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Privacy

Calif. Court Orders Preservation of Disputed NSA Phone Records

Posted by timothy
from the until-they're-good-and-ripe dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from an report at PC World: "A court in California has prohibited the destruction of phone records collected by the government until further orders, raising a potential conflict with an order last week by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, D.C. Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Monday the retention of the call details in two lawsuits that have challenged the U.S. National Security Agency's program for the collection of telephone metadata. A number of lawsuits challenging the NSA program have been filed by privacy and other groups ... On Friday, Reggie B. Walton, presiding judge of the FISC, denied a motion from the Department of Justice that the current five-year limit for holding phone metadata should be extended indefinitely as it could be required as evidence in the civil lawsuits challenging the program."
Security

Large DDoS Attack Brings WordPress Pingback Abuse Back Into Spotlight 30

Posted by timothy
from the pressure-cooker dept.
angry tapir writes "Attackers have abused the WordPress pingback feature, which allows sites to cross-reference blog posts, to launch a large-scale, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, according to researchers from Web security firm Sucuri. The attack involved over 162,000 legitimate WordPress websites being forced to send hundreds of requests per second to a popular WordPress site, preventing access to it for many hours. The attack exploited an issue with the XML-RPC (XML remote procedure call) implementation in WordPress that's used for features like pingback, trackback, remote access from mobile devices and others, and brought back into the spotlight the denial-of-service risks associated with this functionality that have been known since 2007."

+ - Large DDoS attack brings WordPress pingback abuse back into spotlight->

Submitted by angry tapir
angry tapir writes "Attackers have abused the WordPress pingback feature, which allows sites to cross-reference blog posts, to launch a large-scale, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, according to researchers from Web security firm Sucuri. The attack involved over 162,000 legitimate WordPress websites being forced to send hundreds of requests per second to a popular WordPress site, preventing access to it for many hours. The attack exploited an issue with the XML-RPC (XML remote procedure call) implementation in WordPress that's used for features like pingback, trackback, remote access from mobile devices and others, and brought back into the spotlight the denial-of-service risks associated with this functionality that have been known since 2007."
Link to Original Source

+ - Turing's Theory Of Chemical Morphogenesis Validated 60 Years After His Death->

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes "Phys.org reports, "Alan Turing's accomplishments in computer science are well known, but lesser known is his impact on biology and chemistry. In his only paper on biology (abstract), Turing proposed a theory of morphogenesis, or how identical copies of a single cell differentiate, for example, into an organism with arms and legs, a head and tail. Now, 60 years after Turing's death, researchers from Brandeis University and the University of Pittsburgh have provided the first experimental evidence that validates Turing's theory in cell-like structures. The team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, March 10.""
Link to Original Source
GUI

Google To Replace GTK+ With Its Own Aura In Chrome 99

Posted by timothy
from the your-aura-is-always-with-you dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google's Chromium team is working on an alternative of Gtk+ for the browser, called Aura. Elliot Glaysher, a Google developer explains, 'We aim to launch the Aura graphics stack on Linux in M35. Aura is a cross-platform graphics system, and the Aura frontend will replace the current GTK+ frontend.' The Free Software community is debating: is Google trying to do Canonical? Couldn't Google just switch to Qt, which is becoming an industry standard?"

+ - Google to replace GTK+ with its own Aura in Chrome-> 1

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes "Google‘s Chromium team is working on an alternative of Gtk+ for the browser called Aura. Elliot Glaysher, a Google developer explains, “We aim to launch the Aura graphics stack on Linux in M35. Aura is a cross-platform graphics system, and the Aura frontend will replace the current GTK+ frontend.” Free Software community is debating is Google trying to do Canonical? Couldn't Google just switch to Qt which is becoming an industry standard?"
Link to Original Source

