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15-year-old bug allows malicious code execution in all versions of Windows

Microsoft just patched a 15-year-old bug that in some cases allows attackers to take complete control of PCs running all supported versions of Windows. The critical vulnerability will remain unpatched in Windows 2003, leaving that version wide open for the remaining five months Microsoft pledged to continue supporting it. The flaw, which took Microsoft more than 12 months to fix, affects all users who connect to business, corporate, or government networks using the Active Directory service. The database is built into Windows and acts as a combination traffic cop and security guard, granting specific privileges to authorized users and mapping where on a local network various resources are available. The bug—which Microsoft classifies as MS15-011 and the researcher who first reported it calls Jasbug—allows attackers who are in a position to monitor traffic passing between the user and the Active Directory network to launch a man-in-the-middle exploit that executes malicious code on vulnerable machines. “All computers and devices that are members of a corporate Active Directory may be at risk,” warned a blog post published Tuesday by JAS Global Advisors, the firm that reported the bug to Microsoft in January 2014. “The vulnerability is remotely exploitable and may grant the attacker administrator-level privileges on the target machine/device. Roaming machines—Active Directory member devices that connect to corporate networks via the public Internet (possibly over a Virtual Private Network (VPN))—are at heightened risk.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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15-year-old bug allows malicious code execution in all versions of Windows

Neil Armstrong kept the original Moon landing camera in his closet

If you were the first to set foot on a celestial body, wouldn’t you keep a few mementos from the trip? The late, great Neil Armstrong certainly did — including one of the most important gadgets in recent history. The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum has revealed that the astronaut stored numerous items from the Apollo 11 Moon landing in a closet at home, the highlight of which is undoubtedly the 16mm Data Acquisition Camera used to record the iconic moment he reached the Lunar surface. Armstrong apparently held on to the camera and other “odds and ends” (as he told Mission Control) on the way back to Earth, and never mentioned them when he returned. Thankfully, you won’t have much trouble seeing some of these artifacts in the near future. They’re part of an exhibit at the museum, so you only have to book a trip to Washington, DC by June 8th to see some of the technology that defined early space travel. [Image credit: Dane Penland, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution] Filed under: Cameras , Science Comments Via: Washington Post Source: Airspace Blog

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Neil Armstrong kept the original Moon landing camera in his closet

BioWare cancels ‘Shadow Realms,’ its first original game in six years

Well, that was quick. Six months after its debut, BioWare’s announced it’s canceled its online action-RPG, Shadow Realms . The Austin-based studio isn’t moving forward with the four-versus-one PC game because, as the studio’s general manager Jeff Hickman tells it, it’s working on other things at the moment –including the next Mass Effect , add-on content for last year’s Dragon Age: Inquisition and the team’s Star Wars online RPG, The Old Republic . As GamesIndustry notes , that last title might attract new players given this December’s release of The Force Awakens . Don’t fret if you signed up for Shadow Realms ‘ closed alpha, though, as BioWare says it’s working on a reward for your trouble. In addition to all the above sequels and additional content it’s working on, the Texas team apparently has its hands in something new, as well. Could it be what the outfit teased last E3? Perhaps. We might not have long to wait until we see it, though — the Game Developer’s Conference is in early March immediately followed by PAX East and then E3 in June. Filed under: Gaming , Home Entertainment , HD Comments Via: GamesIndustry Source: BioWare

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BioWare cancels ‘Shadow Realms,’ its first original game in six years

A Researcher Just Published 10 Million Real Passwords and Usernames 

Security consultant Mark Burnett has just published 10 million passwords along with their corresponding usernames. It’s a thoughtful offering to other researchers—but a legally risky move given the current legal situation surrounding hacking. Read more…

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A Researcher Just Published 10 Million Real Passwords and Usernames 

Facebook Keeps On Not Understanding Native American Names

Facebook’s policy on real names only has got it in some PR hot water in the past, when it forced members of the LGBT community to use their legal (but not preferred) names . But it also seems like it has a track record of stupidity when it comes to the Native American community. Read more…

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Facebook Keeps On Not Understanding Native American Names

Google announces SPDY’s coming demise as HTTP/2 approaches

A little over five years ago, Google unveiled SPDY, a new protocol that it positioned as a more secure, better-performing replacement for hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), the communication protocol on which the Web is built. Today the company announced that it would soon be removing SPDY support from Chrome. That’s because the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been working to update HTTP to produce HTTP/2, an updated revision of a protocol that has not seen any major changes since its introduction in the early 1990s. SPDY’s major goals were to reduce latency and improve security. To reduce latency, it included support for multiplexing—making multiple requests and responses over a single connection, with prioritization for different requests—and for security, it makes the use of TLS compulsory. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google announces SPDY’s coming demise as HTTP/2 approaches

Report: iOS 9 will focus mainly on stability and performance

Longtime Apple users speak fondly of the Snow Leopard (10.6) release of OS X. Even though it came with ” no new features ,” it won users over by reducing the footprint of the OS and focusing mostly on refinement. A report from 9to5Mac’s well-sourced Mark Gurman claims that Apple is taking a similar approach with iOS 9, focusing on fixing bugs and optimizing performance rather than adding another big stack of new features to the pile. The report isn’t specific about what Apple will be doing to accomplish those goals, but in any case it’s a departure from the release-first-fix-later approach Apple normally takes with iOS. iOS 7’s biggest problems were addressed by iOS 7.1 six-or-so months later, and so far we’ve seen six minor updates for iOS 8 that have attempted to address everything from bugs to performance  and the amount of free space required for update installation. Though stability will be “a tentpole component” of iOS 9, Gurman says that the new operating system will still come with other improvements. Don’t expect a repeat of the “no new features” reveal, in other words. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: iOS 9 will focus mainly on stability and performance