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Comment Nothing to do with PM (Score 3, Informative) 108

by asvravi (#56527041) Attached to: All Indian Villages Now Have Access To Electricity

This has nothing to do with the PM's promise. Electrification was proceeding for decades even before he came to power or made the announcement, in fact at a faster rate. In the 10 years before, the village electrification percentage went from 78%to 96%. Only the last 4% was completed in the past 4 years. So electrification actually slowed down after he made the announcement!

Submission + - Google to Reveal "World's Highest Res OLED-on-glass display" for VR Headsets (roadtovr.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last year at SID Display Week 2017, Google's VP of VR/AR teased a "secret project" that the company was working on (https://www.roadtovr.com/google-developing-vr-display-10x-pixels-todays-headsets/)—a VR-optimised OLED panel capable of 20 megapixels per eye—which was being undertaken with "one of the leading OLED manufacturers." This year, the schedule for SID Display Week 2018 indicates that Google plans to reveal its made-for-VR panel, which it calls the "world’s highest resolution (18 megapixel, 1443 ppi) OLED-on-glass display." The company plans to detail the display in a presentation at the event, which will be co-presented with engineers from LG, suggesting the identity of the second partner on the project. Ideal for VR, the 4.3" panel is capable of 120Hz refresh rate and is expected to have a resolution of some 5,500 by 3,000, representing a massive leap over today's leading VR panels which offer 1,600 by 1,440 resolution at 90Hz.

Submission + - 'Slingshot' Malware That Hid For Six Years Spread Through Routers (engadget.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Security researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered what's likely to be another state-sponsored malware strain, and this one is more advanced than most. Nicknamed Slingshot, the code spies on PCs through a multi-layer attack that targets MikroTik routers. It first replaces a library file with a malicious version that downloads other malicious components, and then launches a clever two-pronged attack on the computers themselves. One, Canhadr, runs low-level kernel code that effectively gives the intruder free rein, including deep access to storage and memory; the other, GollumApp, focuses on the user level and includes code to coordinate efforts, manage the file system and keep the malware alive. Kaspersky describes these two elements as "masterpieces," and for good reason. For one, it's no mean feat to run hostile kernel code without crashes. Slingshot also stores its malware files in an encrypted virtual file system, encrypts every text string in its modules, calls services directly (to avoid tripping security software checks) and even shuts components down when forensic tools are active. If there's a common method of detecting malware or identifying its behavior, Slingshot likely has a defense against it. It's no wonder that the code has been active since at least 2012 — no one knew it was there.

Submission + - University of Arizona Tracks Student ID Card Swipes To Detect Who Might Drop Out (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The University of Arizona is tracking freshman students’ ID card swipes to anticipate which students are more likely to drop out. University researchers hope to use the data to lower dropout rates. (Dropping out refers to those who have left higher-education entirely and those who transfer to other colleges.) The card data tells researchers how frequently a student has entered a residence hall, library, and the student recreation center, which includes a salon, convenience store, mail room, and movie theater. The cards are also used for buying vending machine snacks and more, putting the total number of locations near 700. There’s a sensor embedded in the CatCard student IDs, which are given to every student attending the university. Researchers have gathered freshman data over a three-year time frame so far, and they found that their predictions for who is more likely to drop out are 73 percent accurate. They also have plans to give academic advisers an online dashboard to look at student data in real time.

Submission + - SPAM: Google Made Its Exoplanet Hunting AI Open Source

Submitted by dmoberhaus
dmoberhaus writes: The same machine learning algorithm that found two new exoplanets buried in data from the Kepler space telescope has been made open source. Now anyone can search for new exoplanets in Kepler data--and there's a lot to search through! Around 120,000 stars haven't been analyzed for exoplanets.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Web Trackers Exploit Flaw in Browser Login Managers to Steal Usernames (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Princeton privacy experts are warning that advertising and analytics firms can secretly extract site usernames from browsers using hidden login fields and tie non-authenticated users visiting a site with their profiles or emails on that domain. This type of abusive behavior is possible because of a design flaw in the login managers included with all browsers. Experts say that web trackers can embed hidden login forms on sites where the tracking scripts are loaded. Because of the way the login managers work, the browser will fill these fields with the user's login information, such as username and passwords.

The trick is an old one, known for more than a decade but until now it's only been used by hackers trying to collect login information during XSS (cross-site scripting) attacks. Princeton researchers say they recently found two web tracking services that utilize hidden login forms to collect login information. The two services are Adthink (audienceinsights.net) and OnAudience (behavioralengine.com), and Princeton researchers said they identified scripts from these two that collected login info on 1,110 sites found on the Alexa Top 1 Million sites list. A demo page has been created to show how the tracking works.

