By manishs from
Slashdot's we-are-doomed department:
An anonymous reader writes: Tavis Ormandy of Google's Project Zero team has discovered a vulnerability in Symantec Antivirus Engine. The said engine is vulnerable to a buffer overflow when parsing malformed portable-executable (PE) header files, reports ZDNet. "Such malformed PE files can be received through incoming email, downloading of a document or application, or by visiting a malicious web site," Symantec said. "No user interaction is required to trigger the parsing of the malformed file." For Linux, OS X, and other Unix-like systems, the exploit results in a remote heap overflow as root in the Symantec or Norton process, Ormandy said in the Project Zero issue tracker. "On Windows, this results in kernel memory corruption, as the scan engine is loaded into the kernel (wtf!!!), making this a remote ring0 memory corruption vulnerability -- this is about as bad as it can possibly get," he said.The vulnerability, if exploited, results in kernel memory corruption without user action and instant blue-screening on Windows.
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By manishs from
Slashdot's youtube,-piracy,-and-you department:
An anonymous reader cites a TorrentFreak report (edited and condensed): YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering. That's the headline-grabbing claim of Grammy award winning musician Maria Schneider, who claims that the Google-owned site is abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to siphon money away from musicians into its own pockets. Over the years, Google has transformed into the new bad guy and the pressure is mounting in a way never witnessed before. The U.S. Copyright Office's request for comments into the efficacy of the DMCA's safe harbor provisions has resulted in a wave of condemnation for both Google search and the company's YouTube platform, with everyone from the major record labels to the MPAA and back again attacking the technology giant. Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider really ups the ante by stating that YouTube is guilty of the same criminal acts that Megaupload is currently accused of. "YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering," Schneider wrote in an open letter to the platform. "YouTube has thoroughly twisted, contorted, and abused the original meaning of the outdated DMCA 'safe harbor' to create a massive income redistribution scheme, where income is continually transferred from the pockets of musicians and creators of all types, and siphoned directly into their own pockets."
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By manishs from
Slashdot's skype-woes department:
It's no secret that Microsoft has long stopped caring about Skype for Linux. But the VoIP and instant messaging service isn't exactly working well on other platforms either. Microsoft reporter and critic Tom Warren lists a number of issues he continues to face on Skype. These issues include infrequent restarts, too many update prompts, and just having to deal with the unimpressive user interface that Skype throws at everyone's face. "I'm not sure what Microsoft has done to Skype, but it sucks now," he writes. Warren adds: Recently, friends and family have started experiencing some of the many issues I experience, including calls simply not connecting properly and every device in a home ringing non-stop even when a call is activated. Microsoft had promised to fix notifications blasting out to both your desktop machine and mobile, but I still frequently receive them in real-time on multiple devices. [...] I regularly have to restart the app just to make a call, or have my microphone detected correctly. This isn't a single device with driver issues, it's consistent across machines. I can't even scroll up and down on the contacts section of the Skype app with my trackpad, it just doesn't work. Those are bugs that should be easy to address, but Microsoft has also struggled to get the UI right with Skype.
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By manishs from
Slashdot's private-messages-no-longer-private department:
The Nulled, one of the most popular hacker forums with more than 470,000 members has suffered a data breach. As a result of which, email addresses and private messages of all these members have leaked. According to a report on BBC, the leaked data contained more than 5,000 purchase records relating to the exchange of stolen information. From the BBC report: Researchers at Risk Based Security said the data dump contained the "complete forum's database" including 12,600 invoices, usernames, members' PayPal addresses and IP addresses. It also contained millions of forum posts and private messages detailing illegal activities. And some of the data could be used to work out members' identities, if they did not take steps to conceal it. Risk Based Security added the website had used message board software with known vulnerabilities, and the site also used a weak hashing algorithm to protect members' passwords.
