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Thunderbird “a tax” on Firefox development, and Mozilla wants to drop it

Mozilla would like to drop Thunderbird from its list of projects. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) You might know Mozilla primarily for its Firefox browser, but for many years the company has also developed an e-mail client called Thunderbird. The two projects use the same rendering engine and other underlying technology, but Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker has announced that Mozilla would like to stop supporting Thunderbird, calling its continuing maintenance “a tax” on the more important work of developing Firefox. “Many inside of Mozilla, including an overwhelming majority of our leadership, feel the need to be laser-focused on activities like Firefox that can have an industry-wide impact,” Baker writes. “With all due respect to Thunderbird and the Thunderbird community, we have been clear for years that we do not view Thunderbird as having this sort of potential.” Mozilla doesn’t plan to drop Thunderbird immediately, however—the current maintenance schedule will continue and Thunderbird users can continue to use the product. But the end goal for Mozilla, according to Baker, is to find “the right kind of legal and financial home” for the Thunderbird project, and “[separate] itself from reliance on Mozilla development systems and in some cases, Mozilla technology.” In other words, the company would like to give Thunderbird to people who will take care of it, freeing the Firefox team from having to worry about it. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Tesla Model X production starts in earnest, pricing revealed

(credit: Tesla) Several months ago we found out pricing for the fully loaded “Signature” edition Tesla Model X electric SUV. Now, we’ve got a better idea of what the cheapest Model X will set you back: $80,000 before any options and tax rebates or incentives. That’s for the 70D, which has all-wheel drive (a motor for each axle) and a 70kWh battery (pricing for the 90D and P90D haven’t been announced). That’s $5000 more than the equivalent Model S sedan , which hits 60mph a little quicker and has a slightly longer range than the SUV but not the same funky rear doors. The distinctive Falcon wing doors are Tesla’s approach to making an SUV with all the utility of a minivan; that was how Elon Musk described the design brief back in September. By opening up and out, they’re supposed to give better access to the rear seats while taking up less space than a traditional door. There are three different interior layouts. The base 70D is a five seater, but there’s also a six seat version (three rows of two) for an extra $3000 and seven seats are yours for $4500. Tesla released the pricing information for the 70D Model X at the same time it told customers with preorders that they can begin configuring their vehicles. Screenshots of the online configurator provided by Tesla to Ars state that Model X deliveries will begin in early 2016, starting with range-topping P90D orders. “Lesser” 90D Model Xs follow by mid-year, with 70D deliveries before 2017. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tesla Model X production starts in earnest, pricing revealed

TrueCrypt is safer than previously reported, detailed analysis concludes

(credit: Khürt Williams ) The TrueCrypt whole-disk encryption tool used by millions of privacy and security enthusiasts is safer than some studies have suggested, according to a comprehensive security analysis conducted by the prestigious Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology. The extremely detailed 77-page report comes five weeks after Google’s Project Zero security team disclosed two previously unknown TrueCrypt vulnerabilities . The most serious one allows an application running as a normal user or within a low-integrity security sandbox to elevate privileges to SYSTEM or even the kernel. The Fraunhofer researchers said they also uncovered several additional previously unknown TrueCrypt security bugs. Despite the vulnerabilities, the analysis concluded that TrueCrypt remains safe when used as a tool for encrypting data at rest as opposed to data stored in computer memory or on a mounted drive. The researchers said the vulnerabilities uncovered by Project Zero and in the Fraunhofer analysis should be fixed but that there’s no indication that they can be exploited to provide attackers access to encrypted data stored on an unmounted hard drive or thumb drive. According to a summary by Eric Bodden , the Technische Universität Darmstadt professor who led the Fraunhofer audit team: Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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TrueCrypt is safer than previously reported, detailed analysis concludes

FDA approves first GM food animal—Atlantic salmon

(credit: Artizone/Flickr ) After two decades of deliberation, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first ever genetically engineered food animal, a fast-growing Atlantic Salmon called AquAdvantage salmon. According the agency, which announced the approval Thursday , the modified salmon are safe to eat, equally nutritious as other salmon, and should pose no threat to the environment. First created in 1989 and submitted to the agency for approval in 1995, the Atlantic salmon are modified to carry a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon. That gene is further engineered to be under the control of a tiny bit of DNA, called a promoter, from the eel-like ocean pout fish. In general, DNA promoters are non-coding sequences that help control the expression level of a gene—how much protein product is synthesized from the gene. With the engineered promoter boosting hormone production, the modified salmon grow to market-size in about half the time of conventional Atlantic salmon. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FDA approves first GM food animal—Atlantic salmon

Chicago issued $2.4 million in bogus traffic tickets from speed cameras

The Chicago Tribune reported Wednesday as part of an exhaustive investigation that as many as 110,000 “questionable” speeding tickets totalling $2.4 million have been issued in the past two years in Chicago as part of a speed-camera program designed to keep kids safe near parks and schools. …City Hall has systematically ticketed drivers near schools without the legally required evidence of a schoolchild in sight. A Tribune random-sample analysis puts the number of those questionable tickets at about 110,000. And while it was pitched by the mayor as a way to protect youngsters walking near parks and schools, the most prolific cameras in the 2-year-old “Children’s Safety Zone” initiative can be found along major roadways, where crash data show child pedestrians are least likely to be struck by speeders. The lengthy report is worth a read. Among other things, the report found that Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s speed camera program issued 22,000 tickets for speeding near parks and another 11,000 tickets near parks that were closed for the night. What’s more, another 28,000 citations “were issued at cameras plagued by problems with warning signs that did not meet the minimum legal requirements.” And at least 62,000 tickets were given during the summer “when school activity is so limited that drivers are left to guess whether school is in session or not.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Chicago issued $2.4 million in bogus traffic tickets from speed cameras

