technology – Page 238

Stagefright 2.0 Vulnerabilities Affect 1 Billion Android Devices

msm1267 writes: Security researcher Joshua Drake today disclosed two more flaws in Stagefright, one that dates back to the first version of Android, and a second dependent vulnerability that was introduced in Android 5.0. The bugs affect more than one billion Android devices, essentially all of them in circulation. One of the vulnerabilities was found in a core Android library called libutils; it has been in the Android OS since it was first released and before there were even Android mobile devices. The second vulnerability was introduced into libstagefright in Android 5.0; it calls into libutils in a vulnerable way. An attacker would use a specially crafted MP3 or MP4 file in this case to exploit the vulnerabilities. Google has released patches into the Android Open Source Project tree, but public patches are not yet available. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Stagefright 2.0 Vulnerabilities Affect 1 Billion Android Devices

Patreon Hacked, Personal Data Accessed

AmiMoJo writes: In a blog post Jake Conte, CEO and co-founder of Patreon, writes: “There was unauthorized access to registered names, email addresses, posts, and some shipping addresses. Additionally, some billing addresses that were added prior to 2014 were also accessed. We do not store full credit card numbers on our servers and no credit card numbers were compromised. Although accessed, all passwords, social security numbers and tax form information remain safely encrypted with a 2048-bit RSA key.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mapping the 88 Million Ways That Humans Are Genetically Different

An international team of scientists has scanned the genomes of 2, 504 people from around the world to create the world’s largest catalog of human genetic variation (HGV). The extensive database will help them understand why some people are susceptible to certain diseases. Read more…

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Mapping the 88 Million Ways That Humans Are Genetically Different

ALS Patients Use a Brain Implant To Type 6 Words Per Minute

the_newsbeagle writes: With electrodes implanted in their neural tissue and a new brain-computer interface, two paralyzed people with ALS used their thoughts to control a computer cursor with unprecedented accuracy and speed. They showed off their skills by using a predictive text-entering program to type sentences, achieving a rate of 6 words per minute. While paralyzed people can type faster using other assistive technologies that are already on the market, like eye-gaze trackers and air-puff controllers, a brain implant could be the only option for paralyzed people who can’t reliably control their eyes or mouth muscles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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ALS Patients Use a Brain Implant To Type 6 Words Per Minute

How to make your own bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan USB install drive

Enlarge / Even in the download-only era, it’s easy to make yourself offline OS X install media. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) It was 2009 when Apple last released a new operating system on physical media . Things have proceeded remarkably smoothly since version 10.7 switched to download-only installers, but there are still good reasons to want an old, reliable USB stick. For instance, if you find yourself doing multiple installs, a USB drive may be faster than multiple downloads (especially if you use a USB 3.0 drive). Or maybe you need a recovery disk for older Macs that don’t support the Internet Recovery feature. Whatever the reason, you’re in luck, because it’s not hard to make one. As with last year , there are two ways to get it done. There’s the super easy way with the graphical user interface and the only slightly less easy way that requires some light Terminal use. Here’s what you need to get started. A Mac that you have administrator access to, duh. We’ve created El Capitan USB stick from both Yosemite and El Capitan, but your experience with other versions may vary. An 8GB or larger USB flash drive or an 8GB or larger partition on some other kind of external drive. For newer Macs, use a USB 3.0 drive—it makes things significantly faster. The OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary. If you want a GUI, you need the latest version of Diskmaker X app. As of this writing, version 5 is the one you’ll want for official El Capitan support, and it has been promised but not yet delivered. We’ll show you how to do it with version 4 and update the article when the update is released. Diskmaker X is free to download, but the creator accepts donations if you want to support his efforts. The easy way Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How to make your own bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan USB install drive

Newly Found TrueCrypt Flaw Allows Full System Compromise

itwbennett writes: James Forshaw, a member of Google’s Project Zero team has found a pair of flaws in the discontinued encryption utility TrueCrypt that could allow attackers to obtain elevated privileges on a system if they have access to a limited user account. ‘It’s impossible to tell if the new flaws discovered by Forshaw were introduced intentionally or not, but they do show that despite professional code audits, serious bugs can remain undiscovered, ‘ writes Lucian Constantin. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Newly Found TrueCrypt Flaw Allows Full System Compromise

Building the ultimate X99 gaming and benchmarking PC

Armed with an Intel Haswell-E CPU, 32GB of DDR4 RAM, and an M.2 SSD, Ars UK puts together the ultimate gaming and benchmarking rig for the office. (video link) There are all sorts of reasons why you might want to get into PC gaming over, or in addition to a console: the huge library of comparatively cheap games on Steam, niche indie games that just wouldn’t find a home anywhere else, or maybe even the flexibility to run games on anything from lowly laptops all the way through to watercooled 4K behemoths. Then there are the other guys: the ones who obsess over clock speeds, how much wattage their power supply puts out, and if you really can cram an 8-core processor and a Titan X into a PC the size of shoebox . Consider me one of those people. For me, picking out the right components and building it all into a sleek, cable-managed rig is as much a part of PC gaming as it is actually playing games. Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Dr Who Detective Philip Morris Hints At More Rediscovered Episodes

BigBadBus writes: In late 2013, Philip Morris announced that he had found 9 missing episodes of 1960s Dr.Who, which completed the 1968 story “Enemy of the World” and most of “The Web of Fear.” He has now gone on record to talk about the only episode of these stories that he didn’t find — namely part 3 of “Web of Fear” and teases of more episode finds to come. Episodes keep trickling out of the past, it seems; we’ve mentioned a few small finds in 2004 and 2011, too. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Dr Who Detective Philip Morris Hints At More Rediscovered Episodes

Government Finds New Emails Clinton Did Not Hand Over

PolygamousRanchKid writes with this Reuters report that The U.S. Defense Department has found an email chain that Hillary Clinton failed to turn over to the State Department despite her saying she had provided all work emails from her time as Secretary of State.The correspondence with General David Petraeus, who was commander of U.S. Central Command at the time, started shortly before she entered office and continued during her first days as the top U.S. diplomat in January and February of 2009. News of the previously undisclosed email thread only adds to a steady stream of revelations about the emails in the past six months, which have forced Clinton to revise her account of the setup which she first gave in March. Nearly a third of all Democrats and 58 percent of all voters think Clinton is lying about her handling of her emails, according to a Fox News poll released this week. Clinton apologized this month for her email setup, saying it was unwise. But as recently as Sunday, she told CBS when asked about her emails that she provided ‘all of them.’ The emails with Petraeus also appear to contradict the claim by Clinton’s campaign that she used a private BlackBerry email account for her first two months at the department before setting up her clintonemail.com account in March 2009. This was the reason her campaign gave for not handing over any emails from those two months to the State Department. The Petraeus exchange shows she started using the clintonemail.com account by January 2009, according to the State Department. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Government Finds New Emails Clinton Did Not Hand Over

110-Year-Old Electric Car Sells for $95,000

Teslas might be ‘practical’ and ‘fast’ and other useful things, but they’re also a little nouveau riche. If you want real electric-car class, you’ve got to hark back to 1905, and this very expensive vintage golf cart. Read more…

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110-Year-Old Electric Car Sells for $95,000

Ken May

Tag: technology