Pixometer app offers a smarter way to read dumb meters

So you want to track your water, electricity or gas consumption, but you still don’t have a smart meter on your supply? Pixolus has a mobile app that makes it easier to keep track of meter readings, even with dumb meters. Just tell the Pixometer app which meter you’re going to read, point the phone’s camera at it, and let the optical character recognition software do the work. Once the app gets a lock on the numbers, it speaks the reading out loud and stores it, and the date, in that meter’s file. You can even enter the price per kilowatt-hour, for electricity, or per cubic meter, for water, and the app will show you the expenditure since the last meter reading, and what that works out to per month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Proposed data breach notification bill criticized as too weak

Proposed legislation that would require U.S. businesses to notify affected customers after data breaches is too weak because it would preempt stronger breach notification laws in several states and it wouldn’t cover several classes of data, including geolocation and health information, critics told lawmakers.The proposed Data Security and Breach Notification Act covers only data linked to identity theft or financial fraud, including Social Security numbers, but would not require businesses and nonprofit groups to notify users if other information is stolen, said critics, including Democratic members of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee’s trade subcommittee.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT manager gets certificate for Microsoft domain, tries to report it but gets in trouble

After a security enthusiast discovered a loophole that allowed him to register a valid SSL certificate for Microsoft’s live.fi domain, he tried to responsibly disclose the issue. But instead of thanks he got locked out of his email, phone, Xbox and online storage accounts.The issue was discovered by a Finnish man who works as an IT manager for a company in the industrial sector. He talked to the IDG News Service, but requested anonymity.Microsoft’s Outlook.com email service allows users to have multiple email addresses called aliases under a single account. At the moment, the service only allows aliases to be created on the @outlook.com domain, but several months ago more domains were available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hailing 50 spectacular years of spacewalking

Space walkImage by REUTERS/NASA/Handout via ReutersIt had to be quite the rush. The first spacewalk, or extravehicular activity (EVA) happened March 18, 1965, when cosmonaut Alexei Leonov first departed the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 spacecraft to test the idea – he stayed out about 10 minutes.   American Edward White II took the US’ first spacewalk that year in June stepping out of the Gemini IV spacecraft. Since that time many have taken the plunge outside the their spacecraft to fix problems, make adjustments and even hit a golf ball, as one NASA astronaut did in 2006 – he shanked it. Take a look at some of the milestones of spacewalking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tim Cook on Steve Jobs and why Apple Watch will be the first smartwatch that matters

It's too soon to tell if Apple Watch will be a smash hit, but CEO Tim Cook said in a new interview that the new device “will be the first modern smartwatch—the first one that matters.”Cook told Fast Company that the company hasn’t put any sales expectations on the watch because the need for an iPhone 5, 5c, 5s, 6, or 6 Plus to work “creates a ceiling.”But the watch will be an important step forward for the industry, just as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were, because it will create a new computing experience.MORE: 10 mobile startups to watch “The inputs that work for a phone, a tablet, or a Mac don’t work as well on a smaller screen,” Cook said. “Most of the companies who have done smartwatches haven’t thought that through, so they’re still using pinch-to-zoom and other gestures that we created for the iPhone.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple iOS 8 really catching on now

Apple revealed Wednesday that iOS 8, released to the public in September, can now be found on 77% of iOS devices accessing the Apple Store. That's up from 68% in January.The iOS 7 edition of Apple's software for iPhones and iPads now accounts for just 20% of devices. Some have balked at moving to iOS 8 because of the space required to download it, while others have been spooked by buggy releases (I'm aware of at least one iOS 8 holdout in the office who says he doesn't have the space on his iPhone to download the new operating system).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UberPop banned by German court

The Frankfurt Regional Court has issued a nationwide ban against Uber ride-hailing service UberPop, declaring its business model illegal.UberPop is a service operated by Uber that connects users of its smartphone app with private drivers who offer rides in their own cars for fees that are substantially lower than regular taxi fares. Mediating rides with private drivers who don’t have the required licenses is illegal, though, the court ruled on Wednesday.Uber should in principle put a halt to the service immediately, a court spokesman said, adding that if it does not, it can be fined up to €250,000 (about US$265,000) for every violation.Uber can appeal the ruling and meanwhile, the complainant in the case, Taxi Deutschland, needs to post a €400,000 security deposit. The money is meant to compensate Uber for lost business in case it wins an appeal. Taxi Deutschland will post the deposit as soon as possible, a spokeswoman said in an email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Telling OpenSSL About Your Root Certificates

OpenSSL Logo

OpenSSL doesn’t come with its own trusted root certificates; you have to tell it where to find them. This should be straightforward – and it is – but Apple have found a way to make it trickier.

