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Biotech

Submission + - Swine Flu May Be Human Error.

Tom DBA writes: The swine flu could have been accidentally made in a lab, says the World Health Organization in Bloomberg.com News. Swine Flu May Be Human Error, Scientist Says; WHO Probes Claim. "The World Health Organization is investigating an Australian researcher's claim that the swine flu virus circling the globe may have been created as a result of human error. Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint."

Time to drag out the conspiracy theories about how HIV/AIDS came into the world?
Security

Adobe Confirms PDF Zero-Day, Says Kill JavaScript 211

CWmike writes "Adobe Systems has acknowledged that all versions of its Adobe Reader, including editions for Windows, the Mac and Linux, contain at least one, and possibly two, critical vulnerabilities. 'All currently supported shipping versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat, [Versions] 9.1, 8.1.4 and 7.1.1 and earlier, are vulnerable to this issue,' said Adobe's David Lenoe said in a blog entry yesterday. He was referring to a bug in Adobe's implementation of JavaScript that went public early Tuesday. A "Bugtraq ID," or BID number has been assigned to a second JavaScript vulnerability in Adobe's Reader. Proof-of-concept attack code for both bugs has already been published on the Web. Adobe said it will patch Reader and Acrobat, but Lenoe offered no timetable for the fixes. In lieu of a patch, Lenoe recommended that users disable JavaScript in the apps. Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security, said of the suggestion in lieu of patches, 'Unfortunately, for Adobe, disabling JavaScript is a broken record, [and] similar to what we've seen in the past with Microsoft on ActiveX bugs.'"
Networking

Time Warner Shutting Off Austin Accounts For Heavy Usage 591

mariushm writes "After deciding to shelve metered broadband plans, it looks like Time Warner is cutting off, with no warning, the accounts of customers whom they deem to have used too much bandwidth. 'Austin Stop The Cap reader Ryan Howard reports that his Road Runner service was cut off yesterday without warning. According to Ryan, it took four calls to technical support, two visits to the cable store to try two new cable modems (all to no avail), before someone at Time Warner finally told him to call the company's "Security and Abuse" center. "I called the number and had to leave a voice mail, and about an hour later a Time Warner technician called me back and lectured me for using 44 gigabytes in one week," Howard wrote. Howard was then "educated" about his usage. "According to her, that is more than most people use in a year," Howard said.'"
Networking

The Road To Terabit Ethernet 210

stinkymountain writes "Pre-standard 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet products — server network interface cards, switch uplinks and switches — are expected to hit the market later this year. Standards-compliant products are expected to ship in the second half of next year, not long after the expected June 2010 ratification of the 802.3ba standard. Despite the global economic slowdown, global revenue for 10G fixed Ethernet switches doubled in 2008, according to Infonetics. There is pent-up demand for 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, says John D'Ambrosia, chair of the 802.3ba task force in the IEEE and a senior research scientist at Force10 Networks. 'There are a number of people already who are using link aggregation to try and create pipes of that capacity,' he says. 'It's not the cleanest way to do things...(but) people already need that capacity.' D'Ambrosia says even though 40/100G Ethernet products haven't arrived yet, he's already thinking ahead to terabit Ethernet standards and products by 2015. 'We are going to see a call for a higher speed much sooner than we saw the call for this generation' of 10/40/100G Ethernet, he says."
Sun Microsystems

Oracle Buys Sun 906

bruunb writes "Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) announced today they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun's cash and debt. 'We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle's earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined,' said Oracle President Safra Catz."
The Courts

$74k Judgment Against Craigslist Prankster 182

jamie points out an update in the case of Jason Fortuny, the Craigslist prankster who was sued last year for publicly posting responses to a fake personal ad. The Citizen Media Law Project's summary of his case now includes a recently entered default judgment (PDF), fining Fortuny "... in the amount of $35,001.00 in statutory damages for Count I, violation of the Copyright Act; $5,000 in compensatory damages for Count II, Public Disclosure of Private Facts, and Count III, Intrusion Upon Seclusion." He has also been ordered to pay more than $34,000 in attorney and court fees.
The Courts

What the Pirate Bay Verdict Could Mean For Google 408

explosivejared writes "Forbes is running a story discussing the verdict in the Pirate Bay case and its implications on file sharing, specifically with regard to Google. The article points out what most people on Slashdot already realize: Google provides essentially the same service that the Pirate Bay does. The Pirate Bay case may be far from over, accounting for appeals, but the Pirate Bay's assumption of being unchallengeable was shattered. The article raises the question of whether or not Google is untouchable in the matter. The story is quick to point out how the situation resembles a futile game of cat-and-mouse, but given how the Pirate Bay's confidence was ultimately broken, is Google beyond reproach?"
Security

Submission + - Googlebot attacks 1

JWSmythe writes: It looks like Google's Googlebot's have been exploited.

