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Biotech

Mice Cured of Autism 233

Posted by CowboyNeal from the of-mice-and-men dept.
noahisaac writes "My brother just sent me an article he posted for the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation about a cure for Rett Syndrome, a form of autism. According to the article, researchers successfully re-introduced a fully functional version of the MECP2 gene into mice that had been born with damaged MECP2 genes. Contrary to their expectations, the mice improved. In the article's words, 'restoration of fully functional MECP2 over a four week period eradicated tremors and normalized breathing, mobility and gait in mice that had previously been fully symptomatic and, in some cases, only days away from death.' The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."
Patents

Submission + - Peer-to-Patent Expected To Go Live in April, 2007

Submitted by
Throtex
Throtex writes: "Dennis Crouch at Patently-O informs us that the USPTO's Peer-to-Patent project is expected to go live in a couple of months. It links to Beth Noveck's most recent paper on this effort. Inquiring minds want to know — will YOU contribute to the effort to strengthen patents? Will this make examiner's jobs easier, finding better references more easily, or open the floodgates with references submitted by engineers with no knowledge of the patent process and claim interpretation? At worst, this should make people more aware of what claim interpretation involves."
Windows

Submission + - Triple Boot on the Mac Pro

Submitted by yonp
yonp writes: Here is a guide on how to install the Windows Vista OS on the Mac Pro and triple boot it in XP, Vista and Mac OS X. How fast is the Mac Pro for Vista? Vista has an experience score that tells you how fast and capable your PC is. The scale currently runs from 1.0 to 5.9. The Mac Pro scored 5.9 on almost all tests.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox-360 1080p games coming

Submitted by rwven
rwven writes: '1080p is the resolution of the gods. Promised by Sony, attainable by few displays, and argued about all over the Internet, 1080p is something that doesn't affect many television owners while remaining a major sticking point in the current console wars. Microsoft gave the 360 the ability to run games in 1080p in the October firmware update...' EA and Sega are both producing games which will render on the 360 in 1080p. Does this change the playing field for the next generation of console games?
Security

Submission + - Panda's Nanoscan Doublechecks Your A/V's Work

Submitted by f4rrest
f4rrest writes: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2091498,00.as p

Article quote:
Panda's new project... moves everything except a tiny (200-Kbyte) driver off your computer and "into the cloud". It can use a vast number of signatures, run all kinds of sandboxing and emulation tests, any type of processing that's needed — because it's not using your computer's resources. And it's fast. The Nanoscan beta scanned my laptop in 60 seconds.
Upgrades

Submission + - Stupid Ideas That Make All The Difference

Submitted by bobjase
bobjase writes: I've been waiting for the last few years for a 8 or 16 port SD (or CF/MMC/whatever) reader that runs a RAID 0+1 across the cards (bitwise) and has a S-ATA II connection. It could fit in a 5.25" slot and read/write faster than any spinning drive ever could — easily maxing out the SATA-II bandwidth. All the technology has been staring us in the face for the last 4 years. Multi Card readers cost $10. RAID controllers are built into everything and can cost as little as $20. The whole stupid device could cost $50 and with a little shopping, you could get 2GB SD cards for $10 or even less. Am I crazy or would this thing change the world? Why doesn't anyone make this? Would you buy one?
Networking

Cisco to Open Source CTA 48

Posted by CowboyNeal from the all-skate-everyone-skate dept.
VE3OGG writes "Cisco, the networking Goliath, has decided to release the source code of its NAC (network admission control) client, Cisco Trust Agent (CTA) to the open source community within 'a few months.' This comes hot on the heels of Cisco announcing its plans to redevelop a new breed of network security infrastructure. 'CTA will be something that's open source. That's just logically where it should end up,' Gleichauf told InfoWorld. 'We don't want to be in the CTA business, so we're going to just open it up.'"
United States

Submission + - Security Clearances

Submitted by
ellindigo
ellindigo writes: "I work as a UNIX/Linux Systems Administrator for a large corporation. My company is submitting me for a TS-SCI with Full Polygraph security clearance, and today I attended a meeting where they described how the process works. They stressed that the questioning and the polygraph would be very invasive and would include my lifestyle, past egregious acts (I suppose we all have at least one), and anything else they find worthy of attention. My question for Slashdot readers is this — should I go forward with the application process? If I go through all of this scrutiny and don't get the clearance, will the government keep those records on me? What are the ramifications of being documented this way?"
Media

