open source – Page 178

GitHub Presses Big Red Password Reset Button After Third-Party Breach

John Leyden, writing for The Register: GitHub has reset the passwords of users targeted in an attack this week that relied on using stolen credentials from a breach at a third-party site. The software repository itself has not suffered a breach. Hackers behind the assault were trying to break into the accounts of users who had inadvisedly used the same login credentials on an unnamed site that had suffered a breach, as a statement by GitHub explains. GitHub said it had reset the passwords on all affected accounts before beginning the process of notifying those affected. “We encourage all users to practise good password hygiene and enable two-factor authentication to protect your account, ” GitHub sensibly advised. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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GitHub Presses Big Red Password Reset Button After Third-Party Breach

Access To Thousands Of Compromised Government Servers Selling For $6 On Black Market

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers have uncovered an underground market selling information of over 70, 000 compromised servers. Russia-based Kaspersky Lab revealed that the online forum, named xDedic, seems to be operated by a Russian-speaking organisation and allows hackers to pay for undetectable access to a wide range of servers, including those owned by government, corporate and academic groups in more than 170 countries. Access to a compromised server can be bought for as little as $6. This kit comes with relevant tools to instruct on launching denial-of-service attacks and spam campaigns on the targeted network, as well as allowing criminals to illegally produce bitcoin and breach online systems, such as retail payment platforms. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Access To Thousands Of Compromised Government Servers Selling For $6 On Black Market

The Biggest Maker of Raspberry Pis Has Been Acquired For $871 Million

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: The biggest manufacturer of the Raspberry Pi minicomputer, Premier Farnell, has been acquired by Swiss industrial component supplier Daetwyler Holding AG for roughly $871 million. According to Bloomberg, the deal will reportedly help both companies compete better in the components market. “By combining forces, we significantly increase our competitiveness and extend our product range, ” Daetwyler Chairman Ulrich said in a statement, “facilitating a one-stop shopping experience for our wide range of customers from a multitude of industries.” Premier Farnell is one of the only companies with a license to design and distribute Raspberry Pis. The Wall Street Journal says the Raspberry Pi devices are a big part of the company’s business, as the division in charge of the Pi raked in 16 percent of the company’s total revenue last year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster

An anonymous reader writes: After completing its purchase of Napster in December 2011, Rhapsody has decided to rebrand itself as Napster. Rhapsody made the announcement on their blog, which states: “No changes to your playlists, favorites, albums, and artists. Same music. Same service. Same price. 100% the music you love. Stay tuned!” That’s it. The company didn’t elaborate as to why they decided to change their name now. Napster has made a name for itself as being a brand synonymous with illegal music downloads. It’ll be interesting to what kind of effect, if any, this has on Rhapsody. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Rhapsody Rebrands Itself As Napster

Hacker Puts 51 Million iMesh Accounts For Sale On Dark Web

An anonymous reader shares a ZDNet report: User accounts for iMesh, a now-defunct file sharing service, are for sale on the dark web. The New York-based music and video sharing company was a peer-to-peer service, which rose to fame in the file sharing era of the early-2000s, riding the waves of the aftermath of the “dotcom” boom. LeakedSource, a breach notification site that allows users to see if their details have been leaked, has obtained the database. The group’s analysis of the database shows it contains a little over 51 million accounts. The database, of which a portion was shared with ZDNet for verification, contains user information that dates back to late-2005 when the site launched, including email addresses, passwords (which were hashed and salted with MD5, an algorithm that nowadays is easy to crack), usernames, a user’s location and IP address, registration date, and other information — such as if the account is disabled, or if the account has inbox messages. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hacker Puts 51 Million iMesh Accounts For Sale On Dark Web

