An anonymous reader writes "In his latest story, Brian Krebs reports on a collaboration between brand holders and credit card companies to shut down payment processing for rogue online pharmacies, pirate software sellers and fake anti-virus scams. By conducting test purchases, they map out which banks are being used to accept payments for which scams. Writes Krebs, 'Following the money trail showed that a majority of the purchases were processed by just 12 banks in a handful of countries, including Azerbaijan, China, Georgia, Latvia, and Mauritius.' These results are then fed to Visa and Mastercard who typically shut down the merchant accounts 'within one month after a complaint was lodged.' If you can't accept payments, you can't make money — and without money you can't pay the spammers who advertise your product. This effort is apparently quite effective and has led to much concern by those running such sites."
e065c8515d206cb0e190 writes "Several websites have announced the launch of Silent Circle, PGP's founder Phil Zimmermann''s new suite of tools for the paranoid. After a first day glitch with a late approval of their iOS app, the website seems to now accept subscriptions. Have any slashdotters subscribed? What does SilentCircle provide that previous applications didn't have?"
theodp writes "The NY Times reports a judge in the second-degree murder case against George Zimmerman has ruled that Trayvon Martin's school and social media records should be provided to the defense. Judge Debra S. Nelson said Martin's Twitter, Facebook and school records were relevant in the self-defense case. In those instances, showing whether a victim 'had an alleged propensity to violence' or aggression is germane, the judge said. The defense also got permission for access to the social media postings of a Miami girl who said she was on the phone with Martin just before the shooting. Time to update the Miranda warning to include: 'Anything you Tweet or post can and will be held against you in a court of law'?'"
1sockchuck writes "As Google showed the world its data centers this week, it disclosed one of its best-kept secrets: how it cools its custom servers in high-density racks. All the magic happens in enclosed hot aisles, including supercomputer-style steel tubing that transports water — sometimes within inches of the servers. How many of those servers are there? Google has deployed at least 1 million servers, according to Wired, which got a look inside the company's North Carolina data center. The disclosures accompany a gallery of striking photos by architecture photographer Connie Zhou, who discusses the experience and her approach to the unique assignment."
Hugh Pickens writes "Karen Kaplan reports in the LA Times that Craig Venter is making plans to send a DNA sequencer to Mars. Assuming there is DNA to be found on the Red Planet – a big assumption, to be sure – the sequencer will decode its DNA, beam it back to Earth, put those genetic instructions into a cell and then boot up a Martian life form in a biosecure lab. Venter's 'biological teleporter' (as he dubbed it) would dig under the surface for samples to sequence. If they find anything, 'it would take only 4.3 minutes to get the Martians back to Earth,' says Venter, founder of Celera Genomics and the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). 'Now we can rebuild the Martians in a P4 spacesuit lab.' It may sound far-fetched, but the notion of equipping a future Mars rover to sequence the DNA isn't so crazy, and Venter isn't the only one looking for Martian DNA. MIT research scientist Christopher Carr is part of a group that's 'building a a miniature RNA/DNA sequencer to search for life beyond Earth,' according to the MIT website 'The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes.' SETG will test the hypothesis that life on Mars, if it exists, shares a common ancestor with life on Earth. Carr told Tech Review that one of the biggest challenges is shrinking Ion Torrent's 30-kilogram machine down to a mere 3 kg – light enough to fit on a Mars rover."
An anonymous reader writes "ACM Queue interviews Cambridge researcher (and FreeBSD developer) Robert Watson on why processor designs need to change in order to better support security features like Capsicum — and how they change all the time (RISC, GPUs, etc). He also talks about the challenge of building a research team at Cambridge that could actually work with all levels of the stack: CPU design, operating systems, compilers, applications, and formal methods. The DARPA-sponsored SRI and Cambridge CTSRD project is building a new open source processor that can support orders of magnitude greater sandboxing than current designs."
dcblogs writes "Iran recently held a security trade show and conference, attended by high-ranking police and military officials. A video by an Iranian news outlet shows some of the products, from crossbows to unidentified systems, and includes an interview with Iran's police chief, Brig. Gen. Esmail Ahmadi-Moqadam: 'It's true that the U.S. made Stuxnet virus did some damage to our facilities but we were able to get them all up and running in no time. However, those who attack should expect retaliation and we haven't gone there just yet.'"
