Wednesday, February 27, 2013

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Linus Torvalds blasts Microsoft in sweary tirade

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 03:17 AM PST

Linux guru Linus Torvalds is at it again. After telling Nvidia to go forth and multiply, the outspoken Torvalds has decided to share some of his thoughts on Microsoft's signing techniques in a heated online argument with fellow Linux developers.

The developers were discussing ways of improving the Linux kernel with a bit of code that makes it easier to boot on Windows 8 PCs. The process of booting Linux on PCs shipped with Windows 8 has been complicated due to the widespread use of UEFI firmware with Secure Boot feature enabled. Red Hat developers emailed Torvalds to discuss the addition of new keys to the Linux kernel, which should get around the issue.

Torvalds' response was less than diplomatic. He said the idea was "f*cking moronic" and accused Red Hat developers of engaging in a "d*ck sucking contest".

"If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microsoft, that's *your* issue," he wrote. "Why should *I* care? Why should the kernel care about some idiotic "we only sign PE binaries" stupidity? We support X.509, which is the standard for signing."

However, Red Hat developer David Howells was quick to point out that Torvalds' approach was wrong, not because of the language he used to outline it, but because it simply wouldn't work. Other developers weighed in, but since Torvalds wasn't around the discussion quickly became civil and rather boring. In another email, Howells stressed that the keyproblem has to be resolved before Linux can be made to properly boot on a UEFI machine, unless Torvalds can figure out a way to make it work by shouting at it. 

Sony comes up with interestingly simple DRM

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 02:50 AM PST

Sony has come up with a method of detecting pirated software which it thinks is simple enough to overcome a lot of the problems of DRM.

DRM systems are usually complicated, easy to break and often punish those who bought the software legitimately.

According to application 20130047267, which was spotted by Dvice, published in the US Patent and Trademark Office this month, devices using this technology will be able to identify whether a game is legitimate based on the amount of time it takes to load into the device.

It is a fairly simple idea. Pirates would have a real job getting cracked software to be the same size as the original. The time factor also makes it easier to tell if the content is "illegally transferred or pirated to another, unauthorised media type".

It also makes it harder for pirates to reverse engineer such technology and circumvent the protections.

In theory a device will have a threshold of load time for legitimate content. If the media doesn't pass the validation in terms of load time, the user would be unable to access the content, Sony said in its application.

Of course there are a few things that could still go wrong. It is also possible for drives to be faster, for example, that some games can be sped up by replacing a Playstation's hard drive with a faster solid state drive. The patent says that could be solved by encoding the DRM with times for each type of drive. It would check it against a benchmark load time for that media type. This comparison is used to detect if the title may have been illegally transferred or pirated to another, unauthorised media type. Much of the success of this would depend on whether Sony can keep a hardware database up to date.

Harder to factor in is the fact that damaged Blu-ray disks have slower loading times. Software might not authenticate because it loaded slower due to a scratch on the disk. Any disk-reading laser degrades over time, which can lead to slower read speeds. If Sony's DRM factors in those sorts of hardware problems it is not going to be any use as DRM. 

Intel releases its own version of Hadoop

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 02:34 AM PST

Intel has released its own version of open source software platform Hadoop, which can crunch shedloads of data across large numbers of servers.

Dubbed Hadoop after creator Doug Cutting's son's toy elephant, the software was created under an Apache licence. Intel has taken the original code and folded it down the dotted lines, placed part B and connected it to part E and come up with something which is different from the instructions and requires less Allan screws to hold up.

Intel vice president Boyd Davis opened his kimono on the company's own version of Hadoop, saying that the company had significantly improved the performance of the platform "in certain situations".   This is an odd thing to say. He could mean that the performance is better than the original when it is switched off.

Intel is mostly known for its tangibles, like hardware, than it is for software, but Davis thinks that Hadoop will mean customers will want more Intel server chips and other data centre hardware.

Davis said that Intel's glorious five year plan is to drive cloud computing so that it could "affect every human being on this planet in this decade", for better or for worse.

Wired points out it is another example of tech giants drinking open sauce. Oracle offers hardware to run Hadoop, and earlier in the week, EMC unveiled a tool that runs atop the platform. Paul Perez, vice president and general manager of computing systems at Cisco, has said that his company is working to optimise Intel's Hadoop distribution for use on Cisco's UCS servers.

Hadoop has come a long way for a yellow stuffed elephant. It started life as a skunkworks project inside of Yahoo, but none of the crows there ever thought it would fly. It quickly spread to other web operations, including Facebook and Twitter. On the social networking front, it is used to analyse large amounts of data but actually feed data into live software. The original idea was to crunch information using cheap, commodity servers, but when Intel, Cisco and Oracle saw it they wanted it to work on own brand-name hardware and the rest is history.

