Thursday October 15, 2009

Market flooded as botnets get cheaper

Robert McMillan
techworld

Even cybercriminals are feeling the pinch

Ever cybercriminals are affected by the laws of supply and demand. The price of buying DDoS attacks has fallen rapidly in recent months according to security researchers.

"The barriers to entry in that marketplace are so low you have people basically flooding the market," said Jose Nazario, security research manager at Arbor Networks. "The way you differentiate yourself is on price."
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 08:42 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Thursday October 15, 2009

Modern man 'a wimp', says anthropologist

Reuters

Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 metres record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 08:13 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Thursday October 15, 2009

The pocket spy: Will your smartphone rat you out?

Linda Geddes
New Scientist

There are certain things you do not want to share with strangers. In my case it was a stream of highly personal text messages from my husband, sent during the early days of our relationship. Etched on my phone's SIM card - but invisible on my current handset and thus forgotten - here they now are, displayed in all their brazen glory on a stranger's computer screen.

I've just walked into a windowless room on an industrial estate in Tamworth, UK, where three cellphone analysts in blue shirts sit at their terminals, scrutinising the contents of my phone and smirking. "If it's any consolation, we would have found them even if you had deleted them," says one.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 08:03 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Jupiter Moon’s Ocean Could Be Rich in Oxygen

Ron Cowen
Wired

Researchers hunting for signs of life beyond Earth have long been drawn to Europa because several features of the moon’s icy surface — including its bright color, networks of long fractures and crater-free terrain — suggest that the moon contains a vast ocean buried under the ice.

Now one researcher has calculated that the proposed ocean may receive about 100 times more oxygen than previous models indicated — enough to support respiration by 3 million tons of fish or their Europan equivalent.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Airport passengers to have ‘naked’ photos taken by full-body X-ray machine

Daily Mail

A human X-ray machine which produces ‘naked’ images of passengers was introduced at an airport today, enabling staff to instantly spot any hidden weapons or explosives.

The full body scanner, being trialled at Manchester Airport, will also show up any breast enlargements, false limbs, piercings, and a clear outline of passengers’ private parts.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Driver’s licenses scanned in search for fugitives

patterico.com

The FBI is using facial recognition software to scan driver’s licenses in an effort to locate fugitives:

“Earlier this year, investigators learned that a double-homicide suspect named Rodolfo Corrales had moved to North Carolina. The FBI took a 1991 booking photo from California and compared it with 30 million photos stored by the motor vehicle agency in Raleigh.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:37 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

What Obama Isn't Telling American Workers

Shamus Cooke
Counterpunch

A lot is happening in the tumultuous realm of global economics. The “Great Recession” has caused shifts internationally, with outcomes that will dramatically change the lives of millions of people in the U.S. and beyond.

And while Obama is acknowledging this fact with repeated references to “a new world order,” he isn’t explaining how this adversely affects working-class Americans.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

The last post: The Business Secretary says Royal Mail strike is a 'suicidal act'

Martin Hickman
Independent

Could a national strike spell the end of the Royal Mail?

Emergency talks will take place with postal workers today to avert a national strike that would halt deliveries of 75 million letters and parcels daily, cost tens of millions of pounds and accelerate the loss of corporate business that imperils the Royal Mail's long-term future.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Bonnie Greer vs the BNP

Mehdi Hasan
NewStatesman

Has the BBC made a(nother) mistake?

The BBC has confirmed that the black playwright Bonnie Greer will be a panellist on its Question Time programme later this month, featuring BNP leader Nick Griffin. She joins the middle-aged, middle-class white male trio from the three main parties: Jack Straw (Labour), Chris Huhne (Liberal Democrat) and a Conservative politician whose name has not yet been confirmed but is rumoured to be Michael Gove.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:52 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Cancer detecting microchip uses nanotech

Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld US

Chip can detect type and severity of cancer

University researchers have used nanomaterials to develop a microchip they say has enough sensitivity to detect early stage cancer when it is most treatable.

Scientists at the University of Toronto reported today that the chip not only detects cancer but also can detect the type and severity of it.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:50 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Actimel: Advert claiming health benefit of yogurt is banned

Telegraph

A television advert for Actimel yogurt which claimed to provide health benefits to children has been banned by the advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) decided the advert was in breach of the rules because evidence provided by Danone did not uphold claims that the drinking yogurt could help normal, healthy school-aged youngsters protect against common childhood illnesses.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:48 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Make 'em sweat: resin keeps insect pests at bay

Shanta Barley
New Scientist

Sticky fly traps? So twentieth century, darling. Scientists have identified a cheap, durable and eco-friendly chemical that, when painted onto walls, baby bottles and crops, gets rid of pests by making their feet "sweat".

