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NASA

Submission + - A nanotechnology award for NASA

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "NASA is rarely associated with nanotechnologies. But one of its researchers working at the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center just received a Nanotech Briefs Nano 50 award for a manufacturing process for high-quality carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Because of its ability to produce bundles of CNTs without using a metal catalyst, this method is simpler, safer, and cheaper than current ones. The CNTs produced by this process are also purer and well suited for medical applications. But read more for additional details and a picture showing the CNTs manufactured at NASA."
Space

Submission + - Incredible Holmes Comet grows bigger than the sun (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Sun is no longer the largest object in our solar system. The recently visible-to-the-naked-eye Holmes comet has achieved that distinction today. The comet has a larger gas and dust cloud known as the coma, and consequently it has a larger diameter than the sun according to astronomers at the University of Hawaii. Scientists don't seem to have a guess as to how big it will ultimately become. The Holmes coma's diameter on Nov. 9 was 869,900 miles (1.4 million kilometers), based on measurements by Rachel Stevenson, Jan Kleyna and Pedro Lacerda of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. The sun's diameter, stated differently by various sources, is about 864,900 miles (1.392 million kilometers). http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/21947"
Security

Submission + - New Encryption Standard may Contain Backdoor 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Bruce Schneier has a story on Wired about the new official standard for random-number generators the NIST released this year that will likely be followed by software and hardware developers around the world. There are four different approved techniques (pdf), called DRBGs, or "Deterministic Random Bit Generators" based on existing cryptographic primitives. One is based on hash functions, one on HMAC, one on block ciphers and one on elliptic curves. The generator based on elliptic curves called Dual_EC_DRBG has been has been championed by the NSA and contains a weakness that can only be described a backdoor. In a presentation at the CRYPTO 2007 conference (pdf) in August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that there are constants in the standard used to define the algorithm's elliptic curve that have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG. "We don't know where the constants came from in the first place. We only know that whoever came up with them could have the key to this backdoor. And we know there's no way for NIST — or anyone else — to prove otherwise," says Schneier."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - RIPE 55 meeting ending in surprise

Submitted by dysfunct
dysfunct writes: The closing plenary of the RIPE 55 meeting in Amsterdam held a big surprise for the participants: A secret working group had formed to perform a very emotional parody of the song "American Pie" about the future of IPv4 and IPv6. A video of the performance is available on youtube.com and currently making its rounds through mailboxes.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Pseudoscience winning weblog award (scienceblogs.com) 1

Submitted by OneMHz
OneMHz writes: A pseudoscience climate change denialist blog is currently winning the science weblog award. Why? Because conservative websites are encouraging people to go vote for it, whether they read it or not. Their strongest competitor, Bad Astronomy, needs help. I encourage people to go read it, then vote for it. They've embedded the science poll in the page, so you can vote there, or here. It's a sad day when pseudoscience wins over real sience...
Wii

Submission + - Will Wright: Wii is the Only Next-Gen Console

Submitted by PhoenixOne
PhoenixOne writes: In an article that will probably piss off a lot of PS3 owners, Will Wright calls the PS3 and 360 "incremental improvement(s)".

As far as the death of PC gaming: "Every generation it's like 'the PC's dead! The PC's dead!'. But it carries on growing when consoles are flat for five years. At the moment I can get better graphics on my PC than I can on the PS3."
Mozilla

Submission + - Your browser is vulnerable to DNS Rebinding 1

Submitted by
Firefox
Firefox writes: "DNS rebinding was discovered in 1996 and affected the Java Virtual Machine. Recently a group of researchers at Stanford found out that this vulnerability is still present in browsers and that the common solution, known as DNS pinning, is not effective anymore. Securityfocus tracked down one of the authors of the study, Adam Barth, to learn about the impact of the problem, which workarounds can be deployed right now, and how to protect browsers from DNS rebinding attacks in the long run. You can use the online test to check your software..."
Networking

Submission + - ARRL VS FCC over BPL! (arrl.org)

Submitted by
Brew Bird
Brew Bird writes: "From the 'Power Lines are not for Data' department —
This has been going on for years, but it's finally made it to the courts! The ARRL (Ham radio guys for the unknowing) has managed to drag the FCC into court over their 'waiver' that allows noisy BPL operators to pollute the radio spectrum with impunity. Some Broad Band Power Line systems create annoying radio frequency noise that interferes with existing radio gear. The FCC is SUPPOSED to have these systems shut down until they can be repaired, but has been loath to do so. So, After all the proper 'legal' avenues have been exhausted, the FCC has been hauled in front of a judge to explain just why it's 'ok' for the power company to jam radio systems, but no one else can."
Space

Submission + - Unexpectedly bright comet appears in night sky

Submitted by swordgeek
swordgeek writes: Comet 17P/Holmes, a relatively obscure and dim object has suddenly flared to be literally a million times brighter than it was two days ago, going from below magnitude 14 to 2.8 in less than 24 hours. It is just outside of the constellation Perseus, which puts it high in the sky and ideal for viewing at this time of year. The comet is now readily visible with the naked eye, and remarkable in binoculars or a telescope. This is a completely unexpected once-in-a-lifetime event, so get out your finest optics (even if it's just your eyes) and go comet watching! No one knows how long this will last, so grab the chance while it's there.
Software

Submission + - South Africa adopts ODF as a government standard (tectonic.co.za)

Submitted by ais523
ais523 writes: As reported by Tectonic, South Africa's new Mininimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems in government (MIOS) explain the new rules for which data formats will be used by the government; according to that document, all people working for the South African government must be able to read OpenDocument Format documents by March, and the government aims to use one of its three approved document formats (UTF-8 or ASCII plain text, CSV, or ODF) for all its published documents by the end of 2008. A definition of 'open standard' is also included that appears to rule out OOXML at present (requiring 'multiple implementations', among other things that may also rule it out).
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft forces desktop search on windows update (theregister.co.uk) 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Register is reporting that the blogosphere is alight with accusations of Microsoft forcing Windows Desktop Search upon networks via the "automatic install" feature of windows update — even if they had configured it not to use the program.
This comes not too long after the DoJ saying that they will no longer oversee compliance with the anti-trust judgement against Microsoft.
Are they up to their old tricks again? Google may want to pay attention to their actions.
Full story here — http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/windows_update_snafu/
Censorship

Submission + - What NASA won't tell you about air safety. 6

Submitted by rabble
rabble writes: According to a report out of Washington, DC's WTOP, NASA wants to avoid telling you about how unsafe you are when you fly. According to the article, when an $8.5M safety study of about 24,000 pilots indicated an alarming number of near collisions and runway incidents, NASA refused to release the results. The article quotes one congressman as saying "There is a faint odor about it all." A friend of mine who is a general aviation pilot responded to the article by saying "It's scary but no surprise to those of us who fly."

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