Dmitry Zakharchenko, the deputy head of the Energy Industry Department of the General Administration of Economic Security and Combating the Corruption, also had €2m in cash. (more…)
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Top Russian anti-corruption official had $120M in cash in his apartment
A page from the Grolier Codex, now confirmed by an international team of scholars to be the oldest bound book found in the Americas. In a rare reversal, archaeologists have determined that a Maya book written almost 900 years ago is genuine–after decades of believing it was fake. The Grolier Codex was so named because it was first displayed in 1971 at the book lovers’ Grolier Club in New York City. Archaeologist Michael Coe, who arranged the 1971 showing, later described its rather questionable history in a book . It was acquired in a spectacularly scammy way in 1966 by a Mexican collector named Josué Sáenz. Coe says that Sáenz told him that a group of unknown men offered to sell the book to him, along with a few other items found “in a dry cave” near the foothills of the Sierra de Chiapas. They would only sell it if Sáenz agreed never to tell anyone or show the book. The collector, intrigued, took a plane to a remote airstrip with two experts, who declared the codex fake. But Sáenz went with his gut and bought the codex. After allowing Coe to display it in New York, he gave it to the Mexican government. There were a number of good reasons to believe the Grolier Codex was fake–beyond the sketchy way Sáenz procured it. Unlike three other Maya Codex finds, it had writing on only one side of each of its 10 pages. Plus, some of the pages appear to have been cut relatively recently. There are odd discrepancies in the book’s calendar system, hinting that a forger might have been trying to imitate a calendar he saw in another Maya artifact. The drawings are also unusual for a Maya document, combining styles of the Mesoamerican Mixtec people with Toltec attire. The Toltec were often hailed by the Aztecs as ancestors, and their art shares many similarities with late Maya art. Though carbon dating placed the Codex’s bark pages during the late Maya period, it was not unknown for looters to find blank pages in ancient Maya caches and cover them in fake hieroglyphs to make them more valuable. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Confirmed: Mysterious ancient Maya book, Grolier Codex, is genuine
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: A new malware family has infected over 70% of all Seagate Central NAS devices connected to the Internet. The malware, named Miner-C or PhotoMiner, uses these hard-drives as an intermediary point to infect connected PCs and install software that mines for the Monero cryptocurrency… The crooks made over $86, 000 from Monero mining so far. The hard drives are easy to infect because Seagate does not allow users to delete or deactivate a certain “shared” folder when the device is exposed to the Internet. Over 5, 000 Seagate Central NAS devices are currently infected. Researchers estimates the malware is now responsible for 2.5% of all mining activity for the Monero cryptocurrency, according to the article. “The quandary is that Seagate Central owners have no way to protect their device. Turning off the remote access NAS feature can prevent the infection, but also means they lose the ability to access the device from a remote location, one of the reasons they purchased the hard drive in the first place.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Malware Infects 70% of Seagate Central NAS Drives, Earns $86,400
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: New research by the University of Surrey published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society has shone light on a globular cluster of stars that could host several hundred black holes, a phenomenon that until recently was thought impossible. Globular clusters are spherical collections of stars which orbit around a galactic center such as our Milky-way galaxy. Using advanced computer simulations, the team at the University of Surrey were able to see the un-see-able by mapping a globular cluster known as NGC 6101, from which the existence of black holes within the system was deduced. These black holes are a few times larger than the Sun, and form in the gravitational collapse of massive stars at the end of their lives. It was previously thought that these black holes would almost all be expelled from their parent cluster due to the effects of supernova explosion, during the death of a star. It is only as recently as 2013 that astrophysicists found individual black holes in globular clusters via rare phenomena in which a companion star donates material to the black hole. This work, which was supported by the European Research Council (ERC), has shown that in NGC 6101 there could be several hundred black holes, overturning old theories as to how black holes form. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Research Reveals Hundreds of Undiscovered Black Holes
MojoKid writes from a report via HotHardware: Apple’s A10 Fusion processor, paired with the iPhone 7, is already making its mark on benchmark circuit. Although you may or may not be impressed with Apple’s new handset, as usual, Cupertino’s latest smartphone is looking very strong performance-wise. According to Geekbench numbers, which showcase the iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10.0.1 (Golden Master), the 5.5-inch smartphone has 3GB of RAM onboard (the iPhone 7 reportedly contains 2GB RAM). Compared to the previous generation iPhone 6s Plus, this is an increase of 1GB. Compared to Android flagships, which come with 4GB or even 6GB of RAM, 3GB might seem paltry. However, benchmarks show time and time again that Apple’s SoCs are among the fastest in the industry and simply do more with less resources. Apple says that the advances it has made with the A10 allow the processor to be twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6 Plus and 40 percent faster than the A9 in the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus received a Geekbench single-core score of 3233, while its multi-core score comes in at 5363. For comparison, the beefy A9X processor in the iPad Pro — also paired with 3GB of RAM — puts up scores of 3009 and 4881 respectively. Likewise, these numbers far outpace those of the iPhone 6s Plus, which delivers 2407 and 4046 respectively. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Apple iPhone 7 Plus Packs 3GB RAM, Early A10 Fusion Benchmarks Look Very Strong
