Popular open-source audio editing software, Audacity, has received a significant update. The new version, dubbed Audacity 2.2.0, adds a range of features and options such as additional user interface themes, and the ability to customize themes for advanced users. It is also getting playback support for MIDI files, and better organised menus, the team wrote. You can find the complete changelog here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Audacity 2.2.0 Released
A report from FierceCable says that a million more U.S. pay TV subscribers cut the TV cord last quarter. “Only five of the seven biggest pay TV providers have released their third quarter subscriber data, but collectively these companies saw a net loss of 632, 000 pay TV subscribers during the period (385, 000 for AT&T and DirecTV, 125, 000 for Comcast, 104, 000 for Charter, 18.000 for Verizon FiOS TV), ” reports DSLReports. “Dish has yet to report its own cord cutting tallies, but the company is again expected to be among the hardest hit due to a high level of retransmission fee feuds and a lack of broadband bundles.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Another Million Subscribers Cut the Pay TV Cord Last Quarter
An anonymous reader shares a report: In college, you can use your time to study. Or then again, you could perhaps rely on the Hand of God. And when I say “Hand of God, ” what I really mean is “keylogger.” Think of it like the “Nimble Fingers of God.” “Hand of God” (that makes sense) and “pineapple” (???) are two of the nicknames allegedly used to refer to keyloggers used by a former University of Iowa wrestler and student who was arrested last week on federal computer-hacking charges in a high-tech cheating scheme. According to the New York Times, Trevor Graves, 22, is accused in an FBI affidavit of working with an unnamed accomplice to secretly plug keyloggers into university computers in classrooms and in labs. The FBI says keyloggers allowed Graves to record whatever his professors typed, including credentials to log into university grading and email systems. Court documents allege that Graves intercepted exams and test questions in advance and repeatedly changed grades on tests, quizzes and homework assignments. This went on for 21 months — between March 2015 and December 2016. The scheme was discovered when a professor noticed that a number of Graves’ grades had been changed without her authorization. She reported it to campus IT security officials. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Student Charged By FBI For Hacking His Grades More Than 90 times
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Samsung is starting a new “Upcycling” initiative that is designed to turn old smartphones and turn them into something brand new. Behold, for example, this bitcoin mining rig, made out of 40 old Galaxy S5 devices, which runs on a new operating system Samsung has developed for its upcycling initiative. Samsung premiered this rig, and a bunch of other cool uses for old phones, at its recent developer’s conference in San Francisco. Upcycling involves repurposing old devices instead of breaking them down for parts of reselling them. The people at Samsung’s C-Lab — an engineering team dedicated to creative projects — showed off old Galaxy phones and assorted tablets stripped of Android software and repurposed into a variety of different objects. The team hooked 40 old Galaxy S5’s together to make a bitcoin mining rig, repurposed an old Galaxy tablet into a ubuntu-powered laptop, used a Galaxy S3 to monitor a fishtank, and programed an old phone with facial recognition software to guard the entrance of a house in the form of an owl. Samsung declined to answer specific questions about the bitcoin mining rig, but an information sheet at the developer’s conference noted that eight galaxy S5 devices can mine at a greater power efficiency than a standard desktop computer (not that too many people are mining bitcoin on their desktops these days). Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Samsung Made a Bitcoin Mining Rig Out of 40 Old Galaxy S5s
Orome1 shares a report from Help Net Security: IOActive security consultant Mario Ballano has discovered two critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting Stratos Global’s AmosConnect communication shipboard platform. The platform works in conjunction with the ships’ satellite equipment, and integrates vessel and shore-based office applications, as well as provides services like Internet access for the crew, email, IM, position reporting, etc. The first vulnerability is a blind SQL injection in a login form. Attackers that successfully exploit it can retrieve credentials to log into the service and access sensitive information stored in it. The second one is a built-in backdoor account with full system privileges. “Among other things, this vulnerability allows attackers to execute commands with SYSTEM privileges on the remote system by abusing AmosConnect Task Manager, ” Bellano shared. The found flaws can be exploited only by an attacker that has access to the ship’s IT systems network, he noted, but on some ships the various networks might not be segmented, or AmosConnect might be exposed to one or more of them. The vulnerabilities were found in AmosConnect 8.4.0, and Stratos Global was notified a year ago. But Inmarsat won’t fix them, and has discontinued the 8.0 version of the platform in June 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Critical Flaws In Maritime Communications System Could Endanger Entire Ships
An anonymous reader shares a report: The battle in the red-hot co-working space business is heating up. WeWork, the No. 1 player in the sector, allegedly sent two spies to infiltrate rival Knotel — to steal info and some customers, Knotel claimed. The spies showed up at seven Knotel properties in Manhattan last month in a “systematic attempt to pilfer Knotel’s proprietary information and trade secrets, ” according to a cease-and-desist letter the smaller company sent to WeWork. The Post has obtained a copy of the letter. The corporate espionage rookies may have pulled off the caper except, in a totally random happening, a Knotel employee recognized one of them as a friend of a friend, according to sources close to Knotel. While the pair used fake names to gain entry, according to the letter, a call to the Knotel worker’s pal got the spy’s real name — and a couple of social media inquiries turned up the fact that he worked for rival WeWork, sources said. The letter to WeWork asks for a reply by Oct. 13 — but so far Knotel hasn’t heard a peep from its rival, according to CEO Amol Sarva. While inside the Knotel offices, visited Sept. 12-14, the luckless spies posed “as the founders of a fast-growing startup” and said they needed space for their six-person company, according to the letter. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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WeWork Employees Caught Spying on Competition
