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Security

Submission + - SSL/TLS vulnerability widely unpatched (ssltls.de) 1

kaiengert writes: "In November 2009 a Man-In-the-Middle vulnerability for SSL/TLS/https was made public (CVE-2009-3555), and shortly afterwards demonstrated to be exploitable. In February 2010 researchers published RFC 5746 that described how servers and clients can be made immune. Software that implements the TLS protocol enhancements became available shortly afterwards. Most modern web browsers are patched, but the solution requires that both browser developers and website operators take action.

Unfortunately, 16 months later, many major websites, including several ones that deal with real world transactions of goods and money, still haven't upgraded their systems.

Even worse, for a big portion of those sites it can be shown that their operators failed to apply the essential configuration hotfix. They support the style of handshakes that can allow a MITM attacker to inject attack data into the transaction stream.

Here is an exemplary list of patched and unpatched sites, along with more background information. The patched sites demonstrate that patching is indeed possible.

Given that attackers could execute malicious transactions with a customer's credentials, customers should demand that this security issue gets resolved quickly. What can we do to remind service providers that fixing this issue deserves a high priority?"

Transportation

Submission + - Cambered Tires Can Improve Fuel Economy (greencarreports.com)

thecarchik writes: We already know that it’s possible to curb your fuel consumption just by having your tires properly inflated, or better yet, installing a set of low rolling-resistance tires, however, soon there may be an additional avenue to look at when picking the most fuel efficient rubber for your ride. The answer is the camber of your tires, more specifically, the negative camber. This is when the tops of your car’s tires are angled inwards towards the chassis. Of course, there are negative effects too--namely increased tire wear and impaired ride quality--which is why production cars almost always have zero camber.

Comment Khan Academy, MIT OpenCourseWare (Score 1) 2

I was seven years out of college when I decided to start graduate school. After a bit of searching I found that two these helped the most to review: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/index.htm http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy I went through the calculus videos on both sites and they seemed to be a good enough review to start math classes again. For example, I didn't remember what integration by parts was when I started, but by the time I finished I was able to figure out some of the easier Taylor Series on my own (something I probably had forgotten mere weeks after I finished school the first time ). Good luck. :D

Comment Re:Oracle has some work to do (Score 3, Insightful) 667

Despite what a lot of people think. The games market on PC/servers etc is pretty small. Sun was wise not to push it really. For games you would need Xbox..etc to support a jvm for it to really make sense. And that will not happen for a number of reasons.

However there is lwjgl (opengl/openal binding for java), and most common higher level languages can run on top of a JVM these days. (Jython, JScheme, Kawa, lua, ....)

Comment Re:penalizing stockholders (Score 1) 336

Personally, I think the correct answer to holding corporations responsible is to force them to pay their fines by selling new stock until they've sold enough stock to raise the money for the fine.

That's no problem for large corporations but may be impractical for smaller ones.

also hurts activist investors

Such investors are only called "activist" because the current system is broken. If investors were required to be responsible for the corporations they own, they'd all either be broke or be "activist".

So, only the wealthy can be stock holders? They would be the only ones who could afford to take the risk of investing in corporations. Corporations were originally given corporate charters, and limited liability, so that the cost of a business could be spread over a number of people without the risk of losing everything.

The Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company were both given their corporate charters, the first ones granted, because their business was risky. They were both shipping companies and they were responsible for any lost cargo, whether it be because the ship sank in bad weather or because it was attacked and captured by pirates. Not only was the company liable for the cargo but it was also liable for the lives of the crew and passengers. An investor could lose not just the money invested but everything including their house. Because of this and because trade was important, limited liability was eventually granted to those who wanted to invest in cargo shipping.

Without some way for regular, low and medium income, people to be able to invest and not risk everything the economy would suck. Even today with the internet it's still hard to find out how a corporation operates or what it's practices are. There would be little trade, you wouldn't have that cellphone or many other things because the coltan needed to make them isn't found everywhere. There would be no shipping, heck the businesses that make them would not exist, it would be too risky.

Falcon

Comment Re:$14.99 seems way too high for an eBook. (Score 1) 236

With a little bit of poking around you can find a way to send money to the author. Often they have a system setup for donations, purchasing t-shirts or somesuch or even just mailing them a check. When the distribution chain is too much more expensive or sucks too much compared to the pirates you can always get it the easier way and just send some money to the artist.

Comment Re:Thomas Jefferson said it best: (Score 1) 336

Yup, T.J. had it right. People still see his wisdom.
Rather than concentrating on the corporations as a whole themselves, I wonder if it might not be best to punish the board of directors.
Punishing a corporations is kind of like slapping a puppet for a rude comment made by a puppeteer.
Punish those causing the problem, disallow sale of their share so they get to stew in their dirty diaper a while.
Make the infraction unattractive and allow no way to escape or protest the punishment.

Comment Re:I wonder... (Score 2, Insightful) 183

That's why they use such "locked in" codecs like H.264, AAC, and "locked in" protocols like NFS, and a "locked down" OS core, and "locked down" human readable preference files, or "locked down" standard PC components, or "locked down" non-DRM, non-encrypted, install disc with no serial numbers or online activation...

Ok, so the iPhone OS is controlled. They *do* do other things, y'know.

Comment Re:-1.5? (Score 1) 981

Really nice. I had PRK, not LASIK (my corneas are too thin, for that, apparently).

I can now drive without glasses. Only downside? I now occasionally need reading glasses for small print.
However, I can use $15 off-the-shelf readers, a big change from $400 prescription lenses.

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