What article did you read? The article linked in the summary says physical access to the CAN network was required for this hack. They said other researchers had hacked the car over Bluetooth, but not the researchers in the article.

In other breaking news, cutting the brake lines of cars can prevent them from operating correctly. Somebody issue a recall, quick!

This is not news, a CAN bus is viewed by the industry in the same way as analog wiring in the car, physically vulnerable. It's an issue when the side view mirror actuators are on the CAN bus, and thieves can open the door and start the engine with this technique. However, this research is stating the obvious for anyone in the know. Next thing you know, one of these researchers will find a copy of the J1939 protocol standard used by the automotive industry and discover what the CAN messages mean without fuzzing the problem space.

If someone found an On Star exploit that allowed a hacker to remotely accomplish these things on the CAN bus, then it would be news, this is not.

Unlike student loans, this debt can be cancelled out by declaring bankruptcy. He will lose everything he has first though, assuming he doesn't have assets valued at $600k

I voted 2 weeks ago as well. I hear WA is expected to have a voter turnout exceeding 85%. I hope other states adopt this approach, it is certainly the most democratic and fair approach to elections I've seen so far, since every voter has weeks to go through the literature sent about all the candidates. And no one has to skip work to vote, so it doesn't disenfranchise the poor.

There's still the option of going to an actual polling place, like I did 4 years when voting for president, but I much prefer voting by mail.

Why use a touch screen at all? They should have just made the screens have bezel keys along the sides like an ATM.

Also not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure defend it or lose it just applies to trademarks.

There are still fixed costs to maintaining a server even if the software is free. A git or SVN server won't store it's own backups offsite. Our Engineering department still gets charged by our IT department for hosting for wikis, source control, etc, even though the software running on the server is 'free', it doesn't deploy and maintain itself.

Seems like this might make a better gun than a reprap.

I'm quite happy with my Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences. Basically a CS degree from the college of Engineering at my University. I now do real time embedded programming for vehicle control systems. Lots of physics at the system level, keeps me engaged. All the V&V work gets tedious, but I wouldn't want to be the cause of someone dying because it was too tedious to write unit tests.

FYI, the National Society of Professional Engineers is adding a Software Engineering classification for 2013. Not for the feint of heart, as a professional, you assume a good deal of liability for the projects you're involved with.

Yes, they know that the plaques impair brain function by inference, they don't understand how, because no one knows what a memory is. Face it, we know a lot about the physical structure of the brain, but we don't really know how it works. Asserting that we understand the process of memory because we know a few things about a disease linked to memory is false equivalence. It's equally disingenuous to suggest that knowing more about how memories are formed, stored, and accessed would have no practical benefit when trying to understand and treat diseases which affect memory.

Understanding the mechanics of memory may lead to breakthroughs which could cure diseases like Alzheimer's.

Fourthly, a virus on a smart meter? Good luck with that. They're nowhere near that smart...

What an incredibly naive assumption. A friend of mine audits smart meter security and occasionally speaks at Black Hat about them. Viruses can target embedded systems and can be written if the flash/update mechanism over the network is secured with "childishly simple" methods. Once compromised firmware has been distributed across the network of meters, if they happen to have a remote disconnect feature, hundreds of thousands of houses could be potentially disconnected from the grid simultaneously at the command of a malicious hacker.

If that much of the load was removed from the grid at once, permanent damage to the power infrastructure can occur, about as devastating as an EMP attack to a city. All this because the utilities are too greedy and don't want to remove the remote disconnect feature from the meters.

Remember, anyone can get a meter and perform all sorts of reverse engineering. Is it really secure when you think about stopping a persistent threat with the skill and resources of the stuxnet authors. Some technology professionals see "childishly simple" security to be professional malpractice, like failing to perform basic load calculations when designing a bridge.

Part of you is worried about your weight, but All of you wants a Baby! Call XYZ fertility clinic today.

They should look at integrating with blue tooth shoes too. Funny to see more than one story about smart phone technology for the visually impaired in the same day.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/07/footwear-blind?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/bluetoothshoes
The shoes have an actuator in the heel which can vibrate to signal when to turn or alert the presence of an obstacle, a sensor in the toe for detecting obstacles, and blue tooth for phone app integration.

Just remember 1 really strong password. Then change your password 9 times every 90 days to keep using it. There's no policy rule that forbids a password that was used in the last 90 days, so obviously IT is okay with this approach to security.