Apple Is Fighting A Secret War To Keep You From Repairing Your Phone

It’s no secret that Apple makes a ton of money by charging ‘astronomical’ fee for replacing and fixing display and other components of iPhone and iPad (as well as Mac line). For instance, the company charges $599 for replacing the display on the iPad Pro tablet. Which sounds insane when you realize that you can almost certainly purchase a new iPad Pro under $700. And this is what most people do. A Huffington Post article notes that this behavior has contributed significantly in “generating heaps of e-waste.” Citing many advocates, the publication claims that Apple has “opposed legislation that could help curb it.” From the report: The Huffington Post spoke with politicians in two states who support such legislation, and confirmed through government filings that Apple has lobbied on the issue. Four states — Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts and New York — have considered adopting “right to repair” amendments, which would update existing laws regarding the sale of electronic equipment. Amending these laws would make it easier to fix your devices and would help reduce “e-waste, ” a catch-all term for any electronic detritus. The New York State Senate and Assembly could approve one of these amendments next week. This would help unofficial repair shops get the information they need to fix your iPad, ideally driving down repair costs and encouraging you to squeeze more life out of your old devices — thus cutting down on the e-waste generated by our voracious appetites for new gadgets. Apple asserts that it helps recycle millions of pounds of electronics equipment every year. But it won’t support right to repair amendments.One would ask what is preventing a user from getting their device repaired by unofficial service person? In addition to the security implication, you also run a risk of getting your device bricked by Apple. To recall, the iPhone maker was found bricking the handsets that had been repaired by third-party vendors earlier this year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple Is Fighting A Secret War To Keep You From Repairing Your Phone

The World’s Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future

Gizmodo reports: Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world’s first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2, 000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device… It wasn’t programmable in the modern sense, but it’s considered the world’s first analog computer. schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism — named after the southern Greek island off which it was found — was a tantalizing puzzle…. After more than a decade’s efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3, 500 characters of explanatory text — a quarter of the original — in the innards of the 2, 100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher’s guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world’s oldest mechanical computer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Movie Written By Algorithm Turns Out To Be Hilarious and Intense

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Ars is excited to be hosting this online debut of Sunspring, a short science fiction film that’s not entirely what it seems. It’s about three people living in a weird future, possibly on a space station, probably in a love triangle. You know it’s the future because H (played with neurotic gravity by Silicon Valley’s Thomas Middleditch) is wearing a shiny gold jacket, H2 (Elisabeth Gray) is playing with computers, and C (Humphrey Ker) announces that he has to “go to the skull” before sticking his face into a bunch of green lights. It sounds like your typical sci-fi B-movie, complete with an incoherent plot. Except Sunspring isn’t the product of Hollywood hacks — it was written entirely by an AI. To be specific, it was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory, or LSTM for short. At least, that’s what we’d call it. The AI named itself Benjamin. The report goes on to mention that the movie was made by Oscar Sharp for the annual film festival Sci-Fi London. You can watch the short film (~10 min) on The Scene here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Movie Written By Algorithm Turns Out To Be Hilarious and Intense

Oklahoma State Troopers Use New Device To Seize Bank Accounts During Traffic Stops

mi writes from a report via news9.com KWTV: KWTV writes, “You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture. That’s where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime. Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.” But do not worry: “If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we’ve done that in the past, ” said Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yahoo Preps Auction For 3,000 Patents Worth $1 Billion

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Wall Street Journal reports that bids are being accepted for nearly 3, 000 Yahoo patents and pending applications. In April, Yahoo moved 2, 659 patents into a patent-holding company called Excalibur IP LLC, which was seen as a first step toward a patent sale. “This represents a unique opportunity for companies operating in the Internet industry to acquire some of the most pioneering and foundational patents related to Web search and advertising, ” Yahoo said in a statement. Those invited to join the auction include “strategic buyers, private-equity firms, and investment firms focused on intellectual property, ” according to the Journal. Preliminary bids are due by the middle of this month, and the patents are expected to fetch more than $1 billion, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Journal. Bloomberg, which also reported on the patent sale, said there was no official reserve price or bidding guidelines. Yesterday, Verizon submitted a $3 billion bid for Yahoo’s core internet business. The sale will include 500 U.S. patents and more than 600 pending applications, but will not include the larger collection of patents going in the patent sale. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Yahoo Preps Auction For 3,000 Patents Worth $1 Billion

Ken May

Tag: open source