Submission + - IPv6 Day - CEO gets Tattoo (youtube.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In celebration of IPv6 day yesterday, this guy got a new tattoo -
Submission + - What it's like to get hacked (bgr.com)
zacharye writes: With “hacktivist” groups like Anonymous and stories like the LinkedIn security breach constantly popping up in the news, it’s easy to grow numb to matters of digital security despite their seriousness. Individuals, businesses and even governments are vulnerable, and while the public is often privy to one side of the story thanks to security conferences and outspoken hacker groups, personal accounts of how the individuals responsible for protecting the networks, websites and devices that get hacked are few and far between. In a fantastic post that gives the world an excellent insider perspective, security expert Henry Schwartz recently shared an intense experience in which an Automated Teller Machine system built by his company was hacked and he was tasked with responding...
Submission + - Scott Kemp on the next arms race: cyberweapons (thebulletin.org)
__aaqpaq9254 writes: Scott Kemp writes about the similarities between the nuclear arms race and the use of cyberweaponry for offensive purposes. As the article points out, offensive cyberwarfare leaves a nation's own citizenry vulnerable to attack as government agencies seek to keep weaknesses in operating systems (such as Windows) secret. A very thoughtful article.
Submission + - Cognitive Software Identifies America's Brainiest Cities
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "We are often told that the smartest cities and nations do the best and economists typically measure smart cities by education level, calculating the cities or metros with the largest percentage of college grads or the largest shares of adults with advanced degrees. Now Richard Florida writes that a new metric developed by Lumos Labs based on their cognitive training and tracking software Lumosity seeks to track "brain performance" or cognitive capacity of cities in a more direct way by measuring the cognitive performance of more than one million users in the United States who use their games against their location using IP geolocation software. Lumosity’s website offers forty games designed to sharpen a wide range of cognitive skills. Individual scores were recorded in five key cognitive areas: memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving.The data was normalized into a basic brain performance index controlling for age and gender. The results are shown on a map from Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute that shows the brainy metro index across US metro areas with the top five brainy clusters in Charlottesville Virginia, Lafayette Indiana, Anchorage Alaska, Madison Wisconsin, and the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area. The result is not driven principally by college students, according to Daniel Sternberg, the Lumosity data scientist who developed the metro brain performance measure. "Since our analysis controlled for age, the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people," says Sternberg. "Instead, our analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.""
Submission + - Fisheries science falls foul of European privacy rules (nature.com)
ananyo writes: A little-noticed tweak to one of the European Union’s many rules and regulations is leaving fisheries scientists struggling to access vital data.
The rule change (from 2009) means that raw data from devices used to monitor fishing vessels are no longer available to some scientists. This information is vital for proper, scientifically based management of Europe’s troubled fish stocks, according to marine biologists.
At the heart of the problem is information from devices called Vessel Monitoring Systems, which are attached to many European fishing boats to record their position, direction and speed. From these data, the boats' fishing patterns can be reconstructed, allowing researchers to assess fishing activity.
It has now become apparent the changes mean that some scientists can no longer access the detailed fisheries data they need to work out which stocks are being overfished.
The rule change (from 2009) means that raw data from devices used to monitor fishing vessels are no longer available to some scientists. This information is vital for proper, scientifically based management of Europe’s troubled fish stocks, according to marine biologists.
At the heart of the problem is information from devices called Vessel Monitoring Systems, which are attached to many European fishing boats to record their position, direction and speed. From these data, the boats' fishing patterns can be reconstructed, allowing researchers to assess fishing activity.
It has now become apparent the changes mean that some scientists can no longer access the detailed fisheries data they need to work out which stocks are being overfished.
Submission + - How do you manage document relationship? 3
movesguy writes: "I work in a small government office that develops tech projects, as any government facility we do more paper than work (or code in this case).
Yesterday my boss ask me to rebuild the history of some material we asked but never got, I proceeded to check a bunch of paper (yes, cellulose from dead trees) from several files.
