IBM open sources new approach to crypto
Work on files – without decrypting them
A group of IBM researchers has released a Githib project that implements a homomorphic encryption system – a way to work on encrypted data in a file without first decrypting the whole file.
Why would anyone want to do that? Partly because if you have to decrypt the file to work on it, it's going to exist as plaintext somewhere. …
Outback geothermal plant goes live
Innamincka's megawatt pilot plant starts 100 days of testing
Geodynamics has pulled the big Acme switch on its Habanero pilot plant, near the remote South Australian town of Innamincka.
Perched atop 4 km of drillings, the pilot plant has 1 MWe (megawatts of electrical energy) capacity and is about to enter a 100-day trial and demonstration project to be completed in August 2013.
The …
A10 ships new iron, OS
Layer 4 connections per-second-per-Watt as a measure of green, anyone?
A10 Networks has announced new gateway devices and a revision to its ACOS operating system.
The three new chunks of metal are the 6430 / 6430S (same unit, with and without SSL support) and the half-the-power, half-the-price 5430S.
A10's director of product marketing Paul Nicholson introduced El Reg to yet another measure of …
Quantum researchers control qubit with light
Diamonds are a girl's quantum computer's best friend
As the hunt continues for ways to manipulate qubits in solid state devices, UC Santa Barbara researchers have demonstrated using a laser to manipulate a qubit in diamond.
The qubit in question is actually considered a defect in a diamond's crystalline structure: it's called a “nitrogen-vacancy centre”, in which a nitrogen atom …
Terabit trial gives Telstra some backbone
Ericsson demos “fastest ever” long-haul link
The 995 kilometre optic fibre link from Sydney to Melbourne has played host to Australia's first demonstration of a commercial terabit-per-second fibre system.
Announcing the demonstration, Telstra's director of transport and routing engineering David Robertson noted that it owns the largest amount of fibre in the country, and …
Linux kernel 3.9 lands
Power management, new processors, SSD caching and more
Linus Torvalds has unleashed version 3.9 of the Linux kernel.
Key features in the release include caching for SSD storage, new processor architectures, power management improvements targeting tablets and phones, Chromebook support, and a nod towards Android.
The caching change, present as the dm-cache target and currently …
Cameras leak credentials, live video
D-Link scrambles upgrade, Vivotek silent says Core Sec
D-Link and Vivotek have submitted their entries for “dumbest security vulnerability of 2013”, with Core Security turning up a variety of daft bugs in their IP cameras, including hard-coded backdoor passwords.
The advisories are here for Vivotek and here for D-Link. D-Link has told Core Security it is preparing a fix, but the …
Cisco clambers aboard gig Wi-Fi bandwagon
Product catapult loaded with 802.11ac kit
Cisco has joined the growing list of vendors putting the 802.11ac “gigabit WiFi” standard into live kit, launching a “Wave 1” module for it Aironet 3600 series of access points, and promising “Wave 2” support in a future upgrade module.
The current kit, quoth the Borg, supports WiFi speed up to 1.3 Gbps, which in deployment …
One of the world's oldest experiments crawls towards a fall
Fever pitch excitement at planet's most boring webcam
Grab a coffee, fire up the browser, open the webcam, and wait: sometime soon – perhaps within days – a drop of pitch will fall, and for the first time, the event might actually have spectators.
One of the world's longest continuous scientific experiments, at the University of Queensland , lives under a bell jar in a university …
Apache attack drives traffic to malware
Blackhole redirect served by modified daemon binary
A security researcher is warning that an attack on the Apache Web server is increasingly showing up in the wild, and has published a free Python tool to check their configurations.
The attack is designed to avoid leaving disk footprints, according to this post analysing the backdoor. It exists as a modified httpd file that …
BT unleashes SIP licensing troll army
Small players collateral damage in Google-versus-BT patent drone-war
VoIP-to-PSTN termination providers and SIP vendors will be watching their inboxes for a lawyer's letter from BT, which has kicked off a taxing licensing program levying a fee on the industry, based on a list of 99 patents.
As noted in Australian telco newsletter Communications Day, the move seems to have caught the VoIP industry …
Australian Bureau of Statistics denies hacking report
A login isn't a 'hack' states stat specialist
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been forced, by dint of a misreading of 'attack statistics', to deny that hackers (including the ubiquitous Chinese variety) have accessed pre-release sensitive data such as unemployment or inflation rates.
