Tag: USA

In June, security experts first discovered a dangerous new worm called Stuxnet, which, to the horror of many, possessed the ability to wreak havoc upon real-world industrial systems. The virus affected servers all over the world, but seemed to be especially focused on networks in Iran, as the country absorbed a major attack over the summer. This Iranian focus led many to speculate that Stuxnet ...

Yesterday, Wikileaks published its long awaited 'Iraq War Logs,' a collection of nearly 400,000 classified military documents covering the controversial war in Iraq. According to the Guardian, the logs consist of verified first-hand accounts from coalition soldiers on the ground, and give a chilling "glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to ...

The U.S. may not be the superpower it once was, but, when it comes to botnets, at least, we're still number one. According to Microsoft's newly released ninth Security Intelligence Report, more than 2.2 million computers in the U.S. fell prey to botnets in the first six months of 2010, substantially more than second-ranked Brazil, home to 550,000 infected computers. South Korea, however, has the ...

Spotify must overcome yet another hurdle before it can bring free music streaming to U.S. devices. According to a report from Billboard, negotiations between the service and major music labels have gone "back to square one." Insiders, in general, have two divergent theories as to what held back the talks. Some claim that Spotify is insistent upon implementing a carbon copy of its European model, ...

Hey, what do you know? All those meetings over the proposed National Broadband Plan has amounted to something: a "yeah, we should probably hit this up." Today, the FCC has kicked off an immensely ambitious project to bring "high-speed internet access to every corner of the United States." $7.2 billion of the economic stimulus package has already been allocated for the task, but it'll be ages ...

So, there's good news and bad news, and per tradition, we'll be starting with the latter. Three of four undersea cables that route Internet traffic from Asia to North America have inexplicably been cut, meaning that your international 'Quake III' server may be a bit slow this evening. The good news is that this fiasco clearly hasn't affected you yet. The AP has confirmed via Egypt's communications ...

If we had our way, all our military tax dollars would go to DARPA. Whether it be nano planes, robot arms, or high-resolution sniper scopes, it always has something interesting cooking, and today's defense-minded gadget is no different. It's called a DBAC device, for Deep Bleeder Acoustic Coagulation; basically a portable ultrasound wrap that can identify wounds ("bleeders") and reduce their ...

We already know that a solid chunk of Britons use mobile internet while in the throes of passion, and now Captain Obvious (today known as Nokia) has awkwardly landed to tell the world that Americans do too. A recent survey, which we can only imagine was absolutely thrilling to conduct, found that some 53-percent of working Americans "have been interrupted by a work-related phone call or e-mail ...

If you had any urge whatsoever to try to your hand at drug trafficking over water while these "weird" economic times sort themselves out, uh, you may want to reevaluate your options. The ever-so-stealthy Stiletto has come to life after tracking down a remarkably quick drug-running boat near Florida; the bad guys were cruising at 42 knots, but that comic book-esque thing you're undoubtedly ...

This won't mark the first time the US government has looked into other means for helping soldiers communicate on the battlefield, but it's one of the first instances where vocal cords aren't even necessary. The US Army has recently awarded a $4 million contract to a coalition of scientists, all of which will soon start developing a "thought helmet" to enable voiceless, secure communication between ...

Ready for some truly staggering figures? VeriSign has reported that it delivered some 95.4 billion text messages between US carriers in the first six months of the year, setting a new record. Single-day and single-hour records were also set in the same period -- 648 million and 42 million, respectively -- proving that Americans are finally warming up en masse to text messaging as a totally valid ...