Tag: events

Vine’s Source Code Was Accidentally Made Public For Five Minutes

An anonymous reader writes from The Register: Vine, the six-second-video-loop app acquired by Twitter in 2012, had its source code made publicly available by a bounty-hunter for everyone to see. The Register reports: “According to this post by @avicoder (Vjex at GitHub), Vine’s source code was for a while available on what was supposed to be a private Docker registry. While docker.vineapp.com, hosted at Amazon, wasn’t meant to be available, @avicoder found he was able to download images with a simple pull request. After that it’s all too easy: the docker pull https://docker.vineapp.com:443/library/vinewww request loaded the code, and he could then open the Docker image and run it. ‘I was able to see the entire source code of Vine, its API keys and third party keys and secrets. Even running the image without any parameter, [it] was letting me host a replica of Vine locally.’ The code included ‘API keys, third party keys and secrets, ‘ he writes. Twitter’s bounty program paid out — $10, 080 — and the problem was fixed in March (within five minutes of him demonstrating the issue).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Vine’s Source Code Was Accidentally Made Public For Five Minutes

Linux Kernel 4.7 Officially Released

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: The Linux 4.7 kernel made its official debut today with Linus Torvalds announcing, “after a slight delay due to my travels, I’m back, and 4.7 is out. Despite it being two weeks since rc7, the final patch wasn’t all that big, and much of it is trivial one- and few-liners.” Linux 4.7 ships with open-source AMD Polaris (RX 480) support, Intel Kabylake graphics improvements, new ARM platform/board support, Xbox One Elite Controller support, and a variety of other new features. Slashdot reader prisoninmate quotes a report from Softpedia: The biggest new features of Linux kernel 4.7 are support for the recently announced Radeon RX 480 GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) from AMD, which, of course, has been implemented directly into the AMDGPU video driver, a brand-new security module, called LoadPin, that makes sure the modules loaded by the kernel all originate from the same file system, and support for generating virtual USB Device Controllers in USB/IP. Furthermore, Linux kernel 4.7 is the first one to ensure the production-ready status of the sync_file fencing mechanism used in the Android mobile operating system, allow Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) programs to attach to tracepoints, as well as to introduce the long-anticipated “schedutil” frequency governor to the cpufreq dynamic frequency scaling subsystem, which promises to be faster and more accurate than existing ones. Linus’s announcement includes the shortlog, calling this release “fairly calm, ” though “There’s a couple of network drivers that got a bit more loving.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux Kernel 4.7 Officially Released

DNA Resolves 80-Year-Old Mystery Behind Belgian King’s Death 

Controversy has long surrounded the presumed accidental death of Belgium’s King Albert I in 1934, with conspiracy theorists crying murder. Now, 80 years later, forensic geneticists have successfully matched DNA from blood found at the scene of his death with that of two of the late king’s distant relatives, hopefully resolving the mystery once and for all. Read more…

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DNA Resolves 80-Year-Old Mystery Behind Belgian King’s Death 

Laser-Armed Martian Robot Now Vaporizing Targets of Its Own Free Will

Slashdot reader Rei writes: NASA — having already populated the Red Planet with robots and armed a car-sized nuclear juggernaut with a laser — have now decided to grant fire control of that laser over to a new AI system operating on the rover itself. Intended to increase the scientific data-gathering throughput on the sometimes glitching rover’s journey, the improved AEGIS system eliminates the need for a series of back-and-forth communication sessions to select targets and aim the laser. Rei’s original submission included a longer riff on The War of the Worlds, ending with a reminder to any future AI overlords that “I have a medical condition that renders me unfit to toil in any hypothetical subterranean lithium mines…” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Laser-Armed Martian Robot Now Vaporizing Targets of Its Own Free Will

Use This Blend Mode in Photoshop to Perfectly Align Images

If you’re working on an image in Photoshop that’s cut into numerous sections, sometimes you find yourself needing to carefully align the different layers just by eye. Set one layer to the “difference” blend mode, though, and it’s infinitely easier. This video from Scott Kelby shows how it’s done. Read more…

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Use This Blend Mode in Photoshop to Perfectly Align Images