Insects normally have no trouble strolling up walls and across slippery surfaces. Tiny pads on their feet secrete a ketchup-like glue - part oil, part water - that holds them in place.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Prehistoric titanic-snake jungles laughed at global warming

Lewis Page
The Register

Rainforest similar to ours flourished at 3-5° hotter

Fossil boffins say that dense triple-canopy rainforests, home among other things to gigantic one-tonne boa constrictors, flourished millions of years ago in temperatures 3-5°C warmer than those seen today - as hot as some of the more dire global-warming projections.

The new fossil evidence comes from the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, previously the location where the remains of the gigantic 40-foot Titanoboa cerrejonensis were discovered.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Thousands of overseas students unable to enter UK

Rachel Williams and Jessica Shepherd
The Guardian

Universities could lose thousands of high fee-paying overseas students because of new visa system

Thousands of university places could be left unfilled and institutions millions of pounds out of pocket, because high fee-paying international students are being blocked from starting degrees under a new visa system, vice-chancellors warned yesterday.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:37 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

Robocops Employ Scary Crowd-Stopping Technology at Pittsburgh Protests

Mike Ferner
After Downing Street

An arsenal of "crowd control munitions," was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week's G-20 protests.

No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of "crowd control munitions," including one that reportedly made its debut in the U.S., was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week's G-20 protests.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Wednesday October 14, 2009

The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right

Johann Hari
Independent

The threat comes not from jihadis but 'neo-Nazis' out to kill black people, Jews and gays

Britain is facing the real risk today of a bombing campaign that targets random civilians for death – but it is being virtually ignored. When its supporters step closer every day to mass murder, nobody notices. When its perpetrators are caught, there is (at best) a little flick of information in News in Brief, before everyone goes back to talking about the Strictly Come Dancing race row.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

India's thirst is making us all wet

New Scientist

One nation's thirst for groundwater is having an impact on global sea levels. Satellite measurements show that northern India is sucking some 54 trillion litres of water out of the ground every year. This is threatening a major water crisis and adding to global sea level rise.

Virendra Tiwari from the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India, and colleagues used gravity data from the GRACE satellite to monitor the loss of continental mass around the world since 2002.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:14 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

The Standard's decision to go free will spook the nationals

George Eaton
NewStatesman

Lebedev's contrarian move has caught the nationals off guard

Alexander Lebedev's decision to transform the London Evening Standard into a free newspaper from 12 October is certainly a contrarian one. It comes at a time when significant sections of the industry, notably Rupert Murdoch's News International and the Financial Times, are determined to develop new forms of paid-for journalism and shortly after the closure of one of the Standard's free-sheet rivals, the London Paper.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:12 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Italian lawyers seek detention of CIA operatives

Press TV

Italian prosecutors have pressed on with a bid to arrest 26 US Central Intelligence Agency officers over their ‘grave crime’ of abducting a ‘terror suspect’ in 2003.

Public prosecutors in Italy have called upon a Milan court to issue the arrest warrant for the CIA agents who participated in a 2003 kidnapping operation, as part of US ‘renditions’ of terrorism suspect authorized by former US administration, which led to the detention and ‘harsh’ interrogation of the Egyptian Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, aka Abu Omar.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

Bill Ray
The Register

Whose handset is it, anyway?

iPhone users might, or might not, be able to unlock when their contract expires, as O2 still hasn't decided if deserters should be able to take their toys with them.

Apple fans who rushed to O2's contracts to get their hands on an iPhone have been asking if they'll be able to take their precious status symbol with them if they change networks. However, not only are they being told conflicting stories, but it seems the network hasn't decided itself, yet.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:05 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

US paid reward to Lockerbie witness, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi papers claim

Severin Carrell
The Guardian

Scottish detectives discussed secret payments of up to $3m made to witness and his brother, documents claim

Two key figures in the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber were secretly given rewards of up to $3m (£1.9m) in a deal discussed by Scottish detectives and the US government, according to legal papers released today.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Chirac banishes 'dejected' dog

John Lichfield
Independent

Anti-depressants fail to tame former president’s pet

To lose the trappings and status of high office can be deeply distressing, even if you were once just the First Dog.

