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An anonymous reader quotes an article from Motherboard: According to a new paper, security researchers are now working closely with the Tor Project to create a "hardened" version of the Tor Browser, implementing new anti-hacking techniques which could dramatically improve the anonymity of users and further frustrate the efforts of law enforcement...

"Our solution significantly improves security over standard address space layout randomization (ASLR) techniques currently used by Firefox and other mainstream browsers," the researchers write in their paper, whose findings will be presented in July at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in Darmstadt, Germany.
The researchers say Tor is currently field-testing their solution for an upcoming "hardened" release, making it harder for agencies like the FBI to crack the browser's security, according to Motherboard. "[W]hile that defensive advantage may not last for too long, it shows that some in the academic research community are still intent on patching the holes that their peers are helping government hackers exploit."

An anonymous reader writes: Hard work is almost an axiom in the U.S. — office culture continually rewards people who are at their desks early and stay late, regardless of actual performance. Over the past decade, it's encroached even further into workers' private lives with the advent of smartphones. An article at the Harvard Business Review takes issue with the idea that more work is always better: "When we accept this new and permanent ambient workload — checking business news in bed or responding to coworkers' emails during breakfast — we may believe that we are dedicated, tireless workers. But, actually, we're mostly just getting the small, easy things done. Being busy does not equate to being effective. ... And let's not forget about ambient play, which often distracts us from accomplishing our most important tasks. Facebook and Twitter report that their sites are most active during office hours. After all, the employee who's required to respond to her boss on Sunday morning will think nothing of responding to friends on Wednesday afternoon. And research shows (PDF) that these digital derailments are costly: it's not only the minutes lost responding to a tweet but also the time and energy required to 'reenter' the original task." How do we shift business culture to reward effective work more than the appearance of work?

First time accepted submitter wheelbarrio (1784594) writes with this news from the Economist: "Inspired by the natural resistance offered to pathogens by genetically diverse host populations, Dr Michael Franz at UCI suggests that common software be similarly hardened against attack by generating a unique executable for each install. It sounds like a cute idea, although the article doesn't provide examples of what kinds of diversity are possible whilst maintaining the program logic, nor what kind of attacks would be prevented with this approach." This might reduce the value of MD5 sums, though.

Serenissima writes "Bad drivers may in part have their genes to blame, suggests a new study by UC Irvine neuroscientists. People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it — and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant. 'These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,' said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex."

stemceller brings us a story about an experiment that was published online in the journal Cloning & Stem Cells. The paper demonstrated that embryonic stem cells can be used to develop therapeutic cells which will not provoke an immune response from a significant portion of the population. This comes alongside news that UC Irvine researchers have found a method of sorting stem cells that should be "quicker, easier and more cost-effective than current methods." The Cloning & Stem Cells publication states: "It is likely that treatment of large numbers of patients by cell therapy will only be possible if methods are found using any one cell line to treat very large numbers of patients. This very exciting paper represents a significant step forward towards the use of such cells in cell therapy."

Roland Piquepaille writes "In the U.S., stroke is a major cause of long-term disability which affects 700,000 people annually. Most of them are over 65 years old and some have difficulties grasping objects after their stroke. This is why Californian researchers have developed a robotic therapy which helps restore hand use after stroke. The Hand-Wrist Assisting Robotic Device (HoWARD) has successfully been tested on seven women and six men who had suffered a stroke at least three months before the study. These results, while encouraging, need to be balanced. There must be enough residual motor power in the arm and hand of stroke patients to initiate some movement for this robotic therapy to work."

Susan Elliott Sim asks: "In the science fiction novel, 'A Deepness in the Sky,' Vernor Vinge described a future where software is created by 'programmer archaeologists' who search archives for existing pieces of code, contextualize them, and combine them into new applications. So much complexity and automation has been built into code that it is simply infeasible to build from scratch. While this seems like the ultimate code reuse fantasy (or nightmare), we think it's starting to happen with the availability of Open Source software. We have observed a number of projects where software development is driven by the identification, selection, and combination of working software systems. More often than not, these constituent parts are Open Source software systems and typically not designed to be used as components. These parts are then made to interoperate through wrappers and glue code. We think this trend is a harbinger of things to come. What do you think? How prevalent is this approach to new software development? What do software developers think about their projects being used in such a way?"