Last week, the Australian Financial Review offered its readers a tale titled Cyber …
Move space junk with laser shots
A little 'light' nudge
More than a decade's work could be closer to payoff for Canberra company EOS Space Systems, which last week told the Sixth European Conference on Space Debris that its laser systems could help move space junk out of the “danger zone”.
Before you start imagining orbiting satellites bristling with enough weaponry to knock out …
Cat ladies turned brand-squatters poke fun at religious right
Redditors, Tweets duped as well, what's not to like?
Redditers in Australia – and others – got a giggle out of one of the better bits of brand-squat-spoofing to arise on the Interwebs in recent times.
The Australian Christian Lobby, a lobby group with sufficient influence to regularly regale Canberra politicians about the country's inevitable slide towards ungulate matrimony by …
Boffins strap turbocharger to BitTorrent
P2P that goes FASTER as load increases
Cue a new round of fast-network scare-mongering from the world's content owners: a group of information theorists from the US, France and Finland believe that with a bit of tweaking, P2P networks can become even more efficient.
In fact, if their maths is correct – and their ideas could be deployed on a large scale – their …
Neutrinos from another galaxy hit ice with black-hole force
IceCube detector turns up energetic surprise
If they're neutrinos – the scientists are being cautious about that, not yet having the six-sigma certainty that particle physics likes – they're rather exciting excited ones: two neutrinos believed detected at the IceCube detector in Antarctica have huge energy and probably came from outside our galaxy.
The energy claimed for …
Oz sports discovers IPTV, just a little
Bureaucrats look at how to get screen time for second-tier sports
The rather-battered Australian Sports Commission has discovered the Internet and has mooted that it might be used to help put second-rank sports in front of a viewing audience.
In an interview with the ABC, the commission's chair John Wylie has explained that IPTV could be considered as a distribution option, under a study just …
Boffins explain LED inefficiencies
Electrons misbehave at higher energies
One of the problems with using LED-based lamps to replace incandescent or fluorescent lamps is that they're expensive: not only do they need more electronics than the alternatives, LED efficiency is capped by a fall in light output at higher current.
To answer the so-what question: getting rid of the “droop effect” allows LEDs …
TPG might bid for spectrum: reports
Junior telco dons the 'red underpants'
Australia's spectrum auction may have had a dark horse entry, with reports emerging that TPG has registered as a bidder.
The junior telco claims more than 600,000 broadband subscribers and is already a mobile reseller with 300,000 subscribers. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a “senior telco industry executive” named TPG …
Australian Federal Police claim arrest of 'LulzSec leader'
Updated Suspect is IT pro with access to government data at work
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has arrested a man described "a self-proclaimed leader of the group ‘Lulz Security’ (Lulzsec), a computer hacking group that has existed since 2011."
The as-yet-unnamed 24-year-old man was apprehended in the coastal town of Point Clare was arrested after using a known exploit to last month …
Oz broadband speeds collapsed in 2012
Bottomless thirst for downloads chokes the tubes
Akamai's State of the Internet report reveals a sharp slowdown in Australian Internet download speeds to the end of 2012.
According to the report, which is gathered by analysing traffic through Akamai's content distribution networks, global connections got faster, with 2.9 Mbps on average and 16.6 Mbps average peak connection …
Chinese IEEE members want MAC control for cognitive radio
Spectrum licences? Who needs 'em when radios can find their own airspace
For those in the mood for deep wireless communication geekery, a group of Chinese researchers has released a proposed protocol for MAC layer behaviour of cognitive radio systems.
The idea is to increase spectrum efficiency by allowing wireless systems to be opportunistic in their use of spectrum: that is, to use whatever appears …
Java still vulnerable despite recent patches
Sun rises in the East
Just days after the latest fix, another Java vulnerability has emerged.
Described in this Full Disclosure post, the Reflection API flaw affects all versions of Java SE 7 and, according to researcher Adam Gowdiak, “can be used to achieve a complete Java security sandbox bypass on a target system”.
As always, the victim would …
Voda wants NBN access to boost regional 4G spread
Country Oz needs a fibre diet to suck nutrients out of wireless broadband
Vodafone has said it's hoping that the rollout of the National Broadband Network will give it the chance to improve country mobile services.
In evidence to the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry into the National Broadband Network on Friday April 19, the junior member of Australia's three-strong mobile carrier club identified Telstra's …
Brussels accuses chip makers of collusion
Smart card silicon market under investigation
A five-year investigation in Europe into collusion into the smart card market is heating up, with the European Commission issuing a 90-page “statement of objections” to big-name vendors including Philips and Infineon.
