L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing

New submitter Prune (557140) writes with a link to a story at The Intercept which might influence the way you look at media coverage of the kind of government activity that deserves rigorous press scrutiny. According to the story, “Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times.” Another telling excerpt: On Friday April 27, 2012, he emailed the press office a draft story that he and a colleague, David Cloud, were preparing. The subject line was “this is where we are headed, ” and he asked if “you guys want to push back on any of this.” It appears the agency did push back. On May 2, 2012, he emailed the CIA a new opening to the story with a subject line that asked, “does this look better?” The piece ran on May 16, and while it bore similarities to the earlier versions, it had been significantly softened. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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L.A. Times National Security Reporter Cleared Stories With CIA Before Publishing

A single clothing company consumes 1% of the world’s cotton

The largest companies consume a shockingly huge amount of the world’s natural resources. Ikea, for instance, uses 17.8 million cubic yards of wood a year. When it comes to cotton, there’s VF Corp., a relatively unknown corporation that owns some of the best-known clothing brands in the world. Read more…

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A single clothing company consumes 1% of the world’s cotton

Fake NVIDIA Graphics Cards Show Up In Germany

An anonymous reader writes “Several fake NVIDIA cards — probably GeForce GT 440 — have had their BIOS reflashed to report themselves as GeForce GTX 660. They were sold under the brand “GTX660 4096MB Nvidia Bulk” but only deliver 1/4 of the speed of a real GTX 660. Investigations are ongoing into who did the reflashing, but several hundred of them have already been sold and are now being recalled.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fake NVIDIA Graphics Cards Show Up In Germany

China says new submarine design could reach San Francisco in 100 minutes

China claims it has found a way to create a supersonic vessel that could travel from China to San Francisco in less than two hours using new developments in supercavitation. This could be extremely useful for travel—but also for the development of underwater weapons. In fact, this is a military project. Read more…

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China says new submarine design could reach San Francisco in 100 minutes

Why Chinese Hackers Would Want US Hospital Patient Data

itwbennett (1594911) writes In a follow-up to yesterday’s story about the Chinese hackers who stole hospital data of 4.5 million patients, IDG News Service’s Martyn Williams set out to learn why the data, which didn’t include credit card information was so valuable. The answer is depressingly simple: people without health insurance can potentially get treatment by using medical data of one of the hacking victims. John Halamka, chief information officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and chairman of the New England Healthcare Exchange Network, said a medical record can be worth between $50 and $250 to the right customer — many times more than the amount typically paid for a credit card number, or the cents paid for a user name and password. ‘If I am one of the 50 million Americans who are uninsured … and I need a million-dollar heart transplant, for $250 I can get a complete medical record including insurance company details, ‘ he said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why Chinese Hackers Would Want US Hospital Patient Data

New Cridex Malware Copies Tactics From GameOver Zeus

Trailrunner7 writes The GameOver Zeus malware had a nice run for itself, making untold millions of dollars for its creators. But it was a run that ended with a multi-continent operation from law enforcement and security researchers to disassemble the infrastructure. Now researchers have identified a new variant of the Cridex malware that has adopted some of the techniques that made GOZ so successful in its day. Researchers at IBM’s X-Force research team have seen a new version of Cridex, which is also known as Bugat and Feodo, using some of the same techniques that GOZ used to such good effect. Specifically, the new strain of malware has adopted GOZ’s penchant for using HTML injections, and the researchers say the technique is nearly identical to the way that GOZ handled it. “There are two possible explanations for this. First, someone from the GOZ group could have moved to the Bugat team. This would not be the first time something like this has happened, which we’ve witnessed in other cases involving Zeus and Citadel; however, it is not very likely in this case since Bugat and GOZ are essentially competitors, while Zeus and Citadel are closely related. The second and more likely explanation is that the Bugat team could have analyzed and perhaps reversed the GOZ malware before copying the HTML injections that made GOZ so highly profitable for its operators, ” Etay Maor, a senior fraud prevention strategist at IBM, wrote in an analysis of the new malware. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Cridex Malware Copies Tactics From GameOver Zeus

Google Is Backing a New $300 Million High-Speed Internet Trans-Pacific Cable

An anonymous reader writes Google has announced it is backing plans to build and operate a new high-speed internet Trans-Pacific cable system called “FASTER.” In addition to Google, the $300 million project will be jointly managed by China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI, and SingTel, with NEC as the system supplier. FASTER will feature the latest high-quality 6-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies. The initial design capacity is expected to be 60Tb/s (100Gb/s x 100 wavelengths x 6 fiber-pairs), connecting the US with two locations in Japan. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Is Backing a New $300 Million High-Speed Internet Trans-Pacific Cable

Disney Research 3D-Prints Figurines With the Most Lifelike Hair Ever

3D printing can make an action figure copy of your body and face, but the hair usually ends up looking like a Lego minifig wig. The mad scientists at Disney Research just solved that, with an algorithm so powerful it can trace your hair’s shape and color with ultra-realism. Read more…

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Disney Research 3D-Prints Figurines With the Most Lifelike Hair Ever

NASA Tests Microwave Space Drive

schwit1 (797399) writes with news that NASA scientists have tested the EmDrive, which claims to use quantum vacuum plasma for propulsion. Theoretically improbable, but perhaps possible after all. If it does work, it would eliminate the need for expendable fuel (just add electricity). From the article:Either the results are completely wrong, or NASA has confirmed a major breakthrough in space propulsion. A working microwave thruster would radically cut the cost of satellites and space stations and extend their working life, drive deep-space missions, and take astronauts to Mars in weeks rather than months. … [According to the researchers] “Test results indicate that the RF resonant cavity thruster design, which is unique as an electric propulsion device, is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon and therefore is potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma.” Skepticism is certainly warranted: NASA researchers were only able to produce about 1/1000th of the force the Chinese researchers reported. But they were careful to avoid false sensor readings, so something is going on. The paper declined to comment on what that could be, leaving the physics of the system an open problem. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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NASA Tests Microwave Space Drive

Stunning sci-fi concept sketches are actually 3D renders

I love the 3D concept art by Neil Maccormack because it doesn’t look like 3D at all. His renders—which he finishes in Photoshop—feel like acrylics painted with real brushes. His palette—which sometimes reminds me of Ralph McQuarrie’s—is crucial for the painterly feel of his creations. Read more…

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Stunning sci-fi concept sketches are actually 3D renders