Free Republic

Linux is a great operating system. Nobody in the Linux camp will argue about that. There are many articles on the Internet convincing you to try and to switch to Linux. There are also many articles that attempt to show you why you should not switch. Let's look at this question from a slightly different viewpoint today. Say, you are now convinced that you want to switch to Linux. What you should NOT expect from this switch? 1. Linux works much faster than Windows This isn't too far from the truth. Generally speaking, Linux OS is less resource-hungry than Windows....

(Phys.org)—Due to quantum effects, it's possible to build a quantum computer that computes without running—or as the scientists explain, "the result of a computation may be learned without actually running the computer." So far, however, the efficiency of this process, which is called counterfactual computation (CFC), has had an upper limit of 50%, limiting its practical applications. Now in a new paper, scientists have experimentally demonstrated a slightly different version called a "generalized CFC" that has an efficiency of 85% with the potential to reach 100%. This improvement opens the doors to realizing a much greater variety of applications, such...

“Grandpa is getting pretty old. Out there all alone on that farm, he has no one to look in on him, just to see if he’s ok. He’ll use the landline, but he’s beyond of the range of mobile, and he’s never been really great with computers. No Skype or emails. Grandpa does have internet. So I built this for him.”The girl points down to a small box with a few wires coming out. “I can bring up a web browser, and take photos inside grandpa’s house. Has he moved his coffee cup today? Is the telly on? At least...

At the Aspen Security Forum two weeks ago, James Comey (and others) explicitly talked about the "going dark" problem, describing the specific scenario they are concerned about. Maybe others have heard the scenario before, but it was a first for me. It centers around ISIL operatives abroad and ISIL-inspired terrorists here in the US. The FBI knows who the Americans are, can get a court order to carry out surveillance on their communications, but cannot eavesdrop on the conversations, because they are encrypted. They can get the metadata, so they know who is talking to who, but they can't find...

A neighbor's estranged Ex has possibly installed spyware and a key logger onto a new notebook given as a 'gift' to both neighbor and teenage daughter. The neighbor is the custodial parent of the one teenage daughter who recently received the new 'spy loaded' notebook computer from her estranged parent. The notebook runs Win 8.1 and is to be eventually upgraded to Windows 10. The teenager was told directly by the estranged parent that everything the custodial parent does could be seen and recorded and then messaged out clandestinely. The neighbor would like to know the following: 1. How to...

A researcher is advising drivers to halt the use of a mobile app for General Motors Co's (GM.N) OnStar vehicle communications system, saying hackers can exploit a security flaw in the product to remotely unlock cars and start engines. "White-hat" hacker Samy Kamkar posted a video on Thursday saying he had figured out a way to "locate, unlock and remote-start" vehicles by intercepting communications between the OnStar RemoteLink mobile app and the OnStar service. Kamkar said he plans to provide technical details on the hack next week in Las Vegas at the Def Con conference, where tens of thousands of...

I have recently had the unpleasant experience of having one of the new variants of the cryptolocker malware infect our computer servers at work. In case someone doesn't know, its a computer worm that encrypts all the standard-format files on a system so that the use can't open the file without a "key," supplied by the hacker for a ransom. My question, which I have researched extensively over over the internet, is whether it is advisable consider paying the ransom, if there is enough "honor among thieves" to trust that the files will be unlock if I pay, and if...

Mozilla blocked Flash by default in its Firefox browser late Monday night, a day after Facebook's (FB, Tech30) security chief called for Adobe to kill Flash once and for all. The Flash-bashing picked up last week after revelations that the spyware giant known as the Hacking Team had been using Flash to remotely take over people's computers and infect them with malware. (That discovery took place after the Hacking Team was itself hacked. Documents revealed in the breach showed that the Hacking Team exploited two critical vulnerabilities in Flash's code.) "It is time for Adobe to announce the end-of-life date...

SAN FRANCISCO — An elite group of security technologists has concluded that the American and British governments cannot demand special access to encrypted communications without putting the world’s most confidential data and critical infrastructure in danger. A new paper from the group, made up of 14 of the world’s pre-eminent cryptographers and computer scientists, is a formidable salvo in a skirmish between intelligence and law enforcement leaders, and technologists and privacy advocates. After Edward J. Snowden’s revelations — with security breaches and awareness of nation-state surveillance at a record high and data moving online at breakneck speeds — encryption has...

