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Earth

Fighting Invasive Fish With Forks and Knives 180

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-forget-the-tartar dept.
An anonymous reader writes NPR commentator Bonny Wolf has a unique solution to battle the threat of invasive fish species in our waterways. She proposes we fight them with a knife, fork, and a few lemon wedges. From the article: "Take the northern snakehead, which has made its way into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. It competes with native species for food, and then eats the native species, not to mention the odd frog or bird, with its mouthful of sharp teeth. It's been called "Fishzilla." It breeds fast, has no natural predators and can grow to be 4 feet long. The northern snakehead hangs out in grassy shallows, making it hard to catch. But a couple of years ago, Maryland started promoting the snakehead as an eating fish. Its harvest has increased from zero to 5,000 pounds a year."
The Internet

ICANN Offers Fix For Domain Name Collisions 101

Posted by samzenpus from the jury-rigging dept.
An anonymous reader writes with news about ICANN's fix for conflicting domain names. This kind of problem — when an internal server's DNS name conflicts with one of the new Top Level Domain (TLD) names — is going to start happening more and more often. With over 300 new TLDs available to be used by August 2014 and 1,100 more to come, you can expect to see it a lot. Fortunately, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a fix so you don't have to go through all the hoops I did to find the problem: the Name Collision Occurrence Management Framework. According to ICANN, which is also the organization that has blessed us with so many new TLDs to add to such old favorites of .com, .edu, and .org, "The framework is designed to mitigate the impact of name collisions in the DNS, which typically occur when fully qualified domain names conflicts with similar domain names used in private networks. When this occurs, users can be taken to an unintended web page or encounter an error message."
Bug

Windows 8.1 Update Crippling PCs With BSOD, Microsoft Suggests You Roll Back 304

Posted by samzenpus from the back-to-the-old dept.
MojoKid writes Right on schedule, Microsoft rolled-out an onslaught of patches for its "Patch Tuesday" last week, and despite the fact that it wasn't the true "Update 2" for Windows 8.1 many of us were hoping for, updates are generally worth snatching up. Since the patch rollout, it's been discovered that four individual updates are causing random BSoD issues for its users, with KB2982791, a kernel-mode related driver, being the biggest culprit. Because of the bug's severity, Microsoft is recommending that anyone who updated go and uninstall a couple of the specific updates, or rollback using Windows Restore. You can uninstall these updates in much the same way you uninstall any app; the difference is that once you're in the "Programs and Features" section, you'll need to click on "View installed updates" on the left. While it's mostly recommended that you uninstall 2982791, you may wish to uninstall the others as well, just in case.

Submission + - Feds: Red light camera firm paid for Chicago official's car, condo

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The former CEO of Redflex, a major red light camera vendor, and John Bills, former Managing Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Transportation, have been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago. According to the indictment, a friend of Bills was hired as a contractor and paid $2 million. Much of that money was then kicked back to Bills, who also got a Mercedes and a condominium via Redflex employees. The defendants are facing 23 counts including: mail fraud, wire fraud, and bribery. Each fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Space

No, a Huge Asteroid Is Not "Set To Wipe Out Life On Earth In 2880" 123

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-the-end-of-the-world-or-not dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Phil Plait wants you to know that asteroid 1950 DA is very, very unlikely to hit the Earth in 2880, despite what you may have read. He writes: "As it happens, 1950 DA is what's called a 'near-Earth asteroid', because its orbit sometimes brings it relatively close to Earth. I'll note that I mean close on a cosmic scale. Looking over the next few decades, a typical pass is tens of millions of kilometers away, with some as close as five million kilometers — which is still more than ten times farther away than the Moon! Still, that's in our neighborhood, which is one of the reasons this asteroid is studied so well. It gets close enough that we can get a decent look at it when it passes. Can it impact the Earth? Yes, kindof. Right now, the orbit of the asteroid doesn't bring it close enough to hit us. But there are forces acting on asteroids over time that subtly change their orbits; one of them is called the YORP effect, a weak force that arises due to the way the asteroid spins and radiates away heat. The infrared photons it emits when it's warm carry away a teeny tiny bit of momentum, and they act pretty much like an incredibly low-thrust rocket. Over many years, this can change both the rotation of the asteroid as well as the shape of its orbit."

Submission + - ICANN offers fix for domain name collisions 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This kind of problem — when an internal server's DNS name conflicts with one of the new Top Level Domain (TLD) names — is going to start happening more and more often. With over 300 new TLDs available to be used by August 2014 and 1,100 more to come, you can expect to see it a lot. Fortunately, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a fix so you don't have to go through all the hoops I did to find the problem: the Name Collision Occurrence Management Framework. According to ICANN, which is also the organization that has blessed us with so many new TLDs to add to such old favorites of .com, .edu, and .org, "The framework is designed to mitigate the impact of name collisions in the DNS, which typically occur when fully qualified domain names conflicts with similar domain names used in private networks. When this occurs, users can be taken to an unintended web page or encounter an error message."
Facebook

Facebook Tests "Satire" Tag To Avoid Confusion On News Feed 131

Posted by samzenpus from the I-can't-tell-up-from-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In an attempt to keep you from having to explain to your crazy relatives that despite what they read, Vice President Biden *didn't* get a grow light delivered to the White House under a fake name, Facebook is testing a "satire" tag on news feeds. A Facebook representative issued the following statement to Ars Technica: "We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."

Submission + - Fighting Invasive Fish With Forks And Knives 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NPR commentator Bonny Wolf has a unigue solution to battle the threat of invasive fish species in our waterways. She proposes we fight them with a knife, fork, and a few lemon wedges. From the article: "Take the , which has made its way into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. It competes with native species for food, and then eats the native species, not to mention the odd frog or bird, with its mouthful of sharp teeth. It's been called "Fishzilla." It breeds fast, has no natural predators and can grow to be 4 feet long. The northern snakehead hangs out in grassy shallows, making it hard to catch. But a couple of years ago, Maryland started promoting the snakehead as an eating fish. Its harvest has increased from zero to 5,000 pounds a year."

