Comment Re:Several German states admit to use of the softw (Score 1) 104
Submitter here. Thanks for doing the editor's job. I added this information when it became available.
Comment Update: 3 more states confess (Score 1) 2
Three more German states say they used/are using the (modified/similar) trojan, without breaking the law. Newspaper article in German.
Comment Title cut off: "... – Sort Of" (Score 1) 2
The title was not cut off in preview. It should have ended in "– Sort Of", because of the implied possibility that the final version of the code was totally different and legal. Yeah, right.
Submission + - Bavaria Confesses To German State Trojan – S (monstersandcritics.com) 2
clickforfreepizza writes: News on the German "state trojan" analyzed by the CCC:
[The] Bavarian Interior Minister [confirmed] that state officials had indeed used the software, but argued that the use had been conducted legally.
[...]
[A] lawyer said his client had had the software in question installed on his computer during a customs check.
That software, which could be legally used for monitoring telecommunications, had been altered to allow it to grab screen shots.
The H's sister reports (German) this case involves nothing like terrorism, but legal substances which "may become" illegal when exported.
The Bavarian press release (German) also says the code analyzed by the CCC might be an earlier test version.
Comment Re:Frosty Piss (Score 2) 162
It has also resulted in the attitude that cops who break the law are already "punished" by being unable to present the evidence in court (and often therefore unable to convict a criminal), and that this is sufficient punishment for the cop.
Well, not so in Germany. Typically (at least according to popular lawblog.de) it's like this: Prosecutor gets judge to sign a search order which is blatantly illegal. Search victim goes to court; result: a letter to hang over the fireplace saying the search was illegal.
If the search victim is prosecuted, the court has to weigh what's more important: the injury of the illegal search or dealing with the crime. Hint: answer's always the same.
Whereas in other jurisdictions the cop would lose their job, or end up in jail themselves, in the US they typically don't.
Unless it's something big like the recent blanket surveillance of all mobile phones in a city, I don't know there's ever been any consequence in Germany.
Comment Re:I am waiting for an AV signatur update (Score 2) 162
Comment Narrowish Browser Windows (Score 1) 763
To make
I want the above without log in and user mode.
Also, I agree with pretty much all top rated comments so far, especially about quality of editing and submissions.
The above problems are so annoying that this is my second attempt not to let my account slide into oblivion. I've been able to muster up a few months' active participation vs. many years low-intensity read-only.
Comment Stereotypical Suspicion of Sensationalism (Score 1) 1
In this case, though, the researchers used copper wire that is 1 millimeter thick -- but there's no reason that it couldn't be scaled down to just a few nanometers
Theoretically, I'm sure... but that would still be quite an achievement. Am I to understand that the progress from the 1-millimeter tech to the nanometer tech will be very small compared to the achieved progress from state of the art tech to the 1-millimeter tech?
a small one-square-centimeter patch, assuming 50nm gaps between wires, could store over a gigabyte
If we can do that with flexible memory, we can probably make ordinary memory with higher density and string together as many chips of a few square millimeters as needed with flexible connections. Should be easier.
Stepping even further outside the box, [...] Everything you touch and interact with could be smart. Curtains could remember if you like them being up or down.
Yeah. Wow. If this is your example why we need gigabytes of memory, you're reaching, perhaps?
Comment Car owners will store little unneeded energy (Score 1) 247
If I know I won't need my car, I probably will not have charged it (so that it doesn't leak energy). I will usually only have energy to spare if I mistakenly suspected I would need the car.
Also, we will have more electric cars, and therefore probably more choice in electric cars. Batteries will remain quite expensive. Consequently, people will on average by batteries that are just large enough.
Submission + - The Stealthy Fifth Core (nvidia.com)
ozmanjusri writes: "Nvidia's next-generation quad core Tegra processor, codenamed “Project Kal-El,” has fifth core that runs at a lower frequency and operates at exceptionally low power. Kal-El completely powers down its four performance-tuned cores for less power-hungry tasks like web reading, music playback and video playback. As computing needs increase, the CPU progressively turns on each of the high performance cores.
The Variable SMP architecture is also completely OS transparent, which means that operating systems and applications don’t need to be redesigned to take advantage of the fifth core"
The Variable SMP architecture is also completely OS transparent, which means that operating systems and applications don’t need to be redesigned to take advantage of the fifth core"
Comment Practical consequences? (Score 1) 1
When vulnerabilities are in low-level communication profiles such as L2CAP, they are not protected by the pairing process.
Well, did they find such vulnerabilities? What specific exploits have they developed?
Submission + - Bluetooth Vulnerabilities Now Easier to Exploit (net-security.org) 1
Orome1 writes: Based on Codenomicon's robustness test results using smart model based fuzzing tools, 80% of all the tests against various Bluetooth devices find critical issues. Every device failed with at least one test suite against a critical communication profile. Bluetooth is particularly vulnerable against malformed input. Malformed input may cause Bluetooth device operation to slow down, or device may show unusual behavior or crash completely. In a worst case scenario, malformed input can be used by an outside attacker to gain unauthorized access to the Bluetooth device.
Submission + - Wastewater May be 'Inexhaustible' Hydrogen Source (gizmag.com)
Zothecula writes: Currently, the world economy and western society in general runs on fossil fuels. We've known for some time that this reliance on finite resources that are polluting the planet is unsustainable in the long term. This has led to the search for alternatives and hydrogen is one of the leading contenders. One of the problems is that hydrogen is an energy carrier, rather than an energy source. Pure hydrogen doesn't occur naturally and it takes energy — usually generated by fossil fuels — to manufacture it. Now researchers at Pennsylvania State University have developed a way to produce hydrogen that uses no grid electricity and is carbon neutral and could be used anyplace that there is wastewater near sea water.
