Trojan Uses Motion Sensors To Steal Smartphone Data
April 23rd, 2012Via: TechWeek Europe:
Motion-sensor data from smartphones can be used to effectively guess what keys a user is tapping and steal sensitive data such as PINs and bank details, according to new research (PDF) from Pennsylvania State University (PSU) and IBM.
The researchers developed a proof-of-concept Trojan for Android called TapLogger that uses a “training mode” to build up a database of key-click information before applying the information to refine its guesses as to what keys a user is tapping at any given moment.
Wireless Industry Association Opposes Bill That Would Require Warrant For Them To Turn Data Over To Law Enforcement
April 23rd, 2012Via: TechDirt:
You would think that it would be in the mobile operators’ best interest to protect their own customers’ privacy and to stand up for their basic rights. You would think, but apparently you’d be wrong. It appears that CTIA — the mobile operators’ industry association — is opposing an effort in California to require mobile operators to require a warrant before disclosing personal info. The bill also requires some basic reporting requirements for the companies, having them say how often info has been disclosed (hardly onerous info to track). Basically, the law asks that the mobile operators respect the 4th Amendment when dealing with law enforcement — something that the federal government has been successfully chipping away at for years.
But the CTIA is against all of this (pdf), claiming that it would be “confusing” for mobile operators. The crux of the “confusion” apparently is that the definitions in the bill are somewhat broader than what the industry says is standard, and they’re afraid that this means “It could place providers in the position of requiring warrants for all law enforcement requests.” I’m struggling to see what the problem is here. What’s wrong with requiring warrants?
Research Credit: noncompliant
Startup Claims ‘Holy Grail’ of System on Chip Design
April 23rd, 2012Yikes. If this is real, it will definitely accelerate the grim trends in technology that you’ve been reading about on Cryptogon and lots of other places.
Scum from Wall Street to Fort Meade will be frothing over this one.
Via: EE Times:
The first automated software-to-chip dream came out of the closet Monday (April 23), when Algotochip Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) claimed to be able to produce a system-on-chip (SoC) design from a C-code specification in just eight to 16 weeks.
“We can move your designs from algorithms to chips in as little as eight weeks,” said Satish Padmanabhan CTO and founder of Algotochip, whose EDA tool directly implements digital chips from C-algorithms. “Our solution provides the appropriate RTL generated from C-ocde for SoC.
Algotochip said its technology, announced at the Globalpress Electronics Summit 2012 in Santa Cruz, Calif., generates all aspects of a solution including the software, firmware and hardware from the designers C-code and test stimulus vectors. Padmanabhan, former co-founder and chief architect at ZSP (acquired by Verisilicon in 2006), where he created the first superscalar DSP, recruited software experts from Apple and elsewhere two years ago, and today unveiled its proprietary engine that accepts as input a C-code file and outputs a Graphic Data System II (GSDII) suitable for creating SoC.
U.S. Suspends Controversial Outsourcing Training Program
April 23rd, 2012Feign forgiveness, regroup, do-it-again. And get them on that certificate program.
Via: Information Week:
The U.S. Agency for International Development has suspended funding for a program under which Filipino nationals were trained to work in offshore, English language call centers that serve U.S. companies. The program, first reported by InformationWeek, drew heavy criticism from lawmakers who said it posed a threat to American call center workers.
Katy Perry Appears in U.S. Marine Corps Propaganda Video
April 23rd, 2012According to Wikipedia, this was filmed at, “USMC’s Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California.”
Did she get a DoD paycheck for this?
Related:
U.S. Marines: Infantry Now Open to Women
Research Credit: RP
Huge Water Resource Exists Under Africa
April 22nd, 2012Via: BBC:
Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.
They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.
The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.
Silicon Valley Firms in Alleged Salary Fixing Scheme
April 22nd, 2012Via: MacWorld:
Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe are accused of agreeing not to poach each others staff, therefore holding back career development and suppressing compensation. A federal court in California has ordered seven technology companies in the state including Apple, Intel, Adobe and Google to face a private antitrust suit from five former employees, who alleged that the companies conspired to eliminate competition between them for skilled labor to suppress compensation and mobility of employees.
Many Portuguese Returning to the Land
April 22nd, 2012Via: RTE:
Disillusioned by the unfulfilled promise of the cities and feeling stifled by tough austerity measures aimed at coping with an economic downturn, some Portuguese are opting out and returning to the land.
Jose Diogo, who spent two years in Lisbon working as a technical advisor at a meat company, was one who fled at the beginning of Portugal’s debt crisis in 2009, and has no regrets.
“I lived in Lisbon and decided to go back home to the interior to grab the opportunity of exploring the land my father owned,” Mr Diogo said on the porch at his stone farm house, looking out over apple orchards and grazing fields for his 30 cows.
Far from discouraging people like Mr Diogo, the government is trying to get others to follow in his footsteps.
In February it launched an initiative to map the country’s unused land and terrain that does not have a known owner, with the aim of making it available to be rented to those who want to work it.
The government has also approved a land exchange scheme by which private owners of unused land will win tax benefits if they make their properties available to be rented by farmers.
Around 1.5 million hectares are expected to be made available through the scheme.
Research Credit: Timbooch
Another Weird Incident Involving Possibly Bogus Securities in Italy
April 22nd, 2012Via: Bloomberg:
Italy’s financial police seized U.S. government securities with a nominal value of $1.5 billion from an unidentified man in his 70s, they said in an e-mailed statement.
The police said they also took certificates of deposit for about 1,000 tons of gold, which together with the U.S. bonds are worth more than 3 billion euros ($4 billion). The assets were found in a briefcase in the man’s car in Viterbo near Rome because of their “doubtful origin,” according to the statement.
The man has previous convictions for robbery, extortion, drug trafficking and money laundering, according to the police statement.
The probe, dubbed “Million Dollar,” is being carried out in and around the capital in cooperation with officials from the U.S. Embassy. Police said they’re evaluating “the authenticity, the nature and the origin” of the securities, some of which may date from the 1930s.
Scientific Fraud: ‘Nobody Had Noticed the Whole Thing Was Rotten’
April 21st, 2012Nobody noticed, eh?
Well, my archives go back to 2002, for example, but I don’t count, and thousands of others like me don’t count.
The professionally educated ignoramus class heaps scorn on “conspiracy theorists” for outing their crackpot grant swindling and corporate profit cult for what it is, but then, when the rot has gotten too deep to be able to maintain appearances, “Nobody had noticed.”
Via: New York Times:
“Nobody had noticed the whole thing was rotten,” said Dr. Fang, who is a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Dr. Fang became curious how far the rot extended. To find out, he teamed up with a fellow editor at the journal, Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. And before long they reached a troubling conclusion: not only that retractions were rising at an alarming rate, but that retractions were just a manifestation of a much more profound problem — “a symptom of a dysfunctional scientific climate,” as Dr. Fang put it.
Dr. Casadevall, now editor in chief of the journal mBio, said he feared that science had turned into a winner-take-all game with perverse incentives that lead scientists to cut corners and, in some cases, commit acts of misconduct.
“This is a tremendous threat,” he said.
Related: American Society for Microbiology: ‘Has Modern Science Become Dysfunctional?’
