What happens when you take a PogoPlug, add 8GB of flash storage, some radios (WiFi, GPS) and perhaps a few sensors, then stuff everything in a 3D-printed box? You get the F-BOMB (Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors), a battery-powered surveillance computer that costs less than $50 to put together using off-the-shelf parts. The 4 x 3.5 x 1-inch device, created by security researcher Brendan O’Connor and funded by DARPA‘s Cyber Fast Track program, is cheap enough for single-use scenarios where costly traditional hardware is impractical. It can be dropped from an AR Drone, tossed over a fence, plugged into a wall socket or even hidden inside a CO detector. Once in place, the homebrew Linux-based system can be used to gather data and hop onto wireless networks using WiFi-cracking software. Sneaky. Paranoid yet? Click on the source link below for more info.

F-BOMB $50 surveillance computer hides in your CO detector, cracks your WiFi originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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F-BOMB $50 surveillance computer hides in your CO detector, cracks your WiFi

redletterdave writes “Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates pledged $750 million to the troubled global AIDS fund on Thursday and urged governments to continue their support to save lives. Since the fund was launched 10 years ago, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $1.4 billion to the charity, having already contributed $650 million prior to the latest donation. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria accounts for around a quarter of international financing to fight HIV and AIDS, as well as the majority of funds to fight TB and malaria.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bill Gates Gives $750M To AIDS Fund

For a variety of obvious reasons, it’s impossible to reproduce the
exact environment in which galaxies form. The lack of direct
experimental tests for a the models astrophysicists use creates a
disconnect between what astronomers observe and theoretical
work. However, that barrier is being broken down by a combination of high-powered lasers and a new understanding of how
lab-scale experiments can be related to vastly larger systems such as
galaxies.

Researchers at the Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation de Lasers Intenses
(LULI), along with colleagues at various universities, have
successfully simulated the magnetic fields that form in early
galaxies. Naively, there seems to be no correspondence between the
experiment and the real astrophysical system. The lab set-up is very
small, works on a very short time frame, and uses carbon rods and
lasers; the real environment for galaxy formation is clouds of gas and
dark matter, and the time-scale is hundreds of millions of
years. Nevertheless, a magnetic field strength (along with other effects) has been observed in the lab that corresponds to that experienced by early protogalaxies.

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Bringing galaxy-scale magnetic fields down to size in the lab

Computer meltdown? No backup? Well, at least your tunes are safe. Google Music just gained a new feature that lets you to download your entire library including purchased songs. A simple click in the Music Manager is all it takes to restore your entire collection — or just your purchased music — from the cloud. In addition, the web interface now allows you to select and copy multiple tracks to your device of choice. While there are no limitations when using the Music Manager, purchased items are restricted to two downloads each via the web interface. So next time your system crashes go right ahead — rev up that broadband and fill up those hard drives.

Google Music now lets you download your entire library originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Music now lets you download your entire library

What happens when you reply to an email in which the entire German Parliament is looped in? You send that mail server into complete and utter chaos which, i would assume, brings der legislative machine to a screeching halt. More »

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Someone Took Down the German Parliament’s Email System With a Single Click [Email]

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has promised us a permanent Moon base by 2020. Many people have been calling Newt’s vow a publicity stunt, while others have chimed in by attacking the idea of a lunar base in and of itself, with assertions like “real scientists know [a Moon base] is fantasy.” More »

Excerpt from:
Newt Gingrich is right: We need a permanent Moonbase [Astronomy]

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is the notorious, unprecedented secret copyright treaty that was negotiated by industry representatives and government trade reps, without any access by elected representatives, independent business, the press, public interest groups, legal scholars, independent economists and so on. Time and again, the world’s richest governmental administrations (only rich countries were in the negotiation) told their own parliaments and congresses that they could not see what was in the treaty, nor know the details of the discussion.

The European Parliament was one of the bodies that asked its administration to share the treaty discussions with the elected members, only to be turned down. Cables in the Wikileaks dumps showed US officials orchestrating this secrecy because they knew how unpopular this one-sided, heavy-handed copyright treaty would be. Freedom of Information requests to the Obama administration confirmed that the reason for the secrecy was the experience in transparent negotiation at the UN, which resulted in an uprising by developing nations, who saw stricter, more expansive copyrights as a means of extracting rents from the world’s poorest people.

Now the European Parliament is being arm-twisted into ratifying ACTA, which contains many of the worst provisions that Americans rejected in SOPA and PIPA. We need your help and input to resist this terrible, dirty, punishing treaty from coming to Europe.

Stop ACTA!

Previous BB coverage of ACTA

(Thanks, noc314!)

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Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations

Hugh Pickens writes “Google’s autonomous cars have demonstrated that self-driving vehicles are now largely workable and could greatly limit human error, but questions of legal liability, privacy and insurance regulation have yet to be addressed. Simple questions, like whether the police should have the right to pull over autonomous vehicles, have yet to be answered and legal scholars and government officials warn that society has only begun wrestling with laws required for autonomous vehicles. The big question remains legal liability for the designers and manufacturers as some point out that liability exemptions have been mandated for vaccines, which are believed to offer great value for the general health of the population, despite some risks. ‘Why would you even put money into developing it?’ says Gary E. Marchant, director of the Center for Law, Science and Innovation at the Arizona State University law school. ‘I see this as a huge barrier to this technology unless there are some policy ways around it.’ Congress could consider creating a comprehensive regulatory regime to govern the use of these technologies say researchers at the Rand Corporation adding that while federal preemption has important disadvantages, it might speed the development and utilization of these technologies (PDF) and should be considered, if accompanied by a comprehensive federal regulatory regime. ‘This may minimize the number of inconsistent legal regimes that manufacturers face and simplify and speed the introduction of these technologies.'”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Autonomous Vehicles and the Law

Oh come on! The best part about the mess that was Qwikster was the possibility of renting games from Netflix. Now they take that away from us too? That new season of Arrested Development better be amazing. More »

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Netflix Ditches Video Game Rentals [NetFlix]

While technologically inept government officials argue over the fate of our beloved interwebs, and the thought of people sharing data is scrutinized and villainized by those who admittedly “don’t get it”, those who feel that sharing is caring keep searching for new ways, and stuff, to share.

Pirate Bay, the website that has gained a notorious reputation among those fearful of file sharing, are about to become my personal heroes by revealing the newest torrent trend-sharing objects for 3d printing.

Downloading 3d object files for printing may sound like a concept straight from an episode of Star Trek but it’s going to be a reality sooner than you think, and I am so excited to see what people will create for the sake of 3d object sharing.

Download, print, paint, repeat-oh the joys of technology!

Link

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Pirate Bay Reveals Newest Trend-Downloading Objects For 3D Printing