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Submission + - Bill Gates Taking Pre-Orders for 'Source Code', a Memoir of His Early Years

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: If you devoured the Childhood of Famous Americans book series as a kid and are ready for a longer read, Bill Gates has a book for you.

"I’m excited to announce my new book, Source Code, which will be published next February," Gates wrote Tuesday in a GatesNotes blog post. "It’s a memoir about my early years, from childhood through my decision to leave college and start Microsoft with Paul Allen. I write about the relationships, lessons, and experiences that laid the foundation for everything in my life that followed."

GeekWire explains the timing of the book release is notable: January 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the Popular Electronics magazine that featured the early Altair 8800 personal computer, which inspired Gates and Allen to start the company. Proceeds from book sales will be donated to the nonprofit United Way Worldwide, in recognition of Gates' late mother Mary's longtime work as a volunteer and board member with the organization.

Submission + - Post-Quantum Key Encapsulation Secrets Exposed by Compiler (thecyberexpress.com)

Submitted by storagedude
storagedude writes: A security researcher discovered an exploitable timing leak in the Kyber key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) that’s in the process of being adopted by NIST as a post-quantum cryptographic standard, according to a report by The Cyber Express, the news site of threat intelligence vendor Cyble.

Antoon Purnal of PQShield detailed his findings in a blog post, and noted that the problem has been fixed with the help of the Kyber team. The issue was found in the reference implementation of the Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM) that’s in the process of being adopted as an NIST standard.

The side-channel vulnerability Purnal discovered can occur when a compiler optimizes the code, in the process silently undoing “measures taken by the skilled implementer.”

In Purnal’s analysis, the Clang compiler was found to emit a vulnerable secret-dependent branch in the poly_frommsg function of the ML-KEM reference code needed in both key encapsulation and decapsulation.

While that may be just a very small part of the code, Purnal released a demo on GitHub showing the role of the timing vulnerability in the recovery of an ML-KEM 512 secret key. “The demo terminates successfully in less than 10 minutes on the author’s laptop,” he wrote.

The reference implementation was patched by implementing the conditional move as a function in a separate file. “This change prevents Clang from recognizing the binary nature of the condition flag, and hence from applying the optimization,” he said.

“It’s important to note that this does not rule out the possibility that other libraries, which are based on the reference implementation but do not use the poly_frommsg function verbatim, may be vulnerable – either now or in the future,” he concluded.

Submission + - Researcher who oversaw Flock surveillance study now questions how it was done (404media.co)

Submitted by samleecole
samleecole writes: Last month, the surveillance company Flock Safety published a study and press release claiming that its automated license plate readers (ALPR) are “instrumental in solving 10 percent of reported crime in the U.S.” The study was done by Flock employees, and given legitimacy with the “oversight” of two academic researchers whose names are also on the paper. Now, one of those researchers has told 404 Media that “I personally would have done things much differently” than the Flock researchers did.

The researcher, Johnny Nhan of Texas Christian University, said that he has pivoted future research on Flock because he found “the information that is collected by the police departments are too varied and incomplete for us to do any type of meaningful statistical analysis on them.”

Flock is one of the largest vendors of ALPR cameras and other surveillance technologies, and is partially responsible for the widespread proliferation of this technology. It markets its cameras to law enforcement, homeowners associations, property managers, schools, and businesses. It regularly publishes in-house case studies and white papers that it says shows Flock is instrumental in solving and reducing crime, then uses those studies to market its products.

Submission + - Edward Snowden says NSA engages in industrial espionage (www.cbc.ca) 2

Submitted by Maow
Maow writes: Snowden has been interviewed by a German TV network and stated that the NSA is involved in industrial espionage, which is outside the range of national security.

He claims that Siemens is a prime example of a target for the data collection.

I doubt this would suprise AirBus or other companies, but it shall remain to be seen what measures global industries take (if any) to prevent their internal secrets from falling into NSA's — and presumably American competitors' — hands.

Submission + - New Zealand Bans Software Patents (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Nerdfest
Nerdfest writes: New Zealand has finally passed a new Patents Bill that will effectively outlaw software patents after five years of debate, delay and intense lobbying from multinational software vendors. Aptly-named Commerce Minister Craig Foss welcomed the modernisation of patents law, saying it marked a "significant step towards driving innovation in New Zealand". An IITP poll of members at the time showed 94% of those with a view were in favour of banning software patents.

Submission + - The World Fair of 2014 according to Asimov (from 1964) (nytimes.com) 2

Submitted by Esther Schindler
Esther Schindler writes: If you ever needed evidence that Isaac Asimov was a genius at extrapolating future technology from limited data, you'll enjoy this 1964 article in which he predicts what we'll see at the 2014 world's fair. For instance:

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. The I.B.M. exhibit at the present fair has no robots but it is dedicated to computers, which are shown in all their amazing complexity, notably in the task of translating Russian into English. If machines are that smart today, what may not be in the works 50 years hence? It will be such computers, much miniaturized, that will serve as the "brains" of robots. In fact, the I.B.M. building at the 2014 World's Fair may have, as one of its prime exhibits, a robot housemaid*large, clumsy, slow- moving but capable of general picking-up, arranging, cleaning and manipulation of various appliances. It will undoubtedly amuse the fairgoers to scatter debris over the floor in order to see the robot lumberingly remove it and classify it into "throw away" and "set aside." (Robots for gardening work will also have made their appearance.)

