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Submission + - Popular WiFi thermostat full of security holes (threatpost.com)

Submitted by cybergibbons
cybergibbons writes: Heatmiser, a U.K.-based manufacturer of digital thermostats, is contacting its customers today about a series of security issues that could expose a Wi-Fi-connected version of its product to takeover.

Andrew Tierney, a “reverse-engineer by night,” whose specialty is digging up bugs in embedded systems wrote on his blog cybergibbons.com, that he initially read about vulnerabilities in another one of the company’s products, NetMonitor, and decided to poke around its product line further.

This led him to discover a slew of issues in the company’s Wi-Fi-enabled thermostats running firmware version 1.2. The issues range from simple security missteps to critical oversights.

Submission + - US strikes ISIL targets in Syria (fox59.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The United States of America has launched an airstrike, along with some of its Arab partners such as Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar, against ISIL targets in Syria

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/22/6...

Before the airstrike was officially announced to the press, a Syrian man living in Raqqa, Syria, has tweeted about the bombings and the sounds of air drones all over Raqqa

Tomahawk missiles were launched from USS Arleigh Burke in the Red Sea, as well as stealth fighters such as F-22, were involved in the strike

Submission + - Snowden's Leaks Didn't Help Terrorists 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: The Interecept reports that contrary to lurid claims made by U.S. officials, a new independent analysis of Edward Snowden’s revelations on NSA surveillance that examined the frequency of releases and updates of encryption software by jihadi groups has found no correlation in either measure to Snowden’s leaks about the NSA’s surveillance techniques. According to the report "well prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them (PDF).” In fact, concerns about terrorists' use of sophisticated encryption technology predates even 9/11.

Earlier this month former NSA head Michael Hayden stated, “The changed communications practices and patterns of terrorist groups following the Snowden revelations have impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups”, while Matthew Olsen of the National Counterterrorism Centre would add “Following the disclosure of the stolen NSA documents, terrorists are changing how they communicate to avoid surveillance.” Snowden’s critics have previously accused his actions of contributing from everything from the rise of ISIS to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. "This most recent study is the most comprehensive repudiation of these charges to date," says Murtaza Hussain. "Contrary to lurid claims to the contrary, the facts demonstrate that terrorist organizations have not benefited from the NSA revelations, nor have they substantially altered their behavior in response to them."

Submission + - FCC May Raise Broadband Speed Requirements for Subsidies to ISPs 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: On Wednesday at a hearing in front of the US House Committee on Small Business, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler stated that for ISPs to be eligible for government broadband subsidies, they would have to deliver speeds of at least 10 Mbps. Said Wheeler: "What we are saying is we can't make the mistake of spending the people's money, which is what Universal Service is, to continue to subsidize something that's subpar." He further indicated that he would remedy the situation by the end of 2014. The broadband subsidies are collected through bill surcharges paid for by phone customers.

Submission + - Scientists Twist Radio Beams to Send Data at 32 Gigabits p/s, Faster Than LTE (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Scientists from three international universities have succeeded in twisting radio beams in order to transfer data at the speed of 32 gigabits per second, which is 30 times faster than 4G LTE wireless technology in use today.

The researchers, led by Alan Willner, an electrical engineering professor with the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, successfully demonstrated data transmission rates of 32 gigabits per second across 2.5m of free space in a basement laboratory.

Millimetre waves occupy the 30GHz to 300GHz frequency bands. They are found in the spectrum between microwaves, which take up the 1GHz to 30GHz bands, and infrared waves, which are sometimes known as extremely high frequency (EHF).

Submission + - Chimpanzees have evolved to kill each other (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: A major new study of warfare in chimpanzees finds that lethal aggression can be evolutionarily beneficial in that species, rewarding the winners with food, mates, and the opportunity to pass along their genes. The findings run contrary to recent claims that chimps fight only if they are stressed by the impact of nearby human activity—and could help explain the origins of human conflict as well.

Submission + - Torvalds says he has no strong opinions on systemd (itwire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Linux creator Linus Torvalds is well-known for his strong opinions on many technical things. But when it comes to systemd, the init system that has caused a fair degree of angst in the Linux world, Torvalds is neutral.

"When it comes to systemd, you may expect me to have lots of colourful opinions, and I just don't," Torvalds says. "I don't personally mind systemd, and in fact my main desktop and laptop both run it."

Submission + - Rebooting the Full Disclosure List

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hi Folks. This is a one-time email to everyone who posted to Full Disclosure since the start of 2013. As an F-D subscriber and occasional poster myself, I was as shocked as you all last week when John Cartwright threw in the towel and shuttered the list (http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2014/Mar/332).

Now I don't blame him one bit. He performed a thankless job admirably for 12 years and deserves some time off. But I, for one, already miss Full Disclosure. So I decided to make a new list today which is a successor in name and spirit. Like the old one, it uses Mailman and is being archived by my Seclists.org site as well as numerous other archives around the world.

This list is a fresh start, so the old userbase won't automatically transfer over. And I haven't added any of you either, because it is your choice. But IF YOU WANT TO JOIN THE NEW LIST, you can do so here:

http://nmap.org/mailman/listin...

The list launched just 7 hours ago and we already have 904 members subscribed. I hope you'll join us and resume posting your security info and advisories. If not now, then someday :).

Cheers,
Fyodor

Submission + - Mystery Intergalactic Radio Bursts Detected (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: Astronomers were on a celestial fishing expedition for pulsing neutron stars and other radio bursts when they found something unexpected in archived sky sweeps conducted by the Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. The powerful signal, which lasted for just milliseconds, could have been a fluke, but then the team found three more equally energetic transient flashes all far removed from the galactic plane and coming from different points in the sky. Astronomers are at a loss to explain what these flashes are — they could be a common astrophysical phenomenon that has only just been detected as our radio antennae have become sensitive enough, or they could be very rare and totally new phenomenon that, so far, defies explanation.

Submission + - Harlan: A language that simplifies GPU programming released (paritynews.com) 1

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Harlan – a declarative programming language that simplifies development of applications running on GPU has been released by a researcher at Indian University. Erik Holk released his work publicly after working on it for two years. Harlan’s syntax is based on Scheme – a dialect of LISP programming language. The language aims to help developers make productive and efficient use of GPUs by enabling them to carry out their actual work while it takes care of the routine GPU programming tasks. The language has been designed to support GPU programming and it works much closer to the hardware.

Comment Re:Congratulations (Score 1) 114

by epe (#39474347) Attached to: Microsoft Leads Sting Operation Against Zeus Botnets

sorry but the point, I think, is for microsoft not only to "sting" the servers and finding the infected computers.... what are they doing in order to prevent those computers to become infected? I think the problems should be addressed from several parts.. stinging the command and control will only relief for some time... in a few days or weeks, another virus or trojan will infect pcs again and so on... what is Microsoft doing in order to avoid PCs to be infected.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - Looking for Love; Finding Privacy violations (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "When you sign up for online dating, there's a certain amount of information you expect to give up, like whether or not your weight is proportional to your height. But you probably don't expect that your profile will remain online long after you stop subscribing to the service. In some cases your photo can be found even after being deleted from the index, according to the electronic frontier foundation (EFF), which identified six major security weaknesses in online dating sites."
Security

Submission + - Tools, Techniques, Procedures of the RSA hackers revealed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Details of the tools, techniques and procedures used by the hackers behind the RSA security breach have been revealed in a research paper published by Australian IT security company Command Five. The paper also, for the first time, explains links between the RSA hack and other major targeted attacks. This paper is a vendor-neutral must-read for any network defenders concerned by the hype surrounding "Advanced Persistent Threats".

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