Tag: journal

US Vulnerability Database Yanked Over Malware Infestation

hypnosec writes “The US government’s National Vulnerability Database (NVD) maintained by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been offline for a few days because of malware infestation. The public-facing site has been taken offline because traces of malware were found on two of the web servers that house it. A post on Google+ containing an email from Gail Porter details the discovery of suspicious activity and subsequent steps taken by NIST. As of this writing the NVD website is still serving a page not found message.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Vulnerability Database Yanked Over Malware Infestation

H&R Block Software Glitch To Delay 600,000 U.S. Tax Refunds

mrquagmire sends this quote from a Reuters report: “Tax refunds for about 600,000 taxpayers claiming an education credit will be delayed, the Internal Revenue Service said on Wednesday, citing a software glitch at some tax-preparation companies, including industry leader H&R Block Inc. Refunds may be delayed four to six weeks from mid-February, likely not showing up until late March, the IRS said. … On Tuesday, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc executive said shoppers had cashed about $2.7 billion in tax refund checks at its U.S. stores so far this year. At this point last year, that amount was about $4 billion. The IRS delayed the start of the tax filing season by eight days, to January 30, due to the enactment of tax law changes made to resolve the “fiscal cliff.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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H&R Block Software Glitch To Delay 600,000 U.S. Tax Refunds

Stanford unveils high-res ‘micro-endoscope’ thin as hair

The ultrathin, single-fiber endoscope boasts four times the resolution of existing designs and could result in minimally invasive surgeries for studying the brain, detecting cancer early, and more. [Read more]

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Stanford unveils high-res ‘micro-endoscope’ thin as hair

Kali Linux, Successor of the BackTrack Penetration Testing Distro, Launched

mask.of.sanity writes “Kali, the sixth installment of the BackTrack operating system has been launched. The platform is a favorite of hackers and penetration testers and has been entirely rebuilt to become more secure, transparent and customizable. Metasploit too has been rebuilt to be more stable with an optional noob-friendly interface. Kali even works on ARM devices and comes ready to go for your Raspberry Pi.” The big new feature is that it’s been repackaged as a flavor of Debian, instead of using their own custom packaging magic. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Kali Linux, Successor of the BackTrack Penetration Testing Distro, Launched

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Released

Today Blizzard launched its first expansion to StarCraft 2, titled Heart of the Swarm. When initially developing StarCraft 2, Blizzard made the decision to split the game into three parts, each with a campaign as long as the original StarCraft. The initial release in 2010, Wings of Liberty, centered on the story of the Terrans. The newly-released Heart of the Swarm is focused on the Zerg. The final release, Legacy of the Void, will dedicate its campaign to the Protoss (and does not have a projected release timeframe yet). In addition to the new campaign, new units have been introduced for multiplayer and new maps have been added, which ought to shake things up in the competitive landscape. Blizzard has also made long-awaited improvements to the social system, including support for groups and clans. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Released

Massive Email Crash Hits Canadian ISP Shaw

rueger writes “One of Canada’s biggest cable/Internet providers has their customers in an outrage. ‘… after an interruption of Shaw’s email services Thursday led to millions of emails being deleted … About 70 per cent of Shaw’s email customers were affected when the company was troubleshooting an unrelated email delay problem and an attempted solution caused incoming emails to be deleted … Emails were deleted for a 10-hour period between 7:45 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. Thursday, although customers did not learn about the problem until Friday, and only then by calling customer service or accessing an online forum for Shaw Internet subscribers.’ To top it off, when Shaw did send out notices about this, they looked so much like every day phishing spam that many people deleted them unread.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Massive Email Crash Hits Canadian ISP Shaw

City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions

New submitter Christopher Fritz writes “The Berkeley, CA city council recently met to discuss the closing of their downtown post office, in attempt to find a way to keep it from relocating. This included talk of ‘a very tiny tax’ to help keep the U.S. Post Office’s vital functions going. The suggestion came from Berkeley City Councilman Gordon Wozniak: ‘There should be something like a bit tax. I mean a bit tax could be a cent per gigabit and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year And there should be, also, a very tiny tax on email.’ He says a one-hundredth of a cent per e-mail tax could discourage spam while not impacting the typical Internet user, and a sales tax on Internet transactions could help fund ‘vital functions that the post office serves.’ We all know an e-mail tax is infeasible, and sales tax for online purchases and for digital purchases are likely unavoidable forever, but here’s hoping talk of taxing data usage doesn’t work its way to Washington.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions

Gamer Rewrites Valve’s Steam Installer For Debian

An anonymous reader writes “Gaming on Linux is growing fast right now, and most of that is thanks to Steam. Initially, Steam committed only to the most popular desktop distribution, Ubuntu, but more recently has opened the door to others. So what do you do when you want to game in Linux and you’re using something a little less popular — at least, on the desktop? If you’re a programmer called GhostSquad57, you rewrite the installer for Debian. GhostSquad57 uploaded his efforts to Github yesterday, and has since reached out to the Linux community.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Gamer Rewrites Valve’s Steam Installer For Debian

New Technology Produces Cheaper Tantalum and Titanium

Billy the Mountain writes “A small UK company is bringing new technology online that could reduce the prices of tantalum and titanium ten-fold. According to this piece in The Economist: A tantalising prospect, the key is a technique similar to smelting aluminum with a new twist: The metallic oxides are not melted as with aluminum but blended in powder form with a molten salt that serves as a medium and electrolyte. This technology is known as the FFC Cambridge Process. Other metals include Neodymium, Tungsten, and Vanadium.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Technology Produces Cheaper Tantalum and Titanium