    Today I noticed a surge in our server load. I had a look at our access logs, and found tens of thousands of requests like this. This is one from my Apache logs. (lines broken intentionally)

66.249.71.99 — -- [16/Apr/2009:18:16:51 -0400] "GET /mobile.story.php?sid=19365'%20and%201=2%20union%20select%201,
CONCAT(char(118),char(97),char(114),char(99),char(104),char(97),
char(114),char(39),char(124),(SELECT%20column_name%20%20from
%20information_schema.COLUMNS%20where%20table_schema=
CONCAT(char(100),char(117),char(98),char(116),char(101),
char(114),char(114),char(111),char(114))%20and%20table_name=
CONCAT(char(112),char(104),char(112),char(98),char(98),char(95) ,char(117),char(115),char(101),char(114),char(115))
%20limit%2011850,1),char(124),char(39)),3,4,5,6,7,8,9%20and
%20'1'='1 HTTP/1.1" 200 1342 "-" "Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83)
Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible;
Mediapartners-Google/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

It's a good thing my site is coded well. These sort of things don't get anywhere.

Parts of the request may be spoofed, but the IP is awful hard to spoof. That's a Googlebot IP.

The heaviest offender is an IP in China, with 48k requests. Google owns the rest.

My list of attackers from the last two hours are:

    48368 113.232.73.2
    22032 66.249.71.99
            2 66.249.71.21
            2 66.249.67.179
            2 66.249.66.244
            2 66.249.66.206
            1 66.249.73.37
            1 66.249.73.106
            1 66.249.72.139
            1 66.249.72.136
            1 66.249.71.134
            1 66.249.71.108
            1 66.249.70.75
            1 66.249.70.59
            1 66.249.70.248
            1 66.249.70.219
            1 66.249.70.193
            1 66.249.67.118
            1 66.249.65.83
            1 66.249.65.110
            1 66.249.65.109

    If anyone has any suggestion who could be masquerading as Google from their own IP's, that would be nice. I've blocked the offensive IP's at our firewall, so they are nothing more than a gnat buzzing at the door.
Politics

Swedish Pirate Party Gains 3000 Members In 7 Hours 410

An anonymous reader writes "Due to outrage over the verdict in The Pirate Bay trial, the Swedish Pirate Party has gained 3000 members in less than 7 hours. It is now bigger than 3 of the 7 parties represented in the Swedish parliament. 'Ruling means that our political work must now be stepped up. We want to ensure that the Pirate Bay activities — to link people and information — is clearly lawful. And we want to do it for all people in Sweden, Europe and the world, continues Rick Falk Vinge. We want it to be open for ordinary people to disseminate and receive information without fear of imprisonment or astronomical damages.'"
Security

Submission + - Researchers Show How to Hijack Cellphone Data (technologyreview.com)

Al writes: "In a presentation given earlier today at Black Hat Europe, researchers demonstrated how to hijack cellphone data using a fake network-configuration text message. The team, from Mobile Security Lab, say it's possible to reconfigure a phone so that it transmits data via an untrusted server. The trick relies on users entering a PIN code to activate the update but the researchers argue that few users would suspect a text message that appears to come from the service provider. They claim to have tested it successfully on a number of handsets and networks in Europe and say that the same technique could perhaps be used to target resources normally protected within the carrier's network."
The Internet

Time Warner Shelves Plans For Tiered Pricing 210

The FNP writes "Time Warner has postponed their plans to test tiered data caps in Greensboro NC, Rochester NY, San Antonio TX, and Austin TX. This announcement comes shortly after the media started reporting on Eric Massa's opposition and protests planned for this Saturday outside of Time Warner's offices in Greensboro and Rochester." There's also a good piece at Ars on the fall of the current tiered-pricing plans.
United States

The End of Tax-Free Internet Shopping? 784

Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes "If a little-known but influential alliance of state politicians, large retailers, and tax collectors have their way, the days of tax-free Internet shopping may be nearly over. A bill expected to be introduced in the US Congress as early as Monday would rewrite the ground rules for mail order and Internet sales by eliminating what its supporters view as a 'loophole' that, in many cases, allows Americans to shop over the Internet without paying sales taxes."
Google

Submission + - Scroogle gets BOT'd (scroogle.org)

johnea writes: "Users of http://www.scroogle.org/ a Google anonymizer, have been getting the "Alfred E. Newmann" screen of death lately.

That is, queries submitted to google through the anonymizing site are being rejected as being from a bot net. These rejections are reported by scroogle to the user via a humorous page depicting the MAD denizen:

https://johnea.net/scroogled.png

The rejections are often on very generic queries, and minor changes to the queries cause then to succeed.

mysql export database phpmyadmin — led to rejection, while
mysql export database — did not

It seems the G iant is beginning to take cyber action against the "google scraper" which has been allowing people to search via google without submitting to profiling.

Conspiracy theorist are predicting an imminent coup by google mercenaries.

Please stay indoors and google your wildest fears..."

Security

Submission + - VMware Bug Allows Windows Hack To Attack Macs (computerworld.com)

CWmike writes: "A bug in VMware's Fusion virtualization software could be used to run malicious code on a Mac by exploiting Windows in a virtual machine, said Kostya Kortchinsky, an exploit researcher at Immunity Inc. The critical vulnerability, in VMware's virtual machine display function, can be used to read and write memory on the "host" operating system — the OS running the physical hardware. Kortchinsky crafted an exploit for Immunity's customers and posted a video clip that demonstrates an attack. 'This is indeed a guest-to-host exploit,' Kortchinsky said in an e-mail today. 'It uses several vulnerabilities in the 'Display functions' (as VMware put it) that allow [someone] to read and write arbitrary memory in the host. Thus the guest can run some code on the host, effectively bypassing ASLR and DEP on Vista SP1.' VMware has released Fusion 2.0.4 to plug the hole."

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