Roland Piquepaille writes "Text mining is a computer technique to extract useful information from unstructured text. And it's a difficult task. But now, using a relatively new method named topic modeling, computer scientists from University of California, Irvine (UCI), have analyzed 330,000 stories published by the New York Times between 2000 and 2002 in just a few hours. They were able to automatically isolate topics such as the Tour de France, prices of apartments in Brooklyn or dinosaur bones. This technique could soon be used not only by homeland security experts or librarians, but also by physicians, lawyers, real estate people, and even by yourself. Read more for additional details and a graph showing how the researchers discovered links between topics and people."

nadamsieee writes "The good folks at IEEE Spectrum have a news brief about a newly invented method of creating microbatteries using an electrode that looks like a bed of nails. The method was created by a team led by Prof. Marc Madou of UC Irvine. IEEE Spectrum notes that 'according to the researchers, a battery using such an electrode can generate 78 percent more power than a stacked-plate microbattery of the same volume.'"

nadamsieee writes "The good folks at IEEE Spectrum have a news brief about a newly invented method of creating microbatteries using an electrode that looks like a bed of nails. The method was created by a team led by Prof. Marc Madou of UC Irvine. IEEE Spectrum notes that 'according to the researchers, a battery using such an electrode can generate 78 percent more power than a stacked-plate microbattery of the same volume.'"

Max Tardiveau writes "I just finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. It is an enjoyable book, written engagingly by an interesting character -- the kind of book that makes you think twice about certain things (for instance, the fact that you're not dead: is that really because you're so darn good, or does dumb luck play a part?) Although written all the way back in 2001, this book is more relevant than ever, since one of its major topics is the impact of unpredictable events on markets, insurance, and our perception of life in general. In fact, Taleb makes a living from unforeseen events; these days, that seems like a rather cunning niche." Read on for the rest of his review of this book. Fooled by Randomness author Nassim Nicholas Taleb pages 220 publisher Texere rating 8 reviewer Max Tardiveau ISBN 1587990717 summary Debunking fallacies of observation, Taleb reminds us of the pervasive ineffables that complicate life at every turn.

The main topic of the book is the fact that all humans are simply terrible at judging probabilities. Taleb is a securities trader, so a lot of the book revolves around financial probabilities, but his argument is mainstream and requires absolutely no knowledge of the markets. The book details examples of people wildly misjudging risks and probabilities in many contexts. Often that misestimation is understandable in advance of certain events, but harder to excuse after they've occurred; Taleb hits pretty hard on what he calls "data snoopers," his term for people who back-fit theories to existing data.

One of the most notorious examples is the Bible code (which has been thoroughly debunked), but Taleb argues that analysts who spend their time trying to find patterns in historical market data are no different: if you try long enough and hard enough, you will unavoidably find apparent regularities, which can be extremely compelling when seen in isolation. In context, though, they dissolve into nothing but meaningless statistical anomalies. Taleb rightfully compares these searches for meaning to the famous monkeys and typewriters parable.

Taleb's best example of poor probability intuition is probably the infamous survivor bias, which is our tendency to be disproportionately impressed by success. We almost always ignore the fact that, for one success story, there are many failures. But we seldom hear about the failures (just like we never hear about the many theories that didn't fit the data). So it's all a game of numbers: out of 10,000 traders, a few are statistically bound to be successful, even if they are nothing more than lucky idiots. The fact that they succeeded does not mean anything. It doesn't mean that they are bad traders, but it doesn't mean that they are good traders either, because on average somebody had to succeed.

One of Taleb's hot buttons is that people tend to be too confident in what they know. He argues convincingly that we should take everything, including science, with a grain of salt. Writing about Karl Popper, he points out that there are only two kinds of scientific theories: those that are demonstrably false, and those that are not yet demonstrably false. An irksome (but sadly true) observation, yet most people behave as if what they know is eternal truth. One could of course argue that Popper's observation is but another kind of truth, but I tend to put a lot more trust in people who question what they know than in people who don't.

Another of Taleb's peeves is the human tendency to over-attribute every random event (the old post hoc, ergo propter hoc). For instance, a commentator saying that "the Dow went down ten points today on concerns about Iraq" is talking nonsense: there is no way anyone can tie such a small market move to any particular reason. I found this specific point (which in retrospect is blindingly obvious) especially enlightening, as I am embarrassed to admit that, until now, I just accepted those market comments at face value.

Taleb also has some fun at the expense of economists and analysts, especially those whose predictions turned out wrong, but who claim that the theories were in fact right, and that the facts simply weren't supposed to be that way. This is what he calls denial of history, and is common among investors and gamblers (the two being of course close cousins).

