IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (Slashdot Stories) 22/09/2010

Thursday, September 23, 2010

IT News HeadLines (Slashdot Stories) 22/09/2010

Introducing the Invulnerable Evercookie
An anonymous reader writes "Using eight different techniques and locations, a 'security' guy has developed a cookie that is very, very hard to delete. If just one copy of the cookie remains, the other locations are rebuilt. My favorite storage location is in 'RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out' — awesome."

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Newspaper May Have Given Implicit License To Copy
An anonymous reader writes "Following up on the story of Righthaven, the 'copyright troll' that is working with the Las Vegas Journal Review to sue lots of websites (including one of Nevada's Senate candidates) for reposting articles from the LVRJ, a judge in one of the cases appears to be quite sympathetic to the argument that the LVRJ offered an 'implied license' to copy by not just putting their content online for free, but including tools on every story that say 'share this' with links to various sharing services (including one tool to 'share' via Slashdot!)."

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Australian Schools Go iPad-Crazy
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like it's not just Apple fanboys that are going wild for the iPad: in Australia, virtually every state education department is trialling the tablet in schools — and some schools are even trialling it without the official support of their department. One university in Adelaide has even abolished textbooks for first year science students and is allocating free iPads to first year students instead. It will be interesting to see what happens when the inevitable wave of Android tablets hits over the next six months."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interpol Chief's Identity Spoofed On Facebook
An anonymous reader writes "Ronald Noble, Interpol's Secretary General, has revealed that cybercriminals have opened two fake Facebook accounts using his name and used them to gather sensitive information. 'One of the impersonators was using this profile to obtain information on fugitives targeted during our recent Operation Infra Red,' Noble said. 'This Operation was bringing investigators from 29 member countries at the Interpol General Secretariat to exchange information on international fugitives and lead to more than 130 arrests in 32 countries.'"

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Elo Chess Rating System Topped By Proposed Replacements
databuff writes "About six weeks ago, Slashdot reported a competition to find a chess rating algorithm that performed better than the official Elo rating system. The competition has just reached the halfway mark and the best entries have outperformed Elo by over 8 per cent. The leader is a Portrugese physicist, followed by an Israeli mathematician and then a pair of American computer scientists."

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AT&T Introduces Satellite-Enabled Smart Phone
crimeandpunishment writes "Here's one way to deal with spotty cell phone coverage: backstop the network on a satellite. AT&T is now selling its first satellite-enabled smart phone....which could be invaluable for boaters, forest rangers, and others who regularly leave regular cellular coverage areas. But the TerreStar Genus comes with a hefty price tag: $799.....and the data costs are as sky-high as the satellite....400 times more than a standard plan. It also has to have a clear view of the southern sky, which means it can only be used outdoors."

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MPAA Asks If ACTA Can Be Used To Block Wikileaks
An anonymous reader writes "With the entertainment industry already getting laws to block certain sites, it appears they're interested in expanding that even further. The latest is that at a meeting with ACTA negotiators in Mexico, an MPAA representative apparently asked if ACTA rules could be used to force ISPs to block 'dangerous sites' like Wikileaks. It makes you wonder why the MPAA wants to censor Wikileaks (and why it wants to use ACTA to do so). But, the guess is that if it can use Wikileaks as a proxy for including rules to block websites, how long will it be until other 'dangerous' sites, such as Torrent search engines, are included." Note: TechDirt typically has insightful commentary, but make of the original (Spanish) twiiter message what you will.

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The Surprising Statistics Behind Flash and Apple
Barence writes "PC Pro's Tom Arah has dug up some statistics that cast severe doubt over Steve Jobs' assertion that Flash is the technology of the past, and Apple's iOS is the platform of the future. He quibbles with Net Applications' assertion that iOS growth is 'massive,' considering that mobile accounts for only 2.6% of web views, and the iOS share stands at only 1.1%. By comparison, Silverlight penetration now stands at 51% while 97% of web surfers have Flash installed, according to Stat Owl. 'At least when Bill Gates held the web to ransom he had the decency to first establish a dominant position,' Arah claims. 'In Steve Jobs' case, with only 1.1% market share, the would-be emperor isn't even wearing any clothes.'"

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Orion Spacecraft On the Path To Future Flight
gilgsn writes "Preparations for Orion's first mission in 2013 are well under way as a Lockheed Martin-led crew begins lean assembly pathfinding operations for the spacecraft. The crew is conducting simulated manufacturing and assembly operations with a full-scale Orion mockup to verify the tools, processes and spacecraft integration procedures work as expected."

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Google Publishes Censorship Map
Entropy98 writes "Google has released a censorship map showing how often countries around the world request user information and censor services such as Youtube. The US government asked Google for user information 4,287 times during the first six months of 2010. Information on China is conspicuously absent."

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LHC Spies Hints of Infant Universe
techbeat writes "The big bang machine may already be living up to its nickname, writes New Scientist. Researchers on the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, have seen hints of what may be the hot, dense state of matter thought to have filled the universe in its first nanoseconds."

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Twitter Suffers Web Interface Exploit
HaloZero writes "We're seeing lots of re-tweets on Twitter.com right now, all containing a fragment of JavaScript, which re-tweets itself when moused-over on the Twitter web interface. This could easily be muted into a more sinister attack, so it is recommended that you use a third party client application, or refrain from social media altogether until the problem is resolved."

