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An Anonymous Coward writes:

T-Mobile US leaked free access to sites with '/speedtest' in the URL

American T-Mobile subscribers can score free internet access by running traffic through a proxy with "speedtest" in its URL.

Seventeen-year-old high school student Jacob Ajit found the loophole , since taken down, which allowed cheapskates to access T-Mobile's data network without paying.

Ajit realised speed testing sites and those with the feature embedded could be accessed using a T-Mobile SIM that had no data credit.

He then set up a proxy on a remote server placing "/speedtest" in the URL and could then access all areas of the network.

Ajit said he reported the flaw to T-Mobile and published his hack without waiting for a fix since exploitation of the hole did not put customers at risk.

[...]

Ajit said he made the decision while bored on a Friday night, trying random apps to see which would load on his credit-depleted account.

T-Mobile customers have responded with confusion since their speedtest hole no longer works.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The American alligator ( Alligator mississippiensis ) species may be up to 6 million years older than previously thought, and has undergone very little evolutionary change in the last 8 million years, according to University of Florida researchers:

While many of today's top predators are more recent products of evolution, the modern American alligator is a reptile quite literally from another time. New University of Florida research shows these prehistoric-looking creatures have remained virtually untouched by major evolutionary change for at least 8 million years, and may be up to 6 million years older than previously thought. Besides some sharks and a handful of others, very few living vertebrate species have such a long duration in the fossil record with so little change.

"If we could step back in time 8 million years, you'd basically see the same animal crawling around then as you would see today in the Southeast. Even 30 million years ago, they didn't look much different," said Evan Whiting, a former UF undergraduate and the lead author of two studies published during summer 2016 in the Journal of Herpetology and Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology that document the alligator's evolution – or lack thereof. "We were surprised to find fossil alligators from this deep in time that actually belong to the living species, rather than an extinct one."

Whiting, now a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, describes the alligator as a survivor, withstanding sea-level fluctuations and extreme changes in climate that would have caused some less-adaptive animals to rapidly change or go extinct. Whiting also discovered that early American alligators likely shared the Florida coastline with a 25-foot now-extinct giant crocodile.

In modern times, however, he said alligators face a threat that could hinder the scaly reptiles' ability to thrive like nothing in their past — humans.

Paleoecology of Miocene crocodylians in Florida: Insights from stable isotope analysis (DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.03.009) (DX)

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Popular Bash shell script LetsEncrypt.sh, which is used to manage free SSL/TLS certificates from the Let's Encrypt project, has renamed this week to avoid a trademark row. This comes in the wake of Let's Encrypt successfully fending off Comodo, which tried to cynically snatch "Let's Encrypt" for itself.

LetsEncrypt.sh, written by Germany-based Lukas Schauer, is now known as Dehydrated. If you have scripts or apps that rely on pulling in his code and running it, they may stop working as a result of the name change. Dehydrated is developed independently by Schauer and is not officially affiliated with Let's Encrypt.

"This project was renamed from letsencrypt.sh because the original name was violating Let's Encrypt's trademark policy. I know that this results in quite a lot of installations failing but I didn't have a choice," reads the new Dehydrated README.

[...] Full disclosure: This article's author uses Let's Encrypt to provide HTTPS encryption for his personal websites. And you should use it too.

Our Previous Story: 800-Pound Comodo Tries to Trademark Upstart Rival's "Let's Encrypt" Name

Original Submission

tonyPick writes:

The BBC is reporting that two UK YouTube video creators have been charged in relation to online gambling:

Two men have appeared in court charged with offences under the Gambling Act in what is believed to be the first prosecution involving betting on video games.

Craig Douglas and Dylan Rigby, who are both from Essex, are charged with promoting a lottery and advertising unlawful gambling.

Mr Douglas makes gaming videos on YouTube under the pseudonym Nepenthez.

He is also charged with inviting children to gamble.

There is more coverage on engadget

The two allegedly used their online presences to push lotteries and "unlawful gambling" in FIFA 16 matches through bets with in-game coins. Douglas is also accused of encouraging underage gambling by refusing to warn viewers that bets were only for people 18 and over.

