DSL Router Patch Hides Backdoor Instead of Closing It; Google Says Better to Be a 'B' CS Grad Than an 'A+' English Grad

'The Door Problem' of Game Design | U.S. Population Acceptance of Science Is Erratic To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend DSL Router Patch Hides Backdoor Instead of Closing It Google Says Better to Be a 'B' CS Grad Than an 'A+' English Grad 'The Door Problem' of Game Design U.S. Population Acceptance of Science Is Erratic Netflix Plans Monthly Price Increase Hot Comment: "Outsourcing kills experience..." From the Vault: Old-School Coding Techniques You May Not Miss Watch It: Print Lives: New Linux Mag Launches Poll Booth: How much use would you get from a 1 gigabit Internet connection? Sponsored Resource: Lessons from Successful Mobile Initiatives DSL Router Patch Hides Backdoor Instead of Closing It A security researcher has identified an intentional backdoor in a module by Sercomm used by major router manufacturers. But rather than actually closing the backdoor, the patch just altered it so that the service was not enabled until you knocked the portal with a specially crafted Ethernet packet. Sound Off>> Google Says Better to Be a 'B' CS Grad Than an 'A+' English Grad Laszlo Bock, who is in charge of all hiring at Google, recently told the New York Times that he advised a student to stick with a more difficult course load "because it signals a rigor in your thinking" and that they are better off being a "B" student in CS than an "A+" student in English. Sound Off>> 'The Door Problem' of Game Design Game design is one of those jobs everybody thinks they can do. After all, they've played a few games, and they know what they liked and disliked, right? How hard could it be? Well, professional game designer Liz England has summed up the difficulty of the job and the breadth of knowledge needed to do it in what she calls "the door problem." Sound Off>> U.S. Population Acceptance of Science Is Erratic Most Americans agree that smoking causes cancer, but when it comes to the Big Bang, they put a big question mark on the concept, according to results of a recent Associated Press-GfK poll. To the public "most often values and beliefs trump science" when they conflict, said a prominent scientist.  Sound Off>> Netflix Plans Monthly Price Increase Investors welcomed Netflix's announcement of an increase of $1 or $2 a month. The company suffered from a consumer exodus and stock plunge after it announced an unpopular price increase in July 2011. The new price hike will allow Netflix to increase spending on original content, attracting more customers, analysts said. Sound Off>>  Outsourcing kills experience "It isn't education, it's the lack of experience. We've outsourced so many of the entry level jobs, where are the young people supposed to learn? That's the real cost of outsourcing...without an entry-level position and ability to learn how to troubleshoot, there's no place for kids to learn how to do their jobs. Most of the really good systems engineers I know started on the help desk, worked desk-side support and then did infrastructure support (servers/network/storage/security). They understand that their jobs still come down to delivery of solutions to the end-user. They understand that the end-user doesn't care what backend BS broke, it's just that they can't do their job. We're missing that at the mid-level...and most of the really great infrastructure people are in their 40's now." --by slayer991 Read More>>   Old-School Coding Techniques You May Not Miss Five years ago, Esther Schindler noted that despite its complexity, the software development process has gotten better over the years. Today's dev tools automatically perform complex functions that once had to be written explicitly. And most developers are glad of it. But she asked several longtime developers for their top old-school programming headaches to add to her list. Working with punch cards? Hungarian notation? Read More>> Print Lives: New Linux Mag Launches Despite the widely held belief that physical publications are a thing of the past, Linux fans now have a new magazine to thumb through. Graham Morrison, one of the creators of the recently launched Linux Voice says that when you have a tight, niche community (like Linux users and developers) you have an opportunity to make a successful magazine for that community. Watch the Video>>   How much use would you get from a 1 gigabit Internet connection? Lots -- I push a ton of bits almost constantly Some -- I saturate my connection on a regular basis Little -- It would come in handy once in a great while None -- My current connection handles my needs just fine None -- I don't *need* it, I just *want* it I just want to upgrade my telegraph Cast Your Vote>>   Lessons from Successful Mobile Initiatives Whether you have embraced it or not, mobile is already part of your business. To remain relevant, IT must reinvent itself and become more of a technology advisor and less of a technology traffic cop. Download this white paper and learn how progressive organizations everywhere use mobile technology to reduce support costs, improve service quality and eliminate expense leaks. Learn More>>   Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.

