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Submission + - Your hard disk has a virus -- your hard disk FIRMWARE. (stuff.co.nz) 1

Submitted by grep -v '.*' *
grep -v '.*' * writes: News link vs Kasperskys' news release link.

The [Kaspersky won't name] has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers,

Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001.

The exposure of these new spying tools could lead to greater backlash against Western technology, particularly in countries.

the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. "There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information."

—

I was wondering how this would work since the SATA HD firmware on the drive isn't directly executed by the OS CPU. Then I realized that it is in control of sending code that *IS* executed by the CPU, of course; "all" it has to do it add interception code to the boot-up sequence exactly like a virus. Problem solved, and to remove the virus you have to reinstall everything AS WELL AS replace your hard disk. Just one won't cut it.

I'm in the US, and wonder why anybody buy anything technical from us now-a-days when we have a government that seems to be slowly self-destructing. Money? Power? Privilege? Elitism? Protectionism? Weasel-ism? Stupidity-ism? Hell if I know.

"There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information." — Read: I can't think of how to do this therefore it can't be done.

So how soon do does the government restrict access to source code? After all, only evil hackers deal with source code that they didn't write themselves. And everyone knows that binaries are gibberish and completely random; that's why only computers run them — that's why Windows is so secure and no one looks for early info for Patch Tuesday problems (or any other software's recently released detailed problems, for that matter.)

On a different topic, I once wrote an intel 8048 disassembler so we could lobotomize and reflash an Epson dot-matrix printers' control codes and sell them at (believe it or not!) a profit. (We told them we'd support warranty issues, not the OEM, so no funny business.) So with that admission, I guess I'll soon become the official greeter: "Welcome to GitMo — would you like the swimming, diet, heating, or the insomnia suite?"

Submission + - Russian researchers expose breakthrough U.S. spying program (reuters.com)

Submitted by CryoKeen
CryoKeen writes: The U.S. National Security
Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep
within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate,
Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the
means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's
computers, according to cyber researchers and former
operatives.
That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a
cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab,
the Moscow-based security software maker that has
exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations.
Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries
infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the
most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The
targets included government and military institutions,
telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies,
nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists,
Kaspersky said.

Submission + - Bank Hackers Steal Hundreds of Millions via Malware (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In late 2013, an A.T.M. in Kiev started dispensing cash at seemingly random times of day. No one had put in a card or touched a button. Cameras showed that the piles of money had been swept up by customers who appeared lucky to be there at the right moment.

But when a Russian cybersecurity firm, Kaspersky Lab, was called to Ukraine to investigate, it discovered that the errant machine was the least of the bank’s problems.

The bank’s internal computers, used by employees who process daily transfers and conduct bookkeeping, had been penetrated by malware that allowed cybercriminals to record their every move. The malicious software lurked for months, sending back video feeds and images that told a criminal group — including Russians, Chinese and Europeans — how the bank conducted its daily routines, according to the investigators.

Then the group impersonated bank officers, not only turning on various cash machines, but also transferring millions of dollars from banks in Russia, Japan, Switzerland, the United States and the Netherlands into dummy accounts set up in other countries.

Submission + - The last two satellites in Russia's missile warning constellation have failed

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In January the last two satellites in Russia’s ballistic missile warning system shut down, with the first of the next generation replacement constellation not scheduled to launch until June.

“Oko-1 was part of Russia’s missile warning system. The system employed six satellites on geostationary and highly elliptical orbits. The last geostationary satellite got out of order in April last year. The two remaining satellites on highly elliptical orbits could operate only several hours a day. In the beginning of January, they also went out of order,” Kommersant said.

The new generation early warning satellite Tundra was planned to be launched in 2013. However, the launch was postponed several times as the apparatus was not ready to be put into operation, sources in the aerospace industry told the daily.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the bloated, inefficient, and poorly managed. The communist nation was definitely a threat, as they got a lot accomplished through sheer brute force and determination. Their long term problem was that it was an amazingly inefficient system, guaranteed to eventually fall apart

Submission + - Week long movie of Pluto produced by New Horizons

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Cool images! Using New Horizons’ long range camera scientists have compiled a movie showing Charon and Pluto orbiting each other during the last week of January 2015.

Pluto and Charon were observed for an entire rotation of each body; a “day” on Pluto and Charon is 6.4 Earth days. The first of the images was taken when New Horizons was about 3 billion miles from Earth, but just 126 million miles (203 million kilometers) from Pluto—about 30% farther than Earth’s distance from the Sun. The last frame came 6½ days later, with New Horizons more than 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) closer.

The wobble easily visible in Pluto’s motion, as Charon orbits, is due to the gravity of Charon, about one-eighth as massive as Pluto and about the size of Texas.

Our view of Pluto, and Charon, is only going to get better as New Horizons zooms towards its July fly-by.

Comment Tell them the measles contain gluten (Score 2) 580

by schwit1 (#49042949) Attached to: Low Vaccination Rates At Silicon Valley Daycare Facilities
“They’ll line up around the block.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com... There are schools in the wealthiest parts of Los Angeles where the vaccination rate is on a par with that of South Sudan – fashionable tinder boxes of measles waiting to go up. Pertussis (the far-less-fun-than-it-sounds “whooping cough”) is making a dramatic comeback.

Submission + - Fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by zidium
zidium writes: New data has come out that suggests climate researchers have been systematically altering temperature data up for decades.

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records ... were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

I see a lot of Slashdotters who are convinced Man-made Global Warming (AGW) is an absolute certainty, but when I analyzed the data myself, I saw how concrete jungles have expanded while temperature testing stations have stayed fixed (and concrete is warmer than grass). So now with even more evidence that biased scientists with clear motives have been altering the data for years, do you still want to believe?

Submission + - The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever (telegraph.co.uk) 1

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

“How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”

Submission + - Utah cyberattacks - up to 300 million per day - may be aimed at NSA facility (sltrib.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Five years ago, Utah government computer systems faced 25,000 to 30,000 attempted cyberattacks every day.

At the time, Utah Public Safety Commissioner Keith Squires thought that was massive. "But this last year we have had spikes of over 300 million attacks against the state databases" each day: a 10,000-fold increase.

Why? Squires says it is probably because Utah is home to the new, secretive National Security Agency computer center, and hackers believe they can somehow get to it through state computer systems.

"I really do believe it was all the attention drawn to the NSA facility. In the cyberworld, that's a big deal," Squires told a legislative budget committee Tuesday. "I watched as those increases jumped so much over the last few years. And talking to counterparts in other states, they weren't seeing that amount of increase like we were."

Submission + - Health insurer Anthem hit by cybersecurity breach (reuters.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Health insurer Anthem Inc , which has nearly 40 million U.S. customers, said late on Wednesday that hackers had breached one of its IT systems and stolen personal information relating to current and former consumers and employees.

The information accessed during the "very sophisticated attack" did include names, birthdays, social security numbers, street addresses, email addresses and employment information, including income data, but no medical or other financial data, the company said.

This is why you NEVER give your SSN to your health care providers.

Submission + - Russia May Slap Germany With A $4.5 Trillion Lawsuit For Nazi Atrocities (io9.com) 2

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A workgroup is being set up by deputies of Russia's parliament to calculate the damage that Nazi Germany inflicted upon the Soviet Union during the Second World War. Initial estimates place the figure between $3.43 to $4.56 trillion dollars — but good luck getting Germany to pay.

I'm sure Finland, Ukraine and other Eastern European nations would put a lien on every penny.

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