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Linux

Submission + - Nmap 6 Released! (nmap.org)

Submitted by
Chankey Pathak
Chankey Pathak writes: "The Nmap Project is pleased to announce the immediate, free availability of the Nmap Security Scanner version 6.00 from http://nmap.org/. It is the product of almost three years of work, 3,924 code commits, and more than a dozen point releases since the big Nmap 5 release in July 2009. Nmap 6 includes a more powerful Nmap Scripting Engine, 289 new scripts, better web scanning, full IPv6 support, the Nping packet prober, faster scans, and much more!"
Security

Submission + - Researchers Can Generate RSA SecurID Random Numbers Flawlessly (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "A researcher has found and published a way to tune into a RSA SecurID Token. Once a few easy steps are followed anyone can generate the exact numbers shown on the token. The method relies on finding the seed that is used to generate the numbers seemingly randomly, but once known can be used to generate the exact numbers displayed on the targetted Token. The technique, described on Thursday by a senior security analyst at a firm called SensePost, has important implications for the safekeeping of the tokens. An estimated 40 million people use these to access confidential data belonging to government agencies, military contractors, and corporations. Scrutiny of the widely used two-factor authentication system has grown since last year, when RSA revealed that intruders on its networks stole sensitive SecurID information that could be used to reduce its security. Defense contractor Lockheed Martin later confirmed that a separate attack on its systems was aided by the theft of the RSA data."
Advertising

Submission + - EU offers Google Chance to Settle Prior to Anti-Trust Enquiry (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "The EU has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in advertising to benefit its own advertising services at the expense of competitors. In a twist however, rather than initiating formal proceedings, the EU has given Google a chance to settle the whole matter without much fuss. They outlined four changes that Google can make that will put it firmly back in the good graces of the EU. Google has been given "a matter of weeks" to propose remedies to the four issues — which all tie in with how search results are displayed, their format and their portability to other platforms. This matter has come before the EU based on complaints by a few small companies and Microsoft."
Verizon

Submission + - Judge orders Verizon subscriber identities sealed (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In one of the mass "John Doe" cases based on single BitTorrent downloads of films, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, a pro se litigant made a motion to quash the subpoena. The Court granted a stay of the subpoena, pending its decision on the motion to quash. Unfortunately for John Doe, Verizon had turned over its subscribers' identities 5 days BEFORE the response was due, thus possibly mooting both the stay and the motion to quash. Fortunately for John Doe, the Judge wasn't too happy about this, ordered the information sealed, directed plaintiff's lawyers to destroy any copies, and ruled that they can't use the information unless and until the Court denies the motion to quash."
Security

Submission + - Nmap 6.0 Released (nmap.org)

Submitted by Gerald
Gerald writes: After 3 years of work Fyodor and company have released version 6.00 of the Nmap Security Scanner! The new release includes a more powerful Nmap Scripting Engine, 289 new scripts, better web scanning, full IPv6 support, the Nping packet prober, faster scans, and much more! We recommend that all current users upgrade. More info in the release notes.
Perl

Submission + - Perl 5.16.0 Released (h-online.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Perl 5.16.0 is now available with plenty of improvements all around. You can view a summary at http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Perl-5-16-0-now-available-1580138.html and all the change details at http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/perl-5.16.0/pod/perldelta.pod. With Perl on an annual release schedule, and projects like Mojolicious, Dancer, perlbrew, Plack, and Moose continuing to gain in popularity, are we in the middle of a Perl renaissance?

Submission + - Supercomputer in Iceland Crunches Big Data Using Renewable Power (intel.com)

Submitted by kenekaplan
kenekaplan writes: The supercomputer at the Thor Data Center is based on a cluster of 288 HP ProLiant BL280c servers. The Intel Xeon Processor L5530-powered cluster is comprised of 3,456 compute cores with 71.7 terabytes of usable storage, and pumps out 35 teraflops of performance.

