46495701
submission
judgecorp writes
"BT, which spun off its original mobile network, O2 in 2002, is set to relaunch as a mobile operator, using spectrum it acquired in the 4G auction, according to the company's chief executive Ian Livingston. BT bought some spectrum in the 2.6GHz band for £186.5 million, and has invited tenders from mobile operators for a partnership to use that spectrum. BT has a limited partnership with Vodafone for business customers, but is widely expected to favour its old division O2 — not least because O2 didn't do so well in the 4G auction, only securing some 800MHz spectrum."
46375589
submission
judgecorp writes
"The International Space Station (ISS) has run a variety of operating system on its laptops and other systems. The Linux Foundation has moved all the Windows machines onto Debian. The ISS wanted a reliable OS it could patch and adapt, and had to replace its XP systems. Linux also powers Robonaut 2, the humanoid robot which was sent to the ISS in 2011."Link to Original Source
46345961
submission
judgecorp writes
"Having created open source designs for more efficient data centre servers and power supplies, the Open Compute project (launched by Facebook in 2011, is now moving on to create shared designs for energy efficient switches. This is the first hardware to be designed from scratch by the group — and it's not clear how established network hardware vendors will like the idea"Link to Original Source
46340121
submission
judgecorp writes
"The city of San Francisco has abandoned a law proposed in 2010 which would have required mobile phones to be labelled with their radiation level. Mobile phone industry body the CTIA fought the bill in court, arguing that there is not enough evidence of harm. The city is not convinced phones are safe — it says its decision to abandon the law is simply based on the legal costs"Link to Original Source
46267675
submission
judgecorp writes
"BT Retail has started testing Carrier Grade NAT (CGNAT) with its customer. CGNAT is a controversial practice, in which IP addresses are shared between customers, limiting what customers can do on the open Internet. Although CGNAT goes against the Internet's original end-to-end principles, ISPs say they are forced to use it because IPv4 addresses are running out, and IPv6 is not widely implemented. BT's subsidiary PlusNet has already carried out CGNAT trials, and now BT is trying it on "Option 1" customers who pay for low Internet usage."Link to Original Source
46163661
submission
judgecorp writes
"Dutch politicians are considering a bill which would give the Netherlands' police the right to hack back against suspected criminials. The proposed law would allow Holland's law enforcement agencies to penetrate and attack systems operated by criminals abroad, as well as on Dutch soil. Critics warn that this precedent would be picked up by other governments, leading to a dangerous escalation of police powers."Link to Original Source
46157175
submission
judgecorp writes
"Lenovo and IBM has reportedly abandoned talks aimed at selling Big Blue's server business to the Chinese firm. While Lenovo's takeover of IBM's PC business has been (almost) universally acclaimed, the pair apparently could not agree on a deal for IBM's x86 commodity server busienss, with Lenovo's reported offer price of $2.5 billion way too low for IBM's taste."Link to Original Source
46156929
submission
judgecorp writes
"A British defence firm, QinetiQ, has been repeatedly breached by Chinese hackers for more than three years, it has emerged. The attack took intellectual property and business secrets of course, but this time experts are saying national security has been compromised."Link to Original Source
46001853
submission
judgecorp writes
"The Syrian Electronic Army has hijacked various Twitter accounts belonging to the Guardian newspaper. Guardian journalists report that the pro-Assad hacking group used a campaign of spear phishing to seize various of its feeds, following success hacking other media outlets including CBS."
46002215
submission
judgecorp writes
"Former Opera lead designer Trond Werner Hansen, is being sued by his former employer for 20 million Norwegian krone (about $3.4 million). Opera claims he gave their secrets to Mozilla — but Hansen says he simply shared a private project."Link to Original Source
45841221
submission
judgecorp writes
"Academics have created a keyboard designed for typing with your thumbs on a touchscreen that could increase the speed people input text to tablets. The team, from the US, Germany and Scotland use optimisation techniques to minimise thumb movements, putting the vowels by the right thumb so users are more likely to use alternate thumbs. Both thumbs get a space key too, in the middle of their keys."Link to Original Source
45832381
submission
judgecorp writes
"The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has effectively "killed" the Communications Data Bill which would have required service providers to share personal communications data with the police. Clegg has withdrawn the support of the Liberal Democrat Party (part of the Coalition in power in the UK) from the so-called "Snooper's Charter". The announcement is timed to block the measure from the Queen's Speech on 8 May, which introduces the next programme of planned legislation."Link to Original Source
45810101
submission
judgecorp writes
"The British Ministry of Defence says the UK should invest 20 percent of its turnover (maybe £100 billion) protecting the nation's data — because a cyber attack on military targets could bring down the British Government. This could all be hype: te MoD's head of information security suggested that an online attack might cause a military operation to fail, which could then bring about vote of no confidence in the government. The call for budget will fall on deaf ears in a recession — and the MoD may well be basing its ideas on a hyped idea of the dangers."Link to Original Source
45796367
submission
judgecorp writes
"A brazen botnet herder is selling services on Facebook, The Casper Spy Botnet is a Zeus botnet, with a web login, and a Facebook page marketing its abilities. RSA has alerted Facebook to the page, and is working to find out more — but at the time of writing, is still there."Link to Original Source
45796263
submission
judgecorp writes
"The HTC One contains a microphone component stolen from Nokia, a Dutch court has found. The HTC One, has been well received, but HTC is having trouble delivering it, apparently because it is no longer seen as a tier One supplier by component makers. This finding won't help any (and won't help much in Nokia's own struggles, either)"Link to Original Source