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Space

Submission + - Near Earth "Asteroid" Turns Out to be Spac 1

Submitted by iamlucky13
iamlucky13 writes: Last week, the IAU's Minor Planet Center asked professional astronomers around the world to help track a previously unknown asteroid, labeled 2007 VN84, that will pass the earth at the alarmingly close distance of 5600 km on November 13. However, Denis Denisenko of the Moscow Space Research Institute then noticed something peculiar: the object's trajectory exactly matched that of the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, which will perform a gravitational slingshot around the earth on that date on its way to study and land on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The MPC's editorial notice on the error also comments critically on the current means available to identifying distant spacecraft such as Rosetta.
Privacy

Submission + - White House ordered to preserve all e-mail (cnn.com)

Submitted by Verunks
Verunks writes: A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether e-mails have been destroyed in violation of federal law. The issue surfaced in the leak probe of administration officials who disclosed Valerie Plame's CIA identity
Security

Submission + - "Look for the padlock" isn't enough (littlewhitedog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of our community members received some instant message spam inviting him to click on a link to one of those websites which pretends to scan one's computer, displays horrifying warnings of myriad vulnerabilities, and then offers to sell the fix for these "vulnerabilities". So far, so normal. Scammers have been doing this sort of thing for years now.

This time, however, there's a difference. Crooks are buying SSL certificates to lend their websites an air of authenticity.

http://www.littlewhitedog.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=132
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Best Sci Fi Device

Submitted by largesnike
largesnike writes: Your favourite Sci Fi device?

The Flux Capacitor
The Oscillation Overthruster
EPS Conduits
...I'm sure there are more — trying to think of them...
Security

Submission + - Russian hacker gang vanishes once again (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Arashtamere
Arashtamere writes: The shadowy hacker and malware hosting network that only recently fled Russia to set up operations in China has now pulled the plug there and vanished yet again, researchers said. An analyst at VeriSign's iDefense Labs unit who wanted to remain anonymous, leery of retribution from the gang, said IDefense had tracked RBN's migration earlier in the week from servers based in Russia to ones running in China. On Tuesday, RBN's Russian servers went dark as the group relinquished control of its assigned IP addresses, effectively severing its connection to the Internet. By Wednesday, however, RBN had relocated to China and Taiwan after obtaining at least seven net blocks of Chinese IP addresses, said iDefense. According to the security intelligence firm, as of Wednesday, RBN controlled 5,120 IP addresses assigned to Chinese service providers; known RBN clients were even seen using those addresses that day. But with its China move putting media and security community spotlights on the organization, RBN suddenly went offline on Thursday, said the analyst. "They severed connections to six of the seven net blocks on November 8," the analyst said. According to iDefense, RBN as a single organization may be dead and gone....RBN may even now be breaking up into smaller pieces farmed out to multiple countries' Internet infrastructures.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - The Aerodynamics of Bicycle Racing

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Nick Frey, the reigning national time-trial bicycle champion, is a mechanical and aerospace engineering major at Princeton who puts his knowledge to work in modifications to his racing bike. Once a bicycle is moving fast enough, nearly all the cyclist's strength goes into pushing aside air. Reducing that resistance by a relatively small amount can result in major increases in speed with minimal increased effort so one of Frey's innovations is enclosing his brake cables in a special housing shaped like an airplane wing that shields them from the wind, reducing the resistance on his bike. "It's like free speed," says Frey. "And in cycling, every second counts." Other improvements include the helmet he purchased to match his riding posture and the silicon gel between his wheel rims and tires that subtly changes the shape of his tires, making them more aerodynamic. Frey subjects his own performance to rigorous analysis and posts his training and performance results, along with details about various races, on his blog."
Space

Submission + - Mission Accomplished on Riskiest Spacewalk (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "A spacewalking astronaut fixed a ripped solar energy panel on the international space station Saturday in a difficult and dangerous emergency procedure that allowed the crew to extend the wing to its full length. Spacewalker Scott Parazynski installed homemade braces on the torn wing and clipped the snarled wires that had ripped it in two places as it was being unfurled Tuesday. He then watched as the crew deployed the wing to its full 115-foot length. Astronauts inside slowly extended the wing, watching closely for more problems. The wing was about three-quarters unfurled when the crew noticed the damage on Tuesday. "Excellent work, guys, excellent," space station commander Peggy A. Whitson said after the tense ( http://techluver.com/2007/11/03/nasa-astronauts-gets-mission-accomplished-on-riskiest-spacewalk/ )"
Space

