NekoYasha - Slashdot User

Submission + - Scammer plants a fake ATM at Defcon 17 (semiaccurate.com)

Submitted by

Groo Wanderer

on Sunday August 02, 2009 @05:24PM

Groo Wanderer writes: "Normally, a well crafted fake ATM would skim a lot of card information before it was noticed, if it was ever noticed at all. Because it is safer for the criminals and harder to prosecute, financial crimes like this are spreading fast. If you are smart, you don't try to pull one off in the middle of a computer security convention where the attendees are very good at spotting these scams. That said, some not so bright criminal tried to plant a fake ATM at Defcon. He now has one less fake ATM and a whole lot of investigators on his tail."

Submission + - CARS.gov EULA Allows the Government to Own Your PC 1

Submitted by

54mc

on Saturday August 01, 2009 @12:17AM

54mc writes: "Glen Beck today revealed what a close inspection of the End User License Agreement for the CARS system contains. From the EULA, "This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government." The EULA goes on to include other specific aspects of what exactly belongs to the computer.Will this be yet another issue for the already troubled system?

This is of course, yet another example of EULAs that no one reads going way too far."

Submission + - Vuln BIOS rootkit preloaded in ~60% of new laptops (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Keldrin_1 on Friday July 31, 2009 @08:57AM

Keldrin_1 writes: Researchers Alfredo Ortega and Anibal Sacco, from Core Security Technologies, have discovered a vulnerability in the "Computrace LoJack for Laptops" software. This is a BIOS level application that calls home for instructions in case the laptop is ever lost or stolen. However, what the application considers "home" is subject to change. This allows the creation of malware that is capable of "infecting the BIOS with persistent code that survive reboots and reflashing attempts". Computers from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Toshiba, Asus, and others may be affected.

Submission + - Unencrypted Stolen Laptop "difficult to access (irishtimes.com)

Submitted by dlane99 on Thursday June 18, 2009 @06:37AM

dlane99 writes: An unencrypted laptop containing 75,000 customer account details has been stolen from Irish energy company Bord Gáis. According to Managing director of Bord Gáis Energy Dave Bunworth said the laptop would be "very difficult to get into" despite it not being encrypted. "Mr Bunworth said that while the machine was not encrypted, the data saved on it could only be accessed using a username and password." Since when is an unencrypted hard drive difficult to access?

Submission + - Are you really in your parent's basement? (dotblue.nl)

Submitted by

rastakid

on Thursday June 18, 2009 @04:43AM

rastakid writes: "One of the typical in-jokes on Slashdot is the 'I am still living in my parents basement' phrase. Based on the comments of any Slashdot story it seems that 90% of the Slashdotters live with their parents. It's time to draw a final score: describe your living situation and share it with the rest of the world :)"

Submission + - Microsoft: Google broke Windows search (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

Barence

on Thursday June 18, 2009 @03:23AM

Barence writes: "Microsoft has accused Google of breaking Windows Desktop Search with its new Outlook plug-in for Google Apps. The plug-in disables Windows Desktop Search upon installation by removing a registry key. What's more, uninstalling the Google plug-in doesn't restore the registry key, leaving Windows and Outlook search facilities crippled. Google now admits its software disables the search facilities — as well as Adobe and PGP encryption plug-ins — and says it's updated Google Apps Sync so that it repairs the registry keys properly."

Submission + - Canadian proposed law would allow warrantless sear (news1130.com)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Thursday June 18, 2009 @02:14AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "A bill introduced by Canada's Minister of Public Safety will allow police to (warrantlessly) force ISPs to provide access to any requested digital traffic records, reports News 1130. Police lobbied for the bill as means of "combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists", but apparently they find the legal principles of judicial review and probable cause, as well as a constitutional provision against "unreasonable search or seizure", to be too much of a hassle, and would rather be able to search anyone's web or e-mail traffic at their own discretion and without any oversight. All in the name of public safety, of course."

Submission + - China to propose WLAN security standard again (goodgearguide.com.au)

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Thursday June 18, 2009 @02:12AM

angry tapir writes: "China will submit its wireless LAN security protocol to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for consideration as a global standard, years after its rejection by the standards body incensed Chinese backers. When the ISO turned down the Chinese protocol three years ago, it instead adopted the IEEE 802.11i security specification developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and widely used in Wi-Fi networks globally."

Submission + - One Policy, One System, Universal Service 1

Submitted by

pin0chet

on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @11:56PM

pin0chet writes: "In response to the FCC's Notice of Inquiry on 'a national broadband plan for our future,' telcos and advocacy groups have submitted thousands of pages of comments. Unfortunately, it seems many of them have forgotten the biggest mistake telecom regulators ever made:

The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, or "Ma Bell," operated its telephone monopoly for the better part of the 20th century. For sixty years, regulators nurtured Ma Bell's control of the industry, convinced that the telephone market was a natural monopoly...Today, as the FCC invites comments on "a national broadband plan for our future," no one seriously believes that telecom monopolies are a good idea...[yet many of the proposed new rules] are precisely what created the Bell monopoly in the first place."

