Tag: wired

In surveillance era, clever trick enhances secrecy of iPhone text messages

Creative Heroes A security researcher has developed a technique that could significantly improve the secrecy of text messages sent in near real time on iPhones. The technique, which will debut in September in an iOS app called TextSecure, will also be folded into a currently available Android app by the same name. The cryptographic property known as perfect forward secrecy has always been considered important by privacy advocates, but it has taken on new urgency following the recent revelations of widespread surveillance of Americans by the National Security Agency. Rather than use the same key to encrypt multiple messages—the way, say PGP- and S/MIME-protected e-mail programs do—applications that offer perfect forward secrecy generate ephemeral keys on the fly . In the case of some apps, including the OTR protocol for encrypting instant messages , each individual message within a session is encrypted with a different key. The use of multiple keys makes eavesdropping much harder. Even if the snoop manages to collect years worth of someone’s encrypted messages, he would have to crack hundreds or possibly hundreds of thousands of keys to transform the data into the “plaintext” that a human could make sense of. What’s more, even if the attacker obtains or otherwise compromises the computer that his target used to send the encrypted messages, it won’t be of much help if the target has deleted the messages. Since the keys used in perfect forward secrecy are ephemeral, they aren’t stored on the device. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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In surveillance era, clever trick enhances secrecy of iPhone text messages

After “technical glitch” halts Nasdaq for hours, trading finally resumes

Trading was halted on the Nasdaq stock market for a few hours on Thursday after what was described as a “technical glitch.” No other detailed technical information has been released other than that the snafu involved a problem with the “quote dissemination system” and a “data feed issue.” The exchange , on which many major tech stocks are traded, re-opened  later in the afternoon. As the modern stock market operates almost entirely by computer and happens with crazy-fast speed, this problem is troubling, particularly when there have been a few major technological problems in recent years. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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After “technical glitch” halts Nasdaq for hours, trading finally resumes

Get 4K video from your phone’s USB port with the new MHL 3.0 spec

Simultaneous charging is one of MHL’s advantages over Slimport and Miracast. MHL Consortium The Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) standard already lets you connect certain phones, tablets, and other devices to your TV using adapters that connect to the devices’ micro-USB ports. But the consortium has just announced that an upgrade is coming: the new MHL 3.0 standard adds support for 4K displays. This will allow mobile devices that support the standard to output 3840×2160 (also known as 2160p) video at up to 30 frames per second, an upgrade from MHL 2.0’s 1080p. The updated standard can transmit data and video simultaneously, and a device connected via MHL can draw up to 10 watts of power to charge your device. Backward compatibility with MHL versions 1.x and 2.x, HDCP 2.2 DRM support, and 7.1 channel surround sound support are also part of the standard. The MHL standard competes with a few standards (as well as Apple’s proprietary AirPlay), all of which are designed to put your phone or tablet’s display up on your TV. There’s SlimPort (used most prominently in Google’s Nexus 4 and 2013 Nexus 7), a DisplayPort-compatible spec which like MHL uses the micro USB port to connect over HDMI. There’s also Miracast, an Airplay-like standard that uses a Wi-Fi-equipped receiver to beam video to your TV without the use of cables (Miracast support was baked into Android beginning in version 4.2 , but it’s also included in a smattering of other devices). Neither standard supports 4K video at this point, making MHL 3.0 slightly more appealing for those on the bleeding edge of TV technology. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Get 4K video from your phone’s USB port with the new MHL 3.0 spec

Hyperloop—a theoretical, 760 mph transit system made of sun, air, and magnets

Concept sketches of the Hyperloop passenger capsules; note the air intake noses. Tesla Motors The proposed design for the “Hyperloop, ” an ultra-fast transit system that would run between San Francisco and Los Angeles, was revealed today on Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors website. Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, describes a system that moves pods under low pressure through a tube between the two cities following the I-5 freeway, all within a 56-page PDF document . The Hyperloop would consist of aluminum pods inside a set of two steel tubes, one for each direction of travel. These are connected at each terminus. The tubes would be positioned on top of pylons spaced 100 feet apart holding the tube 20 feet in the air, and the tube would be covered by solar arrays to generate its own power. Inside the tubes, the pods would carry people up to 760 miles per hour. The pods would each carry 28 passengers, departing every two minutes from either location (or every 30 seconds at peak times). So each pod would have about 23 miles between each other while traversing the tube. The transport capacity would therefore be about 840 passengers per hour. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Hyperloop—a theoretical, 760 mph transit system made of sun, air, and magnets

Update: Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA

A search reveals the address used in an attack on Tor users’ privacy referenced an IP address belonging to the NSA, routed through SAIC. Malware planted on the servers of Freedom Hosting — the “hidden service” hosting provider on the Tor anonymized network brought down late last week—may have de-anonymized visitors to the sites running on that service. This issue could send identifying information about site visitors to an Internet Protocol address that was hard-coded into the script the malware injected into browsers. And it appears the IP address in question belongs to the National Security Agency (NSA). This revelation comes from analysis done collaboratively by Baneki Privacy Labs , a collective of Internet security researchers, and VPN provider Cryptocloud . When the IP address was uncovered in the JavaScript exploit —which specifically targets Firefox Long-Term Support version 17, the version included in Tor Browser Bundle—a source at Baneki told Ars that he and others reached out to the malware and security community to help identify the source. The exploit attacked a vulnerability in the Windows version of the Firefox Extended Support Release  17 browser —the one used previously in the Tor Project’s Tor Browser Bundle (TBB).  That vulnerability had been patched by Mozilla in June, and the updated browser is now part of TBB. But the TBB configuration of Firefox doesn’t include automatic security updates, so users of the bundle would not have been protected if they had not recently upgraded. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Update: Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA

Simple technique puts graphene capacitors on par with lead-acid battery

If the bottom is a layer of graphene in a super capacitor, then storage can be increased by making the solution above it as low-volume as possible. Lawrence Livermore National Lab Individual pieces of graphene have some pretty amazing properties, but finding a way to produce bulk materials that make good use of those properties has been rather challenging. Now, researchers have figured out a way to make graphene-based electrodes in bulk through a process so simple that it can be adapted to the manufacturing techniques that we currently use to make paper. And the resulting capacitors, at least in these test cases, had storage capacities that approached those of lead-acid batteries. Those of us who have taken basic physics tend to think of capacitors as two parallel, charge-holding plates, since that’s how they’re taught. But electrochemical capacitors perform a similar trick on a much smaller scale, by having the charges held by individual ions that absorb to an electrode. To boost capacity, the simplest thing to do is to increase the surface area for the ions to interact with. That’s why graphene seems so appealing; since it’s only a single atom thick, it should be possible to stick a tremendous amount of surface into a relatively small volume. The problem, however, has been getting the ions into the graphene itself in order for them to interact. Once the graphene is prepared, lots of factors like pore size and inter-sheet spacing come into play, since these control how quickly ions can get into the graphene. A team at Australia’s Monash University came up with an easy solution to this: put the ions in place during the manufacturing process. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Simple technique puts graphene capacitors on par with lead-acid battery

Alleged Tor hidden service operator busted for child porn distribution

Catherine Scott On Friday, Eric Eoin Marques, a 28 year-old Dublin resident, was arrested on a warrant from the US on charges that he is, in the words of a FBI agent to an Irish court , “the largest facilitator of child porn on the planet.” The arrest coincides with the disappearance of a vast number of ” hidden services ” hosted on Tor, the anonymizing encrypted network. Marques is alleged to be the founder of Freedom Hosting, a major hidden services hosting provider. While Marques’ connection to Freedom Hosting was not brought up in court, he has been widely connected to the service—as well as the Tormail anonymized e-mail service and a Bitcoin exchange and escrow service called Onionbank—in discussions on Tor-based news and Wiki sites. All those services are now offline. And prior to disappearing, the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting were also distributing malware that may have been used to expose the users of those services. Tor hidden services are a lesser known part of the Tor “darknet.” They are anonymized Web sites, mail hosts, and other services which can only be reached by computers connected to Tor, or through a Tor hidden services proxy website, such as tor2web.org , and they have host names ending in .onion. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Alleged Tor hidden service operator busted for child porn distribution

University of California to allow open access to new academic papers

The University of California—an enormous institution that encompasses 10 campuses and over 8, 000 faculty members— introduced an Open Access Policy late last week. This policy grants the UC a license to its faculty’s work by default, and requires them to provide the UC with copy of their peer-reviewed papers on the paper’s publication date. The UC then posts the paper online to eScholarship , its open access publishing site, where the paper will be available to anyone, free of charge. Making the open access license automatic for its faculty leverages the power of the institution—which publishes over 40, 000 scholarly papers a year—against the power of publishers who would otherwise lock content behind a paywall. “It is much harder for individuals to negotiate these rights on an individual basis than to assert them collectively, ” writes the UC. “By making a blanket policy, individual faculty benefit from membership in the policy-making group, without suffering negative consequences. Faculty retain both the individual right to determine the fate of their work, and the benefit of making a collective commitment to open access.” Faculty members will be allowed to opt out of the scheme if necessary—if they have a prior contract with a journal, for example. Academic papers published in traditional journals before the enactment of this policy will not be made available on eScholarship at this time. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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University of California to allow open access to new academic papers

Older iPhones won’t be banned as Obama Administration vetoes ITC decision

On Saturday, the Obama Administration vetoed the International Trade Commission’s potential ban on a few models of older Apple phones and tablets. Samsung opened the case against Apple with the ITC in 2011, and the commission decided in June that Apple had, in fact, infringed upon a Samsung patent, US Patent No 7, 706, 348 . The decision garnered attention because the patent is considered essential to industry standards, meaning Samsung is required to license the patent (rather than sit on it, or refuse license it to some competitors). The ITC ended up recommending a ban be placed on the infringing products brought forward in the case, which included AT&T models of the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 3, iPad 3G, and iPad 2 3G. In June of 2013, Ars wrote  of the ITC’s ban: ”The decision can only be appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the nation’s top patent court. Theoretically, the President can also block an ITC-ordered import ban, but that hasn’t happened since the 1980s.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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Older iPhones won’t be banned as Obama Administration vetoes ITC decision

SkyDrive follows Metro into oblivion as Microsoft abandons trademark case

“How’s SkyDrive?” “Oh, SkyDrive… won’t see him no more.” Microsoft One month after a British court ruled that Microsoft’s SkyDrive infringed on a British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) Group trademark, Microsoft has decided not to appeal and will find a new name for its cloud storage service. A press release Microsoft provided to Ars today states that BSkyB and Microsoft have agreed to a “settlement of trade mark infringement proceedings in the European Union brought by Sky against Microsoft in the English High Court… According to the settlement, Microsoft will not pursue its planned appeal of this decision and Sky will allow Microsoft to continue using the SkyDrive name for a reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand. The agreement also contains financial and other terms, the details of which are confidential.” Microsoft said it would not provide any details beyond what’s in the press release, which also makes a vague reference to “joint projects” to benefit Microsoft and BSkyB customers. A new name for SkyDrive was not announced. The release does not specify whether the name change would occur in Europe only or worldwide, but it seems likely that Microsoft would want to have one name for the service in every region. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments        

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SkyDrive follows Metro into oblivion as Microsoft abandons trademark case