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Eighth-grader charged with felony for shoulder-surfing teacher’s password

A 14-year-old Florida boy has been charged with felony computer intrusion after shoulder-surfing his school’s computer network password and using it to play a prank on a teacher. Domanik Green, an eighth-grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida, was charged with an offense against a computer system and felony unauthorized access, according to a report published Thursday by The Tampa Bay Times . In late March, the youth allegedly used the administrative-level password without permission to log in to the school’s network and change the images displayed on a teacher’s computer to one of two men kissing. One of the computers accessed allegedly contained encrypted questions to the FCAT, short for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test . While the factual allegations laid out in the article seem to indicate the youth perpetrated some form of trespass, they also alleged a litany of poor practices on the part of school administrators. These practices include weak passwords, entering passwords in front of others, and widespread unauthorized access, possibly that went undetected. From the report: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Eighth-grader charged with felony for shoulder-surfing teacher’s password

Quitting + failures + a microscope in the living room = Nobel Prize

Murray Hill, NJ—When the Nobel Prizes were handed out last year, there was clearly an interesting story behind Eric Betzig, who won in chemistry for his work in developing a microscope that could image well beyond the diffraction limit. Betzig, it was noted, took time out of his scientific career to work in his father’s machine tool business for a number of years. That break occurred after he left Bell Labs in New Jersey. Yesterday, his former home had him back in order to honor him, along with its seven other Nobel winners. Betzig got a prime speaking slot, and he used it to fill in the details of his long odyssey. Although his time at Bell Labs ended with him quitting science, it was clear that his time there was essential to his career’s eventual resurrection. Betzig started at Bell Labs after finishing his PhD at Cornell (the person who hired him, Hosrt Störmer, went on to win a Nobel as well). At the time, he was working on what’s termed “near field” microscopy, where, as he described it, a lens with a tiny aperture is jabbed right up against a sample; images are built by scanning the imaging tip across the sample. To make these tips, he’d been coating glass pipettes with aluminum; once at Bell Labs, he switched to something that was in easy supply there: optical fibers. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Quitting + failures + a microscope in the living room = Nobel Prize

Apple releases OS X 10.10.3 with new Photos app, emoji, and more

Apple has just released the final version of OS X 10.10.3, the latest major update for OS X Yosemite. The update was first available to the public as a beta build back in early March , and it follows a little over three months after OS X 10.10.2 . You can view the full release notes on Apple’s site here . The star of this update is the new Photos app, an OS X version of the photo viewing and editing app included with iOS. It primarily functions as a replacement for iPhoto, the basic photo app included with the iLife suite for years before becoming available for free for all new Macs. It also replaces Aperture, Apple’s pro photo editing app—though it doesn’t actually attempt to replicate Aperture’s functionality. Neither iPhoto nor Aperture will receive further updates from Apple after today. Photos will be installed automatically when you update to 10.10.3; it appears to be a core part of OS X rather than an optional Mac App Store download. We looked at an early Photos beta back in February and came away mostly impressed by its features and speed, at least relative to iPhoto. Those of you with existing iPhoto and Aperture libraries will be able to import them into Photos after you install OS X 10.10.3. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases OS X 10.10.3 with new Photos app, emoji, and more

Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint

Microsoft is adding even more features to Windows Server to diversify and strengthen its support for virtualization and containerization on its platform. The next Windows Server will include an even more stripped down, lightweight install mode called Nano Server. Windows Server already has a shrunk install option, Server Core, that omits various features to reduce the memory and disk footprint, and to shrink its exposure to security flaws. Nano Server strips back the operating system further still, dropping things like the GUI stack, 32-bit Win32 support, local logins, and remote desktop support. Nano Server is designed for two kinds of workload; cloud apps built on runtimes such as .NET, Java, Node.js, or Python, and cloud infrastructure, such as hosting Hyper-V virtual machines. Compared to the full Server install, Microsoft claims that Nano Server shrinks the disk footprint by 93 percent, the number of critical security bulletins by 92 percent, and the number of reboots by 80 percent. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint

YouTube planning subscription service for ad-free videos

According to an e-mail sent to YouTube content creators, the video platform is looking to launch a subscription-based service that will permit viewers to bypass pre-roll ads on videos. It’s unclear how much the subscription will cost per month, but Bloomberg reports that revenue from the feature will be shared with content creators, as a supplement to advertising revenue from viewers who choose not to pay for the subscription service. An anonymous source told Bloomberg that the service could launch as early as this year. Venture Beat noted that an update to the terms of service for YouTube program partners said that the company would share 55 percent of its revenue with creators. What an individual creator gets back from that pool would be based on “a percentage of the monthly views or watchtime of all or a subset of participating content in the relevant subscription offering (as determined by YouTube).” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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YouTube planning subscription service for ad-free videos