Both Engadget and PCGamesN highlight that Douglas (Nepenthez) was aware of the issue, but had not seen this as a problem:

Douglas didn't seem worried about the law back in June 2015, when he replied to a tweet warning him of the dangers of not indicating the site was for people over 18, saying, "Let us worry about that kind of stuff, yeah. Jesus, lmao. Go annoy someone else, somewhere else."

Original Submission

Runaway1956 writes:

From the Serious Gun Porn department!

The Russian Ground Forces are set to take delivery of the first production models of the T-14 Armata main battle tank starting in 2017. The Russian army has taken delivery of twenty pre-production version of the tank for operational testing—which is currently under way just outside Moscow at Kubinka. The first operational T-14 unit is likely to be stood up in Siberia with a unit that performed particularly well during the invasion of Crimea according to a source.

"Test of the Armata are going according to schedule without any problems," Alexei Zharich, deputy director of Uralvagonzavod told the Russian language daily Izvestia. "Serial deliveries could begin at any moment—as soon as the customer wants it."

However, Zharich seems to be addressing only the T-14 main battle tank variant. He didn't address the other combat vehicles that are part of the Armata family—it's not clear if those vehicles are also in production. The Armata Universal Combat Platform consists of the T-14 main battle tank, the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle and the T-16 armored recovery vehicle, among a host of other vehicles. Another member of the Armata family includes an upgunned heavy assault armored vehicle, which has been dubbed "the Tank Killer" by Russian media. The "Tank Killer" variant seems to incorporate a derivative of the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV's 152mm artillery piece into the Armata chassis in a direct fire mounting.

There are a number of articles about the T-14 Armata on the web - I chose to use this one for this submission. Also at sputniknews.com.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The forest around Manjau in Borneo once reverberated with the scream of chainsaws, as gangs of illegal loggers felled ancient hardwood trees for sale to timber merchants downstream.

But many loggers in the remote Indonesian village are hanging up their chainsaws in return for affordable healthcare, through a community incentive scheme that aims to save lives and protect Borneo's fragile rainforests.

This strategy is set to be rolled out elsewhere in Indonesia, where impoverished communities often reliant on illegal industries for survival are putting enormous strain on the environment.

In western Borneo, where the approach was first pioneered, logging had long been the lifeblood of many communities, providing quick cash whenever it was desperately needed for weddings or health emergencies

A single Bornean ironwood—a rare, slow-growing giant prized for its durable timber—could fetch hundreds of dollars at a lumber mill, a small fortune for local villagers.

But for Juliansyah, a father-of-two from Manjau, the income was unreliable and the work—often involving days-long missions alone in the forest—was tiring and dangerous.

[...] His village was eventually approached by Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), a non-profit organisation based in nearby Sukadana and made an unusual offer.

If they agreed to cease logging, the entire village would be granted discounts on medical bills at the local health clinic, and free training for new careers as forest custodians and farmers.

The incentives have worked, says American physician Kinari Webb, who co-founded ASRI and established Oregon-based charity Health in Harmony, its key financial backer.

Of the 24 villages surrounding Gunung Palung, all but one have agreed to put down their chainsaws, Webb said. Since 2007, when ASRI started working with villages, the number of logging households has plunged from nearly 1,400 to 180.

The rampant destruction of the old-growth forest Webb encountered when she first arrived in western Borneo 22 years ago has slowed to a trickle, with degraded areas slowly regrowing.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sink your hooks into this:

Archaeologists have found the world's oldest fish hooks in a cave on the Japanese island of Okinawa. The pair, dating from about 23,000 years ago, were carved from sea snail shells and found with other ancient relics, according to a paper.

It is thought humans inhabited the island from at least 30,000 years ago, surviving despite scarce resources. The findings suggest a wider use of advanced maritime technology in that era than previously thought.

Modern humans first moved to offshore islands some 50,000 years ago. While fishing has been essential for early humans to spread around the planet, it is unclear how the technology evolved, with evidence limited to sites in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. "The new evidence demonstrates a geographically wider distribution of early maritime technology that extended north to the mid-latitude areas along the western Pacific coast," according to the National Academy of Sciences. The fish hooks pre-date ones found in Timor, thought to be at least 16,000 years old, and Papua New Guinea, from at least 18,000 years ago.

Advanced maritime adaptation in the western Pacific coastal region extends back to 35,000–30,000 years before present (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1607857113) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/19/us/new-york-explosion-investigation/

The intense investigation into the weekend bomb blasts in New York and New Jersey is leading authorities to signs of a possible terror cell in those two states, law enforcement officials told CNN Monday. The ongoing investigation, which includes two bombs in New York City and devices in two cities in New Jersey, has given authorities leads on specific people who are urgently being sought.

Also on Monday morning, a federal law enforcement official said BBs and ball bearings were among the pieces of metal that appeared to be packed into both pressure cooker bombs in New York. One of those devices exploded on 23rd Street, but the fact that it was partly under a metal trash container may have diminished the force of the blast.

The latest developments came just hours after a backpack containing multiple bombs was found Sunday night near an Elizabeth, New Jersey, train station, according to the FBI and the city's mayor. [...] The [New York City] blast occurred on the same day an explosion went off near a Marine Corps charity run in New Jersey and a man stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall. Authorities are investigating all three incidents as possible terror acts.

Update: NYT: Police Hunt for Ahmad Khan Rahami in Connection With Manhattan Bombing

Update 2: The suspect has been captured alive, despite getting into a shootout with police.

Original Submission

[Ed's Note: Whereas in some parts of the world, BB is an abbreviation for ball bearing, in the US in particular it refers simply to a round pellet fired from a compressed air weapon.]

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Martin Brinkmann at gHacks reports

HP released a firmware update on March 12, 2016 for several of the company's Officejet printers that renders non-HP ink cartridges useless.

HP customers began to complain about the issue on September 13, 2016 on various online forums, the official HP forum, and on community sites like Reddit.

All reported that a HP Officejet printer blocked non-HP ink cartridges from working, and that the device displayed one of the following messages to the user:

Cartridge Problem.

The following ink cartridges appears to be missing or [damaged].

Replace the ink cartridges to resume printing.

[Continues...]

Whoever writes:

The Colonial Pipeline spill has caused 6 states (Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and North Carolina) to declare a state of emergency. Gasoline (petrol) prices on the east coast are likely to spike. Yet, most puzzling is how this vast emergency and its likely effect on cost of living has gone unnoticed by mainstream media outlets. The pipeline is owned by Koch Industries: is this why the media is silent?

[Are there any Soylentils in the affected area who can corroborate this story? Have you heard of the spill, seen long gas lines, or any price gouging? -Ed.]

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The iPhone 7 is now available for sale in Australia. The flagship Sydney store kicked off a day of rolling launches around the globe.

We've taught them to move like humans, play games like humans, and now, robots are experiencing one of the last true joys of being a real person: queuing!

A phalanx of mini robots were among the first in the world to get their metal claws on the brand new iPhone 7 when it launched in New Zealand on Friday. Thanks to the country's proximity to the international dateline, NZ got a few hours' head start on Australia's early launch, and the Kiwis weren't going to pass up that opportunity, using robots to spruik the iPhone launch.

[...] This year, New Zealand carrier Spark used 100 Alpha 1 robots, created by Chinese company UBtech, to stand in line on behalf of customers. Each robot was controlled with a phone app and programmed to dance and move, and they were also fitted out to live-stream the queue.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://mashable.com/2016/09/16/gun-robot-standoff

Robots have been used for everything from greeting bank customers to grabbing a slice of pizza — and now they seem to be venturing further into law enforcement.

A six-hour police standoff in a Southern California desert ended on Sept. 8 when a robot was used by police to take away the rifle of an attempted murder suspect.

The special weapons team from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department made the call after the suspect, 52-year-old Ray B. Bunge, refused to surrender. He has since been charged with attempted murder, criminal threats, assault with a deadly weapon / firearm, robbery and felony vandalism.

