tonsberg - Slashdot User

New Improvements On the Attacks On WPA/TKIP 166

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 29, 2009 @03:45PM from the feelin'-nervous dept.

olahau writes "Two weeks ago, improvements to the previously reported attack on WPA/TKIP, were presented at the NorSec Conference in Oslo, Norway. In their paper coined 'An Improved Attack on TKIP,' Finn Michael Halvorsen and Olav Haugen describe the improvements, which enable an attacker to inject larger, maliciously crafted packets into a WPA/TKIP protected network, thus opening the probabilities for new and more sophisticated attacks against the well-established wireless security protocol."

Submission + - Online attack hits US government Web sites (goodgearguide.com.au)

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @12:19AM

angry tapir writes: "A botnet composed of about 50,000 infected computers has been waging a war against U.S. government Web sites and causing headaches for businesses in the U.S. and South Korea. The attack started Saturday, and security experts have credited it with knocking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) Web site offline for parts of Monday and Tuesday. Several other government Web sites have also been targeted, including the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)."

Submission + - Pirate Bay sold for $7.8 million

Submitted by paulraps on Tuesday June 30, 2009 @04:24AM

paulraps writes: The Pirate Bay is to be bought for $7.8 million by Global Gaming Factory X (GGF), a Swedish company specializing in internet café management software, the company has announced. As well as taking over the controversial brand, GGF has also bought Peerialism, a small IT company with roots at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology, which has developed a new file sharing technology. The acquisitions mean that GGF will be at the heart of "the international digital distribution market", allowing it to introduce a new pay model for file sharing.

Asthma Risk Linked To Early TV Viewing 266

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @01:53AM from the near-the-carpet dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "The number of children with asthma has been rising for many years. About 1 in 10 children in the UK develop asthma, compared with about 1 in 25 in the 1960s. The reason for this isn't clear, although several theories have been put forward such as keeping our homes cleaner, and having central heating and more soft furnishings where house dust mites can multiply. Now based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age, researchers have found a new correlation with young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day doubling their subsequent risk of developing asthma. 'This study has shown for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,' said the researchers, led by A. Sherriff, from the University of Glasgow. It's not clear exactly how sedentary behaviors like television watching are tied to asthma, but there is some evidence to suggest exercise and deep breaths that come with it stretch the smooth muscles in the airways, while lack of exercise may make the lungs overly sensitive. The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing."

Fermilab Not Dead Yet, Discovers Rare Single Top Quark 194

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday March 09, 2009 @07:09PM from the emphasis-on-the-operating dept.

Several sources are reporting that in spite of LHC hype, Fermilab's Tevatron has produced another feat for scientific discovery. Currently the world's most powerful operating particle accelerator, the Tevatron has allowed researchers to observe a rare single Top Quark. "Previously, top quarks had only been observed when produced by the strong nuclear force. That interaction leads to the production of pairs of top quarks. The production of single top quarks, which involves the weak nuclear force and is harder to identify experimentally, has now been observed, almost 14 years to the day of the top quark discovery in 1995."

Comment Re:The Picture Might Be Worth It... (Score 1) 137

by tonsberg on Monday December 10, 2007 @03:07PM (#21645715) Attached to: Robots That Bounce on Water

A team of researchers at Seoul National University, led by Ho-Young Kim and Duck-Gyu Lee, has finally answered that question. By using a highly water-repellent sphere, which mimicked the actions of the water strider's highly water-repellent legs, they were able to determine a small range of speeds at which the sphere or insect could hit the water and not sink.

This does remind me of the cutting-edge technology developed in Britain say, oh, 65 years ago? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_bomb
Good to know they've finally miniaturized it. =)

Submission + - The Cultures of Texting In Europe and America

Submitted by

Ponca City, We Love You

on Sunday November 25, 2007 @11:55AM

Ponca City, We Love You writes: "The cultures of text messaging are very different in Europe and North America and economics drive the differences says "internet sociologist" Danah Boyd. Americans and Canadians have historically paid to receive text messages creating a stilted social dynamic whereby a friend forces you to pay $.10 simply by deciding to send you something. But now "all-you-can-eat" plans are changing everything. Rather than having to mentally calculate the number of texts sent and received, a floodgate of opportunities is suddenly opened. The weights are lifted and freedom reigns. The result? Zero to a thousand text messages in under a month! All-you-can-eat plans are still relatively rare in Europe. When a European youth runs out of texts and can't afford to top up, they simply don't text. But they can still receive texts without cost so they aren't actually kept out of the loop. What you see in Europe is a muffled fluidity of communication, comfortable but not excessive. Back in America, older users are less inclined to be prolific texters, maybe because they are more accustomed to the onerous plans and never really developed a fluid texting practice while younger."

Submission + - Why do games still have levels? (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by a.d.venturer on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @11:46PM

a.d.venturer writes: Elite, the Metroid series, Dungeon Siege, God of War I and II, Half-Life (but not Half-Life 2), Shadow of the Colossus, the Grand Theft Auto series; some of the best games ever (and Dungeon Siege) have done away with the level mechanic and created uninterrupted game spaces devoid of loading screens and artificial breaks between periods of play. Much like cut scenes, level loads are anathema to enjoyment of game play, and a throwback to the era of the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 when games were stored on cassette tapes, and memory was measured in kilobytes. So in this era of multi-megabyte and gigabyte memory and fast access storage devices why do we continue to have games that are dominated by the level structure, be they commercial (Portal, Team Fortress 2), independent (Darwinia) and amateur (Nethack, Angband)? Why do games still have levels?

Submission + - Vote to Eliminate Leap Seconds 6

Submitted by Mortimer.CA on Sunday November 18, 2007 @04:31PM

Mortimer.CA writes: As mentionted on Slahdot previously, there is a proposal to remove leap seconds from UTC (nee 'Greenwich' time). It wil be put to a vote to ITU member states, and if 70% agree, the leap second will be eliminated by 2013. There is some debate as to whether this change is a good or bad idea. One philosophical point opponents make is that the 'official' time on Earth should match the time of the sun and heavens. People with appliances that blink '12:00' can probably ignore this issue.

Submission + - Network Neutrality Squad: Users Protecting the Net (vortex.com)

Submitted by

Lauren Weinstein

on Monday November 05, 2007 @08:58PM

Lauren Weinstein writes: "Announcing the "Network Neutrality Squad" — NNSquad Joining PFIR Co-Founders Peter G. Neumann and I in this announcement are Keith Dawson (Slashdot.org), David J. Farber (Carnegie Mellon University), Bob Frankston, Phil Karn (Qualcomm), David P. Reed, Paul Saffo, and Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane). The Network Neutrality Squad ("NNSquad") is an open-membership, open-source effort, enlisting the Internet's users to help keep the Internet's operations fair and unhindered from unreasonable restrictions. The project's focus includes detection, analysis, and incident reporting of any anticompetitive, discriminatory, or other restrictive actions on the part of Internet service Providers (ISPs) or affiliated entities, such as the blocking or disruptive manipulation of applications, protocols, transmissions, or bandwidth; or other similar behaviors not specifically requested by their customers. More at the Network Neutrality Squad Home Page. Thanks. — Lauren —"

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