Sumo, a tiny, cuddly-looking Maltese bichon belonging to the former president Jacques Chirac and his wife Bernadette, has never recovered from the shock of leaving his gilded, spacious surroundings at the Elysée Palace.
rad full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 11:00 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Smiling helps women feel better about their appearance

Murray Wardrop
Telegraph

A smile can be all it takes to make a woman feel good about her appearance, according to a new study.

Scientists found that women who are unhappy with the way they look feel significantly better about themselves after being greeted by a smiling face.

The boost in self esteem has led psychologists to think that for many, confidence in their appearance is all about social acceptance.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:48 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Police without ID escape with 'slap on the wrist'

Chris Greenwood
Press Association

Scotland Yard chiefs were told recently it is extraordinary officers caught policing protests without identification badges escape with a "slap on the wrist".

Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) said senior officers are not taking the issue of ensuring frontline colleagues can be recognised seriously enough.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Zionism vs. Zionism

Ira Chernus
T r u t h o u t

It was a telling coincidence that two reports were issued on the very same day. The Geneva Initiative, a group of Israeli and Palestinian diplomats and technical experts, released its updated 400-page plan, spelling out the practical details of a reasonable two-state settlement.

But Israeli newspapers barely noticed. They were too busy headlining the other report: a UN fact-finding mission's 575 pages of detail on war crimes committed by both Israeli and Palestinian forces during last winter's war in Gaza.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:43 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Why Is Big Pharma Trying to Tell You How to Have Sex?

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Nation

Female sexual dysfunction was wholly created by drug companies hoping to make even bigger money off women than they have off men.

In the beginning there was sex. And sex begat skill, and skill (or its absence) begat judgment, and judgment begat insecurity, and insecurity begat doctors' visits, which begat treatments, which have flourished into a multibillion-dollar industry, so that sex between men and women is today almost inconceivable without the shadow of disorder, dysfunction, the "little blue pill" or myriad other medical interventions designed to bring sex back to some longed-for beginning: a state of certified healthfulness, the illusion of normal.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 10:30 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Masters of illusion: The great management consultancy swindle

Matthew Stewart
Independent

It's cost the NHS £300m and its practitioners are wielding the axe at magazine giant Condé Nast. But is it all just smoke and mirrors? Ex-management consultant Matthew Stewart recalls his career in the "efficiency business" – and reveals its dark arts

It was 1988, and I was just finishing a D.Phil at Oxford University on the topic of "Nietzsche and German Idealism". The annual recruiting season had long since gone. My life savings had dwindled into three digits.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Is Bagram Obama’s New Secret Prison?

Andy Worthington
Foreign Policy Journal

On Monday, one day after the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was planning to introduce tribunals for the prisoners held in the US prison at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, the reason for the specifically-timed leaks that led to the publication of the stories became clear.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

EU: farms cash is the root of conflict

Jack Thurston
Telegraph

The EU spends the bulk of its budget on the wrong things, notably agriculture, which also causes political strife.

Nothing sours relationships like a quarrel over money, and like squabbling siblings, the EU’s 27 member states are still arguing over the EU’s budget, with long-standing resentments over the British rebate fanning the flames.

Yet at just 2.5 per cent of all public expenditure across Europe’s 27 member countries, the EU budget is fairly small beer.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey

David Wong
Cracked.com

We are here to condemn Grand Theft Auto IV, and other equally great games, not out of hatred, but out of love. For it does no good to point out the flaws in bad games as bad games by definition cannot be saved.

No, we aim to save gaming from the abyss by pointing out the sins of games like the Elder Scrolls and Half Life series, games made by creators who actually care. It is in that spirit that we proclaim the commandments that they have broken, so that they may be redeemed.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 09:05 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry

Saturday October 03, 2009

Is South America in an Arms Race?

Nadja Drost
GlobalPost

Major arms purchases stoke fears of flaring regional tensions on an increasingly militarized continent.

Concerns over a possible arms race on the South American continent have turned the spotlight on who’s buying what and why.

Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia in particular appear determined to prove they won't be pushed around by their neighbors and are vigorously defending their military buildup.
read full story

Posted in: by bubblejam at 08:59 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry