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Submission + - Withhold Passwords From Your Employer, Go to Jail? (forbes.com)

Submitted by ericgoldman
ericgoldman writes: Terry Childs was a network engineer in San Francisco, and he was the only employee with passwords to the network. After he was fired, he withheld the passwords from his former employer, preventing his employer from controlling its own network. Recently, a California appeals court upheld his conviction for violating California's computer crime law, including a 4 year jail sentence and $1.5 million of restitution. The ruling provides a good cautionary tale for anyone who thinks they can gain leverage over their employer or increase job security by controlling key passwords.

Submission + - Airlines Taunted by Amazon and Alec Baldwin

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon once loaded an airplane with Kindles — all of them turned on — to prove the devices posed no threat to an airplane's communication system during take-offs and landings, according to the Washington Post, which also notes an Amazon employee ultimately chaired the FAA technical committee investigating the issue. "We've been fighting for our customers on this issue for years," one Amazon executive announced in a press release, " adding that to celebrate the FAA's new change in policy, they're offering a 15% discount today on most Kindles. The Post notes that "it's still eyebrow-raising that a company with the most commercial interest in the outcome of a panel's report would directly oversee the scientific content of that report." But the biggest winner is probably Alec Baldwin, who two years ago appeared on Saturday Night Live as a pilot who argued that the policy was "just a cruel joke perpetrated by the airline industry... and we would’ve gotten away with it, but Alec Baldwin was just too smart for us.!

Submission + - Security hole found in Obamacare website (cnn.com)

Submitted by RoccamOccam
RoccamOccam writes: The Obamacare website has more than annoying bugs. A cybersecurity expert found a way to access users' accounts.

Until the Department of Health fixed the security hole last week, anyone could easily reset a user's Healthcare.gov password without their knowledge and potentially hijack the account.

The glitch was discovered last week by Ben Simo, a software tester in Arizona. Simo found that gaining access to people's accounts was frighteningly simple.

Submission + - The $15 Device That Protects Against School Shootings

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: In the tragic aftermath of the Newtown school massacre, as is the case every time there’s a school shooting, Americans debate what should be done to ensure the safety of innocent schoolchildren. Gun control advocates push to limit access to deadly weapons by imposing tougher firearm regulations, while the National Rifle Association suggests that armed security guards be stationed at every school in the country. Now the Smithsonian reports that a group of students at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington D.C. has come up with a device that prevents armed intruders from breaking into a classroom with DeadStop, a lightweight, cup-sized plastic cylinder that slips over the common large hydraulic hinge known as a “door closer“ in seconds. “So many kids and adults were killed (at Sandy Hook). So we got together and we wanted to know how we could stop intruders from entering our school,” says Deonté Antrom, a junior at Benjamin Banneker. The school, like many others across the nation, is equipped with doors that cannot be locked from the inside, in order to comply with building code regulations that allow for unobstructed campus-wide evacuations in case of a fire and other disasters. The DeadStop was designed as a workaround, preserving that need for a quick exit in an emergency while also enabling the class to secure itself inside the room when needed. “The device we have is detachable. It will just be in the teacher’s desk and when there is an announcement that there is a shooter in the building, they will be able to take it out and simply install it on the hinge,” says Anjreyev Harvey. Students at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School hope to patent and release a final product of DeadStop that will cost no more than $15 and a law firm from Denver has already offered the team pro bono services to patent the invention.

Submission + - Apple converting trial and pirated iWork, iLife and Aperture to full versions (mactrast.com)

Submitted by tlhIngan
tlhIngan writes: One aspect about the new OS X Mavericks release was that all Apple produced software was to be downloadable and updatable through the Mac App Store. However, this has the obvious implication of what happens to users who bought the software before Mac App Store? Initial reports showed that the Mac App Store scanned your hard drive for the apps and offered to associate it with your Apple ID, and that the scanning even found trial and pirated versions and upgraded those to fully licensed versions. Even more interestingly, this is not a bug, and it appears Apple is turning a blind eye to the practice and giving away copies of iLife, iWork and Aperture to users who own trial or even pirated versions of the apps. Apple has also recently stopped providing downloadable trial versions of iLife, iWork and Aperture from their web site.

Submission + - NYC's 250,000 Street Lights To Be Replaced with LEDs by 2017 (mikebloomberg.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city's 250,000 street light fixtures, which currently use incandescent bulbs, will be replaced with LEDs by 2017. It's part of a plan to reduce the city government's emissions by 30%. The LEDs have a lifespan of 20 years, more than three times that of the current incandescent bulbs, and Bloomberg says it will save $6 million in energy and $8 million in maintenance every year. It will be the largest LED retrofit in the country. 'The first of three phases to replace the standard "cobra-head" high-pressure sodium street lights, which will upgrade 80,000 at a time across the five boroughs, is expected to be completed in December 2015 with the final phase expected to be completed by 2017. Following the replacement of roadway lighting, decorative fixtures in the city’s business and commercial districts will be addressed.'

Submission + - Can You Trust The Apps You Use?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the advent of smartphones, the word "app" has almost become a synonym for pleasure. Whatever you need, whatever you want is right there at your fingertips, located in a few huge online marketplaces, ready to be downloaded and used in minutes, often for free. The problem with this is that many users enjoy the instant gratification, but don't think about the loss of security and / or privacy that goes with using apps (on whatever platform) from well- and lesser-known developers.

