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Security

Submission + - Man loses $20 million after taking laptop for repa (techworld.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: A New York couple have been charged with defrauding a wealthy musician to the tune of $20 million (£12.3 million) after he innocently visited their computer servicing company to have a virus removed from his laptop. The couple cooked up a bizarre plot involving Opus Dei — the Catholic organisation central to The Da Vinci Code — in order to extort the musician out of money.
The Internet

Bloglines Shutdown Avoided 24

Posted by samzenpus from the safe-for-now dept.
angry tapir writes "Pioneer RSS feed manager Bloglines will continue operating thanks to a last-minute agreement for MerchantCircle to take over operation of the service from Ask.com. Ask.com, which announced it would shut down Bloglines by Oct. 1 and then postponed the closure several times, said that MerchantCircle, an online network for local business owners, will manage Bloglines starting in December."
Open Source

Submission + - LSE traders concerned over new network capacity (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: The London Stock Exchange has formally acknowledged it needs to do more to scale its IT infrastructure before launching a new Linux platform on its cash markets.

Additionally, sources close to the exchange said significant network and server enhancements are taking place within the exchange, alongside major improvements to client connectivity.
Also in this channel

The LSE this week delayed its migration to the Millennium Exchange platform following a massive network hit that took the smaller Turquoise venue, which uses the system, offline for two hours during peak trading.
Open Source

Submission + - LSE contractor ‘suspended’ after huge (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: An IT contractor has reportedly been suspended by the London Stock Exchange following a huge network hit between Monday night and Tuesday morning.

The network was floored, knocking a key Linux trading platform out of action and bringing a halt to the largest technology transformation at the exchange in 25 years.
Open Source

Submission + - London Stock Exchange IT faces open source fight (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: As the London Stock Exchange today postponed the launch of a Linux based system billed as breaking speed records, other trading venues
including in New York, Singapore, and elsewhere in the UK expressed their desire to deliver faster technology.

The new LSE environment was developed in C++, and runs an Oracle database linked in to a customised version of Linux for its matching engine. Its network uses Cisco and Juniper switches.
Google

Submission + - Google sues government agency over Microsoft bias (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando
superapecommando writes: Google and a reseller of its products have filed a lawsuit against the US Department of the Interior after the agency solicited bids for cloud-based email and messaging services specifying that bidders must use Microsoft products.

Google and reseller Onix Networking filed the lawsuit against the DOI Friday in the US Court of Federal Claims. The contract, for up to $59.3 million over five years, tells bidders they must deploy Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite-Federal (BPOS) package to deliver the services.

The Microsoft requirement is "unduly restrictive of competition" and violates federal contracting law, Google and Onix said in their complaint. The DOI, despite promising to look at alternatives to the Microsoft package, issued an August 30 request for bids constituting "a sole source procurement that is arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion and otherwise contrary to law," the complaint said.
Security

Submission + - Antivirus guy admits scanning is useless (techworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: US antivirus vendor Webroot has bought UK-based Prevx in an acquisition that looks like the latest symptom of the growing dissatisfaction among security companies with the current signature-based scanning model for detecting malware.

On the face of it a 20-person software security company based in Derby is an unlikely bride for an ambitious US outfit looking to grow. But since its founding as long ago as 2001, Prevx has been a pioneer of the application fingerprinting technology that in the cloud services era has suddenly become ultra-fashionable.

Application fingerprinting is a very different approach than signature-based detection, and is based on separating the thousands of known good apps from unknown and suspect ones. Any unknown programs encountered are compared to fingerprints in a cloud database to determine whether they are harmful and if they can't be identified at all they are blocked as a precaution.
Linux

Submission + - Open source credit- a new banking concept?

Submitted by E5Rebel
E5Rebel writes: The Linux Foundation has gone corporate with Tux credit card.

“As a non-profit organisation funded primarily by member dues, the Linux Foundation provides a variety of important services, not the least of which is supporting Linus Torvalds’ full-time work on the kernel. The Linux credit card allows anyone to contribute to the community by enabling the Foundation to sustain and expand upon its important work,” the organisation said.

