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Submission + - Digital mutiny: 2,000 page iraq leak (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Looks like them wikileaks guys are finally putting something out there.

from the site:

This spectacular 2,000 page US military leak consists of the names, group structure and equipment registers of all units in Iraq with US army equipment . It exposes secretive document exploitation centers, detainee operations, elements of the State Department, Air Force, Navy and Marines units, the Iraqi police and coalition forces from Poland, Denmark, Ukraine, Latvia, Slovakia, Romania, Armenia, Kazakhstan and El Salvador. The material represents nearly the entire order of battle for US forces in Iraq and is the first public revelation of many of the military units described. Among other matters it shows that the United States has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Security

New Password Recovery Technique Uses CPU and GPU Together 264

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the brute-force-just-means-get-a-bigger-hammer dept.
BaCa writes to mention that a new hardware/software combination has been created by a company called ElcomSoft that will reportedly allow cryptography professionals to build cheap PCs that work like supercomputers for the specific task of retrieving lost passwords. Utilizing a combination of the CPU and the GPU the task of brute forcing a password may be reduced by as much as a factor of 25. "Until recently, graphic cards' GPUs couldn't be used for applications such as password recovery. Older graphics chips could only perform floating-point calculations, and most cryptography algorithms require fixed-point mathematics. Today's chips can process fixed-point calculations. And with as much as 1.5 Gb of onboard video memory and up to 128 processing units, these powerful GPU chips are much more effective than CPUs in performing many of these calculations."
Space

Could Black Holes Be Portals to Other Universes? 277

Posted by Zonk from the oh-sliders-you've-taught-us-so-much dept.
David Shiga writes "Astronomers have identified many objects out there that they think are black holes. But could they be portals to other universes called wormholes, instead? According to a new study by a pair of physicists, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference. They have discovered that wormholes with the right shape would look identical to black holes from the outside. But while a trip into a black hole would mean certain death, a wormhole might spit you out into a parallel universe with its own stars and planets. Exotic effects from quantum physics might produce wormholes naturally from collapsing stars, one of the physicist says, and they might even be produced in future particle accelerator experiments."
Databases

Submission + - Freebase: a creative commons db of facts

Submitted by
yppiz
yppiz writes: "My company, Metaweb, just announced Freebase, a Creative Commons licensed database of facts. The site is young, so for now, our alpha is by invitation, but Tim O'Reilly has posted his insights and some screenshots. There's also a writeup in the New York Times.

John Markoff, NYT:

A new company founded by a longtime technologist is setting out to create a vast public database intended to be read by computers rather than people, paving the way for a more automated Internet in which machines will routinely share information.
"
Music

Submission + - NetTunes set to redefine music 'sharing'

Submitted by
kaizendojo
kaizendojo writes: "Robert X. Cringely writes in this week's Pulpit about a music sharing site that is based in part on an idea he had years ago, and then revisted in a later article. "The new service is called NetTunes (it's in this week's links) and was built, according to lead developer Robert Stromberg, by combining my ideas with his. The major difference between NetTunes and Snapster is that while Snapster was based on joint ownership of the music, NetTunes is based on a music-lending model. There is nothing in U.S. copyright law that says you can't lend your DVD or CD to a friend or neighbor to watch or listen to. They aren't supposed to copy it, of course, but the concept doesn't preclude multiple physical copies (backups are allowed, remember, as is redeployment on other media like tapes or iPods) so much as multiple simultaneous USES of the content. So if you lend your copy of Led Zeppelin IV to some buddy with a hot date, you'd better not play it that evening at your home, that is unless you bought a second physical copy of the record or CD. NetTunes virtualizes the whole music-lending function. You join the service, then either upload your music just like to any other music locker service, or you just register the albums and songs you own and link to them through NetTunes in much the same way that you did in the pirate heyday of Napster, the original P2P music-sharing sensation." Sounds interesting, but how long will this be stay under the RIAA's radar? My guess would be they are already preparing legal briefs as we speak..."

Feed DepthX Scours Ocean Floor (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
An untethered, autonomous robot rummaging around a geothermal sinkhole may herald the future of deep ocean -- and deep space -- robotics. By Emmet Cole.


