Comment Use the data creatively (Score 1) 1
Centrally-logged complaints could be mined to establish time periods during which loud commercials play. That information could be be used to preemptively mute the volume on your TV.
Comment Re:Yes. (Score 1) 314
Consider Thompson's seminal paper on trusting trust. It is possible to conceive of embedding a backdoor in the software that translates your high-level UART design into layed out gates, P and N junctions, connections, etc., with the addition of a hardware backdoor that activates on a sequence of bits traversing the circuit. With a circuit of high complexity it might plausibly go unnoticed. Possibly it would be within the capabilities of nation states. Easier to envision for certain classes of hardware, but certainly a very hard problem. If you have the skills to write a recognizer for a hardware UART, that can add a backdoor, could you please also also write an agent that could Do What I Mean as I code my programs?
Submission + - Erdos' Combinatorial Geometry Problem Solved (iu.edu)
eldavojohn writes: After 65 years Paul Erdos' combinatorial problem has been solved by Indiana University professor Nets Hawk Katz. The problem involved determining the minimum number of distinct distances between any finite set of points in a plane and its applications range from drug development to robot motion planning to computer graphics. You can find a description of the problem here and the prepublication of the paper on arxiv. The researchers used the existing work on the problem and included two new ideas of their own like using the polynomial ham sandwich theorem to reach a solution that warranted at least half of Erdos' $500 reward posted for solving this problem way back in 1935.
Submission + - China Building City For Cloud Computing (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: First it was China's 'big hole' sighting that brought us the supercomputing race. Now China is building a city-sized cloud computing and office complex that will include a mega data center, one of the projects fueling that country's double-digit growth in IT spending. The entire complex will cover some 6.2 million square feet, with the initial data center space accounting for approximately 646,000 square feet, says IBM, which is collaborating with a Chinese company to build it. A Sputnik moment? Patrick Thibodeau reports that these big projects, whether supercomputers or sprawling software development office parks, can garner a lot of attention. But China's overall level of IT spending, while growing rapidly, is only one-fifth that of the U.S.
Submission + - HBGary Federal hacked and exposed by Anonymous (sophos.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As the coin was tossed to kick off Superbowl XLV, Anonymous unleashed their anger at a security firm who had been investigating their membership.
HBGary Federal had been working on unmasking their identities in cooperation with an FBI investigation into the attacks against companies who were cutting off WikiLeaks access and financing.
Unlike the DDoS attacks for which Anonymous has made headlines in recent months, this incident involved true hacking
HBGary Federal had been working on unmasking their identities in cooperation with an FBI investigation into the attacks against companies who were cutting off WikiLeaks access and financing.
Unlike the DDoS attacks for which Anonymous has made headlines in recent months, this incident involved true hacking
Submission + - AOL to Buy Huffington Post
Hugh Pickens writes writes: The La Times reports that AOL has agreed to purchase the Huffington Post for $315 million. The purchase will increase AOL's news portfolio as it competes against Yahoo's growing online news publication profile and Google's news efforts, as well as traditional media companies online. The purchase has yet to acquire government approvals, but the boards of directors of each company and shareholders of the Huffington Post have approved the transaction.
Submission + - Australian Aborigines the first 'astronomers'? (news.com.au)
brindafella writes: Look out, Stonehenge, here come the Wurdi Youang rocks in the Australian state of Victoria. A semi-circle of stones as been checked by an astrophysicist from Australia's premier research group, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), who says this arrangement of rocks is a carefully aligned solar observatory that may be 10,000 years old. It would have been created by local Aborigines, the Wathaurong people, who have occupied the area for some 25,000 years.
Submission + - NM Bill Seeks to Protect Anti-Science Education (wired.com)
An anonymous reader writes: If educators in New Mexico want to teach evolution or climate change as a “controversial scientific topic,” a new bill seeks to protect them from punishment.
House Bill 302, as it’s called, states that public school teachers who want to teach “scientific weaknesses” about “controversial scientific topics” including evolution, climate change, human cloning and — ambiguously — “other scientific topics” may do so without fear of reprimand. The legislation was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Republican Rep. Thomas A. Anderson.
Supporters of science education say this and other bills are designed to spook teachers who want to teach legitimate science and protect other teachers who may already be customizing their curricula with anti-science lesson plans.
House Bill 302, as it’s called, states that public school teachers who want to teach “scientific weaknesses” about “controversial scientific topics” including evolution, climate change, human cloning and — ambiguously — “other scientific topics” may do so without fear of reprimand. The legislation was introduced to the New Mexico House of Representatives on Feb. 1 by Republican Rep. Thomas A. Anderson.
