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Privacy

Security Checkpoints Predict What You Will Do 369

Posted by timothy from the goes-the-theory dept.
An anonymous reader writes "New security check points in 2020 will look just like something out of the futuristic movie, The Minority Report. The idea of the new checkpoints will allow high traffic to pass through just as you were walking at a normal pace. No more waving a wand to get through checkpoints — the new checkpoint can detect if you have plans to set off a bomb before you even enter the building."
Bug

Microsoft Zunes Committing Mass Suicide 785

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-bet-a-bricked-zune-is-still-warm dept.
jddeluxe writes "There are multiple reports springing up all over the internet of a mass suicide of Microsoft 30GB Zune players globally. Check Zune forums, Gizmodo, or other such sites; the reports are spreading rapidly, except apparently to the Microsoft official Zune site."

NASA Releases Columbia Crew Survival Report 223

Posted by timothy from the sacred-cow dept.
Migraineman writes "NASA has released a 400-page Columbia Crew Survival Investigation Report [16MB PDF.] If you're interested in a detailed examination and timeline of the events leading to the destruction of Columbia, this is well worth the time. The report includes a number of recommendations to increase survivability of future missions." Reader bezking points out CNN's story on the report, which says that problems with the astronauts' restraint systems were the ultimate cause of death for the seven astronauts on board.
Graphics

AMD Releases Open-Source R600/700 3D Code 307

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the playing-nice-with-others dept.
Michael writes "AMD has just released code that will allow for open-source 3D acceleration on their ATI R600 and R700 graphics cards, including all of their newest Radeon HD 4xxx products. This code consists of a demo program that feeds the commands to the hardware, updates to their RadeonHD driver, and a Direct Rendering Manager update. With this code comes working 2D EXA acceleration support for these newer ATI graphics processors as well as basic X-Video support. AMD will be releasing sanitized documentation for these new ATI GPUs in the coming weeks. Phoronix has an article detailing what's all encompassed by today's code drop as well as the activities that led to this open-source code coming about for release."
Security

Quicken 2007 For Mac Lacks EV Cert Support 108

Posted by kdawson from the untrusting-of-the-trustworthy dept.
adamengst writes "If your bank uses the Extended Validation certificates that require a higher level of identity checking on the certificate authority's part (as at least one Seattle bank does), you may not be able to download transactions using the Mac version of Quicken. Quicken doesn't gracefully ignore extra information in EV certificates as older Web browsers do, but instead throws an error and refuses to download transactions. Intuit says they're working on a fix — but users may have to wait 'a couple of months,' and even then the fix may not be applied to versions before Quicken 2007."
Censorship

Court Nixes National Security Letter Gag Provision 128

Posted by kdawson from the speak-we-will dept.
2phar sends news that on Monday a federal appeals court ruled unconstitutional the gag provision of the Patriot Act's National Security Letters. Until the ruling, recipients of NSLs were legally forbidden from speaking out. "The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients. The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders — provisions that required the courts to treat the government's claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch." Update: 12/16 22:26 GMT by KD : Julian Sanchez, Washington Editor for Ars Technica, sent this cautionary note: "Both the item on yesterday's National Security Letter ruling and the RawStory article to which it links are somewhat misleading. It remains the case that ISPs served with an NSL are forbidden from speaking out; the difference is that under the ruling it will be somewhat easier for the ISPs to challenge that gag order, and the government will have to do a little bit more to persuade a court to maintain the gag when it is challenged. But despite what the ACLU's press releases imply, this is really not a 'victory' for them, or at least only a very minor one. Relative to the decision the government was appealing, it would make at least as much sense to call it a victory for the government. The lower court had struck down the NSL provisions of the PATRIOT Act entirely. This ruling left both the NSL statute and the gag order in place, but made oversight slightly stricter. If you look back at the hearings from this summer, you'll see that most of the new ruling involves the court making all the minor adjustments that the government had urged them to make, and which the ACLU had urged them to reject as inadequate."
Privacy

UK Cops Want "Breathalyzers" For PCs 545

Posted by timothy from the audacity-of-power dept.
An anonymous reader writes "One of the UK's top cyber cops, detective superintendent Charlie McMurdie, says the top brass want to develop the equivalent of a breathalyzer for computers, a simple tool that could be plugged into a machine during a raid and retrieve evidence of illegal activity. McMurdie said the device was needed because of a record number of PCs were being seized by police and because the majority of cops don't have the skills to forensically analyse a computer."
The Internet

FTC Kills Scareware Scam That Duped Over 1M Users 329

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-let-it-happen-to-you dept.
coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today got a court to at least temporarily halt a massive 'scareware' scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and pornography on consumers' computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress, the FTC stated."

