EasyDoc Malware Adds Tor Backdoor To Macs For Botnet Control

An anonymous reader writes: Security firm Bitdefender has issued an alert about a malicious app that hands over control of Macs to criminals via Tor. The software, called EasyDoc Converter.app, is supposed to be a file converter but doesn’t do its advertised functions. Instead it drops complex malware onto the system that subverts the security of the system, allowing it to be used as part of a botnet or to spy on the owner. “This type of malware is particularly dangerous as it’s hard to detect and offers the attacker full control of the compromised system, ” said Tiberius Axinte, Technical Leader, Bitdefender Antimalware Lab. “For instance, someone can lock you out of your laptop, threaten to blackmail you to restore your private files or transform your laptop into a botnet to attack other devices. The possibilities are endless.” The malware, dubbed Backdoor.MAC.Eleanor, sets up a hidden Tor service and PHP-capable web server on the infected computer, generating a .onion domain that the attacker can use to connect to the Mac and control it. Once installed, the malware grants full access to the file system and can run scripts given to it by its masters.A report on AppleInsider says that malware can also control the FaceTime camera on a victim’s computer. But thankfully, Apple’s Gatekeeper security prevents the unsigned app from being installed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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EasyDoc Malware Adds Tor Backdoor To Macs For Botnet Control

How to Shoot 360-Degree Photos With Your Smartphone

Flat, two-dimensional photos are old news. The future is 360-degree photos that let you look around in any direction from a single standing position. You can share 360-degree photos everywhere from Facebook to Street View, and unlike 360 video, they can be easily snapped using the phone you’ve already got. Here’s how to get started. Read more…

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How to Shoot 360-Degree Photos With Your Smartphone

Rescuing 1,200 rolls of film that were never processed

The Rescued Film Project rose to prominence last year with the release of hundreds of photos by an unknown World War 2 soldier . Founded by photographer Levi Bettweiser, the organization seeks out unclaimed film rolls from the 20th century before developing and archiving them for posterity. Bettweiser has previously kept this effort going with donations alone, but for his latest haul, he needs a little help. The Rescued Film Project has recovered 66 bundles of film containing around 1, 200 rolls, and it’s currently seeking funding on Indiegogo to pay a third party to process them. The bundles are meticulously packaged. Rolls are labeled with the camera used, photo details and details about the subjects. Each was then wrapped in foil and athletic tape, with additional labeling on top. They were then tightly packed into cigar boxes and wrapped in multiple layers of foil, newspaper and tape, before being labeled again. The photographer is only known as “Paul, ” and was a steel worker. The Rescued Film Project has processed just one of the 1, 200 rolls, and it revealed some remarkably well preserved, candid shots of family life. While the collection unlikely to be as important as the discovery of Vivienne Meier’s extensive work, Bettweiser feels that every unprocessed roll of film is important. Through his project, he hopes to “ensure that the photographers memories and dedication to preserving them aren’t lost.” He’s seeking $15, 000 to cover the vast processing costs, and at the time of writing has already raised over $11, 500. The Big Picture is a recurring feature highlighting beautiful images that tell big stories. We explore topics as large as our planet, or as small as a single life, as affected by or seen through the lens of technology. Source: The Rescued Film Project (Indiegogo)

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Rescuing 1,200 rolls of film that were never processed

This Is the Last Thing Japan’s Lost Black Hole Satellite Saw Before It Died

Earlier this year, Japan launched a groundbreaking black-hole-monitoring satellite—only to lose control of it almost immediately under strange circumstances. Now, we finally can see what Hitomi did right before it died. Read more…

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This Is the Last Thing Japan’s Lost Black Hole Satellite Saw Before It Died

TP-LINK Loses Control of Two Device Configuration Domains

Reader Orome1 writes: Security researcher Amitay Dan warns that tplinklogin.net, a domain through which TP-LINK router owners can configure their devices, is no longer owned by the company, and that this fact could be misused by malware peddlers. TP-LINK has confirmed that they no longer own the domain in question, and will not be trying to buy it from the unknown seller for now. Instead, they intend to change the domain in the manuals to a newer one that’s already in use.ComputerWorld has more details. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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TP-LINK Loses Control of Two Device Configuration Domains

How to Change Your Car’s Brake Pads

Your car is a big expensive machine that, over its life, will cost you a ton in maintenance. If you learn to do some of those jobs yourself , you can save a ton of cash. Replacing your brake pads, for example, is one of those jobs that sounds much harder than it is, and we’re going to walk you through it from start to finish. Read more…

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How to Change Your Car’s Brake Pads

MRI Software Bugs Could Upend Years Of Research

An anonymous reader shares a report on The Register: A whole pile of “this is how your brain looks like” MRI-based science has been invalidated because someone finally got around to checking the data. The problem is simple: to get from a high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain to a scientific conclusion, the brain is divided into tiny “voxels”. Software, rather than humans, then scans the voxels looking for clusters. When you see a claim that “scientists know when you’re about to move an arm: these images prove it”, they’re interpreting what they’re told by the statistical software. Now, boffins from Sweden and the UK have cast doubt on the quality of the science, because of problems with the statistical software: it produces way too many false positives. In this paper at PNAS, they write: “the most common software packages for fMRI analysis (SPM, FSL, AFNI) can result in false-positive rates of up to 70%. These results question the validity of some 40, 000 fMRI studies and may have a large impact on the interpretation of neuroimaging results.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MRI Software Bugs Could Upend Years Of Research

Peruvian officials seize eight million dried seahorses

Evidently dried seahorse is super popular in China. Fishing for seahorses is illegal in Peru, where eight million of them were seized last June. Via National Geographic : Four years ago Peruvian authorities seized 16,000 dried seahorses abandoned on a street near an airport in Lima, the nation’s capital. If you think that sounds like a whole lot of fish, think again. This time they confiscated eight million of the little creatures at the Port of Callao in Lima—the nation’s largest seahorse haul. Discovered on June 7, the seahorses were on a Chinese-flagged ship bound for Asia, according to China NewsAsia, which cited a government statement. Authorities arrested the captain in connection with smuggling the goods, worth nearly $4 million on the black market.

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Peruvian officials seize eight million dried seahorses

Netflix will stream CW shows a week after their season finale

Last month, rumors began circulating that those CW shows that were streaming on Hulu would make it to Netflix a lot faster. Well, those reports were accurate as the streaming service and the CBS and Warner Brothers network made the deal official today. Starting with the upcoming 201 6 -2017 broadcast season, the decidedly comic-heavy slate of Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Jane the Virgin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and more will debut on Netflix as complete seasons eight days after the show’s finale airs. And yes, the just-aired seasons that wrapped up recently will be available as well. Hulu only offers the five most recent episodes of current CW seasons anyway, so if you’re not able to watch live or at least follow along, you’ll only have to wait a week to binge on entire seasons. The deal also includes new shows that are set to debut on the CW this year: Frequency, No Tomorrow and Riverdale. Previous seasons of the CW’s shows were already available on Netflix, but like series from other networks/studios, they typically took months to arrive on the streaming service. At least now you won’t have to wait nearly as long to find out what Oliver Queen and Barry Allen have been up to recently. Source: Netflix (PR Newswire)

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Netflix will stream CW shows a week after their season finale