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Submission + - Debian switches to Xfce, ditches GNOME (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: Debian will now benefit from the Xfce desktop environment as it is to switch from GNOME for Debian 8.0, codenamed “Jessie”. But GNOME may go back as the default if developers find it to be a better choice at the time of the evaluation, which will start around the point of DebConf (August 2014). “This will be re-evaluated before jessie is frozen (the switch to Xfce),” Hess said in the mailing list.

Submission + - RHEL 7 will be a KDE Desktop

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At the 2013 linux Kernel summit Redhat spokesperson Lisa Truman revealed that the upcoming RHEL 7 will be based on the KDE Software Compilation desktop environment. "As you know we have been working on implementing Gnome 3 classic mode for RHEL 7. But after early feedback from our customers we have decided to switch to a KDE/QT based desktop for our flagship product". On what feedback Redhat received from their customers, Ms. Truman responded: "We at Redhat appreciate that many of our customers use non accelerated or legacy hardware for their workstations, and software rendering with llvmpipe may not fit the bill for them". "Also gnome-classic-mode is an emulation of a classic desktop and is lacking many important areas". When Ms. Truman was asked if the switch to KDE is the reason for the delay in the release of RHEL 7 she stated: "We are still on track to release RHEL 7 by the end of 2013".

Submission + - How I compiled TrueCrypt for Windows and matched the official binaries (concordia.ca) 1

Submitted by xavier2dc
xavier2dc writes: TrueCrypt is a popular software enabling data protection by means of encryption for all categories of users. It is getting even more attention lately following the revelations of the NSA as the authors remain anonymous and no thorough security audit have yet been conducted to prove it is not backdoored in any way. This has led several concerns raised in different places, such as this blog post (http://www.privacylover.com/encryption/analysis-is-there-a-backdoor-in-truecrypt-is-truecrypt-a-cia-honeypot/), this one (http://brianpuccio.net/excerpts/is_truecrypt_really_safe_to_use), this security analysis (https://www.privacy-cd.org/downloads/truecrypt_7.0a-analysis-en.pdf) also related on that blog post (http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/10/lets-audit-truecrypt.html) from which the IsTrueCryptAuditedYet? (http://istruecryptauditedyet.com/) was born.

One of the recurring questions is: What if the binaries provided on the website were different than the source code and they included hidden features? To address this issue, I built the software from the official sources in a careful way and was able to match the officials binaries. According to my findings, all three recent major versions (v7.1a, v7.0a, v6.3a) exactly match the sources.

Submission + - Lime: An Open Source Sublime Text Clone (github.com)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A clone of the popular Sublime Text text editor has been released under the 2-clause BSD license. As the author Fredrik Ehnbom announces the project:

I love the Sublime Text editor. I have created several plugins to make it even better. One thing that scares me though is that it is not open sourced and the pace of nightly releases have recently been anything but nightly, even now that version 3 is out in Beta. There was a period of about 6 months after the Sublime Text 2 “stable“ version was released where pretty much nothing at all was communicated to the users about what to expect in the future, nor was there much support offered in the forums. People including myself were wondering if the product was dead and I personally wondered what would happen to all the bugs, crashes and annoyances that still existed in ST2. This lack of communication is a dealbreaker to me and I decided that I will not spend any more money on that product because of it. As none of the other text editors I've tried come close to the love I had for Sublime Text, I decided I had to create my own. The frontend(s) are not ready to replace your favourite editor, but the backend itself I believe isn't too far away.

Submission + - ownCloud 6 will have document editing (karlitschek.de)

Submitted by oever
oever writes: ownCloud is announcing an exciting new feature for ownCloud 6. It seems that it might grow into a Google Docs alternative. Today Frank Karlitschek blogged about ownCloud Documents, a new feature that lets multiple users work on one text document at the same time. The feature uses WebODF, a javascripts libary for editing ODF documents.

Submission + - Hypothetical: Can Bruce Schneier be Trusted 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Security guru Bruce Schneier is, among other things, a world renowned cryptography expert, author of several popular books, and a second-order internet meme. He is also an outspoken critic of the NSA, in particular the massive NSA surveillance programs disclosed over the summer by Edward Snowden. Schneier has been involved in reviewing the leaked documents and has put in effort to determine which cryptosystems should still be considered safe. I'm a big fan of Bruce Schneier, but just to play devil's advocate, let's say, hypothetically, that Schneier is actually in cahoots with the NSA. Who better to reinstate public trust in weakened cryptosystems? As an exercise in security that Schneier himself may find interesting, what methods are available for proving (or at least affirming) that we can trust Bruce Schneier?

