Tag: indian

India Launches Five Foreign Satellites

vasanth writes: “India has put into orbit five foreign satellites, including one built by France two from Canada and one each from Singapore and Germany. The PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has so far successfully launched 67 satellites, including 40 foreign ones, into space. The PSLV costs about 17 million USD and the cost is seen as a major advantage India has over other countries in terms of commercial launches. When talking about the cost of the project, the Prime Minister of India noted that the launch was cheaper than Hollywood film Gravity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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India Launches Five Foreign Satellites

How Satellite Company Inmarsat Tracked Down MH370

mdsolar (1045926) writes “Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has announced that, based on satellite data analysis from UK company Inmarsat, Malayian Airlines flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean, and no one on board survived. ‘Effectually we looked at the doppler effect, which is the change in frequency, due to the movement of a satellite in its orbit. What that then gave us was a predicted path for the northerly route and a predicted path the southerly route, ‘ explained Chris McLaughlin, senior vice president of external affairs at Inmarsat. ‘What we discovered was a correlation with the southerly route and not with the northern route after the final turn that the aircraft made, so we could be as close to certain as anybody could be in that situation that it went south. Where we then went was to work out where the last ping was, knowing that the aircraft still had some fuel, but that it would have run out before the next automated ping. We don’t know what speed the aircraft was flying at, but we assumed about 450 knots.’ Inmarsat passed the relevant analysis to the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) yesterday. The cause of the crash remains a mystery.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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How Satellite Company Inmarsat Tracked Down MH370

The diaries of nearly 4,000 World War One soldiers are now online

To commemorate the centenary of the Great War, the diaries of 3, 987 British soldiers have been digitized and made available online. They contain first-hand accounts of trench warfare, gas attacks — oh, and that time two cats and a dog were suspected of being spies. Read more…        

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The diaries of nearly 4,000 World War One soldiers are now online

There’s a Naturally Occurring Nuclear Fission Reactor in West Africa

In May 1972 in a uranium enrichment plant in France, scientists examining ore from a mine in Gabon, West Africa, discovered that a natural nuclear reactor had spontaneously manifested in that region in the Earth’s primordial past, churning out approximately 100 Kw worth of energy continuously for a few hundred thousand years about 1.7 billion years ago. In order to understand how the natural nuclear reactor came about, it helps to understand a little of the history and science of nuclear reactions. Read more…        

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There’s a Naturally Occurring Nuclear Fission Reactor in West Africa

Linus Torvalds Admits He’s Been Asked To Insert Backdoor Into Linux

darthcamaro writes “At the Linuxcon conference in New Orleans today, Linus Torvalds joined fellow kernel developers in answering a barrage of questions about Linux development. One question he was asked was whether a government agency had ever asked about inserting a back-door into Linux. Torvalds responded ‘no’ while shaking his head ‘yes, ‘ as the audience broke into spontaneous laughter. Torvalds also admitted that while he as a full life outside of Linux he couldn’t imagine his life without it. ‘I don’t see any project coming along being more interesting to me than Linux, ‘ Torvalds said. ‘I couldn’t imagine filling the void in my life if I didn’t have Linux.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linus Torvalds Admits He’s Been Asked To Insert Backdoor Into Linux

Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

hypnosec writes “If you are a BlackBerry owner, navigate to BlackBerry World (or just visit the website) and you will find that developer S4BB has developed over 47k apps for the BB platform. Unsurprisingly, most of them are just spammy apps that don’t add any value. Apps like ‘Restart Me Free, ‘ ‘Daily Quote, ‘ ‘Lock for SMS, ‘ ‘Search for Amazon, ‘ ‘Silent Foto Free’ are just a few among the thousands of apps on BlackBerry World that actually have no utility whatsoever. BlackBerry announced back in May that developers were increasingly interested in making apps for the platform, and that BlackBerry World had more than 120, 000 apps. This raises questions about the authenticity of the claims, and about the approval process that’s been accepting these apps. S4BB may have a few useful apps for the platform, but that doesn’t mean all of their apps are of ‘A’ quality. A statement from BlackBerry said, ‘Developers in all app stores employ a number of different monetization tactics. BlackBerry World is an open market for developers and we let market forces dictate the success or failure of these tactics.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

India Thought Jupiter and Venus Were Actually Chinese Spy Drones

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Chinese spy drone! Oh, and there’s another one! That’s what the Indian Army must’ve thought when they saw two specks of something “spying on them” in the sky. Instead, what India thought were Chinese spy drones turned out to be… Jupiter and Venus. Read more…        

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India Thought Jupiter and Venus Were Actually Chinese Spy Drones

Google Maps Used To Find Tax Cheats

phantomfive writes “Some countries are worried about the privacy implications of Google Maps, but Lithuania is using them to find tax cheats. ‘After Google’s car-borne cameras were driven through the Vilnius area last year, the tax men in this small Baltic nation got busy. They have spent months combing through footage looking for unreported taxable wealth. … Two recent cases netted $130,000 in taxes and penalties after investigators found houses photographed by Google that weren’t on official maps. … “We were very impressed,” said Modestas Kaseliauskas, head of the State Tax Authority. “We realized that we could do more with less and in shorter time.”‘ The people of Lithuania don’t seem to mind. ‘Authorities have been aided by the local populace. “We received even more support than we expected,” said Mr. Kaseliauskas.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Maps Used To Find Tax Cheats

India Rolls Out Central Monitoring System To Snoop On All Communications

hypnosec tipped us to news that India is rolling out a new intrusive monitoring system, using the authority of a 2000 telecom law. Quoting The Times of India: “However, Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate specialising in cyberlaw, said the government has given itself unprecedented powers to monitor private Internet records of citizens. ‘This system is capable of abuse,’ he said. The Central Monitoring System, being set up by the Centre for Development of Telematics, plugs into telecom gear and gives central and state investigative agencies a single point of access to call records, text messages, and emails as well as the geographical location of individuals.” Privacy advocates are worried about abuse, partially because India has no effective privacy legislation, and the “…Indian government under PM Manmohan Singh has taken an increasingly uncompromising stance when it comes to online freedoms, with the stated aim usually to preserve social order and national security or fight ‘harmful’ defamation.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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India Rolls Out Central Monitoring System To Snoop On All Communications