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Wireless Networking

Submission + - Second 3G GSM Cipher Cracked (threatpost.com) 1

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: A group of cryptographers has developed a new attack that has broken Kasumi, the encryption algorithm used to secure traffic on 3G GSM wireless networks. The technique enables them to recover a full key by using a tactic known as a related-hey attack, but experts say it is not the end of the world for Kasumi. Kasumi, also known as A5/3, is the standard cipher used to encrypt communications on 3G GSM networks, and it's a modified version of an older algorithm called Misty. In the abstract of their paper, the cryptographers say the attack can be implemented easily on one standard PC. "In this paper we describe a new type of attack called a sandwich attack, and use it to construct a simple distinguisher for 7 of the 8 rounds of KASUMI with an amazingly high probability of 214. By using this distinguisher and analyzing the single remaining round, we can derive the complete 128 bit key of the full KASUMI by using only 4 related keys, 226 data, 230 bytes of memory, and 232 time. These complexities are so small that we have actually simulated the attack in less than two hours on a single PC, and experimentally verified its correctness and complexity."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Pulls Office From Its Own Online Store (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft has pulled almost every version of Office from its own online store to comply with a court order requiring it to remove custom XML technology from its popular Word software that starts on Monday. As of mid-day, the only edition available from the Microsoft Store was Office Ultimate 2007, a $670 'full-version' suite. All other Windows editions, as well as Office 2008 for Mac, were accompanied by the message: 'This product is currently unavailable while we update versions on our site. We expect it to be available soon.' Microsoft confirmed that the disappearance of Office was related to the injunction that came out of a patent infringement case the company lost in 2009. 'We've taken steps to comply with the court's ruling and we're introducing the revised software into the U.S. market," said Michael Croan, a senior marketing manager, in an e-mail. He also downplayed the move. 'This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers, who will find both trial and purchase options readily available.'

Submission + - How could Airnergy actually work? (engadget.com)

Submitted by dan_lurie
dan_lurie writes: At CES last week, RCA announced Airnergy, a system which supposedly gathers enough power from existing WiFi signals to charge your gadgets. Common sense (and some rough calculations) suggest the signal strength required to induce sufficient power in an Airnergy device is way beyond any WiFI router/AP I've ever heard of. Despite this, one assumes RCA wouldn't announce a product that's entirely made up. How could this thing actually work?
America Online

Submission + - Does An e-Mail Address Really Matter? 3

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Over at the Chicago Tribune, freelance writer Nancy Anderson makes an embarrassing confession. It's 2010 and she still has an AOL e-mail address. 'You've got to get rid of that AOL address,' her publicist sister told her five years ago. 'It's bad for your image.' Image, shmimage, Anderson thought. 'If I do good work,' she asks, 'does my e-mail address really matter?' Good question. Would an AOL e-mail address — or another 'toxic' e-mail address — influence your decision to hire someone?
Security

Submission + - Malware threat reports fail to add up. (infosecurity-us.com)

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "Infosecurity recently reports that "the December malware threat reports are trickling in from vendors — and they all appear to be different. Fortinet, Sunbelt Software, and Kaspersky all published their lists of the most prevalent malware strains for the last month of 2009, but they didn't match up, leading to an admission that users will inevitably be confused by the results..."

Seen in Smokey Bear's DSL/Broadband Reports security forum thread."
Idle

Submission + - British woman arrested after reporting rape (guardian.co.uk) 2

Submitted by reporter
reporter writes: According to a shocking report just published by guardian.co.uk, "A British woman who made a rape complaint in Dubai has been arrested for having illegal sex with her fiance, according to reports. The woman, a 23-year-old from London, said she was raped by a waiter in a luxury hotel after celebrating her engagement to her 44-year-old boyfriend, also from London.

But when she reported the alleged rape to police in the Middle Eastern state she and her boyfriend were arrested for having sex outside marriage and illegal drinking outside licensed premises.

...

