This video by Tenable Security is pretty wild. It shows a visualization of an office network. Using different colors and lines users can pin-point problem areas based on traffic and data being sent and received to each machine.

The system lets you call out various aspects of the network using marker shape, color, and network lines. For example, you can change symbol colors depending on vulnerabilities and even change the shape and position of mobile devices. You can see a little more of the visualization over here.

Tenable released 2.0 of the software this month and sits on top of the company’s Nessus security scanner software. Sadly, the visualizer doesn’t show the “polychrome shadow, countless translucent layers shifting and recombining” of the average computer virus. Maybe we need to wait for the Kuang Mark Eleven.

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Tenable Network Security Creates A Gibson-esque Network Visualizer

Popular Science reported yesterday on an ambitious plan to build a functioning scale replica of the Starship Enterprise — a plan which has been carefully considered and proposed by engineer BTE Dan (BTE stands for “Build The Enterprise”, which is also the name of the project’s website). Labelled the Gen1 Enterprise, the enormous ship would incorporate ion propulsion technology, powered by a 1.5-GW nuclear reactor, and could travel to Mars in three months and the moon in 3 days. The 0.3-mile-diameter gravity disc would spin at two rotations per minute, and provide 1G of gravity to the crew. It is a fully-functioning, full-size replica of the Starship Enterprise, and due to the legendary ship’s exact size, if built, it would be the largest structure ever built in the history of humanity (its length would be more than the height of the Burj Dubai Tower).

“We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise – so let’s do it,” BTE Dan writes. He even provides a cost feasibility study with regards to the U.S. Federal Budget, and proposes tax hikes and spending cuts to cover the $1 trillion cost of the ship: “These changes to spending and taxes will not sink the Republic,” BuildTheEnterprise.org reads. Gen 1 Enterprise would be built in space and have a triple function as not only a space station, but also a spaceport and travelling spacecraft all-in-one. The goal of the ship is not only to create the first space station that exists outside of earth’s orbit, but also to accelerate space exploration to distant targets much more quickly. Its first mission would be to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and perhaps Europa. As Universe Today notes, the ship’s onboard laser would be used to sear through the moon’s ice crust to allow a ship to drop into its oceans. Three additional nuclear reactors would provide electricity for this laser and other ship needs.

The project is not the first of it’s kind either. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military, announced the 100-Year Starship project in early 2011. DARPA says the 100 Year Starship Study is a project to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible. The Department of Defense and NASA are also involved in the project. DARPA’s 100-Year Starship was also designed partly to foster ideas exactly like the BTE project, from a project planning roadmap to a real ship. You can learn more about BTE’s Gen 1 Enterprise by visiting the project’s website (NOTE: the site’s servers have been off-and-on due to the unpredicted spike in demand over the past 24 hours) and follow BTE Dan on Twitter.

SEE ALSO: US Defense Dept.Laying Groundwork For Starfleet Program To Explore Deep Space
SEE ALSO: MIT Research Indicates We Will Soon Travel 1/4 Speed Of Light By Using Ships Made Of Metamaterials and “General Relativity”

Source: Network World, Popular Science, Universe Today, DARPA and US Department of Defense

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Ambitious Engineering Proposal To Build Functioning Starship Enterprise Getting Major Attention

New submitter Adesso writes “Seem [anti-virus vendor] Avira is having difficulty with a update of all their Premium customers. A update that has been downloaded over 70 million times is causing the 32-bit version of Windows to block almost all critical application. Avira has responded promptly with an interim solution for this problem. In most cases this causes Windows to not boot properly.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Avira Premium Anti-Virus Bug Disables Windows Machines

A Finnish court has ruled that merely operating an open WiFi access point does not make you liable for copyright infringements committed on your network. From the defense attorney’s press release:

This alleged copyright infringement had taken place in a specific 12-minute
period in July 14 2010, a date when a summer theater play with an audience
of around hundred people was held at the premises of the former school
owned and resided by the lady.

