By samzenpus from
Slashdot's all-your-weather-are-belong-to-us department:
mpicpp writes with this story about Chinese hackers breaching the federal weather network.
"Hackers attacked the U.S. weather system in October, causing a disruption in satellite feeds and several pivotal websites. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, said that four of its websites were hacked in recent weeks. To block the attackers, government officials were forced to shut down some of its services. This explains why satellite data was mysteriously cut off in October, as well as why the National Ice Center website and others were down for more than a week. During that time, federal officials merely stated a need for "unscheduled maintenance." Still, NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen insisted that the aftermath of the attack "did not prevent us from delivering forecasts to the public." Little more is publicly known about the attack, which was first revealed by The Washington Post. It's unclear what damage, if any, was caused by the hack. But hackers managed to penetrate what's considered one of the most vital aspects of the U.S. government. The nation's military, businesses and local governments all rely on nonstop reports from the U.S. weather service."Read Replies (0)
By Soulskill from
Slashdot's amazing-job-folks department:
The European Space Agency has confirmed that the Philae probe has
successfully landed on the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and established contact with headquarters. The harpoons
have deployed and reeled in the slack, and the landing gear has retracted. (Edit: They're now saying the harpoons
didn't fire after all.) There are no photos from the surface yet, but the Rosetta probe snapped
this picture of Philae after initial separation, and Philae
took this picture of Rosetta. Emily Lakdawalla has
a timeline of the operation (
cached). She notes that there was
a problem with the gas thruster mounted on top of the lander. The purpose of the thruster was to keep the lander on the comet after landing, since there was a very real possibility that it could bounce off. (The comet's local gravity is only about 10^-3 m/s^2.) The pins that were supposed to puncture the wax seal on the jet were unable to do so for reasons unknown. Still, the jet did not seem to be necessary. The official
ESA Rosetta site will be continually updating as more data comes back.
Read Replies (0)
By Soulskill from
Slashdot's but-new-textbooks-are-too-expensive department:
An anonymous reader writes:
A school in Methuen, Massachusetts has demonstrated the first installation of an automated detection system for active gunmen. Sensors placed throughout the building are activated by the sounds of gunfire. The sensors relay data on the shooter's real-time location directly to police, who can then track and subdue their target. The system was developed for the military to detect the location of enemy fire. It will cost school districts between $20,000 and $100,000 to equip each school with the gunfire-detecting sensors. Methuen's police chief said, "It's amazing, the short, split-second amount of time from identification of the shot to transmission of the message. It changes the whole game. Without that shot detection system, we wouldn't know what was going on in the school ... Valuable, valuable time can be lost. Unfortunately, with school crisis situations, it's about mitigating loss."Read Replies (0)