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If you have not yet seen or acted upon Homeland Security's warning, I urge you to do so immediately: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is advising people to temporarily disable the Java software on their computers to avoid potential hacking attacks.  The recommendation came in an advisory issued late Thursday, following up on concerns raised by computer security experts. BlazingCatFur explains the situation: My suspicion is that it's related to this: Iran blamed for massive cyber attack on U.S. banks data centers as 'puppet hacking group' says they did it because the anti-Mohammed movie is still on the...

Computer users told to disable Java Press Association – 16 hours ago Press Association - Computer owners in the US have been advised to temporarily disable Java software (AP) The US Department of Homeland Security has advised people to temporarily disable the Java software on their computers to avoid potential hacking attacks. The recommendation came in an advisory which was issued following concerns raised by computer security experts. Experts believe hackers have found a flaw in Java's coding that creates an opening for criminal activity and other hi-tech mischief. Java is a widely used technical language that allows computer programmers...

[No quote due to Reuters source. Title is accurate representation of article. Please see link.]

SNIPPET: "Indonesian anti-terror police, Densus 88 secure a terror suspect's house during a raid in Mojosongo, Solo in Central Java. Indonesian police have arrested 11 members of an Islamic group allegedly planning attacks on American diplomatic missions, a spokesman says." SNIPPET: "The group had planned to hit the US embassy and a US consulate, as well as a building near the Australian embassy in the capital Jakarta that houses the office of American mining giant Freeport-McMoran, police said. Police said they were from a new outfit called HASMI, the Sunni Movement for Indonesian Society, and explosives and a bomb-making manual...

Apple tries to kill its own Java on most Macs Pushes users to deal with Oracle, which maintains Java 7 for OS X By Gregg Keizer October 18, 2012 03:01 PM ET Computerworld - Apple yesterday started scrubbing most Macs of older Java browser plug-ins, a move that will force users to download the software from Oracle. The company also patched Java for OS X, the second time Apple synchronized its Java security update with Oracle's, releasing its patches for OS X the same day as the Java software maker. Along with the Java patches, Apple beefed by OS X...

<p>Jakarta (AsiaNews) – The demand to include Islamic teaching in Catholic schools is proving controversial again. A few months ago, the Education Department in Tegal District (Central Java) warned St Pius Catholic Schools to include Islamic courses for Muslim students.</p>

At a time when legions of people are looking for work, Richard McNeight has an unusual problem. The president of Modus Operandi, a Melbourne-based software company, McNeight has eight job openings he can't fill. He has been looking for months, but hasn't found the right candidates. "I have two full-time recruiters working for me," he said. The problem is this: Programmers at Modus Operandi, which has about 60 employees, must meet two key qualifications. They must be fluent in the computer language Java and be eligible for a U.S. security clearance. The company works almost exclusively for the military and...

ZeroAccess is a sophisticated kernel-mode rootkit that is quickly becoming one of the most widespread malware threats.In a new technical paper from SophosLabs, malware researcher James Wyke explores the ZeroAccess threat, examines how it works and looks at what the malware's ultimate goal is.ZeroAccess has a resilient peer-to-peer command and control infrastructure, runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, and has been constantly updated with new functionality, allowing it to thrive on modern networks and operating systems.From the distribution mechanisms used to spread it, through the installation procedure, memory residence and payload, the technical paper offers a deep...

Cup of coffee actually a carboy of toxic Kool-AidSysadmin blog Right on cue, Java has responded to my hatred in kind. Shortly after I awoke to discover my previous article denouncing the language had been published, a client called to inform me his computer had contracted some malware. Java has, if you'll forgive the anthropomorphization of a bytecode virtualization engine, decided to exact its revenge. Closer inspection of the infection revealed deep network penetration that the installed antivirus applications were completely unable to cope with. The chief financial officer of the company relies on cloudy applications that require Java-in-the-web-browser. Contrary...

I've been railing about Java for years, but enough is enough. Java exploits top all other infection vectors, on any platform, year after year. Oracle has shown repeatedly that it's organically incapable of keeping the Java Runtime Environment secure. If your company makes Java apps, either for internal use or for release to an unsuspecting world, it's time to stop. If your clients are using Java, it's time to give them the tools and the support they need to block Java. Java's done. Put a fork in it. No doubt you've heard about the Flashback Trojan/virus. You might not have...

