schliz writes in with research out of Sweden in which researchers showed that, looking at a quantum cryptographic system as a whole, it was possible for an eavesdropper to extract some information about the QC key, thus reducing the security of the overall system. The team then proposed a cheap and simple fix for the problem. “The advanced technology was thought to be unbreakable due to laws of quantum mechanics that say that quantum mechanical objects can’t be observed or manipulated without being interrupted. But a research team at Linköping University in Sweden claim that it is possible for an eavesdropper to [get around the limitations] without being discovered. In a research paper, published in the international engineering journal IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (abstract), the researchers propose a change in the quantum cryptography process that they anticipate will restore the security of the technology.”

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SecurityBob writes “Debian package maintainers tend to very often alter the source code of the package they are maintaining so that it better fits into the distribution itself. However, most of the time, their changes are not sent back to upstream for validation, which might cause some tension between upstream developers and Debian packagers. Today, a critical security advisory has been released: a Debian packager modified the source code of OpenSSL back in 2006 so as to remove the seeding of OpenSSL random number generator, which in turns makes cryptographic key material generated on a Debian system guessable. The solution? Upgrade OpenSSL and re-generate all your SSH and SSL keys. This problem not only affects Debian, but also all its derivatives, such as Ubuntu.” Reader RichiH also points to Debian’s announcement and Ubuntu’s announcement.

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Filed under: World wide web, Web services, Google, web 2.0

Love Google Reader, but wish there was a desktop version of the RSS reader so you didn’t have to open a web browser every time you want read your feeds? ReadAir is an Adobe AIR-based utility that lets you launch Google Reader as a standalone application. Since it’s built on AIR, ReadAir runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Currently the program’s default skin has an OS X look and feel, but the program will be skinnable in the future.

Overall, ReadAir does a pretty good job of making Google Reader feel like even more of a desktop application than it already does. But there’s one major feature missing: keyboard shortcuts. We kept finding ourselves clicking J hoping we could view the next story without grabbing our mouse. But no dice. Future versions of ReadAir will include keyboard shortcuts and the ability to view more than 20 items per feed. And at that point it my actually be worth downloading and using ReadAir. For now it’s pretty much a pretty proof of concept.

[via freshAIRapps]

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Filed under: Internet, Utilities, Windows, Web services

Torrent2exe is a web-based utility that does for BitTorrent files what Audio/Video to Exe does for audio and video files. That’s, both utilities let you take a file that’s typically useless without companion software and make it usable on its own. While Audio/Video to Exe makes audio and video files playable without a media player, Torrent2exe makes files distributed via BitTorrent downloadable without a separate BitTorrent client.

Here’s how it works. You download a torrent file (just the little torrent, not the huge ole file it helps you to download) to your desktop, and then upload that torrent to Torrent2.exe. Click the download button, and you’ll get an executable file. When you run this program, a standalone BitTorrent program will start up and immediately try to download the source file to whatever directory the executable is in.

The site also grants you to enter the URL of a torrent instead of uploading a file from your desktop. But we had less success with that method.

If you want to convince your less tech-savvy friends or relatives to download a Linux distribution or Creative Commons licensed motion picture, Torrent2exe could come in handy. Instead of telling them to download a BitTorrent client, then a torrent file which they have to load into that client, you can just create an executable that you can send to them.

[via Instant Fundas]

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mytrip notes a News.com article reporting that Google has begun blurring faces in its Street View service, which has spawned privacy concerns since its introduction last year. Google has been working for a couple of years to advance the state of the art of face recognition. Quoting News.com: ‘The technology uses a personal algorithm to scour Google’s image database for faces, then blurs them, said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps, in an interview at the Where 2.0 conference…’ Google wrote about the program in their Lat/Long blog.”

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Charter Communications has begun sending letters to its customers informing them that, in the name of an “enhanced user experience,” it will start spying on their traffic and inserting targeted ads. This sounds nearly indistinguishable from what Phorm proposed doing in the UK. Lauren Weinstein issues a call to arms.

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jyosim writes “The Chronicle of Higher Ed got a briefing at RIAA headquarters on how the group catches pirates. They just use LimeWire and other software that pirates use, except that they’ve set up scripts to search for songs, grab IP numbers, and send out notices to college officials. They claim they don’t target specific colleges, though many feel that they do.”

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dj_yaz writes “A group of University Of Ottawa law students who deal with online privacy issues last week filed a complaint with Canada’s Privacy Commissioner about Bell Canada’s use of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to monitor world wide web subscribers’ online activities without their knowledge or consent.”

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hackingbear writes “After text, photos, and videos, China starts regulating Internet map publishing (here is the google translation.) The government believes that World wide web maps can represent the state’s sovereignty and its political and diplomatic positions in the international community — and consequently, inaccurate maps could harm national interests and dignity, produce bad political influences, reveal national secrets and harm national security, in addition to harming consumer interests. So from now on, publishing maps would require approval and (yet another) license from the state survey bureau. That means Google, Yahoo, etc., need to remove China from the map; or maybe they just pay up some officials and their agents to acquire yet another license. And our newest 80Gbps DPI monsters need to be upgraded to identify maps together with porn.”

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Filed under: Deals, Competitive strategy, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), International Business Machines (IBM), Electronic Data Systems (EDS)

By looking at other companies that sell services and Personal computers, it has occurred to Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) that the hardware business is getting more competitive and that margins are moving down, But hardware is still the largest revenue center at the massive tech company, and that might be the single greatest failing of the current management. It has not created large enough software and services businesses to match the hardware sales.

HP brings in less that 25% of its revenue from services. But that business is growing quickly. According to the company’s 10-Q, it had revenue of almost $4.4 billion in the first quarter. In the same period a year ago, that number was $3.9 billion.

The prevailing theory is that HP plans to purchase EDS (NYSE: EDS) for $12.6 billion for its revenue from consulting and outsourcing to superior compete against IBM (NYSE: IBM). That may be true, but the actual reason might be much more simple than that. With its stock up 50% over the last two years, HP needs a new business to keep its revenue growing and its shareholders happy. That’s not going to come from its ink and printer business. Buying EDS nearly guarantees another two years of rising revenue and earnings.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com and the author of the Ten Stocks Under $10 letter.

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