Comment Old news... (Score 1) 57
.... from mid-November.
Comment Linkedin shows that... (Score 1) 28
.... they have a bunch of marketing people in Japan. If they'd had anyone who had any sense that worked for them, they'd have been where Notion is right now. Skitch is still their best product, even if it doesn't do anything more special than it did in the past.
Comment Why not simply... (Score 2) 25
... ban all advertising via SMS entirely? Text messaging is an important communication method. Allowing it to be spammed negates that.
Consider even banning unsolicited marketing phone calls as well. There needs to be a clear distinction between critical communications services, such as telephones, and TV and the internet, which are not as much.
Comment Re: No. Keyloggers, trusted cert authorities and (Score 3) 183
This sounds like a lot of elderly people I know. I put them on my NextDNS account, make sure they use GMail and not a regular email program, and tell them not to call numbers that pop up saying that they need to contact Microsoft Support.
Comment Where's the warning to... (Score 1) 199
....stay away from the internet? I mean, heck, you're on the 'net, you've already compromised yourself by using it to communicate. Why not go full tin-foil hat and recommend unplugging entirely?
Comment After listening to cymbals ... (Score 3, Funny) 208
.... in high-quality recordings through high-end headphones via AAC, and compared them to the lossless original, I have a bridge I'd like to sell him.
Submission + - Dutch Police Create Deepfake Video of Murdered Boy In Hope of New Leads (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Dutch police have received dozens of leads after using deepfake technology to virtually bring to life a teenager almost two decades after his murder. Sedar Soares was shot dead in 2003 while throwing snowballs with friends in the parking lot of a Rotterdam metro station. The 13-year-old’s murder baffled police for years. Now, with the permission of Sedar’s family, they have made a video in which the teen asks the public to help solve the cold-case crime.
In what Dutch police believe could be a world first, an eerily lifelike image of Sedar appears in the video as he greets the camera and picks up a football. Accompanied by stirring music, he walks through a guard of honor on the field, comprising his relatives, former teachers and friends. “Somebody must know who murdered my darling brother. That’s why he has been brought back to life for this film,” a voice says, before Sedar stops and drops his ball. “Do you know more? Then speak,” Sedar and his relatives and friends say, before his image disappears from the field and the video gives the police contact details.
In what Dutch police believe could be a world first, an eerily lifelike image of Sedar appears in the video as he greets the camera and picks up a football. Accompanied by stirring music, he walks through a guard of honor on the field, comprising his relatives, former teachers and friends. “Somebody must know who murdered my darling brother. That’s why he has been brought back to life for this film,” a voice says, before Sedar stops and drops his ball. “Do you know more? Then speak,” Sedar and his relatives and friends say, before his image disappears from the field and the video gives the police contact details.
Comment The question still has to be asked... (Score 1) 15
... as to why anyone is still connecting critical control infrastructure to networks that are connected to the internet.
Submission + - SPAM: Supply Chain Attack Used Legitimate WordPress Add-Ons To Backdoor Sites
An anonymous reader writes: Dozens of legitimate WordPress add-ons downloaded from their original sources have been found backdoored through a supply chain attack, researchers said. The backdoor has been found on “quite a few” sites running the open source content management system. The backdoor gave the attackers full administrative control of websites that used at least 93 WordPress plugins and themes downloaded from AccessPress Themes. The backdoor was discovered by security researchers from JetPack, the maker of security software owned by Automatic, provider of the WordPress.com hosting service and a major contributor to the development of WordPress. In all, Jetpack found that 40 AccessPress themes and 53 plugins were affected.
In a post published Thursday, Jetpack researcher Harald Eilertsen said timestamps and other evidence suggested the backdoors were introduced intentionally in a coordinated action after the themes and plugins were released. The affected software was available by download directly from the AccessPress Themes site. The same themes and plugins mirrored on WordPress.org, the official developer site for the WordPress project, remained clean. “Users who used software obtained directly from the AccessPress website unknowingly provided attackers with backdoor access, resulting in an unknown number of compromised websites,” Ben Martin, a researcher with Web security firm Sucuri, wrote in a separate analysis of the backdoor.
The Jetpack post said evidence indicates that the supply chain attack on AccessPress Themes was performed in September. Martin, however, said evidence suggests the backdoor itself is much older than that. Some of the infected websites had spam payloads dating back nearly three years. He said his best guess is that the people behind the backdoor were selling access to infected sites to people pushing web spam and malware. He wrote, “[...] it seems that the malware that we’ve found associated with this backdoor is more of the same: spam, and redirects to malware and scam sites." The Jetpack post provides full names and versions of the infected AccessPress software. Anyone running a WordPress site with this company’s offerings should carefully inspect their systems to ensure they’re not running a backdoored instance. Site owners may also want to consider installing a website firewall, many of which would have prevented the backdoor from working.
