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Canada

Dead Pigs Used To Investigate Ocean's "Dead Zones" 106

Posted by samzenpus from the big-ocean-long-pig dept.
timothy writes "As places to study what happens to corpses, the Atlantic Ocean is both much larger and much more specialized than the famous 'body farm' in Knoxville, TN. But for all kinds of good reasons, sending human bodies into Davy Jones' locker just to see where they float and how they bloat is unpopular. Pigs don't pay taxes, and more importantly, they don't vote. So Canadian scientists have taken to using them as human-body proxies, to study what happens when creatures of similar size and hairlessness (aka, us) end up 86ed and in the drink."

Comment Absolutely evil (Score 2, Interesting) 600

by ohmiccurmudgeon (#30278834) Attached to: Ethics of Releasing Non-Malicious Linux Malware?

We already know how to break into systems with buffer and heap overflows. We know how to do SQL injection into not-so-smart applications. If you work at it you can break into almost anything.

Absolutely no good purpose is served providing a toolkit that allows people to break into naively configured systems. Much of what you describe is akin to leaving the keys in your Maserati with the doors unlocked and the engine running. Please don't make things easier for joyriding teenagers.

If a site wants to know if they're secure, within the current limits of our knowledge, they can perform their own audits, and hire their own advisers to test their systems in a controlled fashion.

Applications, such as BOINC, have an unknown state of security review or audit. I doubt they applied the coding guidelines of CERT, or any of the Common Criteria levels. An administrator would only deploy such applications in the DMZ of their network. To call a Linux system, or Windoze system, secure means you've evaluated the risk of both the operating system and the applications on that system and decided it is good enough for you.

Submission + - Verizon Denounces Network Neutrality (internetnews.com) 1

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes: There are a lot of opinions in the U.S debate over network neutrality. The FCC is set to announce their ruling tomorrow but today Verizon's CEO Ivan Seidenberg came out with a stinging attack against it. Speaking at the big Supercomm conference in Chicago, Verizon's chief blasted network neutrality as a burdonsome regime that that could put the U.S back into a full blow recession.

"If a burdensome regime of network neutrality is imposed on all parts of the Internet industry, it will inject an extraordinary amount of bureaucratic oversight into the economy's main growth engine to the future," Seidenberg said."We can't create a smart economy by dumbing down our critical infrastructure. "We can't move forward by pitting network providers and applications developers against each other when the real promise of broadband is an expanding pie for everyone."

Submission + - New Video Illustrates our Nuclear Policy MADness (youtube.com) 2

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: At this week's historic UN Security Council session, President Obama eloquently presented his vision of 'a world without nuclear weapons.' To help advance this initiative, Stanford Professor Emeritus Steven Hellman, co-inventor of public key cryptography and founder of NuclearRisk.org, has just published a 97 second video that graphically illustrates the unacceptable risk posed by the concept of 'nuclear deterrence.' Global warming pales in comparison to the MADness of what we've learned to accept as 'normal.'

Submission + - Iran's nuclear ambitions (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by
selven
selven writes: "Following Iran's revelation regarding its secret nuclear enrichment plant, western leaders are banding together against it, saying that it violates Articles 2 and 3 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and suggesting serious sanctions against the country if it refuses to back down on its uranium enrichment program. Iran maintains that it nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and that it's not fair for the US to be criticizing them in this way while having thousands of nuclear warheads."

Submission + - Austin Police Department Threatens Online Commente (statesman.com)

Submitted by
FutureDomain
FutureDomain writes: "Annoyed at online commenters using police officer's names, the Austin Texas police department has threatened to "sue them for libel or file charges if investigators think a crime was committed". State lawmakers passed a bill that bans "using another person's name to post messages on a social networking site without their permission and with the intent to harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten". The department also shut down a Twitter site last March that claimed to issue official police bulletins."
The Internet

Submission + - Infidelity rife in cybersex world (itnews.com.au) 4

Submitted by
bennyboy64
bennyboy64 writes: "According to new research more people than ever are seeking treatment for their cybersex addiction. Doctoral candidate Marcus Squirrell surveyed over 1,300 internet users who regularly frequented online sex, fetish and swinging sites to engage in online sexual activities, which included accessing erotic pictures, as well as interacting with others using chat rooms and webcams. According to Squirrell, a "fairly large percentage" of respondents admitted to taking part in cybersex activities outside the comfort of their home. "A lot of people who have got problems with compulsive online sexual behaviour can't actually control themselves and end up doing it at work as well," Squirrell said. In some cases people were participating in online sexual activites for up to ten hour per day. Squirrell also found that more than half the participants who engaged in cybersex were married or in a serious relationship."

Submission + - Alzheimer's Disease linked to Sleep Deprivation (newscientist.com) 3

Submitted by
sonnejw0
sonnejw0 writes: "NewScientist is reporting a link between sleep deprivation and increased amyloid-beta plaque load, the protein thought responsible for a large part of the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease, in mice. Medication to abrogate insomnia reduced the plaque load. Also discussed is a recently discovered sleep cycle of amyloid-beta deposition in the brain, in which levels decrease while asleep. From the article:

"Holtzman also tried sending the mice to sleep with a drug that is being trialled for insomnia, called Almorexant. This reduced the amount of plaque-forming protein. He suggests that sleeping for longer could limit the formation of plaques, and perhaps block it altogether."

