portfolio-cond – Page 59 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Microsoft promises annual Windows Server updates, can IT cope?

Windows Server 2012 will be updated this autumn to Windows Server 2012 R2. This will be the first in a series of more or less annual updates to the Windows Server platform. It’s not just the operating system that’ll get these regular updates, either. On the server side, System Center and SQL Server are also going to be on an annual cadence. On the client side, Visual Studio will be too. Even though Windows Server 2012 is less than a year old, Microsoft promises a stack of new features for the R2 iteration. Hyper-V, in particular, has some compelling improvements: legacy-free, UEFI-booting “generation 2” virtual machines, faster live migration, live cloning of VMs, online disk resizing, and support for live migration, backup, disk resizing, and dynamic memory for Linux guests. Windows’ pooled storage system, Storage Spaces, is set to become a lot smarter. Pools can use a mix of solid state and spinning disk media, and the Storage Space software will automatically move hot data off the spinning disks and onto the solid state ones. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft promises annual Windows Server updates, can IT cope?

France removes Internet cut-off threat from its anti-piracy law

This street art in eastern France reads: “Hadopi: The French Internet is under control!” mathias France finally put an end to the most extreme measure of its famous “three strikes” anti-piracy regime: no one will face being cut off from the Internet. The law is better known by its French acronym, Hadopi. In the last few years under the law, the Hadopi agency famously set up a system with graduating levels of warnings and fines . The threat of being cut off entirely from the Internet was the highest degree, but that penalty was never actually put into place. “Getting rid of the cut-offs and those damned winged elephants is a good thing. They’re very costly,” Joe McNamee, of European Digital Rights, quipped to Ars. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

A diagram showing how Apple’s two-step verification works. Apple If you think your pictures, contacts, and other data are protected by the two-step verification protection Apple added to its iCloud service in March , think again. According to security researchers in Moscow, the measure helps prevent fraudulent purchases made with your Apple ID but does nothing to augment the security of files you store. To be clear, iCloud data is still secure so long as the password locking it down is strong and remains secret. But in the event that your account credentials are compromised—which is precisely the eventuality Apple’s two-factor verification is intended to protect against—there’s nothing stopping an adversary from accessing data stored in your iCloud account. Researchers at ElcomSoft—a developer of sophisticated software for cracking passwords—made this assessment in a blog post published Thursday . “In its current implementation, Apple’s two-factor authentication does not prevent anyone from restoring an iOS backup onto a new (not trusted) device,” ElcomSoft CEO Vladimir Katalov wrote. “In addition, and this is much more of an issue, Apple’s implementation does not apply to iCloud backups, allowing anyone and everyone knowing the user’s Apple ID and password to download and access information stored in the iCloud. This is easy to verify; simply log in to your iCloud account, and you’ll have full information to everything stored there without being requested any additional logon information.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

On Thursday, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, announced that it would require all users to “be verified in order to perform any currency deposits and withdrawals. Bitcoin deposits do not need verification, and at this time we are not requiring verification for Bitcoin withdrawals.” The company did not provide any explanation about why it was imposing this new requirement, but it did say that it would be able to process most verifications within 48 hours. The move comes two days after federal prosecutors went after Liberty Reserve , another online currency that had notoriously poor verification. (In court documents, a federal investigator in that case included an address of “123 Fake Main Street, Completely Made Up City, New York” to create an account that was accepted.) It also comes two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security started investigating Mt. Gox over the possible crime of money transmitting without a license. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

Unprecedented e-mail privacy bill sent to Texas governor’s desk

Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign the e-mail privacy bill, which passed both houses of the state legislature without a single “nay” vote. Gov. Rick Perry Assuming that Texas Governor Rick Perry does not veto it, the Lone Star State appears set to enact the nation’s strongest e-mail privacy bill , requiring state law enforcement agencies to get a warrant for all e-mails, regardless of the age of the e-mail. On Tuesday, the Texas bill ( HB 2268 ) was sent to Gov. Perry’s desk, where he has until June 16, 2013 to sign it or veto it—if he does neither, it will pass automatically, taking effect on September 1, 2013. The bill would give Texans more privacy over their inbox to shield against state-level snooping, but the bill would not protect against federal investigations . The bill passed both houses of the state legislature earlier this year without a single “nay” vote. This new bill, if signed, will make Texas law more privacy-conscious than the much-maligned (but frustratingly still in effect) 1986-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), where federal law enforcement agencies are only required to get a warrant to access recent e-mails before they are opened by the recipient. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

