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The Almighty Buck

The IT Certs That No Longer Pay Extra 267

Posted by samzenpus from the changing-values dept.
snydeq writes "Overall employment in tech is improving, but the certs you could once count on for a job or extra pay are losing their value, InfoWorld reports. 'Businesses no longer value what are increasingly considered standard skills, and instead are putting their money both into a new set of emerging specialties and into hybrid technology/business roles.'"
IT

Bloomberg Open Sources Its Market Data Distribution Technology 25

Posted by samzenpus from the free-and-open-market dept.
First time accepted submitter Cara_Latham writes "Hoping to spur innovation and collaboration, Bloomberg LP is opening its market data interfaces to anyone, without cost or restriction. The market data provider's application programming interface (API), known as BLPAPI (Bloomberg LP API), is already used by Bloomberg, its clients and other technology providers to build connections between financial firms' applications and Bloomberg's market data and applications. Today any technology professional, or even students at a university, can access BLPAPI to quickly build connections to market data feeds. The BLPAPI interface works with a number of programming languages and operating systems, including Java, C, C++, .NET, COM and Perl."
Botnet

Kelihos Botnet Comes Back To Life 97

Posted by samzenpus from the always-put-one-in-the-brain dept.
angry tapir writes "A botnet that was crippled by Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab last September is spamming once again and experts have no recourse to stop it. The Kelihos botnet only infected 45,000 or so computers but managed to send out nearly 4 billion spam messages a day, promoting, among other things, pornography, illegal pharmaceuticals and stock scams. But it was temporarily corralled last September after researchers used various technical means to get the 45,000 or so infected computers to communicate with a "sinkhole," or a computer they controlled."
Security

Super Bowl Bust: Feds Grab 307 NFL Websites; $4.8M 198

Posted by timothy from the first-they-came-for-the-pirated-sports-gewgaws dept.
coondoggie writes "Speaking at a National Football League press conference ahead of this weekend's Super Bowl, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million – up from $3.72 million last year."
GNU is Not Unix

How Far Should GPL Enforcement Go? 432

Posted by timothy from the lo-unto-the-ends-of-the-earth dept.
itwbennett writes "The debate over enforcement of the GPL flared up again this week when Red Hat kernel developer Matthew Garrett wrote in a blog post that Sony is looking to rewrite BusyBox to sidestep the GPL. Which is a perfectly legal undertaking. But it raises the question: 'Is there social pressure within the Linux kernel community to not undertake GPL compliance action?' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'This may not be nefarious: maybe people just would rather not bother with enforcing compliance. Better, they may argue, to just let the violation go and get on with developing better code.'"
Privacy

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist 720

Posted by timothy from the check-your-washroom-for-bolsheviks dept.
schwit1 passes on this snippet from Public Intelligence: "A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity. The document, part of a program called 'Communities Against Terrorism,' lists the use of 'anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address' as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using 'software to hide encrypted data in digital photos' or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone 'overly concerned about privacy' or attempting to 'shield the screen from view of others' should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities. ... The use of PGP, VPNs, Tor or any of the many other technologies for anonymity and privacy online are directly targeted by the flyer, which is distributed to businesses in an effort to promote the reporting of these activities."
Security

Verisign Admits Company Was Hacked In 2010, Not Sure What Was Stolen 85

Posted by timothy from the losing-the-moral-high-ground dept.
mask.of.sanity writes "Verisign admitted it was hacked repeatedly last year and cannot pin down what data was stolen. It says it doesn't believe the Domain Name System servers were hacked but it cannot rule it out. Symantec, which bought its certificate business in 2010, says also that there was no evidence that system was affected. Verisign further admitted in an SEC filing that its security team failed to tell management about the attacks until 2011, despite moving to address the hacks."
Crime

The Gang Behind the World's Largest Spam Botnet 58

Posted by samzenpus from the who's-to-blame dept.
tsu doh nimh writes "A Wikileaks-style war of attrition between two competing rogue Internet pharmacy gangs has exposed some of the biggest spammers on the planet. Brian Krebs uncovers fascinating information about a hacker named 'GeRa' who is supposedly behind the Grum botnet, which is currently sending about one out of every three spam emails worldwide. The story also points to several possible real-identities behind the Internet's largest spam machine."
Security

