Tag: security

The Quest To Build Xbox One and PS4 Emulators

Nerval’s Lobster writes “Will Xbox One and PS4 emulators hit your favorite download Websites within the next few years? Emulators have long been popular among gamers looking to relive the classic titles they enjoyed in their youth. Instead of playing Super Mario Bros. on a Nintendo console, one can go through the legally questionable yet widespread route of downloading a copy of the game and loading it with PC software that emulates the Nintendo Entertainment System. Emulation is typically limited to older games, as developing an emulator is hard work and must usually be run on hardware that’s more powerful than the original console. Consoles from the NES and Super NES era have working emulators, as do newer systems such as Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii, and the first two PlayStations. While emulator development hit a dead end with the Xbox 360 and PS3, that may change with the Xbox One and PS4, which developers are already exploring as fertile ground for emulation. The Xbox 360 and PS4 feature x86 chips, for starters, and hardware-assisted virtualization can help solve some acceleration issues. But several significant obstacles stand in the way of developers already taking a crack at it, including console builders’ absolute refusal to see emulation as even remotely legal.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read the original post:
The Quest To Build Xbox One and PS4 Emulators

Scientists Uncover 3,700-Year-Old Wine Cellar

Taco Cowboy writes in with a link about the remnants of some well-aged wine recently uncovered in Israel. “Scientists have uncovered a 3, 700-year-old wine cellar in the ruins of a Canaanite palace in Israel, chemical analysis from the samples from the ceramic jars suggest they held a luxurious beverage that was evidently reserved for banquets. The good stuff contains a blend of ingredients that may have included honey, mint, cedar, tree resins and cinnamon bark. The discovery confirms how sophisticated wines were at that time, something suggested only by ancient texts. The wine cellar was found this summer in palace ruins near the modern town of Nahariya in northern Israel. Researchers found 40 ceramic jars, each big enough to hold about 13 gallons, in a single room. There may be more wine stored elsewhere, but the amount found so far wouldn’t be enough to supply the local population, which is why the researchers believe it was reserved for palace use. The unmarked jars are all similar as if made by the same potter, chemical analysis indicates that the jars held red wine and possibly white wine. There was no liquid left, analysis were done on residues removed from the jars. An expert in ancient winemaking said the discovery ‘sheds important new light’ on the development of winemaking in ancient Canaan, from which it later spread to Egypt and across the Mediterranean.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read More:
Scientists Uncover 3,700-Year-Old Wine Cellar

Meet Paunch: the Accused Author of the BlackHole Exploit Kit

tsu doh nimh writes “In early October, news leaked out of Russia that authorities there had arrested and charged the malware kingpin known as ‘Paunch, ‘ the alleged creator and distributor of the Blackhole exploit kit. Today, Russian police and computer security experts released additional details about this individual, revealing a much more vivid picture of the cybercrime underworld today. According to pictures of the guy published by Brian Krebs, if the Russian authorities are correct then his nickname is quite appropriate. Paunch allegedly made $50, 000 a month selling his exploit kit, and worked with another guy to buy zero-day browser exploits. As of October 2013, the pair had budgeted $450, 000 to purchase zero-days. From the story: ‘The MVD estimates that Paunch and his gang earned more than 70 million rubles, or roughly USD $2.3 million. But this estimate is misleading because Blackhole was used as a means to perpetrate a vast array of cybercrimes. I would argue that Blackhole was perhaps the most important driving force behind an explosion of cyber fraud over the past three years. A majority of Paunchâ(TM)s customers were using the kit to grow botnets powered by Zeus and Citadel, banking Trojans that are typically used in cyberheists targeting consumers and small businesses.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Link:
Meet Paunch: the Accused Author of the BlackHole Exploit Kit

How a Bitcoin Transaction Actually Works

An anonymous reader writes “Michael Nielsen has written a detailed article describing the nuts and bolts of a Bitcoin transaction. He builds the concepts from the ground up, starting with a basic, no-frills digital currency. He then examines it for flaws and tweaks the currency to patch up areas where we run into technical or security problems. Eventually, he ends up with Bitcoin, and explains how a transaction works. It’s an interesting, technical read; much more in-depth than any explanation I’ve heard. Here’s a brief snippet from a walkthrough of the transaction data: ‘One thing to note about the input is that there’s nothing explicitly specifying how many bitcoins from the previous transaction should be spent in this transaction. In fact, all the bitcoins from the n=0th output of the previous transaction are spent. So, for example, if the n=0th output of the earlier transaction was 2 bitcoins, then 2 bitcoins will be spent in this transaction. This seems like an inconvenient restriction – like trying to buy bread with a 20 dollar note, and not being able to break the note down. The solution, of course, is to have a mechanism for providing change. This can be done using transactions with multiple inputs and outputs…'” Bitcoin is going through another period of heavy fluctuation: it fell from a high of around $1, 200 per bitcoin to roughly half that, and as of this writing trade around $760 per bitcoin. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Follow this link:
How a Bitcoin Transaction Actually Works