Chrome to end support for Windows XP, Vista, and OS X 10.8 on April 2016

If you’re on an older operating system, your Chrome could stop getting updates in just a few months. Google’s official Chrome Blog announced it will be ending support for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 in April 2016. Browsers on those operating systems will continue to work, but they will stop getting updates from Google. For Windows XP, this is yet another stay of execution from Google, mirroring Microsoft’s continually extended support for the OS that just won’t die. Chrome support for XP was originally stated to end along with Microsoft’s in April 2014. Google then extended that to ” at least April 2015 ,” then all of 2015 , and now it’s going to hang around for the next five months. On the Mac side of things, Apple usually supports its three newest operating systems. So official support for 10.8 ended when 10.11 El Capitan was released, and 10.6 and 10.7 have long been put to rest by Apple. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Chrome to end support for Windows XP, Vista, and OS X 10.8 on April 2016

Microsoft considers blocking SHA-1 certificates after cost of collisions slashed

Microsoft may phase out support for TLS certificates that use the SHA-1 hashing algorithm as early as June 2016 . The decision comes in the wake of recent calculations that suggest generating collisions is quicker and cheaper than previously anticipated. SHA-1 is a hash algorithm, used to derive a 128-bit value from an arbitrary input. Its intent is for collisions—different inputs that hash to the same 128-bit value—to be hard to generate. As compute power has steadily grown over the years, it becomes quicker and cheaper to generate collisions. It was previously projected by Bruce Schneier , based on the observed growth of compute power, that creating SHA-1 collisions would be within reach of criminals by 2018 at a cost of about $173,000. On this basis, Microsoft intended to cease supporting the use of new SSL/TLS certificates using SHA-1 on January 1, 2016 and all SHA-1 SSL/TLS certificates on January 1, 2017. The new cost and performance estimates, however, suggest that the cost is both drastically lower—$75,000 to $120,000—and that the compute resources are immediately available through cloud services such as Amazon EC2. This has given browser vendors little option but to reconsider the previous 2017 timetable for retiring support of SHA-1. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft considers blocking SHA-1 certificates after cost of collisions slashed

First-of-its-kind gene-edited cells treat baby’s leukemia

(credit: Sharon Lees/Great Ormond Street Hospital ) With genetic tweaks and snips, researchers created cancer-busting immune cells that, so far, seem to have wiped out a life-threatening form of leukemia in a one-year-old girl. The new cells are one-size-fits-all, beating out earlier cell-based cancer therapies that required custom engineering of each patient’s own immune cells. If proven effective in more trials, the new, generic cells could offer an easy, off-the-shelf treatment for life-threatening forms of leukemia. “It is something we’ve been waiting for,” said Stephan Grupp, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved with the research. Previous methods requiring engineering cells, specifically T cells, from every single patient could be slow, costly, and impossible in some patients with low T cell counts. “The innovation here is gene-editing T cells so that one person’s T cells could be given to another even if they are not a donor match,” he said in a statement. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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First-of-its-kind gene-edited cells treat baby’s leukemia

Google engineer leaves scathing reviews of dodgy USB Type-C cables on Amazon

(credit: Andrew Cunningham) One particularly conscientious Google engineer, Benson Leung, is currently on an unusual mission: he’s slowly working his way through a bunch of USB Type C cables and adaptors stocked by Amazon, to check whether they are actually up-to-spec and capable of charging his Chromebook Pixel. First things first: of the ten USB Type C products that Leung has reviewed, only three of them were fully specs-compliant and capable of charging his Pixel. The three good cables (Belkin, iOrange-E, Frieq) were invariably more expensive (about £15/$20) than the seven duff ones (£6/$10). Obviously there may be some cheap cables that do fulfil the full USB Type C specification, but Leung hasn’t found one yet. One of the offending micro-USB-to-Type-C adaptors that lacks the necessary hardware to comply with the Type C 1.1 spec. The USB Type C 1.1 specification allows for power delivery of up to 3A, which is enough juice to charge a laptop like the Chromebook Pixel. Previous USB specs, though, only allowed for power delivery of between 900mA and 1.5A. According to Leung, the problem is mostly related to how the cables deal with going from older Type A or Micro/Mini connectors to the new Type C connector. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google engineer leaves scathing reviews of dodgy USB Type-C cables on Amazon

vBulletin password hack fuels fears of serious Internet-wide 0-day attacks

Enlarge (credit: Coldzer0) Developers of the vBulletin software package for website forums released a security patch Monday night, just hours after reports surfaced that a hack on the developers’ site leaked password data and other sensitive information belonging to almost 480,000 subscribers. vBulletin officials have put in place a mandatory password reset for all users after discovering it was subjected to a hack attack. They went on to warn that the attacker “may have accessed customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our system.” A separate post on the vBulletin site makes reference to a security patch for versions 5.1.4 through 5.1.9 of the vBulletin Connect software package. Noticeably missing from either link is an explicit warning that there is a critical vulnerability in vBulletin that has already been actively exploited and puts thousands of sites at risk until they install the patch. Ars asked vBulletin officials to clarify the reports and to confirm or disconfirm the speculation they have generated, but so far the request has gone unanswered. This post contains inferences and information from alternative sources that has yet to be explicitly confirmed. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ken May

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