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Comment Re:When is it malicious? (Score 1) 165

by Maximilianop (#50534341) Attached to: When Does Software Start Becoming Malware?
What I meant (and failed) to say, is that maliciousness must be taken into account when a software is to be classified as Malware. Viruses => Malware. Cracks, Keygens, etc => Malware. Yes, their intent is to violate security algorithms. Even if some of us benefit from it. Spyware (Including invisible proxies, keyloggers, etc) => Can both be malware, or just pernicious. Or even beneficial. Depends on intention and use. I find it very hard to believe Oracle would have the intent of wasting your computing resources and giving you a hard time by bundling the ASK toolbar in the Java Installer. I believe their intent is to earn money with sponsors. Yet it is pernicious behavior, since it non intently causes you harming. I keep repeating the example from the OP, but this is the same for mostly everything. Clarification on beneficial spyware (before the flaming starts): I find it useful when the application generates a crash log and allows me to send this report to the software maker. This behavior can be classified as spyware, since it's actually recording my footprint in the application. But (hopefully) with the beneficial intent of improving the software.

Comment When is it malicious? (Score 1) 165

by Maximilianop (#50533795) Attached to: When Does Software Start Becoming Malware?
I will go by the definition of malicious as "characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm"
Oracle has the intent of causing harm by installing the ASK toolbar? Yes -> malware, No -> not malware.
ASK has the intent of causing harm with the toolbar? Yes -> malware, No -> not malware.

Buuuuuuut....
I will also go by the definition of pernicious as "having a harmful effect, especially in a gradual or subtle way" To bring up a new classification perniciousware (or pernware)
Is ASK toolbar causing a gradual, subtle harmful effect on the user's computer? I don't think it's possible to answer no to this question. For me it's of course, at the very least by consuming resources (disk space, memory, cpu time) on unwanted software. So it's pernware
Is Oracle causing a gradual, subtle harmful effect on the user's computer by including the ASK toolbar, specially when it's the default installer behavior to install it? Yes (not no here either)-> Java installer is pernware.


Both Malicious and Pernicious definitions supplied by Google search :)


As a side note, I would say most big players are having serious pernicious behaviour on software distribution. By automatically configuring the startup of their apps/services without asking; bundling software which has little to nothing to do with the provided one (i.e: Flash including an antivirus...) etc. And ofc the well known un readable by general layman EULAs which gives them superpowers to do mostly anything they want with YOUR computer, software, and data.
Worst thing is. The smaller players uses these as excuses to do the same, and people has "accostumed" to this, and pay no longer any notice. Opening wide breaches in most security and allowing anyone with malicious intent to do anything they want...

Comment Re:not even security (Score 1) 279

by Maximilianop (#46161425) Attached to: With HTTPS Everywhere, Is Firefox Now the Most Secure Mobile Browser?
No only that.
Quote from their site "The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by using a clever technology to rewrite requests to these sites to HTTPS"
What is this clever technology?
Could it be a hook on every single request, analysing the host to "know" if the request "should be rewritten as HTTPS"
How do they decide when a server has HTTPS capabilities? Are they just "probing" each webserver? Do they have a DB? Do website owners have a say in this?

What is disabling the extension from logging and saving a DB on every single request you send to the web?
What is disabling the extension from saving your username and passwords for sensible sites?

More than securing your phone browser, this seems like the definition of spyware to me...
Robotics

Submission + - NASA Performs Zero-G Robot Surgery for Mars, Iraq (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: With rapid-response surgery needed in Iraq and super-long-distance medicine a far-off necessity for a manned trip to Mars, NASA recently sent eight astronauts, roboticists and surgeons on its "Vomit Comet," pitting real doctors against new robotic ones. As if the prospect of a portable robo-OR deploying to Iraq by 2009 weren't enticing enough, one of the surgeons on board promised this in his flight blog: "So far, surgery by hand is still the most efficient way to get the job done in a mobile, extreme environment. But robots are advancing rapidly... The solution that roboticists are working on now is to CAT scan a patient's entire body and beam the results back to Earth. Then a surgeon could program an operation and beam it back to upload into a robo-surgeon, which could carry out procedures like a player piano."
Space

