Facial recognition, like targeted advertising before it, is the internet’s newest bogeyman. Many have an instant aversion to their faces being scanned by a computer. You shouldn’t. With the right caveats, the tech’s like robot vacuums: helpful, not scary. More »
Credit card fraud costs the banking industry billions of dollars every year, and with companies yet to find an entirely secure system for processing payments online, there’s no end in sight for unauthorized transactions. Jumio hopes to bring both security and convenience to the world of online payments, however, with its webcam-based Netswipe secure card reader solution. The system replicates the point of sale (POS) transactions you experience when making in-store purchases, prompting cardholders to scan the front on their credit card, then enter their CVV code using a tamperproof mouse-controlled interface. We’re not sure how the software is able to distinguish a physical credit card from, say, a photocopy of a card, but it certainly sounds more secure than the standard input form we use today. It also reduces card number theft from insecure forms and website spoofing, by verifying details through a live video stream. Jump past the break for the full press release, along with video overviews of Netswipe and Jumio, which recently secured $6.5 million in initial funding and is backed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.
Netswipe turns your webcam into a credit card reader, brings POS payments to the desktop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Grazz and Tulip Fun Fun bike racks are as tough as they sound
We all know that a cable — even a hardened one — is just about the worst bike lock you can use. I learned this lesson some years ago when I lived in London. I came out of the pub to find my D-lock on the ground, still intact and looped through the ends of the cable I had used to “secure” my almost-new mountain bike to to a lamppost. The bike of course, was gone.
Now I carry locks and chains that weight almost the same as the bike itself, but there is no chance that I would ever use them to lock my bike to Keha3’s Tulip Fun Fun or Grazz bike racks. Both of these are made from steel cabling inside plastic sleeves, and both would allow a thief to snip through them with bolt croppers and attend to my now vestigial locks at their leisure.
Which is a shame, as a flexible bar makes it a lot easier to lock your bike properly, securing the wheels as well as the frame. And the paint-friendly plastic coating is certainly welcome.
Maybe designer Margus Triibmann’s Estonian home-town isn’t as bike-hostile as London, Barcelona or New York. Then again, if Margus is using that skinny little cable lock to chain up his bike, the weak bike rack is the least of his worries.
Tulip Fun Fun product page [Keha3 via Yanko]
Grazz product page [Keha3]
See Also:
We aren’t the only ones who want to see an end to passwords. So does the government. Barack Obama wants to kill your password. More »
Those batteries have probably met a worse fate than the white MacBook line they came from. According to Forbes, Charlie Miller’s managed to render seven of them useless after gaining total access to their micro-controllers’ firmware via a security hole. Evidently, the Li-ion packs for the line of lappies — including Airs and Pros — are accessible with two passwords he dug up from an ’09 software update. Chuck mentions that someone could “use them to do something really bad,” including faulting charge-levels and thermal read-outs to possibly even making them explode. He also thinks hard-to-spot malware could be installed directly within the battery, repeatedly infecting a computer unless removed. Come August, he’ll reportedly be detailing the vulnerability at the Black Hat security conference along with a fix he’s dubbed Caulkgun, which only has the mild side-effect of locking-out updates by Apple. Worth being safe these days, though. Right? Full story in the links below.
Charlie Miller finds MacBook battery security hole, plans to fill with Caulkgun originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sure, it’s been just a few months since the National Security Agency asked for a $900 million supercomputing complex – you know, to help out with all that internet wiretapping. But concern about deficit spending will mean shuttering 800 other federal data centers in the US, or 40 percent of total government capacity. The closures are part of a larger push toward greater efficiency and consolidation, with an estimated savings of $3 billion a year; moving services to the cloud will mean more savings in licensing fees and infrastructure. Single-digit savings might sound like chump change when you realize the federal information technology budget runs around $80 billion a year, but hey, it’s a start, right?
[Photo thanks to Adrian Levesque and Adam Koniak.]
US federal government to close 800 data centers, walk into the cloud originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Perhaps you recall hearing, back at CES, about GM’s aftermarket mirror that would make the OnStar service available to most cars, including those from its most hated rival in Dearborn. No? Don’t worry, here’s the skinny: the OnStar FMV will let you have the company’s popular blue button technology in over 90 million automobiles. Meaning that almost anyone can now reap the benefits of features like automatic crash response, turn-by-turn navigation and hands-free calling. You know… unless you’re cruising in the General Lee, or something. Selling for $299.99, plus a $75 installation charge and $18.95 per month ($199 yearly) subscription, the high tech rear-view mirror will be on shelves at Best Buy starting July 24th and is now available for pre-order. Before you throw down the Benjamins for this automotive security blanket, you might want to double check that your car is compatible — check the full PR to find out how.
Continue reading OnStar FMV available at Best Buy July 24th for $300
OnStar FMV available at Best Buy July 24th for $300 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Hotmail’s spent the past few years playing catch up with the competition, but for the most part, it hasn’t done anything particularly groundbreaking with its services. Earth shattering might not be the appropriate descriptor for its latest addition, but Hotmail’s added a helpful new feature to distinguish plain old spam from the kind that comes form a trusted source. Now, when you get an email from a friend that smells of something sea dwelling — say a plea for some extra scratch from abroad — you can select “My friend’s been hacked!” from the “Mark as” menu, alerting the powers that be that your friend’s account has been hacked. When you mark a missive as junk, you can likewise click a box that reads: “I think this person was hacked!” Once that’s done, the spammers are kicked to the curb, and your friend is put through an “account recovery flow” the next time they attempt to log in. On the prevention front, Hotmail will soon roll out a new service that blocks users from selecting common passwords. It might not be enough to coax us over, but maybe this time the other guys could learn a few lessons.
Hotmail adds ‘My friend’s been hacked!’ feature to finger phishers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We’re less than 12 hours clear of iOS 4.3.4 hitting the streets, and already posters at Redmond Pie claim to have a PwnageTool 4.3.3 bundle that unlocks it. Ready to roll on every device except for the iPad 2, this tethered jailbreak brings back Cydia and anything else you might have missed after foolishly updating this afternoon. Any brave souls ready to jump in (at their own risk of course) immediately can find directions at the source link below, let us know how it’s worked for you in the comments.
Update: The iPhone Dev-Team has updated its redsn0w tool, also based on existing exploits, for all your tethered jailbreaking needs. Of course, they still recommend you stick with iOS 4.3.3 for untethered convenience, so stay far away from the update button or modify your version number if nefarious PDFs are a friend and not an enemy to you. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
[Thanks, Jeff]
iOS 4.3.4 jailbroken with PwnageTool on iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad 1 (redsn0w update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Automated shoulder surfing makes it easier to steal passwords, isn’t very tubular, brah (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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