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Submission + - Cyberstalking Suspect Arrested After VPN Providers Shared Logs With the FBI (bleepingcomputer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: VPN providers often advertise their products as a method of surfing the web anonymously, claiming they never store logs of user activity, but a recent criminal case shows that at least some, do store user activity logs. According to the FBI, two VPN providers (PureVPN and WANSecurity) played a key role in identifying an aggressive cyberstalker by providing detailed logs to authorities, even if they claimed in their privacy policies that they don't.

The suspect is a 24-year-old man that hacked his roommate, published her private journal, made sexually explicit collages, sent threats to schools in the victim's name, and registered accounts on adult portals, sending men to the victim's house to enact rape, BDSM, and gang bang fantasies.
Security

Submission + - Symantec Admits its Networks Were Hacked (net-security.org)

Submitted by Orome1
Orome1 writes: After having first claimed that the source code leaked by Indian hacking group Dharmaraja was not stolen through a breach of its networks, but possibly by compromising the networks of a third party entity, Symantec backpedalled and announced that the code seems to have exfiltrated during a 2006 breach of its systems. Symantec spokesman Cris Paden has confirmed that unknown hackers have managed to get their hands on the source code to the following Symantec solutions: Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton Utilities, Norton GoBack and pcAnywhere.
Databases

Canonical Drops CouchDB From Ubuntu One 93

Posted by timothy from the saw-off-the-legs dept.
rsk writes "Since the Ubuntu One desktop synchronization service was launched by Canonical it has always been powered by CouchDB, a popular document-oriented NoSQL data store with a powerful master-master replication architecture that runs in many different environments (servers, mobile devices, etc.). John Lenton, senior engineering manager at Canonical, announced that Canonical would be moving away from CouchDB due to a few unresolvable issues Canonical ran into in production with CouchDB and the scale/requirements of the Ubuntu One service. Instead, says Lenton, Canonical will be moving to a custom data storage abstraction layer (U1DB) that is platform agnostic as well as datastore agnostic; utilizing the native datastore on the host device (e.g. SQLite, MySQL, API layers, 'everything'). U1DB will be complete at some point after the 12.04 release."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft losing big to Apple in the campus OS war (virginia.edu)

Submitted by destinyland
destinyland writes: Apple has nearly surpassed Microsoft's share of operating systems among the computers of incoming freshmen at the University of Virginia, confirming earlier reports of an ongoing change. A yearly survey shows that among 3,156 freshman who own computers, Microsoft's share is just 56%, with Apple's share rising up to 43%, continuing a big five-year trend. Microsoft's share dropped 6% from the previous year, while Apple's rose 6% — though just five years ago, Microsoft's share was on 86% vs 13% for Apple. "It seems likely that the Mac-using students will outnumber their Windows cousins this school year," notes one technology blog, citing an new study showing that 70 percent of college freshman are choosing the Mac. Other interesting data from the Virginia study: In 1997, 26% of incoming freshmen said they didn't own a computer, a number which has now dropped to 0. And 99% of their computers are now laptops.

Comment Re:remember what created the password (Score 4, Informative) 414

by consorting-with-daem (#30841820) Attached to: I keep track of my passwords ...

Exactly, this is one style of mnemonics and even recommended by Sun Microsystems in their documentation back in the gory daze for creating complex passwords simply.

For example only:

Take something personal - Being a proto-punker musician from the 1970's and 1980's before returning to school, I have a thing for 1950's and 1960's music ( I'm listening to Chuck Berry as this is being previewed, even drunk! -- Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll! ).

Take something relevant - So I may use a line from MC5, as they did a cover of "Back In The USA" then throw in some modified h4xx0r with an opening/closing bracket set and use a pipe/slash/something to break the lines.

Take something environmental - And come up with <j96h|f0577USA> for my backup servers ( "jet propelled back home ...." ).

It is child's play to keep a large set of complex passwords in your head. Cisco has problems with the above, but hey, my life sux, too, so who am I to complain. I'm still upset about CBS and Jack Benny.

TeeHee. I was more of a Velvet Underground guy.

IronKey Unveils Self-Destructing USB Flash Drive 191

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the better-than-having-to-eat-it dept.
fysdt writes to share that IronKey has released a USB flash drive with self-destruct capability. Specializing in "secure flash drives," IronKey has launched the S200 aimed at government and enterprise customers, "featuring hardened physical security, the latest Cryptochip technology, active anti-malware and enhanced management capabilities. It's the 'first and only USB storage device to achieve FIPS 140-2, Level 3 validation' and delivers advanced Cryptochip featuring AES-256, tamper-resistance and self-destruction circuitry."
Science

Super-Sensors To Sense Big Bang Output 50

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the really-just-building-a-time-machine-with-a-camcorder dept.
New super-sensitive microwave detectors from the National Institute of Standards and Technology may soon tackle the question of what happened immediately following the big bang. "The new experiment will begin approximately a year from now on the Chilean desert and will consist of placing a large array of powerful NIST sensors on a telescope mounted in a converted shipping container. The detectors will look for subtle fingerprints in the CMB [cosmic microwave background] from primordial gravitational waves — ripples in the fabric of space-time from the violent birth of the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Such waves are believed to have left a faint but unique imprint on the direction of the CMB's electric field, called the 'B-mode polarization.' These waves — never before confirmed through measurements — are potentially detectable today, if sensitive enough equipment is used."
Sci-Fi

Battlestar Galactica Gets Spinoff Prequel Series 297

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the frak-here-comes-more-fraking dept.
It was recently announced that sci-fi remake series Battlestar Galactica is getting a whole new spinoff prequel series called "Caprica." Signed on for twenty hours worth of finished product, including a two-hour pilot, the new series is to be set 50 years prior to Battlestar Galactica, and will focus on two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas. "Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics. 'Caprica' will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict in television's first science fiction family saga."
Windows

Vista Can Run Without Activation for a Year 357

Posted by CowboyNeal from the procrastinists-in-luck dept.
An anonymous reader gave us a heads up on this article for people who like putting things off. It begins: "Windows Vista can be run for at least a year without being activated, a serious end-run around one of Microsoft's key anti-piracy measures, Windows expert Brian Livingston said today. Livingston, who publishes the Windows Secrets newsletter, said that a single change to Vista's registry lets users put off the operating system's product activation requirement an additional eight times beyond the three disclosed last month. With more research, said Livingston, it may even be possible to find a way to postpone activation indefinitely."

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