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SFLC Wants To Avoid Death by Code
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 18:37foregather writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has released some independent research on the safety of software close to our hearts, that inside of implantable medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps. It turns out that nobody is minding the store at the regulatory level and patients and doctors are blocked from examining the source code keeping them alive. From the article: 'The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for evaluating the risks of new devices and monitoring the safety and efficacy of those currently on market. However, the agency is unlikely to scrutinize the software operating on devices during any phase of the regulatory process unless a model that has already been surgically implanted repeatedly malfunctions or is recalled. ... Despite the crucial importance of these devices and the absence of comprehensive federal oversight, medical device software is considered the exclusive property of its manufacturers, meaning neither patients nor their doctors are permitted to access their IMD's source code or test its security.'"
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Categories: Tech
Sony's Blue-Violet Laser the Future Blu-ray?
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 17:50JoshuaInNippon writes "Japanese researchers from Sony and Tohoku University announced the development of a 'blue-violet ultrafast pulsed semiconductor laser,' which Sony is aiming to use for optical disks. The new technology, with 'a laser wavelength of 405 nanometers in the blue-violet region' and a power out put 'more than a hundred times the world's highest output value for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers,' is believed to be capable of holding more than 20 times the information of current Blu-ray technology, while retaining a practical size. Japanese news reports have speculated that one blue-violet disk could be capable of holding more than 50 high-quality movie titles, easily fitting entire seasons of popular TV shows like 24. When the technology may hit markets was not indicated."
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Feds Bust Chinese Firm's Hybrid Car Data Heist
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 17:03coondoggie writes "An FBI investigation has led a Michigan couple to be charged with stealing hybrid car information from GM to use in a Chinese auto outfit. A federal indictment charged Yu Qin, aka Yu Chin, 49, and his wife, Shanshan Du, aka Shannon Du, 51, of Troy, Michigan with conspiracy to possess trade secrets without authorization, unauthorized possession of trade secrets, and wire fraud. One of the individuals was also charged with obstruction of justice, said Barbara McQuade, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in a statement. GM estimates that the value of the stolen documents is over $40 million."
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Categories: Tech
Safari Privacy Bug May Be Leaking Your Data
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 16:18richi writes "If you use Safari, your browser may be leaking your private information to any website you visit. Jeremiah Grossman, the CTO of WhiteHat Security, has discovered some Very Bad News. I have some analysis and other reactions over at my Computerworld blog. The potential for spam and phishing is huge. A determined attacker might even be able to steal previously-entered customer data." In short, autofill for Web forms is enabled by default in Safari 4 / 5 (and remotely exploitable), and the data that this feature has access to includes the user's local address book — even if the information has never been entered into a Web form.
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Categories: Tech
Why Designers Hate Crowdsourcing
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 15:33An anonymous reader writes "Since Wired's Jeff Howe coined the term in 2006, 'crowdsourcing' has been a buzzword in the tech industry, and a business model on the rise. 99designs.com is a site that hosts design contests for small businesses requiring relatively smaller design projects. Anyone can submit their near finished pieces of work to the contests, but only one winner gets paid. Forbes covers just why established graphic designers are so angry at this business model's catching on."
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WordPress Creator GPL Says WP Template Must Be GPL'd
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 14:48An anonymous reader writes "Matt Mullenweg (the creator of open source blog software WordPress), after review by various legal experts, is sticking to his guns that themes and plugins that 'extend' WordPress violate the GPL if they are not themselves distributed under the GPL. Matt has gone so far as to post this on Twitter. According to Matt, the premium template called Thesis should be under the GPL and the owner is not happy about it. WordPress is willing to sue the maker of Thesis theme for not following GPL licensing. The webmasters and Thesis owners are also confused with new development. Mark Jaquith wrote an excellent technical analysis of why WordPress themes inherit the GPL. This is why even if Thesis hadn't copy-and-pasted large swathes of code from WordPress (and GPL plugins) its PHP would still need to be under the GPL."
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Open Source OCR That Makes Searchable PDFs
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 14:21An anonymous reader writes "In my job all of our multifunction copiers scan to PDF but many of our users want and expect those PDFs to be text searchable. I looked around for software that would create text searchable pdfs but most are very expensive and I couldn't find any that were open source (free). I did find some open source packages like CuneiForm and Exactimage that could in theory do the job, but they were hard to install and difficult to set up and use over a network. Then I stumbled upon WatchOCR. This is a Live CD distro that can easily create a server on your network that provides an OCR service using watched folders. Now all my scanners scan to a watched folder, WatchOCR picks up those files and OCRs them, and then spits them out into another folder. It uses CuneiForm and ExactImage but it is all configured and ready to deploy. It can even be remotely managed via the Web interface. Hope this proves helpful to someone else who has this same situation."
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Microsoft Makes Major Shift In Disclosure Policy
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 14:02Trailrunner7 writes "Microsoft is changing the way in which it handles vulnerability disclosures, now moving to a model it calls coordinated vulnerability disclosure, in which the researcher and the vendor work together to verify a vulnerability and allow ample time for a patch. However, the new philosophy also recognizes that if there are attacks already happening, it may be necessary to release details of the flaw even before a patch is ready. The new CVD strategy relies on researchers to report vulnerabilities either directly to a vendor or to a trusted third party, such as a CERT-CC, who will then report it to the vendor. The finder and the vendor would then try to agree on a disclosure timeline and work from there." Here's Microsoft's announcement of the new strategy.
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The World's Strongest, Most Expensive Beer Served Inside a Squirrel
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 13:48If you have $765 burning a hole in your pocket, and a penchant for drinking alcohol out of a taxidermied animal, the good folks at BrewDog have just the drink for you. Their latest creation, called The End of History, is a 110 proof beer that comes packaged in a variety of small stuffed animals.
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Brain Scans May Help Guide Career Choice
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 13:14GisG writes "General aptitude tests and specific mental ability tests are important tools for vocational guidance. Researchers are now asking whether performance on such tests is based on differences in brain structure, and if so, can brain scans be helpful in choosing a career? In a first step, researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Research Notes have investigated how well eight tests used in vocational guidance correlate to gray matter in areas throughout the brain." The researcher's (provisional) paper is available as a PDF.
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'Bloatware' Becoming a Problem On Android Phones
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 12:29elrous0 writes "According to a recent article in Wired, consumers of many new Android devices (including Samsung's Vibrant and HTC's EVO) are complaining about the increasing presence of something that has plagued consumer PC's for years: Bloatware (or, to use the more kind euphemism, 'Pre-installed software' that the computer manufacturer gets paid to include on a new PC). Unfortunately the bloatware (aka 'crapware') that comes with these phones has a nasty quality not found on even the most bloated PC: it can't be removed. Many angry consumers have begun to complain openly about this disturbing trend."
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Open Source GSM Cracking Software Released
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 11:52angry tapir writes "The GSM technology used by the majority of the world's mobile phones will get some scrutiny at next week's Black Hat security conference. An open source effort to develop GSM-cracking software has released software that cracks the A5/1 encryption algorithm used by some GSM networks. Called Kraken, this software uses new, very efficient, encryption cracking tables that allow it to break A5/1 encryption much faster than before."
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GOP Senators Move To Block FCC On Net Neutrality
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 11:09suraj.sun writes "Seven Republican senators have announced a plan to curb the Obama administration's push to impose controversial Net neutrality regulations on the Internet." "The FCC's rush to take over the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers," says Sen. Jim DeMint, who I'm sure truly only has the consumer's needs at heart — since his campaign contributions list AT&T in his top five donating organizations.
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Micro Plane That Perches On Power Lines
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 10:31An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us about a microplane that perches on power lines to recharge its batteries being developed as a surveillance device at MIT. As you can imagine, landing on a power line is hard to do ... and charging off transmission lines has its own problems.
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Forced iAds Coming To OS X?
Thu, 07/22/2010 - 09:48mario_grgic writes "Apple insider brings a story about expansion and renewal of a current 'Advertisement in Operating System' patent that Apple's Steve Jobs and other contributors have. The patent describes in detail (with OS X screen shots) how the forced ads would work (they would disable some OS functionality until the ad is viewed), but apparently it also applies to any device with a UI, including phones, TVs, set top boxes, etc. With Apple's recent entry into the mobile ad business, and its ambition to own half of all the mobile ads served during the second half of this year, it certainly makes one wonder if Apple would dare and put something like this in its desktop OS. I wonder if this would push more people to open source alternatives?"
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Categories: Tech