Submission + - Porn Industry May Not Decide Format War

Submitted by nixkuroi
nixkuroi writes: MSNBC Reports that the porn industry may be fudging their numbers and may not be the "decider" of the next winning format. Even more stunning is that on page 3 of the article, Vivid Entertainment says that despite Sony's refusal to license to the adult industry, they've found a way to replicate Blu-Ray technology and will release Debbie Does Dallas on both formats.
Microsoft

Submission + - Emails show Microsoft had Tiger Envy

Submitted by WillCodeForRaisins
WillCodeForRaisins writes: Newly released documents reveal that in 2004, Microsoft executives were awed by Apple's future operating system features, saying that they may not be able to achieve Apple's innovation levels and acknowledging future, similar Windows Vista features would be directly compared with Mac OS X. This confirms earlier reports that Vista development was inspired by Tiger. The messages, the report claims, were filed as evidence in an Iowa state court trying a Microsoft antitrust case and contained messages from several company evangelists and executives, including Jim Allchin, the head of Windows development efforts at the time. The report also notes that Lenn Pryor, former director of Microsoft's platform evangelism, was impressed by Apple's integrated desktop search functions, now called Spotlight. He called it "amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn-land today," he said, according to the report. Longhorn was the previous code-name for Windows Vista. Here's the full story.
Security

Submission + - Computer Forensic Examiners Find a Treasure-Trove

Submitted by
Steve Peskaitis
Steve Peskaitis writes: "LOS ANGELES/Feb. 8, 2007 — While the message about the need to destroy electronic data contained on computer disks and other electronic devices when they are disposed of has been out for some time, Fulcrum Inquiry's Steve Peskaitis and Jared Schultz thought they would test how well the public is responding to the message. The sad result of their investigation: most users are at risk of having their personal information read by others. Here is what they discovered, and what the public can do about it.

Fulcrum Inquiry analyzed 70 used hard drives purchased from 14 different sources. Most of the drives purchased were supposedly cleansed of all information. Peskaitis and Schultz also asked for the process that was used to clean the drives and were usually told that the drives had been low-level formatted.

Using computer forensics, Fulcrum Inquiry attempted to recover information from these hard drives. Admittedly, the tools used by the duo are complex and technical but electronic-knowledgeable thieves can — easily — do what they did.

From the disks that actually worked, Fulcrum Inquiry recovered private data from almost two-thirds (62 percent) of the disks. Specifically:

— 37 drives (53 percent) contained recoverable information
— 23 drives (33 percent) had been properly wiped/cleaned
— 10 drives (14 percent) were non-operational

The properly cleaned drives were either (i) low-level formatted or (ii) wiped using special software that overwrites data.

A Goldmine of Personal Information

Of the 37 drives containing recoverable data, all but four were formatted in an attempt to remove data. Despite the formatting, here is the type of information which was obtained:

Example #1 — Bob:

Bob is unemployed and on disability but has experience in the construction industry. His interests include playing his new guitar, body art and weight lifting. He appears to be infatuated with a particular female celebrity. He has credit problems and is thousands of dollars in debt. Bob served time in jail and is currently living in low-income housing.

Because Bob formatted his hard drive prior to selling it, he obviously did not want his information released. To a casual observer, all files were gone. Nevertheless, Fulcrum Inquiry recovered tens of thousands of files that would allow his identity to be stolen easily:

1. An image of Bob's birth certificate
2. An image of Bob's drivers license
3. An image of Bob's social security card
4. Bob's Last Will and Testament
5. Pictures of Bob and his family
6. Personal letter from Bob to his favorite female celebrity
7. An image of Bob's college diploma
8. Adult images and videos
9. Collection agency letters
10. Credit card statements
11. Bob's memoirs
12. Approximately twenty thousand pictures which appeared to come primarily from Web surfing
13. Financial aid documents
14. Business expense receipts
15. Rent receipts
16. Hundreds of other documents

Example #2 — Nurse Betty:

Nurse Betty works in the pediatric ward at a hospital. Along with recovering confidential medical records and history were patient names, conditions, medicines prescribed, and the doctors who prescribed them. The hospital's efforts to remove this private information were not successful.