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By manishs from
Slashdot's radio-wants-to-be-free department:
An anonymous reader cites an article on CBC: Your smartphone may include an FM radio chip but, chances are, it doesn't work. Now, an online campaign has launched in Canada, putting pressure on telecoms and manufacturers to turn on the radio hidden in many cellphones. Titled, "free radio on my phone," the campaign says that most Android smartphones have a built-in FM receiver which doesn't require data or Wi-Fi to operate. The U.S. arm of the campaign believes iPhones also have a built-in radio chip but that it can't be activated. Apple wouldn't confirm this detail. The radio chip in many Android phones also lies dormant. But the campaign says it can easily be activated -- if telecom providers ask the manufacturers to do it. In Canada, however, most of the telecoms haven't made the move to get the radio turned on. They'd prefer that you stream your audio, depleting your phone's costly data plan, claims campaign organizer, Barry Rooke.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's lump-sum department:
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by Buffett, disclosed in a regulatory filing Monday that it purchased more than 9.8 million shares in Apple during the first quarter. It marks Berkshire's first investment in Apple. Berkshire acquired its position at an average price of about $109 a share. Apple's stock price has since fallen to just above $90, meaning that Berkshire's stake in Apple is now worth about $888 million. The Apple purchase is the second big tech investment by Berkshire, which has been steadily adding to its stake in IBM during the past few years. Until recently, Buffett had been famous for his lack of investments in the tech sector. But Apple fits perfectly in Buffett's wheelhouse. The company is a leader in its market and the stock is extremely cheap, trading for just 11 times this year's earnings estimates. Apple also has a pristine balance sheet, with $232.9 billion in cash. At the end of April, billionaire investor Carl Icahn sold his entire stake in Apple, citing the risk of China's influence on the stock. Last week, Didi, China's ride-sharing service and rival to Uber, announced Apple invested $1 billion in the company. There's been a lot of money shuffling taking place as of late as Apple tries to reinvigorate the market after it had its first earnings decline in more than a decade.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's prank-hacking department:
An anonymous reader writes: "Michael Mancil Brown, 37, of Franklin, Tennessee, faces up to thirty years in prison, a fine up to $250,000, and orders of restitution to victims, because of a daring stunt he pulled off in 2012 that involved fake hacking the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm, and US presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Back in 2012, Brown had the bright idea to write a letter alleging to have hacked PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) servers and stolen tax documents prior to 2010 for Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann," writes Softpedia. The "hacker" asked for $1 million in Bitcoin, and after publishing details about his fake hack online, he almost received it from a "third-party," but not before the FBI arrested him and then uncovered his lie. Last Friday, Brown was found guilty and then convicted of six counts of wire fraud and six counts of using facilities of interstate commerce to commit extortion.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's significant-milestone department:
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: The International Space Station, the space laboratory that showcases cooperation between Russia and the United States, on Monday orbited Earth for the 100,000th time, Russian mission control said. Traveling at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) and a speed of about 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) per hour, the space station circles the Earth once every 90 minutes. The ISS has now travelled 2.6 billion miles "or about the distance of 10 round trips to Mars," NASA said on the station's official Twitter feed. From two modules, it has grown to 15 modules, occupying a space the size of a football pitch and represents around $100 billion in investment. "Such a long lifespan of the ISS proves that mankind has the necessary technologies for constant presence in orbit, that we have the potential for further space exploration," said Matyushin.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's strawberry-jam department:
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, the University of Washington, and the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason found shark jelly to have the highest proton conductivity ever seen in a biological material. The jelly's conductivity begins to approach that of leading proton-conducting polymers. Tiny organs in the skin of sharks, skates and rays, called the ampullae of Lorenzini, are key to the ability. Scientists believe that the jelly is what has been able to allow these animals to detect weak electric fields produced by their prey, as the organs, which are visible as pores in the skin, are connected to electrosensory cells via long, jelly-filled canals. Marco Rolandi, a co-author on a paper detailing the findings in Science Advances, sees potential use for the "shark jelly" in the development of new or enhanced materials or even the creation of new sensor technology. "The observation of high proton conductivity in the jelly is very exciting," Rolandi said. "We hope that our findings may contribute to future studies of the electrosensing function of the ampullae of Lorenzini and the organ overall, which is itself rather exceptional."
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's Keystone-Cops department:
An anonymous reader writes: According to Yahoo News, the CIA inspector general's office "mistakenly" destroyed its only copy of a mammoth Senate torture report at the same time lawyers for the Justice Department were assuring a federal judge that copies of the document were being preserved. Agency officials described the deletion of the document to Senate investigators as an "inadvertent" foul-up by the inspector general. "CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document, filled with thousands of secret files about the CIA's use of 'enhanced' interrogation methods," reports Yahoo News. The Senate Intelligence Committee and Justice Department knew about the incident last summer, sources said. However, the destruction of a copy of the sensitive report was never made public, nor was it reported to the federal judge at the time who was overseeing a lawsuit seeking access to the still classified document under the Freedom of Information Act. Despite this incident, a CIA spokesperson has said another unopened computer disk with the full report is still locked in a vault at agency headquarters. "I can assure you that the CIA has retained a copy," wrote Dean Boyd, the agency's chief of public affairs, in an email. Feinstein is calling for the CIA inspector general to obtain a new copy of the report to replace the one that disappeared. A 500-page summary was released in 2014, and concluded that the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation." Specifically, the interrogations were poorly managed and unreliable.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's perishable-goods department:
An anonymous reader writes: The Wall Street Journal reports Amazon will soon roll-out its own private-label brands of common household items like coffee, diapers, and other perishable groceries. Such offerings include baby food, tea, coffee, spices, and even laundry detergent, and will live under the brand names Happy Belly, Wickedly Prime, and Mama Bear. The products are expected to go on sale as soon as this month, available exclusively for Amazon Prime members. The idea to sell private-label products is nothing new for Amazon. It's been selling consumer electronics devices under its Amazon Basics line for quite some time now. They launched several in-house clothing brands earlier this year as well. In 2014, the company had to recall its Element brand diapers due to a design flaw. With a wider array of private-label goods, especially edible goods, the stakes are only higher, as one recall could severely hurt the company's reputation.
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By BeauHD from
Slashdot's first-batch department:
executioner quotes a report from The Intercept: The Intercept's first SIDtoday release comprises 166 articles, including all articles published between March 31, 2003, when SIDtoday began, and June 30, 2003, plus installments of all article series begun during this period through the end of the year. Major topics include the National Security Agency's role in interrogations, the Iraq War, the war on terror, new leadership in the Signals Intelligence Directorate, and new, popular uses of the internet and of mobile computing devices. You can download this batch directly here, or download the documents via Github.
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