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Submission + - Turkey's Attempt to Block Tor Failing Due to Multiple Mirrors (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already block Twitter and YouTube. Now, after Turkish people flocked to anonymous browser Tor, he is trying to block that too. However the Tor project has multiple mirrors, including one operated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which are still accessible in Turkey, making the block on the official site a bit pointless.

Submission + - Have we found our last fundamental particle? 1

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: In July 2012, the CMS and ATLAS collaborations jointly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, now confirmed at more than 6- to be between 125 and 126 GeV. But years earlier, in 2009, it was calculated what mass the Higgs would need to be in order to keep the standard model stable, so that there would be no need for new particles all the way up to the Planck scale. The prediction? 126 GeV. If this is reasoning is correct, the Higgs boson will be the last new fundamental particle ever discovered by humanity.

Submission + - GNOME 3.12 released (gnome.org)

Submitted by Sri Ramkrishna
Sri Ramkrishna writes: Like clockwork, the next version of GNOME has been released with updated applications, bugfixes and so forth. People can look forward to faster loading time and a little more performance than before. There is a video that is also been created to highlight the release! Check it out!

Submission + - Verizon Knows your Wi-Fi SSID and Key (wlanbook.com) 4

Submitted by FuzzyFox
FuzzyFox writes: While browsing my Verizon FIOS account settings on their web site, I happened to notice my Wi-Fi SSID was prominently displayed. Below that, I noticed a link that would also display the WPA2 password for my private network.

I was really surprised by this, because I did not tell Verizon this information, or ask them to store it on my behalf. It appears they have lifted the information remotely from the ActionTec router that they supplied me with.

It bothers me that they are storing this information about me, because it could conceivably be (1) stolen by hackers, (2) subpoena'd by the government, (3) silently borrowed by the NSA, or other uses that haven't yet come to mind.

Do other ISP's also silently store their customers' password information without the knowledge of the customer? Should we be outraged about this? I would rather that my private information not be stored without my consent, at the very least.

Submission + - Minecraft cancels Oculus Rift released due to Facebook (muktware.com)

Submitted by sfcrazy
sfcrazy writes: When Facebook bought Whatsapp a huge number of users migrated to much more open alternative Telegram and I was curious if we will see the same ‘Facebook’ effect on Oculus and that’s exactly what has happened. Minecraft has canceled their version for the virtual reality device as soon as they got the news of this acquisition. Markus Persson aka notch of Minecraft tweeted, “We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.”

Submission + - Ars Technica and Cisco Provide Another Example of Bad Security Reporting

Submitted by wjcofkc
wjcofkc writes: It was recently reported by Cisco, Ars Technica, and reported on Slashdot that Linux based web servers running the 2.6 series were being attacked and infected with Javascript intended to allow attackers to serve up a variety of malicious content to the visitor. White Fir Design begs to differ, pointing out that the websites are not even all running Linux, much less the Linux 2.6 Kernel.

Submission + - OpenGL ES 3.1 Specification Published (khronos.org)

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: The Khronos Group today announced the immediate release of the OpenGL ES 3.1 specification, bringing significant functionality enhancements to the royalty-free 3D graphics API that is used on nearly all of the world’s mobile devices. Key features of ES 3.1 include: compute shaders, mixing and matching shaders without explicit linking step, indirect memory-fetched draw commands, enhanced texturing functionality, new shader language features and, optional extensions. The API will retain compatibility with previous versions of OpenGL ES. The OpenGL ES working group at Khronos expects also to update the OpenGL ES Adopter’s Program to provide extensive conformance tests for OpenGL ES 3.1 within three months. This ensures that conformant OpenGL ES implementations provide a reliable, cross-platform graphics programming platform.

Submission + - UK government wants "unsavoury" web content to be removed (gizmorati.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The UK minister for immigration and security, James Brokenshire has called for the government to do more to deal with “unsavoury”, rather than illegal, material online. So to put it simply he wants the removal of...

Submission + - SOPA sneaking back, contact Judiciary Committee (geek.com)

Submitted by bricko
bricko writes: SOPA may be returning in a much sneakier, worse fashion.