Security Researcher Alex Balan asks the question: "How much control we have over our security once we've allowed apps access to our private information?", and explains the unwelcome answer.

Submission + - XBMC forked

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After working almost 10 years on the XBMC project (http://xbmc.org),
I am very sad to announce my fork, named FYMC. While the abbreviation obviously
lends itself to alternative interpretations, the intended meaning is
'Forever yours Media Center'.

Key technical differences compared to the original project:
1) GPL3 licensed.
2) A CMake based build system.
3) An agile approach in mainline.

Project hosting is still being arranged, and as such the only resource available at this point is

http://github.com/cptspiff/fymc

As several backend authors have not responded to request for API keys yet, certain basic features have been disabled for now.

Currently it is only buildable for freebsd and linux, support for building
on other free platforms will follow, with free being interpretable as platforms
where users maintain their freedom to run and modify software after their own
likings. It is still mostly compatible with XBMC add-ons, with
binary (compiled) add-ons being the exception.

While I would like to give my reasons for forking the project in public to reduce the amount of FUD, I do not in honor of requests from the forked project. Though, I want to explicitly mention that this is not a case of an insulted developer, but an action taken out of honest concerns and loyalty to the original vision of the project.

Developers interested in joining the project can join #fymc on irc.freenode.net.
In particular, people skilled in graphics are most needed.

Arne Morten Kvarving

Submission + - iPhone 5S users complain of experiencing blue screen of death on their phone. (latesttoptechnews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Some owners of the new iPhone 5S say their phones came with an unwanted new feature more commonly found on Windows PCs in the 90s: "The Blue Screen of Death."

According to several discussion forums and videos posted online, the iPhone 5S unexpectedly reboots when you try to switch apps.

The problem appears to center on Apple's iWork suite. When someone has their 5S open to Numbers, Pages or Keynote and tries to go to a different app, a blue screen appears and the iPhone suddenly restarts.

Submission + - Patriot Act Author Introduces Bill to Limit Use of Patriot Act (dailydot.com)

Submitted by wjcofkc
wjcofkc writes: In an ironic but welcome twist, author of the Patriot Act, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), is introducing the USA FREEDOM Act, a bill specifically aimed at countering the portions of the Patriot Act that were interpreted to let the NSA collect telephone metadata in bulk. The congressman has been a vocal opponent of the NSA's interpretation and misuse of the Patriot Act since Edward Snowden first leaked evidence of the program in June. On Wednesday, he wrote to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that the “collection of a wide array of data on innocent Americans has led to serious questions about how government will use—or misuse—such information.”

Submission + - New High Tech $100 Bills Start to Circulate Today 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Fox News reports that new $100 bills made their debut today that include high tech features designed to make it easier for the public to authenticate but more difficult for counterfeiters to replicate. Those measures include a blue, 3-D security ribbon, as well as color-shifting ink that changes from copper to green when the note is tilted (PDF). That ink can be found on a large "100" on the back of the bill, on one of the "100's" on the front, and on a new image of an ink well that's also on the front. "The $100 is the highest value denomination that we issue, and it circulates broadly around the world," says Michael Lambert, assistant director for cash at the Federal Reserve Board. "Therefore, we took the necessary time to develop advanced security features that are easy for the public to use in everyday transactions, but difficult for counterfeiters to replicate." The bill was originally due to reach banks in 2011 but three years ago the Federal Reserve announced that a problem with the currency's new security measures was causing the bills to crease during printing, which left blank spaces on the bills leading the Feds to shred more than 30 million of the bills in 2012. The image of Benjamin Franklin will be the same as on the current bill, but like all the other newly designed currencies, it will no longer be surrounded by an dark oval. Except for the $1 and $2 bill, all US paper currency has been redesigned in the last 10 years to combat counterfeiting. "The advanced security features we've included in the new $100 note will hinder potential counterfeiters from producing high-quality fakes that can deceive consumers and merchants," says Larry R. Felix. "Protect yourself — it only takes a few seconds to check the new $100 note and know it's real."

Submission + - Leaked Documents Detail al-Qaeda's Efforts To Fight Back Against Drones (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Washington Post reports, "Al-Qaeda’s leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones ... In July 2010, a U.S. spy agency intercepted electronic communications indicating that senior al-Qaeda leaders had distributed a “strategy guide” to operatives around the world advising them how “to anticipate and defeat” unmanned aircraft. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that al-Qaeda was sponsoring simultaneous research projects to develop jammers to interfere with GPS signals and infrared tags that drone operators rely on to pinpoint missile targets. Other projects in the works included the development of observation balloons and small radio-controlled aircraft, or hobby planes, which insurgents apparently saw as having potential for monitoring the flight patterns of U.S. drones... Al-Qaeda has a long history of attracting trained engineers ... Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, holds a mechanical-engineering degree ... In 2010, the CIA noted in a secret report that al-Qaeda was placing special emphasis on the recruitment of technicians and that “the skills most in demand” included expertise in drones and missile technology. "

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