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Submission + - Paul Baran, packet switching inventor, dies (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 28, 2011 @06:51AM

An anonymous reader writes: Paul Baran, whose Cold War era invention of packet switching technology helped to lay the foundation for the Internet, has died at the age of 84. A native of Poland whose family moved to Philadelphia when he was a youngster, Baran developed his concept of a survivable store-and-forward communications network while at RAND Corp.in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis. That concept of packet switching, a digital communications method involving the movement of data divvied up into what Baran called "message blocks" over shared and distributed networks, later found its way into the ARPANET, which evolved into the Internet.

Submission + - Can you really be traced from an IP address? (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

Barence

on Monday March 28, 2011 @06:29AM

Barence writes: "Identifying individuals using nothing more than their IP address has become a key part of anti-piracy and criminal investigations. But a PC Pro investigation casts serious doubt on the validity of IP-based evidence.

"In general, the accuracy of IP address tracing varies depending on the type of user behind the IP address,” Tom Colvin, chief technology officer with security vendor Conseal told PC Pro. “Whilst big businesses can be traceable right back to their datacenters, standard family broadband connections are often hard to locate, even to county-level accuracy."

"The reason is that there are a number of sources of IP address information, the accuracy of which deteriorates with the number of hops from the backbone.""

Submission + - Intellectual Capital: The New Cybercrime Currency (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1 on Monday March 28, 2011 @06:27AM

Orome1 writes: Cybercriminals understand there is greater value in selling a corporations’ proprietary information and trade secrets which have little to no protection making intellectual capital their new currency of choice, according to McAfee and SAIC. The cyber underground economy is making its money on the theft of corporate intellectual capital which includes trade secrets, marketing plans, research and development findings and even source code. Only three in ten organizations report all data breaches suffered, and six in ten organizations currently “pick and choose” the breaches they report. China, Russia, Pakistan are perceived to be the least safe for data storage, and the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States are perceived to be the most safe.

Submission + - Mobile Phone May Rot Your Bones (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Monday March 28, 2011 @06:19AM

Stoobalou writes: Researchers at the the National University of Cuyo, in Mendoza, Argentina, looked at that strange breed — men who wear mobile phones on their hip. They discovered evidence to suggest that the proximity of the mobile phone caused a reduction in bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) in the men who wore the phones over a 12-month period, compared to a control group that didn't.

Submission + - Hands-on with Gingerbread on Droid X (winbeta.org)

Submitted by

BogenDorpher

on Monday March 28, 2011 @05:03AM

BogenDorpher writes: "The wait is nearly over. With the offical update almost near, Android 2.3.3 has leaked out for the Droid X and Droid 2 providing us with an early taste of what we will see very soon."

Submission + - Can Japan Send In Robots To Fix Nuclear Reactors? (ieee.org)

Submitted by iztaru on Thursday March 24, 2011 @09:29AM

iztaru writes: When it comes to robots, Japan is a superpower, with some of the world's most advanced robotic systems and the highest levels of industrial automation. So it makes sense to ask: Why can't Japan use robots to fix the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Dai-1 nuclear power plant?

Submission + - Iran targets Gmail and Skype with fake SSL hack (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

nk497

on Thursday March 24, 2011 @05:48AM

nk497 writes: "Iran-based attackers hacked a security certificate authority, Comodo, and set up fake certificates for Hotmail, Gmail and Google, Skype, Yahoo, and Mozilla Firefox extensions. The fake SSL certificates have since been blocked by browsers and Microsoft has issued a patch.

Comodo believes the attack is state-based and politically motivated. "It does not escape notice that the domains targeted would be of greatest use to a government attempting surveillance of internet use by dissident groups," said Comodo's Phillip Hallam-Baker."

Submission + - iPhone 4 With Belkin Case Survives 1,000ft Fall (winbeta.org)

Submitted by

BogenDorpher

on Thursday March 24, 2011 @05:27AM

BogenDorpher writes: "Imagine this. Your iPhone 4 falls for 1,000 feet and survives without a scratch or dent. Pretty amazing stuff.