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Twitter Closes Hole After Attack Hits Up To 500K Users
chicksdaddy writes "Twitter closed an ugly cross site scripting hole in its Web page Tuesday morning, but not until a fast moving attack, including at least two Twitter worms, compromised hundreds of thousands of user accounts. At its height, the attacks were hitting 100 Twitter users each second, putting estimates of the total number of victims at around 500,000 according to researchers at Kaspersky Lab."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Preps Instant Search For Chrome 8
An anonymous reader writes "Google is apparently playing with a nifty integration of instant search inside of its Chrome browser. Typing in the URL bar will automatically bring up a search page, while URLs apparently can be completed much faster as well. It seems as if Google isn't running out of ideas for its browser anytime soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Canonical Designer Demos Ubuntu Context-Aware UI
Blacklaw writes "Canonical's Christian Giordano has posted details of what he believes could be the future of user interface design in Ubuntu — a system that detects physical context. Designed to be paired with a webcam or other sensor system, the concept is that the computer is able to detect where a user is in proximity to the display along with an idea of roughly what he or she might be doing. Using this information, the operating system — in this case, Ubuntu Linux — can automatically make changes to the screen layout. For example, when the system detects that the user has leaned back in his or her chair, the system automatically makes the currently playing video full-screen. Lean forward again, and the video returns to its previous windowed mode."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hunters Shot Down Google Fiber
aesoteric writes "Google has revealed that aerial fiber links to its data center in Oregon were 'regularly' shot down by hunters, forcing the company to put its cables underground. Hunters were reportedly trying to hit insulators on electricity distribution poles, which also hosted aerially-deployed fiber connected to Google's $600 million data center in The Dalles. 'I have yet to see them actually hit the insulator, but they regularly shoot down the fiber,' Google's network engineering manager Vijay Gill told a conference in Australia. 'Every November when hunting season starts invariably we know that the fiber will be shot down, so much so that we are now building an underground path [for it].'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The A-Team of IT — and How To Assemble One
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers insights into building a crack special ops team ready to tackle the toughest IT assignments. From Air Support (think: the guy who shares a cigarette break with the CFO), to Infrastructure Sherpas, to Über Hackers (Mohawk optional), each of the seven essential members of your IT A-Team must bring his or her special blend of expertise, connections, and temperament to ensure the success of mission-critical assignments. 'Remember, there is no Plan B.'"

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First Reviews of Civilization V
An anonymous reader submitted linkage to a story explaining why Hemos has been twitching for a week in anticipation: "Defying the urge to phone-in an unambitious sequel and coast on past successes, Sid Meier's Civilization V is anything but a lazy rehash. It feels almost as if someone described the concept of the renowned 19-year-old turn-based strategy series to a talented designer who'd never played it, and let him come up with his own version. It's similar enough to be familiar to veterans, different enough to be fresh, and its polish and accessibility make it a great place for new players to pick up one hell of a Civ addiction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTube Videos On Display At the Guggenheim
crimeandpunishment writes "Move over Picasso....here comes 'Charlie bit me.' 125 YouTube videos are now on display at Guggenheim museums around the world. The videos, chosen from more than 23,000 submissions, are part of an exhibit called 'YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video', featuring both well-known YouTube hits and barely-seen works by students. This group of videos will be narrowed down to about 20 entries, which will be featured at the Guggenheim in New York next month." We ran a story about this in June when museum officials started accepting submissions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DX11 Coming To Linux (But Not XP)
gr8_phk writes "As reported over at Phoronix, the Direct X 11 API now has an open source implementation on top of Gallium3d which should ease porting of games to Linux with or without Wine. While still in its infancy, you can see where this is heading. All this while Microsoft hasn't offered DX11 for their own aging WindowsXP. Could it be that Linux may soon support this Microsoft API better than Microsoft itself?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stuxnet Worm May Have Targeted Iranian Reactor
yuna49 writes "Analysis of the Stuxnet worm suggests its target might have been Iran's nuclear program. "Last week Ralph Langner, a well-respected expert on industrial systems security, published an analysis of the Stuxnet worm, which targets Siemens software systems, and suggested that it may have been used to sabotage Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor. A Siemens expert, Langner simulated a Siemens industrial network and then analyzed the worm's attack. Experts had first thought that Stuxnet was written to steal industrial secrets, but Langner found something quite different. The worm actually looks for very specific Siemens settings — a kind of fingerprint that tells it that it has been installed on a very specific Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) device — and then it injects its own code into that system."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Steve Wiebe is the King of Kong Again
Anyone who watched 'The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters' knows the epic struggle for global Kong dominance waged by Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell. Wiebe took back the crown by scoring 1,064,500-points which was officially verified. And if you haven't seen the movie, go watch it. You won't be sorry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Real Truth About Oracle's 'New' Kernel
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday at OpenWorld, Oracle announced a 'new' Enterprise kernel for its so-called Unbreakable Linux. What's the real truth? The company is simply sticking a 2.6.32-based kernel on top of its re-branded Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone and trying to spin it as a new and innovative development."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Real Truth About Oracle's "new" Kernel
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday at OpenWorld Oracle announced a 'new' Enterprise kernel for its so-called Unbreakable Linux. What's the real truth? The company is simply sticking a 2.6.32-based kernel on top of its re-branded Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone and trying to spin it as a new and innovative development."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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