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Security

AMI Firmware Source Code, Private Key Leaked 148

Posted by Soulskill from the never-trust-others-to-respect-your-property-as-much-as-you-do dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "Source code and a private signing key for firmware manufactured by a popular PC hardware maker American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) have been found on an open FTP server hosted in Taiwan. Researcher Brandan Wilson found the company's data hosted on an unnamed vendor's FTP server. Among the vendor's internal emails, system images, high-resolution PCB images and private Excel spreadsheets was the source code for different versions of AMI firmware, code that was current as of February 2012, along with the private signing key for the Ivy Bridge firmware architecture. AMI builds the AMIBIOS BIOS firmware based on the UEFI specification for PC and server motherboards built by AMI and other manufacturers. The company started out as a motherboard maker, and also built storage controllers and remote management cards found in many Dell and HP computers. 'The worst case is the creation of a persistent, Trojanized update that would allow remote access to the system at the lowest possible level,' researcher Adam Caudill said. 'Another possibility would be the creation of an update that would render the system unbootable, requiring replacement of the mainboard.'"
Power

Big Advance In Hydrogen Production Could Change Alternative Energy Landscape 340

Posted by Soulskill from the or-we-could-keep-burning-dead-dinosaurs dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Virginia Tech say they've had a genuine breakthrough in alternative energy production that could shake up the world's energy structure. Specifically, they've hit on a way to derive large amounts of hydrogen from any plant source. The method uses renewable natural resources, releases almost no greenhouse gasses, and needs no costly or heavy metals. The key is using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory."
Software

Mobile App Screens Calls With Brain Waves 40

Posted by Soulskill from the because-moving-even-the-tiniest-muscle-is-undignified dept.
alphadogg writes "A mobile app under development can filter phone calls and reroute them directly to voicemail by reading brain waves, cutting the need for users to press buttons on the smartphone screen. The app, called Good Times, is the brainchild of Ruggero Scorcioni, CEO and founder of Brainyno, who presented the technology at the AT&T Innovation Showcase in New York, where some of the company's top research projects were highlighted. The app analyzes brainwaves as a phone call comes in, and depending on a person's mental state, reroutes a call. Information about brain waves is collected by a headset and sent to the smartphone via a Bluetooth connection, after which the app uses algorithms to analyze the status of a brain." Of course, the user has to be wearing a headset to detect the brainwaves. The software's creator hopes such detection can someday be integrated into devices like Google Glass.

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