 

Microsoft Ditching Windows 8.1 Support; Charges Dropped Against Victim Who Recorded Bullying

IRS Can Seize Your Refund to Pay a Relative's Debt | Security of Popular Programming Languages To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend Microsoft Ditching Windows 8.1 Support Charges Dropped Against Victim Who Recorded Bullying IRS Can Seize Your Refund to Pay a Relative's Debt Security of Popular Programming Languages Why Nuclear Power May Be the Only Way to Avoid Geoengineering Hot Comment: "Cheap companies that have lots of developers and are too..." From the Vault: EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open Watch It: Mobilizing 20,000 Teachers to Demand Chromebooks Poll Booth: I expect to retire ... Sponsored Resource: Enterprise Imaging on the Web Microsoft Ditching Windows 8.1 Support Microsoft's TechNet blog makes clear that Windows 8.1 will not be patched, and that users must get Windows 8.1 Update if they want security patches. InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard writes, "Call this the 'let them eat cake' approach to support for Microsoft's flagship operating system." Sound Off>> Charges Dropped Against Victim Who Recorded Bullying When a high school student recorded bullies taunting him in class, authorities threatened him with felony wiretapping charges, but the teen was eventually convicted of disorderly conduct. The case drew national attention and the charges have since been thrown out. Sound Off>> IRS Can Seize Your Refund to Pay a Relative's Debt The Washington Post reports that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers expecting tax refunds are instead getting letters informing them of tax debts they never knew about--often a debt incurred by their parents. Sound Off>> Security of Popular Programming Languages When deciding on which programming language to use, coders often base their decision on factors including what will generate code the fastest. But how secure the language might be is an afterthought, which is usually too late. Sound Off>> Why Nuclear Power May Be the Only Way to Avoid Geoengineering One of the world's top climate scientists and supporter of both nuclear energy and climate engineering research recently said during an interview that opposition to nuclear power "threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change." Sound Off>> Nothing new here "Seen this many many times before. Cheap companies that have lots of developers and are too cheap to hire experienced admins... or an IT shop that thinks they can have the IT guys program instead of hiring proper developers. 'hey, you work with computers, you guys can all do the same stuff, right?' Wrong. While I have known developers that can sysadmin, and admins that can program... they are the exception not the rule. Quality suffers when you force people into jobs they are not qualified for. Companies know this, and they simply don't care as long as the managers think they are saving money." --by nitehawk214 Read More>>   EFF Advocates Leaving Wireless Routers Open Three years ago, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote of the need for a political and technological "Open Wireless Movement" to "reverse the degradation of this indispensable component of the Internet's infrastructure." It also called opening WiFi "the socially responsible thing to do." Read More>> Mobilizing 20,000 Teachers to Demand Chromebooks "Open source enthusiasts firmly believe that much is possible when people band together," Phil Shapiro writes. And it's this "open source thinking" that he says gives him the boldness to launch a campaign to get 20,000 teachers to demand a simple, low-cost Chromebook appliance, which is bound to get some manufacturer's attention. Watch the Video>>   I expect to retire ... ... at age 35 or before ... at age 45 or before ... at age 55 or before ... at age 65 or before ... at age 75 or before ... sometime after age 75 ... Never! Ask me after I get a job. Cast Your Vote>>   Enterprise Imaging on the Web This paper details techniques for solving the challenges of modern browser support for multipage document image formats. Learn More>> Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.

