polls – Page 27

Comodo Antivirus Tech Support Feature Lets Anyone Connect To Your PC

An anonymous reader writes: Google Project Zero security researcher Tavis Ormandy has discovered that one of Comodo’s tech support tools packed with many of the company’s security products leaves the door open for attackers to connect with admin privileges on the user’s PC. He discovered that to blame for this problem was a remote desktop tool called GeekBuddy, which Comodo was bundling with its security software. This tool either used no password, or used a simple system to create the password which tech support staff would use to connect to user PCs. Ormandy previously discovered a similar issue in Comodo software, related to the company’s Chromodo browser. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Comodo Antivirus Tech Support Feature Lets Anyone Connect To Your PC

Wearable Third Arm Gives Drummers Extra Robotic Rhythm

Zothecula writes: Thumping out as many drum beats in 60 seconds may get you a podium spot at the annual World’s Fastest Drummer competition, but we’ll take the full kit virtuoso playing of Cozy Powell, Philthy Animal Taylor or Mitch Mitchell any day of the week. When trying to emulate the fastest or the greatest on your bedroom bin-bashers, though, you’d be forgiven for wishing you had a third arm. Georgia Tech Professor Gil Weinberg and his research team may have the answer to your prayers. They’ve developed a drumstick-wielding wearable robotic limb that’s able to respond to both the music being played and the movements of the player. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Wearable Third Arm Gives Drummers Extra Robotic Rhythm

Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS Officially Released

prisoninmate writes: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS (Long-Term Support) builds are available for download in the form of Live and Installable ISO images for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, on both 64-bit and 32-bit platforms, and that existing Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS users can now update their systems. But not only Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) users can update, as all the official flavors have been updated as well, so users of Kubuntu 14.04 LTS, Edubuntu 14.04 LTS, Xubuntu 14.04 LTS, Lubuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu Studio 14.04 LTS, Mythbuntu 14.04 LTS, Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 LTS can also update their systems today or grab the new ISOs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS Officially Released

IRS Warns Of 400% Flood In Phishing and Malware This Tax Year Alone

coondoggie writes: There has been a 400% surge in phishing and malware incidents in this tax season alone, the Internal Revenue Service warned this week. According to the IRS, there have been thousands of phony emails aimed at fooling taxpayers into thinking these are official communications from the IRS or others in the tax industry, including from many tax software companies. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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IRS Warns Of 400% Flood In Phishing and Malware This Tax Year Alone

Stealing Keys From a Laptop In Another Room — and Offline

Motherboard carries a report that with equipment valued at about $3, 000, a group of Israeli researchers have been able to extract cryptographic keys from a laptop that is not only separated by a physical wall, but protected by an air gap. This, they say, “is the first time such an approach has been used specifically against elliptic curve cryptography running on a PC.” From the article: The method is a so-called side-channel attack: an attack that doesn’t tackle an encryption implementation head on, such as through brute force or by exploiting a weakness in the underlying algorithm, but through some other means. In this case, the attack relies on the electromagnetic outputs of the laptop that are emitted during the decryption process, which can then be used to work out the target’s key. Specifically, the researchers obtained the private key from a laptop running GnuPG, a popular implementation of OpenPGP. (The developers of GnuPG have since released countermeasures to the method. Tromer said that the changes make GnuPG âoemore resistant to side-channel attack since the sequence of high-level arithmetic operations does not depend on the secret key.â) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Stealing Keys From a Laptop In Another Room — and Offline

Intel and Micron Partnership Soon To Launch 10TB SSD For Enterprise Market

MojoKid writes: Intel and Micron have been tag-teaming various storage and memory technologies and word on the web is that the fruits of that partnership is a 10-terebyte SSD that’s right around the corner. The largest SSD in Intel’s stable at the moment is 4TB, which itself is pretty large. However, both Micron and Intel are of the opinion that typical planar NAND flash memory has gone about as far as it can go, and that 3D stacked Flash memory is the future. They’ve also developed a “floating gate cell” design – a first for 3D stacked memory – resulting in 256Gb multi-level cell (MLC) and 384Gb triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit inside of a standard package. The two companies are targeting gumstick-sized SSDs reaching 3.5TB and regular 2.5-inch SSDs hitting (and even surpassing) 10TB. Apparently that’s about to become a reality. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel and Micron Partnership Soon To Launch 10TB SSD For Enterprise Market

Backdoor In MVPower DVR Firmware Sends CCTV Stills To an Email Address In China

An anonymous reader writes: An IoT security research company has discovered that a DVR model manufactured by MVPower includes a backdoor-like feature in its code that takes a screenshot of your CCTV feed and sends it to an email address hosted somewhere in China. The device’s firmware is based on an open source project from GitHub that was pulled by its developer when someone confronted him about the backdoor. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Backdoor In MVPower DVR Firmware Sends CCTV Stills To an Email Address In China

Mattel Unveils $300 3D Printer

Lucas123 writes: Perhaps in an attempt to get out ahead of the consumer 3D printing market, which has allowed popular toys such as Legos to be replicated, Mattel today announced it would begin shipping its $300 fused filament fabricator machine in October. Mattel’s ThingMaker at-home toy-making device, reinvents the company’s iconic 1960s toy by the same name. The new ThingMaker allows users to upload design files via Mattel’s proprietary Design App, which works on Android or iOS devices. The 3D printer can then print single-part toys or print hundreds of different parts to be assembled into toys using ball-and-socket joints. Mattel’s ThingMaker Design App is based on Autodesk’s Spark, an open 3D printing platform that provides extensible APIs for each stage of the 3D printing workflow. Because it’s based on an open architecture, the ThingMaker Design App also works with other 3D printers; it is available now and free to download for iOS and Android devices. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Mattel Unveils $300 3D Printer

Pollen-Based Electrodes Could Boost Battery Storage

An anonymous reader writes: Bee pollen could hold the answer to next generation battery research, according to a new study led by scientists at Purdue University, Indiana. The team has been exploring how the unique microstructures found in allergen pollen grains could be used to provide a more energy efficient type of energy storage. The research explained that by turning pollen into a carbon anode with a more efficient microstructure than graphite, the team was able to create a battery which could store more energy than conventional graphite models. The scientists took the pollen from honeybees and common wetland plant cattails, and discovered that cattail pollen had more energy-storing capacity, compared to the bee pollen. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Pollen-Based Electrodes Could Boost Battery Storage

Microsoft Plans To Make Windows 10, Xbox One Game "Crossbuys" A Habit

Gamers who preorder Remedy’s upcoming Xbox One game, Quantum Break, will receive a free digital copy for Windows 10 PCs — a “crossbuy” strategy that Microsoft’s Xbox chief plans to make a “platform feature” of the gaming console. Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken May

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