The European Commission complaint centres around the silicon used for SIMs, chipped passports, bank cards and …
Dark matter researchers think they've got a signal
Little WIMPs, is this your life?
Three Weakly Interacting Massive Particles – WIMPs to physicists – may not sound like many, but they're enough for excitement.
That's because if they exist, WIMPs would solve the “dark matter” puzzle. They are, however, exceedingly difficult to detect because of the first two words of their name. They're “weakly interacting”, so …
Turnbull 'flat out' seeking NBN killer blow
Why does the philosopher prince of broadband care about a half-a-percent saving?
Australia's broadband debate is beginning to take on elements of farce.
For quite some time on Friday, April 19, Malcolm Turnbull, the opposition spokesman for communications, quizzed National Broadband Company (NBN Co) CEO Mike Quigley and CTO Greg McLaren about the feasibility of using VDSL for in-building distribution in …
NBN Co still on budget, CEO claims
Won't cost $AU90 billion
While avoiding direct political comment on the federal opposition's fibre-to-the-node plans, NBN Co CEO Mike Quigley has told the parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network he believes the project will still be able to meet its $37.4 billion capital budget.
Quigley told the committee there's “no reason to …
Kepler continues exoplanet bonanza
Three “habitable zone” discoveries keeping the boffins happy
Data from the Kepler space telescope has yielded yet more Earth-like planets, with a University of Washington researcher identifying a second “habitable zone” super-Earth orbiting the star dubbed Kepler-62.
The rocky Kepler 62f is estimated at 1.4 times the size of Earth, and receives a solar flux about half as much as Earth, …
Vint Cerf endorses software-defined networks
Is this the fall of the stupid switch?
One of the reasons for the rise of the Internet was that it was stupid: by throwing buckets of bandwidth at any problem, and attaching the intelligence to the network edge, it could ship bits around vastly cheaper than telco carrier networks.
That competition was documented back in 1998 in David Isenberg's famous paper, The Dawn …
Boffins spin a solid state qubit in a nucleus
Reliable quantum memory in silicon
A group of researchers from the University of New South Wales has produced a functioning solid-state qubit with a read-out fidelity of 99.8 percent, taking the world another step along the path towards a functioning quantum computer.
The team used the magnetic spin of the phosphorus nucleus as the basis for their experiment, …
Antares aborted after launchpad mishap
Supply line separated early
NASA has had to delay the launch of the Antares private spacecraft following the premature disconnection of a second-stage umbilical.
Thankfully, it wasn't a catastrophic launch failure. Antares has missed its launch window, and will need 24 to 48 hours to be returned to “nominal state”, and at the time of writing, NASA was …
Huawei Ascend Mate lands in Australia
But where's 'Oz tax'?
Huawei is clearly hoping that 2013 will be the year that it shakes off the “cheap” image, but its Ascend Mate, first seen earlier this year at CES, still sports a notable $AU429 price tag.
But a second agenda is at work, with the 1280x720 resolution, 6.1-inch Ascend Mate based on Huawei's own silicon and a custom UI – both of …
Entangled matter the next big thing in qubits
Teleportation inches forward
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute are trumpeting as a breakthrough the successful teleportation of quantum information over 21 metres.
To be fair, however, the record they're claiming to have set is for “matter-matter teleportation” – rather than merely carrying a quantum state such as polarisation between a pair of …
NZ plans interception law refresh
Dotcom bust leads to spooks' charter
Still suffering judicial criticism over its bungled spying on Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand government has announced that it will revise its telecommunications interception regime to force ISPs and telcos to co-operate with that country's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
Ms Adams' announcement stated that “network …
CSIRO backing broadband app comp
Hungry and brilliant? Get coding
Entries are now open for a $AU50,000 CSIRO and industry-sponsored competition to foster broadband application development.
The prize is designed to spark the development of applications that take advantage of the kind of connectedness envisaged under the NBN, the agency says.
Through its Australian Centre for Broadband …
Interview: Dave Berstein on the NBN, construction and VDSL
xDSL, fibre, construction and gigabits
Dave Berstein of DSL Prime and Fastnet News visited Australia during April for the CommsDay Summit. The Register interviewed him to get his take on the ongoing NBN debate.