Intergalactic Missing Mass Missing Again 171

Posted by kdawson from the yesterday-upon-the-stair dept.
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Researchers at the University Of Alabama In Huntsville have discovered that some x-rays thought to come from intergalactic clouds of 'warm' gas are instead probably caused by lightweight electrons — leaving the mass of the universe as much as ten to 20 percent lighter (in terms of its ordinary matter) than previously calculated. In 2002 the same team reported finding large amounts of extra 'soft' (relatively low-energy) x-rays coming from the vast spaces in the middle of galaxy clusters. Their cumulative mass was thought to account for as much as ten percent of the mass and gravity needed to hold together galaxies, galaxy clusters, and perhaps the universe itself. When the team looked at data from a galaxy cluster in the southern sky, however, they found that energy from those additional soft x-rays doesn't look like it should. 'The best, most logical explanation seems to be that a large fraction of the energy comes from electrons smashing into photons instead of from warm atoms and ions, which would have recognizable spectral emission lines,' said Dr. Max Bonamente. The work was published Oct. 20 in the Astrophysical Journal."
Privacy

US Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking 228

Posted by kdawson from the just-pretend-nobody's-watching dept.
Arashtamere writes "A study on consumer perceptions about online privacy, undertaken by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, found that the average American consumer is largely unaware that every move they make online can be, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks. Those surveyed showed little knowledge on the extent to which online tracking is happening or how the information obtained can be used. More than half of those surveyed — about 55 percent — falsely assumed that a company's privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company's privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals' activities online. And a similar number assumed that an online privacy policy meant that a company they're doing business with wouldn't collect data on their online activities and combine it with other information to create a behavioral profile."
Announcements

Submission + - Network Neutrality Squad: Users Protecting the Net (vortex.com)

Submitted by
Lauren Weinstein
Lauren Weinstein writes: "Announcing the "Network Neutrality Squad" — NNSquad Joining PFIR Co-Founders Peter G. Neumann and I in this announcement are Keith Dawson (Slashdot.org), David J. Farber (Carnegie Mellon University), Bob Frankston, Phil Karn (Qualcomm), David P. Reed, Paul Saffo, and Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane). The Network Neutrality Squad ("NNSquad") is an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions. The project's focus includes detection, analysis, and incident reporting of any anticompetitive, discriminatory, or other restrictive actions on the part of Internet service Providers (ISPs) or affiliated entities, such as the blocking or disruptive manipulation of applications, protocols, transmissions, or bandwidth; or other similar behaviors not specifically requested by their customers. More at the Network Neutrality Squad Home Page. Thanks. — Lauren —"
Security

New Startup Hopes to Slay the Botnet

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the saint-nemean-and-the-botnet dept.
eldavojohn writes "How do you identify Botnet traffic on your network? Well, the problem with current commercial technologies is that they generate too many false positives. But a new startup name Nemean Networks hopes to solve all that by building signatures of traffic at many different levels of the network stack. 'Finding the proper sensitivity threshold for NIDS sensors has always been a problem for network and security administrators. Lower the threshold and some attacks get through the signature screening; raise it too high and false positives flourish. Nemean attempts to find the proper balance by gathering traffic sent to a honeynet to build signatures based on weighted data. The numerical weights are entirely subjective and based on the creators' expertise. The data is then clustered and fed through an algorithm to determine threat levels and develop signatures.'"
Upgrades

Submission + - Enthusiast System Architecture Launched By NVIDIA (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "NVIDIA has just introduced a new open-industry standard for real-time monitoring and control of PC power supplies, chassis, and water cooling systems. Dubbed ESA, which stands for Enthusiast System Architecture, the company hopes the standard will be adopted across the industry. A new wave of ESA compliant hardware that can be monitored and controlled via a standard interface could ensue, like smart health-monitoring power supplies and other components, that would increase system stability and reliability."
Technology

MIT Offers City Car for the Masses 290

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the popeil-pocket-car dept.
MIT's stackable electric car, a project to improve urban transportation will make its debut this week in Milan. "The City Car, a design project under way at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is envisioned as a two-seater electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. It would weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds and could collapse, then stack like a shopping cart with six to eight fitting into a typical parking space. It isn't just a car, but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks at locations around a city or small community."
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Red Hat Signs On to Open-Source Java Project (itworld.com)

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "Red Hat has signed Sun's OpenJDK contributor agreement and plans to align the work its done on its IcedTea project (its own implementation of some parts of the Java SE JDK) with OpenJDK. As part of its participation in the OpenJDK project, Red Hat eventually will create a compatible OpenJDK implementation for its Enterprise Linux distribution and will also use OpenJDK to create a runtime for its JBoss Enterprise Middleware that is optimized for a Linux environment."

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