121313836
submission
al0ha writes:
Here is the skinny, I ordered a product from the Digg.com store two months ago, it never shipped and their "Support Heros" just kept giving me the run around, never offering to refund my money. I finally got fed up, and since I know the laws regarding E-commerce, I filed an FTC complaint against them, and lo and behold, they finally refunded my money. Too late though, I hope the FTC fines them the entire $10,000 for disingenuous business practices. I've linked to the FTC complaint page for anyone else who has experienced anything similar from an E-commerce retailer — you don't have to live with being ripped-off by shady business practices.
105794020
submission
al0ha writes:
The surveillance tools being sold to New York City are identical to those used in Sky Net in China, the largest video surveillance system on Earth, Chinese government research institutes and a company involved in the project said.
101696680
submission
al0ha writes:
This $39 Device Can Fool USB Restricted Mode — https://blog.elcomsoft.com/201...
101657310
submission
al0ha writes:
With little public scrutiny, the health insurance industry has joined forces with data brokers to vacuum up personal details about hundreds of millions of Americans, including, odds are, many readers of this story. The companies are tracking your race, education level, TV habits, marital status, net worth. They’re collecting what you post on social media, whether you’re behind on your bills, what you order online. Then they feed this information into complicated computer algorithms that spit out predictions about how much your health care could cost them.
“We sit on oceans of data,” said Eric McCulley, director of strategic solutions for LexisNexis Risk Solutions, during a conversation at the data firm’s booth. And he isn’t apologetic about using it. “The fact is, our data is in the public domain,” he said. “We didn’t put it out there.”
99922201
submission
al0ha writes:
This study seems to say that exposure to LED light temp higher than 3000K suppresses melatonin because it contains increased blue light, and at least one city has gone to the expense of removing higher temp LED lights and replacing them with 3K lights. I'm confused — as a photographer I know sun light is ~ 5500K — 6500K depending on viewing standard.
93971049
submission
al0ha writes:
BlueBorne is an attack vector by which hackers can leverage Bluetooth connections to penetrate and take complete control over targeted devices. BlueBorne affects ordinary computers, mobile phones, and the expanding realm of IoT devices. The attack does not require the targeted device to be paired to the attacker’s device, or even to be set on discoverable mode.
92971811
submission
al0ha writes:
The only way to truly understand a human relation issue is to walk that walk, or listen and understand someone who does.
92268495
submission
al0ha writes:
Let's Encrypt plans to offer free SSL wildcard certs beginning in 2018. I already use Let's Encrypt for securing several web properties, love it, so this is great news.
84166409
submission
al0ha writes:
I've noticed many people have a habit of getting in their car, starting the engine, then sit and use their PDA for many minutes, sometimes 10 or more, while the car is idling. They do this when there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to do so and I for one would like to see people crease this wasteful practice. It's bad for your wallet, it's bad for the environment.
How bad you ask? Visit the link and find out, up to 12 million gallons of fuel are wasted idling every day according to their statistic, and they are not even counting the people idling while txting etc.
Concerned with global warming? Turn off your freakin' car when there is no reason for it to be running.
55549867
submission
al0ha writes:
Schneier briefs members of Congress on the NSA in a closed door meeting. According to Bruce, "Surreal part of setting up this meeting: I suggested that we hold this meeting in a SCIF, because they wanted me to talk about top secret documents that had not been made public. So we had to have the meeting in a regular room."
I am so very happy to hear a rational expert, that is almost uniquely able to explain complex subjects and their potential ramifications to those of us possessing less than brilliant minds in this world, has been briefing Congress on the NSA.
20052558
submission
al0ha writes:
The first new passive circuit element since the 1830s might transform computer hardware.
In a thriving transistor monoculture where more transistors are created than grains of rice grown world wide; can a new circuit element find a place to take root and grow? That’s the question posed by the memristor, a device first discussed theoretically 40 years ago and finally implemented in hardware in 2008. The name is a contraction of “memory resistor,” which offers a good clue to how it works.
19785342
submission
al0ha writes:
Why is it that Slashdot session management is insecure? If you force HTTPS during login, then session cookies are set for encrypted sessions only, so for the rest of the site you are not logged in. If you login over insecure HTTP, then the session cookies are set for any connection.
This is totally lame and makes session hijacking via FireSheep simple, as well as credential sniffing on the wire and wireless.
How Geeky can Geeknet be if they can't even handle session management appropriately?
The password change page and login pages should be protected by HTTPS. Then session cookies appropriate for general content, or privileged content (like changing account information) should be set where privileged content always runs over HTTPS.
18980458
submission
al0ha writes:
A team of security researchers has created a proof-of-concept Trojan for Android handsets that is capable of listening out for credit card numbers — typed or spoken — and relaying them back to the application's creator.
17847152
submission
al0ha writes:
To paraphrase the article: "These days, the main enemy of privacy is not Big Brother, but a whole bunch of Little Brothers. I grant you that long experience teaches us that the government itself must be watched. However, if you think that it is the main threat to your privacy these days, I humbly suggest that you think again."
17479596
submission
al0ha writes:
In this week's issue of the journal Nature, a research team led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has taken an important step toward understanding just how this kickoff occurs by beginning to dissect the neural circuitry of fear. In their paper, these scientists—led by David J. Anderson, the Benzer Professor of Biology at Caltech and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator—describe a microcircuit in the amygdala that controls, or "gates," the outflow of fear from that region of the brain.
Read the Paper if you have No Fear; of real science. :-)
