Data thieves want to track what you type at hotel business centers

You may not want to use your hotel’s business center to check email on your next big trip. The Secret Service has warned the hospitality business that thieves are installing keyloggers on hotel PCs to steal guests’ data. In a recent Dallas area bust, authorities caught multiple people swiping account logins, banking info and other personal details from travelers typing away at compromised business center systems. The culprits didn’t even have to exploit security holes to get in — the key-tracking software required “little technical skill.”

The Secret Service recommends that hotels do more to clamp down on theft, such as giving guests limited PC accounts that prevent them from installing apps. As security guru Brian Krebs notes, though, that’s not going to help much. Even if the PCs wipe their data clean after every session, it’s not hard to run code from a CD or USB drive to thwart most defense mechanisms. The best solution may simply be to do what many already do — use your own devices to check sensitive info, and use a hotel’s public computers only for content you’d be comfortable showing to strangers.

[Image credit: João Lavinha, Flickr]

Filed under: Internet

Comments

Source: Krebs on Security

Lab-grown ‘real’ cheese made without milk

Real vegan cheese. An oxymoron, but maybe not for long. A group of biohackers, which is a thing now, reckon they can make cheese without milk. Better still, it apparently tastes like proper, legitimate cheese, and not some vegan-friendly substitute mess. The SF-based iGEM group say it’s made from baker’s yeast. The team is able to make cheese proteins using genetic sequences found in mammals, inserting the DNA blueprints into the aforementioned yeast, and it’s all vegan-compatible because it doesn’t need animal products to make the proteins.

Weirder (or creepier depending on how you view it) some of the DNA strands in some of their cheeses come from humans. The thinking there is that milk proteins made from our own species could offer reduced allergic reactions. But like synthetic meat before it, real fake food is still expensive to make: the group’s Indiegogo fundraiser has amassed over $15,000 and still has a month to go. Four different yeast variants are planned, while the team also promises to collect all their research into a public wiki. As with nearly everything delicious in life, it’ll need FDA approval before it can line shelves alongside real real cheese.

Filed under: Science, Alt

Comments

Via: Techcrunch

Source: Indiegogo

SpaceX chooses Texas for its futuristic launch complex

SpaceX has been launching rockets in Florida or California for quite some time, but Texas will likely see most of the action once the company finishes building its new spaceport in Cameron County. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hasn’t made an official announcement yet, a Florida official (who’s understandably disappointed by the development) confirmed that the Lone Star State has indeed landed the contract. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration already gave SpaceX its blessing to do 12 launches per year (mostly of its Falcon 9 and upcoming Falcon Heavy rockets) from the 56.5 acre site. Musk plans to make it the main launching site for space tourists and missions funded by companies and foreign governments in the future, while still sending NASA-funded rockets off to space from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

We’re still in the dark when it comes to the complex’s details, but Bloomberg believes that it’ll have an “ultrafuturistic design.” Its launchpads might also have a number of automated implements to make transitions from one launch to the next a lot faster. You see, Musk might be content with 12 launches per year for now, but he ultimately wants to do several per day once traveling to Mars isn’t but a science fiction plotline. He wants to be able to quickly send off people and equipment to the red planet to make building colonies possible by letting machines set up, refuel and ultimately, launch rockets with limited human input. We’ve yet to hear when the site’s expected to become operational, but we’ll inform you when we find out.

Filed under: Science

Comments

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, Statesman, FAA

Seattle votes to legalize ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber

It’s official: following an earlier agreement, Seattle council members have voted eight to one in favor of legalizing transportation network companies. The move lets ridesharing outfits like Lyft and UberX operate in the West coast city without fear of bans or driver caps, so long as they get the appropriate license and otherwise obey relatively light regulations. Conventional cab drivers, meanwhile, get a break through 200 additional taxi licenses. The council is expected to take a second look at ridesharing during its next legislative session to see if there’s a need for stricter requirements. For now, though, you shouldn’t have any trouble hailing a private driver in Washington state’s biggest burg.

[Image credits: Jeff Blucher, Flickr]

Filed under: Transportation, Internet

Comments

Source: GeekWire

Netflix already stopped mailing DVDs on Saturdays, but you probably didn’t notice

The USPS may not have gone forward with its plans to kill Saturday mail delivery, but Netflix isn’t waiting. A few customers have noticed it’s no longer processing shipments on Saturdays, opting for a five day schedule instead. Company spokesman Joris Evers tells Engadget that it’s been transitioning in that direction over the past year and ended Saturday processing (usually a low volume day) entirely in early June. Longtime subscribers may remember that originally Netflix was a five day operation, and it only shipped or received DVDs and Blu-ray discs on the weekend over the past five years. These days, most of us are streaming so with all those options there’s less pressure to get an item in the mail, but of course not everyone is happy. When weekend mail delivery came close to ending last year (various government committees have opted to keep it going), an AP article noted that it could actually save Netflix money by reducing the number of deliveries for heavy users — because of its flat rate, they’re actually less profitable. Now that competitors like Blockbuster are out of the way, there aren’t many other options which is probably also a factor. Of course, we can’t blame Saturday deliveries (or the lack thereof) for this Hot Rod DVD that’s been sitting on the coffee table for as long as we can remember.

[Image credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Comments

Via: r/Netflix (Reddit)

Source: Movie Fans Netflix Community (Ning), Netflix Support