Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Hersch portrays US media as being pathetic

Submitted by Rytis
Rytis writes: Seymour Hersh, a Pullitzer price-winning journalist, deplores the pathetic and lenient state of American press suggesting a tabula rasa for the news bureaus with 90% of editors fired. What are the reasons for decline of the investigative quality in the last two decades? Can newer outlets, such as Guardian US or Al Jazeera America, improve the quality of investigative journalism in the US?

Submission + - Upper Limit on Emissions Likely To Be Exceeded Within Decades (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A panel of expert climate scientists appointed by the United Nations has come to a consensus on an upper limit for greenhouse gases. The panel says we will blow past this limit in just a few decades if emissions continue at their current pace. 'To stand the best chance of keeping the planetary warming below an internationally agreed target of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels and thus avoiding the most dangerous effects of climate change, the panel found, only about 1 trillion tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas spewed into the atmosphere. Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at current rates of energy consumption, the trillionth ton will be released around 2040, according to calculations by Myles R. Allen, a scientist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the new report. More than 3 trillion tons of carbon are still left in the ground as fossil fuels.' You can read a summary of the report's findings online (PDF). It says plainly, 'It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming (PDF) since the mid-20th century.'

Submission + - Senators Push to Preserve N.S.A. Phone Surveillance (nytimes.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The New York times reports that the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Vice Chairman, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), are moving a bill forward that would “change but preserve” the controversial NSA phone log program. Senator Feinstein believes the program is legal, but wants to improve public confidence. The bill would reduce the time the logs could be kept, require public reports on how often it is used, and require FISA court review of the numbers searched. The bill would require Senate confirmation of the NSA director. It would also give the NSA a one week grace period in applying for permission from a court to continue surveillance of someone that travels from overseas to the United States. The situation created by someone traveling from overseas to the United States has been the source of the largest number of incidents in the US in which NSA's surveillance rules were not properly complied with. The rival bill offered by Senators Wyden (D-OR) and Udall (D-CO) which imposes tougher restrictions is considered less likely to pass. More at The New York Times.

Submission + - Belgian telecom operator victim of "state-sponsored cyber espionage" (deredactie.be)

Submitted by Freggy
Freggy writes: The Belgian telecom operator Belgacom has been a victim of "international state-sponsored cyber espionage". A complex unknown virus capable of intercepting international calls from Belgacom subsidiary BICS was found on computers. It is being suggested that the NSA is behind the virus. Belgacom has filed a complaint and the Belgian government, Belgacom's largest shareholder, has condemned the espionage.

Comment Raw document (Score 4, Informative) 607

by Rytis (#44769739) Attached to: NSA Foils Much Internet Encryption

The raw document provides some more details but remains not especially explicit.

"The fact that NSA/CSS has some capabilities against the encryption in TLS/SSL, HTTPS, SSH, VPNs, VoIP, WEBMAIL, and other network communication technologies".

Capabilities are defined here as NSA/CSS ability to exploit a specific technology. This may encompass acquiring and processing plaintext data and/or acquiring, decrypting and processing encrypted data.
Apache

Submission + - Banks Push Hadoop Envelope to Open Big Data's Secrets (banktech.com)

Submitted by
Cara_Latham
Cara_Latham writes: "Banks, including Zions Bancorporation, are exploring Apache's Hadoop open source platform to enable deeper analytics. With the promise big data is expected to bring, organizations are exploring their options for solving business challenges with emerging data technologies. It's just not practical or cost-effective to use traditional database platforms and technologies that were designed before the big-data era, but exploring Hadoop may be a solution, industry experts say."
Mozilla

Submission + - Sandboxed Flash Player Coming to Firefox (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Adobe, which has spent the last few years trying to dig out of a deep hole of vulnerabilities and buggy code, is making a major change to Flash, adding a sandbox to the version of the player that runs in Firefox. The sandbox is designed to prevent many common exploit techniques against Flash.

The move by Adobe comes roughly a year after the company added a sandbox to Flash for Google Chrome. Flash, which is perhaps the most widely deployed piece of software on the Internet, has been a common attack vector for several years now, and the attacks in some cases have been used to get around exploit mitigations added by the browser vendors. The sandbox is designed to prevent many of these attacks by not allowing exploits against Flash to break out into the browser itself.
Announcements

Submission + - Verizon-Redbox: Challenging Netflix with Broadband Clout (broadbandconvergent.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon announced a ground-breaking deal today with its newly formed partnership with Coinstar’s (NASDAQ: CSTR), Redbox and Verizon (NASDAQ: VZ) customers nationwide. The venture will come to fruition in the second half of 2012 offering streaming broadband video content as well as the current physical Redbox Kiosks of DVD rentals. Verizon will own 65% of the Venture; Coinstar at 35%.
Businesses

Submission + - Mark Zuckerberg Orders Banks to Shut Up (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "In the weeks leading up to Facebook's massive $100 billion initial public offering, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and the other banks involved in the IPO to stop leaking information to the media. Zuckerberg was reportedly unhappy that the banks leaked details about his company's Wall Street debut, including the Feb. 1 date it chose to file its S-1 paperwork with the SEC. Facebook execs are also miffed about the subtle rivalry between Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which were jockeying to become the lead underwriter for the IPO, the largest since Google's $1.7 billion offering in 2004. The banks are heeding Zuckerberg's warning, urging their employees to keep quiet about Facebook's filing, because disobeying Zuckerberg's wishes could mean getting dropped from one of the most lucrative IPOs in recent memory. The banks stand to make $40 million from their deals with Facebook."

Submission + - What Free/Open Source Software to use to Teach Critical thinking to Abused Kids

Submitted by
jaketeater
jaketeater writes: "I am a child care worker in Brazil at an orphanage for abused and abandoned children. The kids lack in critical/creative thinking skills, which hurts them when it comes to schooling and even relationships. When I was a child I loved playing games like The Incredible Machine, which taught critical thinking in a fun way. Are there any free/open source (we run on a tight budget) programs that I could use to help them develop better thinking skills? Or teaching material that would help me teach kids to use computers and technology?"

Slashdot Top Deals

Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.

Close