+ - California Court Orders NSA Records Retained In Potential Conflict w/ FISA Court-> 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "PC World reports, "A court in California has prohibited the destruction of phone records collected by the government until further orders, raising a potential conflict with an order last week by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, D.C. Judge Jeffrey S. White of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Monday the retention of the call details in two lawsuits that have challenged the U.S. National Security Agency’s program for the collection of telephone metadata. A number of lawsuits challenging the NSA program have been filed by privacy and other groups ... On Friday, Reggie B. Walton, presiding judge of the FISC, denied a motion from the Department of Justice that the current five-year limit for holding phone metadata should be extended indefinitely as it could be required as evidence in the civil lawsuits challenging the program.""
Link to Original Source

+ - NVIDIA Unveils Lineup of GeForce 800M Series Mobile GPUs, Many With Maxwell->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "The power efficiency of NVIDA's Maxwell architecture make it ideal for mobile applications, so today's announcement by NVIDIA of a new top-to-bottom line-up of mobile GPUs—most of them featuring the Maxwell architecture—should come as no surprise. Though a couple of Kepler and even Fermi-based GPUs still exist in NVIDIA's new line-up, the heart of the product stack leverages Maxwell. The entry-level parts in the GeForce 800M series consist of the GeForce GT 820M, 830M, and 840M. The 820M is a Fermi-based GPU, but the 830M and 840M are new chips that leverage Maxwell. The meat of the GeForce GTX 800M series consist of Kepler-based GPUs, though Maxwell is employed in the more mainstream parts. NVIDIA is claiming the GeForce GTX 880M will be fastest mobile GPU available, but the entire GTX line-up will offer significantly higher performance then any integrated graphics solution. The GeForce GTX 860M and 850M are essentially identical to the desktop GeForce GTX 750 Ti, save for different frequencies and memory configurations. There are a number of notebooks featuring NVIDIA's GeForce 800M series GPUs coming down the pipeline from companies like Alienware, Asus, Gigabyte, Lenovo, MSI and Razer, though others are sure the follow suit. Some of the machines will be available immediately."
Link to Original Source
Government

CIA Accused: Sen. Feinstein Sees Torture Probe Meddling 112

Posted by timothy
from the taking-the-heat-off-that-other-agency dept.
SternisheFan writes with this news from the Washington Post: "In an extraordinary public accusation, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee declared on Tuesday that the CIA interfered with and then tried to intimidate a congressional investigation into the agency's possible use of torture in terror probes during the Bush administration. The CIA clandestinely removed documents and searched a computer network set up for lawmakers, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a long and biting speech on the Senate floor. In an escalating dispute with an agency she has long supported, she said the CIA may well have violated criminal laws and the U.S. Constitution."

+ - CIA accused: Senator sees torture probe meddling->

Submitted by SternisheFan
SternisheFan writes "In an extraordinary public accusation, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee declared on Tuesday that the CIA interfered with and then tried to intimidate a congressional investigation into the agency’s possible use of torture in terror probes during the Bush administration.

The CIA clandestinely removed documents and searched a computer network set up for lawmakers, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein in a long and biting speech on the Senate floor. In an escalating dispute with an agency she has long supported, she said the CIA may well have violated criminal laws and the U.S. Constitution."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:A hypothetical monopoly on smartphones (Score 2) 240

by tepples (#46460243) Attached to: Apple Demands $40 Per Samsung Phone For 5 Software Patents
Have the patents been successfully designed around, or are other Android phones just made by smaller companies that Apple plans to pursue after it has prevailed over Samsung? If the common-practice design around for each of these patents is documented, I'd like to see it.

Comment: The family plan for the whole family (Score 1) 61

I have a tablet. I cannot use it simultaneously with my phone (in the sense that I'm actively doing something that consumes data with one device).

The tablet's operating system can download updated versions of applications while you are using your phone. Or another member of your family can be using your tablet while you are using your phone.

I have a car. I cannot use it simultaneously with my laptop, tablet, and phone.

You are using a map application on the car's infotainment system, which scrolls after passing through each intersection. Your wife is on the phone with someone at the destination. Your son is in the back seat doing something with the laptop. Your daughter is in the other back seat doing something with the tablet.

It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. -- J. C. R. Licklider

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