An anonymous reader writes: During the past two days, popular code hosting site GitHub has been under a DDoS attack, which has led to intermittent service interruptions. As blogger Anthr@X reports from traceroute lists, the attack originated from MITM-modified JavaScript files for the Chinese company Baidu’s user tracking code, changing the unencrypted content as it passed through the great firewall of China to request the URLs github.com/greatfire/ and github.com/cn-nytimes/. The Chinese government’s dislike of widespread VPN usage may have caused it to arrange the attack, where only people accessing Baidu’s services from outside the firewall would contribute to the DDoS. This wouldn’t have been the first time China arranged this kind of “protest.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Github Under JS-Based "Greatfire" DDoS Attack, Allegedly From Chinese Government
BarbaraHudson writes During tattooing, ink is injected into the skin, initiating an immune response, and cells called “macrophages” move into the area and “eat up” the ink. The macrophages carry some of the ink to the body’s lymph nodes, but some that are filled with ink stay put, embedded in the skin. That’s what makes the tattoo visible under the skin. Dalhousie Uiversity’s Alec Falkenham is developing a topical cream that works by targeting the macrophages that have remained at the site of the tattoo. New macrophages move in to consume the previously pigment-filled macrophages and then migrate to the lymph nodes, eventually taking all the dye with them. “When comparing it to laser-based tattoo removal, in which you see the burns, the scarring, the blisters, in this case, we’ve designed a drug that doesn’t really have much off-target effect, ” he said. “We’re not targeting any of the normal skin cells, so you won’t see a lot of inflammation. In fact, based on the process that we’re actually using, we don’t think there will be any inflammation at all and it would actually be anti-inflammatory.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
HughPickens.com writes In the U.S., a new solar project is installed every 3.2 minutes and the number of cumulative installations now stands at more than 500, 000. For years, homeowners who bought solar panels were advised to mount them on the roof facing south to capture the most solar energy over the course of the day. Now Matthew L. Wald writes in the NYT that panels should be pointed west so that peak power comes in the afternoon when the electricity is more valuable. In late afternoon, homeowners are more likely to watch TV, turn on the lights or run the dishwasher. Electricity prices are also higher at that period of peak demand. “The predominance of south-facing panels may reflect a severe misalignment in energy supply and demand, ” say the authors of the study, Barry Fischer and Ben Harack. Pointing panels to the west means that in the hour beginning at 5 p.m., they produce 55 percent of their peak output. But point them to the south to maximize total output, and when the electric grid needs it most, they are producing only 15 percent of peak. Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
A team of sophisticated hackers with insider trading ambitions has been targeting executives at over 100 organizations for over a year. While their hacking techniques aren’t all that sophisticated, they appear to have a deep understanding of the investment banking industry. Read more… 
SpzToid (869795) writes The state of Oregon sued Oracle America Inc. and six of its top executives Friday, accusing the software giant of fraud for failing to deliver a working website for the Affordable Care Act program. The 126-page lawsuit claims Oracle has committed fraud, lies, and “a pattern of activity that has cost the State and Cover Oregon hundreds of millions of dollars”. “Not only were Oracle’s claims lies, Oracle’s work was abysmal”, the lawsuit said. Oregon paid Oracle about $240.3 million for a system that never worked, the suit said. “Today’s lawsuit clearly explains how egregiously Oracle has disserved Oregonians and our state agencies”, said Oregon Atty. Gen. Ellen Rosenblum in a written statement. “Over the course of our investigation, it became abundantly clear that Oracle repeatedly lied and defrauded the state. Through this legal action, we intend to make our state whole and make sure taxpayers aren’t left holding the bag.” Oregon’s suit, alleges that Oracle, the largest tech contractor working on the website, made falsely convinced officials to buy “hundreds of millions of dollars of Oracle products and services that failed to perform as promised.” It is seeking $200 million in damages. Oracle issued a statement saying the suit “is a desperate attempt to deflect blame from Cover Oregon and the governor for their failures to manage a complex IT project. The complaint is a fictional account of the Oregon Healthcare Project.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 
The recent death by overdose of Google executive Timothy Hayes has drawn attention to the phenomenon of illegal drug use (including abuse of prescription painkillers) among technology workers and executives in high-pay, high-stress Silicon Valley. The Mercury News takes a look at the phenomenon; do the descriptions of freely passed cocaine, Red Bull as a gateway drug, and complacent managers match your own workplace experiences? From the Mercury News article: “There’s this workaholism in the valley, where the ability to work on crash projects at tremendous rates of speed is almost a badge of honor, ” says Steve Albrecht, a San Diego consultant who teaches substance abuse awareness for Bay Area employers. “These workers stay up for days and days, and many of them gradually get into meth and coke to keep going. Red Bull and coffee only gets them so far.” … Drug abuse in the tech industry is growing against the backdrop of a national surge in heroin and prescription pain-pill abuse. Treatment specialists say the over-prescribing of painkillers, like the opioid hydrocodone, has spawned a new crop of addicts — working professionals with college degrees, a description that fits many of the thousands of workers in corporate Silicon Valley. Increasingly, experts see painkillers as the gateway drug for addicts, and they are in abundance. “There are 1.4 million prescriptions … in the Bay Area for hydrocodone, ” says Alice Gleghorn with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “That’s a lot of pills out there.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. 