Tag: user agreement

Optical transistor switches states by trapping a single photon

NIST Optical connections are slowly replacing wires as a means of shuffling bits in between systems—there are already plans afoot to have different components within a single system communicate via an optical connection. But, so far at least, all the processing of those bits is taking place using electrons. Yesterday’s edition of Science includes a demonstration of an all-optical transistor that can be switched between its on and off states using a single photon. Although it’s an impressive demonstration of physics, the work also indicates that we’re likely to stick with electrons for a while, given that the transistor required two lasers and a cloud of a cold atomic gas. The work relied on a cold gas of cesium atoms. These atoms have an extremely convenient property: two closely separated ground states, each with a corresponding excited state. All of these states are separated by an energy that corresponds to a specific wavelength of light, so using a laser of that wavelength allows you to shift the system into a different state. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read More:
Optical transistor switches states by trapping a single photon

Mass-login attack on Nintendo fan site hijacks 24,000 accounts

Almost 24, 000 user accounts on Nintendo’s main fan site have been hijacked in a sustained mass-login attack that began early last month, the company said. The wave of attacks on Club Nintendo exposed personal information associated with 23, 926 compromised accounts, including users’ real names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, according to a press release Nintendo issued over the weekend. The campaign began on June 9 and attempted more than 15.5 million logins over the following month. Attackers likely relied on a list of login credentials taken from a site unrelated to Nintendo. Club Nintendo offers rewards to Nintendo customers in exchange for having them register their products, answer surveys, and provide personal data. The site operates internationally and has about four million users in Japan, the primary region of most affected users. Things came to a head on July 2, when the wave of logins crested. By Friday, July 5, Nintendo had reset passwords on the site. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View the original here:
Mass-login attack on Nintendo fan site hijacks 24,000 accounts

Windows 8 vaults past Vista, IE10 continues to surge

Net Market Share Windows 8 passed a milestone of sorts in June, passing Windows Vista’s market share to become the third-most used version of Windows on the Internet. Internet Explorer 10 continued to show strong growth too, fueled this time by automatic updating. Google Chrome put in a strong performance, offsetting losses made earlier in the year. Its growth was to the detriment of Mozilla’s Firefox, which fell significantly. Net Market Share Net Market Share Microsoft’s browser made a slight gain, up 0.16 points to 56.15 percent (a two year high). Firefox was down 1.48 points to 19.15 percent—the lowest share the open source browser has seen for more than two years. Chrome rose 1.43 points to a 17.17 percent share. Safari was more or less unchanged, up 0.09 points to 5.55 percent. Opera lost 0.19 points for a share of 1.58 percent, a level not seen since August last year. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See original article:
Windows 8 vaults past Vista, IE10 continues to surge

Password complexity rules more annoying, less effective than lengthy ones

Few Internet frustrations are so familiar as the password restriction . After creating a few (dozen) logins for all our Web presences, the use of symbols, mixed cases, and numbers seems less like a security measure and more like a torture device when it comes to remembering a complex password on a little-used site. But at least that variety of characters keeps you safe, right? As it turns out, there is some contrary research that supports both how frustrating these restrictions are and suggests it’s possible that the positive effect of complexity rules on security may not be as great as long length requirements. Let’s preface this with a reminder: the conventional wisdom is that complexity trumps length every time, and this notion is overwhelmingly true. Every security expert will tell you that “Supercalifragilistic” is less secure than “gj7B!!!bhrdc.” Few password creation schemes will render any password uncrackable, but in general, length does less to guard against crackability than complexity. A password is not immune from cracking simply by virtue of being long—44,991 passwords recovered from a dump of LinkedIn hashes last year were 16 characters or more. The research we describe below refers specifically to the effects of restrictions placed by administrators on password construction on their crackability. By no means does it suggest that a long password is, by default, more secure than a complex one. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Continue reading here:
Password complexity rules more annoying, less effective than lengthy ones

Attackers sign malware using crypto certificate stolen from Opera Software

Alan Cleaver Hackers penetrated network servers belonging to Opera Software, stole at least one digital certificate, and then used it to distribute malware that incorrectly appeared to be published by the browser maker. The attack was uncovered, halted, and contained on June 19, according to a short advisory  that Opera published Wednesday morning. While administrators have cleaned the system and have yet to find any evidence of any user data being compromised, the breach still had some troubling consequences. “The attackers were able to obtain at least one old and expired Opera code signing certificate, which they have used to sign some malware,” Wednesday’s advisory stated. “This has allowed them to distribute malicious software which incorrectly appears to have been published by Opera Software or appears to be the Opera browser. It is possible that a few thousand Windows users, who were using Opera between June 19 from 1.00 and 1.36 UTC , may automatically have received and installed the malicious software.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Attackers sign malware using crypto certificate stolen from Opera Software

