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Arthur T Knackerbracket feels vulnerable:

Attackers have started exploiting a flaw in the most widely used software for the DNS (Domain Name System), which translates domain names into IP addresses.

Last week, a patch was issued for the denial-of-service flaw, which affects all versions of BIND 9, open-source software originally developed by the University of California at Berkeley in the 1980s.

The flaw can be exploited with a single packet, crashing both authoritative and recursive DNS servers. Security analysts predicted that attackers would quickly figure out how to exploit the flaw, which has now happened.

"We can confirm that the attacks have begun," wrote Daniel Cid, CTO and founder of the security company Sucuri, in a blog post "DNS is one of the most critical parts of the Internet infrastructure, so having your DNS go down, it also means your email, HTTP and all other services will be unavailable."

There's no workaround for the flaw, so administrators need to patch to stop attacks. Major Linux distributions including Red Hat, CentOS and Ubuntu have issued patches, but it is still up to admins to apply it and restart their BIND servers.

Cid wrote via email that at least two of Sucuri's clients within different industries had seen their DNS servers crash due to attacks. Both are popular websites that had been hit by distributed denial-of-service attacks before, "so it made sense to see them being targeted first," he wrote Sunday.

A successful attack will leave a trace in server logs, Cid wrote. The command "ANY TKEY" should appear as long as admins have querylog enabled.

The patch and advisory from the Internet Systems Consortium is available here.

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AnonTechie writes:

Two years after physicists predicted that tin should be able to form a mesh just one atom thick, researchers say that they have made it. The thin film, called stanene, is reported on 3 August in Nature Materials. But researchers have not been able to confirm whether the material has the predicted exotic electronic properties that have excited theorists, such as being able to conduct electricity without generating any waste heat.

Stanene (from the Latin stannum meaning tin, which also gives the element its chemical symbol, Sn), is the latest cousin of graphene, the honeycomb lattice of carbon atoms that has spurred thousands of studies into related 2D materials. Those include sheets of silicene, made from silicon atoms; phosphorene, made from phosphorus; germanene, from germanium; and thin stacks of sheets that combine different kinds of chemical elements (see 'The super materials that could trump graphene').

http://www.nature.com/news/physicists-announce-graphene-s-latest-cousin-stanene-1.18113

[Related Reference]: 'The super materials that could trump graphene'

[Related Coverage]: Will 2-D tin be the next super material ?

[Abstract]: http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.136804

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Phoenix666 writes:

The number of people in the United States who use the Internet increased steadily from 2000 until 2012, when the percentage of offline adults fell to 15 percent. Since then, despite efforts by the government and social service organizations to encourage Americans to get online, that number hasn't budged, according to Pew.

Why are some Americans so reluctant to sign on? A third of those surveyed who aren't online (34 percent) said they don't think the Internet is relevant to their lives, or that they're simply not interested in what the Web has to offer. Another 32 percent of people who don't use the Internet said the technology required to access the Internet is just too tough to get the hang of, and 8 percent said they were "too old to learn."

But some people said they don't use the Internet because they cannot afford to do so, according to Pew. The survey data showed that 19 percent of those not online cited the expense of Internet service or owning a computer as their reason for staying offline.

Facebook and Google have been in the news recently because they want to get everyone online. What if those people don't want to?

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hubie writes:

Alan Stern, the Principal Investigator for the NASA New Horizons mission, wrote his last "Insider blog" post for Sky and Telescope that (briefly) summarizes the major scientific findings uncovered so far:

The flyby of Pluto and its system of moons by New Horizons is complete, but over 95% of the data from that reconnaissance is still aboard the spacecraft, awaiting downlink to Earth. Getting all those observations back will take some 16 months and won't complete until the fall of 2016. So expect many more images and spectra and, from those, many more discoveries in the months ahead. New Horizons is a gift that will keep on giving.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Who's forcing Marchionne and all the other major automakers to sell mostly money-losing electric vehicles? More than any other person, it's Mary Nichols. She's run the California Air Resources Board since 2007, championing the state's zero-emission-vehicle quotas and backing Pres­ident Barack Obama's national mandate to double average fuel economy to 55 miles per gallon by 2025. She was chairman of the state air regulator once before, a generation ago, and cleaning up the famously smoggy Los Angeles skies is just one accomplish­ment in a four-decade career.

Nichols really does intend to force au­tomakers to eventually sell nothing but electrics. In an interview in June at her agency's heavy-duty-truck laboratory in downtown Los Angeles, it becomes clear that Nichols, at age 70, is pushing regula­tions today that could by midcentury all but banish the internal combustion engine from California's famous highways. "If we're going to get our transportation system off petroleum," she says, "we've got to get people used to a zero-emissions world, not just a little-bit-better version of the world they have now."