Education

Submission + - BGSU Prof Responds About Academic Freedom Article

Submitted by
C.Rathsack
C.Rathsack writes: "Dr. Paul Cesarini, an assistant professor in the Visual Communication & Technology Education department at Bowling Green State University, began a discussion that we wanted to continue on Interact at the Center. The original article, Caught in the Network, from the Chronicle of Higher Education, began a discussion on academic freedom, IT controls and limits, and the fine balance between the two. Paul was kind enough to respond to some of the comments and questions he has received as well as reflect his experiences over the past few weeks:

I appreciate how many of you read my article, commented on it in various online venues, and linked to it so that others might read it... (more) If anyone else has some specific questions or comments about my article, I would love to hear them. ~Paul
See Paul's full response here: Interact at the Center"
Privacy

Submission + - FBI Admits Abuse of Patriot Act to Obtain Info

Submitted by SydShamino
SydShamino writes: CNN, the Associated Press and others are reporting that an independent audit of the FBI revealed "serious misuse" of power to acquire private information granted in the Patriot Act. FBI Director Robert Mueller has accepted responsibility for problems and says they are being corrected, but Congress has already called for hearings. There's no word yet on criminal charges against anyone in the FBI who might have broken the law.
United States

Submission + - Congressman: colleges are nests of piracy

Submitted by Prescott
Prescott writes: Hollywood's congressman, Rep. Howard Berman of California, has announced that his subcomittee will be accelerating its hearings on piracy at American colleges. More troubling, he is getting ready to go after what he is calling the 'hypocrisy' of American colleges and Universities. 'Unfortunately, many schools have turned a blind eye to piracy,' Berman said. 'I don't doubt that there are legitimate issues that universities must grapple with, including privacy and cost concerns. However, when a university such as Purdue tells the AP that it rarely even notifies students accused by the RIAA because it is too much trouble to track down alleged offenders — such inaction is unacceptable.'
Operating Systems

Virtualization Is Not All Roses 214

Posted by CmdrTaco from the watch-out-for-those-thorns dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Vendors and magazines are all over virtualization like a rash, like it is the Saviour for IT-kind. Not always, writes analyst Andi Mann in Computerworld." I've found that when it works, it's really cool, but it does add a layer of complexity that wasn't there before. Then again, having a disk image be a 'machine' is amazingly useful sometimes.
Security

Submission + - SSL optimization over the WAN needs scrutiny

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "With more and more WAN optimization vendors extending their capabilities to include encrypted traffic, corporate IT executives have a decision to make: Should they trust the security these devices provide? Rather than passing through SSL sessions between clients and servers located in remote data centers, some WAN optimization gear can terminate the SSL sessions, shrink the traffic and re-encrypt it for the next leg of the trip. These chains of encrypted sessions introduce potential vulnerabilities that different vendors address in different ways. SSL traffic represents a growing percentage of total traffic on WAN links, according to Forrester Research. So SSL support in WAN optimization appliances will become more important to businesses that want to keep traffic secure while minimizing the size of their WAN links. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/030807-ssl-o ptimization.html"
Enlightenment

Submission + - Cattle Produce More Greenhouse Gases Than Cars

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: EARTHtimes.org has an article covering a letter that PETA sent to Al Gore. The letter points out that rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases that driving cars. PETA sites a U.N. report to support their case. Will Al Gore put his mouth where his mouth is and become vegetarian?
Businesses

Submission + - Where are the science shortages?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: With Bill Gates talking about the shortages in people to fill positions in science and technology, I was wondering where the shortages really are in science? Are there really any science positions out there in high demand? It seems like a lot of the visa worker issues revolve around IT, but is there an impact in science or engineering?
Biotech

Submission + - EU agrees renewable energy target

Submitted by
cuby
cuby writes: "The EU has agreed to cut 20% of CO2 emissions until 2020, based on the emissions of the year 1990. If an agreement with other countries (US,China...) is reached, they can rise the cut to 30%. Moreover, they agreed that, in the same year, 20% of all energy must have its origin in renewable sources (nuclear doesn't count). Some countries like France and Poland will have to do heavy work, but other ones like Portugal have established stricter targets. In this country until 2010, 40% of the energy will come from renewable sources. Pretty daily statistics with current production here (in Portuguese)."

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