Column Oracle won't win this case against Google IT SEEMS that Oracle's lawsuit against Google over its use of Java in Android has fallen apart. Although the trial is still ongoing, and the judge has yet to hand down an important copyright ruling while the jury has yet to return its verdicts on patents and damages, if any - it's already apparent that Oracle is unlikely to win billions or even millions of dollars from Google, and it's possible that Oracle might lose entirely. This lawsuit is rather important, however, if only because it has raised the spectre that software...

One month into the Oracle v Google trial, Judge William Alsup has revealed that he has, and still does, write code. Will this affect the outcome? So far all that Oracle has managed to prove is that Google copied nine lines of Java code, that are incorporated into Android operating system and eight test files that are not part of the production code. And yesterday, in a hearing about "infringer profits" Judge Alsup challenged Oracle's lawyer David Boies for trying to pin so much on the rangeCheck infringement. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, Northern District of California (Image: Hillary Jones-Mixon/The...

Summary: There were no winners in Oracle vs. Google. Only losers, including all programmers, and perhaps everyone else as well.Not counting the APIs, here's how much code Google was found to have copied from Java.On the surface, it may look like Oracle won the first round of its intellectual property (IP) lawsuit with Google. Look again. No one’s won anything and that includes Oracle.While we wait to see what the jury has to say about the two remaining patents, let’s take a closer look at what the jury decided. They said that Google’s Android mobile platform infringed on part of...

Open-source Java: Part One Open source Java has a long and torrid history, rife with corporate rivalry, very public fallings-out, and ideological misgivings. But has all the effort and rumpus that went into creating an officially sanctioned open JDK been worth it? Java co-creator James Gosling certainly thinks so - although he didn't seem entirely open to the idea in the early days. Gosling told The Reg that putting Java under the GPL has helped unify what was a fractured community while making the code freely available has helped uptake from a grassroots up. "In general, I'd say that it's...

The Flashback malware is steadily evolving, with its latest variant now exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities found in Java runtimes for OS X. The Flashback Trojan horse is a fairly recent malware package developed for OS X that attempts to steal personal information by injecting code into Web browsers and other applications on an OS X system. When these programs are then launched, the malicious code attempts to contact remote servers and upload screenshots and other personal information to them.This malware was initially found in September 2011 while being distributed as a fake Flash Player installer (hence its "Flashback" name). In...

Five suspected terrorists were reportedly killed during police raids at two different locations in Bali late on Sunday. Police have yet to issue an official statement on the nature of the raids and details on the casualties. The first raid took place at around 10:15 p.m. in a budget hotel, Laksmi, on Jl. Danau Poso 99X, Sanur. The area is known as one of the most famous red-light districts in Bali, where people can easily obtain a cheap room from staff at budget hotels who rarely ask for valid identification from their guests. Neighbors said that they heard a burst...

SNIPPET: "A day after a suicide bomb attack wounded 28 at a church in Indonesia..." SNIPPET: "While a suicide bomber struck Sepenuh Injil Bethel Church (translated as "Bethel Full Gospel Church") in Solo City in Central Java province Sunday morning, police found another bomb in front of Maranatha church in Ambon Island, the capital of Maluku province, Monday. "This is in a series of bombs that we found there [in Ambon]," the Jakarta Globe newspaper quoted National Police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam as saying. "All are homemade bombs, they are all similar. So the maker is the same.""

This is the second of three consecutive posts on information gleaned from last night's filings in Oracle v. Google. I previously blogged about Sun's proposal to create a Red Hat-style Android distribution with open source Java.While patents are the most important part of Oracle's lawsuit against Google, the copyright infringement part shouldn't be underestimated. Google is currently trying to get rid of it on summary judgment, but Oracle defends its related claims.Judge Alsup denied the filing of various interesting documents under seal, so they entered the public record last night. Also, documents that were heavily-redacted are now much less redacted...

Google Chief Executive Larry Page has been ordered to testify before the court as part of an ongoing lawsuit in which Oracle has accused the search giant of infringing on its patents for Java. Google CEO Larry Page(Credit: Google) The order yesterday by Judge Donna Ryu of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California states that "Oracle may depose Mr. Page for a maximum of two hours, excluding breaks, solely on topics relevant to the willfulness of Defendant's alleged patent infringement, and the value of Android to Defendant," according to a blog published today by FOSS Patents'...

Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he's unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java. That's a big deal, seeing as Oracle is currently suing Google for patent and copyright infringement in Android -- which isn't a hard case to prove when you've got 37 Android source files marked "PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL" and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE" by Oracle / Sun and at least six more files in Froyo and Gingerbread...