FBI would rather prosecutors drop cases than disclose stingray details

Not only is the FBI actively attempting to stop the public from knowing about stingrays, it has also forced local law enforcement agencies to stay quiet even in court and during public hearings, too. An FBI agreement, published for the first time in unredacted form on Tuesday , clearly demonstrates the full extent of the agency’s attempt to quash public disclosure of information about stingrays. The most egregious example of this is language showing that the FBI would rather have a criminal case be dropped to protect secrecy surrounding the stingray. Relatively little is known about how, exactly, stingrays, known more generically as cell-site simulators, are used by law enforcement agencies nationwide, although new documents have recently been released showing how they have been purchased and used in some limited instances. Worse still, cops have lied to courts about their use. Not only can stingrays be used to determine location by spoofing a cell tower, they can also be used to intercept calls and text messages. Typically, police deploy them without first obtaining a search warrant. Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FBI would rather prosecutors drop cases than disclose stingray details

Dell support software gets flagged by antivirus program

Diagnostic software preinstalled on many Dell computers is now being flagged as a potentially unwanted program by antivirus program Malwarebytes following the discovery of a vulnerability that allows attackers to remotely execute malicious code on older versions. The application known as Dell System Detect failed to validate code before downloading and running it, according to a report published last month by researcher Tom Forbes. Because the program starts itself automatically, a malicious hacker could use it to infect vulnerable machines by luring users to a booby-trapped website. According to researchers with AV provider F-Secure , the malicious website need only have contained the string “dell” somewhere in its domain name to exploit the weakness. www.notreallydell.com was just one example of a site that would have worked. Dell released an update in response to Forbes’s report, but even then, users remained vulnerable. That’s because the updated program still accepted downloads from malicious sites that had a subdomain with “dell” in it, for instance, a.dell.fakesite.ownedbythebadguys.com. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Dell support software gets flagged by antivirus program

New York woman can send divorce papers via Facebook

A New York County Supreme Court judge ruled that 26-year-old nurse Ellanora Baidoo can serve divorce papers  (PDF) to her soon-to-be ex-husband, Victor Sena Blood-Dzraku, via Facebook. The ruling is one of the first of its kind, and it comes at a time when even standard e-mail is still not “statutorily authorized” as a primary means of service, the judge wrote. A number of courts have allowed plaintiffs to use Facebook as supplemental means of service since at least 2013, but Baidoo has requested that the social media service be the primary and only means of telling Blood-Dzraku that she wants a divorce. The circumstances for the decision are unique, however. As the New York Daily News reported , Baidoo and Blood-Dzraku, both Ghanaian, were married in a civil service in 2009, but when Blood-Dzraku refused to marry in a traditional Ghanaian wedding ceremony, the relationship ended. The two never lived together, and Blood-Dzraku only kept in touch with Baidoo via phone and Facebook. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New York woman can send divorce papers via Facebook

Man beats child porn rap by proving unintentional downloading

Every day, the popular uTorrent client is used by the masses to legally or illegally download all manner of torrent files. With that comes the risk of computer infections or a lawsuit from a copyright holder. A suburban Illinois man got way more than what he bargained for after the history buff downloaded files on World War II ordnance. What 40-year-old Wocjciech Florczykowski of Schaumburg got in 2011 was an extreme visit from the FBI and ultimately a charge of child-porn possession. “The FBI descended on his home with bomb-sniffing dogs and a diffusing team and the whole shebang,” his attorney, Lawrence Lykowski, told Ars on Friday. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Man beats child porn rap by proving unintentional downloading

Google Chrome will banish Chinese certificate authority for breach of trust

Google’s Chrome browser will stop trusting all digital certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Center following a major trust breach last week that led to the issuance of unauthorized credentials for Gmail and several other Google domains . The move could have major consequences for huge numbers of Internet users as Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser, stops recognizing all website certificates issued by CNNIC. To give affected website operators time to obtain new credentials from a different certificate authority, Google will wait an unspecified period of time before implementing the change. Once that grace period ends, Google engineers will blacklist both CNNIC’s root and extended-validation certificates in Chrome and all other Google software. The unauthorized certificates were issued by Egypt-based MCS Holdings , an intermediate certificate authority that operated under the authority of CNNIC. MCS used the certificates in a man-in-the-middle proxy, a device that intercepts secure connections by masquerading as the intended destination. Such devices are sometimes used by companies to monitor employees’ encrypted traffic for legal or human resources reasons. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google Chrome will banish Chinese certificate authority for breach of trust