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Privacy

Submission + - Data breach: Passwords of Apple, Google and NASA employees, among many others (ieeelog.com)

Submitted by radudragusin
radudragusin writes: A previously unreported breach, compromised the username and passwords of close to 100.000 engineers and scientists, members of IEEE. The data was leaked due to a misconfigured FTP server holding more than 100 GB of logs. Furthermore, the logs hold both usernames and passwords in plaintext.
A brief analysis of the logs shows the most common passwords, as well as the most popular browsers among scientists and engineers. As one might expect, passwords like '123456' or 'password' are among the most popular. Chrome is the most popular browser, followed closely by Firefox and Internet Explorer. There are also maps showing the location of the compromised users. Not surprisingly, regions strong in the fields of engineering and research seem to be home to most of the IEEE's members.
Government

Submission + - U.S. Customs Has Shared License Plate Data With Insurance Companies (forbes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It may come as little surprise that every time you cross the border, cameras record your license plate number and feed it into a database of driver locations. More disturbing, perhaps, is the fact that the government seems to share that automobile surveillance data with an unexpected third party: insurance companies.
Privacy

Submission + - Meet Elvis: The robot that interrogates people traveling across the border (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: Even though it's been 35 years, some folks have a specific King of Rock-n-Roll in mind when they hear the name "Elvis." However you might have a case of the Jailhouse Rock blues if the new Elvis catches you in a lie. That's because this Elvis is AI; an android behind a touchscreen who questions people on behalf of U.S. Customs and Border (CBP) Protection to analyze potentially suspicious behavior and to predict threats. He's an Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time (AVATAR) kiosk.

Tucson News reported that there are not enough CBP agents to handle all of the Trusted Traveler Program applications that require face-to-face interviews. It works by using sensors "to screen passengers for unusual physiological responses to questioning — which can indicate a subject is lying," according to CNN.

  It's not what you answer, but how you answer. Are you upset or fidgeting? CNN reported that it "uses three sensors to assess physiological responses: a microphone, which monitors vocal quality, pitch and frequency; an infrared camera, which looks at pupil dilation and where the eyes focus; and a high-definition camera recording facial expressions."

Comment Maybe in urban settings... (Score 1, Flamebait) 97

by jfalcon (#41069265) Attached to: "Knitted" Wi-Fi Routers Create Failover Network For First Responders
Ah, typical Euro-centric thinking where they think because you live in Paris, you can just usurp free wifi because it's there. Never mind that it's on shared cable modem bandwidth and that typically bandwidth in Europe is shit. The ISM band is so saturated that you could charge your phone just through induction because to live there you're living 3-5 stacked on top of each other (in the city). So when the lights go out, so does the Wi-Fi network. If you were relying on the mobile network instead of dedicated 2-way radios, then it usually means that the mobile network will overload instantly with people calling their friends asking "are the light out where you are?" And I don't like the idea of an Emergency "switch" of any kind backdooring my router. Cisco already does it with their 'Vault' devices and the idea that I would now have to rent my router that I paid full price for from the retailer makes me want to smash the device with a hammer. Don't try relying on it outside of the city tho... it goes from city one block to farm land just like that. And it would never work here because of the suburbs.
Government

Submission + - Opportunity Cost of Inaction: High-Speed Rail in the United States (apta.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: In July, the American Public Transportation Association (www.apta.com/) recently released an informative report "Opportunity Cost of Inaction: High-Speed Rail and High Performance Passenger Rail in the United States" (http://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/HPPR-Cost-of-Inaction.pdf).

The report addresses the initial investment and on-going cost of operation and maintenance of high-performance passenger rail in four of the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration-sanctioned regional networks — Northeast, Chicago Hub, California, and Northwest — over a 40-year period.

