Google doodle honors birthday of biophysicist Rosalind Franklin

Google devoted its doodle on Thursday to mark the 93rd birthday of Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist and X-ray crystallographer who made great strides in our understanding of the molecular makeup of DNA and RNA but missed out on the Nobel Prize.

Born in London on July 25, 1920, Franklin showed exceptional scholastic aptitude at an early age. After studying chemistry at Cambridge, Franklin went to work as a research associate at King's College London in the Medical Research Council's Biophysics Unit. During her tenure at King's College, she captured X-ray diffraction images of DNA that led to the discovery of the DNA's double helix. Her data was the basis for a 1953 hypothesis regarding the structure of DNA that led to the 1962 Nobel Prize.

Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at age 37 and was ineligible for Nobel Prize nomination in 1962. The honor was bestowed on Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins based on their work contributing to the understanding of nucleic acids and not exclusively for their DNA structure discoveries. However, Crick wrote in 1961 that Franklin's data was "the data we actually used" to formulate their hypothesis on the structure of DNA.

While her exposure to X-ray radiation is sometimes linked to the illness that killed her, other members of her family have died of cancer.

Franklin's studies also contributed to the understanding of the molecular structures of viruses, coal, and graphite.

Google hit by building automation security FAIL

The building housing Google Australia's lavish Sydney headquarters is running the known-vulnerable Tridium Niagara building management system, and has been compromised by the Cylance researchers who have made Niagara their mission.

The researchers identified the underlying system – QNX on an embedded system – and extracted the admin password from the system's config file. After that, as the company's blog post explains, they were able to wander around the control environment pretty much at will.

Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle demonstrate the successful attack by posting the building's Level 3 layout, water, and air-conditioning systems with the blog post. They also mention an “after hours button” they said they were “afraid to test” because of its hammer symbol in the system (hint: it probably merely activates the doors so people can get out after the doors have been switched off).

The Cylance gents admit that this vulnerability posting – which has been reported to Google – is linkbait in the service of awareness-raising.

At the time of this blog post, this exact issue affects tens of thousands of devices on the Internet and thousands of different organizations. Thank you Google for helping us raise awareness on this issue!” they write.

They noted that the Google vulnerability was present because the building in which the company resides was running an older version of the Niagara system, so there's likely to be a contractor with some explaining to do.

Source:Theregister

Gmail users can now automatically generate Calendar entries

Google has started rolling out a new feature in Gmail that lets users create Google Calendar entries from their email messages.

Gmail now detects dates and times in the text of email messages and highlights them. Users can click on the highlighted text and trigger a pop-up box for configuring a Calendar item.

The process of creating and modifying the Calendar item happens within Gmail. The Calendar entry will automatically contain a link back to the email from which it was created.

The new feature is being delivered over the coming week to all individual users of Gmail's English-language version, as well as to organizations that use Gmail as part of the broader Google Apps cloud suite. This rollout schedule excludes Google Apps customers who have opted to receive application updates at longer intervals.

Google plans to add the feature to non-English versions of Gmail later on, the company said in a blog post.

The feature is intended to increase the convenience of using Calendar, which has historically not been as well regarded by users as Gmail, by far the most popular of Google's communication and collaboration applications.

By more tightly tying Gmail and Calendar, Google is increasing its efforts to lure users of Microsoft Outlook, the ubiquitous email and calendar desktop application that is often used in conjunction with Gmail as a backend email server by Apps customers. Google would like all Apps customers to use the Gmail and Calendar web interfaces, instead of the Outlook client.

People's attachment to Outlook has been a stumbling block for Google as it pushes Apps as an alternative to the Microsoft Office productivity applications and servers, like Exchange and SharePoint. In some cases, employees' preference for Outlook has derailed efforts to implement Google Apps in organizations.

Source:ITNews

Critics condemn proposed internet wiretapping bill

Government officials are reportedly prepping legislation that will require web companies to put FBI used backdoor wiretapping capabilities into their websites.

According to The Washington Post, the legislation would affect companies like Google and Facebook. FBI officials say the proposed legislation would allow them to tap into web communications of supposed terrorists.

However, web advocacy groups fear the backdoor implementation could cause risk to security and stifle innovation.

"Implementing such access would be cumbersome when not impossible, and the system would instantly become a target for cyber security intrusions," said Computer & Communications Industry Association president and chief executive officer Ed Black.

"All of these impacts would fall disproportionately on small businesses that don't have the resources of the larger companies."

The proposed legislation would require major web-based companies to offer law enforcement backdoor capabilities to implement wiretaps. If companies do not build out the tool they stand to be fined as part of the legislation.

Proposed legislation would come as an amendment to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The bill was introduced in 1994 to clearly state what a private telecommunications firm's responsibilities are when dealing with law enforcement agencies.

