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Government

Wikileaks Publishes $1B of Public Domain Research Reports 231

Posted by timothy from the well-there's-a-nice-circularity-to-that dept.
laird writes "Wikileaks has released nearly a billion dollars worth of quasi-secret reports commissioned by the United States Congress. The 6,780 reports, current as of this month, comprise over 127,000 pages of material on some of the most contentious issues in the nation, from the U.S. relationship with Israel to abortion legislation. Nearly 2,300 of the reports were updated in the last 12 months, while the oldest report goes back to 1990. The release represents the total output of the Congressional Research Service (CRS) electronically available to Congressional offices. The CRS is Congress's analytical agency and has a budget in excess of $100M per year. Although all CRS reports are legally in the public domain, they are quasi-secret because the CRS, as a matter of policy, makes the reports available only to members of Congress, Congressional committees and select sister agencies such as the GAO. Members of Congress are free to selectively release CRS reports to the public but are only motivated to do so when they feel the results would assist them politically. Universally embarrassing reports are kept quiet."

Comment Re:Why the need for a USB stick at all? (Score 0) 258

by superstuntguy (#25612277) Attached to: In UK, 12M Taxpayers Lost With USB Stick
There wasn't a massive amount of data stored on that USB stick. It was just an authentication medium for the online government system, which actually stores the data. It's like the difference between putting your key or your house in your pocket. They shut down the service so they could go over their logs and change the passwords, much like I would get my locks changed if I lost my key. Also, to have an encrypted net connection, you have to have some way to authenticate anyways, and then you go right back to problems with storing that stuff on a physical medium.
Space

Submission + - Galaxy Blasts Neighbor with Deadly Jet (space.com)

Submitted by
butterwise
butterwise writes: "Space.com is reporting that "for the first time astronomers have witnessed a supermassive black hole blasting its galactic neighbor with a deadly beam of energy."

"The 'death star galaxy,' as NASA astronomers called it, could obliterate the atmospheres of planets but also trigger the birth of stars in the wake of its destructive beam. Fortunately, the cosmic violence is a safe distance from our own neck of the cosmos.""
Java

Dangerous Java Flaw Threatens 'Virtually Everything' 323

Posted by Zonk from the let-it-cool-down-first dept.
Marc Nathoni writes with a ZDet article about a critically dangerous hole in the Java Runtime Environment. Due to the ubiquitousness of Java, this could prove a serious security problem. "Australia's Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) analyst, Robert Lowe, warned that anyone using the Java Runtime Environment or Java Development Kit is at risk. 'Delivery of exploits in this manner is attractive to attackers because even though the browser may be fully patched, some people neglect to also patch programs invoked by browsers to render specific types of content,' said Lowe."

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