The applicants were unable to provide any evidence that the
connection-owner herself had been involved in the file-sharing. The court
thus examined whether the mere act of providing a WiFi connection not
protected with a password can be deemed to constitute a
copyright-infringing act.

Crucially, the applicants also sought an injunction to prevent the
defendant for committing any similar acts in the future. Had the injunction
been granted, the legal status of various open WiFi providers would have
turned out extremely difficult, as rights-owners would have been provided
with a powerful legal weapon to shut them down in cases of similar,
arguably insignificant infringements by incidental visitors and customers…

Finally, the court concluded that the WiFi owner cannot be deemed liable
for the infringements actually committed by third parties.

Finnish court rules open WiFi network owner not liable for infringement

(Image: Warchalking, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from isaacmao’s photostream)

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Finnish court: open WiFi owners not responsible for copyright infringement

Last we heard of the federal government’s Wireless Emergency Alert system, only Sprint had signed on to deliver the SMS warnings. Now, with the secured participation of all four major carriers and smaller regional operators, that gratis service is set to go live this month, covering nearly 97 percent of active mobile users. Using a “point-to-multipoint system” that targets at-risk subscribers, the National Weather Service, FEMA, FCC and Department of Homeland Security-backed initiative works by sending location-based messages of 90 characters or less to nearby handsets in the event of an imminent meteorological threat. The mostly opt-out service will also accommodate AMBER and Presidential alerts, although you won’t have that flexibility for missives sent from our head of state. So, the next time your phone gives off a strange auditory tone, you’ll know to head for shelter.

Wireless Emergency Alert system goes live this month, delivers location-based SMS warnings originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 17:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wireless Emergency Alert system goes live this month, delivers location-based SMS warnings

In need of a new computer, but holding out because you don’t want to be saddled with a last-gen OS when Windows 8 lands? Worry not potential consumers, Microsoft plans to offer a cheap upgrade path to its latest and greatest if you buy in now. Well, not now, but soon. Starting June 2nd Redmond will offer a $15 upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 Pro. Mary Jo Foley first reported the deal last week, but wasn’t able to put a price on the offer. Now, Paul Thurrott is filling in those blanks. For $14.99 any new PC purchaser will be insured against the coming Metro revolution. This is hardly a new tactic for Microsoft, which has used similar deals to try and stave off steep drops in computer sales as the release of a new OS approaches. The only question we have left is, why the push to Pro? Though, far be it for us to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Microsoft to offer $15 Windows 8 upgrade, when you buy a Win7 PC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft to offer $15 Windows 8 upgrade, when you buy a Win7 PC

Apple is drawing upon the expertise of security researchers from Kaspersky Lab when it comes to security on OS X, according to Kaspersky CTO Nikolai Grebennikov. In an interview with Computing News, Grebennikov revealed that Apple had asked his firm to begin analyzing OS X in order to help improve its security. The request follows the recent high-profile Flashback scare, and shows that Apple is beginning to take steps to take OS X security more seriously.

“Mac OS is really vulnerable, and Apple recently invited us to improve its security. We’ve begun an analysis of its vulnerabilities, and the malware targeting it,” Grebennikov told Computing News. “Our first investigations show Apple doesn’t pay enough attention to security. For example, Oracle closed a vulnerability in Java, which was a target for a major botnet several months ago.”

Following reports that more than a half-million Macs were infected by Flashback thanks to a then-unpatched Java vulnerability in OS X, Kaspersky Lab boldly told members of the media that “Mac OS X invulnerability” to malware is a myth. Although the statement generated grousing among the Mac-using community, it’s true—security researchers have been arguing for years that Macs were only perceptibly “safer” because of their relatively low market share. It would only be a matter of time before attackers began focusing on the Mac, and Kaspersky argued last month that we have officially reached that point. “Market share brings attacker motivation,” the firm said in April. “Expect more drive-by downloads, more Mac OS X mass-malware. Expect cross-platform exploit kits with Mac-specific exploits.”

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Kaspersky performing independent security analysis on OS X (Updated)