Submission + - Hobbit film finally gets green light (stuff.co.nz)
An anonymous reader writes: After much kerfuffle and uncertainty, the Hobbit film has finally been greenlit. Peter Jackson to direct, to be shot in 3D in New Zealand.
Submission + - Simon Singh/Wired interview about his libel battle
smellsofbikes writes: Wired has a short but pithy interview with Simon Singh, about his defense against a libel suit brought by the British Chiropractic Association, in which he spent more than $200,000 and emerged victorious.
Submission + - Viking Experiment May Have Found Lifeâ(TM)s B (universetoday.com)
jamie writes: "A new look at data from the Mars Viking landers concludes that the two landers may have found the building blocks of life on the Red Planet after all way"
Submission + - Google Wave to Live On as 'Wave in a Box' (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: "Google Wave will morph into an application bundle for real-time collaboration, according to a blog post by Google Wave engineer Alex North. 'We will expand upon the 200K lines of code we've already open sourced (detailed at waveprotocol.org) to flesh out the existing example Wave server and Web client into a more complete application or "Wave in a Box,"' North said, adding that the future of the recently flat-lined Google service will be 'defined by your contributions. We hope this project will help the Wave developer community continue to grow and evolve,' he said."
Submission + - ‘Robin Hood’ code in Zeus v3 robs from (itnews.com.au)
schliz writes: Cybercriminals have used a new, targeted version of banking trojan Zeus to pilfer £675,000 in one month, iTnews reports. The malware, Zeus v3, targeted accounts with more than £800 at one UK bank. It was distributed by third-party providers (like advertisement managers) on UK news and events sites, used Eleonore and Phoenix exploit kits, and was not identified by commonly used antivirus software including products from Kaspersky, McAfee, Fortinet and Symantec.
Submission + - Linux Foundation offers OSS compliance checklist (idg.com.au)
angry tapir writes: "Organizations that are interested in using open source in their own products but are wary of intellectual property issues might want to examine a new, mostly free, assistance program just launched by the non-profit Linux Foundation."
Knuth Plans 'Earthshaking Announcement' Wednesday 701
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Donald Knuth is planning to make an 'earthshaking announcement' on Wednesday, at TeX's 32nd Anniversary Celebration, on the final day of the TUG 2010 Conference. Unfortunately, nobody seems to know what it is. So far speculation ranges from proving P!=NP, to a new volume of The Art of Computer Programming, to his retirement. Maybe Duke Nukem Forever has been ported to MMIX?" Let the speculation begin.
BBC To Create Internet Protocol TV Standard 128
Robadob sends word that the BBC has been granted approval for Project Canvas, "a partnership between the BBC, ITV, BT, Five, Channel 4, and TalkTalk to develop a so-called Internet Protocol Television standard." The approval came with several interesting requirements: "Project Canvas must always remain free-to-air but users 'may be charged for additional pay services that third parties might choose to provide via the Canvas platform, for example video on demand services, as well as the broadband subscription fees.' Access to Project Canvas must not be 'bundled with other products or services' and 'listing on the electronic program guide will be awarded in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner." In addition, a preliminary draft of the tech specs for the project must be published within 20 working days, in order to allow broadcasters and manufacturers of set-top boxes to adopt the new standards. Significantly, "Other broadcasters and content providers must have access to the platform."
VPN Flaw Shows Users' IP Addresses 124
AHuxley writes "A VPN flaw announced at the Telecomix Cyphernetics Assembly in Sweden allows individual users to be identified. 'The flaw is caused by a combination of IPv6, which is a new Internet protocol due to replace the current IPv4, and PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol)-based VPN services, which are the most widely used. ... The flaw means that the IP address of a user hiding behind a VPN can still be found, thanks to the connection broadcasting information that can be used to identify it. It's also relatively easy to find a MAC address (which identifies a particular device) and a computer's name on the network that it's on.' The Swedish anti-piracy bureau could already be gathering data using the exploit."
Submission + - Britain's BPI goes after Google -- with US DMCA ! (p2pnet.net) 1
An anonymous reader writes: The BPI, the RIAA's UK counterpart, has gone up against the Holiest of Holies, American online advertising conglomerate Google, says Chilling Effects. The BPI contributed to the British government's Digital Ecomy bill, complete with its ACTA Three Strikes and you're Off The Net element, with hardly a murmur from the UK lamescream media. Now Chilling Effects quotes a missive directed at Gargle by the BPI. It states, in part, "We have identified the following links that are available via Google's search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members ... " And what's even more interesting is: this British 'trade' outfity is using the American DMCA to attack Google. Can it do that?
Submission + - Turning attackers tool against them (bbc.co.uk)
Tasha26 writes: BBC has an interesting web security snippet from the SyScan 2010 security conference in Singapore. In a presentation, security researcher Laurent Oudot released details of bugs found in commonly used attack-kits such as Neon, Eleonore and Sniper, proving that not only are they not secure but these loopholes could be exploited to get more information about the attackers, perhaps identifying them, stealing their tools and methods, or even following the trail back to their own computer.
Submission + - Manning Turned in To Stroke Lamo's Own Ego (salon.com)
Binary Boy writes: Bradley Manning, the US Army Private arrested recently by the Pentagon for providing classified documents — including the widely seen Apache helicopter video — may have been duped by wannabe hacker Adrian Lamo, according to Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Lamo told Manning he could provide protection under both journalist shield laws, and the clergy-lay confidentiality tradition, and instead immediately turned him in to authorities in an act of apparent shameless self-promotion.
Submission + - CRIA Copyright Astroturf Site Gamed By U.S. Execs (michaelgeist.ca)
An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports
that the recording industry's copyright astroturfing
site, which has been encouraging users to flood blogs and media
articles, has been gamed by U.S. record executives. While
promoted as a Canadian site, members include U.S.-based record company
executives. The site has also added a mandatory letter for
recording industry employees to elected officials that cannot be edited.
Submission + - Apple silently updates Mac malware protection (sophos.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apple's recent Mac OS X 10.6.4 upgrade included at least one security update that they didn't document — an update to Snow Leopard's anti-virus protection.
Sophos researchers say that Apple secretly updated the OS's rudimentary malware protection — delivered through a file called XProtect.plist — to include detection of a backdoor trojan horse known as HellRTS or OSX/Pinhead-B.
If it successfully infects a Mac, the trojan can send spam email from your Mac, take screenshots of what you are doing, access your files and clipboard.
Security bloggers at Sophos have speculated that Apple may have deliberately not announced the update to Mac OS X's anti-malware feature for "marketing reasons":
Sophos researchers say that Apple secretly updated the OS's rudimentary malware protection — delivered through a file called XProtect.plist — to include detection of a backdoor trojan horse known as HellRTS or OSX/Pinhead-B.
If it successfully infects a Mac, the trojan can send spam email from your Mac, take screenshots of what you are doing, access your files and clipboard.
Security bloggers at Sophos have speculated that Apple may have deliberately not announced the update to Mac OS X's anti-malware feature for "marketing reasons":
"Shh! Don't tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!"
Mind you, you have to wonder if Sophos is also discussing the update for marketing reasons too..
Submission + - BBC Amazing article: Fighting back against attacks (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: Hi-tech criminals are not very good at securing the tools they use to attack websites, suggests research.
Security experts have found that many of the kits used by cyber criminals are riddled with bugs and vulnerabilities.
Security experts have found that many of the kits used by cyber criminals are riddled with bugs and vulnerabilities.
