Author: kenmay

Dutch Police Seize Encrypted Communication Network With 19,000 Users

An anonymous reader writes: Dutch police have seized and shut down Ennetcom, an encrypted communications network with 19, 000 users, according to Reuters. The network’s 36-year-old owner, Danny Manupassa, has also been arrested, and faces charges of money laundering and illegal weapons possession, while the information obtained in the seizure may also be used for other criminal prosecutions. “Police and prosecutors believe that they have captured the largest encrypted network used by organized crime in the Netherlands, ” prosecutors said in a statement. “Although using encrypted communications is legal, ” Reuters reports, “many of the network’s users are believed to have been engaged in ‘serious criminal activity, ‘ said spokesman Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor’s office, which noted that the company’s modified phones have repeatedly turned up in cases involving drugs, criminal motorcycle gangs, and gangland killings. A spokesman for the National Prosecutor’s office “declined to comment on whether and how police would be able to decrypt information kept on the servers.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dutch Police Seize Encrypted Communication Network With 19,000 Users

First Successful Gene Therapy Against Human Aging?

An anonymous reader writes: For the first time data may show that a human being has been successfully rejuvenated by gene therapy, claims Bioviva USA. “In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of Bioviva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company’s experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities.” Bypassing America’s FDA, the controversial therapies were described by the MIT Technology Review as “do-it-yourself medicine, ” saying it “raises ethical questions about how quickly such treatments should be tested in people and whether they ought to be developed outside the scrutiny of regulators.” “The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies, ” reports Bioviva’s web site. “But if early data is accurate, it is already the world’s first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First Successful Gene Therapy Against Human Aging?

CERN Releases 300TB of Large Hadron Collider Data Into Open Access

An anonymous reader writes: The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, has released 300 terabytes of collider data to the public. “Once we’ve exhausted our exploration of the data, we see no reason not to make them available publicly, ” said Kati Lassila-Perini, a physicist who works on the Compact Muon Solenoid detector. “The benefits are numerous, from inspiring high school students to the training of the particle physicists of tomorrow. And personally, as CMS’s data preservation coordinator, this is a crucial part of ensuring the long-term availability of our research data, ” she said in a news release accompanying the data. Much of the data is from 2011, and much of it is from protons colliding at 7 TeV (teraelectronvolts). The 300 terabytes of data includes both raw data from the detectors and “derived” datasets. CERN is providing tools to work with the data which is handy. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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CERN Releases 300TB of Large Hadron Collider Data Into Open Access

Log in with your skull via bone conduction biometrics

Researchers looking for a better way to secure their face computers have come up with a novel solution for hands-free, head-mounted password entry. A device could potentially identify its wearer by emitting an ultrasonic hum through their skull and listening for the unique frequency that bounces back. The ” SkullConduct ” setup was devised by university researchers in Germany and works on a modified pair of Google Glass. Using the integrated bone conduction speaker and microphone, the device played an imperceptible sound that was then picked up by the microphone. A test device was able to correctly identify the user 97 percent of the time in a lab. While the researchers originally envisioned the system as a way to keep unwanted users from accessing devices like Glass, Gizmodo thinks it could potentially be another TouchID for your skull. Imagine, if you will, a scenario where you can unlock your phone by placing it against your ear. But, then again, who actually takes phone calls anymore?

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Log in with your skull via bone conduction biometrics

There’s a Gigantic Reef Surrounding the Amazon River and Nobody Noticed

It’s incredible that it escaped notice for so long, but scientists have just discovered a massive, 9, 500 square-kilometer reef system at the mouth of the Amazon river. And it’s home to some truly bizarre life forms. Read more…

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There’s a Gigantic Reef Surrounding the Amazon River and Nobody Noticed

MongoDB Config Error Exposed 93M Mexican Voter Records

An anonymous reader cites an article on CSOOnline: A 132 GB database, containing the personal information on 93.4 million Mexican voters has finally been taken offline. The database sat exposed to the public for at least eight days after its discovery by researcher Chris Vickery, but originally went public in September 2015. Vickery, who works as a security researcher at Kromtech, discovered the MongoDB instance on April 14, but had difficulty tracking down the person or company responsible for placing the voter data on Amazon’s AWS. He first reached out to the U.S. State Department, as well as the Mexican Embassy, but had little success. The database contains all of the information that Mexican citizens need for their government-issued photo IDs that enable them to vote. Along with their municipality, and district information, the database records include the voter’s name, address, voter ID number, date of birth, the names of their parents, occupation, and more. Given that the database has been online since September 2015, it isn’t clear how many people have accessed the records. Additionally, the actual owner of the account hosting the data remains unknown. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MongoDB Config Error Exposed 93M Mexican Voter Records

Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million On Social Media Trolls

An anonymous reader quotes a report from US Uncut: A Super PAC headed by a longtime Clinton operative is spending $1 million to hire online trolls to “correct” Bernie Sanders’ supporters on social media. Correct The Record (CTR), which is operated by Clinton attack dog and new owner of Blue Nation Review David Brock, launched a new initiative this week called “Barrier Breakers 2016” for the purpose of debating supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders — or “Bernie Bros, ” as they’re referred to in Correct the Record’s press official release — on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms. The “Barrier Breakers” will also publicly thank Hillary Clinton’s superdelegates and fans for supporting her campaign. The paid trolls are professional communicators, coming from public relations and media backgrounds. “The task force staff’s backgrounds are as diverse as the community they will be engaging with and include former reporters, bloggers, public affairs specialists, designers, Ready for Hillary alumni, and Hillary super fans who have led groups similar to those with which the task force will organize, ” CTR stated. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pro-Clinton Super PAC Caught Spending $1 Million On Social Media Trolls

British Library posts 1m copyright-free images online

The British Library has posted over a million copyright free images taken from books prior to 1900 on Flickr. That means if you need decorations of virtually any type for a website or book, you’ll find more than you can imagine among these visual riches. Just click through! [Via Digital Arts Online ]

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British Library posts 1m copyright-free images online

New Windows 10 build: New Start menu, notifications, and pen features

The new Pen Workspace. (credit: Microsoft) At its Build developer conference a few weeks ago, Microsoft announced the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, a major update for Windows 10 due this summer. One of its biggest aspects was substantially reworked and improved pen support (“Ink” in Microsoft terminology) intended to make pen applications easier to find and use and to make stylus use more powerful. A new Windows build that provides the first access to these new features, version 14328, has just been promoted to the fast ring . The core of this new support is the Windows Ink Workspace, a panel that provides instant access to pen-powered apps. Pressing the eraser button on a Surface Pen will show the panel instead of its current action (which opens OneNote). The Anniversary Update also comes with a trio of new pen apps: Sketchpad, a sketching app; Screen sketch, a screenshot annotation app; and a new Sticky Note app. New Sticky Notes. (credit: Microsoft) The new build contains a lot more than just Ink improvements. The Start menu has been revised to make All Apps permanently visible, and in tablet mode, All Apps is now full-screen. Also in tablet mode, the taskbar can autohide without being autohide in desktop mode. The taskbar clock now shows on all monitors on multihead systems, and the calendar now shows your appointments. The Action Center notification system has had its layout refined to show more notifications and now includes rich Cortana notifications. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Windows 10 build: New Start menu, notifications, and pen features

“Nuclear” exploit kit service cashes in on demand from cryptoransomware rings

The web console for Nuclear, the customer-friendly malware-as-a-service platform. Some Nucleus infrastructure operating on DigitalOcean servers was recently disrupted. (credit: Check Point) Security researchers at Cisco Talos and Check Point have published reports detailing the inner workings of Nuclear, an “exploit kit” Web service that deployed malware onto victims’ computers through malicious websites. While a significant percentage of Nuclear’s infrastructure has been recently disrupted, the exploit kit is still operating—and looks to be a major contributor to the current crypto-ransomware epidemic. Introduced in 2010, Nuclear has been used to target millions of victims worldwide, giving attackers the ability to tailor their attacks to specific locations and computer configurations. Though not as widely used as the well-known Angler exploit kit , it has been responsible for dropping Locky and other crypto-ransomware onto over 140,000 computers in over 200 countries, according to statistics collected by Check Point (PDF). The Locky campaign appeared to be placing the greatest demand on the Nuclear pay-to-exploit service. Much of Talos’ data on Nuclear comes from tracking down the source of its traffic—a cluster of “10 to 15” IP addresses that were responsible for “practically all” of the exploit infrastructure. Those addresses were being hosted by a single cloud hosting provider—DigitalOcean. The hosting company’s security team confirmed the findings to Talos and took down the servers—sharing what was on them with security researchers. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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“Nuclear” exploit kit service cashes in on demand from cryptoransomware rings