Dennis Ritchie dies-> 1
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TazMainiac
Google releases new hash functions->
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cohensh
cohensh writes "Google released two new non-cryptographic hash functions, CityHash64 and CityHash128, saying they are optimized for computers with "64-bit registers, instruction-level parallelism, and fast unaligned memory accesses." Additionally they say "the key advantage of our approach is that most steps contain at least two independent mathematical operations." Google claims speed increases of at least 30% going up to a factor of two."
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Link to Original Source
50th Anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's Flight->
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PyroMosh
PyroMosh writes "This Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the historic flight of Yuri Gagarin — Vostok 1. Although Colonel Gagarin died in a jet training accident in 1968, his legacy of ushering mankind into a new era lives on.
Yuri's Night celebrations are taking place all over the world tonight. Let's raise a vodka toast to the man who 50 years ago today became the first human in space!"
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Yuri's Night celebrations are taking place all over the world tonight. Let's raise a vodka toast to the man who 50 years ago today became the first human in space!"
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NASA wants revolutionary radiation shielding tech.->
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coondoggie
coondoggie writes "Long term exposure to radiation is one of the biggest challenges in long-duration human spaceflights and NASA is now looking for what it called revolutionary technology that would help protect astronauts from the deadly matter."
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Link to Original Source
RSA Hackers May Have Wanted Server Source Code ->
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Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes "The most important issues the RSA attack brings to the surface concern exactly what the attackers may have been after and what the successful compromise means for the integrity of the tens of millions of SecurID tokens deployed around the world.
As troublesome as these scenarios are for SecurID users, perhaps the more likely target of the attack on RSA is the source code for the software that's used to administer and run the token deployments at customer site.
"There's a lot of code needed for maintaining databases, adding and deleting users, making backups, synchronizing master and secondary copies of databases, and more. An attacker who could penetrate these administrative systems doesn't have to worry about key generation or cryptanalysis; they could simply steal existing keys or insert new ones of their own," Steve Bellovin said."
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As troublesome as these scenarios are for SecurID users, perhaps the more likely target of the attack on RSA is the source code for the software that's used to administer and run the token deployments at customer site.
"There's a lot of code needed for maintaining databases, adding and deleting users, making backups, synchronizing master and secondary copies of databases, and more. An attacker who could penetrate these administrative systems doesn't have to worry about key generation or cryptanalysis; they could simply steal existing keys or insert new ones of their own," Steve Bellovin said."
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Google Voice teams up with Sprint->
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bhagwad
bhagwad writes "Google announced today that it was teaming up with Sprint which will allow users to seamlessly use their Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number and vice versa. This is quite a big step for Sprint and shows a lot of guts since carriers have always been wary of giving up control. Though GV allowed users to port their phone numbers some time ago, this tie up makes it easy and could finally propel GV into the public's mass consciousness."
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Experts Weigh in on the RSA SecurID Breach->
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wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes "After notifying customers on Thursday that it had been breached after hackers mounted a highly sophisticated cyber attack that put its SecurID product at risk, RSA has yet to expand on the details and potential impact of the attack, leaving customers concerned and with many questions unanswered.
In the meantime, reactions are pouring in from customers and the information security community in general, some saying to prepare for the worst, and some brushing it off as not-so-serious incident.
One expert commented that “If ‘the keys to the kingdom’—the public serial number to secret key mapping database—had NOT been compromised, there would be zero danger to users of RSA’s SecurIDs." At the same time another expert says doesn’t believe the incident is a game changer. “It's serious news that RSA's SecurID solution has been the target of an advanced persistent threat. But It's not a game-changer. Anybody who says it is, is an alarmist.”
So what are others saying and doing in the meantime while they wait for answers from RSA on the SecurID system being attacked?"
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In the meantime, reactions are pouring in from customers and the information security community in general, some saying to prepare for the worst, and some brushing it off as not-so-serious incident.
One expert commented that “If ‘the keys to the kingdom’—the public serial number to secret key mapping database—had NOT been compromised, there would be zero danger to users of RSA’s SecurIDs." At the same time another expert says doesn’t believe the incident is a game changer. “It's serious news that RSA's SecurID solution has been the target of an advanced persistent threat. But It's not a game-changer. Anybody who says it is, is an alarmist.”
So what are others saying and doing in the meantime while they wait for answers from RSA on the SecurID system being attacked?"
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Larry Page to replace Eric Schmidt as Google CEO-> 1
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D H NG
D H NG writes "While announcing its Q4 financial results, Google had also announced some changes in leadership. Starting April 4, Google co-founder Larry Page will replace Eric Schmidt as CEO. Sergey Brin will retain the title Co-Founder and Eric Schmidt becomes the Executive Chairman and retains his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors."
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UN Wants to Control the Internet-> 2
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Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes "News has surfaced in the wake of the Wikileaks story that the United Nations is mulling total inter-government control of the internet. The initiative was spearheaded by Brazil and supported by other countries including India, China, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Meanwhile, Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid commented that while the Cablegate story may be bad, attempting to destroy Wikileaks would only make matters worse for various governments around the world given what happened when the music industry shut down Napster ten years ago."
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Non-Profit Data Encryption
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keysersoze99
keysersoze99 writes "I'm a new program manager for a small non-profit corporation on the East coast. I'm looking to increase the level of security that our firm utilizes in regards to safe-guarding sensitive information like SSNs that we store on company computers. I'm not terribly familiar with Full-Drive encryption software, but that course of action seems to be the common wisdom as to what we need. I know programs like BitLocker are only available on Windows 7 Ultimate (We're on 7 Professional), and we'd like to accomplish this goal as cheaply as possible. What should I do?"