During the standoff, Bunge was lying in a "dark open field" in the desert of Antelope Valley, California, when the robot stealthily, quietly snatched the gun sitting next to his feet, according to a Facebook post from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

Police had lost track of Bunge before using a helicopter and special weapons team to find him in a dirt area surrounded by shrubs and fence wiring. That's when they tried distracting Bunge and sending in the robot.

"He looked up and realized his gun was gone and he was exposed."

"While his attention was focused on the vehicles in front of him, the team deployed a robot from behind the suspect's position," the Facebook post explains.

The robot picked up the gun without Bunge noticing before pulling away the fence wiring that had been covering him. At that moment, Bunge finally gave up.

Well, that's a big improvement over sending in a robot with a suicide vest like they did in Dallas.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Late last week VMware delayed the release of Workstation 12.5 because of a bug it felt needed squashing before the code went live.

It turns out the desktop hypervisor doesn't have one: it has three. And all nasty.

Two derive from a dud installer. The first means "some DLL files [are] loaded by the application improperly."

"This issue may allow an attacker to load a DLL file of the attacker's choosing that could execute arbitrary code."

The second installer mess comes about because it "contains an insecure executable loading vulnerability that may allow an attacker to execute an exe file placed in the same directory as installer."

"Successfully exploiting this issue may allow attackers  to execute arbitrary code."

VMware has also 'fessed up to a problem that affects VMs running in Workstation that have virtual printing turned on. This flaw means "a Windows-based Virtual Machine to trigger a heap-based buffer overflow [and] may lead to arbitrary code execution in VMware Workstation running on Windows."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An Apple iTunes unit in Japan agreed to pay 12 billion yen ($118 million) in tax after local authorities determined it had underreported income, according to local media.

The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau levied the fee after concluding the unit had not been paying a withholding tax on Japanese earnings, Reuters reported late Thursday, citing a report by broadcaster NHK. The report said the unit was sending part of the profits it earned from fees paid by subscribers in Japan to another Apple unit in Ireland to pay for software licensing.

Apple is one of many US technology companies that have benefited from stashing cash overseas. That maneuver lets the companies avoid paying hefty taxes they could face by bringing the cash back to the US.

Original Submission

stormwyrm writes:

In a paper (paywalled) published in the journal Icarus, a team of scientists led by Carey Lisse and Ralph McNutt of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (that designed, built, and operates the New Horizons spacecraft) have made, using the Chandra X-Ray Telescope, the puzzling detection of X-ray emissions from Pluto. Being a cold, icy world with no magnetic field, Pluto has no obvious mechanism for producing X-rays, but it is known that the interaction of gases surrounding such bodies and the solar wind can produce X-rays, though the intensity of the emissions is still higher than would be expected given the measurements of the dwarf planet's tenuous atmosphere and its great distance from the sun. From the JHUAPL press release:

While NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was speeding toward and beyond Pluto, Chandra was aimed several times on the dwarf planet and its moons, gathering data on Pluto that the missions could compare after the flyby. Each time Chandra pointed at Pluto — four times in all, from February 2014 through August 2015 — it detected low-energy X-rays from the small planet.

[...] "We've just detected, for the first time, X-rays coming from an object in our Kuiper Belt, and learned that Pluto is interacting with the solar wind in an unexpected and energetic fashion," said Carey Lisse, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, who led the Chandra observation team with APL colleague and New Horizons Co-Investigator Ralph McNutt. "We can expect other large Kuiper Belt objects to be doing the same."

[...] The immediate mystery is that Chandra's readings on the brightness of the X-rays are much higher than expected from the solar wind interacting with Pluto's atmosphere.

[...] Lisse and his colleagues [...] suggest several possibilities for the enhanced X-ray emission from Pluto. These include a much wider and longer tail of gases trailing Pluto than New Horizons detected using its SWAP instrument. Other possibilities are that interplanetary magnetic fields are focusing more particles than expected from the solar wind into the region around Pluto, or the low density of the solar wind in the outer solar system at the distance of Pluto could allow for the formation of a doughnut, or torus, of neutral gas centered around Pluto's orbit.

Other coverage from Starts With A Bang and Gizmodo.

Original Submission