older family members who are more wary of taking digital risks. Large-scale information gathering is traditionally frowned upon in Germany, with companies fearing the risk of exposing data to government agencies. The fear stems from memories of mass data surveillance by the Stasi, the East German state security service.

Submission + - U.S. tech giants ask Obama not to compromise encryption (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two industry bodies which represent, among others, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and IBM have written [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/09/us-cybersecurity-usa-encryption-idUSKBN0OP09R20150609] to President Obama urging that the U.S. government not seek to legislate 'official back doors' into encryption techniques. The Software and Information Industry Association and the Information Technology Industry Council sent the 'strongly worded' letter on Monday, celaring "Consumer trust in digital products and services is an essential component enabling continued economic growth of the online marketplace...Accordingly, we urge you not to pursue any policy or proposal that would require or encourage companies to weaken these technologies, including the weakening of encryption or creating encryption 'work-arounds,"

Submission + - System76 Unveils the Fastest Ubuntu Laptop on the Planet

Submitted by prisoninmate
prisoninmate writes: System76 unveiled today what it would appear to be the fastest and most powerful Ubuntu laptop on the planet, powered by either the Ubuntu 15.04 or Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS Linux operating systems. Dubbed Serval WS, the laptop has been declared by the renown hardware company a pinnacle of performance, enclosed in an exceptionally high-quality finish, with backlit keyboard, and the fastest mobile GPUs from Nvidia. The laptop is available for pre-order starting June 9 and will be shipped in July.

Submission + - SpaceX Wants Permission For Satellite Internet

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: SpaceX has filed documents with the U.S. government asking for permission to begin testing a project to serve internet access from space. "The plan calls for launching a constellation of 4,000 small and cheap satellites that would beam high-speed Internet signals to all parts of the globe, including its most remote regions." This follows news that Facebook and Google had stepped back their efforts in that arena. SpaceX could prove to be a better fit for the project, given that they need only rely on themselves for launching into orbit. "The satellites would be deployed from one of SpaceX’s rockets, the Falcon 9. Once in orbit, the satellites would connect to ground stations at three West Coast facilities. The purpose of the tests is to see whether the antenna technology used on the satellites will be able to deliver high-speed Internet to the ground without hiccups."

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