eliphas_levy - Slashdot User

Gaining a Remote Shell On Android 124

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @09:07PM from the poking-google-with-a-stick dept.

SharkLaser writes "The security of Android devices has come under scrutiny in recent months. Android Market has been plagued with a number of trojaned apps, and researchers have identified various root exploits and permission leaks that can be exploited, for example, to send premium rate SMSs. Now researcher Thomas Cannon of ViaForensics is demonstrating a method for setting up remote shell on an Android device without using any exploits or vulnerabilities. The security hole is not new, and it has been pointed out for a number of years, but Google has yet to fix it. The method works on various versions of Android, up to and including the newest Ice Cream Sandwich."

AT&T Issues Scathing Response To FCC Report 215

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 01, 2011 @09:26PM from the we-strongly-disagree dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AT&T has issued a scathing letter in response to the FCC's decision to release a staff report on its findings surrounding AT&T's planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA. 'We expected that the AT&T-T-Mobile transaction would receive careful, considered, and fair analysis,' Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External & Legislative Affairs, said. 'Unfortunately, the preliminary FCC Staff Analysis offers none of that.'"

Is HP Paying Intel To Keep Itanium Alive? 216

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday November 21, 2011 @11:10PM from the larry-ellison-has-no-reflection dept.

itwbennett writes "In a court filing, Oracle accused HP of secretly contracting with Intel to keep making Itanium processors so that it can continue to make money from its locked-in Itanium customers and take business away from Oracle's Sun servers. Oracle says that Intel would have long ago killed off Itanium if not for these payments from HP. For its part, HP called the filing a 'desperate delay tactic' in the lawsuit HP filed against Oracle over its decision to stop developing for Itanium."

W3C Proposes Unified "Do Not Track" Privacy Standard 93

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Tuesday November 15, 2011 @11:15PM from the federal-legislation-due-in-2013 dept.

In his first submission, kierny writes "A W3C working group is crafting two standards, due out by summer 2012, to enable consumers to opt out of online tracking. Numerous big players are involved, including Google, Facebook, IBM, Mozilla, Microsoft, plus the Center for Democracy and Technology, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Federal Trade Commission. The first standard is Tracking Preference Expression, 'to define a standard for a how a browser can tell a website that a user wants more privacy,' says W3C working group co-chairman Dr. Matthias Schunter of IBM Research. 'So you send a signal, and you get a response from the website which tells you that the request has been honored.' The second standard, meanwhile, is the Tracking Compliance and Scope Specification, which details how websites should comply with Do Not Track preferences. But, don't expect Do Not Track to be active by default."

Siri Protocol Cracked 403

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Monday November 14, 2011 @11:38PM from the siri-like-way-ogg-speex dept.

First time accepted submitter jisom writes with something that will probably not be working come morning. Quoting the source: "Today, we managed to crack open Siri's protocol. As a result, we are able to use Siri's recognition engine from any device. Yes, that means anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad! And we're going to share this know-how with you." Basically, Siri sends the data to the processing server using non-standard HTTP extensions. Of note is that the audio is encoded using Ogg Speex.

EU Court Rules Against Stem Cell Patents For Research 84

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 19, 2011 @12:13AM from the i-hereby-patent-your-soul dept.

LibRT writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "Europe's highest court has ruled that stem cells from human embryos cannot be patented, in a case that could have major implications for medicine. ... The European Court of Justice said in a statement: 'The use of human embryos for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes which are applied to the human embryo and are useful to it is patentable. But their use for purposes of scientific research is not patentable.' It added: 'A process which involves removal of a stem cell from a human embryo at the blastocyst [early embryo] stage, entailing the destruction of that embryo, cannot be patented.'"

PS3 Jailbreak Now Legal In Spain 113

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 16, 2010 @10:42AM from the setting-a-precedent dept.

deek writes "Spanish gamer site NicaGamerz.com have reported that it's now legal to sell the PS3 Jailbreak modchip in Spain (Google translation of Spanish original). According to the article, one reason for the legal ruling is because Sony removed the ability to run GNU/Linux on the console. One can only wonder if Sony will soon rush out a firmware update that will re-enable the OtherOS feature, and appeal the court decision. Oh the irony of that thought. The legal ruling was made on the 13th December (Google translation). There are only 5 days to appeal, starting from that date."

Comment Re:If Opera implemented other things right,I'd use (Score 1) 301

by eliphas_levy on Sunday July 04, 2010 @06:24PM (#32794238) Attached to: Opera 10.60 Released, With Faster JS, WebM Video Support

Oh god, another extension.
To do this, this, or this? Meh.