The Hi-Tech Security at the Super Bowl 265

Posted by samzenpus from the bubble-ball dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "As millions of fans sit glued to their sets next Sunday, one part of the game they will not see is the massive deployment of federal and local law enforcement resources to achieve what is being called the most technologically secure Super Bowl in history, an event that has been officially designated as a National Security Special Event (PDF). At the top of the list are gamma-ray cargo and vehicles scanners that can reportedly see through six inches of steel to reveal the contents of large vehicles. 'We can detect people, handguns and rifles,' says Customs and Border Protection Officer Brian Bell. 'You'd be a fool to bring something into that stadium that you shouldn't. We're going to catch it. Our goal is to look at every vehicle that makes a delivery inside the stadium and inside the secure perimeter.' Next is the 51-foot Featherlite mobile command center for disaster response that will support the newly constructed $18 million Regional Operations Center (ROC) for the Marion County Department of Homeland Security that will serve as a fusion center for coordinating the various federal agencies involved in providing security for the Super Bowl. One interesting security measure are the 'Swiveloc' explosion-proof manhole covers (video) that Indianapolis has spent $150,000 installing that are locked down during the Super Bowl. In case of an underground explosion, the covers lift a couple of inches off the ground — enough to vent gas out without feeding in oxygen to make an explosion bigger — before falling back into place. Finally the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI has installed a network of cameras that will be just a click away for government officials. 'If you had the right (Internet) address, you could set up a laptop anywhere and you could watch the camera from there,' says Brigadier General Stewart Goodwin."
Upgrades

Unicode 6.1 Released 170

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the tent-emoji-style dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The latest version of the Unicode standard (v. 6.1.0) was officially released January 31. The latest version includes 732 new characters, including seven brand new scripts. It also adds support for distinguishing emoji-style and text-style symbols and emoticons with variation selectors, updates to the line-breaking algorithm to more accurately reflect Japanese and Hebrew texts, and updates other algorithms and technical notes to reflect new characters and newly documented text behaviors."
Apple

Apple Forcing IT Shops To 'Adapt Or Die' 715

Posted by Soulskill from the techno-industrial-darwinism dept.
alphadogg writes "Many IT departments are struggling with Apple's 'take it or leave it' attitude, based on discussions last week at MacIT, which is Macworld|iWorld's companion conference for IT professionals. Much of the questioning following technical presentations wasn't about Apple technology or products. It was about the complexities and confusions of trying to sort out for the enterprise Apple's practices. Those practices include the use of Apple IDs and iTunes accounts, which are designed for individual Mac or iPad or iPhone users, and programs like Apple's Volume Purchase Program, which, according to Apple 'makes it simple to find, buy, and distribute the apps your business needs' and to buy custom, third-party B2B apps."
Government

Ongoing Attacks Target Defense, Aerospace Industries 77

Posted by Soulskill from the hackers-want-spaceships-with-lasers dept.
Gunkerty Jeb writes "Researchers have identified a strain of malware that's being used in a string of targeted attacks against defense contractors, government agencies and other organizations by leveraging exploits against zero-day vulnerabilities. The attacks may have been going on since 2009 in some form and the emails containing the malicious attachments are specifically targeted at executives and officials in various industries using fake conference invitations. The attack campaign, as many do, appears to be changing frequently, as the attackers use different binaries and change up their patterns for connecting to remote command-and-control servers. The research, done by Seculert and Zscaler, shows that the attackers are patient, taking the time to dig up some information about their potential targets, and are carefully choosing organizations that have high-value intellectual property and assets (PDF)."
Privacy

Surveillance Cameras Used To Study Customer Behavior 126

Posted by samzenpus from the unseen-mechanized-eye dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review reports on a startup with software used by stores to track, count and log people captured by security cameras. Prism Skylab's technology can produce heatmaps showing where people went and produce other statistics that the company claims offer tracking and analytics like those used online for the real world. One use case is for businesses to correlate online promotions and deals — such as Groupon offers — with real world footfall and in-store behavior."
Google