Submission + - No, a Huge Asteroid Is Not "Set to Wipe Out Life on Earth in 2880"

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Phil Plait wants you to know that asteroid 1950 DA is very, very unlikely to hit the Earth in 2880, despite what you may have read. He writes: "As it happens, 1950 DA is what’s called a 'near-Earth asteroid', because its orbit sometimes brings it relatively close to Earth. I’ll note that I mean close on a cosmic scale. Looking over the next few decades, a typical pass is tens of millions of kilometers away, with some as close as five million kilometers — which is still more than ten times farther away than the Moon! Still, that’s in our neighborhood, which is one of the reasons this asteroid is studied so well. It gets close enough that we can get a decent look at it when it passes. Can it impact the Earth? Yes, kindof. Right now, the orbit of the asteroid doesn’t bring it close enough to hit us. But there are forces acting on asteroids over time that subtly change their orbits; one of them is called the YORP effect, a weak force that arises due to the way the asteroid spins and radiates away heat. The infrared photons it emits when it’s warm carry away a teeny tiny bit of momentum, and they act pretty much like an incredibly low-thrust rocket. Over many years, this can change both the rotation of the asteroid as well as the shape of its orbit."
Bitcoin

Are Altcoins Undermining Bitcoin's Credibility? 267

Posted by samzenpus from the least-of-your-worries dept.
An anonymous reader writes The editor of a Bitcoin advocacy site believes the proliferation of altcoins (cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin) is harming Bitcoin's long-term potential as an alternative to traditional currencies. Posting at BadBitcoin.org, a site that seeks to expose online scams that target Bitcoin users, the pseudonymous ViK compares altcoins, including the Internet meme inspired Dogecoin, to a pump-and-dump scheme where developers create their own version of the Bitcoin wallet and blockchain and then "pre-mine" or generate a significant number of cryptocurrency units before the altcoin's official release. Later, when their value has risen, the pre-mined altcoins are exchanged for Bitcoin or in some cases converted directly to cash. While critics of cryptocurrencies in general might find ViK's comments about the altcoin "tulip" mania ironic, the self-confessed Bitcoin fan is nevertheless calling for an altcoin boycott: "The easiest way to stop them is to not participate. We all know that they only have one purpose, and that is to make Bitcoin for the so called developers."

Submission + - Facebook tests "satire" tag to avoid confusion on News Feed

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an attempt to keep you from having to explain to your crazy aunt that despite what she read Vice President Biden *didn't* get a grow light delivered to the White House under a fake name, Facebook is testing a "satire" tag on news feeds. A Facebook representative issued the following statement to Ars Technica: "We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."
Security

New Cridex Malware Copies Tactics From GameOver Zeus 18

Posted by samzenpus from the imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery dept.
Trailrunner7 writes The GameOver Zeus malware had a nice run for itself, making untold millions of dollars for its creators. But it was a run that ended with a multi-continent operation from law enforcement and security researchers to disassemble the infrastructure. Now researchers have identified a new variant of the Cridex malware that has adopted some of the techniques that made GOZ so successful in its day.

Researchers at IBM's X-Force research team have seen a new version of Cridex, which is also known as Bugat and Feodo, using some of the same techniques that GOZ used to such good effect. Specifically, the new strain of malware has adopted GOZ's penchant for using HTML injections, and the researchers say the technique is nearly identical to the way that GOZ handled it.

"There are two possible explanations for this. First, someone from the GOZ group could have moved to the Bugat team. This would not be the first time something like this has happened, which we've witnessed in other cases involving Zeus and Citadel; however, it is not very likely in this case since Bugat and GOZ are essentially competitors, while Zeus and Citadel are closely related. The second and more likely explanation is that the Bugat team could have analyzed and perhaps reversed the GOZ malware before copying the HTML injections that made GOZ so highly profitable for its operators," Etay Maor, a senior fraud prevention strategist at IBM, wrote in an analysis of the new malware.
Power

Is Storage Necessary For Renewable Energy? 442

Posted by samzenpus from the on-the-fly dept.
mdsolar writes Physicist and energy expert Amory Lovins, chief scientist at The Rocky Mountain Institute, recently released a video in which he claims that renewable energy can meet all of our energy needs without the need for a fossil fuel or nuclear baseload generation. There's nothing unusual about that — many people have made that claim — but he also suggests that this can be done without a lot of grid-level storage. Instead, Lovins describes a "choreography" between supply and demand, using predictive computer models models to anticipate production and consumption, and intelligent routing to deliver power where it's needed. This "energy dance," combined with advances in energy efficiency, will allow us to meet all of our energy needs without sacrificing reliability.
Censorship

Financial Services Group WCS Sues Online Forum Over Negative Post 112

Posted by samzenpus from the I-wish-you-wouldn't-say-that dept.
First time accepted submitter kavzee writes The popular Australian online discussion forum, Whirlpool, is being sued by a financial services group for refusing to remove a negative review about its services. A similar story occurred a number of years ago when another company by the name of 2Clix attempted to sue Whirlpool for the same reasons but later withdrew their case. "A financial services business licenced through National Australia Bank is suing an online forum for refusing to remove an allegedly fake and negative post about its services, claiming it has damaged its reputation with would-be clients. It is the latest legal action launched against an online forum or review website for publishing negative comments, following several high profile cases in Australia and overseas. Financial advice group WCS Group has initiated action against Whirlpool in the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking unspecified damages and costs, despite the fact the forum generates no revenue."

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