Trailrunner7 writes "There are thousands of apps in the Google Play mobile market that contain serious mistakes in the way that SSL/TLS is implemented, leaving them vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks that could compromise sensitive user data such as banking credentials, credit card numbers and other information. Researchers from a pair of German universities conducted a detailed analysis of thousands of Android apps and found that better than 15 percent of those apps had weak or bad SSL implementations. The researchers conducted a detailed study of 13,500 of the more popular free apps on Google Play, the official Android app store, looking at the SSL/TLS implementations in them and trying to determine how complete and effective those implementations are. What they found is that more than 1,000 of the apps have serious problems with their SSL implementations that make them vulnerable to MITM attacks, a common technique used by attackers to intercept wireless data traffic. In its research, the team was able to intercept sensitive user data from these apps, including credit card numbers, bank account information, PayPal credentials and social network credentials."
An anonymous reader writes "At its headquarters in Longueuil, Que. Friday, the Canadian Space Agency rolled out a fleet of about a half-dozen prototype rovers that are the forerunners of vehicles that may one day explore the moon or Mars. The agency said the terrestrial rovers bring it one step closer to developing the next generation for space exploration."
Bismillah writes "The 'Skynet' anti-filesharing aw introduced last year in New Zealand is starting to bite, with people being hauled in front of the Copyright Tribunal by the music industry after receiving three notices. Of the three Copyright Tribunal cases to be heard currently, the first one's just been dropped. Why? Nobody knows. RIANZ isn't saying. Interesting things: the accused was the ISP account holder, a student sharing a place with others who also used the Internet connection. The cost of the five songs downloaded is NZ$11.95 but RIANZ wanted NZ$1,075.50 because it estimated the music was shared/downloaded 90 times in total. A high deterrent penalty of NZ$1,250 was also asked for."
CuteSteveJobs writes "The New Matilda reports how the U.S. is now able to extradite people for minor offences, and asks why foreign governments so willingly give up their nationals to the U.S. to 'face justice' over minor crimes committed outside U.S. borders? Lawyer Kellie Tranter writes, 'the long arm of the Government is using criminal enforcement powers to enforce commercial interests at the behest of corporations and their lobbyists.' A former NSW Chief Judge said it was bizarre 'that people are being extradited to the U.S. to face criminal charges when they have never been to the U.S. and the alleged act occurred wholly outside the U.S.' He said although copyright violations are a great problem, a country 'must protect its nationals from being removed from their homeland to a foreign country merely because the commercial interests of that foreign country.' Australia recently 'streamlined' its laws to make extradition to the U.S. even easier."
An anonymous reader writes "For all of those wondering about China's massive high speed rail network, it costs some serious cash. Running high speed lines across the nation is expensive — to the tune of $100 billion dollars a year. This covers the cost to maintain the network, build it, and pay all of the staff. The problem is, corruption has reared its ugly head. The network itself has had its share of problems, with people dying as a result. There is also the problem that many of Chinese poor make so little money they can't afford to ride it. The sad fact is that so much money is being spent, no one can even keep count."
First time accepted submitter johntromp writes "Source code for the 21st International Obfuscated C Code Contest was released last weekend, following announcement of the winners on Sep 30, and just over a month after the submission window closed on Sep 14, a new speed record for the judges. Happy source code browsing!"
Geteilte Tastaturen, gebogene Tastaturen, Tastaturen, die Musik machen, Massage- und Torso-Mäuse... Wir zeigen Ihnen die schrägsten Eingabegeräte, die es gibt oder gab.
Das Layout und Design der Tastatur wurde seit ihrer Einführung stetig weiter entwickelt. Unter den ersten Tastaturen befanden sich noch einige Layout-Mängel und Design-Wirrungen – aber auch geniale Ideen. ...