Link to Original Source
In a post published Thursday, Jetpack researcher Harald Eilertsen said timestamps and other evidence suggested the backdoors were introduced intentionally in a coordinated action after the themes and plugins were released. The affected software was available by download directly from the AccessPress Themes site. The same themes and plugins mirrored on WordPress.org, the official developer site for the WordPress project, remained clean. “Users who used software obtained directly from the AccessPress website unknowingly provided attackers with backdoor access, resulting in an unknown number of compromised websites,” Ben Martin, a researcher with Web security firm Sucuri, wrote in a separate analysis of the backdoor.
The Jetpack post said evidence indicates that the supply chain attack on AccessPress Themes was performed in September. Martin, however, said evidence suggests the backdoor itself is much older than that. Some of the infected websites had spam payloads dating back nearly three years. He said his best guess is that the people behind the backdoor were selling access to infected sites to people pushing web spam and malware. He wrote, “[...] it seems that the malware that we’ve found associated with this backdoor is more of the same: spam, and redirects to malware and scam sites." The Jetpack post provides full names and versions of the infected AccessPress software. Anyone running a WordPress site with this company’s offerings should carefully inspect their systems to ensure they’re not running a backdoored instance. Site owners may also want to consider installing a website firewall, many of which would have prevented the backdoor from working.
Link to Original Source
Comment I don't think his comparison of companies is good (Score 1) 307
Facebook never really innovated anything except Facebook. Google innovated search and better email, but has switched trying to compete with Facebook. Apple has always innovated, even if it meant sacrificing successful products (eg: The famous killing off of the iPod Mini at the peak of its success.). I think he is wrong that Steve Jobs was Apple's chief innovator. Steve simply focussed doggedly on whatever ideas he had until he could make them reality, and fairly never compromised. Now if Apple can keep that focus...
He is right about innovation though overall. The announcement of iTunes Radio and car integration seems to be more about the spread and normalisation of existing technology. Everyone is focussed on maps and getting people to interact with where they are right now. The technology has to become over-saturated and stagnant and open the way for someone to innovate at the right place and time.
Comment Maybe some hacker got lucky... (Score 1) 145
Maybe whoever wrote the virus got lucky, found they'd hit the jackpot with the data and sold it off for a crapload of money?
Submission + - Remotely Connecting Two Machines for Audio
TFGeditor writes: "Thanks to /. readers' advice from a previous Ask Slashdot ahref=http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09 /28/2153212rel=url2html-31469http://ask.slashdot.o rg/article.pl?sid=06/09/28/2153212> , I now have a PC system optimally configured to produce professional on-air radio programs. Now I have a new problem. My radio co-host and I are in different cities located a few hundred miles apart. In order to give the show a real-time (i.e. "live") sound, we need to somehow connect him and me over the net so that we can produce a show complete with co-host banter, real-time interaction, etc. as if we were both in the same studio. How can we do this? Will Skype or other VOIP applications do this without the result sounding "tinny" (like a phone connection), or are there other apps that will do a better job? Need your advice/help."
Planet Discovered Using Telephoto Camera Lenses 74
[rvr] writes "The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) reports the discovery of an extra-solar planet called XO-1b, which orbits a dim star in Corona Borealis every 4 days. To find it, the brightness of several thousand stars were regularly scanned using two mini-telescopes in Hawaii. This equipment was built using commercial hardware: two digital cameras, attached to telephoto camera lenses on a robotic equatorial mount. A team of amateur astronomers helped with their own equipment to discard or confirm dozens of suspected transits."
New Possible SIDS Genes Identified 88
ScienceDaily is reporting that researchers at the Mayo Clinic have identified two more cardiac genes that could contribute to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). From the article: "In the two recent separate studies, researchers examined caveolin-3 (CAV3) and the cardiac ryanodine receptor (RyR2) and found molecular and functional evidence in both to implicate them as SIDS-susceptibility genes. Researchers examined the tissue of 135 unrelated cases of SIDS -- in infants with an average age of 3 months old -- that had been referred to Mayo Clinic's Sudden Death Genomics Laboratory for molecular autopsy. In each study, two of the 135 cases possessed mutations in either CAV3 or RyR2."
Choosing Careers in Technology? 107
Salandarin asks: "Until recently, I was convinced that my destiny involved a degree in CS, stemming from my love of video games. I've really enjoyed what I've found so far, and I enjoy the art of programming and the study of algorithms. However, from what I'm told, more advanced study requires a strong knowledge of mathematics. Mathematics, much like the hard sciences, are not my interest. Although I'm not ready to abandon CS just yet, I'm starting to examine other options. I enjoy the world of technology more than any other, and as such I would really like to stay here, no matter what field I choose. I am specifically curious about jobs that involve some form of journalism, writing, and/or communication, but I'm open to everything at this point. What other careers are available in technology, for a person like me?"
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