Submission + - Sneakers Movie Remixxed as electronica tune

Submitted by cyclomedia
cyclomedia writes: The Decibel Kid — The artist responsible for this summer's Ipswich Zelda Map — has released a music video comprised of elements of the 1992 film Sneakers, combing electronic dance music with film geekery AND computer geekery: The software used is a MIDI controlled "video sampler" he coded himself using (brace yourselves) C#.Net and DirectX, allowing on the fly triggering and looping. A little info on the inner workings of the software can be gleamed from this early demo video on YouTube

Submission + - Comet ISON Likely to Survive Solar Plunge (discovery.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Comet ISON, a much-anticipated first-time visitor to the inner solar system, will likely survive its Thanksgiving Day encounter with the sun and become visible without binoculars or telescopes to observers on Earth in December, scientists said Wednesday.

Since its discovery in September 2012, Comet ISON has been a bit of a puzzle. At first, the comet was considered unusually bright because it was spotted by astronomers far beyond Jupiter’s orbit, raising the prospect that it might be visible on Earth even in daylight.

However, later observations showed the comet was not brightening as much as predicted as it moved closer to the sun. Heating from the sun vaporizes ices in the comet’s body, creating a long, glowing tail....

If it survives, calculations show Comet ISON will be bumped out of the solar system after its swing around the sun.

The comet is named for the International Scientific Optical Network, or ISON, located near Kislovodsk, Russia, which made the first observation of the comet."

Meanwhile, evidence for an Earth impacting comet has been found in the Egyptian desert. Only a pebble dubbed Hypatia is known to have survived. http://www.sci-news.com/space/science-libyan-desert-glass-diamond-bearing-pebble-evidence-comet-01446.html

Submission + - Final Fantasy XIV Relaunches With Remote SQL Exploit

Submitted by _xeno_
_xeno_ writes: You might remember Final Fantasy XIV as the MMO so bad that Square Enix fired the original developers and completed relaunched the game. Well, it's back as "A Realm Reborn," and already it's had severe server issues that caused them to stop selling the game. It's also back with a SQL server that allows unauthenticated SQL commands to be run directly. Yes, that's right: the game's Lua scripting can execute SQL commands directly on the MMO's database servers, including update commands. As you'd expect, this is leading to rampant cheating and item duping.

Submission + - Over 100 Missing Episodes of Doctor Who Located (mirror.co.uk)

Submitted by MajikJon
MajikJon writes: The BBC junking policies of the 60's and 70's resulted in the loss of hundreds of episodes of the classic series in its earliest years. Through the work of ardent fans over the succeeding decades, dozens of these lost episodes have been painstaking recovered and added back into the BBC archives. Now, it seems, the searchers have struck the mother lode. According to the Wikipedia, there are currently 106 missing episodes of the serial. If reports are correct, we may finally get to see all the episodes.

Submission + - FBI shuts down Silk Road .. (reuters.com)

Submitted by codeusirae
codeusirae writes: U.S. law enforcement authorities have shut down "Silk Road," an anonymous Internet marketplace for illegal drugs like heroin and cocaine and criminal activities such as murder for hire, and arrested its alleged owner.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday it arrested Silk Road owner, Ross William Ulbricht, 29, known online as "Dread Pirate Roberts," in San Francisco on Tuesday, according to court filings.

Submission + - Research Debunking Bing's 2:1 Claim 'Flawed,' Says Microsoft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: Research conducted by a Yale professor using Microsoft’s “Bing it on” website would appear to debunk the software giant’s claim that its search engine is preferred by a 2-to-1 margin over Google in blind taste tests. “We found that, to the contrary of Microsoft’s claim, 53 percent of subjects preferred Google and 41 percent Bing (6 percent of results were “ties”),” says Prof. Ian Ayres. “This is not even close to the advertised claim that people prefer Bing ‘nearly two-to-one.’“ Microsoft was quick to defend itself: “The professor’s analysis is flawed and based on an incomplete understanding of both the claims and the Challenge,” says Matt Wallaert, a behavioral scientist for Bing. “The Bing It On claim is 100% accurate ”

Submission + - Ubuntu 13.10 Will Not Ship Mir By Default (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ubuntu 13.10 due for release later this month was poised to replace the X.Org Server with Mir/XMir as Canonical's next-generation Ubuntu display server. However, they have now decided Mir will not be the Ubuntu 13.10 default over outstanding issues with the XMir X11 compatibility layer having multi-monitor issues and other problems. Canonical though still says they will use Mir for Ubuntu Touch 13.10 images and remain committed to the Mir project.

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