journal – Page 190 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

DOJ Hasn’t Actually Found Silk Road Founder’s Bitcoin Yet

Techdirt has an interesting followup on the arrest and indictment of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, in connection to which the FBI seized 26, 000 or so Bitcoins. From the Techdirt piece: “However, in the criminal complaint against Ulbricht, it suggested that his commissions were in the range of $80 million — or about 600, 000 Bitcoins. You might notice the disconnect between the 26, 000 Bitcoins seized and the supposed 600, 000 Ulbright made. It now comes out that those 26, 000 Bitcoins aren’t even Ulbricht’s. Instead, they’re actually from Silk Road’s users. In other words, these were Bitcoins stored with user accounts on Silk Road. Ulbricht’s actual wallet is separate from that, and was apparently encrypted, so it would appear that the FBI does not have them, nor does it have any way of getting at them just yet. And given that some courts have argued you can’t be forced to give up your encryption, as it’s a 5th Amendment violation, those Bitcoins could remain hidden — though, I could see the court ordering him to pay the dollar equivalent in restitution (though still not sure that would force him to decrypt the Bitcoins).” The article also notes that the FBI’s own Bitcoin wallet has been identified, leading to some snarky micropayment messages headed their direction. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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DOJ Hasn’t Actually Found Silk Road Founder’s Bitcoin Yet

Topical cream causes toddlers to go through puberty

It’s one of those unintended consequences of medication that you rarely think about. What happens when parents are using a medical cream, and then they hug their kids? In two recent cases, it caused toddlers to go through early puberty. Read more…

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Topical cream causes toddlers to go through puberty

Steam Machine Prototypes Use Intel CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs

An anonymous reader writes “Valve has revealed their first Steam Machines prototype details. The first 300 Steam Machine prototypes to ship will use various high-end Intel CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs while running their custom SteamOS Linux distribution. The Intel Haswell CPU + NVIDIA GPU combination should work well on Linux with the binary drivers. Using a range of CPUs/GPUs in the prototypes will allow them to better gauge the performance and effectiveness. Valve also said they will be releasing the CAD design files to their custom living room console enclosure for those who’d like to reproduce them.” Valve is careful to point out that these specs aren’t intended as a standard: “[T]o be clear, this design is not meant to serve the needs of all of the tens of millions of Steam users. It may, however, be the kind of machine that a significant percentage of Steam users would actually want to purchase — those who want plenty of performance in a high-end living room package. Many others would opt for machines that have been more carefully designed to cost less, or to be tiny, or super quiet, and there will be Steam Machines that fit those descriptions.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Steam Machine Prototypes Use Intel CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs

Microsoft Azure Platform Certified "Secure" By Department of Defense

cagraham writes “Microsoft’s cloud storage platform Azure received their first government certification yesterday, less than 24 hours before the official shutdown. The certification, which grants Azure ‘Provisional Authority to Operate, ‘ should make it easier for Microsoft to compete with rivals like IBM and Amazon Web Services for government contracts. The certification signifies that the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and US General Services Administration have all deemed Azure safe from external hackers. Government cloud contracts are a lucrative market, as seen by Amazon’s recent tussle with IBM over a $600M contract for a private CIA cloud.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Azure Platform Certified "Secure" By Department of Defense

3mm Inexpensive Chip Revolutionizes Electron Accelerators

AaronW writes “Scientists and engineers at the US DOE SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed an advanced accelerator technology smaller than a grain of rice. It is currently accelerating electrons at 300 million volts per meter with a goal of achieving 1 billion EV per meter. It could do in 100 feet what the SLAC linear accelerator does in two miles and could achieve a million more electron pulses per second. This could lead to more compact accelerators and X-ray devices.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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3mm Inexpensive Chip Revolutionizes Electron Accelerators

Two Years In Prison For Using Infrared Contact Lenses To Cheat At Poker

dmfinn writes “It was back in 2011 when Stefano Ampollini and two accomplices cheated a French casino out of over €90, 000 thanks to the help of Chinese-made infrared contact lenses. According to French authorities, Ampollini and two casino workers marked cards using an invisible liquid that would be picked up by the infrared lenses, which Ampollini then used to read his competitors’ cards. Though the contacts themselves cost over €2, 000, the crew managed to take €71, 000 in their first night. However, the trio was finally caught when a lawyer working for the casino became suspicious after Ampollini folded with an unbelievably good hand, which suggested he knew the croupier’s cards. This week, a French court sentenced Ampollini to two years in prison and a €100, 000 fine. His main accomplice was handed an even harsher sentence; he was forced to pay the same fine and given a 36-month sentence. It appears, despite their best efforts and advanced tactics, that the men were still unable to beat the house without raising significant alarms. So, at least for now, it seems modern technology still can’t simulate good old ‘luck.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Two Years In Prison For Using Infrared Contact Lenses To Cheat At Poker

Malware Now Hiding In Graphics Cards

mask.of.sanity writes “Researchers are closing in on a means to detect previously undetectable stealthy malware that resides in peripherals like graphics and network cards. The malware was developed by the same researchers and targeted host runtime memory using direct memory access provided to hardware devices. They said the malware was a ‘highly critical threat to system security and integrity’ and could not be detected by any operating system.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Malware Now Hiding In Graphics Cards

FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack

MikeatWired writes “It wasn’t ever seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged that it secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days before the servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors. Freedom Hosting’s operator, Eric Eoin Marques, had rented the servers from an unnamed commercial hosting provider in France, and paid for them from a bank account in Las Vegas. It’s not clear how the FBI took over the servers in late July, but the bureau was temporarily thwarted when Marques somehow regained access and changed the passwords, briefly locking out the FBI until it gained back control. The new details emerged in local press reports from a Thursday bail hearing in Dublin, Ireland, where Marques, 28, is fighting extradition to America on charges that Freedom Hosting facilitated child pornography on a massive scale. He was denied bail today for the second time since his arrest in July. On August 4, all the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting — some with no connection to child porn — began serving an error message with hidden code embedded in the page. Security researchers dissected the code and found it exploited a security hole in Firefox to identify users of the Tor Browser Bundle, reporting back to a mysterious server in Northern Virginia. The FBI was the obvious suspect, but declined to comment on the incident. The FBI also didn’t respond to inquiries from WIRED today. But FBI Supervisory Special Agent Brooke Donahue was more forthcoming when he appeared in the Irish court yesterday to bolster the case for keeping Marque behind bars.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack

New Research Could Slow Human Aging

schliz writes “A team of scientists from Japan and New Zealand have helped baker’s yeast live 50% longer than usual by artificially stabilizing a genetic sequence called ribosomal DNA. The study’s authors say that rDNA is a ‘hot spot for production of the aging signal.’ Because rDNA genes are very similar in yeast and humans, they say their experiment is a first step towards anti-aging drugs.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Research Could Slow Human Aging

400 Million Chinese Cannot Speak Mandarin

dryriver writes with this excerpt from a thought-provoking report at the BBC: “China’s Education Ministry says that about 400 million people — or 30% of the population — cannot speak the country’s national language. Of the 70% of the population who can speak Mandarin, many do not do it well enough, a ministry spokeswoman told Xinhua news agency on Thursday. The admission from officials came as the government launched another push for linguistic unity in China. China is home to thousands of dialects and several minority languages. These include Cantonese and Hokkien, which enjoy strong regional support. Mandarin — formally called Putonghua in China, meaning ‘common tongue’ — is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. The Education Ministry spokeswoman said the push would be focusing on the countryside and areas with ethnic minorities.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.