Basically, entities that entered into these voluntary agreements will begin to enforce SOPA-like reprimands without waiting for a law that grants them the power to do so.

SOPA as we knew it isn’t officially returning, but copyright lobbyists are still fighting to implement nearly identical principles and reprimands. For now, your Net Art website is safe, but if copyright lobbyists can pull the right strings, they aren’t going to need a law to delete your wacky website from the face of the internet forever.

Contact the judiciary committee members here....lets call them out like last time.

http://judiciary.house.gov/ind...

Submission + - YouTube gives UK gov't powers to censor videos they don't like, even if legal (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Over in the UK, where the government has been gradually censoring more and more of the internet over the past few years, Google has apparently agreed to give the UK government broad powers to "flag" videos they argue are bad, even if they're not illegal. Ostensibly, the goal is to block videos that "proliferate jihadi material."

Submission + - Bank of America patents NMAP .. (google.com) 2

Submitted by DTentilhao
DTentilhao writes: Two days ago, Bank of America was granted a patent on assessing security by checking a list of servers for open ports, pinging those ports, determining whether the servers contain sensitive information, and then closing the ports on those servers in the event that they do contain sensitive information.

Phew. I'm glad that BOA finally invented nmap. I can't imagine how we'd gotten by so long without it.

Ping and scan of computer systems

Submission + - Microsoft's Attempt To Convert Users From Windows XP Backfires (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: For the past few months, Microsoft has been loudly and insistently banging a drum. All support and service for Windows XP and Office 2003 shuts down on April 8 — no more security updates, no more fixes. In early February, faced with a slight uptick in users on the decrepit operating system the month before, Microsoft hit on an idea: Why not recruit tech-savvy friends and family to tell old holdouts to get off XP? The response to this earnest effort was a torrent of abuse from Windows 8 users who aren't exactly thrilled with the operating system. Microsoft has come under serious fire for some significant missteps in this process, including a total lack of actual upgrade options. What Microsoft calls an upgrade involves completely wiping the PC and reinstalling a fresh OS copy on it — or ideally, buying a new device. Microsoft has misjudged how strong its relationship is with consumers and failed to acknowledge its own shortcomings. Not providing an upgrade utility is one example — but so is the general lack of attractive upgrade prices or even the most basic understanding of why users haven't upgraded. Microsoft's right to kill XP is unquestioned, but the company appears to have no insight into why its customers continue to use the OS. The fact that it only recently made a file migration tool available is evidence that Redmond hasn't actually investigated the problem.

Submission + - The Rise and Fall of Supersymmetry

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: Have you ever wondered why the masses of the fundamental particles have the small values that they do, compared to, say, the Planck scale? Whether the fundamental forces all unify at some high energy? And whether there's a natural, compelling particle candidate for dark matter? Well, in theory supersymmetry (or SUSY, for short) could have solve all three of these problems. In fact, if it solves the first one alone, there will be definitive experimental signatures for it at the Large Hadron Collider. Well, the LHC has completed its first run, and found nothing. What does this mean for theoretical physics, for SUSY in particular, and what are the implications for string theory? A very clear explanation is given here; it might be time to start hammering in those coffin nails.

Submission + - The Mammoth Cometh: Revive & Restore Tackles De-Extinction

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Slashdot's been following de-extinction efforts for a good 15 years. Now, in The Mammoth Cometh, this week's NY Times Magazine cover story, Nathaniel Rich writes that "bringing extinct animals back to life is really happening — and it’s going to be very, very cool. Unless it ends up being very, very bad." Among the "genetic rescues" being pursued by The Long Now Foundation's Revive & Restore project is The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback. And returning a flock of passenger pigeons to the planet is just the tip of the iceberg. "We're bringing back the mammoth to restore the steppe in the Arctic," says Stewart Brand. "One or two mammoths is not a success. 100,000 mammoths is a success." De-extinction, while no doubt thrilling ("It would certainly be cool to see a living saber-toothed cat,” Stanford's Hank Greely and Jacob Sherkow argued in Science), is disturbing to many conservation biologists who question the logic of bringing back an animal whose native habitat has disappeared, worry about disease, and are concerned that money may be diverted from other conservation efforts.

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