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Submission + - Crowdfunded Bounty For Hacking An iPhone 5S (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: There's more than $3000 pledged for a crowdfunded bounty for bypassing an iPhone 5S's fingerprint reader. The bounty, set up by a security expert and an exploit reseller requires entrants to lift prints "like from a beer mug". It has a website — IsTouchIDHackedYet — and payments are pledged by tweets using #IsTouchIDHackedYet. One drawback, is the scheme appears to rely on trust that sponsors will actually pay up.

Submission + - "Synthetic Tracking" Set To Revolutionise Near-Earth Asteroid Discovery (medium.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: Astronomers think that near-Earth Asteroids the size of apartment blocks number in the millions. And yet they spot new ones at the rate of only about 30 a year because these objects are so faint and fast moving. Now astronomers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a technique called synthetic tracking for dramatically speeding up asteroid discovery. Insteads of long exposures in which near-Earth asteroids show up as faint streaks, the new technique involves taking lots of short exposures and adding them together in a special automated way. The trick is to shift each image so that the pixels that record the asteroid are superimposed on top of each other. The result is an image in which the asteroid is sharp point of light against a background of star streaks. They say synthetic tracking has the capability to spot 80 new near Earth asteroids each night using a standard 5 metre telescope. That'll be handy for spotting rocks heading our way before they get too close and for identifying targets for NASA's future asteroid missions.

Submission + - Charles Carreon Finally Surrenders In Epic Legal Battle With The Oatmeal

Submitted by Guy From V
Guy From V writes: Charles Carreon, zany lawyer and poster-child for the Streisand Effect (sorry Babs) for his lawsuit against The Oatmeal creator Mattew Innman last year in his original role as legal counsel for Funnyjunk, as reported by ArsTechnica, seems to have finally called it quits. In other news, the River Styx has reportedly dropped below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

Submission + - Fracked Shale Could Sequester Carbon Dioxide (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice
MTorrice writes: The same wells that energy companies drill to extract natural gas from shale formations could become repositories to store large quantities of carbon dioxide. A new computer model suggests that wells in the Marcellus shale, a 600-sq-mile formation in the northeastern U.S. that is a hotbed for gas extraction, could store half the CO2 emitted by the country’s power plants from now until 2030.

Submission + - Last days for China's Space Station Tiangong (spacedaily.com)

Submitted by Big Hairy Ian
Big Hairy Ian writes: When the crew of Shenzhou 10 departed the Tiangong 1 space laboratory in June, Chinese officials declared that Tiangong was now a spacecraft on death row. China's first space laboratory had three months to live. At the end of its lifetime, it would be subjected to a firery re-entry.

We are now approaching the end of the projected lifespan of Tiangong 1. We still don't know the exact date of its execution, which will be carried out when thrusters aboard the module are fired to remove it from orbit. It is expected that Tiangong 1 will re-enter over the Pacific Ocean, where any fragments from the laboratory will fall harmlessly into the water.

Submission + - FBI warns "Beta Bot" can kill your anti-virus programs, steal data (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The FBI sent out a warning today about an uptick in the use of malware known as Beta Bot that can steal sensitive data such as log-in credentials and financial information. The FBI says Beta Bot blocks computer users’ access to security websites and disables anti-virus programs, leaving computers vulnerable to compromise. Cyber criminals aiming Beta Bot at financial institutions, e-commerce sites, online payment platforms, and social networking.

Submission + - 40-Million-Year-Old 'Walking Whale' Fossil Found In Peru (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by minty3
minty3 writes: Found in the Ocucaje Desert in southern Peru, the fossils belong to a group called Achaeocetes, or ancient whales, that possess both land and sea-dwelling characteristics. Over time, the ancient land animals adapted to water environments where their legs became fin-like and their bodies began to resemble modern sea mammals like dolphins and whales.

