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Earth

We Had All Better Hope These Scientists Are Wrong About the Planet's Future (washingtonpost.com) 618

Posted by msmash from the worried-about-future dept.
Less than 24 hours since we read this dire climate study, an anonymous reader writes from a Washington Post report about several more concerning things: James Hansen, a former NASA scientist, says his new study suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned. The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done. "I think almost everybody who is really familiar with both paleo and modern is now very concerned that we are approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations," Hansen said.
Security

Ask Slashdot: Dealing With Passwords Transmitted As Cleartext? 251

Posted by timothy from the secret-password-on-the-wall dept.
An anonymous reader writes: My brother recently requested a transcript from his university and was given the option to receive the transcript electronically. When he had problems accessing the document, he called me in to help. What I found was that the transcript company had sent an e-mail with a URL (not a link) to where the document was located. What surprised me was that a second e-mail was also sent containing the password (in cleartext) to access the document.

Not too long ago I had a similar experience when applying for a job online (ironically for an entry-level IT position). I was required to setup an account with a password and an associated e-mail address. While filling out the application, I paused the process to get some information I didn't have on hand and received an e-mail from the company that said I could continue the process by logging on with my account name and password, both shown in cleartext in the message.

In my brother's case, it was an auto-generated password but still problematic. In my case, it showed that the company was storing my account information in cleartext to be able to e-mail it back to me. Needless to say, I e-mailed the head of their IT department explaining why this was unacceptable.

My questions are: How frequently have people run into companies sending sensitive information (like passwords) in cleartext via e-mail? and What would you do if this type of situation happened to you?
Transportation

Engineers: Traffic Studies Use Simulation Software, Not Lane Closings 265

Posted by Soulskill from the next-you'll-tell-me-we-test-drugs-on-animals-first dept.
Lucas123 writes "The so-called 'traffic study' that closed New Jersey access lanes on the heavily traveled George Washington Bridge last September has left engineers scratching their heads, because in modern America, simulation software is used instead of closing down lanes. One of the best sources for simulation data are video camera systems that use software to count vehicles on roadways. Traffic studies use microscopic traffic simulations to create virtual environments that can model driver behavior to road changes with exacting detail. Instead, the Port Authority, under Gov. Chris Christie, shut down two of the three access lanes for four days last September from Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge without warning the public, citing a 'traffic study.' 'I would be pretty confident that if we knew exactly which lanes are closed we could replicate that, and it would show exactly how bad the backups are going to be,' said Lorenzo Rotoli, an engineer and vice president at Fisher Associates, a civil engineering firm in New York that works on roads, bridges and signal systems."
Facebook

Security Researcher Makes His Point By Hacking Into Zuckerberg's Facebook Page 266

Posted by samzenpus from the do-you-see-it-now? dept.
Eugriped3z writes "Whitehat Palestinian hacker Kahlil Shreateh submitted a bug report to Facebook's Whitehat bug reporting page not once, but twice. After it was ignored the first time and denied outright on the second occasion (which included links to an example as proof), he hacked Mark Zuckerberg's personal timeline, leaving both an explanation and an apology. From the article: 'In less than a minute, Shreateh's Facebook account was suspended and he was contacted by a Facebook security engineer requesting all the details of the exploit. 'Unfortunately your report to our Whitehat system did not have enough technical information for us to take action on it,' the engineer wrote in an email. 'We cannot respond to reports which do not contain enough detail to allow us to reproduce an issue.' Facebook has a policy that it will pay a minimum $500 bounty for any security flaws that a hacker finds. However, the company has refused to pay Shreateh for discovering the vulnerability because his actions violated Facebook's Terms of Service.'"

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 124

by Jawbox (#43259887) Attached to: Florida House Passes Bill To Ban "Internet Cafes"

Read the article! It's all right there. "Cyber cafes" here are nothing more than unregulated casinos. They answer to no one, have no obligation to any sort of transparency. There places are scum that hide behind an innocent name and try to pass off taking money as charitable donations. Actual cyber cafes are unaffected.

Comment Re:For 1 data point (Score 1) 321

by Jawbox (#38595450) Attached to: Why Freemium Doesn't Work
This! There are no good datapoints in the article, the basic premise isn't backed up, and for Gawd's sake, it's a single blog post about a single Fremium site that didn't work. There's no study, no data, and certainly it's impossible to draw a conclusion about a whole industry based on one developer's experience!

Comment Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score 1) 178

by Jawbox (#37470474) Attached to: HP Begins Laying Off WebOS Developers, Potentially Firing CEO
No, the same Friday night Best Buy Canada started liquidating Touchpads, HP Shopping also lowered the price to $99. That same night HP announced the Firesale and the way they would handle it with their partners. On Saturday night Best Buy finally decided to liquidate Touchpads, and sold out their store stock on Sunday.
Android

Wireless Charging On the Droid Bionic? 81

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stop-gnawing-on-cables dept.
mahiskali writes "New documents pertaining to the ever-hyped and much-delayed Motorola Droid Bionic have surfaced on the FCC website. Perusing through the documents, I noticed a very interesting feature: an inductive charging coil (click 'Internal Photos'), built into the battery door housing. It seems Motorola may have some tricks up its sleeve yet--but will it be enough to beat out the competition (read: Samsung Galaxy S2, iPhone 5)?"
Technology

Why Thunderbolt Is Dead In the Water 568

Posted by Soulskill from the cables-can't-swim dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "In the same way that Apple championed FireWire for the replacement of parallel SCSI, Thunderbolt is meant as the next big thing in video and audio peripheral interfaces. Plus, it's Apple's move to beat USB 3.0. However, Thunderbolt is off to a slow start, for a number of reasons — from cost to the technology's features in comparison to USB 3.0 — which is why it may be dead in the water."
Image

Prince Says Internet Is Over 450

Posted by samzenpus from the it-was-fun-while-it-lasted dept.
the_arrow writes "According to the artist currently known as Prince, 'The internet's completely over.' At least that what he says in an interview with the British newspaper Mirror. Quoting Prince: 'The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you.'"

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