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Submission + - Comcast Helps Fix TPB's Connectivity Issues (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by
MagusSlurpy
MagusSlurpy writes: "Far from blocking The Pirate Bay, Comcast was just one of several ISPs on which TPB was unreachable today. Comcast reached out to the torrent site, and its engineers provided technical support, eventually determining that the connectivity issues stemmed from a reverse path filtering issue at an intermediate ISP, Serious Tubes Networks."
Chrome

Submission + - Google Engineers Deny Hack Exploited Chrome (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Several Google security engineers have countered claims that a French security company, Vupen, found a vulnerability in Chrome that could let attackers hijack Windows PCs running the company's browser. Instead, those engineers said the bug Vupen exploited to hack Chrome was in Adobe's Flash, which Google has bundled with the browser for over a year. Google's official position, however, has not changed since Vupen said it had sidestepped not only the browser's built-in 'sandbox' but also by evading Windows 7's integrated anti-exploit technologies. But others who work for Google were certain that at least one of the flaws Vupen exploited was in Flash's code, not Chrome's. 'As usual, security journalists don't bother to fact check,' said Tavis Ormandy, a Google security engineer, in a tweet earlier Wednesday. 'Vupen misunderstood how sandboxing worked in Chrome, and only had a Flash bug.' Chris Evans, a Google security engineer and Chrome team lead, tweeted, 'It's a legit pwn, but if it requires Flash, it's not a Chrome pwn.'"

Submission + - FCC Commissioner joins NBC-Comcast (comcast.com)

Submitted by demonbug
demonbug writes: Several sources are reporting that FCC Commissioner Meredith Baker will be leaving her position at the FCC on June 3. Just four months after voting to approve the merger of NBC-Universal and Comcast, she will be taking a position as the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs (a lobbying position) with Comcast.
Firefox

Submission + - ant.com video downloader snoops (iwtf.net)

Submitted by
simonplexus
simonplexus writes: "I was recently doing some web development and discovered that a popular 4 star rated Firefox addon with nearly 7 million users (source: here) is behaving in a way which I did not expect. The Addon in question is the video downloader and player from ant.com, which allows viewing or downloading of videos from sites like youtube.com and many other popular video sites.

What I discovered has prompted me to write this article – that this addon is in fact clandestinely collecting data about every site that the addon users visit (not just ant.com or video sites) and specifically tying this back to you via a cookie and what appears to be a unique identifier, aka UUID — contrary to the published privacy policy. This happens in regular browsing, browsing on your corporate VPN, ‘Private browsing’ mode and browsing via proxies or anonymising services such as Tor, completely bypassing many layers of anonymity and security afforded by services such as proxies, Tor and corporate VPNs."
Networking

Submission + - YouTube, gaming and social networking busting TV's (arnnet.com.au) 1

Submitted by splitenz
splitenz writes: TV executive tells major Australian broadband conference that television audiences are slipping away into social media, gaming and other online subscription spaces. YouTube and online gaming is taking the traditional TV audience online and TV is struggling to fightback.
Microsoft

Submission + - Binary Compatibility and versioning

Submitted by Wolfling1
Wolfling1 writes: Binary compatibility is a common problem when there are multiple versions of a library. This is particularly topical given the mess Microsoft made of ADO with the recent release of Win7SP1. I have some opinions about how version numbering should be used to ensure consistent interfaces, but I am curious to read /.'s opinion on how libraries should be deployed to prevent unwanted backwards/forwards compatibility issues.

Submission + - Another Facebook Blunder (tidbits.com)

Submitted by sixfive0two
sixfive0two writes: The news site Ars Technica (owned by Condé Nast Digital) woke up Thursday morning to find their Facebook page locked after an unknown person complained to Facebook that some piece of Ars Technica content infringed on their rights. With no warning, explanation, or clear appeal process, and with only minimal communication after Ars staffers started to investigate, the Ars Technica Facebook page remains inaccessible.

The Ars comments are worth a look

Submission + - Amazon EC2 Crash Caused Data Loss (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Relayman
Relayman writes: Henry Blodget is reporting that the recent EC2 crash caused permanent data loss. Apparently, the backups that were being made were not sufficient to recover the lost data. Although a small percentage of the total data was lost, any data loss can be bad to a Website operator.
Science

Submission + - Scientists builds microscale on-chip qubit emitter (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Researchers have developed an on-chip, microscale photon pair emitter as part of a project that aims to deliver the “world’s first chip-based quantum information device” within five years. The 80-micron-long silicon photonic crystal waveguide slowed light by a factor 20 to 30, and could be one way of scalably generating qubits for future cryptographic and computing applications.
Linux

Submission + - Slackware 13.37 released! (slackware.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yes, it's that time again! After many months of development and
careful testing, we are proud to announce the release of Slackware
version 13.37!

        We are sure you'll enjoy the many improvements. We've done our best
to bring the latest technology to Slackware while still maintaining the
stability and security that you have come to expect. Slackware is well
known for its simplicity and the fact that we try to bring software to
you in the condition that the authors intended.
The Internet

Submission + - Netflix Is Killing BitTorrent in The US (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Something’s not right in the United States. Increasingly people start to pay for Netflix subscriptions so they can stream movies on demand. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that Netflix’ popularity has a negative effect on the movie piracy rates in the US.
Chrome

Submission + - Google Adds Speech To Chrome 11, Pays Big Bounty (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Google patched 27 vulnerabilities in Chrome on Wednesday as it boosted the stable build of the browser to version 11 on Windows, Mac and Linux. The company paid out a record $16,500 in bounties to researchers who reported a majority of the bugs, beating the previous biggest payday by several hundred dollars. While Google listed more than 3,700 changes in Chrome 11, the only one it highlighted was the speech input feature. 'Speech input through HTML is one of many new Web technologies in the browser that help make innovative and useful Web applications like Google Translate's speech feature possible,' software engineer Josh Estelle said in a blog post. The combination of Chrome and Google Translate isn't flawless. In several quick tests by Computerworld, the browser and service transcribed most phrases accurately, but in one instance heard 'Good morning, sister ship' when the line was actually 'Good morning, Mr. Smith.'"

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