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Security

Copiale Cipher Cracked after 250 years->

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes "Centuries after it was devised, the 105 page manuscript containing all in all around 75 000 characters, the Copiale Cipher finally has been broken.

The mysterious cryptogram, bound in gold and green brocade paper, reveals the rituals and political leanings of an 18th-century secret society in Germany. The manuscript seems straight out of fiction: a strange, handwritten message in abstract symbols and Roman letters meticulously covering 105 yellowing pages hidden in the depths of an academic archive."
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Government

Gov't Security Officials Call For Secure OS Develo->

Submitted by Gunkerty Jeb
Gunkerty Jeb writes "-One of the keys to addressing the widespread security threats facing both private and government networks is to develop more secure operating systems from the ground up and not rely on trying to secure existing ones, top CIA and Pentagon information assurance officials said.

The federal government, especially military and intelligence agencies, is facing a broad spectrum of threats from many different angles, from lower level attackers poking at their Web sites to nation-state actors and politically motivated groups looking to compromise key networks and exfiltrate sensitive data. Defending against this range of threats is becoming more difficult and complex all the time, and the technologies and approaches that are in use right now are not getting the job done to a large degree.

Speaking on a panel on pressing technological needs at the SINET Innovation Showcase here Wednesday, security officials from the CIA and the Department of Defense said that a return to the efforts to build a secure, trusted operating system would be a huge step in the right direction."
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Technology

Boeing uses accelerometers in 787 Dreamliner->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Boeing has come up with a novel solution to limit the effects of turbulence in the new 787, otherwise known as the Dreamliner. In the nose of the plane are accelerometers that monitor for a sudden drop. When one is encountered, they tell the plane flaps to adjust quickly (nanoseconds) and this drastically reduces the amount the plane drops overall. The example given is a typical plane would drop 9 feet, where as the 787 would only drop 3 feet given the same situation."
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Earth

Flights in Europe cancelled due to Icelandic erupt->

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes "All flights in and out of the UK and several other European countries have been suspended as ash from a volcanic eruption in Iceland moves south.

Up to 4,000 flights are being cancelled with airspace closed in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark among others. Thousands of travelers have been stranded at some of the world's busiest airports, including London's Heathrow. It's not clear how long flights will be grounded, but the Associated Press reports that Irish authorities, for example, estimated the ban on travel through their airways would last at least eight hours. Jalopnik.com examines "how volcanic ash can kill an airplane." It says that if a passenger jet flies through air saturated with volcanic ash, "glassy particles ... inhaled by the engines instantly melt. In the course of exhaust, the glassy materials are rapidly cooled down in the turbine chamber, stick on the turbine vanes, and disturb the flow of high-pressure combustion gases. This disorder of the flow may stop the entire engine in serious cases.""
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Space

Follow the Apollo Moon landing, 40 years later

Submitted by
johkir
johkir writes "The folks over at Nature are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo lunar landing by tweeting it. Nature News twitters the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened — 40 years on. Followers can read about technical milestones, political challenges, and related events in the space race starting today, just over a month before the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. The Tweets, located at http://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40, will follow Apollo 11's crew to the moon and back, and taper off during the weeks following the mission to give followers the context surrounding the moon mission and its fallout for science and the wider world. Can we get excited about space missions again? And in this world of instant information, compared to blips of news every few days to hours, such as we had with newspapers and TV of the day, be able to hold our interest?"
Wireless (Apple)

Apple smacked: offers $100 refund to iPhone users->

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes "Apple plans $100 credit for existing iPhone buyers peeved over the company's announcement yesterday it would slash $200 from the price of the high-end iPhone only 10 weeks after its over-ballyhooed introduction. Apple's Chief Executive Steve Jobs in a letter posted on Apple's Web site this afternoon said that the company plans to give a $100 credit to existing iPhone customers. "We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers," Jobs said. "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple." http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/19133"
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Software

Open Source License Manager

Submitted by
FreeBSD evangelist
FreeBSD evangelist writes "I work for a company that provides software to the health care industry. We have agreements with third party service agencies wherein we build and support an interface to our products for them to use, for a percentage of the revenue they receive.

We find that some of them report "no use" during our audits. We believe that to be untrue, but need some evidence of such usage, and preferably a way to enforce the license terms.

Do you know of a license management package (preferably open source) that could "phone home" each time the interface were invoked?"

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