Supporters of science education say this and other bills are designed to spook teachers who want to teach legitimate science and protect other teachers who may already be customizing their curricula with anti-science lesson plans.
Submission + - Girlfriend's Revenge courtesy of Google Images (huffingtonpost.com) 2
another similar writes: This article on HuffPo teaches us that if you happen to have a bad break up with someone who's reasonably tech-savvy, beware where your descriptively captioned photos might end up after the breakup. Dude...
Submission + - Jetpack with 2 hours of flight time (wired.com)
arshadk writes: "Unlike “ordinary” jetpacks, the JetLev is actually two vehicles, tethered by a hose the thickness of your thigh. On the water is a small speedboat-like unit which contains a 250 horsepower motor and a pump. This is connected to the pack — into which you strap your frail body –- by the 10-meter [33-foot] hose. The water is pumped from the sea or lake below, up to the nozzles on the jetpack, giving a 1,900-Newton [430-pounds-of-force] thrust, enough to lift even a fat human of up to 150 kilos [330 pounds]."
Submission + - I guess Anonymous isn't Anonymous anymore? (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identity's of several key Anonymous hackers which is resulting in a ton of arrests.
Submission + - "Invisibility Cloak" Created Using Crystals (gizmag.com) 1
Zothecula writes: The quest to build a working “invisibility cloak” generally focuses on the use of metamaterials – artificially engineered materials with a negative refractive index that have already been used to render microscopic objects invisible in specific wavelengths of light. Now, using naturally occurring crystals rather than metamaterials, two research teams working independently have demonstrated technology that can cloak larger objects in the broad range of wavelengths visible to the human eye.
Submission + - Next-Generation Banking Malware Emerges After Zeus (computerworld.com)
Batblue writes: The rumored combination of two pieces of advanced online banking malware appears to be fully underway after several months of speculation.
What appears to be a beta version of a piece of malware that has bits of both Zeus and SpyEye is now in circulation, albeit among just a few people, said Aviv Raff, CTO and cofounder of Seculert.
Seculert has published screen shots of the new malware, which has two versions of a control panel used for managing infected computers. One of those control panels resembles one in Zeus, and the other resembles that in SpyEye. Both of the control panels are connected to the same back-end command-and-control server, he said.
What appears to be a beta version of a piece of malware that has bits of both Zeus and SpyEye is now in circulation, albeit among just a few people, said Aviv Raff, CTO and cofounder of Seculert.
Seculert has published screen shots of the new malware, which has two versions of a control panel used for managing infected computers. One of those control panels resembles one in Zeus, and the other resembles that in SpyEye. Both of the control panels are connected to the same back-end command-and-control server, he said.
Submission + - Hotmail launches accounts you can throw away (cnet.com)
suraj.sun writes: Today, Hotmail is getting a new feature aimed at "e-mail enthusiasts," which lets anyone create multiple e-mail accounts that can be read, replied to, and managed from their everyday e-mail inbox. These additional e-mail addresses can be had in the same manner as signing up for new accounts, but they require no extra log-ins or upkeep.
The idea is to give users a safe way to provide third parties with an e-mail address, without giving up the address they've provided to family and friends, which, if compromised, can end the usefulness of that particular account.
Each user will be able to create up to five aliases, any of which can be deleted and replaced with another at any time. Over time, Microsoft will increase that limit to 15 aliases per account, making it so that the true heavy users won't need to juggle between two or more Hotmail accounts.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20030574-75.html
The idea is to give users a safe way to provide third parties with an e-mail address, without giving up the address they've provided to family and friends, which, if compromised, can end the usefulness of that particular account.
Each user will be able to create up to five aliases, any of which can be deleted and replaced with another at any time. Over time, Microsoft will increase that limit to 15 aliases per account, making it so that the true heavy users won't need to juggle between two or more Hotmail accounts.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-20030574-75.html
Submission + - Google Censors 'Piracy Terms' From Instant Search (torrentfreak.com)
Chaonici writes: A few weeks ago, Google promised that, on behalf of the entertainment industries, they would begin filtering 'piracy related' terms from their search system. Now, TorrentFreak reports that Google has lived up to their promise, and certain keywords (such as 'bittorrent' and 'rapidshare') will no longer produce results with the Autocomplete or Instant Search features. The standard search feature, however, continues to display results as normal. Simon Morris of BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare, and Jamie King (the founder of Vodo) are critical of the change, pointing out the many legitimate uses of popular file-sharing technology.
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