Submission + - Nokia's Elop to Get $25 Million if Microsoft Deal Done

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: Stephen Elop, the former Nokia Oyj chief executive officer who is rejoining Microsoft, is set to get more than $25 million if the Finnish company completes the sale of its handset business to the software maker. Microsoft will pay 70 percent of the projected total amount of about 18.8 million euros ($25.5 million), and Nokia the remainder, according to a proxy filing by Nokia today. The value of Elop’s reward is estimated using Nokia’s Sept. 6 closing share price and may still change. Nokia shares have dropped by more than a third since Elop was hired on Sept. 10, 2010, even with the stock’s gain since the sale to Microsoft was announced. Nokia shareholders are set to vote on the transaction Nov. 19. Elop will move back to Microsoft as part of the $7.2 billion takeover. He is also a candidate to succeed Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Submission + - Programmers' Most Hated Languages - And How To Avoid Them (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: If you work in programming for any length of time, you will sooner or later be forced to work with a language that, whether due to odd syntax, too much (or too little) flexibility, poor debugging capabilities or any number of other reasons, makes you pull your hair out. Of course, some languages are easier to avoid than others. If Visual Basic is your I-can't-stand-it language you can simply not work at any company with Windows applications created before 2008. But if Perl's myriad ways of doing things (and hence near=unreadability) turn you off, maybe you should just give up on programming altogether.

Submission + - Its nuclear plant shut, Maine town full of regret (bostonglobe.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: In a wooded area behind a camouflage-clad guard holding an assault rifle, dozens of hulking casks packed with radioactive waste rest on concrete pads — relics of the shuttered nuclear plant that once powered the region and made this fishing town feel rich.

In the 17 years since Maine Yankee began dismantling its reactors and shedding its 600 workers, this small, coastal town north of Portland has experienced drastic changes: property taxes have spiked by more than 10 times for the town’s 3,700 residents, the number living in poverty has more than doubled as many professionals left, and town services and jobs have been cut.

“I have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is gone,” said Laurie Smith, the town manager. “All these years later, we’re still feeling the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge tax increases....”

“It became a ghost town,” said [Tony] True, 51, who has lived in Wiscasset most of his life.... “I wish Maine Yankee never came here,” he said. “We went from having anything we wanted to having nothing, like going from being spoiled children to having no parents. The closing really put a curtain on Wiscasset....”

But the plant faced serious allegations of safety violations and falsifying records around the time it was closed, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Agency investigators found Maine Yankee relied on inadequate computer analyses to demonstrate the adequacy of its emergency core cooling system; “willfully provided inaccurate information” to the NRC about its ability to vent steam during an accident; and provided falsified records of safety-related equipment.

“Many of these violations and underlying causes were longstanding and appeared to be caused by ineffective engineering analyses,” NRC officials wrote to Maine Yankee shortly after the plant closed.

They added that Maine Yankee “was a facility in which pressure to be a low-cost performer led to practices which over-relied on judgment, discouraged problem reporting, and accepted low standards of performance.”

Submission + - Education networks see massive traffic spikes from iOS 7 update (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Education networks Wednesday experienced massive spikes in wireless LAN and Internet traffic as thousands of students toting iPhones and iPads tried to download iOS 7, which became available at 1 p.m. EDT. How massive? At one basketball-mad southern university, the iOS update traffic surpassed the previous record peak: the NCAA college basketball tourney. “We were surprised,” said a senior network engineer there, speaking on condition of anonymity. Some locations were seeing WLAN traffic surge five times above normal levels. Internet traffic over the WAN pipe often doubled. Some IT professionals say they saw a high-level of failed update attempts, leading students to re-attempt the download right away. A tweet by one student complained that his university’s Internet connection was like a dialup link.