Five hours later I filled a 5 meters table with paper, highlighting the relationship among them so we can know exactly where the process of acquisition was. (The process takes place in several offices outside my own, with committee approval required and several information meetings going back and forth)
I thought it has to be a better way to get the relationship among documents, a better way to construct the way one document generates two more and these two are related to several more from different offices from different dates.
In the pass we tried to use the software from http://www.knowledgetree.org/ but it just work as a repository and as a workflow tool, it doesn't provide the relationship between documents.
Documents are in general, dead-tree paper ones which are scanned without been OCRed.
How do you manage huge amount of paperwork in order to get the relationship among them in order to reconstruct one process captured in that form?
Is there a software (FLOSS preferable) that do this?
Thanks (Sorry about my English, not my native language)"
Yesterday my boss ask me to rebuild the history of some material we asked but never got, I proceeded to check a bunch of paper (yes, cellulose from dead trees) from several files.
Five hours later I filled a 5 meters table with paper, highlighting the relationship among them so we can know exactly where the process of acquisition was. (The process takes place in several offices outside my own, with committee approval required and several information meetings going back and forth)
I thought it has to be a better way to get the relationship among documents, a better way to construct the way one document generates two more and these two are related to several more from different offices from different dates.
In the pass we tried to use the software from http://www.knowledgetree.org/ but it just work as a repository and as a workflow tool, it doesn't provide the relationship between documents.
Documents are in general, dead-tree paper ones which are scanned without been OCRed.
How do you manage huge amount of paperwork in order to get the relationship among them in order to reconstruct one process captured in that form?
Is there a software (FLOSS preferable) that do this?
Thanks (Sorry about my English, not my native language)"
Submission + - Video: How Cockroaches and Geckos 'Vanish' (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: If you've ever seen a cockroach or a gecko disappear before your eyes, science now knows where they go. High-speed video of American cockroaches and flat-tailed house geckos running up a cardboard ramp reveals that both creatures barely slow as they approach the edge. But instead of launching into space like miniature ski-jumpers, they anchor their hind limbs and swing down, perching on the underside of the ledge. Both species experience 3 to 4 Gs during these acrobatics, similar to forces humans experience at the bottom of a bungee jump.
Submission + - Germany readying offensive cyberwarfare unit, parliament told (techworld.com)
concertina226 writes: According to German reports, the Bonn-based Computer Network Operations (CNO) unit had existed since 2006 but was only now being readied for deployment under the control of the country’s military.
"The initial capacity to operate in hostile networks has been achieved," a German press agency reported the brief document as saying. The unit had already conducted closed lab simulations of cyber-attacks.
Unlike physical attacks, cyber-weapons can’t be isolated from their surroundings with the same degree of certainty. If, as a growing body of evidence suggests, the US Government sanctioned the use of cyber-malware such as Stuxnet, are the authorities also held responsible should such campaigns hit unintended victims?
"The initial capacity to operate in hostile networks has been achieved," a German press agency reported the brief document as saying. The unit had already conducted closed lab simulations of cyber-attacks.
Unlike physical attacks, cyber-weapons can’t be isolated from their surroundings with the same degree of certainty. If, as a growing body of evidence suggests, the US Government sanctioned the use of cyber-malware such as Stuxnet, are the authorities also held responsible should such campaigns hit unintended victims?
Submission + - Md5crypt Password scrambler is no longer considered safe
An anonymous reader writes: A user in a Russian forum is claiming to have hacked LinkedIn to the tune of almost 6.5 million account details and password hashes.
Now, Poul-Henning Kamp a developer known for work on various projects and the author of the md5crypt password scrambler asks everybody to migrate to a stronger password scrambler without undue delay. From the blog post — New research has shown that it can be run at a rate close to 1 million checks per second on COTS GPU hardware, which means that it is as prone to brute-force attacks as the DES based UNIX crypt was back in 1995: Any 8 character password can be found in a couple of days.
The default algorithm for storing password hashes in /etc/shadow is MD5. RHEL / CentOS / FreeBSD user can migrate to SHA-512 hashing algorithms.
