Monday, September 17, 2007

Iron Sulfate Dumped Into Sea May Slow Global Warming Or Do Completely the Opposite

carbon_sink_india.jpgIn an effort to slow down the effects of global warming, scientists from Germany, Italy, India and Chile are planning to dump 20 tonnes of non-toxic iron sulfate into the sea. The iron particles -- which will be spread around a 1,000 square kilometer area -- should theoretically create conditions for large amounts of phytoplankton, algae and microorganisms to grow and, ideally, help soak up the carbon dioxide that's slowly causing our planet to roast.

The process -- called carbon sinking -- could potentially restore plankton, improve the quality of the water and, on a very good day, slow climate change. On the other hand, since it's more or less untested, it could also result in nitrous oxide and methane being shot into the atmosphere, making things worse. So, you know, cross your sustainable fingers. [Hindustan Times via TreeHugger]

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iUnlock Reloaded: free iPhone unlocking for dummies now available

Filed under:

Wake the kids, phone the neighbors, the graphical new version of the iPhone unlocking software is now out, official, automatic (or as much as it can be) and free. Developed by the iPhoneDev team, the new software makes opening up your iPhone to any GSM carrier simple as pie. According to the Dev Team, "This new version needs only be copied over to the phone and executed, it's full automatic. No more needs for fls or extract bin files out of the nordump. It should also cut the time down to max. 3-5 minutes."

We'll bring you more just as soon as we get hands-on with the new wares (eh hem, all our iPhones seem to be unlocked at the moment) and as long as Apple doesn't drop the hammer with a new iPhone firmware release. We know it's coming, and chances are it will wreak havoc with the unlock.

Download
EU mirror
US mirror

Update: Not so dummy-proof Instructions and more after the break.

Update 2: GUI version is now out.

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Giant email leak from MediaDefender -- MAFIAA hitmen

700 megabytes of internal email from MediaDefender, a group of entertainment industry enforcers, has leaked onto the net. The emails detail MediaGuardian's procedures, their internal response to being outed for posting a fake download site to entrap users, the plans to induce users to link to their entrapment site, and the way the company sought to insulate their clients in the motion picture industry from negative publicity arising from their entrapment efforts. There's plenty more there -- 700mb is a lot of mail -- and I'm sure we'll see all kinds of interesting things in the coming weeks.
Unfortunately for Media Defender - a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks - they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.

According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called "MediaDefender-Defenders". It states: "By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services," and "A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account"

Link (Thanks, Christian!)

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Clips: VOCALOID 2: The Japanese Anime Song Generator

otakusong.jpgThink Garageband for otakus. This Japanese software suite lets you plug in lyrics and melody and generates an "authentic-sounding" song via its music and vocal synthesizers. As you can see above, the software features a 16-year- old "Virtual Singer," which croons out whatever disgustingly sweet (or just disgusting) lyrics you enter in (Japanese only, we're assuming). It's so popular in Nippon that it's actually the #1 selling software on their Amazon. And for good reason—the songs they generate actually sound like it could have come from a generic teenaged anime. Hit the jump for two videos.

Popout Popout [Gamersweb]

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Update on TD Ameritrade data breach: yup, hacked.

Remember Mark's post about TD Ameritrade customers receiving weird pump-n-dump stock scam spam from TD Ameritrade? Turns out the company was hacked, and those spams resulted from that data breach:
Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Friday one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen. A spokeswoman for the Omaha-based company said more sensitive information in the same database, including Social Security numbers and account numbers, does not appear to have been taken.

But Ameritrade has known about the problem at least since late May when two of its customers sued the brokerage in federal court because they were receiving unwanted e-mail ads on accounts used only for Ameritrade.

The data on Ameritrade's servers may have been vulnerable for an extended period of time dating back at least to last October, according to the lawsuit filed by lawyer Scott A. Kamber. The company said Friday the problem had recently been fixed.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit had wanted the court to order Ameritrade to tell its customers about the data problem, but Ameritrade issued its release before a hearing could be held. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages and are trying to qualify as a class-action lawsuit.

Link.

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