 

Heartbleed OpenSSL Vulnerability: A Technical Remediation; Meet Windows XP Diehards Who Refuse to Move On

Navy's New Railgun Launches Shells at Mach 7 | John McAfee on Google, Politics and His Colorful Past To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend Heartbleed OpenSSL Vulnerability: A Technical Remediation Meet Windows XP Diehards Who Refuse to Move On Navy's New Railgun Launches Shells at Mach 7 John McAfee on Google, Politics and His Colorful Past LA Police Officers Tampered with Monitoring Systems Hot Comment: "This is nothing new. Audiophiles and musicians are notoriously..." From the Vault: Why Science Is a Lousy Career Choice Watch It: Ubuntu's Jono Bacon Talks Community, Heavy Metal Poll Booth: How much do you spend yearly on mobile apps? Sponsored Resource: Competitive Landscape: Data Center Ethernet Fabric Heartbleed OpenSSL Vulnerability: A Technical Remediation Since Heartbleed was announced, malicious actors have been leaking software library data and using PoC codes to attack services available on the Internet. One of the more complicated issues involved with the serious vulnerability is that the OpenSSL patches were not in-line with the upstream of large Linux flavors. Sound Off>> Meet Windows XP Diehards Who Refuse to Move On Microsoft has declared the party for Windows XP fans is over. But Ian Paul writes that many people around the world refuse to give it up and asks, "What's so great about an operating system that was invented before the age of Dropbox and Facebook, an OS that's almost as old as the original Google search engine?" Sound Off>> Navy's New Railgun Launches Shells at Mach 7 The U.S. Navy has debuted its new railgun technology, which was developed by General Atomics and uses the Lorentz force in a type of linear, electric motor to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7 -- in excess of 5,000 mph. The weapon has a range of 100 miles and doesn't require explosive warheads. Sound Off>> John McAfee on Google, Politics and His Colorful Past Founder of the computer anti-virus company McAfee Associates, John McAfee gained world-wide attention eluding Belizean authorities in the jungle. And you got to ask him anything. He answered with extreme frankness, with some interesting advice for anyone stuck at a checkpoint in the third world. Sound Off>> LA Police Officers Tampered with Monitoring Systems An internal audit conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in March revealed that "dozens of the [voice] transmitters worn by officers in Southeast Division were missing or damaged." In the summer of 2013, this same division was found to have mysteriously lost 45% of the antennae placed on their cars to pick up the signals sent by their voice transmitters. Sound Off>> Modern audiophiles are no different. "This is nothing new. Audiophiles and musicians are notoriously stubborn when it comes to accepting reality. There are still people who insist that vinyl records are a more genuine/accurate representation of sound than digital formats. There are people who insist that they can hear the difference between 320kbps mp3s (using the highest-quality available compressor) and their uncompressed counterparts. Science and math proves all of these things wrong, yet people still insist they're right." --by Anonymous Coward Read More>>   Why Science Is a Lousy Career Choice Three years ago, Pastabagel wrote that the need for American students to study STEM is one of the tired refrains in modern American politics and that plenty of people already study science, but they don't work in science. "MIT grads are more likely to end up in the financial industry, where quants and traders are very well compensated, than in the semiconductor industry where the spectre of outsourcing to India and Asia will hang over their heads for their entire career." Read More>>  Ubuntu's Jono Bacon Talks Community, Heavy Metal You've probably heard Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon speak at a Linux or Open Source conference. Or maybe you've read his well-regarded book about building online communities, "The Art of Community". Jono also wrote and performed the heavy metal version of Richard M. Stallman's infamous composition, "The Free Software Song". We sit down with Jono to talk about everything from his music to what he thinks is the worst thing about being a community manager. Watch the Video>>   How much do you spend yearly on mobile apps? $0 - $10 $10 - $20 $20 - $30 $30 - $40 $40 - $50 $50+ I don't own a mobile device Too much oh god please help me Cast Your Vote>>   Competitive Landscape: Data Center Ethernet Fabric Get Gartner's recommendations for selecting the right Ethernet fabric for your data center network. This report highlights the competitive landscape of leading vendors in the data center Ethernet fabric market and provides insight into why vendors are pursuing strong end-to-end-data center network integration. Learn More>> Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.