Chipzilla appears to be seeing Hadoop in much the same way as it does Linux. The chip maker is now one of the leading contributors to the Linux kernel and a key partner in making it happen.

What is different in this case is that Intel is selling software. Davis says that the company is selling its Hadoop distribution and offering technical support for it.

He did not say if he expects the software to net much cash, but it might be that he really wants to see it push more servers. 

AMD's TressFX ruffles Lara Croft's barnet

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 02:27 AM PST

AMD has finally sorted out the problems of rendering realistic hair which has made graphics look like rubbish for years.

TressFX Hair, which will first see the light of day in the latest edition of Tomb Raider, will mean that game developers can actually come up with realistic skin, hair, and facial animation.

Nvidia has also had a crack at it and the PhysX engine will probably have a hair component under the bonnet. AMD, however, has not only beaten the Green Goblin to the punch, but got a decent partner to promote the tech too.

TressFX not only works in a playable game, it will also work on any DirectX 11 card.

According to a statement, the DirectX 11 treats each strand of hair as a chain with dozens of links. This allows forces like gravity, wind and movement of the head to move and curl Lara Croft's hair in a realistic fashion.

Collision detection is performed to ensure that strands do not pass through one another, or other solid surfaces such as Lara's head, clothing and body.

Hair styles are simulated by gradually pulling the strands back towards their original shape after they have moved in response to an external force.

If AMD has pulled this off properly, then it will mean much for creating richer characters, creatures, and, potentially, worlds. It is not just hair that has the problem of looking fake, there are objects like moving trees and grass which will suddenly get a makeover. 

Stuxnet "0.5" hit Iran as early as 2007

Posted: 27 Feb 2013 01:57 AM PST

Insecurity experts at Symantec have found a version of the Stuxnet virus that was attacking Iran's nuclear program in November 2007 - years earlier than previously thought.

Stuxnet became famous in 2010 when it started shutting down Iran's nuclear programme by taking out a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran.

Symantec researchers uncovered a piece of code, which they called "Stuxnet 0.5," among the thousands of versions of the virus they recovered from infected machines.

It is clear that Stuxnet 0.5 was in development as early as 2005, when Iran was still setting up its uranium enrichment facility. It was deployed in 2007, the same year the Natanz facility went online.

Symantec researcher Liam O'Murchu told Reuters that it was mind blowing they were thinking about creating a project like that in 2005.

It seems that the cyber weapon was powerful enough to cripple output at Natanz six years ago.

It might have been that Stuxnet was damaging centrifuges without destroying enough to make the plant operator suspicious.

It is not clear what damage Stuxnet 0.5 caused. Symantec said it was designed to attack the Natanz facility by opening and closing valves that feed uranium hexafluoride gas into centrifuges, without the knowledge of the operators of the facility.

It worked slightly differently from other versions which sabotaged the enrichment process by changing the speeds of those gas-spinning centrifuges.

Symantec said it has now uncovered four versions of Stuxnet and there are likely others that have not been discovered.

Researchers are still short on hard evidence to nail who's behind Stuxnet. 

Samsung to invade New York for S4 event

Posted: 26 Feb 2013 07:26 AM PST

New York is an Apple stronghold highlighted by the fact that the New York Times only prints positive Apple stories and reviews, so the fact that Samsung is going to launch its Galaxy S4 smartphone in the town is clearly heresy.

According to Samsung, after the iPhone 5 and Mac mini fiasco it has been swamped with requests from US mobile carriers to be a little more proactive on Apple's turf. While we don't think this is likely, it is interesting that Cupertino might find itself with more earnest competition in the US.

AP reports that  the Galaxy S4 model will heat up competition in the crucial US mobile phone market and this will be the first US launch of Samsung's flagship Galaxy smartphone in three years.

Company spokesperson Chenny Kim said this comes amid a Samsung advertising blitz in the US that has been taking the Nintendo out of Apple fans, pointing out that stupid is not exactly cool.

The new Galaxy model is expected to feature a higher-resolution display and camera than its predecessor, as well as a faster quad-core processor.

It will put the phone at the head of a smartphone advantage over Apple this year.

While Apple is saying nothing, and the New York Times will almost certainly write off the new phone, Apple investors have grown anxious about the company's prospects.

Apple shares have slumped 15 percent this year and the company is reportedly slashing orders for screens and other components from its Asian suppliers as intensifying competition erodes demand for its latest iPhone. 

PS: If this model is indeed called the S4 we will be interested to see how the phone does in Asian markets. The number 4 is considered highly unlucky and is usually associated with death.  
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