Comment Re:Network map? (Score 4, Informative) 125

by fv (#26039121) Attached to: Nmap Network Scanning

Have they included a network mapping function yet? They announced it as a GSoC project last year I think, did they get around to hack some graphical map output?

Good question--and yes, we have! Full details on this feature, including screen shots, are provided in Section 12.5, "Surfing the Network Topology" starting on page 317. That section is also available free online. The code has been integrated into the latest version (4.76) of Nmap, available here.

-Fyodor
Insecure.Org

Comment Re: Matrix Reloaded (Score 4, Informative) 125

by fv (#26038793) Attached to: Nmap Network Scanning
Yeah, Nmap has actually been in a surprising number of major movies. I created the Nmap in the Movies page to document them with screen shots. The Matrix Reloaded was the most exciting and really started the trend. I guess the rest of Hollywood just followed along and decided that the command shell was the new way to portray hacking, rather than ridiculous 3D animated eye-candy scenes from the era of Hackers and Swordfish. So we got Nmap in Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4, etc.

I wanted to include a screen shot of Trinity hacking the Matrix with Nmap for this book, but a then-potential publisher said I needed permission from Time Warner first. It took many unanswered requests, but Time Warner finally replied with basically "hell no, you IP pirate!" Of course they phrased it politely like "we would love to allow that, but our policies prohibit us from granting that permission". Funny, they didn't mind using Nmap in their movie without permission, credit, notification, etc. Then they say I can't even include a screen shot of them using Nmap?

So I dumped the potential publisher and added the screen shots anyway (page 8) :).

-Fyodor
Insecure.Org
Image

Nmap Network Scanning Screenshot-sm 125

Posted by samzenpus from the read-all-about-it dept.
brothke writes "The 1962 song Wipe Out, with its energetic drum solo started, was the impetus for many people to take up playing the drums. Similarly, Nmap, the legendary network scanner, likely interested many in the art of hacking, and for some, started a career for security professionals and hackers. Nmap and its creator Fyodor need no introduction to anyone on Slashdot. With that, Nmap Network Scanning: The Official Nmap Project Guide to Network Discovery and Security Scanning, is a most useful guide to anyone interested in fully utilizing Nmap." Read on for the rest of Ben's review.
Software

Amazon Fights Piracy Tool, Creators Call It a Parody 268

Posted by Soulskill from the it-was-uh-uh-art-yeah-that's-the-ticket dept.
jamie points out an interesting story which started a few days ago, when a pair of students from the Netherlands released a Firefox add-on which integrated links to the Pirate Bay on Amazon product pages. Customers who had the add-on would see a large "Download 4 Free" button next to items which were also available on the Pirate Bay. The add-on quickly drew notice, and the creators were hit with a take-down notice and threats of litigation from Amazon. Now, the students have removed the add-on, and they are claiming an unusual defense: "'Pirates of the Amazon' was an artistic parody, part of our media research and education at the Media Design M.A. course at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access and currently debated issues in media culture. We were surprised by the attentions and the strong reactions this project received. Ultimately, the value of the project lies in these reactions. It is a ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture."
Security

The Backstory of the Kaminsky Bug 122

Posted by kdawson from the no-good-deed-goes-unpunished dept.
Ant recommends a Wired piece on the background story of the Kaminsky DNS bug and its (temporary) resolution, decreasing the odds of a successful breach from 1 in 2^16 to 1 in 2^32. We've discussed this uber-hole a number of times. Wired follows the story arc from before Kaminsky's discovery of the bug to his public presentation of it in Las Vegas.
The Courts

Groklaw Summarizes the Lori Drew Verdict 457

Posted by kdawson from the unpredictable-and-retroactve dept.
Bootsy Collins writes "Last Wednesday, the Lori Drew 'cyberbullying' case ended in three misdemeanor convictions under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a 1986 US Federal law intended to address illegally accessing computer systems. The interpretation of the act by the Court to cover violations of website terms of service, a circumstance obviously not considered in the law's formulation and passage, may have profound effects on the intersection of the Internet and US law. Referring to an amicus curiae brief filed by online rights organizations and law professors, PJ at Groklaw breaks down the implications of the decision to support her assertion that 'unless this case is overturned, it is time to get off the Internet completely, because it will have become too risky to use a computer.'"

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