A post for the computer techies on the site Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Barnes Request for Comments: 7568 M. Thomson Updates: 5246 Mozilla Category: Standards Track A. Pironti ISSN: 2070-1721 INRIA A. Langley Google June 2015 Deprecating Secure Sockets Layer Version 3.0 Abstract The Secure Sockets Layer version 3.0 (SSLv3), as specified in RFC 6101, is not sufficiently secure. This document requires that SSLv3 not be used. The replacement versions, in particular, Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2 (RFC 5246), are considerably more secure and capable protocols. This document updates the backward compatibility section of RFC 5246 and its...

The National Security Agency and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, have worked to subvert anti-virus and other security software in order to track users and infiltrate networks, according to documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The spy agencies have reverse engineered software products, sometimes under questionable legal authority, and monitored web and email traffic in order to discreetly thwart anti-virus software and obtain intelligence from companies about security software and users of such software. One security software maker repeatedly singled out in the documents is Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab, which has a holding registered in the U.K., claims more than...

Reviving an old computer is like restoring a classic car: There’s a thrill from bringing the ancient into the modern world. So it was with my first “real” computer, my Mac Plus, when I decided to bring it forward three decades and introduce it to the modern Web. It’s a lowly machine, my Mac. The specs pale in comparison to even my Kindle: 8 MHz CPU, 4 MB RAM, 50 MB hard drive, and 512 x 384 pixel black-and-white screen. My current desktop PC is on the order of 200,000 times faster—not even including the GPU. Still, that Mac Plus...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/encryption-would-not-have-helped-at-opm-says-dhs-official/

It appears as if much of the open source infrastructure we depend on is suffering from neglect. That’s the message brought to the SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF) by David Nally. Listening to his talk, “The Tragedy of Open Source,” it was hard not to think that some of our infrastructure projects are beginning to resemble some disintegrating municipal water and sewer systems, or maybe compare his examples with our crumbling roads and bridges. Nally is a South Carolina based “recovering sysadmin” who now wears many hats at Apache as well as being an employee at Citrix.The neglect he mentions has caused...

The super-sophisticated malware that infiltrated Kaspersky Labs is more crafty than first imagined. We're told that the Duqu 2.0 software nasty was signed using legit digital certificates issued to Foxconn – a world-leading Chinese electronics manufacturer, whose customers include Microsoft, Dell, Google, BlackBerry, Amazon, Apple, and Sony. The code-signing was uncovered by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, who are studying their Duqu 2.0 infection. Windows trusts Foxconn-signed code because the Chinese goliath's certificate was issued by VeriSign, which is a trusted certificate root. Thus, the operating system will happily load and run the Foxconn-signed Duqu 2.0's 64-bit kernel-level driver without setting...

In 1983, when I started the free software movement, malware was so rare that each case was shocking and scandalous. Now it’s normal. To be sure, I am not talking about viruses. Malware is the name for a program designed to mistreat its users. Viruses typically are malicious, but software products and software preinstalled in products can also be malicious – and often are, when not free/libre. In 1983, the software field had become dominated by proprietary (ie nonfree) programs, and users were forbidden to change or redistribute them. I developed the GNU operating system, which is often called Linux,...

An ultracompact beamsplitter – the smallest one in the world – has been designed and fabricated by researchers in the US. Using a newly developed algorithm, the team built the smallest integrated polarization beamsplitter to date, which could allow computers and mobile devices of the future to function millions of times faster than current machines.

A new Chrome extension, called Google Tone, released this week makes it possible to share a URL with another computer in the room using a series of beeps and boops. The concept is dead simple yet instantly instills a sense of disbelief. A computer making seemingly random sounds can transmit the URL for the tab I have open in Chrome across the room? Get out. Full of skepticism, I decided to put it to the test. I installed the Chrome extension on a MacBook Air and a HP laptop running Windows 10. And you know what? It works! Click on...

Millions of routers and other embedded devices are affected by a serious vulnerability that could allow hackers to compromise them. The vulnerability is located in a service called NetUSB, which lets devices connected over USB to a computer be shared with other machines on a local network or the Internet via IP (Internet Protocol). The shared devices can be printers, webcams, thumb drives, external hard disks and more. NetUSB is implemented in Linux-based embedded systems, such as routers, as a kernel driver. The driver is developed by Taiwan-based KCodes Technology. Once enabled, it opens a server that listens on TCP...

With the sizes slimming down, it is certainly not a huge surprise that we have a Chip sized computer amidst us. What is really astonishing is the fact that this chip sized computer costs only $9 and can do literally everything for you. The Chip as it has been named runs on Linux and includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well.In fact, CHIP from Next Thing Co. also offers a VGA or an HDMI post for monitors, adding immense versatility to it. To be true, this is certainly one invention that all of us might just have been looking forward to.CHIP has...