Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Check out the new SourceForge HTML5 internet speed test! No Flash necessary and runs on all devices. ×

Submission + - Remote controlled guard towers to Afghanistan (google.com) 1

Submitted by maggern
maggern writes: It looks like an ordinary containter, but is a remote controlled guard tower optimized to provide rapid organic direct fire-power support for combat outposts, patrol bases, forward operating Bases, ports, and shipboard-defense applications. The "Containerized Weapon Station" is being developed by the Norwegian Kongsberg Protech Systems and will be tested in Afghanistan by the american military this summer, as troops pull out, according to the Norwegian Teknisk Ukeblad (Technical Weekly).

Submission + - Conroe company still using computers museums want to put on display (chron.com)

Submitted by concealment
concealment writes: Sparkler Filters up north in Conroe still uses an IBM 402 in conjunction with a Model 129 key punch – with the punch cards and all – to do company accounting work and inventory.

The company makes industrial filters for chemical plants and grease traps.

Lutricia Wood is the head accountant at Sparkler and the data processing manager. She went to business school over 40 years ago in Houston, and started at Sparkler in 1973. Back then punch cards were still somewhat state of the art.

Submission + - Are the days of the QWERTY keyboard numbered? (v3.co.uk)

Submitted by DW100
DW100 writes: Researchers have come up with a seemingly more efficient, and sensible, keyboard input method for tablets — could it spell the end for the Qwerty layout we all know and love?

Submission + - A Drug Policy for the 21st Century? (whitehouse.gov)

Submitted by dhomstad
dhomstad writes: The President has put forth a National Drug Control Strategy, allegedly emphasizing prevention over incarceration. It promotes national programs like the Drug Free Communities Support Program which are intended to give youngsters the ability to make healthy decisions in the future. While Americans can all agree on prevention being the priority, we may disagree on the specific policies and programs aimed at prevention. Stanford studies have questioned the cost-effectiveness of programs like DARE (Source http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/ganginterv/criticallook.htm ). Will increases in funding for Screening and Brief Intervention erode personal rights & leach money from tax payers, or will they actually decrease the rate of drug addiction in the United States? Let's see what the /. community thinks...

Submission + - Thousands of SCADA, ICS Devices Exposed Through Serial Ports

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Serial port servers are admittedly old school technology that you might think had been phased out as new IT, SCADA and industrial control system equipment has been phased in. Metasploit creator HD Moore cautions you to think again.

Moore recently revealed that through his Critical IO project research, he discovered 114,000 such devices connected to the Internet, many with little in the way of authentication standing between an attacker and a piece of critical infrastructure or a connection onto a corporate network. More than 95,000 of those devices were exposed over mobile connections such as 3G or GPRS.

“The thing that opened my eyes was looking into common configurations; even if it required authentication to manage the device itself, it often didn’t require any authentication to talk to the serial port which is part of the device,” Moore told Threatpost. “At the end of the day, it became a backdoor to huge separate systems that shouldn’t be online anyway. Even though these devices do support authentication at various levels, most of the time it wasn’t configured for the serial port.”

Comment Re:It's Sony... (Score 1) 344

by DMoylan (#42474451) Attached to: New Sony Patent Blocks Second-hand Games

in the same way the tobacco industry needed to recruit new young smokers to replace those killed by their products sony needs to replace those that are driven away by restricted hardware.

the kids and parents that buy the ps3 are those that haven't experienced the lockouts and restrictions enough to realise there are better companies to support.

on the plus side sony stores around dublin seem to be closing and their sales are slumping so maybe the message is filtering down.

Slashdot Top Deals

The solution of problems is the most characteristic and peculiar sort of voluntary thinking. -- William James

Close