Police began to question the couple about breaking the emirate's strict decency laws. Usual rape procedures were ignored and the woman was given a full medical check and a morning-after pill only after the intervention of British embassy staff, the [Sun] reported."
Biotech

Submission + - Natural Selection Found in Non-Living Organisms 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Lab Spaces reports that researchers have determined for the first time that bits of infectious protein devoid of DNA or RNA called prions are capable of Darwinian evolution. "On the face of it, you have exactly the same process of mutation and adaptive change in prions as you see in viruses," said Charles Weissmann, M.D., Ph.D. "This means that this pattern of Darwinian evolution appears to be universally active. In viruses, mutation is linked to changes in nucleic acid sequence that leads to resistance. Now, this adaptability has moved one level down – to prions and protein folding – and it's clear that you do not need nucleic acid for the process of evolution." Infectious prions are associated with some 20 different diseases in humans and animals, all of them untreatable and eventually fatal including mad cow disease and a rare human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The researchers transferred prion populations from infected brain cells to culture cells. When transplanted, cell-adapted prions developed and out-competed their brain-adapted counterparts, confirming prions' ability to adapt to new surroundings, a hallmark of Darwinian evolution. When returned to brain, brain-adapted prions again took over the population. "We know that mutation and natural selection occur in living organisms and now we know that they also occur in a non-living organism," says Weissmann. "I suppose anything that can't do that wouldn't stand much of a chance of survival.""

Submission + - Oldest footprints on Earth

Submitted by mindbrane
mindbrane writes: CNN has an piece that ups the ante in bets per millions of years ago that the first tetrapods walked the earth. The discovery of the footprints in a former quarry in the Holy Cross Mountains in south-eastern Poland are thought to be 395-million years old — 18 million years older than the earliest tetrapod (a vertebrate with limbs rather than fins) body fossils." The footprints about 26 centimeters wide suggest an animal around 2.5 meters in length. The find pushes back the presumed date tetrapods walked the earth by 18 million years. It also shows evidence of a gait more like that of a salamander with front and back legs and no evidence of a dragging body. Unfortunately no fossils have been found to date but the fossilized footprints provides a powerful impetus to substantiate the findings and implications with fossils.

Submission + - The gradual erosion of the right to privacy (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
PeteV
PeteV writes: "There is an interesting article on the BBC website based around research carried out by Dr Kieron O'Hara of Southampton Univeristy. He points out (under british law) that an individuals right to privacy is being eroded by the behaviour of those who have no qualms about broadcasting every intimate detail of their life online (via social networking sites) because the privacy law is predicated in part upon the concept of a "reasonable expectation of privacy" . I think his request "for people to be more aware of the impact on society of what they publish online" is likely to fall on deaf ears, but in effect what he is saying is that the changing habits of the world-wide community of social networkers is likely to have an effect upon english law and how it is interpreted. Given that the significant bulk of social networkers are american, this might be interpreted as "american behaviour" may cause changes in the interpretation of english law (which is not to say english people dont also post their intimate details on Facebook)."
Google

Submission + - Microsoft: Google's Nexus One will hurt Android

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Nexus One; the search giant's first branded mobile phone. Then the company confirmed that Nexus One, and all subsequent Google phones sold via the company's online store, will be available unlocked for use on every participating carrier. Microsoft has weighed in on this development, specifically where Google is both offering Android to its partners and allowing one partner to benefit from having a Google-branded phone, concluding that it is a flawed strategy. The software giant says that Google will have a hard time attracting partners to its mobile operating system after introducing its own handset, even if it is developed by HTC.

Full Story: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/microsoft-googles-nexus-one-will-hurt-android.ars
Security

Submission + - Smart Neuroscientist Stupid in Love 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The mystery man who breached security at Newark Airport last weekend, shutting down a major terminal for six hours, is a mystery no more. Haisong Jiang, a neuroscientist-in-training at Rutgers who allegedly slipped under a security ribbon inside Terminal C to share a kiss with a woman before she caught her flight, was taken into custody by Port Authority police and charged with defiant trespass. Looks like sneaking past security to steal a kiss doesn't play too well outside of Love Actually.

Submission + - Tegra2 tablets/slates/etc all the rage at CES

Submitted by MartinSchou
MartinSchou writes: At this year's CES it seems that everybody and their cousin are talking tablets, slates or smartbooks. This year, however, might be the year of Linux, if not on the desktop, then at least on your other computing devices.

Amongst this years top contenders are slates running nVidia's Tegra 2 chipset, boasting 10+ hours worth of 1080p play back, with entries from Quanta, Mobinnova, ASUS, MSI> and Boxee (though this is a media computer).

Notion Ink have brought their Adam slate, complete with a Pixel Qi transreflective, multi-touch capable screen.

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interlard - vt., to intersperse; diversify -- Webster's New World Dictionary Of The American Language

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