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Submission + - Is Skype down? (skype.com)

Submitted by ghstridr
ghstridr writes: I'm in an online class today, using Skype for conferencing to a Fuze meeting. Upon further investigation, the main website is up, but neither support.skype.com or heartbeat.skype.com seems to be reachable.
Security

Submission + - NSA Considers Its Networks Compromised (net-security.org) 1

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: Debora Plunkett, head of the NSA's Information Assurance Directorate, has confirmed what many security experts suspected to be true: no computer network can be considered completely and utterly impenetrable — not even that of the NSA. "There's no such thing as 'secure' any more," she said to the attendees of a cyber security forum sponsored by the Atlantic and Government Executive media organizations, and confirmed that the NSA works under the assumption that various parts of their systems have already been compromised, and is adjusting its actions accordingly.
Sci-Fi

Dr. Who's Sonic Screwdriver Exists 179

Posted by CmdrTaco from the master-still-not-real-tho dept.
Phoghat writes "Television's favourite Time Lord could not exist without his trusty sonic screwdriver, as it's proved priceless in defeating Daleks and keeping the Tardis in check. Now Doctor Who's famous cure-all gadget could become a reality for DIY-ers across the world, say engineers. Ultrasonic engineers at Bristol University and The Big Bang: UK Young Scientists and Engineers Fair are uncovering how a real life version of the fictional screwdriver — which uses sonic technology to open locks and undo screws — could be created."

Comment Not really... (Score 1) 1

by Kincaidia (#34272824) Attached to: Woah! IE9 is the fastest browser?
It's akin to saying you won the race because you're sitting at the finish line, but you never actually moved from it at the beginning of the race. http://digitizor.com/2010/11/17/internet-explorer-9-caught-cheating-in-sunspider-benchmark/ ..and MS response:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/11/17/html5-and-real-world-site-performance-seventh-ie9-platform-preview-available-for-developers.aspx In short, the sunspider benchmark does an expensive loop that has no use, so IE9 "optimizes" it by not executing it. So it cheats.

Submission + - Link Between Weird Quantum Phenomena

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have uncovered a fundamental link between the two defining properties of quantum physics. Stephanie Wehner of Singapore's Centre for Quantum Technologies and the National University of Singapore and Jonathan Oppenheim of the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge published their work today in the latest edition of the journal Science. The result is being heralded as a dramatic breakthrough in our basic understanding of quantum mechanics and provides new clues to researchers seeking to understand the foundations of quantum theory. The result addresses the question of why quantum behaviour is as weird as it is—but no weirder.
Businesses

Stuxnet Virus Now Biggest Threat To Industry 254

Posted by CmdrTaco from the or-just-don't-click-attachments dept.
digitaldc writes "A malicious computer attack that appears to target Iran's nuclear plants can be modified to wreak havoc on industrial control systems around the world, and represents the most dire cyberthreat known to industry, government officials and experts said Wednesday. They warned that industries are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the so-called Stuxnet worm as they merge networks and computer systems to increase efficiency. The growing danger, said lawmakers, makes it imperative that Congress move on legislation that would expand government controls and set requirements to make systems safer."
Government

Submission + - FDA Sidesteps Cancer Concerns over TSA Body Scanne (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by suraj.sun
suraj.sun writes: The US TSA has recently come under scrutiny for, among other things, its use of X-ray full-body scanners in airports to see through clothes and to detect non-metallic explosives. But are they safe? A group of UC-San Francisco professors recently raised a number of safety concerns regarding these scanners.

Unlike a medical X-ray, the TSA X-ray machines are lower-energy beams that can only penetrate clothing and the topmost layers of skin. But according to the UCSF professors, the low-enegy rays do a "Compton scatter" off tissue layers just under the skin, possibly exposing some vital areas and leaving the tissues at risk of mutation.

When an X-ray Compton scatters, it doesn't shift an electron to a higher energy level; instead, it hits the electron hard enough to dislodge it from its atom. The authors note that this process is "likely breaking bonds," which could cause mutations in cells and raise the risk of cancer.