In a vote carried out on Friday night, Univision executives voted to remove six posts published by former Gawker Media properties that are involved in ongoing litigation. The vote took place just hours before the close of Univision’s purchase of Gawker Media’s assets, and was carried out under a provision in Gawker’s existing collective bargaining agreement. That provision states that “once a story has been posted it can only be removed by a majority vote of the Executive Editor, the CEO, and the General Counsel, unless required by law.” Read more…
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Univision Executives Vote to Delete Six Gawker Media Posts
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Softpedia: David Levin, 31, of Estero, Florida will spend 20 days in prison after hacking two websites belonging to the Florida state elections department. Levin, a security researcher, tested the security of two Florida state election websites without permission, and then recorded a video and posted on YouTube. The problem is that the man appearing in the video next to Levin was a candidate for the role of state election supervisor, running for the same position against the incumbent Supervisor of Elections, Sharon Harrington. Harrington reported the video to authorities, who didn’t appreciate the media stunt pulled by the two, and charged the security researcher with three counts of hacking-related charges. The researcher turned himself in in May and pleaded guilty to all charges. This week, he received a 20-day prison sentence and two years of probation. In court he admitted to the whole incident being a political stunt. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Researcher Gets 20 Days In Prison For Hacking State Websites As Political Stunt
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The White House on Thursday named a retired U.S. Air Force general as the government’s first federal cyber security chief, a position announced eight months ago that is intended to improve defenses against hackers. Gregory Touhill’s job will be to protect government networks and critical infrastructure from cyber threats as federal chief information security officer, according to a statement. President Barack Obama announced the new position in February alongside a budget proposal to Congress asking for $19 billion for cyber security across the U.S. government. Touhill is currently a deputy assistant secretary for cyber security and communications at the Department of Homeland Security. He will begin his new role later this month, a source familiar with the matter said. Grant Schneider, who is the director of cyber security policy at the White House’s National Security Council, will be acting deputy to Touhill, according to the announcement. wiredmikey adds from a report via SecurityWeek.Com: The White House today announced that Brigadier General (retired) Gregory J. Touhill has been named the first Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). Back in February, President Barack Obama unveiled a cybersecurity “national action plan” (CNAP) which called for an overhaul of aging government networks and a high-level commission to boost security awareness. As part of the plan, the White House said it would hire a federal CISO to direct cybersecurity across the federal government. General Touhill is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Communications in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The key hire comes at a time when the government needs cybersecurity talent more than ever. Earlier this week a report published by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee said the data breaches disclosed by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) last year were a result of culture and leadership failures, and should not be blamed on technology. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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White House Names Retired Air Force General As First Cyber Security Chief
(credit: Mike Mozart ) Since at least 2011, Wells Fargo employees have been creating fake accounts using customers’ identities to boost their sales numbers, federal regulators said on Thursday. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined the bank $100 million after a third-party consulting firm found that 2 million fake deposit and credit card accounts had been made without the consent of the person whose name was on the account. According to CNN Money, the bank fired 5,300 employees for taking part in the scheme, which constitutes about 1 percent of the bank’s payroll. In order to boost their sales numbers, employees opened 1.5 million deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts on customers’ behalf but without authorization from those customers. “Employees then transferred funds from consumers’ authorized accounts to temporarily fund the new, unauthorized accounts,” the CFPB wrote. “This widespread practice gave the employees credit for opening the new accounts, allowing them to earn additional compensation and to meet the bank’s sales goals.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired after 2 million fake accounts discovered
I’m a huge fan of Amazon’s cheap tablet computers. Amazon’s Android-based tablet OS is breeze to set up for my 9 year-old, but their proprietary paywalls blocked me from getting everything I wanted installed on mine. Luckily, rooting most Android devices is pretty easy. (more…)
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How I rooted my Amazon Android tablet