Submission + - SCO signs deal to avoid liquidation

Submitted by on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @11:37PM

An anonymous reader writes: Only moments before a hearing at which SCO would have faced conversion to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company signed a deal to sell off its UNIX assets. This last-minute act of desperation could potentially allow SCO to delay its demise.

And to carry on the good fight

I have nothing to add. The picture says it all.

Submission + - Credit scores calculated by Neurotic AI (fairisaac.com)

Submitted by

Whomp-Ass

on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @10:56PM

Whomp-Ass writes: "Your credit score is decided by a Neurotic AI, which, much like Marvin, seems to be continually depressed. For example when asked to complete the sentence "I was very" it output: (sic) "I was very nervous about my ability ..." when asked to complete the sentence: "The New York", it output: "The New York Times' computer model collapses ..."

Further, this Neural Network business decision automation suite, authored by the same guy, claims the following: "the logic that drives business decisions can't be buried inside individual software systems. It must be visible, easily modified by nonprogrammers, and usable by any application and channel."

The hubris here is astounding...while we are getting close, we are not yet anywhere near the level of predictive analysis required to state any such things without personal oversight. Especially when the machine in question is necessarily working off of imperfefct information (i.e. not everyone reportws to a CRA, income is not considered as a significant datum, etc, etc...)

The PDF continues on to claim that most business logic is written in Cobol...

Behold the software and accompanied business decision that collapseth our economy..."

Submission + - Comcast to bring IPv6 to residential US in 2010 (internetnews.com) 7

Submitted by darthcamaro on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @09:30PM

darthcamaro writes: We all know that IPv4 address space is almost gone — but we also know that no major US carrier has yet migrated its consumer base either. Comcast is no upping the ante a bit and has now said that they are seriously gearing up for IPv6 residential broadband deployment soon.
"Comcast plans to enter into broadband IPv6 technical trials later this year and into 2010," Barry Tishgart, VP of Internet Services for Comcast said. "Planning for general deployment is underway."

Submission + - U.S. plans to bulldoze 50 shrinking cities 1

Submitted by chrb on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @03:16PM

chrb writes: Two days ago Slashdot discussed broke counties grinding their tarmac roads into gravel. Now the Telegraph reveals plans to raze huge sections of at least 50 U.S. cities to the ground. The resulting smaller cities will be more economical to run, and the recovered land will be returned to nature.

Submission + - The Doctor Who Model of Open Source (cam.ac.uk)

Submitted by

Glyn Moody

on Wednesday June 17, 2009 @10:16AM

Glyn Moody writes: "Open source projects are generally fine when there's a long-term leader like Linus; but what happens when nobody is able or willing to run things for extended periods? Peter Murray-Rust explains how the open chemistry group known as the Blue Obelisk has evolved what he calls the "Doctor Who Model of Open Source": "You'll recall that every few years something fatal happens to the Doctor and you think he is going to die and there will never be another series. Then he regenerates. The new Doctor has a different personality, a different philosophy (though always on the side of good). It is never clear how long any Doctor will remain unregenerated or who will come after him. And this is a common theme in the Blue Obelisk." Could other open source projects learn from this experience as long-term leaders start to move on?"

Submission + - Maybe black holes don't go POOF! (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by wisebabo on Sunday June 14, 2009 @11:15AM

wisebabo writes: Very interesting application of quantum theory that states that the stretching of space around a black INCREASES the uncertainty in position of a quantum particle which correspondingly DECREASES the momentum of a particle. This lowers the energy of a particle which drives it towards the black hole, creating an "anti-centrifugal force".

Anyway, I wonder, does this "anti-centrifugal force" (remember that "centrifugal force" is itself an illusionary force, it should be centripetal acceleration) partially or wholly balance out hawking radiation? In which case does that mean that black holes do not, in fact, evaporate? In which case:

1) Is information NOT conserved in black holes? (A big problem for theoretical physicists!). Maybe Stephen Hawking will win his bet with Roger Penrose after all.

2) Does that mean that the LHC might create mini-black holes that will NOT evaporate (A big problem for the rest of us!).

Obviously I'm being a little alarmist on the second point because as has been pointed out many times before, these "mini" black holes would've been created by high-energy cosmic ray events before. Still interesting to think about!

Here's the article: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/23660/

P.S. By the way, this reminds me (slightly) about how in Dan Simmons book "Olympus", the character Achilles is completely invulnerable (not like the greek legend) because the fates had decided EXACTLY how long he would live. Because of that certainty, unlike any other mortal, he had ZERO probability of dying anytime else (sort of like if you knew the position of a particle exactly, you'd have no clue as to its momentum). Or maybe not.

Slashdot Top Deals