Das Nokia Lumia 820 ist eines der ersten Smartphones mit Windows 8. Bei dem soliden Gerät fallen seine innovativen Wechselcover auf, mit denen sich Funktionen wie etwa das kabellose Laden nachrüsten lassen. ...
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Mit dieser Grafik möchte Sie Microsoft sanft darüber informieren, dass automatische Updates für Windows für Privatanwender absolut sinnvoll sind.
Secunia hat die Version 3.0 des Personal Software Inspector, kurz PSI, vorgestellt. Secunia PSI überprüft selbstständig alle installierten Programme und meldet, sobald eine Aktualisierung bereitsteht. ...
Testen Sie Ihr IT-Wissen! Jeden Tag finden Sie bei TecChannel eine Frage aus dem IT-Bereich, deren richtige Antwort Sie als IT-Experte kennen sollten. Machen Sie kostenlos mit und erweitern Sie Ihre IT-Kenntnisse!
Deutsche Firmen lassen Daten nur selten von Profis löschen. Auch werden Altgeräte selten kontrolliert entsorgt. Viele Unternehmen wissen noch nicht einmal, dass beim Verlust von mobilen Geräten eine Remote-Löschung ...
Die Funktionalität und der Nutzwert von Android-Smartphones und Tablets werden durch das Angebot an Apps ständig erweitert. Mittelweile verfügt Google-Play-Store über mehr als 650.000 Apps. Wir haben ...
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Gelöschte Dateien unter Windows sind mit Vorsicht zu behandeln. Sie sind zwar offensichtlich nicht mehr zugänglich, doch im Notfall lassen sich diese Dateien problemlos wiederherstellen. Wie Sie Dateien ...
Von den rund 650.000 Apps in Google Play Store gibt es auch etliche, die IT-Profis bei ihrer Arbeit unterstützen. Monitoring, Remote-Zugriff, Active-Directory-Einbindung sind mit dem Smartphone oder Tablet ...
Microsoft hat sein Upgrade-Programm für Office 2013 offiziell vorgestellt. Wer ab sofort ein Office-2010-Paket erwirbt erhält später automatisch ein kostenloses Upgrade auf das neue Office. Diese Option ...
MMD, Monitorhersteller und Lizenznehmer von Displays der Marke Philips hat ein 23-Zoll-Display mit MHL-Schnittstelle vorgestellt. An diese lassen sich Android-Endgeräte anschließen und Grafiksignale übertragen. ...
Der Registrar Registry Manager übertrifft das Windows-Tool regedit in vielen Punkten. Es beinhaltet eine mächtige Suchfunktion, kann Versionen von Einträgen vorhalten und arbeitet im Netzwerk. Wir haben ...
Der OKI C822 bedruckt A3-Formate mit bis zu 13 farbigen Seiten pro Minute. Im A4-Betrieb sind es bis zu 23 Seiten pro Minute. Der Drucker verarbeitet benutzerdefinierte Formate bis zu einer Länge von ...
Mit Suchordnern können Sie unter Outlook die Organisation Ihrer E-Mail-Nachrichten optimieren. Bei Suchordnern handelt es sich um virtuelle Ordner, deren enthaltene E-Mails bestimmten Kriterien entsprechen.
Der Index „Digitales Deutschland” zeigt ein deutlich positives Stimmungsbild in Richtung digitaler Wandel. Dabei fällt auf, dass Menschen, die häufiger Informationstechnologien selbst nutzen auch von ...
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Mit SyncMaster S24B420BW hat Samsung einen klassischen Office-Monitor im Programm. Das 24-Zoll-Display arbeitet mit LED-Hintergrundbeleuchtung und einem Seitenverhältnis von 16:10 (1920 x 1200 Bildpunkte). ...
Der OKI C331dn ist ein Farb-LED-Drucker mit serienmäßiger Duplex-Einheit. Gegenüber kleineren Modellen des Herstellers fällt er vor allem durch die breitere Unterstützung von Netzwerkprotokollen und Sicherheitsstandards ...
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