 

NSA Admits to Warrantless Searches of U.S. Citizens' Data; Microsoft Brings Back Start Menu, Gives Away Windows for Small Devices

Subversion Project Migrates To Git | Pepsi Consultant Burned Down Indie Game Jam To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend NSA Admits to Warrantless Searches of U.S. Citizens' Data Microsoft Brings Back Start Menu, Gives Away Windows for Small Devices Subversion Project Migrates To Git Have Free-to-Air Satellite TV Experiences to Share? Pepsi Consultant Burned Down Indie Game Jam Hot Comment: "As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam..." From the Vault: Red Hat Uncloaks 'Java Killer' Watch It: Protecting 'Internet of Things' From Hackers Poll Booth: Should NASA Send Astronauts on Voluntary One-Way Missions? Sponsored Resource: Why You Need a Next-Generation Firewall NSA Admits to Warrantless Searches of U.S. Citizens' Data Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has confirmed the use of a new legal rule that basically says that if you communicated with someone that is "reasonably believed" to be a terrorist, you've lost constitutional protection against searches without a warrant. Sound Off>> Microsoft Brings Back Start Menu, Gives Away Windows for Small Devices At Microsoft's BUILD conference, the company announced that the Start Menu will officially be returning to Windows 8.1 as well as a number of other changes. In other announcements, Microsoft said it will give Windows away for free to OEMs making phones, tablets and IoT devices and unveiled its answer to Siri. Sound Off>> Subversion Project Migrates To Git The Apache Subversion project has begun migrating its source code from the ASF Subversion repo to git. However, there was strong opposition to the move from the older and more conservative SVN devs, and reportedly a lot of grumbling and ranting when the vote was tallied. Sound Off>> Have Free-to-Air Satellite TV Experiences to Share? Dishwasha writes about discovering free programming available via various satellite systems that only requires a one-time cost of getting a dish and receiver and asked fellow Slashdotters about setups of other FTA users and about hacks to DVR/PVR devices. Sound Off>> Pepsi Consultant Burned Down Indie Game Jam Would you like to see a half-million-dollar TV show in which four teams of indie developers and Youtube personalities compete to create amazing video games? Tough luck, because GAME_JAM from Maker Studios has spectacularly imploded thanks to a branding consultant brought in for Pepsi. Sound Off>>  As someone who was on H1-B, it's a scam "As someone who worked on an H1-B visa about 10 years back in Silicon Valley, I can confirm that these visas are being misused by IT consulting companies. They take the majority of these visas and then use them as baits in India for IT professionals. Most indian IT companies are nothing but cheap labour shops. If there is a dearth of IT professionals, make H1-B non-employer specific. All it does is make you a bonded labourer for 4-6 years with your employer who promises to process your green card while paying you a low salary. This is a big scam and I hope enough people take notice so that something is done about it. Most people on H1-B won't speak about it cause they don't want to go back home or lose their job. This is what keeps it going." --by dwillyson Read More>>   Red Hat Uncloaks 'Java Killer' Three years ago, Gavin King of Red Hat/Hibernate/Seam fame unveiled the top secret project that he worked on for over two years--a new language and SDK designed to replace Java in the enterprise. The project came out of hiding without much fanfare or publicity at QCon Beijing in a keynote. Read More>> Protecting 'Internet of Things' From Hackers What happens when your oven is connected to the Internet? A malicious hacker might be able to set it to broil while you're on vacation, and get it so hot that it could start a fire. Not good. With the "Internet of Things," you will have many devices to secure, not just a couple of computers and handheld devices. Timothy Lord recently chatted with an IoT security expert about what's involved in protecting Internet-enabled embedded devices. Watch the Video>>   Should NASA Send Astronauts on Voluntary One-Way Missions? Absolutely, for any mission the astronauts are willing to take. Only for high value missions. Only if the astronauts have a reasonable chance of surviving where they end up. I don't see a good reason, but I could be convinced. No. Never. One-way missions should be the purview of private space companies. Can I volunteer? Can I volunteer somebody else? Cast Your Vote>>    Why You Need a Next-Generation Firewall Next-generation (NG) firewalls, with features such as deep packet inspection, intrusion detection, application identification, and granular control, are important weapons in the battle against hacking and malware. Mobile applications have taken the overall scheme of corporate IT, and NG firewalls enable organizations to incorporate full-stack inspection to support intrusion prevention. This white paper explores the reasons for implementing NG firewalls and lays out a path to success for overburdened IT organizations. Learn More>> Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.