Comment Re:If Opera implemented other things right,I'd use (Score 4, Informative) 301

by eliphas_levy on Sunday July 04, 2010 @06:17PM (#32794200) Attached to: Opera 10.60 Released, With Faster JS, WebM Video Support

I'll bite.
NoScript: disable scripting and enable it selectively using the F12 "site preferences" shortcut.
AdBlockPlus: You can get various urlfilter.ini if you really want to. I really dont need this, just block the most annoying ones with right-click:block_content. Some sites need the "normal" advertising, and once you block the top-10, you don't have much to complain about. Anyway, I will give you that point.
Flashblock: Here. Myself I just "enable plugins" (F12 again) on sites I want. *And* you can block the flash content with the normal "block content" too.
Firebug: Meh. Have you worked with dragon fly?
RefControl: Hmpf. F12, disable "send referrer information". Maybe it is just me, but I never needed to spoof referrers.

And yes, I use every one of these extensions on firefox, because it is not there as default. And some more. In a *memory-limited VM* just so it does not goes haywire and swaps the hell out of my current apps to oblivion. Lucky me.

Bookmark Will Apple Embrace the Web? No. (osnews.com)

by bob5972 on Tuesday June 01, 2010 @03:18AM

"Canadian DMCA" Rising From the Dead 211

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 31, 2010 @11:25PM from the once-more-to-the-barricades dept.

mandelbr0t writes "The Canadian Conservative government is preparing to reintroduce amended copyright legislation on Thursday (we discussed the rumor some weeks ago). Most sources say that the proposed legislation is very similar to Bill C-61, generally dubbed the 'Canadian DMCA.' It still includes definitions of 'technological protections' and criminalizes 'circumvention' of those protections. Bill C-61 died in the summer of 2008, facing massive opposition from the Canadian public. Once again, it's time for Canadians to get politically active; ORC ran a large campaign with the last attempt, and will likely be updated soon with the new proposed legislation." Read below for more of the submitter's thoughts on the coming battle.

Inventor Demonstrates Infinitely Variable Transmission 609

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 15, 2010 @11:26AM from the clutch-discovery dept.

ElectricSteve writes with this excerpt from Gizmag: "Ready for a bit of a mental mechanical challenge? Try your hand at understanding how the D-Drive works. Steve Durnin's ingenious new gearbox design is infinitely variable — that is, with your motor running at a constant speed, the D-Drive transmission can smoothly transition from top gear all the way through neutral and into reverse. It doesn't need a clutch, it doesn't use any friction drive components, and the power is always transmitted through strong, reliable gear teeth. In fact, it's a potential revolution in transmission technology."

Chemical Cocktail Can Keep a Heart Viable 10 Days, Outside the Body 97

Posted by timothy on Saturday May 15, 2010 @12:32AM from the with-very-few-exceptions-not-a-worm dept.

nj_peeps writes "Harvard professor Hemant Thatte has developed a cocktail of 21 chemical compounds that he calls Somah, derived from the Sanskrit for 'ambrosia of rejuvenation.' Using Somah, Thatte and his team have accomplished some amazing feats with pig hearts. They can keep the organ viable for transplant up to 10 days after harvest — far longer than the four-hour limit seen in hospitals today. Not only that, but using low temperatures and Somah, they were able to take a pig heart that was removed post mortem and get it to beat 24 hours later in the lab."

Cheap Cancer Drug Finally Tested In Humans 363

Posted by timothy on Thursday May 13, 2010 @05:16PM from the good-enough-for-the-likes-of-you dept.

John Bayko writes "Mentioned on Slashdot a couple of years ago, the drug dichloroacetate (DCA) has finally finished its first clinical trial against brain tumors in humans. Drug companies weren't willing to test a drug they could not patent, so money was raised in the community through donations, auctions, and finally government support, but the study was still limited to five patients. It showed extremely positive results in four of them. This episode raises the question of what happens to all the money donated to Canadian and other cancer societies, and especially the billions spent buying merchandise with little pink ribbons on it, if not to actual cancer research like this."

Supermassive Black Hole Is Thrown Out of Galaxy 167

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 12, 2010 @07:50PM from the moving-to-better-quarters dept.

DarkKnightRadick writes "An undergrad student at the University of Utrecht, Marianne Heida, has found evidence of a supermassive black hole being tossed out of its galaxy. According to the article, the black hole — which has a mass equivalent to one billion suns — is possibly the culmination of two galaxies merging (or colliding, depending on how you like to look at it) and their black holes merging, creating one supermassive beast. The black hole was found using the Chandra Source Catalog (from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory). The direction of the expulsion is also possibly indicative of the direction of rotation of the two black holes as they circled each other before merging."

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