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Android

Gaining a Remote Shell On Android 124

Posted by Soulskill 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."
GNOME

Linux Mint Diverting Banshee Revenue 178

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-their-cut dept.
LinuxScribe writes "According Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre, the popular Linux Mint distribution has changed the Amazon.com affiliate code for the Banshee music player so that Mint, not Canonical or the GNOME Foundation, will receive the revenue from MP3 sales through Banshee. Though a trivial amount of money ($3.41 in November 2011), Linux Mint's actions still raise the question: how should revenue be shared between upstream and downstream FLOSS projects?"
Data Storage

Intel and Micron Unveil 128Gb NAND Chip 133

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the rotating-disks-are-so-90s dept.
ScuttleMonkey writes "A joint venture between Intel and Micron has given rise to a new 128 Gigabit die. While production wont start until next year, this little beauty sets new bars for capacity, speed, and endurance. 'Die shrinks also tend to reduce endurance, with old 65nm MLC flash being rated at 5,000-10,000 erase cycles, but that number dropping to 3,000-5,000 for 25nm MLC flash. However, IMFT is claiming that the shrink to 20nm has not caused any corresponding reduction in endurance. Its 20nm flash uses a Hi-K/metal gate design which allows it to make transistors that are smaller but no less robust. IMFT is claiming that this use of Hi-K/metal gate is a first for NAND flash production.'"
Slashdot.org

Upcoming Changes To 'Ask Slashdot' 230

Posted by Soulskill from the step-the-first dept.
We're pleased to announce that changes are coming to the Ask Slashdot section. Ask Slashdot is a place to get your technical questions answered, show off your big brain by helping others, debate products and practices, and occasionally talk directly to companies about their offerings. Over the years, we've posted more than 7700 questions, on everything from workplace relations to home networking to evading censorship from unfriendly regimes. Starting tomorrow, you'll see that some Ask Slashdot questions have their own sponsors; the sponsors don't pick the questions, but experts from each sponsor will stick around for the discussion. Next up: we're making it easier for you to submit questions. Our goal is to make Ask Slashdot your "go-to" place for answers to your pressing nerd questions. So please post your questions, put on your answering hats, and come along for the ride.
Facebook

Facebook Flaw Exposed Private Photos 201

Posted by Soulskill from the somebody's-having-a-bad-day-at-the-office dept.
Velcroman1 writes "A security hole in Facebook allowed almost anyone to see pictures marked as private, an online forum revealed late Monday. Even pictures supposedly kept hidden from uninvited eyes by Facebook's privacy controls aren't safe, reported one user of a popular bodybuilding forum in a post entitled 'I teach you how to view private Facebook photos.' Facebook appears to have acted quickly to eliminate the end-run around privacy controls, after word of the exploit spread across the Internet. It wasn't long before one online miscreant uploaded private pictures of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg himself — evidence that the hack worked, he said."
Blackberry

PlayBook Jailbreak Tool Released 60

Posted by timothy from the hacksaw-is-in-the-cake dept.
Trailrunner7 notes that some dedicated hackers who've been working on jailbreaking RIM's PlayBook tablet have now "posted a detailed walkthrough of how users can accomplish the same task on their own. The technique requires the use of a custom tool, but otherwise is fairly straightforward. One of the researchers, known as Neuralic, posted the walkthrough to Pastie.org Tuesday morning. In order to begin the process, a PlayBook user need to first install the beta 2.0 version of the PlayBook software and then install the Dingleberry tool, which exploits a weakness in the PlayBook architecture which stems from the fact that the backups the device takes aren't signed."
AT&T

AT&T Issues Scathing Response To FCC Report 215

Posted by samzenpus 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.'"
HP

Is HP Paying Intel To Keep Itanium Alive? 216

Posted by Unknown Lamer 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."
Privacy

W3C Proposes Unified "Do Not Track" Privacy Standard 93

Posted by Unknown Lamer 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."
Apple

Siri Protocol Cracked 403

Posted by Unknown Lamer 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.
Patents

EU Court Rules Against Stem Cell Patents For Research 84

Posted by Soulskill 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.'"
PlayStation (Games)

PS3 Jailbreak Now Legal In Spain 113

Posted by Soulskill 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 4, Informative) 301

by eliphas_levy (#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.

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