Last year Facebook debuted a nice redesign that featured big, beautiful pictures, seen above. But Facebook never rolled it out. Why? Because most people have crappy old computers. Read more…
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Facebook Ditched a Fancy Redesign Because Your Computer Sucks
The city of Kiruna, Sweden, is sinking—the iron mines beneath it are making the ground collapse. So, over the next two decades, its 20, 000 residents will be relocated, along with their homes, offices, stores, and schools, to another, brand-new city about two miles to the east. Read more…
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How Engineers Are Moving An Entire Town Two Miles Away
Developers from the Replicant project (a free Android offshoot) have documented a serious software back-door in Samsung’s Android phones , which “provides remote access to the data stored on the device.” They believe it is “likely” that the backdoor could provide “over-the-air remote control” to “access the phone’s file system.” At issue is Samsung’s proprietary IPC protocol, used in its modems. This protocol implements a set of commands called “RFS commands.” The Replicant team says that it can’t find “any particular legitimacy nor relevant use-case” for adding these commands, but adds that “it is possible that these were added for legitimate purposes, without the intent of doing harm by providing a back-door. Nevertheless, the result is the same and it allows the modem to access the phone’s storage.” The Replicant site includes proof-of-concept sourcecode for a program that will access the file-system over the modem. Replicant has created a replacement for the relevant Samsung software that does not allow for back-door access. Samsung Galaxy devices running proprietary Android versions come with a back-door that provides remote access to the data stored on the device. In particular, the proprietary software that is in charge of handling the communications with the modem, using the Samsung IPC protocol, implements a class of requests known as RFS commands, that allows the modem to perform remote I/O operations on the phone’s storage. As the modem is running proprietary software, it is likely that it offers over-the-air remote control, that could then be used to issue the incriminated RFS messages and access the phone’s file system. …The incriminated RFS messages of the Samsung IPC protocol were not found to have any particular legitimacy nor relevant use-case. However, it is possible that these were added for legitimate purposes, without the intent of doing harm by providing a back-door. Nevertheless, the result is the same and it allows the modem to access the phone’s storage. However, some RFS messages of the Samsung IPC protocol are legitimate (IPC_RFS_NV_READ_ITEM and IPC_RFS_NV_WRITE_ITEM) as they target a very precise file, known as the modem’s NV data. There should be no particular security concern about these as both the proprietary implementation and its free software replacement strictly limit actions to that particular file. Samsung Galaxy Back-door
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Samsung Galaxy back-door allows for over-the-air filesystem access
Bennett Haselton writes with a bit of online detective work done with a little help from some (internet-distributed) friends: “A website that was temporarily inaccessible on my Comcast Internet connection (but accessible to my friends on other providers) led me to investigate further. Using a perl script, I found a sampling of websites that were inaccessible on Comcast (hostnames not resolving on DNS) but were working on other networks. Then I used Amazon Mechanical Turk to pay volunteers 25 cents apiece to check if they could access the website, and confirmed that (most) Comcast users were blocked from accessing it while users on other providers were not. The number of individual websites similarly inaccessible on Comcast could potentially be in the millions.” Read on for the details. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Crowdsourcing Confirms: Websites Inaccessible on Comcast
It’s been over four years since Dyson introduced a fan that somehow worked without visible blades. And besides releasing a few new models over the years, the company hasn’t announced any major updates to its Air Multiplier line since 2009. But it turns out that’s because Dyson’s engineers were finding clever ways to make these fans even quieter—up to 75 percent quieter to be exact—on three new models being rolled out today. Read more…
Yesterday, when Bryan Seely showed me his various Google Maps exploits , he showed me more than just dick jokes and fake businesses. Using these tricks, Seely was also able to set up a system that could surreptitiously record phone calls to the FBI and Secret Service. And he actually did it . Read more…
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FBI and Secret Service Phone Calls Intercepted by Google Maps Exploit
alphadogg writes “In February 2011, the global Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) allocated the last blocks of IPv4 address space to the five regional Internet registries. At the time, experts warned that within months all available IPv4 addresses in the world would be distributed to ISPs. Soon after that, unless everyone upgraded to IPv6, the world would be facing a crisis that would hamper Internet connectivity for everyone. That crisis would be exacerbated by the skyrocketing demand for IP addresses due to a variety of factors: the Internet of Things (refrigerators needing their own IP address); wearables (watches and glasses demanding connectivity); BYOD (the explosion of mobile devices allowed to connect to the corporate network); and the increase in smartphone use in developing countries. So, here we are three years later and the American Registry for Internet Numbers is still doling out IPv4 addresses in the United States and Canada. Whatever happened to the IPv4 address crisis?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Whatever Happened To the IPv4 Address Crisis?
You might’ve heard about Under Armour’s crazy new zipper that only requires one hand to zip. Though the futuristic magnetic clasp jigsaws nicely with the company’s high-performance standards, the zipper was originally had more humble origins: helping a sick man lead an easier life. Read more…
Today is a big day for 3D printing: Patent #US5597589 is set to expire and will open up the possibility for makers to use laser sintering — shooting a laser at a layer of nylon powder — in cheaper devices, essentially opening the technology to the small maker. The patent is fairly clear on what sintering is. It describes an “apparatus for selectively sintering a layer of powder to produce a part made from a plurality of sintered layers and the apparatus includes a computer controlling a laser to direct the laser energy onto the powder to produce a sintered mass.” This means anything that shoots a laser at powder could run afoul of this patent much as Form Labs bumped up against 3D Systems’ stereolithography patent. Most larger “professional-quality” printers use laser sintering and you can create homogenous, solid-looking objects with stable structures using the technique. Does this mean we’ll have sintering printers in our homes next year? Possibly, but given the materials needed and the components involved I could see prices going down but not dropping until there is mass acceptance of 3D printing. FDM printers that deposit layers of plastic is still the cheapest method, but sintered parts are almost seamless, creating a cohesive whole that is very useful in prototyping and engineering. In short, however, it’s a great day for makers. via 3Dprint
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Cheap Laser-Sintering Printers Are Coming Thanks To The Expiration Of A Key Patent
wiredmikey writes “Microsoft on Friday said that attackers breached the email accounts of a “select number” of employees, and obtained access to documents associated with law enforcement inquiries. According to the company, a number of Microsoft employees were targeted with attacks aiming to compromise both email and social media accounts ‘..We have learned that there was unauthorized access to certain employee email accounts, and information contained in those accounts could be disclosed, ‘ said Adrienne Hall, General Manager at Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. ‘It appears that documents associated with law enforcement inquiries were stolen, ‘ Hall said. Targeted attacks like this are not uncommon, especially for an organization like Microsoft. What’s interesting about this is that the incident was significant enough to disclose, indicating that a fair number of documents could have been exposed, or that the company fears some documents will make their way to the public if released by the attackers—which may be the case if this was a ‘hacktivist’ attack.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Hackers Steal Law Enforcement Documents From Microsoft