CmdrTaco - Slashdot User

Submission + - Branch Prediction Attacks are getting "Simple&

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Monday November 20, 2006 @01:28PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Physorg.com reports about a new-found vulnerability affecting all modern CPUs: the branch-prediction hardware can leak information between any pair of processes. More information about SBPA were collected on these slides slides by S. Gueron. The bad news: it works! — "A carefully written spy-process running simultaneously with an RSA-process, is able to collect almost all of the secret key bits during single RSA signing execution." On the upside, there will be workarounds (probably by avoiding all cache-goodness) for openSSL published by the same authors."

Submission + - ReplayTV Moving to Software Sales Model?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20, 2006 @12:54PM

An anonymous reader writes: ReplayTV (http://www.replaytv.com) wants us to download a 30-day trial of their DVR software and run it on our old PCs. It costs a hundred bucks to keep it, including a year of "service" (channel listings), and 20 bucks a year after that.

I like my (hardware) ReplayTV, and I'd love to have an HD version of it. But now that we have the open software project MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org), why would I pay for ReplyTV's presumably proprietary software? I'd rather buy a nice piece of MythTV-tested hardware from ReplayTV!

Hmmm, maybe that's not such a new idea after all: http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Commercial_My thTV_System

Submission + - Encryption Cracked Using CPU Usage

Submitted by

dptalia

on Monday November 20, 2006 @12:40PM

dptalia writes: "Researchers have announced a way to crack encryption keys by monitoring the amount of exertion the CPU uses. This technique is based on the branch prediction capabilities of the CPU. By monitoring the fluxes when the CPU switches into and out of branch prediction mode the researchers can determine details about the key. They have successfully cracked a 512 bit key in a few thousanths of a second."

Submission + - The Mechanics of Motion Sensing

Submitted by Dr. Eggman on Monday November 20, 2006 @12:24PM

Dr. Eggman writes: CNN has a short technology piece on the mechanics that go into the sensing capabilities of the Wii and PS3 controllers. It also details some of the past uses of the technology and gives a nice overview of just how far the technology has come from the earliest missile guidance sensor equipment.

Submission + - Chine reinstates Wikipedia ban

Submitted by

Rob T Firefly

on Friday November 17, 2006 @12:03PM

Rob T Firefly writes: "Wikinews reports that the lifting of China's Wikipedia ban earlier this week was short-lived. Wikipedia is once again inaccessible from behind the Great Firewall, along with all other Wikimedia projects. Additionally, the URL of Chinese Wikipedia is once again a banned search term. No reason has yet been given for any of it."

Submission + - Patches for Pine going away

Submitted by

md8mart

on Friday November 17, 2006 @07:17AM

md8mart writes: "From the RSS feed of Patches for Pine we can read the following:
The Department of Mathematics of the University of Washington will close the account that hosts my Patches for Pine site. I would like to thank the Department of Mathematics for having hosted this site for so many years. I do not have current plans to move this site, but this site will disappear on December 15, 2006. Thank you to everyone who supported me by positive feedback and encouragement to do this work through the years. I will update this information as it becomes available.
Horrible news for all pine users."

Submission + - Many Linux users banned from World of Warcraft

Submitted by

Turmoyl

on Wednesday November 15, 2006 @11:39AM

Turmoyl writes: "Many Cedega (formerly WINEX) users were mistakenly caught up in a security sweep of the U.S. game servers performed by Blizzard's World of Warcraft Game Master (GM) staff.

Affected users received the same strongly-worded "Notice of Account Closure" email messages that true bot users did, in which they were accused of the "Use of Third Party Automation Software".

While diagnosis of this event continues early speculation points to Blizzard's use of the Warden anti-cheating spyware application that is bundled with World of Warcraft, and the odd things that may have been produced by it when it was run via Cedega.

Emails to World of Warcraft's Account Administration staff continue to go unanswered while the list of affected people continues to grow."

Feed Machinima Awards Go Virtual (feedburner.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Sunday November 05, 2006 @08:12AM

Game-engine filmmakers celebrate 10 years of their art form by moving an awards ceremony into virtual space and the web. By Seán Captain.

Submission + - Bomb Explodes At eBay PayPal Headquarters

Submitted by

Pooua

on Wednesday November 01, 2006 @03:52AM

Pooua writes: "An explosive device that was left outside an exit of the San Jose, California, Paypal headquarter's building exploded with enough force to destroyed a plate glass window.

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_305004735.h tml"

Submission + - Antarctic Microbes Could Live on Mars

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @09:00AM

eldavojohn writes: "Recent research has shown that microbes found in an Antarctic lake could survive the coldest temperatures on Mars. From the article, 'And they found that these species of microorganisms "huddled" together in colder temperatures to form a chemically linked unit called a biofilm. The finding marks the first time this phenomenon has been detected in the Antarctic species of so-called extremophiles. The findings provide more evidence for the ideas that liquid found beneath Mars' surface could harbor microbial life and that life could exist elsewhere in the solar system and galaxy, which is generally incredibly cold.' Their genes are currently being sequenced to determine which give the organisms 'cold-shock' proteins and their resistance to cold."

Submission + - Viral videos that really ARE viral

Submitted by davidwr on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @07:53AM

davidwr writes: From the BBC: 'Security firms are reporting more and more instances of booby-trapped Windows codecs — file compressors — required to play some video formats. Some of the codecs let users play types of net-based video, but also have spyware and adware wrapped inside. Others, say experts, are outright fakes that just want to infect victims with data-stealing programs.' Now virtual sex can make your computer sick.

Submission + - Can Apple's iSight secretly watch you?

Submitted by on Monday October 30, 2006 @06:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: A blog from Business 2.0 magazine noticed a popup message while on youtube.com that asks "allow youtube.com to access your camera and microphone"? He goes on to suggest that it is possible for employees from these companies (or maybe even IT people) to secretly access the iSight to watch people without their knowledge. Finally, he makes a reference to apple's famous 1984 commercial.

Submission + - Mac-o-lantern Mac in a Pumpkin

Submitted by

on Monday October 30, 2006 @05:28PM

An anonymous reader writes: We made a new pumpkin PC this year. This time it can see via webcam eyes (thanks logitech), breath through its nose using a case fan, and talk out its mouth with a speaker system. The insides are made of a custom power supply and mac-mini Core Duo system. The lighting is made of neon wiring thanks to Startech.com mutant mods. Take a look: http://www3.uark.edu/bkst/pumpkin/ There is a link there to last year's 2005 pumpkin, and this year's 2006 mac-o-lantern. Check out the last page with a video of the pumpkin in action with the webcam and singing the Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven video

Submission + - USB Dongle Records Web, FM radio

Submitted by

rah1420

on Monday October 30, 2006 @12:30PM

rah1420 writes: "Gizmag just wrote about "Instant FM Music," a USB dongle that plugs into your computer's USB Port and records FM and Web Radio stations. You can record the playlist, tag the songs for easy playback, all without that nasty DRM."

Submission + - How MythTV Detects and Flags Commercials

Submitted by

peterdaly

on Monday October 30, 2006 @11:04AM

peterdaly writes: "Automatic commercial detection is the "killer app" feature that none of the commercial DVR's dare to include. MythTV's automatic commercial detection does a great job of properly separating commercials from content. Here's how the commercial flagging works."

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