Apple Versus Google Innovation Strategies 187

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-it-done dept.
porsche911 writes "The NY Times has a great story comparing the top-down versus bottom-up innovation approaches of Apple and Google. From the article: '"There is nothing democratic about innovation," says Paul Saffo, a veteran technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. "It is always an elite activity, whether by a recognized or unrecognized elite."'"
Security

DHS Sends Tourists Home Over Twitter Jokes 709

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the it's-not-like-anyone-would-miss-la dept.
itwbennett writes "In a classic case of 'we say destroy, you say party hard,' the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security detained a pair of British twenty-somethings for 12 hours and then sent them packing back to the land of the cheeky retort. At issue is a Tweet sent by Leigh Van Bryan about plans to 'destroy America,' starting with LA, which, really, isn't that bad an idea."
Government

10-Year Gary McKinnon Case To End This Year 72

Posted by Soulskill from the right-to-a-speedy-trial dept.
judgecorp writes "The ten-year legal quagmire surrounding Gary McKinnon, who hacked into U.S. military and NASA computers in 2001 and 2002, must end this year, a British High Court Judge has ordered. McKinnon has been appealing against extradition to the U.S., and two medical experts must report in 28 days on his mental state, ruling whether he would be a suicide risk if deported. This ruling could short-circuit an extradition appeal hearing in July."
Crime

Shmoocon Demo Shows Easy, Wireless Credit Card Fraud 273

Posted by timothy from the now-how-much-would-you-pay dept.
Sparrowvsrevolution writes with this excerpt from a Forbes piece recounting a scary demo at the just-ended Shmoocon: "[Security researcher Kristin] Paget aimed to indisputably prove what hackers have long known and the payment card industry has repeatedly downplayed and denied: That RFID-enabled credit card data can be easily, cheaply, and undetectably stolen and used for fraudulent transactions. With a Vivotech RFID credit card reader she bought on eBay for $50, Paget wirelessly read a volunteer's credit card onstage and obtained the card's number and expiration date, along with the one-time CVV number used by contactless cards to authenticate payments. A second later, she used a $300 card-magnetizing tool to encode that data onto a blank card. And then, with a Square attachment for the iPhone that allows anyone to swipe a card and receive payments, she paid herself $15 of the volunteer's money with the counterfeit card she'd just created. (She also handed the volunteer a twenty dollar bill, essentially selling the bill on stage for $15 to avoid any charges of illegal fraud.) ... A stealthy attacker in a crowded public place could easily scan hundreds of cards through wallets or purses."
Facebook

Big Internet Players Propose DMARC Anti-Phishing Protocol 92

Posted by timothy from the gotta-have-a-license dept.
judgecorp writes "Google, Microsoft, PayPal, Facebook and others have proposed DMARC, or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance, an email authentication protocol to combat phishing attacks. Authentication has been proposed before; this group of big names might get it adopted." Adds reader Trailrunner7, "The specification is the product of a collaboration among the large email receivers such as AOL, Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, and major email senders such as Facebook, Bank of America and others, all of whom have a vested interest in either knowing which emails are legitimate or being able to prove that their messages are authentic. The DMARC specification is meant to be a policy layer that works in conjunction with existing mail authentication systems such as DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework)."
Government

Maine Senator Wants Independent Study of TSA's Body Scanners 335

Posted by timothy from the but-first-this-delicious-barium dept.
OverTheGeicoE writes "U.S. Senator Susan Collins, the top Republican on the homeland security committee, plans to introduce a bill that would require a new health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers nationwide. If the bill becomes law, TSA would be required to choose an 'independent laboratory' to measure the radiation emitted by a scanner currently in use at an airport checkpoint and use the data to produce a peer-reviewed study, to be submitted to Congress, based on its findings. The study would also evaluate the safety mechanisms on the machine and determine 'whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans.' Many Slashdotters are or have been involved in science. Is this a credible experimental protocol? Is it reasonable to expect an organization accused of jeopardizing the health and safety of hundreds of millions of air travelers to pick a truly unbiased lab? Would any lab chosen deliver a critical report and risk future funding? Should the public trust a study of radiology and human health designed by a US Senator whose highest degree is a bachelor's degree in government?"

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