The style of the book is informal and funny, and often meandering. We hop from one topic to the next, which occasionally may detract from the book's continuity, but overall the author's points come through loud and clear. Ironically for a man who advocates self-doubt, Taleb is starkly self-confident, though not in an irritating way.

Taleb is an intriguing, multi-cultural, iconoclastic character that has been around Wall Street for a while, and now runs his own small firm. Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point, an absolute must-read for anyone who owns a brain) has written an excellent article that shows how Taleb's reasoning runs counter to just about every bit of conventional Wall Street wisdom. If you're interested in the markets, especially derivatives, and how Taleb trounces most of Wall Street's voodoo doctors, this moderately technical interview from 1996 is worth reading too.

Overall, a warmly recommended book.

You can purchase Fooled by Randomness from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

HobbySpacer writes "At this week's 1st Int. Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion in Huntsville a wide range of laser and microwave propulsion schemes are being presented. The big news so far is the announcement by Gregory Benford of plans for a test of microwave propulsion with the Cosmos Sail, due to fly early next year. The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion."

HobbySpacer writes "At this week's 1st Int. Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion in Huntsville a wide range of laser and microwave propulsion schemes are being presented. The big news so far is the announcement by Gregory Benford of plans for a test of microwave propulsion with the Cosmos Sail, due to fly early next year. The possibilities of using lasers to deflect incoming asteroids & comets are also under discussion."

grendel20 writes "After years of dialup, one thing I was looking forward to the most about college was the fast ethernet connection. Upon arriving at UCI though, I found my kazaa speeds to be way below subpar. Apparently, UCI has limited access for all P2P programs with this fine piece of hardware. Now what do I do?" Whether you agree with what UC Irvine is doing or not, I do applaud them for publicizing and being straightforward about it. Upstream entities can implement these sorts of controls without telling users, and it's tempting to do so because it will reduce the number of user complaints.

texchanchan writes: "It's from China, it's a predator, and it can live for DAYS out of water. And it's in Maryland as reported at Yahoo. 'They can survive for two to three days out of water, breathing air with a primitive lung, pushing themselves around with their pectoral fins.' Read about it at the Maryland Fishing Report site or just look at its picture. Maryland Fishing Report says: 'This fish was most likely introduced by an individual with an aquarium. Never release aquarium fish into ponds and lakes!' Those exotic species will get us yet."

bughunter writes "Accomplished astrophysicist and SF author Gregory Benford shares a personal account of his recent conversation with Stephen Hawking at Reason Online. As usual, Benford's style is engaging and informal, and this doesn't read like a typical interview. Although the article is short on jargon, Benford and Hawking share insights on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, as such minds are want to do. We even get a glimpse of Cambridge tunnel hacking. Of course, there's also a plug for Hawking's new book, The Universe in a Nutshell."

Stephen Bamattre writes: "There is an interesting research project at the University of California, Irvine, that attempts to create a new concept of networking and distributed architecture, using biological concepts. Interesting, it may a more viable network design for rapid growth. Maybe, some day, we can really kill processes. Check out the paper here." From their overview: "We believe that large scale biological systems, such as the bee or ant colony, have already developed many of the mechanisms needed to satisfy these requirements. We have identified several key principles and mechanisms in these biological systems, and we are now applying them to the design of network services and applications." Surely not a new idea, but a little more concrete as described here than the usual "network is alive" metaphors. The paper is in compressed PostScript and as a Word file.

Stephen Bamattre writes: "There is an interesting research project at the University of California, Irvine, that attempts to create a new concept of networking and distributed architecture, using biological concepts. Interesting, it may a more viable network design for rapid growth. Maybe, some day, we can really kill processes. Check out the paper here." From their overview: "We believe that large scale biological systems, such as the bee or ant colony, have already developed many of the mechanisms needed to satisfy these requirements. We have identified several key principles and mechanisms in these biological systems, and we are now applying them to the design of network services and applications." Surely not a new idea, but a little more concrete as described here than the usual "network is alive" metaphors. The paper is in compressed PostScript and as a Word file.

gupg writes "NEC has a new personal robot in "incubation"; the FAQ says that it's a prototype developed in their research labs. The web page is really amateurish and the robot doesn't look too aesthetically pleasing, but it seems to be much smarter than the AIBO. Looks like they are trying to add a court jester to your house who will switch TV channels, check email and do small-talk with you. Only problem is that the battery lasts for about 1.5-2 hours and recharging takes 2-3 hours. " Believe me, after sharing an office with Rob's Aibo, there's a lot of ground to cover before we've got digital pets.

