Cutting Edge Technology in the news

[calikid]

Sad, Amazon hands over insecure information that Apple considers secure. Sounds like these corporate giants need to hash out some standards.
Amazon addresses security exploit after journalist hack

After a tech reporter detailed his nightmarish saga of being hacked because of Amazon and Apple security flaws, the e-commerce giant says it has changed its system to make things more secure.
by Dara Kerr

When tech reporters get hacked, it seems like tech companies pay attention.

Wired reporter Mat Honan's entire online life was compromised by a hacker named Phobia four days ago. Phobia used Honan's AppleCare and Amazon IDs, along with his billing address and last four digits of his credit card to get into his various online accounts. Apple responded yesterday saying that it was looking into how users can reset their account passwords to ensure data protection; and Amazon responded today.

"We have investigated the reported exploit, and can confirm that the exploit has been closed as of yesterday afternoon," an Amazon representative told CNET today.

What this means is that Amazon customers can no longer make changes to their account settings by telephone, according to PC Magazine. A small but significant change -- because it was by calling Amazon that Phobia eventually succeeded in deleting Honan's Google and Twitter accounts and wiping his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone clean.

"In many ways, this was all my fault," Honan wrote in an article for Wired yesterday that detailed his saga. "My accounts were daisy-chained together. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter."

The way Phobia gained entry into Honan's Amazon account is by calling the e-commerce giant pretending to be Honan and adding a credit card to his account -- all he needed to do this was Honan's name, e-mail address, and billing address. Then, Phobia called Amazon again and said he couldn't access the account and this is how he was able to use the credit card information to add another e-mail address and reset Honan's password. Story Continues

[calikid]

Follow up story....
Apple freezes AppleID password resets requested over the phone

Move comes after the hack of a Wired reporter's AppleID and Amazon accounts, leading to the loss of Gmail and Twitter accounts and multiple device wipes.
by Steven Musil

Apple has reportedly stopped taking AppleID password resets requests over the phone, following the account hack of a technology reporter over the weekend.

An unnamed Apple employee told Wired that the ban would remain in effect for at least 24 hours and speculated that the freeze was instituted to give Apple more time to determine what security policy changes, if any, were necessary.

That information was apparently corroborated by an Apple customer representative who said Apple had halted all AppleID resets requested over the phone. The explanation came as Wired was attempting to replicate a hacker's exploitation of the Apple's system that led to the led to identity theft of Wired's Mat Honan. Story Continues

[calikid]

So my cell phone might give me brain cancer? What?
SF faces wireless industry in court over radiation warnings

San Francisco's law requiring cell phone retailers to disclose possible health risks from cell phone radiation will have an important day in court today.
by Marguerite Reardon

The City of San Francisco will face off in court with the wireless industry today in a hearing that may determine if the local government will be allowed to force retailers selling cell phones within city limits to disclose possible health risks to consumers before they buy mobile devices.

In 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and then-mayor Gavin Newsom approved legislation that would require manufacturers to provide information about the potential health risks associated with using cell phones.

Specifically, the ordinance required retailers to put up posters in stores that sell cell phones warning of potential risks. It also required that a sticker be affixed on the outside of cell phone packaging providing information about the SAR level, a specific absorption rate at a level defined by the Federal Communications Commission, and a fact sheet that offered more information about the potential risks of using cell phones as well as information about how to reduce exposure.

The CTIA, the wireless lobbying association representing handset makers and cell phone carriers, sued the city, arguing that these requirements violate the industry's First Amendment rights and also pre-empt the federal standard set by the FCC that ensures cell phone safety Story Continues

[calikid]

And here San Francisco trying to get a radiation warning attached for the CURRENT levels, and the industry is trying to get the levels boosted even higher....

FCC asked to consider raising limit on cell phone radiation
By Amy Gahran

The U.S. government is being asked to update its 16-year-old cell phone radiation standard to bring it in line with current research and the way people use smartphones.

A new Government Accountability Office report on Wednesday asked the Federal Communications Commission to consider updating the standard, which limits the amount of radiation a phone emits. The report recommended following an international standard, which would allow U.S. cell phones to emit up to 20% more radiation than currently allowed.

The GAO also asked the FCC to consider updating its cell phone testing procedures to account for phones being used while next to the body -- such as in a pocket or held in your hand -- rather than only testing how phones emit radiation when held up to your ear. Story Continues

[calikid]

Time to change that banking pa$$word again...

Cyberweapon targets Middle East bank accounts
By David Goldman

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A new cyberweapon that secretly steals bank account information from its victims was exposed on Thursday.

The sophisticated malware, discovered by Internet security company Kaspersky Labs, has been capturing online bank account login credentials from its victims since September 2011. There's no evidence it's been used to steal any money. The virus instead appears to be a spy interested in tracking funds: It collects banking login information, sends it back to a server, and quickly self-destructs.

Dubbed "Gauss," a name taken from some of the unique file names in its code, the malware appears to be a cyber-espionage weapon designed by a country to target and track specific individuals. It's not known yet who created it, but Gauss shares many of the same code and characteristics of other famous state-sponsored cyberweapons, including Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame. Story Continues

[calikid]

Makes me wonder if the very people that claim DDoS is an illegal hacker activity are using that very tool to silence the critics.
WikiLeaks endures a lengthy DDoS attack

Under a barrage of more than 10GB per second in a DDoS attack, the document-leaking organization's Web site has been either inoperable or sluggish since the beginning of the month.

by Dara Kerr
It's unclear who or what is after WikiLeaks, but the document-leaking organization claims someone is.

