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Encryption

Submission + - 768-bit RSA encryption has been cracked (siliconrepublic.com)

Submitted by jaq1an
jaq1an writes: SilconRepublic is reporting that 768-bit RSA encryption has been cracked using a cluster PC approach. Quote from article "Whilst this crypto cracking feat is impressive, it highlights the fact that the days of relying on encryption alone as a means of defending private data are now drawing to a close."

Is nothing safe anymore?

Submission + - iPhone users unite against parking fines (apple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: new year resolution: spend less money on parking fines. To help, the ParkWatch iPhone app (free) crowdsources parking inspector reports and allows users to receive live alerts of parking inspectors present near their parked cars, as reported by other users. ParkWatch leverages GPS, Push notifications and google maps of the iPhone to create a community of 'reporters', and allow users to stay one step ahead of parking fines. ParkWatch also allows users to remember their car parking location, and view the history of parking inspectors reports on the embedded map.

Comment Re:WHY does this NEVER hapen to me? (Score 1) 926

by jibster (#30667864) Attached to: Slovak Police Planted Explosives On Air Travelers
I'll admit I'm Irish but I will also admit I have no faith in my Police. Even so, your suggestion is bordering on the mad and reeks of coverup. It also does not match in any detail what the RTE news is reporting, and I do have faith in that news service.

I would suggest that when one government smuggles explosive into another country the standard proceedure should not be just to call the airport to give them a heads up and then assume all is well.

How was Dublin Airport able to sit on the mess? You can only sit on something when your the only one who knows about it. The only ones in that position in this mess were the Slovak police.

Why did the Slovak police and government not contact thier Irish eqivelents and keep on contacting them until the explovises were returned? This is a diplomatic incident its not the sort of thing you send an email about asking for an update.

Why was the pilot allowed to take off. How is that even his decission? Its mad I tell you.

If you really think this is the way it went down then I have a bridge I think you might like.
Space

Submission + - Has Kepler Discovered New Class of Cosmic Object? (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: NASA's Kepler planet-hunting observatory has found two normal stars orbited by objects that are too blistering hot to be planets but too small to be stars. So what are they? It's anybody's guess. They're simply called "objects of interest" by the Kepler team.
Idle

Submission + - D.C. detective pulls gun at snowball fight (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by langelgjm
langelgjm writes: The Washington Post reports that during Saturday's record-breaking snowfall, hundreds of twenty- and thirty-somethings gathered in a mostly-empty area of the city and proceeded to have an enormous snowball fight. Things were all fun and games until a D.C. detective in plainclothes stopped in the middle of the fight, leaving his Hummer and confronting the crowd with his gun drawn. At first, D.C. police denied the claims, but the incident was caught on tape. The detective is currently on desk duty pending an investigation. The tech angle to all of this? 25-year-old Yousef Ali, a one-time Apple Genius, said he was inspired to start the snowball fight by a friend's Facebook status and used a dormant personal blog and extensive Twitter promotion to expand the participant list: "Basically, I used a lot of my social media promotions techniques... to really push this thing pretty big."

Submission + - Drone incident serves up data encryption lesson

Submitted by cyclocommuter
cyclocommuter writes: Excerpts from the ComputerWorld article:In a story that's receiving widespread attention, the Wall Street Journal yesterday reported that Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Afghanistan were tapping into live feeds from Predator drones using a $26 software tool called SkyGrabber from Russian company SkySoftware. The hitherto largely unknown software product doesn't require Internet connectivity and is designed to intercept music, photos, video and TV satellite programming for free. Insurgents in Iraq, however, were able to use SkyGrabber to grab live video feeds from unmanned Predator drones because the transmissions were being sent unencrypted to ground control stations.

Once again, yet another multi-billion dollar system is rendered vulnerable by cheap off-the-shelf components.

Submission + - Scientists announce possible discovery of dark mat (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by Arvisp
Arvisp writes: Scientists working on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS), in the disused Soudan iron ore mine in Minnesota, announced last night that they had detected two events with the signature of the weakly-interacting massive particles (WIMPs) that are thought to make up dark matter.
Science

Submission + - Gravity explained as not a force. (google.nl)

Submitted by sciencewatcher
sciencewatcher writes: (resubmission, link is now to the full article) The Dutch theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde proposed a remarkable simple theory which explains gravity as a statistical phenomenon resulting from different concentrations of information in empty spaces between masses. If it holds the magnitude of this new theory is of the same order as Einstein's introduction of the relativity theory and would result in a rewrite of all secondary education physics books. 'Gravity is not a fundamental force. It emergences from a deeper microscopic reality' he stated in a newspaper article (Dutch, Google translated). Simple Newtonian laws like the law of motion (F=m*a) can be easily derived from the new theory. So far his colleagues have stated to be intrigued rather than sceptic. The implications for other theories such as the unification theory are enormous.
IBM

Submission + - IBM introduces new System z Linux solutions (infogrok.com)

Submitted by robbyyy
robbyyy writes: IBM has introduced a new Linux offerings for the System z mainframe to help clients run smarter and more efficient data centers that maximize the use of IT resources and reduce energy costs.