We've seen campaigns to defend smoking and not wearing seatbelts and not getting vaccinated. Is this like that, or is there more to it?

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Arthur T Knackerbracket dons his gray hat and applies for a job:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is struggling to hire computer scientists, according to a Department of Justice audit of the feeb's attempts to implement its Next Generation Cyber Initiative.

A 34-page audit report (PDF) from the DoJ notes that, while making considerable progress, the FBI has "encountered challenges in attracting external participants to its established Cyber Task Forces".

[The audit] bemoaned how hiring and retaining qualified white hats remained a challenge for the FBI, especially when competing private-sector entities pay more and have less invasive recruitment processes. The FBI reportedly did not hire 52 of the 134 computer scientists for which it was authorised, meaning 38 per cent of the workforce it requires (as per budget) is simply not there. This additionally means that five of the FBI's 56 field offices do not have even a single computer scientist assigned to their Cyber Task Force.

Back in 2011, the Office of the Inspector General gave the FBI a thorough scolding over its inability to address America's cyber-intrusion threat, for which it has become the responsible national body. The Next Generation Cyber Initiative was launched in response, essentially as a platform for funding increases in the face of a swelling number of data breaches and cyber-attacks in recent years.

This is not the first mention of the FBI's difficulties in recruiting infosec professionals. Last year, the [FBI]'s director James Comey said the company was re-examining its drugs policy as too many applicants seemed to be enjoying a doobie en route to interview.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

In the name of national security, China is restricting export of certain drones and computers:

From August 15, manufacturers of certain powerful drones and computers will have to give technical details to the authorities to obtain a licence prior to export, Xinhua news agency says.

[...] In the first five months of 2015, China exported some 160,000 civilian drones, a jump of 70 per cent year-on-year, worth more than $120 million, the official China Daily newspaper reported in July.

[...] The tightening of regulations comes two weeks after an incident in disputed Kashmir in which the Pakistani army claimed to have shot down an Indian "spy drone", reportedly Chinese-made.

China is also likely tightening controls on exports of powerful computers as it looks to maintain its edge in the global supercomputer battle long dominated by US-Japanese rivalry.

Starting August 15th, drone and supercomputer manufacturers will have to present technical details to the authorities in order to get a license to export.

takyon: Intel Launches New Chips in China as US Bans Sales to Supercomputing Centers
U.S. Export Restrictions Lead to Chinese Homegrown Supercomputing Chips

Original Submission

basstard writes:

BBC writes that German carmakers Audi, BMW and Daimler are buying Nokia's "Here" maps business for €2.8bn (£2bn):

"High-precision digital maps are a crucial component of the mobility of the future," said Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of Daimler. The carmakers plan to use Here's technology to combine precise digital maps with real-time vehicle data more closely. "For the automotive industry, this is the basis for new assistance systems and ultimately fully autonomous driving," the automakers said in a statement.

The rival automakers each plan to hold an equal stake in Here. The company said vehicle manufacturers are sharing data to make real-time map updates a reality.

Perhaps it's also worth mentioning that Nokia bought Navteq in 2007 for €5.7bn.

takyon: Nokia Intends to Buy Alcatel-Lucent
BMW, Audi, and Mercedes Want to Buy Nokia's Here Mapping Group
Uber Acquires Mapping Assets and Employees From Microsoft/Bing

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The San Jose Mercury News reports that some boards of publicly traded companies in Silicon Valley appear to have become more sensitive to shareholder concerns about runaway CEO compensation, apparently in reaction to a provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010. Two of these provisions, which apply to publicly traded companies, are 1) "say on pay": a requirement that a non-binding shareholder vote approving or disapproving of the CEO's compensation, be held at least once every three years; and 2) "CEO pay multiple": a requirement that the firm disclose the ratio of total compensation of the CEO to that of the firm's median employee salary or wage.

It's important to realize that shareholder votes are based on one share, one vote (rather than one person, one vote); the big shareholders, which tend to be deep-pocketed institutions such as mutual funds and pension funds, dominate the proceedings.