Turn Your Android Phone Into a Laptop For $99 With the Superbook

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: A company called Andromium is attempting to harness the processing power of your Android smartphone and turn it into a full fledged computer. The ‘Superbook’ consists of a 11.6-inch laptop shell, which you connect to your phone via a USB Micro-B or Type-C cable, and run the Andromium OS application (currently in beta, but available in the Play Store)… The leader of the project and Company co-founder Gordon Zheng, previously worked at Google and pitched the idea to them… They refused so he quit his job and founded Andromium Inc. In December 2014 the company had introduced their first product which was a dock which used the MHL standard to output to external monitor. That campaign failed, however their newest creation, the Superbook smashed their Kickstarter goal in just over 20 minutes. And within their first 38 hours, they’d crowdfunded $500, 000. In an intriguing side note, Andromium “says it’ll open its SDK so developers can tailor their apps for Andromium, too, though how much support that gets remains to be seen, ” reports Tech Insider. But more importantly, “Andromium says its prototypes are finished, and that it hopes to ship the Superbook to backers by February 2017.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Turn Your Android Phone Into a Laptop For $99 With the Superbook

Fortune 500 Company Hires Ransomware Gang To Hack the Competition

It’s no secret that ransomware hackers are in the business to make money. But a new business arrangement hitting the news today may surprise many. Vice’s Motherboard, citing research and investigation (PDF) from security firm F-Secure, is reporting that a Fortune 500 company, the name of which hasn’t been unveiled, hired a ransomware gang to hack its competitors. From the article: In an exchange with a security researcher pretending to be a victim, one ransomware agent claimed they were working for a Fortune 500 company. “We are hired by [a] corporation to cyber disrupt day-to-day business of their competition, ” the customer support agent of a ransomware known as Jigsaw said, according to a new report by security firm F-Secure. “The purpose was just to lock files to delay a corporation’s production time to allow our clients to introduce a similar product into the market first.”In a statement to Motherboard, Mikko Hypponen said, “If this indeed was a case where ransomware was used on purpose to disrupt a competitor’s operation, it’s the only case we know of.” F-Secure adds that the consumer representative noted that “politicians, governments, husbands, wives — people from all walks of life contract [them] to hack computers, cell phones.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Fortune 500 Company Hires Ransomware Gang To Hack the Competition

Someone Already Made a Kickass Torrents Clone

The game of whack-a-mole continues. Less than 24 hours after being taken down in an international sting operation , Kickass Torrents (KAT) is back—well, sort of. The popular torrent link site isoHunt has created a mirror for KAT at KickassTorrents.website . Read more…

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Someone Already Made a Kickass Torrents Clone

US Navy Faces $600M Lawsuit For Allegedly Pirating 3D VR Software

An anonymous reader quotes a report from HotHardware: The U.S. Navy has been accused of pirating 3D software after first testing a software package offered by Germany company Bitmanagement Software GmbH. The company is suing the United States of America for nearly $600 million. HotHardware reports: “According to the court filing, Bitmanagement licensed its BS Contact Geo software for use on 38 Navy computers from 2011 to 2012. This limited rollout was ‘for the purposes of testing, trial runs, and integration into Navy systems.’ While this test period was underway, the Navy reportedly began negotiating to license the software for use on thousands of additional computers. However, even as the negotiations were ongoing, the Navy decided to go ahead and initiate its full-scale rollout without actually paying for the software. In total, the initial 38 computers allegedly swelled to 104, 922 computers by October 2013. As of today, BS Contact GEO is claimed to be installed on 558, 466 Navy computers, although ‘likely this unauthorized copying has taken place on an even larger scale’ according to the filing. As if the unauthorized installation of software onto hundreds of thousands of computers wasn’t enough, Bitmanagement is alleging that the Navy during 2014 began disabling the Flexwrap software that is tasked with tracking the use of BS Contact Geo and helping to prevent it from being duplicated. When this software piracy was taking place, the retail price of a single BS Contact Geo license was $1067.76. With nearly 600, 000 computers now in play, Bitmanagement is seeking a whopping $596, 308, 103 in damages. The lawsuit, which alleges willful copyright infringement was filed on July 15th.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Navy Faces $600M Lawsuit For Allegedly Pirating 3D VR Software

This Old ‘Computer For Grannies’ Video Is My New Favorite Movie

Remember 2001? Neither do I. But as best I can tell, it was a raucous time for people to get on the ‘net (that’s what people called the internet in olden times). And if you were confused about where to start, there were plenty of VHS tapes available to help navigate this brave new world—like Computer For Grannies , a bizarre artifact that I recently stumbled across at my local library. Read more…

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This Old ‘Computer For Grannies’ Video Is My New Favorite Movie