Betty accesses a central database of medical information. Although the database is not maintained on her computer, her computer stored the information locally. This is similar to Internet files that are stored locally when a user visits a Web site. Simply accessing information often leaves remnants behind.

Example #3 — Ted:

Ted is a project manager for a state government agency. Thousands of government documents and communications related to Ted's job were recovered, many of which were labeled confidential.

Of particular importance to Ted and his job, Ted appears to be moonlighting in a field that potentially represents a conflict of interest with his government position. Ted also has many personal pictures of family and friends on his computer, as well as personal banking information.

As with practically all of the disks purchased, the vendor selling Ted's hard drive claimed it had been cleansed of all information.

Many additional examples

Other personal information available on the purchased disks included:

1. Bank accounts and credit cards
2. Personal pictures of babies, children, weddings, friends and vacations
3. Business e-mail and attachments
4. Web browsing details

Adult content was found on both work and personal computers. Although some of the pornographic images were of the "commercial" variety, also were found personal pictures not intended for distribution.

Drives purchased from eBay had the highest data recovery rate. Every one of the operational drives purchased on eBay contained information that could be recovered.

Size and cost of the drives seemed to matter. Smaller or less expensive drives were more likely to contain recoverable information. Initially Fulcrum Inquiry focused on smaller drives — 80MB to 15GB (ranged from $0.50 to $15 per drive). Mid-way through the study, the recovery rate was 88 percent. Moving to larger drives — 15GB to 80GB (ranging from $15 to $26), the recoverable data dropped, most likely because the businesses involved took data security more seriously, and employed additional resources.

The value of the drive might explain some laxness: Properly cleaning drives is time-consuming. Someone selling an inexpensive disk might be tempted to take shortcuts.

Lessons to be Learned

1. Information can be recovered from a hard drive even if attempts have been made to delete files, or by performing a quick format.
2. Users know they need to remove their old information but lack the technical understanding to accomplish this properly.
3. Properly cleaning drives is time-consuming. Too many vendors took the quick but also incomplete route.
4. The lower the value of the drive, the less likely it was cleaned properly. The data on the "small" drives was still voluminous and worthy of keeping safe.
5. Fourteen percent of the drives were non-operational, indicating a decent chance that the buyer is wasting time when purchasing a used disk drive.

Fulcrum Inquiry's advice applies to every type of electronic media including memory cards, backup tapes, cell phones, digital copiers and most handheld electronic devices.

To properly dispose of data:

1. Low-level format the drive. Do not use the quick format, which may be the default.
2. Use wiping software designed to overwrite information.
3. Physically destroy the media (think big hammer or very strong magnet).
4. Hire a firm to dispose of the drive. Unfortunately, this service may cost more than the value of the drive.

To protect those whose information was obtained, Fulcrum Inquiry changed the names in the above descriptions. After notifying the hospital and government agency of the breached confidential records and giving them the opportunity to collect their information, Fulcrum Inquiry wiped/erased all data properly.

Fulcrum Inquiry (www.fulcruminquiry.com) is a litigation-consulting firm based in Los Angeles, Calif. The company performs computer forensics, economic damage calculations, and expert witness testimony."
Windows

Windows Expert Jumps Ship 939

Posted by kdawson from the hello-apple dept.
An anonymous reader writes to let us know that Scott Finnie, Computerworld's Windows expert, has given the final verdict to Windows after 3 months of using a Mac. And the verdict is: "Sayonara." Finnie is known to readers here for his many reviews of Vista as it progressed to release. Quoting: "If you give the Mac three months, as I did, you won't go back either. The hardest part is paying for it — everything after that gets easier and easier. Perhaps fittingly, it took me the full three-month trial period to pay off my expensive MacBook Pro. But the darn thing is worth every penny."
Privacy

Submission + - Police given rights to raid homes of sex offenders

Submitted by
Brian Ribbon
Brian Ribbon writes: "The Daily Mail is reporting that Police in the UK will be given unlimited access to the homes of convicted sex offenders. They claim that these powers will allow them to prevent future acts of child molestation, but are they correct in their assumption that most sex offenders — paedophiles or otherwise — are child molesters? Could the government simply be testing new powers against a group which is frequently used as a scapegoat?"

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