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Security

Submission + - Facebook Source Code Leaked

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are only two possible ways that the source code got out — the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that a security hole has been used on either one of the Facebook servers or in their source code repository to reveal the code....[ + ]"
Windows

Submission + - Vista Performance Hotfixes are Published

Submitted by Annonymous Coward
Annonymous Coward writes: Many have been anticipating the releases of the Vista Performance and Compatibility hotfixes this Tuesday, but it has not been clear that they would be released on Patch Tuesday (8/14). However, there is some good news if you are anxious to load these updates. The final updates are out (not the Beta), and available by searching for the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles.

Vista Performance and Reliability Pack:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; EN-US;938979

Vista Compatibility and Reliability Pack:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; EN-US;938194
Security

Submission + - The Java Popup you Can't Stop (hackademix.net) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In his brand new hackademix.net blog, Giorgio Maone, known as the author of the NoScript security extension for Firefox, reveals how popup blockers can be easily circumvented using Java. Worse, popups opened this way are really evil, because they can be sized to cover the whole desktop (the wet dream of any phisher) and cannot be closed by user (the wet dream of any web advertiser).

Impressive demos available, all cross-browser and cross-platform, in the best Java tradition: "Write once, hack anywhere" (WOHA).
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Physicists Propose Tarot Cards To Auger LHC

Submitted by
ObsessiveMathsFreak
ObsessiveMathsFreak writes: "Via Peter Woit's Blog Not Even Wrong, comes one of the most bizarre papers ever seen on the e-Print archive arXiv.org[Wiki-link]. Two mainstream physicists propose that the enormous energies and exotic Higgs particles that will be created at the Large Hadron Collider could create effects that will(will have been?) propagate backwards through time, enabling us to predict proper parameters for the LHC beforehand. They propose choosing from a shuffled deck of cards with various luminosity or beam energy parameters written on them, as well as a few cards with 'close LHC', just in case some terrible accident should occur. Tommaso Dorigo gives a detailed summary of the paper at his blog. Right now, I'm so glad I didn't choose theoretical physics as a career."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft pays companies to use LiveSearch

Submitted by
tsa
tsa writes: "On John Battelle's Searchblog there is a piece about how Microsoft pays companies to not only have them use MS's Live Search engine, but also get information about the amount of users and PC's in the company. Companies get paid a fee per PC. The height of the fee depends on the usage of the MS LiveSearch engine. The use of IE7 is mandatory for this, because MS wants the companies to use a plugin for this browser to be able to keep track of the user's searching habits. If you ask me, this is bribery."
Security

Submission + - Monthly OS Security Scorecard and answer!

Submitted by
Flosse
Flosse writes: "as mentioned on OSNews, Jeff Jones of Microsoft is makingg a monthly OS security scorecard here. This is fine and dandy but the numbers are a bit weird since they take into account only how many 'fixes' the companies have issued each month. In response I have made a similar security scorecard, adding a few more factors over the same time period, the picture is quite different I have to say. Though his graphs are nice, without any major factors you can turn this "scorecard" into any direction you want and funny enough, his favor Microsoft."
Quickies

Submission + - High School Student Builds Fusion Reactor

Submitted by
deblau
deblau writes: "In 2006 Thiago Olson joined the extremely sparse ranks of amateurs worldwide who have achieved nuclear fusion with a home apparatus. In other words, he built the business end of a hydrogen bomb in his basement. A bright plasma "star in a jar" demonstrated his success. "The temperature of the plasma is around 200 million degrees," Olson says modestly, "several times hotter than the core of the sun.""
Data Storage

Journal Journal: Life of CDs for archiving data

Journal by Jeff1946
One of the science fair entries I judged today was on the use of CDs to archive data and the expected lifetime. The students did accelerated lifetime testing at 80C to determine the failure rate of the cyanine dye on which is written the data. They didn't have enough time at 80C to detect any failures. Of more interest to me and /. folks is conversations they had with people at NIST and the Library of Congress. The students learned that CDs lifetimes have greatly improved d
PHP

Submission + - Fake OS project attempts to copyright Pligg code..

Submitted by
xeit
xeit writes: "Pligg, the open source Digg-like CSM has been sent a C&D from a project called SuperGu, another open source project run by a little passionate man named James Phelps. He claims he owns their CSS and other aspects of the project including RSS and the RSS icons.. (all of them) It looks like people haven't learned their lesson on claiming ownership of things that are clearly not theirs. The issues in question can be found here"
The Matrix

Submission + - Fundamental particals not so fundamental

Submitted by SpinyNorman
SpinyNorman writes: A new "string-net" theory of matter by researchers Xiao-Gang and Michael Levin, initially created to explain the fractional quantum hall effect (FQHE), has been shown to derive fundamental particals such as quarks and gluons, as well as naturally giving rise to Maxwell's equations of light. The new theory also predicts a new state of matter that appears to have been experimentally verified, and oddly enough also occurs naturally in a gemstone, Herbertsmithite, that was discovered over 30 years ago. The new theory builds on the work of Nobel physicist Robert Laughlin, and according to the New Scientist report has already attracted the attention of luminaries such as Fields medallist Michael Freedman who describes it as beautiful.
Google

Submission + - Super Mega Zoom Hack for Google Maps

Submitted by
Criticker
Criticker writes: "Select a location and switch to satellite view. Zoom in as far as you can, and click 'link to this page' at the top right. Now replace the 'z' parameter in the URL with a higher value, e.g. 20, 22, or 23, and wait. Some locations will now show more detailed imagery.

More Details, specific Urls and images: Link"
Operating Systems

Submission + - Version control for config files, scripts etc....

Submitted by TokyoCrusaders92
TokyoCrusaders92 writes: Like a lot of other organizations (800 staff, 5000 students) we have a mix of windows, novell & linux...primarily linux...for our IT infrastructure. We now have a multitude of config files, firewall rule bases, shell scripts etc which are managed by multiple people / groups. Recently we started using RCS for version control of the firewall rulebase but this doesn't seem like it would scale up to larger groups of users. What are other people using to manage their config files....nice features would include version control, logging, multiple users, secure authentication, integrity checking...?

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