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Security

Submission + - Explosion on the CERN due to mathematical mistakes

javipas writes: "The Large Hadron Collider at the CERN has suffered a big explosion deep inside that has caused a leak of hellium gas and the quick evacuation of everyone working there. The reason: a mathematical mistake that affected the design of the giant superconductive magnets made by Fermilab. Now the company will have to repair and upgrade the 24 magnets that are installed on the 27 km. circunference of one of the most important research centers on Earth."
United States

Submission + - Daylight Saving change: no power savings

Brett writes: Results from energy companies are coming in, and the word is that moving Daylight Saving Time forward three weeks had "no measurable impact" on power consumption. The attempt by the US Congress to make it look like they were doing something about the US energy crisis has been exposed as the waste it is, but the new DST is probably here to stay. Letting the bill expire would mean re-patching a lot of systems again next year. So much for saving energy.
Security

Submission + - Breaking 104 bit WEP in less then 60 Seconds

collin.m writes: "Erik Tews with the help of two others published a new attack on WEP called: Breaking 104 bit WEP in less then 60 Seconds.

Like the older attacks on WEP this attack uses sniffed IVs in order to break/compute/crack the WEP key. The nice thing about this attack is that it only needs between 40.000 and 85.000 unique IVs (older attacks needed between 250.000 and 1.000.000 in order to succeed). This all ready reduces the overall attack time since one needs to capture less packages. But the attack also uses a new/other attack on RC4 that further improves the speed. The paper gives an average of 3 seconds (crack time) on 1.7Ghz Pentium-M. The attack even works with 5000 keys so it should be usable on a PDA or SmartPhone.

Paper
The Tool and more Information"

Feed Net Effect Of Energy-Saving Early Switch To Daylight Savings Time: Nothing (techdirt.com)

While the early switch to daylight savings didn't cause many real problems, it was something of a nuisance. Part of the supposed rationale for the early switch -- in addition to reduced crime, less traffic accidents and increased economic activity was to save energy, because there will be more light in the evening and people will use less lighting. Of course, there's less light in the morning, so people's power needs then will increase. So what was the end effect of this early shift? Essentially nothing, as several large utilities say they haven't seen any noticeable change in their customers' power consumption. But don't let that detract from the warm, fuzzy feeling you get knowing American politicians are serious in their hunt for ways to conserve energy.

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