Day: October 23, 2016

American ‘Vigilante Hacker’ Defaces Russian Ministry’s Website

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes CNN Money: An American vigilante hacker — who calls himself “The Jester” — has defaced the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in retaliation for attacks on American targets… “Comrades! We interrupt regular scheduled Russian Foreign Affairs Website programming to bring you the following important message, ” he wrote. “Knock it off. You may be able to push around nations around you, but this is America. Nobody is impressed.” In early 2015, CNN Money profiled The Jester as “the vigilante who hacks jihadists, ” noting he’s a former U.S. soldier who now “single-handedly taken down dozens of websites that, he deems, support jihadist propaganda and recruitment efforts. He stopped counting at 179.” That article argues that “the fact that he hasn’t yet been hunted down and arrested says a lot about federal prosecutors and the FBI. Several cybersecurity experts see it as tacit approval.” “In an exclusive interview with CNNMoney this weekend, Jester said he chose to attack Russia out of frustration for the massive DNS cyberattack that knocked out a portion of the internet in the United States on Friday… ‘I’m not gonna sit around watching these f—-rs laughing at us.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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American ‘Vigilante Hacker’ Defaces Russian Ministry’s Website

VeraCrypt Security Audit Reveals Many Flaws, Some Already Patched

Orome1 quotes Help Net Security: VeraCrypt, the free, open source disk encryption software based on TrueCrypt, has been audited by experts from cybersecurity company Quarkslab. The researchers found 8 critical, 3 medium, and 15 low-severity vulnerabilities, and some of them have already been addressed in version 1.19 of the software, which was released on the same day as the audit report [which has mitigations for the still-unpatched vulnerabilities]. Anyone want to share their experiences with VeraCrypt? Two Quarkslab engineers spent more than a month on the audit, which was funded (and requested) by the non-profit Open Source Technology Improvement Fund “to evaluate the security of the features brought by VeraCrypt since the publication of the audit results on TrueCrypt 7.1a conducted by the Open Crypto Audit Project.” Their report concludes that VeraCrypt’s security “is improving which is a good thing for people who want to use a disk encryption software, ” adding that its main developer “was very positive along the audit, answering all questions, raising issues, discussing findings constructively…” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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VeraCrypt Security Audit Reveals Many Flaws, Some Already Patched

Amazon May Handle 30% Of All US Retail Sales

An anonymous reader quotes USA Today: Amazon’s yearly sales account for about 15% of total U.S. consumer online sales, according to the company’s statements and the Department of Commerce. But the Seattle e-commerce company may actually be handling double that amount — 20% to 30% of all U.S. retail goods sold online — thanks to the volume of sales it transacts for third parties on its website and app. Only a portion of those sales add to its revenue. “The punchline is that Amazon’s twice as big as people give them credit for, because there’s this iceberg under the surface, but you only see the tip, ” said Scot Wingo, executive chairman of Channel Advisor, an e-commerce software company that works with thousands of online sellers. When third-party sales are taken into account, Amazon’s share of what U.S. shoppers spend online could be as high as $125 billion yearly… Amazon’s share will grow even larger when they can offer two-hour deliveries, warns one analyst, while another puts it more succinctly. “Amazon’s just going to slowly grab more and more of your wallet.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon May Handle 30% Of All US Retail Sales

"Splat" of Schiaparelli Mars Lander Likely Found

Long-time Slashdot reader Tablizer quotes Space Flight Now: Views from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released Friday show the crash site where Europe’s experimental Schiaparelli lander fell to the red planet’s surface from a height of several miles, leaving a distinct dark patch on the Martian landscape…The image from MRO’s context camera shows two new features attributed to the Schiaparelli spacecraft, including a large dark scar spanning an estimated 50 feet (15 meters) by 130 feet (40 meters). Schiaparelli’s ground team believes it is from the high-speed impact of the lander’s main body… A little more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) to the south, a bright spot appears in the image, likely the 39-foot-diameter (12-meter) supersonic parachute and part of Schiaparelli’s heat shield, which released from the lander just before ESA lost contact.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"Splat" of Schiaparelli Mars Lander Likely Found