An anonymous reader writes: Since mid-September, a new IoT botnet has grown to massive proportions. Codenamed IoT_reaper, researchers estimate its current size at nearly two million infected devices. According to researchers, the botnet is mainly made up of IP-based security cameras, routers, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, network video recorders (NVRs), and digital video recorders (DVRs), primarily from vendors such as Netgear, D-Link, Linksys, GoAhead, JAWS, Vacron, AVTECH, MicroTik, TP-Link, and Synology. The botnet reuses some Mirai source code, but it’s unique in its own right. Unlike Mirai, which relied on scanning for devices with weak or default passwords, this botnet was put together using exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities. The botnet’s author is still struggling to control his botnet, as researchers spotted over two million infected devices sitting in the botnet’s C&C servers’ queue, waiting to be processed. As of now, the botnet has not been used in live DDoS attacks, but the capability is in there. Today is the one-year anniversary of the Dyn DDoS attack, the article points out, adding that “This week both the FBI and Europol warned about the dangers of leaving Internet of Things devices exposed online.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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2 Million IoT Devices Enslaved By Fast-Growing BotNet
theodp writes: The State of Arkansas will be handing out cash to high school students who pass an Advanced Placement test in computer science. “The purpose of the incentive program is to increase the number of qualifying scores (3, 4, or 5) on Advanced Placement Computer Science A exams, ” explained a press release for the Arkansas Advanced Placement Computer Science A Incentive Program (only 87 Arkansas public school students passed the AP CS A exam in 2016, according to College Board data). Gov. Asa Hutchinson added, “The Arkansas Department of Education’s incentive for high scores on the AP Computer Science A exam is a terrific way to reward our students for their hard work in school. The real payoff for their hard work, of course, is when they show their excellent transcripts to potential employers who offer good salaries for their skills.” The tiered monetary awards call for public school students receiving a top score of 5 on the AP CS A exam to receive $1, 000, with another $250 going to their schools. Scores of 4 will earn students $750 and schools $150, while a score of 3 will result in a $250 payday for students and $50 for their schools. The program evokes memories of the College Board’s Google-funded AP STEM Access program, which rewarded AP STEM teachers with a $100 DonorsChoose.org gift card for each student who received a 3, 4, or 5 on an AP exam. DonorsChoose.org credits were also offered later by tech-bankrolled Code.org and Google to teachers who got their students coding. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Arkansas Will Pay Up To $1,000 Cash To Kids Who Pass AP Computer Science A Exam
schwit1 writes: Kobe Steel, a major Japanese supplier of steel and other metals worldwide, has admitted that it faked the specifications to metals shipped to hundreds of companies over the past decade.Last week, Kobe Steel admitted that staff fudged reports on the strength and durability of products requested by its clients — including those from the airline industry, cars, space rockets, and Japan’s bullet trains. The company estimated that four percent of aluminum and copper products shipped from September 2016 to August 2017 were falsely labelled, Automotive News reported. But on Friday, the company’s CEO, Hiroya Kawasaki, revealed the scandal has impacted about 500 companies — doubling the initial count — and now includes steel products, too. The practice of falsely labeling data to meet customer’s specifications could date back more than 10 years, according to the Financial Times.For rockets the concern is less serious as they generally are not built for a long lifespan, but for airplanes and cars this news could be devastating, requiring major rebuilds on many operating vehicles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Japanese Metal Manufacturer Faked Specifications To Hundreds of Companies
New submitter Zorro shares a report: Scientists have fantasised for centuries about humans colonising the moon. That day may have drawn a little closer after Japan’s space agency said it had discovered an enormous cave beneath the lunar surface that could be turned into an exploration base for astronauts. The discovery, by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe, comes as several countries vie to follow the US in sending manned missions to the moon. Using a radar sounder system that can examine underground structures, the orbiter initially found an opening 50 metres wide and 50 metres deep, prompting speculation that there could be a larger hollow. This week scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) confirmed the presence of a cave after examining the hole using radio waves. The chasm, 50km (31 miles) long and 100 metres wide, appears to be structurally sound and its rocks may contain ice or water deposits that could be turned into fuel, according to data sent back by the orbiter, nicknamed Kaguya after the moon princess in a Japanese fairytale. Jaxa believes the cave, located from a few dozen metres to 200 metres beneath an area of volcanic domes known as the Marius Hills on the moon’s near side, is a lava tube created during volcanic activity about 3.5bn years ago. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Discovery of 50km Cave Raises Hopes For Human Colonisation of Moon