The Register: Let's look at what you've seen of the two-headed broadband debate in Australia – how well do you think the shift from an FTTP to an FTTN model …
'Charge memory' boffins: Hungover Li-Ion batts tell fat whoppers
Better software needed to tackle electrical comedown
The widespread belief that lithium-ion batteries don't suffer from “charge memory” might be mistaken, according to new research out of Japan and Switzerland.
The research, published in Nature Materials (abstract), finds that “charge memory” can emerge in the common electrode material lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4). As a result …
Cellular architectures not great for TV: study
Terrestrial broadcast still the winner for now
A study by the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has found that cell-based distribution of broadcast TV content can be a glutton for spectrum.
Around the world, mobile network owners have their eyes on spectrum being vacated by the move to digital TV, and the received wisdom is that video is going to keep driving huge …
Google preps for Brussels wrist-slap
'Say ouch like you mean it!'
Reports are emerging that European regulators have won a small victory over Google in their dispute about the impartiality or otherwise of the Chocolate Factory's search results.
According to the New York Times, the antitrust investigation will end in the next couple of days with the European Commission accepting a settlement …
Flexible flywheel offers cheap energy storage
Low loss and low cost
Mechanical engineering isn't within the scope of Vulture South, so we'll welcome readers' input about whether this is genius or snake-oil: a Kickstarter project called the Velkess Flywheel hopes to offer low-cost energy storage.
Flywheels are good at storing energy, but building them to fine mechanical specifications can get …
Coalition's NBN plan: where's the cost of the copper?
Vulture South goes mad with a spreadsheet, can't find billions in opex
Australia's opposition parties this week released their plan for broadband infrastructure. Many people have taken to the document with an eye to the Coalition's alleged $AUD90 billion-plus figure for the cost of the current National Broadband Network, but few have asked about the accuracy of the coalition plan's assumptions.
At …
SSH an ill-managed mess says SSH author Tatu Ylonen
IETF draft a first step to new version
Tatu Ylonen, author of the SSH protocol, isn't afraid of criticising his own work: he's calling for a new version of the Secure Shell to make it more manageable and get rid of the problem of undocumented rogue keys.
In this IETF Draft, Ylonen proposes a regime for key management, including key discovery, to overcome the problem …
Planes in thunderstorms cop gamma ray bursts
Only little ones, fortunately
It's long been known that flying exposes people to more cosmic rays than land-lubbers, but new research suggests another source of airborne irradiation: high-energy “dark lightning” that gives rise to gamma radiation.
Florida Institute of Technology researcher Joseph Dwyer outlined the idea at a meeting of the European …
Australia's alternative NBN plan: some taxpayer-friendly questions
Puncturing political promises with practicalities
Last Tuesday, Australia's coalition announced its alternative national broadband network (NBN) plan, offering fibre to the node as the dominant mode of delivery.
The plan appears comprehensive, but like any such document, it doesn't answer every conceivable question.
With an election fewer than six months away, El Reg's Sydney …
Australia gets a space strategy
'Bruce in space' not on the table
Australia has itself a space strategy of sorts: nothing grand, but a signal that the dearth of space applications research down under might finally come to an end.
The focus of the government strategy, launched yesterday, is going to be on satellites rather than the scary stuff like launch platforms. In part, it appears to be a …
Boffins propose photon-swapping entanglement experiment on ISS
Spooky in space
Hard on the heels of a Chinese claim to have measured the speed at which entanglement can transfer information, a group led by Austrian Academy of Sciences professor Rupert Ursin proposes testing “spooky action's” speed between Earth and the International Space Station.
The researchers note that the only kit required on the …
Two new supers go live in Oz
Igor pulls the big switch
The Pawsey Centre in Western Australia – which among other things will carry the computational burdens of the country's contribution to the Square Kilometre Array Telescope – has begun commissioning its 69 Teraflop Sandy Bridge-based Cray machine due to go live in July 2013.
For iVec and the CSIRO (which is acting as procurement …
Australia's coalition launches new broadband policy
Fibre to the premises unlikely for most in cheaper, sooner, plan
In Sydney's Fox Sports broadcast facility, a building supporting multi-gigabit connectivity, immediately following a demonstration of 3D television capabilities, and on the same day that the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced year-on-year Australian download growth of more than 63 percent, Australia's opposition announced …
Spooky action at a distance is faster than light
Chinese boffins put the clock on information transfer between entangled particles
As Einstein put it, it's impossible for anything – even information – to move faster than the speed of light. Yet the lower bound of that impossibility, the minimum speed at which entanglement can't possibly be transmitting information between two particles, appears to be around four orders of magnitude higher than c, the speed …
