28921517
submission
mikejuk writes:
A petition signed by over 21,000 people asked the UK Government to grant a pardon to Alan Turing. That request has now been declined. A statement in the House of Lords explained the reasoning:
"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.
It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd-particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times".
19478658
submission
rifles only writes:
Firmware built into many solid state drives (SSDs) to improve their storage efficiency could be making forensic analysis at a later date by police forces and intelligence agencies almost impossible to carry out to legally safe standards, Australian researchers have discovered.
They found that SSDs start wiping themselves within minutes after a quick format (or a file delete or full format) and can even do so when disconnected from a PC and rigged up to a hardware blocker.
18027604
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Amazon has denied reports that its European sites were brought down by a DoS attack by a hacker group sympathetic to Wikileaks cause. The retailer was a planned target for the attackers, called Anonymous. But Amazon said it was a hardware failure in its European data centre network that caused the half hour outage in Europe.
17841224
submission
strawberryshakes writes:
Cyberwar is the new nuclear war. Bruce Schneier says governments should establish hotlines and treaties outlining the dos and don'ts of a cyberwar, just as they would any other war.
17004188
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Microsoft has unwittingly admitted that OpenOffice.org is a rival, by launching a three-minute video of customers explaining why they switched to Microsoft Office from OpenOffice.org. Glyn Moody writes: "You don't compare a rival's product with your own if it is not comparable. And you don't make this kind of attack video unless you are really, really worried about the growing success of a competitor. [Microsoft] has now clearly announced that OpenOffice.org is a serious rival to Microsoft Office, and should be seriously considered by anyone using the latter."
15466660
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A plane crash that killed 154 people in 2008 might have been partly connected to the infection of an important ground safety system by malware, a Spanish newspaper has claimed.
14741684
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
The UK government has said it will not upgrade its departments computers from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 because it would not be 'cost-effective'. A recent online petition posted to Number10.gov.uk received 6,223 signatures that called for the “Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6” due to its alleged vulnerability to attack, and because it requires web developers to specially craft sites to support the browser. This raises the question, what is the cost of an upgrade compared to a massive security breach?
14685406
story
Hugh Pickens writes
"The Guardian reports that the late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, has become the first author to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon. The Swedish noir thrillers feature Lisbeth Salander, an asocial and extremely intelligent hacker and researcher, specialized in investigations of persons, and investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist. Quercus has sold 3.3M copies of Larsson's books in the UK, and estimates that worldwide sales of the three novels are somewhere between 35-40M copies."
14616670
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Software on medical implants is not open to scrutiny by regulatory bodies. Glyn Moody writes: Software with the ability to harm as well as help us in the physical world needs to be open to scrutiny to minimise safety issues. Medical devices may be the most extreme manifestation of this, but with the move of embedded software into planes, cars and other large and not-so-large devices with potentially lethal side-effects, the need to inspect software there too becomes increasingly urgent." A new report 'Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices' from the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) points out that, as patients grow more reliant on computerized devices, the dependability of software is a life-or-death issue. "The need to address software vulnerability is especially pressing for Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs), which are commonly used by millions of patients to treat chronic heart conditions, epilepsy, diabetes, obesity, and even depression." Will making the source code free to scrutiny address the issue of faulty devices?
14313532
submission
DMandPenfold writes:
The Britisih government has said that it will not be able to complete the rollout of broadband across the UK until 2015, blaming a lack of funds
13894848
story
Rogerborg writes
"The BBC reports that in the UK, computer science graduates are now the least employable of students leaving with a degree, 17% of them being unable to find a job within six months of graduation. Unsurprisingly, medics, educators and lawyers do better, but even much mocked communications and creative arts graduates are finding work more easily."
13701288
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
A high-tech effort by BP, to slow the oil gushing from its ruptured well head, led to a large accident yesterday that forced the company to remove a vital containment cap for 10 hours.
13249914
submission
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes:
Foxconn, the manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell and HP, is on the verge of pulling out of China, after a spate of suicides. The CEO has accused workers of killing themselves for financial compensation, and the company has stopped suicide payments to suicide victims' families. Foxconn CEO also told investors that it is considering moving its production operations to Taiwan, and automating many parts of its business, in a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs.