Oracle, biotech company Gilead Sciences, and pharmaceutical distributor McKesson, were mentioned by Mercury News as examples of companies based in Silicon Valley whose CEOs have taken pay cuts in the last year. McKesson's CEO lost the non-binding shareholder vote after Glenn Gray, a warehouse worker who made $16/hr, stood up at the shareholder's meeting to contrast the CEO's compensation with those of rank-and-file workers struggling to make ends meet. Gray was subsequently fired, but his job was later reinstated under court order. He says he has no regrets about speaking out:

Recent "say on pay" shareholder votes at Salesforce and Yahoo! also attracted attention, but the dissidents opposing the CEO pay packages failed to win the majority of votes cast.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Now researchers from North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon University say they have hit upon a way to boost the efficiency of the energy transfer in that [wireless transfer] situation. They reported, in a paper published in the online edition of the journal IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, that by placing a magnetic resonance field enhancer (MRFE)—a loop of copper wire resonating at the same frequency as the AC current feeding the transmitter coil—between the transmitter and receiver coil, they could boost the transmission efficiency by at least 100 percent. "Our experimental results show double the efficiency using the MRFE in comparison to air alone," David Ricketts of NC State, said in a press release. The MRFE increases the strength of the magnetic field that reaches the receiver coil, resulting in an increase of the transmission efficiency.
...
For their experimental setup, the team used two coils of 4.25-centimeter- diameter copper wire with six turns for the transmitter and receiver coils. The coils were separated by 12.2 cm and the transmitter coil was powered with a 2.94-megahertz signal. They measured the transmission efficiency by placing a metamaterial between the transmitter and receiver coil and comparing it with a setup where a single, 12-cm-diameter copper-wire loop replaced the metamaterial. They found that the copper wire version improved the efficiency by a factor of almost two.

Does wireless charging solve any problems that an industry-adopted connector standard wouldn't?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket suggests the following from The Register:

Rackspace is leading an effort to create a new group of top-tier cloud companies that it hopes will share information about security in close to real time.

Rackspace chief security officer Brian Kelly today told The Reg at a Sydney event that he feels cloud companies have to take a lead to address security challenges. Rackspace, he said, operates a skunkworks in which it is considering approaches such as asking CPU-makers to add security functions to silicon in order to make dedicated security appliances less relevant. That effort, he said, has seen Rackspace hire two of three leaders of the US military's online operations squads because Rackspace wants that kind of expertise and experience on staff.

Another approach Kelly feels is necessary is for cloud leaders to come together to share information, so that when one detects an attack or a threat, the others are quickly made aware of it. All, it is hoped, will therefore be better positioned to combat emerging threats.

Kelly said Rackspace has developed a platform to monitor its own systems for attacks or emerging threats, and provide information on them at speed. The company hopes the new group will be willing to both consume that feed and contribute to it. Intel, Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are either on the target list or have already entered discussions about the group.

It's hoped the group will launch later this year.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found this article:

Satellites are essential to modern life. So essential, in fact, that plans have been drawn up on how to cope with a situation in which we could no longer rely on them. A UK government document entitled the Space Weather Preparedness Strategy may sound strange, but when so much of modern communications, transport and the financial system relies on satellites, you can imagine why one would want a Plan B in place.

The reality is that we depend on satellites in more ways than we realise. The concept was popularised in a 1945 letter to Wireless World written by science fiction writer and inventor Arthur C Clarke – and from then satellite services has grown into an industry worth US$100 billion a year.

This highlights the extent to which satellite services pervade modern life. A fleet of several hundred communications satellites encircles our planet in geosynchronous Earth-orbit, with hundreds more at lower altitudes. Rapid satellite communications enable the global markets underpinning our economy, and the emergency and defence services that keep society safe. Satellites provide GPS global navigation services for transport on land, sea and in the air. Modern agriculture, manufacturing and logistics chains, that supply virtually everything you consume – from the milk in your coffee to the screen you're reading this on – rely on information provided by satellites.

But you'd be forgiven for never noticing some of the subtle influences of satellite technology on your life. After all, who'd have thought that some trains use GPS data to control which doors open at platforms of different lengths? Or that banks uses high-precision timing of satellite navigation systems to time-stamp its financial transactions?

We could survive without satellites, but their influence and benefits are so widespread that it would require concerted effort and massive investment to do so. Which has led some to consider the risks satellites face, and what to do about them.

bradley13 writes:

Address exhaustion is finally about to make us all take IPv6 seriously.

I know the theory; heck, I've even taught the theory in networking courses. What I would like to find - and haven't - is a source of practical information for introducing IPv6 into a network. How should the firewall be set up? What does Apache need, to make a website IPv6 accessible? What about HTTPS? SSH? DNS? What are the security gotchas? Hands-on, practical stuff.

I've looked around for online courses - I've even completed one. Unfortunately, the information was pathetic; I'm not sure I actually learned anything useful. There must be good sources out there. Any Soylentils have recommendations?

Original Submission

SuperCharlie writes:

A sigh of relief has been heard across the Internet as behemoth Google has finally relented in it's ever intruding necessity to have a Google+ account from every service and function from signing up for Gmail to posting comments on YouTube.

