padraic_93 - Slashdot User

Submission + - SPAM: Inmate gets 18 months for hacking prison computer

Submitted by alphadogg on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @02:55PM

alphadogg writes: A former Massachusetts prison inmate has been given an 18-month prison sentence for hacking prison computers while he was incarcerated. Francis "Frank" Janosko, 44, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Boston for abusing a computer provided by the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. The computer had been set up to help inmates with their legal research. In 2006, Janosko managed to circumvent computer controls and use the machine to send e-mail and cull data on more than 1,100 Plymouth County prison employees. He gained access to sensitive information such as their dates of birth, Social Security Numbers, telephone numbers, home addresses and employment records.
Link to Original Source

Typing With Your Brain 262

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @01:40PM from the what-a-waste-of-the-force dept.

destinyland writes "This article asks, 'Why bother to type a document using a keyboard when you can write it by simply thinking about the letters?' A brain wave study presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society shows that people with electrodes in their brains can 'type' using just their minds. The study involved electrocorticography — a sheet of electrodes laid directly on the surface of the brain after a surgical incision into the skull. ('We were able to consistently predict the desired letters for our patients at or near 100 percent accuracy,' explains one Mayo clinic neurologist.) And besides typing, there's new brain wave applications that can now turn brain waves into music and even Twitter status updates — by thought alone."

Is Code Auditing of Open Source Apps Necessary? 108

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @12:45PM from the but-I-thought-there-were-no-bugs dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Following Sun Microsystems' decision to release a raft of open source applications to support its secure cloud computing strategy, companies may be wondering if they should conduct security tests of their customized open source software before deployment. While the use of encryption and VPNs to extend a secure bridge between a company IT resource and a private cloud facility is very positive — especially now that Amazon is beta testing its pay-as-you-go private cloud facility — it's important that the underlying application code is also secure. What do you think?"

Submission + - SPAM: New Features in Wolfram|Alpha: Year End Update

Submitted by viralMeme on Wednesday December 23, 2009 @11:36AM

viralMeme writes: When we launched Wolfram|Alpha in May 2009, it already contained trillions of pieces of information--the result of nearly five years of sustained data-gathering, on top of more than two decades of formula and algorithm development in Mathematica. Since then, weâ've successfully released a new build of Wolfram|Alpha's codebase each week, incorporating not only hundreds of minor behind-the-scenes enhancements and bug fixes, but also a steady stream of major new features and datasets.
Link to Original Source

Slashdot Top Deals