Now, Poul-Henning Kamp a developer known for work on various projects and the author of the md5crypt password scrambler asks everybody to migrate to a stronger password scrambler without undue delay. From the blog post — New research has shown that it can be run at a rate close to 1 million checks per second on COTS GPU hardware, which means that it is as prone to brute-force attacks as the DES based UNIX crypt was back in 1995: Any 8 character password can be found in a couple of days.
The default algorithm for storing password hashes in
Submission + - Interview with Patrick Volkerding, Founder of Slackware Linux (linuxquestions.org)
An anonymous reader writes: In this in-depth interview with LinuxQuestions.org, Patrick Volkerding discusses how he got involved with Linux and Open Source, the succession plan for Slackware, the Slackware development model, his opinion on the current trends in desktop environments, potentially disruptive changes to Linux such as systemd, his favorite beer and much more.
Submission + - AMD/ATI video drivers: Unsafe at any Speed 1
An anonymous reader writes: CERT/CC has called out AMD for having insecure video drivers. AMD/ATI video drivers are incompatible with system-wide ASLR. "Always On" DEP combined with "Always On" ASLR are effective exploit mitigations. However, most people don't know about "Always On" ASLR since Microsoft had to hide it from EMET with an 'EnableUnsafeSettings' registry key because AMD/ATI video drivers will cause a BSOD on boot if "Always On" ASLR is enabled. Do you care about system security? You might want to buy an Intel or NVIDIA video card instead.
Submission + - Microsoft Ignores Usability and Keeps ALL-CAP (i-programmer.info)
mikejuk writes: The recent release of Visual Studio 2012 contained a UI element that few believed could make it into the final version — ALL-CAPS menus. After lots of user criticism and disbelief, Microsoft has moved swiftly to do something about it — by tweaking the typography.
"... we explored designs with and without uppercase styling. In the end we determined it to be a very effective way of providing structure and emphasis to the top menu area in Visual Studio 2012."
This must be a new meaning of the word "structure", because putting the menu items into all-caps means that they are all the same height. When each menu items starts with a cap then there is structure because you can see the change in height, marking the start of the next menu item. The idea that putting a menu into all caps adds structure is something that is very difficult to see.
If you wanted to put structure into a menu, well how about color?
Oh wait I forgot the design department dumped color in favour of the "everything-is-grey UI".
Developers are the people who invented CamelCase to make sure that the structure of run together words would stand out better — and now we are asked to believe that making a menu all-caps adds structure.
I don't think so.
"... we explored designs with and without uppercase styling. In the end we determined it to be a very effective way of providing structure and emphasis to the top menu area in Visual Studio 2012."
This must be a new meaning of the word "structure", because putting the menu items into all-caps means that they are all the same height. When each menu items starts with a cap then there is structure because you can see the change in height, marking the start of the next menu item. The idea that putting a menu into all caps adds structure is something that is very difficult to see.
If you wanted to put structure into a menu, well how about color?
Oh wait I forgot the design department dumped color in favour of the "everything-is-grey UI".
Developers are the people who invented CamelCase to make sure that the structure of run together words would stand out better — and now we are asked to believe that making a menu all-caps adds structure.
I don't think so.
Submission + - Could insurance coverage hobble commercial space flights? (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "Should the government continue to share the monetary risk of a catastrophic spacecraft accident even as the United States depends ever-more on commercial space technology? The question is one currently up for debate as the program that currently insures space launches, the Federal Aviation Administration's "indemnification" risk-sharing authority, which can provide a maximum of $2.7 billion of insurance per launch, expires at the end of the year. According to the Government Accountability Office a catastrophic commercial launch accident could result in injuries or property damage to the uninvolved public, or "third parties." In anticipation of such an event, a launch company must purchase a fixed amount of insurance for each launch, per calculation by FAA; the federal government is potentially liable for claims above that amount up about $2.7 billion."
Submission + - London Tube Stations Finally Get Wi-Fi (techweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "After trials, Wi-Fi in the London Underground has gone live in two stations (Warren Street and King's Cross) , with plans to fit 80 stations out before the OIympics, which are now only a few weeks away."
