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Japanese Cops Collar Malware-Carrying Cat 83

Orome1 writes "When imagining law enforcement officers investigating and searching for cyber criminals or evidence about their activities, the last thing that you can probably envision is them searching for a stray cat. But that was exactly what detectives of Japan's National Police Agency recently did as the last step in a complex 'treasure hunt' started on New Year's Day by a person (persons?) who is allegedly the mastermind behind the so-called 'Remote Control Virus.' The malware in question was instrumental in staging a continuous campaign of death and bomb threats sent to airline companies, kindergartens, schools, law offices, broadcasting networks and shrines."

Comment WarGames and Nightline (Score 1) 612

This isn't a question, rather a thank you. When I was a kid, WarGames played on network television for the first time. Later that night, Nightline had an interview with you where Ted Koppel posed the question "What would you do if someone hacked into your systems?" you reply "I'd hire him". Thank you for that! I had been dabbling in program on your Apple ][ and other home computers, but my parents didn't see a future in it. Not until they heard your response. Without there support I wouldn't be a software engineer today!
Cellphones

Submission + - Google Awarded Face-To-Unlock Patent (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader writes: CNet reports that Google was awarded a patent yesterday for logging into a computing device using face recognition (8,261,090). 'In order for the technology to work, Google's patent requires a camera that can identify a person's face. If that face matches a "predetermined identity," then the person is logged into the respective device. If multiple people want to access a computer, the next person would get in front of the camera, and the device's software would automatically transition to the new user's profile. ... Interestingly, Apple last year filed for a patent related to facial recognition similar to what Google is describing in its own service. That technology would recognize a person's face and use that as the authentication needed to access user profiles or other important information.'
Apple

Submission + - OSX Lion ships with faulty NVidia Drivers (apple.com)

TeaCurran writes: Apple OSX Lion shipped with new NVidia video drivers that are causing anyone with a mid 2010 Macbook Pro to get a kernel panic every 5-10 minutes. Apple knew about the issue before shipping lion, hasn't responded to the issue, and is censoring posts in their support forum that mention words like 'boycot' and 'petition'. NVidia has responded that the drivers are the responsibility of Apple so they won't deal with the issue. How a major hardware manufacturer can ship such a faulty product without getting much press about it is completely beyond me.
Science

Submission + - Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit writes: While exploring Australia's Great Barrier Reef, professional diver Scott Gardner heard an odd cracking sound and swam over to investigate. What he found was a footlong blackspot tuskfish holding a clam in its mouth and whacking it against a rock. Soon the shell gave way, and the fish gobbled up the bivalve, spat out the shell fragments, and swam off. Fortunately, Gardner had a camera handy and snapped what seem to be the first photographs of a wild fish using a tool.
Privacy

Submission + - LulzSec Document Dump Shows Cops' Fear Of iPhones (itworld.com)

jfruhlinger writes: "People are starting to comb through the details of the law enforcement documents made public by LulzSec. Blogger Kevin Fogarty noticed one interesting trend: The cops seem very anxious about iPhones, particularly apps that would allow encounters with a police officers to be recorded. Ironically, the cops seem extremely concerned with protecting their own privacy, but the documents encourage police to examine iPhones during the course of interacting with the public to see what apps they have."
Apple

Submission + - Apple Nixes iPad Giveaways (cnn.com)

KingSkippus writes: According to a story at CNN, Apple has begun enforcing third party promotion guidelines (PDF) that, among other things, restricts organizations from giving away iPads, using the word "free" to describe any Apple products in a prominent manner, or promoting giveaways of iPod Touches in lots of less than 250 and with Apple's explicit approval.

Comment DIY was king... (Score 2, Informative) 348

When the game-blaster was $500 or so we made our own thank you. :)
I used to get reels of matching resistors and make soundcards for everyone I knew with a PC.
Originally released by Covox, it was simple to make your own, and way cheaper than everything on the market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covox_Speech_Thing
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Apple Cuts Linux iPod Users Off (blogspot.com)

Will Fisher writes: "New iPods will no longer be able to work with Linux. iTunes now writes some kind of hash (SHA1, md5?) to the iPod database which new iPods check against. If this check fails then the iPod reports that it contains 0 songs. This appears to be protection against 3rd party applications writing out their own databases. We haven't found out how to generate our own valid hashes (but we do know the hash includes the database itself, and possibly the iPod serial number), and are looking for help."

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