gupg writes "AOL is trying to buy a major stake in Satyam Infoway (Nasdaq:SIFY), India's own AOL. Check out the article on Hindustan Times. Interestingly, a bunch of us were having a discussion today about how pervasive the internet has become in India. You can now go to a public telephone booth operator and access the internet; kind of like internet kiosks all over the city. Estimates about India's Internet population are sketchy. The government ISP, VSNL has about 300,000 paid accounts (last count). The number of Internet-users in India is estimated to be between two and three million. Most Internet-users share PCs, so the number of users should be five to six times the number of accounts. Industry experts expect this number to double every few years."

Charlie Zender asks: "The Earth System Science department at the University of California at Irvine is proposing to buy a 5--50 Tb DLT tape archive system to manage satellite and model-generated data. This will allow us to integrate the data we need for studies of climate and climate change. We all use Linux, and are wondering if there is a Linux-based solution? Vendors like StorageTek charge ~$250k for a solution based on their proprietary hardware and software. It seems like a Linux consulting company could beat this price and still make a nice profit. The software must make the tape library accessible as "near-line" storage and make transferring the tape to the disk transparent to the user. "

Charlie Zender asks: "The Earth System Science department at the University of California at Irvine is proposing to buy a 5--50 Tb DLT tape archive system to manage satellite and model-generated data. This will allow us to integrate the data we need for studies of climate and climate change. We all use Linux, and are wondering if there is a Linux-based solution? Vendors like StorageTek charge ~$250k for a solution based on their proprietary hardware and software. It seems like a Linux consulting company could beat this price and still make a nice profit. The software must make the tape library accessible as "near-line" storage and make transferring the tape to the disk transparent to the user. "

JoeF writes " link "Sun Microsystems said Tuesday that it has teamed up with the loose-knit community of Linux software developers to make the popular freeware run on the network computing company's systems." I like this the most: "Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sun also said it intended to add Linux compatibility to its Solaris operating environment." "

Jonathan Cohen was gracious enough to send us a review of one of the 3 million movies that have been released this summer. However, unlike 99% of the movies that have been released, this one is actually interesting. So, read more about Pi. Pi: It's About Us

Pi is a film about us-about the people who are part of the Slashdot community. It's a film about the way we live. We work with intensity every day, pushing ourselves to the limit despite others, not for our own sake, but for the sake of an idea, a program, a truth. Max Cohen, the protagonist of Pi, takes that road: through exhaustion, madness and pain, towards truth.

The plot of Pi is as old as the concept of number itself; only its particulars are modern. Max Cohen, a number theorist and hacker, is fighting to discover a pattern-seemingly in the stock market, but really in the world. Using his computer, Euclid, a strange rackmounted contraption that looks a little like a VAX corpse without side panels, he feeds in stock data, hoping to discern a pattern that will allow him to pick the market. Other forces-a mysterious Wall Street company, a Chassidic rabbi and his court-are interested in what he might come up with, and try to insert themselves into his life. He must reject personal contact, his teacher, and anyone human who tries to detrack him from his goal. All the while, he must fight against himself, most of all; he's tormented by wrenching migraine headaches, physical exhaustion, and that strange contraction of the mind which comes with obsession and burnout. Pi does a great job of showing all this, without either mystifying it or getting details wrong. As Max shoots towards intellectual heights, his mind and body both rebel against him; his attempts to control both are necessary, desperate, and futile.

Against all this, we have the prize-a 216-digit number which may be the name of God, the seed for a neural network, or just a number. The movie tries to tantalize and irritate us, by showing us how evident mathematical patterns and their visualizations are in nature. We've all seen Julia sets and the whorls of snail shells and the golden spiral; the sheer audacity of trying to put them all together and have them make sense is believable as a goal for Cohen, and as something we can dream about.

The movie sets up a paradox which is as valid for itself as for the world: it can be viewed either as simple but allusive, or as all-embracingly complex. In my opinion, it's a classic even if it's simple; it gets inside the process of our work, and what we work for. Past "hacker" movies like Wargames, Real Genius and Sneakers are shown up as the Hollywood baloney they were all along; they're not even in the same genre. Pi, by contrast, gets it right. See it.