While building and shipping the machine's parts to Icelandic-produced CO2, the machine — and in fact all of Iceland — is powered 24/7/365 by a mix of nothing but renewable hydro and geothermal power. To light up Iceland's electrical grid, no fossil fuels puff, smoke or burn.
Science

Submission + - Sign the White House petition for open access to research (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by dstates
dstates writes: You paid for it, you should be able to read the results of publicly funded research. The National Institutes of Health have had a very successful open access mandate requiring that the results of federally funded biomedical research be published in open access journals. Now there is a White House petition to broaden this mandate. This is a jobs issue. Startups and midsize business need access to federally funded technology research. It is a health care issue, patients and community health providers need access, not a few scientists in well funded research institutes, and even wealthy institutions like Harvard are finding the prices of proprietary journals unsustainable.
Cloud

Submission + - The Cloud's Unspoken Hurdle (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by n7ytd
n7ytd writes: The Register has a piece today about overcoming one of the biggest challenges to migrating to cloud-based storage: how to get all that data onto the service provider's disks. With all of the enterprisey interweb solutions available, the oldest answer is still the right one: ship them your disks.
Remember: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneakernet
Piracy

Submission + - 'Copyright cop' system for U.S. ISPs delayed (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: The new “six strikes” anti-piracy policy soon to be implemented by a number of major Internet service providers in the United States will reportedly stumble out of the gate. The policy, which is set to be adopted by Comcast, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable and other ISPs, will see action taken against users caught downloading pirated files in six steps, ultimately resulting in bandwidth throttling or even service suspensions. The system responsible for managing the new policy may not be ready on schedule, however, and the targeted launch date of July 12th may slip back as a result...
Music

Submission + - Court won't reduce student's music download fine (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
quantr
quantr writes: "A jury in 2009 ordered Joel Tenenbaum, of Providence, R.I., to pay. A federal judge called the penalty constitutionally excessive, but the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it at the request of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Tenenbaum's attorney, Harvard law professor Charles Nesson, said he's disappointed the high court won't hear the case. But he said the 1st Circuit instructed a judge to consider reducing the award without deciding any constitutional challenge.
Nesson said Tenenbaum is just entering the job market and can't pay the penalty.""
Government

Submission + - Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case on Surveillance (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to address one of the biggest controversies surrounding the response to the Sept. 11 attacks – the government’s aggressive use of electronic surveillance. The justices will decide whether a challenge to a 2008 federal law that broadened the government’s power to monitor international communications may proceed.

The challenge was brought by lawyers, journalists and human rights groups who say the law allows the government to intercept their international telephone calls and e-mails. Some of the plaintiffs say they now meet clients or sources only in person.

The government contends that the plaintiffs have not suffered an injury direct enough to give them standing to sue. Last year, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Unites States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, ruled for the plaintiffs on that threshold question.

Judge Gerard E. Lynch, writing for the court, said the plaintiffs had shown that they had a reasonable fear that their sensitive communications would be monitored and had taken “costly measures to avoid being monitored.” That was enough, he wrote, to establish standing to challenge the law as a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The panel did not rule on the constitutionality of the law.

The full Second Circuit declined to rehear the ruling by a 6-to-6 vote."
Idle

Submission + - Allowing the mind to wander aids creative problem solving (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: From the Nature story: Scientists from Archimedes to Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are said to have had flashes of inspiration while thinking about other things. But the mechanisms behind this psychological phenomenon have remained unclear. A study now suggests that simply taking a break does not bring on inspiration — rather, creativity is fostered by tasks that allow the mind to wander.
The researchers gave 145 students 2 minutes to list as many possible uses for an everyday object (the creative thinking task).
Participants then either rested, undertook a demanding memory activity that required their full attention or engaged in an undemanding reaction-time activity known to elicit mind-wandering. A fourth group of students had no break. The researchers then set the students a second set of unusual-uses tasks and found those that had, in the interim, been set the undemanding task that encouraged mind-wandering performed an average of around 40% better than they did before. The students in the other three groups showed no improvement.
United States

Submission + - White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying industry (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: "Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president.

At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.

And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration. The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site."
Science

Submission + - Human water use accounts for 42% of recent sea level rise (nature.com)

Submitted by scibri
scibri writes: During the latter half of the twentieth century, global sea level rose by about 1.8 millimetres per year. The combined contribution from heating of the oceans, which makes the water expand, along with melting of ice caps and glaciers, is estimated to be 1.1 millimetres per year, which left some 0.7 millimetres per year unaccounted for.

It seems that the effects of human water use on land could fill that gap. Researchers report in Nature Geoscience that land-based water storage could account for 0.77 millimetres per year, or 42%, of the observed sea-level rise between 1961 and 2003. The extraction of groundwater for irrigation and home and industrial use, with subsequent run-off to rivers and eventually to the oceans, represents the bulk of the contribution.

It would be even worse if we weren't also locking up lots of water from rivers behind dams like the Hoover Dam.

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