Dr. Holdren passed the letter on to the FDA for review. But, in the FDA's response, the agency cite five studies in response to the professors' request for independent verification of the safety of these X-rays; however, three are more than a decade old, and none of them deal specifically with the low-energy X-rays the professors are concerned about. The letter also doesn't mention the FDA's own classification of X-rays as carcinogens in 2005.

ARS technica: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps-safety-concerns-over-tsa-body-scanners.ars
Government

Submission + - Americans Support an Internet 'Kill Switch' (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Sixty-one percent of Americans said the President should have the ability to shut down portions of the Internet in the event of a coordinated malicious cyber attack, according to a recent study. The findings suggest the public may support a pending cybersecurity bill that would give the President far-reaching authority over the Internet in the case of an emergency.

The "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010" introduced in June, and being debated in congress, would allow the president to take emergency measures to protect the nation's most critical infrastructure if a cyber vulnerability is being exploited or is about to be exploited...
Science

Submission + - Can Reddit Save Lives? (neontommy.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Reddit, Facebook and YouTube all have separate forums/pages/channels dedicated to suicide prevention. But can social networks actually prevent suicide?

Submission + - Report: Facebook, Skype Getting Really Friendly (crn.com)

Submitted by cgriffin21
cgriffin21 writes: Facebook and Skype are reportedly in talks over a deal that would integrate Skype calling capabilities into Facebook user accounts. Such an agreement would give both Skype and Facebook not only a leg up on rival VoIP and social networking services from the likes of Google, but also the combined force of two Internet-based services beloved by consumers. The talks, which were reported by All Things Digital Wednesday, stems from Facebook's goal of merging IP communications and social networking communities more closely together. Facebook in recent weeks had also been rumored to be developing a mobile device of its own.
Security

Malware Running On Graphics Cards 103

Posted by CmdrTaco from the freeing-up-the-cpu dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Given the great potential of general-purpose computing on graphics processors, it is only natural to expect that malware authors will attempt to tap the powerful features of modern GPUs to their benefit. In this paper, the authors demonstrate the feasibility of implementing a malware that can utilize the GPU (PDF) to evade virus scanning applications. Moreover, the authors discuss the potential of more sophisticated attacks, like accessing the screen pixels periodically to harvest private data displayed on the user screen, or to trick the the user by displaying false, benign-looking information when visiting rogue web sites (e.g., overwriting suspicious URLs with benign-looking ones in the browser's address bar)."
Privacy

Submission + - evercookie: the invulnerable cookie (downloadsquad.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Using eight different techniques and locations, a 'security' guy has developed a cookie that is very, very hard to delete. If just one copy of the cookie remains, the other locations are rebuilt.

My favourite storage location is in 'RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out' — awesome.

Submission + - Pirate Bay ad flaw downs more servers (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou
Stoobalou writes: A flaw in advertising software first exploited to spread malware on popular torrent index The Pirate Bay is now being used to attack other servers worldwide.

One of the first big sites to fall victim to the vulnerability in the open-source advertising server OpenX, the advertising server at The Pirate Bay was cracked and modified to spread malware via adverts on the site's main server.

Although The Pirate Bay has since cleaned the infection, the same security flaw is being used to attack other OpenX servers — in many cases causing sites to become inaccessible as they are blocked by anti-malware lists such as that used by Google.
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 10.04 (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: PC Pro has performed a comprehensive test of Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 10.04. They've tested and scored the two operating systems on a number of criteria, including usability, bundled apps, performance, compatibility and business. The final result is much closer than you might expect. "Ubuntu is clearly an operating system on the rise," PC Pro concludes. "If we repeat this feature in a year’s time, will it have closed the gap? We wouldn’t bet against it."

Submission + - German Military Braces for Peak Oil (nytimes.com)

Submitted by myrdos2
myrdos2 writes: A study by a German military think tank leaked to the Internet warns of the potential for a dire global economic crisis in as little as 15 years as a result of a peak and an irreversible decline in world oil supplies. The study states that there is "some probability that peak oil will occur around the year 2010 and that the impact on security is expected to be felt 15 to 30 years later. ... In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse". The report closely matches one from the US military earlier this year, which stated that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

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