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/open-source/3246693/linux-foundation-goes-corporate-with-tux-credit-card/
Google

Submission + - Oracle: Google copied our Java code (techworld.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Oracle has updated its lawsuit against Google to allege that parts of its Android mobile phone software "directly copied" Oracle's Java code. Is Oracle claiming that re-implementing a public API is copyright infringement?
Security

Submission + - Bredolab botnet taken down. Authorities hit back (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by E5Rebel
E5Rebel writes: Armenian authorities arrested a 27-year-old man today on suspicion of running a large botnet that was dismantled after a unique take-down operation by Dutch law enforcement and computer security experts. Botnet is estimated to have infected at least 29 million computers worldwide.
Businesses

ACLU Says Net Neutrality Necessary For Free Speech 283

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thanks-for-listening dept.
eldavojohn writes "The ACLU has recently identified Network Neutrality a key free speech issue and said in a lengthy PDF report: 'Freedom of expression isn't worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free. And the Internet is without doubt the primary place where Americans exercise their right to free expression. It's a newspaper, an entertainment medium, a reference work, a therapist's office, a soapbox, a debating stand. It is the closest thing ever invented to a true "free market" of ideas.' The report then goes on to argue that ISPs have incentive and capability of interfering with internet traffic. And not only that but the argument that it is only 'theoretical' are bogus given they list ten high profile cases of it actually happening. If the ACLU can successfully argue that Net Neutrality is a First Amendment Issue then it might not matter what businesses (who fall on either side of the issue) want the government to do."
Businesses

Submission + - Stock Exchange beats record with Linux (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando
superapecommando writes: The London Stock Exchange has said its new Linux-based system is delivering world record networking speed, with 126 microsecond trading times.

The news comes ahead a major Linux-based switchover in twelve days, during which the open source system will replace Microsoft .Net technology on the group's main stock exchange. The LSE had long been criticised on speed and reliability, grappling with trading speeds of several hundred microseconds.

The record breaking times were measured on the LSE's Turquoise smaller dark pool trading venue, where trades are conducted anonymously. That network switched over to Linux from Cinnober technology two weeks ago. Speed is crucial as more firms trade automatically at lightning speed, using advanced algorithms.

Submission + - Traders convicted for outsmarting broker algorithm

Submitted by E5Rebel
E5Rebel writes: Men beat machines. Norwegian traders, Svend Egil Larsen and Peder Veiby, were handed suspended prison sentences and fines for market manipulation after outsmarting the trading system of Timber Hill, which is a unit of US-based Interactive Brokers.The two men managed to work out how the computerised system would react to certain trading patterns. This allowed them to influence the price of low-volume stocks and profit from it.Is this a crime or a something to celebrate?

http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/security/3244186/norwegian-traders-convicted-for-outsmarting-us-stock-broker-algorithm/
Image

UK Police Force Posts All Its Calls On Twitter 66

Posted by samzenpus from the 140-crimes dept.
Stoobalou writes "One of the largest police forces in the UK is posting every incident reported to it today on Twitter. Greater Manchester Police began its 24-hour experiment this morning at 05:00 BST, tweeting all incident reports in the hope of highlighting the complexity of modern policing. 'Policing is often seen in very simple terms, with cops chasing robbers and locking them up,' Chief Constable Peter Fahy said in a statement. 'However the reality is that this accounts for only part of the work they have to deal with.'"
Education

Proving 0.999... Is Equal To 1 1260

Posted by CmdrTaco from the nerds-like-math-right dept.
eldavojohn writes "Some of the juiciest parts of mathematics are the really simple statements that cause one to immediately pause and exclaim 'that can't be right!' But a recent 28 page paper in The Montana Mathematics Enthusiast (PDF) spends a great deal of time fielding questions by researchers who have explored this in depth and this seemingly impossibility is further explored in a brief history by Dev Gualtieri who presents the digit manipulation proof: Let a = 0.999... then we can multiply both sides by ten yielding 10a = 9.999... then subtracting a (which is 0.999...) from both sides we get 10a — a = 9.999... — 0.999... which reduces to 9a = 9 and thus a = 1. Mathematicians as far back as Euler have used various means to prove 0.999... = 1."

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