DHS Mistakenly Releases 840 Pages of Critical Infrastructure Documents

wiredmikey (1824622) writes The Operation Aurora attack was publicized in 2010 and impacted Google and a number of other high-profile companies. However, DHS responded to the request by releasing more than 800 pages of documents related to the ‘Aurora’ experiment conducted several years ago at the Idaho National Laboratory, where researchers demonstrated a way to damage a generator via a cyber-attack. Of the documents released by the DHS, none were related to the Operation Aurora cyber attack as requested. Many of the 840 pages are comprised of old weekly reports from the DHS’ Control System Security Program (CSSP) from 2007. Other pages that were released included information about possible examples of facilities that could be vulnerable to attack, such as water plants and gas pipelines. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Link:
DHS Mistakenly Releases 840 Pages of Critical Infrastructure Documents

Thousands of Leaked KGB Files Are Now Open To the Public

schwit1 (797399) writes “Over 20 years after being smuggled out of Russia, a trove of KGB documents are being opened up to the public for the first time. The leaked documents include thousands of files and represent what the FBI is said to view as “the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source.” The documents include KGB information on secret Russian weapons caches, Russian spies, and KGB information on the activities of Pope John Paul II. Known as the Mitrokhin Archive, the files are all available as of today at Churchill College’s Archives Centre.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continue Reading:
Thousands of Leaked KGB Files Are Now Open To the Public

Blue Shield Leaks 18,000 Doctors’ Social Security Numbers

itwbennett (1594911) writes “The Social Security numbers of roughly 18, 000 California physicians and health-care providers were inadvertently made public after a slip-up at health insurance provider Blue Shield of California, the organization said Monday. The numbers were included in monthly filings on medical providers that Blue Shield is required to make to the state’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC). The provider rosters for February, March and April 2013 included the SSNs and other sensitive information and were available under the state’s public records law.” Ten copies were requested under the public records law. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More:
Blue Shield Leaks 18,000 Doctors’ Social Security Numbers

Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi

redletterdave writes Uber announced in a blog post on Monday it would cut the prices of its UberX service in New York City by 20% — but it’s only for a limited time. Uber says this makes it cheaper to use UberX than taking a taxi. Consumers like Uber’s aggressive pricing strategy but competitors — and some of its own drivers — are not as happy. UberX, Uber’s cheaper service usually hosted by regular people driving basic sedans rather than fancy black cars, also cut its rates by 25% last week in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. As a result of that announcement, Uber said its service was effectively “45% cheaper than a taxi.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original:
Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi

New Single Board Computer Lets You Swap Out the CPU and Memory

ganjadude (952775) writes “I stumbled upon this little scoop and thought the Slashdot crowd would be interested in. The new kid on the block, known as the HummingBoard can handle faster processors, more RAM and will fit the same cases for the Pi. Also, you can expand the memory and the CPU is replaceable! The low end model starts at $45 and the high end costs $100. So tell me guys, what are you going to do with yours?” $45 model is a single core iMX6 (an ARMv7) with 512M of RAM, the $100 model has a dual core i.MX6 with 1G of RAM. Full specs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See original article:
New Single Board Computer Lets You Swap Out the CPU and Memory

Hacking Internet Connected Light Bulbs

An anonymous reader writes We’ve been calling it for years — connect everything in your house to the internet, and people will find a way to attack it. This post provides a technical walkthrough of how internet-connected lighting systems are vulnerable to outside attacks. Quoting: “With the Contiki installed Raven network interface we were in a position to monitor and inject network traffic into the LIFX mesh network. The protocol observed appeared to be, in the most part, unencrypted. This allowed us to easily dissect the protocol, craft messages to control the light bulbs and replay arbitrary packet payloads. … Monitoring packets captured from the mesh network whilst adding new bulbs, we were able to identify the specific packets in which the WiFi network credentials were shared among the bulbs. The on-boarding process consists of the master bulb broadcasting for new bulbs on the network. A new bulb responds to the master and then requests the WiFi details to be transferred. The master bulb then broadcasts the WiFi details, encrypted, across the mesh network. The new bulb is then added to the list of available bulbs in the LIFX smart phone application.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View post:
Hacking Internet Connected Light Bulbs

Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E

An anonymous reader writes The biggest complaint about Tesla Motors’ electric vehicles is that they’re far too expensive for the average motorist. The Roadster sold for $109, 000, and the Model S for $70, 000. Chris Porritt, the company’s VP of engineering, says their next model will aim for much broader availability. The compact Model E aims to be competitive with the Audi A4 and BMW 3-series, which both start in the low $30, 000 range. To reduce cost, the Model E won’t be built mostly with aluminum, like the Model S, and it will be roughly 20% smaller as well. The construction of the “Gigafactory” for battery production will also go a long way toward reducing the price. Their goal for launch is sometime around late 2016 or early 2017 Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See more here:
Tesla Aims For $30,000 Price, 2017 Launch For Model E

Chinese Company ‘3D-Prints 10 Buildings In One Day

Lucas123 writes: A company in China has used additive manufacturing to print 10 single-room buildings out of recycled construction materials in under a day as offices for a Shanghai industrial park. The cost: about $5, 000 each. The company, Suzhou-based Yingchuang New Materials, used four massive 3D printers supplied by the WinSun Decoration Design Engineering Co. Each printer is 20 feet tall, 33 feet wide and 132 feet long. Like their desktop counterparts, the construction-grade 3D printers use fused deposition modeling (FDM), where instead of thermoplastics layer after layer of cement is deposited atop one another. The cement contains hardeners that make each layer firm enough for the next. Yingchuang’s technique builds structures off site in a factory one wall at a time. The structures are then assembled onsite. The technique is unlike U.S.-based Contour Crafting, a company whose 3D printing technology to form the entire outer structure of buildings at once, The Yingchuang factory and research center, a 33, 000 square foot building, was also constructed using the 3D printing manufacturing technique. It only took one month to construct. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More:
Chinese Company ‘3D-Prints 10 Buildings In One Day

Cambridge Team Breaks Superconductor World Record

An anonymous reader writes University of Cambridge scientists have broken a decade-old superconducting record by packing a 17.6 Tesla magnetic field into a golf ball-sized hunk of crystal — equivalent to about three tons of force. From the Cambridge announcement: “A world record that has stood for more than a decade has been broken by a team led by University of Cambridge engineers, harnessing the equivalent of three tonnes of force inside a golf ball-sized sample of material that is normally as brittle as fine china. The Cambridge researchers managed to ‘trap’ a magnetic field with a strength of 17.6 Tesla — roughly 100 times stronger than the field generated by a typical fridge magnet — in a high temperature gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBCO) superconductor, beating the previous record by 0.4 Tesla.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View post:
Cambridge Team Breaks Superconductor World Record

Windows 9 To Win Over Windows 7 Users, Disables Start Screen For Desktop

DroidJason1 writes One of Microsoft’s main goals with Windows 9, the next major version of Windows, is to win over Windows 7 hold outs. The operating system will look and work differently based on hardware type. Microsoft is looking to showcase the desktop for desktop and laptop users, while two-in-one devices like the Surface Pro or Lenovo Yoga will support switching between the Metro interface and the classic desktop interface. The new desktop will allow Modern UI apps to run in windowed mode, and have Modern UI apps pinned to the Start Menu instead of a Start Screen. There will also be a mini-start menu. Microsoft is looking to undo the usability mistakes it made with Windows 8 for those who are not on a touch device. WIndows 9 is expected around spring of 2015. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View post:
Windows 9 To Win Over Windows 7 Users, Disables Start Screen For Desktop