Tag: management

In a Security Test, 3-D Printed Gun Smuggled Into Israeli Parliament

GenieGenieGenie writes “After all the talk of printed guns and the problems they pose to traditional methods of perimeter security, we get a live demo courtesy of some rather brave journalists from Israel’s Channel 10, who took the plastic weapon known as the Liberator past security into the Israeli parliament, and held it within meters of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I say brave because had they been caught pulling this stunt, which involved taking their toy out of the bag while sitting in the audience of a speech by the prime minister, they would have faced some real steel. Haaretz has the video (sorry, Hebrew only at the moment) [Google-translated version of the article — Ed.] where you can follow the breach (from ~6:30) and see them pass the metal detector and the moment when the gun comes out. The movie also shows some testing of the gun in a police-supervised weapons range. Parliament security officials said that ‘this is a new phenomenon and they are checking the subject to give it a professional solution as quickly as possible.’ I hope this doesn’t mean we will now officially face an era of ever more intruding security checks at entrances to events like this.” Would-be Liberator printers, take note: the testing shows the barrel violently separating from the rest of the gun. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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In a Security Test, 3-D Printed Gun Smuggled Into Israeli Parliament

Group Chat Vulnerability Discovered in Cryptocat, Project Fixes and Apologizes

alphadogg writes “The founder of an eavesdropping-resistant instant messaging application called Cryptocat has apologized over a now-fixed bug that made some types of messages more vulnerable to snooping. Cryptocat, which runs inside a web browser, is an open-source application intended to provide users with a high degree of security by using encryption to scramble messages. But Cryptocat warns that users should still be very cautious with communications and not to trust their life with the application. The vulnerability affected group chats and not private conversations. The encryption keys used to encode those conversations were too short, which in theory made it easier for an attacker to decrypt and read conversations.” The bug report/merge request, and an analysis of the bug (although, in light of the Cryptocat’s gracious response, overly acerbic and dismissive of the project). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Group Chat Vulnerability Discovered in Cryptocat, Project Fixes and Apologizes

Next-Gen Gorilla Glass: Smartphones Could Have Antibacterial, Anti-Glare Displays

MojoKid writes “It’s not too often that upcoming glass technology is worth getting excited over, but leave it to Corning to pique our interest. During a recent talk at MIT’s Mobile Technology Summit, Dr. Jeffrey Evenson took to the stage to reiterate what it is about Gorilla Glass that makes it such an attractive product (something well evidenced given the majority of smartphones out there today implement it), as well as to give us a preview of what’s coming. Having pretty much mastered Gorilla Glass where strength, scratch-resistance and general durability are concerned, the company is now looking to improve-upon it (possibly for Gorilla Glass 4) by making it non-reflective and germ-resistant. Imagine your smartphone sporting this — you’d finally be able to see the screen regardless of how bright the sun behind you is. Unfortunately, it appears that it won’t be hitting our phones or tablets that soon. The estimate is ‘in the next two years.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Next-Gen Gorilla Glass: Smartphones Could Have Antibacterial, Anti-Glare Displays

XenServer 6.2 Is Now Fully Open Source

First time accepted submitter Jagungal writes “Although the core Xen hypervisor has always been open source from the start, Citrix have now released the next version of their XenServer including all features and tools under an open source license. This includes also introducing a new XenServer.org community portal. The major change for users is that they now get all features from the licensed version for free but unless they pay for support, they have to do all security updates manually. Change logs for the new version 6.2 can be found here. It’s been a few years since Citrix started giving it away, free as in beer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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XenServer 6.2 Is Now Fully Open Source

Yahoo Puts AltaVista To Death

An anonymous reader writes “Remember AltaVista from the late ’90s? Yahoo is finally pulling life support and letting Altavista die a noble death after over 15 years of hard service.” You can only take so many years of being a running gag. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Yahoo Puts AltaVista To Death

Automated Plate Readers Let Police Collect Millions of Records On Drivers

schwit1 writes with a report on just how extensive always-on license plate logging has gotten. The article focuses on California; how different is your state? “In San Diego, 13 federal and local law enforcement agencies have compiled more than 36 million license-plate scans in a regional database since 2010 with the help of federal homeland security grants. The San Diego Association of Governments maintains the database. Unlike the Northern California database, which retains the data for between one and two years, the San Diego system retains license-plate information indefinitely. Can we get plate with code to delete the database?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Automated Plate Readers Let Police Collect Millions of Records On Drivers

Satellites Providing Internet To the ‘Under-Connected’

Taco Cowboy writes “Today, a Russian Soyuz rocket shot the first 4 of 12 satellites in a new constellation that are designed to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 ‘under-connected’ countries. The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the ‘other 3 billion’ people with restricted Internet access, were built by the Franco-Italian company Thales Alenia Space. They will orbit at 8,062 km and will weigh only 650 kilogrammes (1,400 pounds) each. ‘There are already geostationary satellites providing this type of services, but at a prohibitive cost for many end-users. Existing satellites generally obit at an altitude of some 36,000 kilometres (22,000 miles) above Earth, weigh in at a hefty four to six tonnes each, and take much longer to bounce a signal back to Earth—about 500 milliseconds to be exact, according to an O3b document. “It is such a long delay that people speaking over a satellite link will shorten conversations, interactive web has an extremely poor experience and many web-based software programmes just won’t function.” Crucially, they will communicate with Earth four times faster, said the company, and six would be enough to assure permanent coverage. “O3b’s prices will be 30 — 50 percent less than traditional satellite services,” said the document. … Launch company Arianespace, which will put the satellites in orbit, said the O3b constellation will combine “the global reach of satellite coverage with the speed of a fiber-optic network.” … The next four satellites will be launched within weeks, according to Arianespace, and a final four “backup” orbiters early next year.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Satellites Providing Internet To the ‘Under-Connected’

Server Farms Flourish In Iowa: Microsoft Plows $700M More Into Des Moines

1sockchuck writes “A big chunk of the Azure cloud will be living on the plains of Iowa. Microsoft will invest another $700 million to expand its Iowa data center campus near Des Moines, marking the third major server farm for the state this year. Facebook recently announced a new data center in Altoona. The same day, Google said it would put another $400 million into its facility in Council Bluffs. Why Iowa? Aggressive tax incentives and a central location to bridge the distance between these companies’ east and west coast server footprints.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Server Farms Flourish In Iowa: Microsoft Plows $700M More Into Des Moines

Whole Human Brain Mapped In 3D

ananyo writes “An international group of neuroscientists has sliced, imaged and analysed the brain of a 65-year-old woman to create the most detailed map yet of a human brain in its entirety. The atlas, called ‘BigBrain,’ shows the organization of neurons with microscopic precision, which could help to clarify or even redefine the structure of brain regions obtained from decades-old anatomical studies (abstract). The atlas was compiled from 7,400 brain slices, each thinner than a human hair. Imaging the sections by microscope took a combined 1,000 hours and generated 10 terabytes of data. Supercomputers in Canada and Germany churned away for years reconstructing a three-dimensional volume from the images, and correcting for tears and wrinkles in individual sheets of tissue.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Whole Human Brain Mapped In 3D

Nationwide Snooping System Launched In India

knwny writes “The Times of India reports that ‘India has launched a wide-ranging surveillance program that will give its security agencies and even income tax officials the ability to tap directly into e-mails and phone calls without oversight by courts or parliament, several sources said.'” Adds an anonymous reader: “What’s chilling is the comments from senior officials indicating that parts of the program are already live, without absolutely any discussion in public about it.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Nationwide Snooping System Launched In India