Submission + - 5 Million Farmers Sue Monsanto for $7.7 Billion (readersupportednews.org)
Lorien_the_first_one writes: From the article, "aunching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars). The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest."
Submission + - Ask slashshot: Teching programming to salespeople
greglaw writes: "Our company makes development tools, meaning that all our customers are programmers. If you'll forgive the sweeping generalisation, on the whole good programmers don't make good salespeople and vice versa. However, it's important that our salespeople understand at some level the customers' problems and how exactly we can help. The goal is not to turn the salespeople into engineers, but just to have them properly understand e.g. what the customer means when he uses the term "function call". Most of our customers use C/C++ so it really wants to be this they learn (which is unusual: typically if you wanted to give someone a "taste" of programming you would choose a higher level language).
Does anyone have any recommendations for how best to go about this? Online courses or text books that give an introduction to programming in C/C++ would be great, but also any more general advice on this would be much appreciated."
Does anyone have any recommendations for how best to go about this? Online courses or text books that give an introduction to programming in C/C++ would be great, but also any more general advice on this would be much appreciated."
Submission + - If VLC can ship a free DVD player, why can't Microsoft? (zdnet.com)
Pigskin-Referee writes: Microsoft’s decision to remove support for playing DVD movies in Windows 8 has caused some confusion. If the VLC media player can provide DVD support for free, why can’t Microsoft? For starters, Microsoft isn’t French.
Microsoft announced this week that Windows 8 will not support playback of DVD movies unless you explicitly add software that supports that feature.
The economic reasons for doing so are compelling (see Microsoft’s follow-up FAQ for details ), but it’s also a potentially disruptive move for some Windows enthusiasts. So it’s not surprising that some of the initial reactions have been heated and even angry.
I look at the big numbers and walk through the math in a follow-up post; How much do DVD and digital media playback features really cost?
Submission + - UK Police Clueless On DNA Storage (techweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "Despite rules on what DNA data the UK's police forces can keep on file, most forces simply don't know what they have, according to a study. Only three British police forces can distinguish the DNA of those who were convicted of crimes, from those who were not even charged. The UK's Protection of Freedoms Act says police can keep DNA for three years unless a Chief Constable says it needs to be kept, but it doesn't seem the police are capable of implementing the Act."
Submission + - Microsoft Allows Linux Onto Azure Cloud (techweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "Microsoft will allow Linux on its Azure cloud service as Azure moves to being an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering as well as just a Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offering Windows in the cloud. Azure's new persistent virtual machines (VMs) recognise where the demand is in the cloud, and will allow Linux versions including SUSE, OpenSUSE 12.1 and Ubuntu."
Submission + - Intel "improves" Android - but is it willing to share? (pcpro.co.uk)
Barence writes: "Intel claims it is making significant improvements to the multicore performance of Android — but isn't sure if it's willing to share them with the open-source community.
Speaking to journalists in London, Intel's mobile chief Mike Bell said that Intel's engineers were making significant improvements to Android's scheduler to improve its multicore performance. "Android doesn't make as effective use of multicore as it could," he said.
However, when pressed by PC Pro on whether those improvements would be shared with the open-source community and Intel's competitors, Bell remained non-committal. "Where we are required to give back to open source, we do," said Bell. "In cases where it's not required to be open source, I'm going to think about it. I don't like doing R&D for competitors if they're not going to contribute themselves," said Bell, before adding that "in general, our philosophy is to give things back"."
Speaking to journalists in London, Intel's mobile chief Mike Bell said that Intel's engineers were making significant improvements to Android's scheduler to improve its multicore performance. "Android doesn't make as effective use of multicore as it could," he said.
However, when pressed by PC Pro on whether those improvements would be shared with the open-source community and Intel's competitors, Bell remained non-committal. "Where we are required to give back to open source, we do," said Bell. "In cases where it's not required to be open source, I'm going to think about it. I don't like doing R&D for competitors if they're not going to contribute themselves," said Bell, before adding that "in general, our philosophy is to give things back"."