"

Submission + - Version 2.5.10 released (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by SF:amirshk
SF:amirshk writes: The eLibrary Project is an eBook organizer with tagging and search capabilities. It automatically downloads the book\'s cover image and info from the web, and displays them in a friendly user interface. New version includes: * Tabbed split UI allowing to view several books * New concept: default file for book, so Shift+Double Click will open the default viewer and DoubleClick will open the eLibrary book info. * Books browsing according to authors and publisher * More data retrieved and without limit * Automatic book tagging via google books project * MRU books and latest searches * Easier tags managment vie drag&drop and shortcuts Several bug fixes: * Multi-User issues * Non english characters in tags and filenames * And more. Download: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ebooklibrary/files/Install/2.5.10/eLibrary_2_5_10.msi/download

Submission + - New Plans for 'Smart Grid' Could Prove Dangerous (foxnews.com)

Submitted by
vom.Zorn
vom.Zorn writes: "Though probably a couple of decades away and unknown billions in upgrade costs, U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke "[releases] 90-page report today from the Commerce Departmentâ(TM)s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the government sponsored GridWeek conference in Washington, DC. Utilities, businesses, researchers and other stakeholders have 30 days to comment on the smart grid standards. Locke, an Obama appointee and former Democratic governor of Washington state, is on an ambitious timetable, hoping to have the specifications finalized before the end of the year. A smart grid would upgrade the country's electricity infrastructure by building in two-way communications and feedback and monitoring systems that could improve the reliability and efficiency of the country's power grid. It could, for example, automatically prevent the kind of cascading power outage that blacked out much of the Northeast United States and Canada in August of 2003. Furthermore, it could tap into individual consumer demands and better manage intermittent power sources, such as wind turbines and solar fields, to lower costs and reduce our dependence on gas and coal to generate electricity. With such a plan comes the ever-present threat of terrorists or hackers taking advantage of such a sophisticated network. Without the proper safeguards, power plants could be shut down by criminals breaking into the smart grid's communications network from the other side of the world. Consumers could also find hackers tapping into their smart meters. So ultimately, ensuring that every point of the grid is secure is essential. "Having 48 of 50 states implement security specifications will not suffice," underscored Locke.""
Windows

Submission + - Windows Marketplace for Mobile kill switch details

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft recently gave more details on Windows Marketplace for Mobile during the Tech Ed New Zealand 2009 session titled "Distributing and Monetizing Applications through Windows Marketplace Mobile," led by Loke Uei Tan, Senior Product Manager on the Windows Mobile Team. Geekzone covered the event in good detail, but one of their points caused a lot of uproar in the blogosphere: "If an application is approved but later removed from the marketplace it will then be automatically removed from all mobile devices." That sounded a bit ominous to Ars Technica, so they checked in with Microsoft.

"In the vast majority of instances where an application is removed from Windows Marketplace for Mobile, users of this application will continue to be able to use these applications on their phones," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "In the rare event an application from Marketplace exhibits harmful behavior or has unforeseen effects, Marketplace has the capability to remotely uninstall these applications. While we hope to avoid this scenario, we will make refunds available in such cases."

Submission + - Palm Abandons Windows Mobile Platform (informationweek.com) 1

Submitted by
vehicle tracking
vehicle tracking writes: "Palm announced they will go with their own webOS mobile operating system for the Smartphone instead of the Windows Mobile platform, according to Information Week. Jon Rubenstein, CEO at Palm said, "Going forward, our roadmap will include only Palm webOS-based devices.â The Palm Pre device is already powered by webOS and targeted to business professionals."
Security

Submission + - Analysis of Handwriting Can Identify Liars 3

Submitted by
pickens
pickens writes: "Ponca City, We Love You writes

The Telegraph reports that researchers at the University of Haifa have determined that how you write can indicate whether you're a lying and say handwriting could one day help validate loan applications and insurance claims. Researchers asked 34 volunteers to write two short paragraphs, where in one they recalled a real memory and in the other a fictitious event while using a wireless electronic pen with a pressure-sensitive tip placed on an electronic board able to measure pressure, rhythm, speed, duration and frequency. Researchers found that those who wrote lies pressed harder on the paper, had longer pen strokes and produced taller letters than those telling the truth. "It seems that the act of writing a false text involves extensive cognitive resources and the automatic act of writing is thereby affected," explains Dr. Gil Luria. Professor Richard Wiseman at the University of Hertfordshire says the technique is promising, but needs testing on a much bigger scale. "We know that people hesitate more when they lie and some companies already use this fact to see how long it takes people to tick boxes when filling in surveys online." The researchers concluded that a lie detector that analyses handwriting has many advantages over the existing detectors, since it is less threatening for the person being examined, is much more objective and does not depend on human interpretation. "This is certainly a system that can improve — alongside the existing detectors — our ability to identify lies.""

Submission + - "Long Tail Effect" doesn't work as advertised (upenn.edu)

Submitted by
Death Metal
Death Metal writes: "In a working paper titled, "Is Tom Cruise Threatened? Using Netflix Prize Data to Examine the Long Tail of Electronic Commerce,"Wharton Operations and Information Management professor Serguei Netessine and doctoral student Tom F. Tan pull information from the movie rental company Netflix to explore consumer demand for smash hits and lesser-known films. Netflix made its data available as part of a $1 million prize competition to encourage the development of new ways that will improve its ability to introduce customers to lesser-known titles they might find appealing."
NASA

Submission + - Our Moon May Hold Coldest Location in the Milky Wa (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
tromtone
tromtone writes: ""The shadowy craters near the south pole of the Moon may be the coldest places in the solar system, colder than even Pluto, NASA scientists reported Thursday as they unveiled some of the first findings from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.In the newly released data, thermal measurements showed that daytime temperatures over much of the surface reached 220 degrees Fahrenheit â" hotter than boiling water â" before plummeting to frigidness at night.But the bottoms of the craters, which lie in permanent darkness, never warm above minus 400.""

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