This is cool: Qualcomm shows off its Mirasol display

Engadget There have been rumors of Qualcomm’s MEMS-based Mirasol display for years now. Once advertised as the “future” of e-reader displays, the company is now showcasing its proofs-of-concept. Engadget snagged a preview of both a 5.2-inch panel display with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and 577 ppi embedded into the chassis of a common smartphone body, as well as 1.5-inch panel on what looks like a smartwatch. A representative at SID Display Week, where the prototype was being shown, told the site that the displays were merely mock-ups, but that the screen will likely show up in other third-party devices. The Mirasol display is touted for its energy-efficiency. It offers a six-times-over power advantage compared to both LCD and OLED displays, which means it would be the kind of display that a smartphone would make great use of. It’s made with a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) based on Interferometric Modulation (IMOD) technology, which Qualcomm says “offer[s] users a convergent display experience with paper-like readability in almost any ambient condition, while consuming significantly less power than any other display available today.” Ars Technica alumni Jon Stokes explained why the Mirasol display is so energy efficient in 2009: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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This is cool: Qualcomm shows off its Mirasol display

Printable A3-sized solar cells hit a new milestone in green energy

Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium Imagine a future where solar panels speed off the presses, like newspaper. Australian scientists have brought us one step closer to that reality. Researchers from the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) have developed a printer that can print 10 meters of flexible solar cells a minute. Unlike traditional silicon solar cells, printed solar cells are made using organic semi-conducting polymers, which can be dissolved in a solvent and used like an ink, allowing solar cells to be printed. Not only can the VICOSC machine print flexible A3 solar cells, the machine can print directly on to steel, opening up the possibility for solar cells to be embedded directly into building materials. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Printable A3-sized solar cells hit a new milestone in green energy

Feds seize money from Dwolla account belonging to top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox

jurvetson The Department of Homeland Security has apparently shut down a key mobile payments account associated with Mt. Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange. Chris Coyne, the co-founder of online dating service OKCupid, tweeted out an e-mail he received from Dwolla this afternoon. The e-mail states that neither Coyne, nor presumably any other Dwolla user, will be able to transfer funds to Mt. Gox. Dwolla confirmed the change to the New York Observer , which first reported the story. Dwolla received a seizure warrant from a federal court. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Feds seize money from Dwolla account belonging to top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox

Senate passes Internet sales tax in final vote, 69-27

Flickr user: 401(K) 2012 The US Senate passed an online sales tax in a vote this afternoon after a heated final round of debate. A small group of anti-tax Republicans, as well as Democratic Senators from states without sales tax like Montana and Oregon, argued vociferously against the bill—but to no avail. The final vote was 69-27, not much different than the 74-20 procedural vote that took place two weeks ago. The proposal has hardly changed at all in two weeks. The Marketplace Fairness Act, S.743, would allow states and localities to make Internet retailers collect sales tax from their customers if they do more than $1 million per year in out-of-state online sales. “Today the senate is voting to take a few more inches off the little guy,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has fought the bill hard. “You saw ads taken out by some of the biggest businesses in the country. It’s easy to see why Mr. President. With this vote, what you have is big businesses being given the ability to force new regulations onto the start-ups, onto the small businesses.” Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Senate passes Internet sales tax in final vote, 69-27

Defense contractor pwned for years by Chinese hackers

QinetiQ , a UK-based defense contractor, has its fingers all over some of the US Defense Department’s most sensitive systems. The company’s subsidiaries provide robots, diagnostic systems, intelligence systems for satellites, drones, and even “cyber-security” to the US Department of Defense. The parent company, which was created as a privatized spinoff of the British Defense Evaluation and Research Agency—what was the UK’s equivalent of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—is often cited as the inspiration for James Bond’s “Q.” But for at least three years, QinetiQ was apparently unintentionally supplying its expertise to another customer: China. In multiple operations, hackers tied to the People’s Liberation Army have had the run of QinetiQ’s networks, stealing sensitive data from them and even using them to launch attacks on the systems of government agencies and other defense contractors. E mails uncovered by the hack of security firm HBGary revealed that Chinese hackers had the run of the company’s networks starting in 2007. Bloomberg’s Michael Riley and Ben Elgin report that in one effort that lasted for over three years, “Comment Crew”—the group tied to the recent hacking of the New York Times and other news organizations, plus a host of attacks on other defense contractors and technology businesses—managed to gain access to “most if not all of the company’s research.” The company was notified on multiple occasions by government agencies of ongoing breaches, starting with a report from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in December of 2007 that “a large quantity of sensitive information” was being stolen from two computers at the company’s US subsidiary, QinetiQ North America (QNA). A month later, NASA informed QNA that one of the company’s computers was being used in a cyberattack on its network. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Defense contractor pwned for years by Chinese hackers