178284512
submission
dnrck writes:
Qantas has confirmed a significant cyber incident affecting one of its contact centres, where a cybercriminal gained access to a third-party customer service platform containing data on approximately six million customers.
The breach exposed customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and frequent flyer numbers, but did not compromise credit card details, personal financial information, passport details, or account passwords and PINs. Qantas responded by immediately containing the breach, notifying impacted customers, and working with government cyber agencies and law enforcement. The airlineâ(TM)s operations and safety were not affected, and additional security measures, including enhanced monitoring and support lines, have been implemented while investigations continue. Qantas has also warned customers to be vigilant against potential scams following the incident.
The company and other researchers have posited that this is likely the work of having group Scattered Spider.
45196503
submission
dnrck writes:
News.com
http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/we-are-star-people-scientific-proof-we-were-created-by-aliens/story-fn5fsgyc-1226617200225
reports this week on the the theory that due to it's extreme orderliness, dna is actually extraterrestrial derived. N.B. Evidently, before writing their very serious piece, the News authors failed to notice the publishing date of their source material (20130401)
http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/could-an-alien-message-be-embedded-in-our-genetic-code-130401.htm
Regardless of the intent, the original articles and papers
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1303/1303.6739.pdf
provide a very thought provoking topic which has been weighed in by everyone from Astrobiologists to ID Creationists.
What do Slashdotters think?
3495491
submission
RcK writes:
Numerous articles including
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2255989.ece
are springing up regarding a feature found using the new Google Ocean which claim could be the location of Atlantis.
While this obviously is early days and probably has the same credibility levels as previous claims of finding the mythical city, the detected anomaly is quite convincingly linear, is apparently the size of Wales and sits near where Plato hypothesized the city to be located...
3454857
submission
RcK writes:
A fascinating narrated slideshow style story about searching for organisms which thrive in conditions we consider particularly hostile, or Extremophiles, in the Kamchatka region of Eastern Russia.
Even if the microbial science doesn't interest you, the scenery really is something to behold.
1711619
submission
RcK writes:
In addition to the rising controversy of the possible Australian version of the Great Firewall Of China already mentioned several times of late here on Slashdot; the viability of the proposed AU$5Billion internet infrastructure upgrade promised by the Federal Government during their 2007 election campaign is under fire.
The MD of arguably Australia's leading internet company iinet has branded the proposal as a waste of taxpayers money:
http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/en-story/1/68044/Broadband-network-waste-of-money-iinet
Steve Balmer, during his current Australian visit, has also weighed in on the topic and diplomatically indicated that Australia should get on with the job:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Ballmer-tells-Oz-get-with-the-broadband/0,130061733,339293082,00.htm
Much of the current criticism appears to surround the likelihood of people in remote areas being left out of the proposed plan.
Ironically, where i lived previously (remote town in central Aus — nearest town over 400km away) everyone had, at the absolute least, subsidized satellite internet and most had ADSL. In my case a flawless 512k connection for ~4years. However, I now live 5min from the center of a capital city and due to archaic telephone infrastructure cannot get adsl and even line noise is too great for dialup!!!
A good roundup of the articles relating to the saga can be found at:
http://whirlpool.net.au/