Intel SSD Roadmap Points To 2TB Drives Arriving In 2014

MojoKid writes “A leaked Intel roadmap for solid state storage technology suggests the company is pushing ahead with its plans to introduce new high-end drives based on cutting-edge NAND flash. It’s significant for Intel to be adopting 20nm NAND in its highest-end data center products, because of the challenges smaller NAND nodes present in terms of data retention and reliability. Intel introduced 20nm NAND lower in the product stack over a year ago, but apparently has waited till now to bring 20nm to the highest end. Reportedly, next year, Intel will debut three new drive families — the SSD Pro 2500 Series (codenamed Temple Star), the DC P3500 Series (Pleasantdale) and the DC P3700 Series (Fultondale). The Temple Star family uses the M.2 and M.25 form factors, which are meant to replace the older mSATA form factor for ultrabooks and tablets. The M.2 standard allows more space on PCBs for actual NAND storage and can interface with PCIe, SATA, and USB 3.0-attached storage in the same design. The new high-end enterprise drives, meanwhile, will hit 2TB (up from 800GB), ship in 2.5″ and add-in card form factors, and offer vastly improved performance. The current DC S3700 series offers 500MBps writes and 460MBps reads. The DC P3700 will increase this to 2800MBps read and 1700MBps writes. The primary difference between the DC P3500 and DC P3700 families appears to be that the P3700 family will use Intel’s High Endurance Technology (HET) MLC, while the DC P3500 family sticks with traditional MLC.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

View article:
Intel SSD Roadmap Points To 2TB Drives Arriving In 2014

About 25% of HealthCare.gov Applications Have Errors

itwbennett writes “An estimated one in four user applications sent from HealthCare.gov to insurance providers have errors introduced by the website, an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said during a press briefing Friday. The errors include missing forms, duplicate forms and incorrect information in the applications, such as wrong information about an applicant’s marital status, said Julie Bataille, communications director for HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). While the software bugs leading to the errors have largely been fixed, as many as 10 percent of insurance applications may still have errors and consumers who have used HealthCare.gov to buy insurance and have concerns that their applications haven’t been processed or have errors should contact their insurers, Bataille said.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read this article:
About 25% of HealthCare.gov Applications Have Errors

Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed

cartechboy writes “Does the Tesla Model S suck down power even when the car is switched off? Recently, a tweet to Elon Musk with an article saying so sparked the Tesla CEO’s attention. He tweeted that it wasn’t right and that he’d look into the situation. Then a few hours later, he tweeted that the issue had to do with a bad 12-volt battery. Turns out Tesla had already called the owner of the affected car and sent a service tech to his house to replace that battery — and also install a newer build of the car’s software. Now it appears the ‘Vampire Draw’ has been slain. The car went from using 4.5 kWh per day while turned off to a mere 1.1 kWh. So, it seems to be solved, but Tesla may either need to fix some software, or start sending a few new 12-volt batteries out to the folks still experiencing the issue.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continue reading here:
Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed

U.S. Measles Cases Triple In 2013

An anonymous reader writes “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control have announced that measles cases in the U.S. spiked this year, rising to three times their recent average rate. It’s partly due to a greater number of people traveling to the U.S. when they’re infectious, but also because a frustrating number of people are either failing to have their children vaccinated, or are failing to do so in a timely manner. Dr. Thomas Friedman said, ‘Around 90 percent of the people who have had measles in this country were not vaccinated either because they refused, or were not vaccinated on time.’ Phil Plait adds, ‘In all three of these outbreaks, someone who had not been vaccinated traveled overseas and brought the disease back with them, which then spread due to low vaccination rates in their communities. It’s unclear how much religious beliefs themselves were behind the outbreaks in Brooklyn and North Carolina; it may have been due to widespread secular anti-vax beliefs in those tight-knit groups. But either way, a large proportion of the people in those areas were unvaccinated.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More:
U.S. Measles Cases Triple In 2013

Barcelona Will Be a Big Test For HotSpot 2.0 Wi-Fi Connections

alphadogg writes “There are currently several million smartphones certified to run on a ‘HotSpot 2.0’ Wi-Fi network, which promises automatic Wi-Fi authentication and connection, and seamless roaming between different Wi-Fi hotspot brands, and eventually between Wi-Fi and cellular connections. In November, about 400 smartphone users finally got a chance to do so — in Beijing, China. The next big public demonstration of what’s confusingly referred to as both Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot will be in February: an estimated 75, 000 attendees at the next Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will be able to take part.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More here:
Barcelona Will Be a Big Test For HotSpot 2.0 Wi-Fi Connections

Botnet of 20,000 point-of-sale machines

Details are emerging about Stardust, a piece of malicious software that targets point-of-sale credit-card processing machines. Stardust has reportedly compromised over 20,000 PoS machines and turned them into a easy-to-control botnet. The malware’s masters can monitor the botnet in realtime and issue fine-grained commands to its components, harvesting a titanic volume of payment card details. The discovery comes as researchers from a separate security firm called Arbor Networks published a blog post on Tuesday reporting an active PoS compromise campaign. The advisory is based on two servers found to be hosting Dexter and other PoS malware. Arbor researchers said the campaign looks to be most active in the Eastern Hemisphere. There was no mention of a botnet or of US restaurants or retailers being infected, so the report may be observing a campaign independent from the one found by IntelCrawler. It remains unclear how the attackers manage to initially infect PoS terminals and servers that make up the botnet. In the past, criminals have targeted known vulnerabilities in applications that many sellers of PoS software use to remotely administer customer systems. Weak administrator passwords, a failure to install security updates in a timely fashion, or unknown vulnerabilities in the PoS applications themselves are also possibilities. Credit card fraud comes of age with advances in point-of-sale botnets [Dan Goodin/Ars Technica]        

Read this article:
Botnet of 20,000 point-of-sale machines