SoberEmu - Slashdot User

Hacker Defeats Hardware-based Rootkit Detection 126

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday March 04, 2007 @12:00PM from the immovable-object-vs-unstoppable-force dept.

Manequintet writes "Joanna Rutkowska's latest bit of rootkit-related research shatters the myth that hardware-based (PCI cards or FireWire bus) RAM acquisition is the most reliable and secure way to do forensics. At this year's Black Hat Federal conference, she demonstrated three different attacks against AMD64 based systems, showing how the image of volatile memory (RAM) can be made different from the real contents of the physical memory as seen by the CPU. The overall problem, Rutkowska explained, is the design of the system that makes it impossible to reliably read memory from computers. "Maybe we should rethink the design of our computer systems so they they are somehow verifiable," she said."

Comment Re:Damages for companies? (Score 1) 333

by SoberEmu on Friday November 10, 2006 @09:20PM (#16801298) Attached to: Judge OKs Challenge To RIAA's $750-Per-Song Claim

And another interesting question arises when BitTorrent is thrown into the equation. In the scenario you describe, there is no guarantee that you have transferred to any one person or group of people a complete copy of the file. Does this have any legal relevance?

Clandestine Internet Censorship in India 134

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday October 07, 2006 @10:29AM from the too-hot-for-your-screen dept.

nooyi86 writes "China and the Middle East block sites in order to suppress political or social dissent. Website blocking in India, on the other hand, is driven by national security-related paranoia, or hate speech that may lead to violence. The state must save its citizens from propaganda of both the extreme right and the extreme left. Shivam Vij has posted a comprehensive profile of Internet censorship in India."

Psychopharm Going 'Mainstream' In Schools? 717

Posted by Zonk on Sunday June 11, 2006 @03:21PM from the regrettable-trending dept.

PizzaFace writes "Back in the day, college was a place where a lot of kids tried recreational drugs. Now the world's more competitive, psychopharmaceuticals are better targeted, and millions of students are routinely using drugs to work better and longer. Stimulants developed for attention deficit and narcolepsy are giving mentally healthy students an edge like athletes get from steroids or human growth hormone. These psychotropics seem fairly safe, but should they be banned in the interest of fairness, perhaps with enforcement by urine tests before exams? Or do we tell our kids that, if they want to compete in this brave new world, they better find some Adderall and jack their brains up like their classmates'." If college students are doing it, how many programmers are? What say you?

Lower Saxony KDE Migration 119

Posted by Zonk on Saturday June 10, 2006 @05:38PM from the upper-saxony-jealous dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet reports on a recent German Linux migration by the tax authority in Lower Saxony which has made the decision to migrate an impressive 12,000 desktops to SuSE Linux using KDE. The project, which is now in process converting 300 desktops daily, moves systems from Solaris x86 version 8, which the organisation has been running since 2002. The migrations are reported as going well thus far. KDE's Kiosk desktop customisation, source code access and licensing costs were cited as key reasons for the decision. Congratulations to all involved, and best of luck going forward with this effort!"

How Google Ranks Videos 69

Posted by Zonk on Saturday June 10, 2006 @03:36PM from the hello-kate-monster dept.

Nirnimesh writes "Google reveals their ranking system for videos on the official blog. The system lists videos according to their country-wide popularity. From the article: 'We use algorithms to identify videos that are suddenly becoming popular, and then rank them based on how popular they are -- and how suddenly they became popular. We've been using this list internally, and now it's ready to share with you, so check it out. Right now this feature highlights videos from close to 40 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand, to name a few.'"

Apple and Nike Team up for iPod Shoe Interface 300

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday May 23, 2006 @05:02PM from the thousands-of-pasty-white-geeks-cry-out-in-terror dept.

lyonsden writes "Apple and Nike are teaming up to provide runners a system to integrate their shoes and their iPod. A $30 antenna will connect an iPod nano with special shoes to provide pedometer functions."

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