According to the report, the U.S. Census estimates the population will grow by more than 100 million people in the next 40 years. As the population grows, increased pressure will be placed on the nation’s already crumbling infrastructure. With a complementary high-speed rail service, this will help mitigate the cost of maintenance, replacement and the capacity expansion needs of airport runways, highways and roadways. In many cases expansion will be difficult because of the lack of land mass. I am sure this report will put to rest all the concerns raised during the previous slashdot story, California Going Ahead With Bullet Train (http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/11/27/0245250/california-going-ahead-with-bullet-train)
Earth

Submission + - Curiosity's Latest High-Res Photo Looks Like Earth (wired.com)

Submitted by bbianca127
bbianca127 writes: Curiosity sent a picture down to us, and it looks a lot like Earth. Actually, the picture's color quality has been changed — to human eyes, the landscape would look a lot more reddish. Still, it looks remarkably like the southwestern United States (bringing to mind the AD quote about how Lucille Bluth would rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona).

Comment Plenty of blame to go around... (Score 1) 1

Certainly the airline could do better but you know who else is at fault? The parents for sending their child off like luggage instead of being responsible parents. It was unfathomable 20 years ago to send a child off alone but now it's more common place. Parents need to take some responsibility in this.
Apple

Submission + - The secret to Samsung's massive success: Attack every corner of your home (bgr.com)

Submitted by redkemper
redkemper writes: Samsung has seen tremendous success in recent history, and 2012 has been nothing short of stellar for the consumer electronics vendor so far. The company’s sales hit $42.2 billion in the second quarter this year, topping rival Apple by a healthy margin, and its profit of $4.6 billion was up nearly 50% year-over-year. So how does Samsung do it? While companies like Apple use a somewhat narrow focus to their advantage, Samsung takes a different approach: Sell everything...
Security

Submission + - New State-Sponsered Malware "Gauss" making the rounds (wired.com)

Submitted by
EliSowash
EliSowash writes: "A newly uncovered espionage tool, apparently designed by the same people behind the state-sponsored Flame malware that infiltrated machines in Iran, has been found infecting systems in other countries in the Middle East, according to Kaspersky researchers. Gauss is a nation state sponsored banking Trojan which carries a warhead of unknown designation. Besides stealing various kinds of data from infected Windows machines, it also includes an unknown, encrypted payload which is activated on certain specific system configurations. Just like Duqu was based on the “Tilded” platform on which Stuxnet was developed, Gauss is based on the “Flame” platform."
Security

Submission + - US-Created 'Gauss' Cyber Weapon Discovered Targeting Lebanon (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by
DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: "Security experts have discovered the latest high-profile cyber-security weapon called Gauss, which is based on the Flame platform which is targetting users in Lebanon.

Gauss is a highly-complex piece of malware which is targetting victims in the Middle East, specifically Lebanon, and is monitoring users' web browsing history, banking credenitals and network information.

Discovered by security experts at Kaspersky Labs, the new cyber surveillance tool, which is described as a banking trojan which "carries a warhead of unknown designation", was developed by the same people behind the highly complex Flame virus, discovered earlier this year.

The trojan can steal passwords and usernames from infected PCs, as well as accessing banking systems in the Middle East.

With Kaspersky saying this is was created by the same people behind Flame and Stuxnet, it is implicating once again the US Government which is widely believed to be behind the earlier cyber-attacks."
News

Submission + - Demand for water outstrips supply (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Almost one-quarter of the world’s population lives in regions where groundwater is being used up faster than it can be replenished, concludes a comprehensive global analysis of groundwater depletion (abstract).
Across the world, human civilizations depend largely on tapping vast reservoirs of water that have been stored for up to thousands of years in sand, clay and rock deep underground. These massive aquifers — which in some cases stretch across multiple states and country borders — provide water for drinking and crop irrigation, as well as to support ecosystems such as forests and fisheries.

Yet in most of the world’s major agricultural regions, including the Central Valley in California, the Nile delta region of Egypt, and the Upper Ganges in India and Pakistan, demand exceeds these reservoirs' capacity for renewal.
The Military

War By Remote Control, With Military Robots Set To Self Destruct 144

Posted by timothy from the if-you-hear-buzzing-it's-too-late dept.
New submitter RougeFive writes "A new wave of Kamikaze unmanned military aircraft, ground robots and water vessels are being built to deliberately destroy themselves as they hit their targets. Since it now makes more economic sense to have them crash into enemy targets rather than engage them, and since direct impact needs only manned or automated navigation rather than the highly-trained skills of multiple operators, these UAVs could well become the de-facto method of engagement of the future."

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