General Electric at the 2014 World's Fair will be showing 3-D movies of its "Robot of the Future," neat and streamlined, its cleaning appliances built in and performing all tasks briskly. (There will be a three-hour wait in line to see the film, for some things never change.)

It's really fun (and sometimes sigh-inducing) to see where he was accurate and where he wasn't. And, of course, the whole notion that we'd have a world's fair is among the inaccurate predictions.

Submission + - Synchronized Virtual Reality Heartbeat Triggers Out-of-Body Experiences (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: New research demonstrates that triggering an out-of-body experience (OBE) could be as simple as getting a person to watch a video of themselves with their heartbeat projected onto it. According to the study, it's easy to trick the mind into thinking it belongs to an external body and manipulate a person's self-consciousness by externalizing the body's internal rhythms. The findings could lead to new treatments for people with perceptual disorders such as anorexia and could also help dieters too.

Submission + - Manning given 35 years (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: he US soldier convicted of handing a trove of secret government documents to anti-secrecy website Wikileaks has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Pte First Class Bradley Manning, 25, was convicted in July of 20 charges against him, including espionage.
Last week, he apologised for hurting the US and for "the unexpected results" of his actions.
He will receive credit for three and a half years, but be dishonourably discharged from the US Army.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23784288

Submission + - Liberal Saudi Web Forum Founder Sentenced to 600 lashes and 7 Years In Prison (seattletimes.com) 1

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Some reformers travel a harder road than others. The Seattle Times reports, "The founder of a liberal-minded website in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes after angering Islamic authorities in the ultraconservative kingdom... Raif Badawi, through his website known as Free Saudi Liberals, had urged Saudis to share opinions about the role of religion in the country, which follows a strict form of Islam that includes harsh punishments for challenging customs. A judge in the Red Sea port of Jiddah imposed the sentences but dropped charges of apostasy, which could have brought a death sentence, the Al-Watan newspaper reported. Badawi has been held since June 2012"" More at The Inquirer, and the BBC, which informs us that, "The judge ordered that the 600 lashes be administered 150 at a time. ... "The lashes could be spread out but in Sharia this is a sign that the judge wants to insult him," he said."

Submission + - Confessions Of A Cyber Warrior

Submitted by snydeq
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Roger Grimes interviews a longtime friend and cyber warrior under contract with the U.S. government, offering a fascinating glimpse of the front lines in the ever-escalating and completely clandestine cyber war. From the interview: 'They didn't seem to care that I had hacked our own government years ago or that I smoked pot. I wasn't sure I was going to take the job, but then they showed me the work environment and introduced me to a few future coworkers. I was impressed. ... We have tens of thousands of ready-to-use bugs in single applications, single operating systems. ... It's all zero-days. Literally, if you can name the software or the controller, we have ways to exploit it. There is no software that isn't easily crackable. In the last few years, every publicly known and patched bug makes almost no impact on us. They aren't scratching the surface.'

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How important IS advanced math in a CS degree? 6

Submitted by AvailableNickname
AvailableNickname writes: I am currently pursuing a bachelor's in CompSci and I just spent 3 hours working on a few differential equations for homework. It is very frustrating because I just don't grok advanced math. I can sort of understand a little bit, but I really don't grok anything beyond long division. But I love computers, and am very good at them. However, nobody in the workforce is even going to glance at my direction without a BSc. And to punish me for going into a field originally developed by mathematicians I need to learn all this crap. If I had understood what I was doing, maybe I wouldn't mind so much. But the double frustration of not understanding it and not understanding why the profanity I need to do it is too much. So, how important is it?

Submission + - Creationist Bets $10k Against Challengers To Literal Interpretation of Genesis (yahoo.com)

Submitted by HungWeiLo
HungWeiLo writes: A California man who believes the literal interpretation of the Bible is real is offering $10,000 to anyone who can successfully debunk claims made in the book of Genesis in front of a judge.

Joseph Mastropaolo, the man behind this challenge, is to put $10,000 of his own money into an escrow account. His debate opponent would be asked to do the same. They would then jointly agree on a judge based on a list of possible candidates. Mastropaolo said that any evidence presented in the trial must be “scientific, objective, valid, reliable and calibrated."

For his part, Mastropaolo has a Ph.D. in kinesiology and writes for the Creation Hall of Fame website, which is helping to organize the minitrial. It’s also not the first such trial he’s tried to arrange. A previous effort, known as the “Life Science Prize,” proposed a similar scenario. Mastropaolo includes a list of possible circuit court judges to oversee the trial and a list of those he challenged to take part on the evolutionary side of the debate.

Anyone up for winning $20,000?
Mars

Submission + - Mars Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
sighted
sighted writes: "NASA is announcing that analysis of a rock sample collected by the Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. The statement says that scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater last month. The announcement quotes Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program: 'A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment. From what we know now, the answer is yes.'"
Hardware

Submission + - DARPA wants battlefield electronics that self destruct by dissolving (geek.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Electronic devices are built to last, which make them very reliable. However, if during a hostile situation such a device has to be left behind or gets dropped, it will continue to function and could end up giving the enemy an advantage. With that in mind, DARPA has set about creating electronics that work for as long as necessary, but can be destroyed at a moment’s notice.

The project is called Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR). Its main aim is to develop so-called transient electronics that are capable of dissolving completely, or at the very least to the point where they no longer function. Destroying a VAPR device should be as easy as sending a signal to it or placing the device within certain conditions e.g. extreme heat or cold, that triggers the rapid destruction process.

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