Feds Walk Into a Building, Demand Everyone’s Fingerprints To Open Phones

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the Daily Herald: Investigators in Lancaster, California, were granted a search warrant last May with a scope that allowed them to force anyone inside the premises at the time of search to open up their phones via fingerprint recognition, Forbes reported Sunday. The government argued that this did not violate the citizens’ Fifth Amendment protection against self incrimination because no actual passcode was handed over to authorities… “I was frankly a bit shocked, ” said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, when he learned about the scope of search warrant. “As far as I know, this warrant application was unprecedented”… He also described requiring phones to be unlocked via fingerprint, which does not technically count as handing over a self-incriminating password, as a “clever end-run” around constitutional rights. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Feds Walk Into a Building, Demand Everyone’s Fingerprints To Open Phones

AT&T has $80 billion deal to purchase Time Warner Inc. (and with it, HBO)

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Tim Boyle) Following up on news reported yesterday, AT&T has reached a deal to buy Time Warner Inc. for more than $80 billion,  The Wall Street Journal wrote today . The boards of the companies are meeting today to approve the merger, “with a deal likely to be announced as soon as Saturday evening.” Original story from yesterday follows: AT&T and Time Warner Inc. have recently met “to discuss various business strategies including a possible merger,”  Bloomberg reported Thursday . Discussions are still in early stages, according to Bloomberg’s anonymous sources. “The talks, which at this stage are informal, have focused on building relations between the companies rather than establishing the terms of a specific transaction, the people said, asking not to be identified as the deliberations are private,” Bloomberg wrote. “Neither side has yet hired a financial adviser, the people said.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T has $80 billion deal to purchase Time Warner Inc. (and with it, HBO)

Canonical Names Ubuntu Linux 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’

“Linux distributions and silly names go together like peanut butter and jelly, ” notes BetaNews. BrianFagioli writes: One of the most well-known Linux distributions to use funny names is Ubuntu. It famously uses the convention of an adjective and a lesser-known animal, each starting with the same letter… For example, Ubuntu 16.10 uses the letter “Y” — “Yakkety Yak”. The next version of the operating system will use the letter “Z” [and] Canonical has chosen “Zesty Zapus”… It is apparently a type of jumping mouse… “As we come to the end of the alphabet, I want to thank everyone who makes this fun. Your passion and focus and intellect, and occasionally your sharp differences, all make it a privilege to be part of this body incorporate. Right now, Ubuntu is moving even faster to the centre of the cloud and edge operations. From AWS to the zaniest new devices, Ubuntu helps people get things done faster, cleaner, and more efficiently, thanks to you…”, says Mark Shuttleworth, CEO, Canonical… “we are a tiny band in a market of giants, but our focus on delivering free software freely together with enterprise support, services and solutions appears to be opening doors, and minds, everywhere. So, in honour of the valiantly tiny leaping long-tailed over the obstacles of life, our next release which will be Ubuntu 17.04, is hereby code named the Zesty Zapus”. My favorite was Xenial Xerus. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Canonical Names Ubuntu Linux 17.04 ‘Zesty Zapus’

New Text Adventures Compete In 22nd ‘Interactive Fiction Competition’

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: 58 brand-new text adventures are now available free online for the 22nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition. The public is encouraged to play the games, and on November 16th the contest’s organizers will announce which ones received the highest average ratings. After 22 years, the contest is now under “the auspices of the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, a new, charitable non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting the technologies and services that enable IF creation and play…” according to the contest’s organizers. “[T]he competition now runs on servers paid for by the IF-loving public, and for this I feel sincere gratitude.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Text Adventures Compete In 22nd ‘Interactive Fiction Competition’