Bill opponents say the legislation would be ineffective if approved. According to Center for Democracy & Technology senior staff technologist Joe Hall, the bill doesn't fix the problem as bad actors would be able to hide their identity online.

"The sad irony is that this is likely to be ineffective. Building a communications tool today is a homework project for undergraduates," said Hall.

"So much is based on open source and can be readily customized. Criminals and other bad actors will simply use homemade communication services based offshore, making them even harder to monitor."

US authorities have continued to look for ways to better access online information for criminal cases. Along with the proposed wiretapping laws, the Senate is expected to vote on a revised CISPA bill later this year.

Despite hack, security experts urge no fear of Google Glass

The security risk Google Glass poses to companies is no greater than smartphones or other technology that someone could use to secretly record video and snap pictures, experts say.

Google Glass and its potential security risks came under scrutiny with the recent jailbreaking of the headset that many see as the start of wearable computing as a mass market.

The model rooted by Android and iOS developer Jay Freeman was sold only to developers. Glass is not yet available to the general public.

Freeman cracked Glass in two hours by exploiting a well-known vulnerability in Android 4.0.4, the version of the operating system that ships with the device. Once in, Freeman was able to fully control the device, bypassing the security mechanisms put in place by Google. In general, tech-savvy people will jailbreak a device in order to run applications or to modify it in ways not allowed by the manufacturer.

The Glass break-in did not surprise Tim Bray, developer advocate for Google. "Yes, Glass is hackable. Duh," he said on Twitter.

In an interview with Forbes, Freeman was not yet sure what he could do with the device now that he had access to its software. However, Jason Perlow, senior technology editor for ZDNet, opined that Glass could be modified to secretly record video and take pictures without the user knowing.

As a recording device, the current version of Glass has serious limitations. With roughly 12GB of usable storage, there is not much room for a lot of video, although that is plenty of capacity for pictures.

Battery life is also not great. A person reading email and taking some pictures and short video could get roughly five hours, according to a review on Engadget. The maximum time would fall dramatically if someone took a lot of video.

These limitations would make Glass a weak alternative to small video devices already available if someone wanted to secretly record in an office, Anton Chuvakin, analyst for Gartner said Wednesday.

"It's completely unrealistic, but exciting to talk about," Chuvakin said of using Google Glass in a clandestine operation.

Because of the hardware limitations, jailbreaking the device also did not add much more risk. "To me, the risk of a rooted Glass device is similar to a rooted smartphone," Chuvakin said.

In addition to Glass' weak capabilities as a recorder, it is also far more expensive than much better stealthy video equipment. "Glass could certainly be used for espionage, but it is a very expensive toy to use for that purpose and has little to no advantage over already existing methods," said Chester Wisniewski, a senior security adviser for Sophos.

The bigger security issue with the current version of Glass is not having a mechanism to set a password in order to use the device, Wisniewski said. "But we can assume that a production ready version would not ship with such shoddy security."


Source:CSO

New Chromebooks coming this year from Asus and Acer

Hard on the heels of the news that the Linux kernel itself has now added Chromebook support, other reports this week suggest that the ongoing popularity of devices that use Google's Linux-based Chrome OS operating system will likely continue unabated throughout the year.

We've already seen PC makers including Lenovo, Samsung, HP, and Acer join the Chromebook fray, and now it looks like a slew of new devices based on Web-centric Chrome OS are planned for release this year, including brand-new devices from Asus and Acer.

Specifically, both Acer and Asustek are "optimistic about the long-term prospects of Chromebooks" and plan to launch new models in the second half of this year, according to Digitimes, which cites "sources from the upstream supply chain."


A flurry of Chromebooks

Acer, whose Chromebook effort has flourished even as sales of its Windows 8 devices have lagged, canceled shipment plans for the second half of 2013 in the wake of dropping volumes, according to the Digitimes report.

Now, however, the company reportedly plans to release a new 11.6-inch model in July targeting students.

As for Asustek, which thus far hasn't entered the Chromebook fray, it now apparently has plans to do so in the second half of this year.

Samsung Electronics, Lenovo, and HP are also expected to release Chromebooks soon, Digitimes reported.

'Strong pressure on Microsoft'

Meanwhile, Google is also cooperating with players including Samsung, Asustek, HP, and Acer for "Androidbooks," Digitimes reported. "The sources believe that through the cooperation over both Chromebooks and Androidbooks, it will heap strong pressure on Microsoft, forcing the software giant to take a more cautious approach when making strategies for licensing fees or entering the hardware business," the publication wrote.

In the meantime, Google's own Chromebook Pixel, which is priced starting at $1299, has received rave reviews from Linux creator Linus Torvalds himself.

Source:PC World