U.S. Air Force Combat Controller Ron Walker was leaning out of the door on his aircraft to prep for a skydive when his iPhone slipped out of a velcro pocket on his jumpsuit. The phone fell at about 150 m.p.h for roughly 1,000 feet. To give you an idea of how high this is, just think of a 90 story skyscraper."

Submission + - Deprivation Study Finds Mobile Info Important (latd.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @11:10AM

An anonymous reader writes: Latitude Research (www.latd.com) and Next American City (www.americancity.org/) released the results of their Tech for Transit Study last week. Latitude asked 18 participants in Boston and San Francisco to go car-free for a week to uncover how alternative transit measures up to car usage, and what can be done to equalize it in users minds. The report encourages the development of information-based solutions in order to encourage adoption of more sustainable transit.

Submission + - Mozilla Firefox 4 Released

Submitted by Shining Celebi on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @11:08AM

Shining Celebi writes: Mozilla has finally released Firefox 4, a couple months behind schedule. It features hardware accelerated graphics, UI performance improvements, a massive boost in Javascript performance, reduced memory usage, WebGL, a new HTML5 parser, App Tabs, tab grouping via the Panorama feature, bookmark and history syncing, and much more. Many users will also be happy to know the status bar has been more-or-less restored after Mozilla removed it in early betas. Firefox 4 scores over 3 times faster on Sunspider, V8, and Kraken.

Submission + - A Brief History of Ruckstock and how it was Killed (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by gr3yh47 on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @10:56AM

gr3yh47 writes: "The Rustock botnet, responsible at its height for sending 30 billion spam e-mails a day, went silent last Wednesday. Its command and control servers, responsible for telling the millions of machines recruited into the network which spams to send, were taken offline. With the botnet now headless, the deluge of spam was halted.

Security researchers tracking spam production immediately noticed the drop in spam volume. But what they didn't know was why the botnet went silent. Rustock's spam output had declined before, only to bounce back. Was this latest drop a temporary hiatus as the botnet's operators prepared to unleash a new torrent of spam, or was it something more?"

Submission + - BlackBerry Playbook Launch Set for April 19 (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @10:45AM

An anonymous reader writes: "Research in Motion used a press release this morning to announce that the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is officially available for pre-orders starting today, with a launch on April 19. The WiFi versions of the PlayBook will be priced at $499, $599, and $699 for 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, respectively. "

Submission + - Splinternet, or how we broke the good old Web (stormdriver.com)

Submitted by

StormDriver

on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @10:44AM

StormDriver writes: "I don’t want to be that scruffy guy with “The end is nigh” sign and some really bad dental problems, but most industry analysts already noticed that global Internet is coming apart, changing into a cluster of smaller and more closed webs. They have even created a catchy name for this Web 3.0 – the Splinternet. How is it happening?"

Submission + - NASA star satellite recovers from 144-hour glitch (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @10:39AM

coondoggie writes: "There was likely a pretty big sigh of relief at NASA's Ames Research Center this week as the group' star satellite Kepler, recovered from a glitch that took it offline for 144 hours. According to NASA the glitch happened March 14, right after the spacecraft issued a network interface card (NIC) reset command to implement a computer program update. During the reset, the NIC sent invalid reaction wheel data to the flight software, which caused the spacecraft to enter safe mode, NASA stated."

Submission + - Texas man Gets Full Face Transplant (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider on Tuesday March 22, 2011 @10:14AM

RedEaredSlider writes: A Texas man recieved the third full face transplant performed in the U.S. yesterday at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

The patient was Dallas Wiens, whose face was burned in a power line accident in 2008. He was left blinded and with little sensation where his face used to be. Wiens lost his lips, eyes, nose and much of the muscle and nerve tissue because the burns he suffered penetrated to the bones.

Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, director of the Burn Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital and leader of the surgical team, said in a press conference that Wiens will not look the way he did before, nor will he look like the person who donated his face. The reason is that Wiens' bone structure is different and the tissues will change shape as they heal.

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