Geek News
Android Malware May Have Infected 5 Million Users
bonch writes "A massive Android malware campaign may be responsible for duping as many as 5 million users into downloading the Android.Counterclan infection from the Google Android Market. The trojan collects the user's personal information, modifies the home page, and displays unwanted advertisements. It is packaged in 13 different applications, some of which have been on the store for at least a month. Several of the malicious apps are still available on the Android Market as of 3 P.M. ET. Symantec has posted the full list of infected applications."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
"A study from Stanford University, published Wednesday [25 January 2012], wrestles with a new question: How is technology affecting their [children's and teenagers'] happiness and emotional development?"
Categories: Science
Sea Water Could Cause Uranium Pollution From Nuclear Fuel Rods
New submitter Required Snark writes "UC Davis researchers have found a mechanism where the sodium in sea water can cause uranium nano-particles to be released from nuclear reactor fuel rods. Normally the uranium oxide compounds composing the rods are very resistant to leaching into water. This could have serious consequences for the Fukushima disaster, since sea water was used for emergency cooling."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sea Water Could Cause Uranium Pollution From Nuclear Fuel Rods
New submitter Required Snark writes "UC Davis researchers have found a mechanism where the sodium in sea water can cause uranium nano-particles to be released from nuclear reactor fuel rods. Normally the uranium oxide compounds composing the rods are very resistant to leaching into water. This could have serious consequences for the Fukushima disaster, since sea water was used for emergency cooling."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Science
H.G. Wells' "The New World Order". Not what you think. Yes it's a lot of reading, but the historical perspective is worth your time.
Categories: Conspiracy
Casio's new smartphone looks like an oversized watch; might survive the apocalypse.
Categories: Technology
The Search for Small finds life on a gradient
Categories: Science
On 25 December 2011, the government of Peoples Republic of China and Japan unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies, negating the need to buy dollars.
Categories: Conspiracy
How Allan Scherr Hacked Around the First Computer Password
New submitter MikeatWired writes "If you're like most people, you're annoyed by passwords. So who's to blame? Who invented the computer password? They probably arrived at MIT in the mid-1960s, when researchers built a massive time-sharing computer called CTSS. Technology changes. But, then again, it doesn't, writes Bob McMillan. Twenty-five years after the fact, Allan Scherr, a Ph.D. researcher at MIT in the early '60s, came clean about the earliest documented case of password theft. In the spring of 1962, Scherr was looking for a way to bump up his usage time on CTSS. He had been allotted four hours per week, but it wasn't nearly enough time to run the detailed performance simulations he'd designed for the new computer system. So he simply printed out all of the passwords stored on the system. 'There was a way to request files to be printed offline by submitting a punched card,' he remembered in a pamphlet (PDF) written last year to commemorate the invention of the CTSS. 'Late one Friday night, I submitted a request to print the password files and very early Saturday morning went to the file cabinet where printouts were placed and took the listing.' To spread the guilt around, Scherr then handed the passwords over to other users. One of them — J.C.R. Licklieder — promptly started logging into the account of the computer lab's director Robert Fano, and leaving 'taunting messages' behind."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
No Need to Panic About Global Warming. There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
Categories: Conspiracy
January 28 is Data Privacy Day
An anonymous reader writes "A bit early, but just a reminder that January 28 is international Data Privacy Day in the U.S., Canada, and many European countries. Various events are being held around the globe: the head of the FTC opened a weekend forum on the topic by calling out Facebook and Google, the Ontario Privacy Commissioner is holding a symposium on 'Surveillance by Design', and of course Google recently announced they'll be tracking you more thoroughly in the future."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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