According to IBM, the new enterprise Linux server provides a full array of components to help organizations consolidate hundreds of Linux virtual servers on a single server using IBM's virtualization technology, known as z/Virtual Machine (z/VM). z/VM helps clients extend the value of mainframe technology across the enterprise by integrating applications and data while providing high levels of availability and security.
Science

Submission + - SPAM: Proving Darwin wrong

Submitted by PBH
PBH writes: The research released for peer review on December 9, 2009, and cited below is sure to be used by some groups and their PACs to lobby for removal of Darwin from any ciricula in any school.
Not the case at all.
Maximum likelihood is shown to be more accurate than Bayesian inference in analysis of evolutionary trends.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - JMicron (bit-tech.net)

Submitted by mr_sifter
mr_sifter writes: The first wave of consumer orientated SSDs used JMicron's 602 controller chip — and while performance in many synthetic tests was great, in the real world, people quickly found the drives could suffer from terrible stuttering. Manufacturers and consumers rapidly switched to drives with Indilinx controller chips. Indilinx further strengthened its drives by adding firmware updates with TRIM and garbage cleaning support. 12 months on, JMicron is fighting back with a new controller chip — the 612 — and bit-tech has got a hands on exclusive test. It's solved some of the issues, but not all of them...
The Internet

Submission + - SPAM: Is 4chan the Future of Human Consciousness?

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: Author Jason Louv argues in all seriousness that 4Chan is "our best preview of where human consciousness is going," calling them a "freebased version of mankind's new drug of choice..." The image board's creative turmoil "show us the chaos at the edge of human perception, where the mind has consumed so much information through artificially enhanced sensory inputs that it begins to break down and cannibalize itself," and in that sense 4Chan users are "the Magellans of media desensitization." If the internet will change the human experience, then 4Chan represents "a new frontier...the most interesting angle we have on the evolution of human consciousness." Or, to put it another way, "It is the car crash that cannot be looked away from. Ever."
Link to Original Source
Programming

Submission + - Interview with MATLAB creator, Cleve Moler (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a rare interview, MATLAB creator and mathematician Cleve Moler talks about the evolution of the MATLAB programming language, which went from humble beginnings to now serving as a tool for over one million math, computer science and engineering students around the world. Many everyday products have used MATLAB as one of their tools for creation, including cars and hearing aids. Moler discusses how the great array and matrix handing of MATLAB has influenced other general purpose programming languages, what impact the graphics and plotting abilities of the software has on its popularity, his favorite feature of the program and advice for today's math, computer science and engineering students.
Science

Submission + - How to build a quantum propulsion machine (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: According to quantum mechanics, a vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence. It turns out that these waves can have various measurable effects, such as the Casimir-Polder force which was first measured accurately in 1997. Just how to exploit this force is still not clear. Today, however, a researcher at an Israeli government lab suggests how it could be possible to generate propulsion using the quantum vacuum. The basic idea is that pushing on the electromagnetic fields in the vacuum should generate an equal and opposite force. The suggestion is that this can be done using nanoparticles that interact with the vacuum's electric and magnetic fields, generating the well known Lorentz force. In most cases, the sum of Lorentz forces adds up to zero. But today's breakthrough is the discovery of various ways to break this symmetry and so use the quantum vacuum to generate a force. The simplest of which is simply to rotate the particles. So the blueprint for a quantum propulsion machine described in the paper is an array of addressable nanoparticles that can be rotated in the required way. Although such a machine will need a source of energy, it generates propulsion without any change in mass. As the research puts it with masterful understatement, this might have practical implications.

Submission + - Gigantic spiral of light observed over Norway (dailymail.co.uk) 6

Submitted by Ch_Omega
Ch_Omega writes: A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing display to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor to a shock wave — although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet. The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate. Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre — lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely.

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone calls after the light storm — which astronomers have said did not appear to have been connected to the aurora, or Northern Lights, so common in that area of the world."

Article in English here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html
More pictures here(in Norwegian): http://www.nrk.no/nyheter/distrikt/troms_og_finnmark/1.6902392?index=false

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