Kim Dotcom says Dutch firm deleted “at least 40 petabytes” of Megaupload data

Kim Dotcom (right) shares a lighthearted moment with colleague Finn Batato. Chris Keall A week ago, we reported that Kim Dotcom publicly accused LeaseWeb, a Dutch hosting company, of suddenly deleting all of Megaupload’s servers. The founder of Megaupload continues to fight legal battles worldwide concerning the shuttering of his file-sharing site. And he  wrote on Twitter that “all user data & crucial evidence for our defense [was] destroyed ‘without warning.’” LeaseWeb, for its part, defended its actions. On Wednesday, TorrentFreak published a new e-mail from Dotcom’s attorney to LeaseWeb, showing that Megaupload did request preservation of all of its data. “Megaupload continues to request that LeaseWeb preserve any and all information, documentation, and data related to Megaupload—as destruction by LeaseWeb would appear to be in violation of amongst other things the applicable civil litigation data preservation rules and would interfere with evidence in a criminal matter all of which may subject LeaseWeb to varying degrees of liability,” Ira Rothken, Dotcom’s counsel, wrote. The passage appeared in an e-mail to LeaseWeb’s lawyer, A.H. “Bram” de Haas van Dorsser, in March 2012. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See original article:
Kim Dotcom says Dutch firm deleted “at least 40 petabytes” of Megaupload data

Vast majority of malware attacks spawned from legit sites

Google The vast majority of sites that push malware on their visitors are legitimate online services that have been hacked as opposed to those hosted by attackers for the purposes of distributing malicious software, Google security researchers said Tuesday. The data, included for the first time as part of the safe browsing section of Google’s regular transparency report, further challenges the myth that malware attacks happen only on disreputable sites, such as those that peddle porn, illicit software (“warez”), and similar content. For instance, on June 9 only 3,891 of the sites Google blocked as part of its Safe Browsing program were dedicated malware sites, while the remaining 39,247 sites that were filtered offered legitimate services that had been compromised. In all, Google blocks about 10,000 sites per day as part of the program, which is designed to help people using Firefox, Chrome, and other participating browsers to steer clear of phishing scams and drive-by malware attacks. The program is also designed to inform webmasters of infections hitting their site and to take steps to fix the problems. In all, the Safe Browsing program helps protect about 1 billion people per day. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View article:
Vast majority of malware attacks spawned from legit sites

OS X is holding back the 2013 MacBook Air’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi speeds

Apple’s 2013 MacBook Air and new Airport Extreme Base Station are the company’s first 802.11ac products, and there are some bugs that need to be worked out. Apple Apple’s 2013 MacBook Air doesn’t look like much of an upgrade from the outside, but the story is different on the inside. We’ve spent the better part of a week using the new Air and measuring just how Intel’s new Haswell processors , the PCI Express-based SSD , and the 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter change the laptop compared to last year’s model. The new Wi-Fi chip was the change that I was the most eager to get my hands on. I’m always looking to boost my network speeds, but I’ve been waiting for hardware based on the new 802.11ac standard to become more widely available before upgrading everything on my network. Reviewing both the new Air and Apple’s new 802.11ac-capable Airport Express Base Station simultaneously would give me a chance to see just how close the lauded “Gigabit Wi-Fi” would come to fulfilling its promises. I was unpleasantly surprised by the results. Both the 2012 and 2013 MacBook Airs use four antennas to transmit data—two to send data and two to receive it. Each set of antennas can theoretically send and receive 150Mbps (or 18.75MBps) using 5GHz 802.11n for a total of 300Mbps (37.5MBps). Under 802.11ac, the size of each stream is increased to 433Mbps, making for a maximum theoretical link speed of 866Mbps (108.25MBps) in the 2013 MacBook Air. Actual network transfer speeds rarely (if ever) come within spitting distance of these theoretical maximums, but we would at least expect the actual 802.11ac transfer speeds to increase by a similar percentage compared to 802.11n. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
OS X is holding back the 2013 MacBook Air’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi speeds

Stow it no more: FAA easing ban on electronics during takeoff, landing

The words “please stow all electronic devices” may soon disappear from the scripts of flight attendants. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is poised to lift its ban on the use of electronic devices aboard airline flights at elevations under 10,000 feet. It would also allow the use of e-readers, iPods, tablets, and phones in “airplane” mode even during take-offs and landings. The Wall Street Journal reports that the FAA is circulating a draft set of recommendations from an advisory panel that recommends relaxing the bans. Cell phone calls during flight would still be banned. T he report acknowledges that technology has changed dramatically since the FAA originally placed the ban on electronic devices during takeoff and landing back in the 1960s, when there were valid concerns about interference to aircraft communications from personal radios and other electronics.  The panel also admitted that having airlines each evaluate the safety of individual electronic devices before allowing them to be left on at low altitude “has become untenable.” Passengers are widely ignoring the ban already, and the FAA advisory panel’s report cited research that showed a third of airline passengers had “accidentally” left a device turned on for entire flights at least once. An FAA spokeswoman sent a statement to the Wall Street Journal that said that the FAA “recognizes consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics aboard aircraft. That is why we tasked a government-industry group to examine the safety issues and the feasibility of changing the current restrictions. At the group’s request, the FAA has granted the two-month extension to complete the additional work necessary for the safety assessment.” Read on Ars Technica | Comments

View article:
Stow it no more: FAA easing ban on electronics during takeoff, landing