Submission + - Intergalatic Clouds of Missing Mass Missing Again

Submitted by
Ponca City, We Love You
Ponca City, We Love You writes: "Researchers at the University Of Alabama In Huntsville have discovered that some x-rays thought to come from intergalactic clouds of "warm" gas are instead probably caused by lightweight electrons leaving the mass of the universe as much as ten to 20 percent lighter than previously calculated. In 2002 the same team reported finding large amounts of extra "soft" (relatively low-energy) x-rays coming from the vast space in the middle of galaxy clusters. Their cumulative mass was thought to account for as much as ten percent of the mass and gravity needed to hold together galaxies, galaxy clusters and perhaps the universe itself. When the team looked at data from a galaxy cluster in the southern sky, however, they found that energy from those additional soft x-rays doesn't look like it should. "The best, most logical explanation seems to be that a large fraction of the energy comes from electrons smashing into photons instead of from warm atoms and ions, which would have recognizable spectral emission lines," said Dr. Max Bonamente."

Google's Young Brainiacs Go Globe-Trotting 175

Posted by Zonk from the nice-gig-if-you-can-get-it dept.
theodp writes "To train a new generation of leaders, Google sends its young associate product managers on a worldwide mission. Newsweek's Steven Levy tagged along and reports on the APMs' activities, which included passing out candy, notebooks and pencils to poor Raagihalli children, a 'Rubber Ducky' group sing-along at 2 a.m., and competitions to find the weirdest-gadget-under-$100 in Tokyo. The APM program, which seeks brilliant kids and slots them directly into important jobs with no experience necessary, was formed after Google's attempts to hire veterans from firms like Microsoft had awful results. 'Google is so different that it was almost impossible to reprogram them into this culture,' says Google CEO Eric Schmidt of the experienced hires."
Networking

Submission + - Verizon hacks DNS (adterrasperaspera.com) 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Ad Terras Per Aspera is reporting that Verizon is now redirecting non-existent domain requests to their DNS servers to their own internal website. As detailed,

This is considered a severe security violation and they are willfully undermining the integrety of the service they provide.


Is Verizon setting themselves up to be sued for privacy violations and be disconnected from other Tier 1 providers?
Power

Submission + - Solar Decathlon 2007 (nwsource.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The third Solar Decathlon was held last month at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., organized by the Department of Energy and sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 20 top engineering schools each had teams build a single-family house 600-850 sq. ft. that runs entirely on solar energy and is built with as many green and sustainable materials as possible. They are judged on 10 different aspects including Architecture, Engineering, Market Viability, and Energy Balance. Judging and house tours took place from October 12th to the 19th, with an additional day given for the public tours after the winners were announced on the 19th.
OS X

Submission + - Leopard Server Missing, Employees Told Nothing (apple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: While Apple's Web site still says Leopard Server is "Available 10/26" (today), employees at each of the several Apple retail stores say they don't have it, but they say they have been told nothing of a delay. To a person, they all seemed surprised that I expected it to be available, apparently unaware that Apple's site (still) claims availability today right next to "Visit an Apple Retail Store." There's also a button next to the "Available" banner that reads "Pre-order Now." Perhaps Apple has a new definition of "available"?
Microsoft

Submission + - MS OneCare causing Windows PCs to reboot?

Submitted by
ta bu shi da yu
ta bu shi da yu writes: "Sometime ago, Microsoft was accused of changing Windows Update (WU) to automatically download and install updates, even if users changed the auto-update setting off. This was denied by Microsoft. Well, it appears that they were right. Windows Update doesn't automatically install patches. According to Windows Secrets the culprit is MS OneCare. It appears that it automatically switches the updates to automatic without any warning to the end user. Given the problems with OneCare (deleting mail, flunking anti-virus tests and now this issue), is it really worth the effort?"

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