Submission + - NASA's Plutonium Problem Could End Deep-Space Exploration (wired.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Wired reports, "Most of what humanity knows about the outer planets came back to Earth on plutonium power. Cassini’s ongoing exploration of Saturn, Galileo’s trip to Jupiter, Curiosity’s exploration of the surface of Mars, and the 2015 flyby of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft are all fueled by the stuff. The characteristics of this metal’s radioactive decay make it a super-fuel. ... there is no other viable option. Solar power is too weak, chemical batteries don’t last, nuclear fission systems are too heavy. So, we depend on plutonium-238, a fuel largely acquired as by-product of making nuclear weapons. But there’s a problem: We’ve almost run out. "We’ve got enough to last to the end of this decade. That’s it,” said Steve Johnson, a nuclear chemist at Idaho National Laboratory. And it’s not just the U.S. reserves that are in jeopardy. The entire planet’s stores are nearly depleted. ... what’s left has already been spoken for and then some. ... Political ignorance and shortsighted squabbling, along with false promises from Russia, and penny-wise management of NASA’s ever-thinning budget still stand in the way of a robust plutonium-238 production system. The result: Meaningful exploration of the solar system has been pushed to a cliff’s edge. One ambitious space mission could deplete remaining plutonium stockpiles ..."

Submission + - openSUSE Plans To Switch From EXT4 To Btrfs File-System (phoronix.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The openSUSE Linux distribution looks like it may be the first major Linux distribution to ship the Btrfs file-system by default. The openSUSE 13.1 release is due out in November and is still using EXT4 by default, but after that the developers are looking at having openSUSE using Btrfs by default on new installations. The Btrfs features to be enabled would be the ones the developers feel are data-safe.

Submission + - Java Update Provides Whitelist Capability to Help Prevent 0-Day Hacks

Submitted by kylus
kylus writes: The Register is reporting that Oracle's new Java 7 update 40 release comes complete with a new 'Deployment Rule Set' capability which allows administrators to define which particular applets and Java Web Start applications ("Rich Internet Applications") are permitted to run on a given machine. Not a complete solution for the recent trend of Java hacks that have cropped up, but good news for enterprises that have to run this in their environment.

Submission + - CyanogenMod targets mainstream with easy install app (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by nk497
nk497 writes: CyanogenMod has incorporated as a company and raised $7m in funding, saying it hopes to target mainstream users — including developers' moms — by making installation a whole lot easier. At the moment, rooting an Android handset and installing CM involves some level of skill and patience; cofounder Steve Kondik described the process as "hideous". In the coming weeks, the company will release an app so users can install CyanogenMod in a few quick steps — making it no more complicated than starting up the app and hitting a button.

Submission + - Hackers Offered Reward to Crack iPhone 5s Fingerprint Security (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: A couple of security researchers have set up a crowd-funded website to offer a reward to the first person who can "reliably and repeatedly break into an iPhone 5s by lifting prints.” The IsTouchIDHackedYet website shows 40 people offering everything from cash to Bitcoins, whiskey, wine and even a "dirty sex book" to the successful hacker. With the iPhone 5s launching tomorrow, there will be a lot of interest in whether or not the hackers can successfully crack Apple's Touch ID system.

Submission + - Facebook Android Apps, Images, SSL and YOU :) (attack-secure.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Even if you enabled HTTPS ( SECURE) in your Facebook account, your images are still being sent and received on HTTP ( INSECURE ).

If you are using a wireless network at Cafe, Hotel, Airport, Museum, Disco, Your Friends’s Wireless Network or even your own wireless network ( it may be already hacked ) even if you are using ( WEP or WPS or even WPA ), An Attacker can run cain and abel, ettercap, sslstrip or his own tool to poison the traffic and hijack ARP table and sniff your images and your private images and leak it online or send it to his friends.

Submission + - Visionary Nintendo President Yamauchi Dies (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by trickstyhobbit
trickstyhobbit writes: Former Nintendeo president and majority stockholder Hiroshi Yamauchi has died. He was president of the comapany for over 50 years and saw the development of the NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, and GameCube among other devices

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