Normal *nix Systems

On a normal unix system, openssl is pretty good at locating the root certificates, but it still doesn’t automatically reference them. For example running Ubuntu:

john@ubuntu:~$ openssl s_client -connect www.microsoft.com:443
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=2 C = US, O = "VeriSign, Inc.", OU = VeriSign Trust Network,
  OU = "(c) 2006 VeriSign, Inc. - For authorized use only", CN =
  VeriSign Class 3 Public Primary Certification Authority - G5
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:0
[...removed for brevity...]
    PSK identity hint: None
    SRP username: None
    Start Time: 1425842365
    Timeout   : 300 (sec)
    Verify return code: 20 (unable to get local issuer certificate)
---

Openssl is unable to validate the Verisign certificate. So where are the trusted root certificates stored? Actually, Openssl will tell us:

john@ubuntu:~$ openssl version -d
OPENSSLDIR: "/usr/lib/ssl"

Add that into the command as the -CApath parameter, and:

john@ubuntu:~$ openssl s_client -CApath /usr/lib/ssl -connect 
  www.microsoft.com:443
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=3 C = US, O =  Continue reading

Musk needs to tap the brakes a bit

Oh, that Elon Musk. Always saying the most provocative things, such as yesterday when he addressed attendees at a Nvidea conference and suggested that driverless cars will someday bring about a ban on the human-driven kind.“It’s too dangerous,” he said. “You can’t have a person driving a two-ton death machine.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Choosing a Route: Order of Operations

In Cisco IOS packets are forwarded through the router (or Layer 3 switch) by Cisco Express Forwarding (CEF). A data structure called the CEF table contains a list of known IP prefixes and the outgoing interface that packets should be put on in order to get them onwards to their destination. That’s well and good. But how do the IP prefixes make it into the CEF table? To answer that question you have to work backwards and understand the order of operations that IOS goes through in order for a prefix to make it into the CEF table.

The answer to the question of what makes it into the CEF table confused me a bit, particularly when working with complex redistribution schemes. I would end up concentrating so much on admin distance (AD) that I would overlook the other, more important elements that went into determining what went into the CEF table. In order to improve my understanding I came up with this order of operations which helps me not only with redistribution, but in pretty much any situation where I’m trying to do traffic engineering.

You will not find this order of operations on cisco.com or in any Continue reading

UK government filing raises fears about misuse of hacking powers

A legal filing by the U.K. government has raised fears that the country’s intelligence service GCHQ is misusing its powers to hack telecommunications companies in other countries.The document was made public by Privacy International and the Chaos Computer Club, both claimants in a lawsuit filed last year against GCHQ over its spying practices. In the filing, which is part of the case, the U.K. government claims it has the right to break into computers anywhere in the world, even if they are not connected to a crime or a threat to national security, the groups said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

FCC’s net neutrality rules are complex, and that might be a good thing

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission released a 400-page document laying out the official orders for how it plans to regulate net neutrality under Title II common-carrier provisions. Not surprisingly, reactions to the document's specifics immediately separated out along ideological lines, with supporters of the doctrine praising the rules while opponents attacked them for leading to "years of litigation, serious collateral consequences for consumers, and ongoing market uncertainty."Stay flexible, my friendsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s deal with Xiaomi over Windows 10 raises eyebrows

Microsoft could be trying to chip away at Android’s dominance in its deal with Xiaomi to test the new Windows 10 operating system.The U.S. software giant announced Wednesday that select users of Xiaomi’s Android phones will be able to download a Windows 10 Technical Preview to their handsets, and offer feedback to Microsoft. The software giant is creating a custom Windows 10 build that can be loaded on the phones.Xiaomi has said it’s only an “experimental program” and not a commercial partnership.The program will target “power users” already adept at using their devices to install custom Android ROMs, also known as firmware. Following the announcement, Xiaomi’s online forum said it would release the Windows 10 pack soon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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