From Slate to The Verge and everywhere in between there is dancing in the streets as Google finally got the message... no, not today Google, I don't want Plus. Plus will not be going away, it will become it's own property, left to stand on it's own, and unhooked from every Google service under the sun.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

In Dongguan City, located in the central Guangdong province of China, a technology company has set up a factory run almost exclusively by robots, and the results are fascinating.

The Changying Precision Technology Company factory in Dongguan has automated production lines that use robotic arms to produce parts for cell phones. The factory also has automated machining equipment, autonomous transport trucks, and other automated equipment in the warehouse.

There are still people working at the factory, though. Three workers check and monitor each production line and there are other employees who monitor a computer control system. Previously, there were 650 employees at the factory. With the new robots, there's now only 60. Luo Weiqiang, general manager of the company, told the People's Daily that the number of employees could drop to 20 in the future.

The robots have produced almost three times as many pieces as were produced before. According to the People's Daily, production per person has increased from 8,000 pieces to 21,000 pieces. That's a 162.5% increase.
...
The growth of robotics in the area's factories comes amidst a particularly harsh climate around factory worker conditions, highlighted by strikes in the area. One can only wonder whether automation will add fuel to the fire or quell some of the unrest.

Is eliminating the work force the best way to solve labor unrest?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Silicon Valley is dictating the way we live through design. From smartphones to dating websites, we increasingly experience the world and basic human connection through platforms and devices Silicon Valley created for us. It is the artist’s job to turn a critical eye on the world we live in. At the Rhizome event, it seemed like the artists were deeply troubled by the ways in which technology is limiting our ability to see that world.

There is the common refrain that everyone’s eyeballs are glued to their smartphones, even while walking into traffic, but this is a deeper concern, that the way we are designing technology is taking away the best parts of our humanity. On Facebook, you must “like” everything. On Vine, things must be interesting in 7 seconds or less. On Google, you must optimize or you will disappear.
...
Technologists tend to think about their creations in terms of code and efficiency, whereas artists excel at helping us see the humanity in the machine, pinpointing moments of beauty, ugliness and truth in the way we live. We need artists to help save us from the ‘fitter, happier, more productive’ world that Silicon Valley is creating, a world that doesn’t seem to be making us all as happy as it promised. The Rhizome experiment is just the start of getting technologists to think more deliberately about the world they are making the rest of us live in.

Are technologists dehumanizing the world?

Original Submission

tonyPick writes:

According to The Tech Report NVIDIA is recalling some Shield tablets due to a battery fire risk:

Some Nvidia Shield Tablets built between July 2014 and July 2015 could pose a fire risk. The batteries in the affected tablets can apparently overheat to dangerous levels. As a result, the company has issued a recall notice. The recall applies only to tablets that show a battery model of Y01 on the About Tablet screen in the Settings application.

PCWorld reports that this affect 88,000 tablets.

Further coverage at Ars Technica.

Original Submission

tonyPick writes:

Spotted on HackerNews is a link to the story of I, Libertine, a book which made the New York Times Bestseller List despite its non-existence following a hoax co-ordinated by Jean "Shep" Shepherd in the 1950's.

...here's the thing: in Shep's time, despite its name, the criteria for making the list involved more than just book sales. It included customer requests for and questions about books to book sellers. So if a retailer had a stack of a particular book that wasn't selling, he could gin up enough queries about it to get the title included on the best seller list, which then made people go out and buy it.

Shep saw through this hypocrisy and ranted about it at length one night. In a burst of inspiration, he speculated that if enough people requested the same title of a book that didn't actually exist, it could indeed make the coveted New York Times Best Seller List.
...
  by early summer 1956, the book that didn't exist made The New York Times Best Seller List ... and kept inching upward on it. One literary gossip columnist even wrote in a leading newspaper, "Had a delightful lunch the other day with Frederick R. Ewing and his charming wife, Marjorie."

And the whole time this was going on, Shep and his Night People listeners were laughing themselves silly. There was never any secret to it; it was a hoax openly discussed and pulled off right on the public airwaves.

Original HackerNews discussion thread.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Detekt is a free tool that scans your computer for traces of known surveillance spyware used by governments to target and monitor human rights defenders and journalists around the world. By alerting them to the fact that they are being spied on, they will have the opportunity to take precautions.

It was developed by security researchers and has been used to assist in Citizen Lab's investigations into government use of spyware against human rights defenders, journalists and activists as well as by security trainers to educate on the nature of targeted surveillance.

Amnesty International is partnering with Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to release Detekt to the public for the first time."

The Windows version can be downloaded here; other than source code there doesn't seem to be a Linux or iOS specific version. More general information is here.

Original Submission