16450068
submission
yuna49 writes:
PCWorld reports that analysis of the Stuxnet worm suggests its target might have been Iran's nuclear program. "Last week Ralph Langner, a well-respected expert on industrial systems security, published an analysis of the Stuxnet worm, which targets Siemens software systems, and suggested that it may have been used to sabotage Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor. A Siemens expert, Langner simulated a Siemens industrial network and then analyzed the worm's attack. Experts had first thought that Stuxnet was written to steal industrial secrets, but Langner found something quite different. The worm actually looks for very specific Siemens settings — a kind of fingerprint that tells it that it has been installed on a very specific Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) device — and then it injects its own code into that system.
Stuxnet makes changes to a piece of Siemens code called Organizational Block 35. This Siemens component monitors critical factory operations — things that need a response within 100 milliseconds. By messing with Operational Block 35, Stuxnet could easily cause a refinery's centrifuge to malfunction, but it could be used to hit other targets too, Byres said. "The only thing I can say is that it is something designed to go bang," he said.
5830097
submission
yuna49 writes:
Lately I have been visiting colleges with my daughter who's a senior in high school. Every school has proudly announced that they support both Windows and Macs, and most of these schools report having about a 50-50 split between the two technologies. However we've been a Linux household for many years now, and my daughter routinely uses a laptop running Kubuntu 9.04. Sometimes I would ask the student tour guide if Linux was supported and was usually met with a blank stare. We're obviously not concerned about whether she can write papers using OpenOffice and Linux. Rather we've been wondering about using other computing services on campus like classroom applications, remote printing, VPNs, or wifi support (nearly all these campuses have ubiquitous wifi). Given the composition of Slashdot's readership, I thought I'd pose the question here. Does your school support Linux? Have you found it difficult or impossible to use Linux in concert with the school's computing services?
5130263
submission
yuna49 writes:
Online Media Daily reports that a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personal information. "In order for 'personally identifiable information' to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies a computer," U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones said in a written decision. Jones issued the ruling in the context of a class-action lawsuit brought by consumers against Microsoft stemming from an update that automatically installed new anti-piracy software. In that case, which dates back to 2006, consumers alleged that Microsoft violated its user agreement by collecting IP addresses in the course of the updates.
This ruling flatly contradicts a recent EU decision to the contrary, as well as other cases in the US. Its potential relevance to the RIAA suits should be obvious to anyone who reads Slashdot.
4985693
submission
yuna49 writes:
The US Supreme Court today ruled 8-1 that the strip search of a 13-year-old girl by officials in an Arizona middle school was unconstitutional. However, by a vote of 7-2, the Court also ruled that the individual school officials could not be held personally liable. A suit for damages against the school district itself is still going forward. We discussed this case at length back in March when the Court decided to hear the case on appeal.
554266
submission
yuna49 writes:
Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports today about the plight of a Spanish tour operator whose domain names have been embargoed by eNom after they discovered the tour operator's name on a US Treasury blacklist. It turns out he packages tours to Cuba largely for European tourists who can legally travel there, unlike Americans. The article cites "a press release issued in December 2004, almost three years before eNom acted. It said Mr. Marshall's company had helped Americans evade restrictions on travel to Cuba and was 'a generator of resources that the Cuban regime uses to oppress its people.' It added that American companies must not only stop doing business with the company but also freeze its assets, meaning that eNom did exactly what it was legally required to do."
The only part of the operator's business in the United States is his domain name registration; all other aspects of his business lie outside the United States.
220369
submission
yuna49 writes:
Various people are reporting that the MS07-040 patch for .NET released on Tuesday can cause a variety of seemingly unrelated problems. According to the SANS Internet Storm Center "the reports we got so far seem not to lead to any specific thing that happens in many cases, just various things going haywire." Some commentators on The Register's report of this story indicate that the patch failed to install at all, while others report things like the mouse suddenly failing to work or long periods of hard drive thrashing. In some cases a hard reboot seems to fix the problem, but other reports suggest that a reinstallation of the .NET framework itself is required. The problems may be related to the MSCORSVW.EXE process which recompiles all the .NET assemblies when the patch is downloaded. While the recompilations are supposed to run as a background task, in some instances the recompilation will drive the processor to 100% usage.
162653
submission
yuna49 writes:
Mark Shuttleworth told eWeek in a May 3rd interview that Dell will not include open-source software such as Wine, which lets users run Windows programs on Linux, with the PCs it plans to bundle with Ubuntu Linux. "I do not want to position Ubuntu and Linux as a cheap alternative to Windows," Shuttleworth said in an interview with eWEEK following the May 1 announcement that Dell plans to preload Ubuntu on some consumer machines. Does that mean Wine won't even be listed in the package manager?
116273
submission
yuna49 writes:
Last Thursday, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a "Notice of Inquiry" (warning: pdf) into "the behavior of broadband market participants, including:
- How broadband providers are managing Internet traffic on their networks today
- Whether providers charge different prices for different speeds or capacities of service
- Whether our policies should distinguish between content providers that charge end users for access to content and those that do not
- How consumers are affected by these practices."
According to this article at eWeek, the study is targeted at whether broadband providers are treating some content providers more favorably than others. Distinctly absent is any discussion about port filtering or other restrictions on Internet usage.
In published statements, the two Democrats on the Commission pressed for a "Notice of Rulemaking" rather than a "Notice of Inquiry" arguing that the Commission should declare a policy of non-discrimination now rather than waiting months or years for another study to be conducted. The Republican majority ignored these arguments and voted for an Inquiry to which the Democrats concurred.