According to its Twitter feed, the organization has sustained a several-day Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack that has left its Web site effectually inoperable.

"The attack is well over 10Gbits/second sustained on the main WikiLeaks domains," read one of several tweets the organization posted on Friday. "The bandwidth used is so huge it is impossible to filter without specialized hardware, however... the DDoS is not simple bulk UDP or ICMP packet flooding, so most hardware filters won't work either. The range of IPs used is huge. Whoever is running it
Story Continues

[calikid]

So much for the intuitive interface. In the past Microsoft had always built upon their legacy.
It will be interesting to see how much of a departure Win8 turns out be. I have a feeling anyone that has used a smartphone will be right at home.
Windows 8 makes you relearn how to use your PC
By David Goldman

Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 brings a batch of bold updates to the antiquated PC interface, with one big drawback: Users will have to learn how to use a PC all over again.

The operating system introduces three new and essential gesture-based commands: swipe down, swipe left, and swipe right. They sound simple enough, but in practice, there's a learning curve in overcoming muscle memory.

It's the biggest change to Windows since the advent of the "Start" button 17 years ago in Windows 95. Instead of the traditional desktop, Windows 8 boots to a Start screen filled with columns and rows of app tiles.

Those apps are controlled by the host of new gestures. The app's settings can be reached with a downwards swipe from the edge of the screen. Searching through an app and personalizing it can be controlled by a swipe in from the right. And switching to a previously opened app can be achieved by swiping in from the left.


There are other gesture commands. For instance, dragging from top all the way to the bottom closes an app. Tile settings can be seen by "tickling" each tile -- giving it a short, quick drag down. Other movements allow users to multitask between apps or quickly access the computer's basic settings.

A host of new Windows 8 touchscreen laptops and tablets are set to debut in October, when Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) new operating system is scheduled to hit store shelves. The new commands aren't only for touchscreen PCs: Microsoft announced this week that it's working with touchpad mouse manufacturers to integrate those controls into laptops and mice as well. Story Continues

Want Windows 8? It'll only cost you $40

[calikid]

On a related note, it struck me odd that my local newspaper has an "upload your picture" link on their website, with a click through that includes a disclaimer that any photo uploaded becomes their property. WTF? Careful with that prized UFO photo you snapped, you might just lose the rights to dissemination.

Good News: Craigslist drops exclusive license to your posts
By Kurt Opsahl

In a welcome course correction, craigslist has removed its short-lived provision that required users to grant it an exclusive license to--in other words granting them ownership of--every post. We were unhappily surprised to see this click-through demand, but are glad to see that craigslist has promptly removed it.

For many years, craigslist has been a good digital citizen. Its opposition to SOPA/PIPA was critically important, and it has been at the forefront of challenges to Section 230 and freedom of expression online. We understand that craigslist faces real challenges in trying to preserve its character and does not want third parties to simply reuse its content in ways that are out of line with its user community’s expectations and could be harmful to its users.

Nevertheless, it was important for craigslist to remove the provision because claiming an exclusive license to the user’s posts--to the exclusion of everyone, including the original poster--would have harmed both innovation and users’ rights... Story Continues

[calikid]

And how much is your cable bill? Mine? Too much!

Cord Cutting 2.0: Better Ways to Ditch Your Cable Bill
By Yahoo! Finance

It's official: cord cutting has gone mainstream.

No longer strictly reserved for early adopters and the extremely tech savvy, more and more average Americans are now ditching their cable and satellite TV subscriptions — "cutting" the cord, both figuratively and literally — in favor of new, low-cost streaming and video-on-demand alternatives.

In fact, according to a recent story in The Wall Street Journal, the shift away from pay TV services is actually accelerating, with both publicly traded and private cable, satellite and phone companies reporting a net loss of as many as 400,000 total video subscribers in the second quarter of 2012. That's up from 340,000 net defections in Q2 2011. Overall, the number of U.S. households subscribing to pay TV services declined by 1.5% or 1.5 million in 2011, according to Nielsen.

And remember, the pay TV industry had never in its history posted a quarterly subscriber decline until 2010.

So what's going on? Options, that's what. For the first time, viewers now have choices when it comes to their in-home video entertainment, and not all of them are tied to the traditional pay TV model (a fact that many broadcasters aren't exactly thrilled about). Internet-based streaming services, on-demand downloads, over-the-air HD, the list of new cable alternatives could go on and on, but the selling points for viewers are simple: greater variety in programming and, assuming they cut out their cable bill by taking advantage, savings that can total as much as $200 per month.

We reached out to our Yahoo! Contributor Network members to find out what their latest "cut the cord" secrets are and which new services they can't live without. A selection of their responses is below.

"My DVR's ability to record shows, and watch even when no longer available, were the last reasons I clung to cable. Even shows playing online aren't there forever. Enter PlayLater, an online DVR. For $9.99 every six months, I record programming available through PlayOn and watch it on the same devices. I'm so pleased with these low-cost solutions that I can't imagine returning to cable, Story continues

[enigphilo]

What a crazy crossover story, so much for conventional solid state. Now if we could just do this in reverse and crack the code of so call junk dna. Cali I tried to keep your post format going.

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times.

The work, carried out by George Church and Sri Kosuri, basically treats DNA as just another digital storage device. Instead of binary data being encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive platter, strands of DNA that store 96 bits are synthesized, with each of the bases (TGAC) representing a binary value (T and G = 1, A and C = 0).

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