Submission + - System76 Pop!_OS Beta Ubuntu-based Linux distribution now available to download (betanews.com)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Next month, a new era of Ubuntu begins. Unity is dead, and GNOME 3 takes over as the default desktop environment. While this change was for the best, it was still shocking for many. For a company like System76, for instance, that sells computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu, this was problematic. Why? Well, the company essentially lost control of the overall user experience by relying on vanilla Ubuntu. It was being forced to follow Canonical's path.

To solve this, and regain some control, System76 has been developing its own operating system called "Pop!_OS." No, it is not reinventing the wheel here — it will still use Ubuntu as a base, and GNOME will be the desktop environment. The company is customizing the operating system, however, with things like fonts, themes, and icons, to create something truly unique. This could lead to an improved user experience. Today, the first official beta of the operating system becomes available for download.

Submission + - New Zealand Supreme Court rules operation against Kim Dotcom was illegal (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Mashiki
Mashiki writes: New Zealand supreme court rules that spying against Kim Dotcom was illegal, that GCSB violated the law, including the observation of citizens and residents within the country. It was also determined by the courts that the operation had gone on longer then was stated by both the police and GCSB. This may, leave the extradition case up in the air since the methods used to gain the information have been ruled illegal, in turn this makes the arrest illegal, along with the seizure of his equipment illegal. "“The GCSB has now admitted that the unlawfulness was not just dependent upon residency issues, it went further. The reason it went further was because it didn’t have authorization to carry out the kind of surveillance that it was carrying out under the legislation, as it was at that time”" The GCSB has said that it was impossible to plead the case as it would jeopardize national security.

Submission + - Sonos says users must accept new privacy policy or devices may cease to function (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Sonos has confirmed that existing customers will not be given an option to opt out of its new privacy policy, leaving customers with sound systems that may eventually "cease to function".

It comes as the home sound system maker prepares to begin collecting audio settings, error data, and other account data before the launch of its smart speaker integration in the near future.

A spokesperson for the home sound system maker told ZDNet that, "if a customer chooses not to acknowledge the privacy statement, the customer will not be able to update the software on their Sonos system, and over time the functionality of the product will decrease."

"The customer can choose to acknowledge the policy, or can accept that over time their product may cease to function," the spokesperson said.

Submission + - Google Lunar X-Prize extends deadline (parabolicarc.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The Google Lunar X-Prize has announced that it has extended its contest deadline from the end of 2017 to the end of March 2018 for the finalists to complete their lunar rover mission and win the grand prize of $30 million.

They also announced several additional consolation prizes that all of the remaining five contestants can win should they achieve lunar orbit ($1.75 million) or successfully achieve a soft landing ($3 million), even if they are not the first to do it.

At least one team, Moon Express, will be helped enormously by the extra three months. This gives Rocket Lab just a little extra time to test its rocket before launching Moon Express’s rover to the Moon.

Submission + - OpenVPN Audit Finds Several Issues

Submitted by randomErr
randomErr writes: Guido Vranken recently published 4 security vulnerabilities in OpenVPN on his personal blog. Most of these are known issues that have not been addressed or patches have not been fully implemented in the production code .Here is some of what he found:
  • CVE-2017-7521 — Remote server crashes/double-free/memory leaks in certificate processing
  • CVE-2017-7520 — Remote (including MITM) client crash, data leak
  • No CVE yet — Remote (including MITM) client stack buffer corruption
  • CVE-2017-7508 — Remote server crash (forced assertion failure)

Submission + - Linux Kernel 4.11 Officially Released

Submitted by prisoninmate
prisoninmate writes: Linux kernel 4.11 has been in development for the past two months, since very early March, when the first Release Candidate arrived for public testing. Eight RCs later, we're now able to download and compile the final release of Linux 4.11 on our favorite GNU/Linux distributions and enjoy its new features. Prominent ones include scalable swapping for SSDs, a brand new perf ftrace tool, support for OPAL drives, support for the SMC-R (Shared Memory Communications-RDMA) protocol, journalling support for MD RAID5, all new statx() system call to replace stat(2), and persistent scrollback buffers for VGA consoles. The Linux 4.11 kernel also introduces initial support for Intel Gemini Lake chips, which is an Atom-based, low-cost computer processor family developed using Intel's 14-nanometer technology, and better power management for AMD Radeon GPUs when the AMDGPU open-source graphics driver is used.

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