The Geeks discuss astronomical and security news. Eric Enge, CEO of Stone Temple Consulting, joins for the second half of the show to discuss Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Costin, a computer scientist and graduate student at Eurecom, outlined a series of issues related to the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system, which is being installed as a replacement to the decades-old ground radar system used to guide airplanes through the sky and on the ground at airports.
Among the threats to ADS-B is that the system lacks a capability for message authentication. “Any attacker can pretend to be an aircraft” by injecting a message into the system, Costin said.
A new Mac OS X Trojan has been discovered that drops different components depending on whether or not it is executed on a user account with Admin permissions. The threat installs itself silently (no user interaction required) and also does not need your user password to infect your Apple Mac. The backdoor component calls home to the IP address 176.58.100.37 every five minutes, awaiting instructions.
When NASA’s Kepler space telescope started finding planets at odd angles to their parent stars, scientists wondered if our solar system’s tidy geometry, with the planets neatly orbiting around the sun’s equator, was an exception to the rule.
That idea can be laid to rest thanks to an innovative use of the Kepler data which aligned three planets circling the sun-like star Kepler-30 with a giant spot on the star’s surface.
The study showed the trio of planets orbiting within one degree, relative to each other and relative to the star’s equator. That finding is an indication that Kepler-30, like our own solar system, formed from a rotating disk of gas.
The Discovery Channel Telescope is an observatory with a 14-foot (4.3-meter) mirror built near Happy Jack, Ariz., by the Lowell Observatory and Discovery Communications, the parent company of television’s Discovery Channel. The telescope’s opening was marked with a gala on Saturday (July 21) at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff and featured a keynote speech from Neil Armstrong, the first person ever on the moon.
Wonderful video of a man speaking to his 12 year old self.
Today Maxfield and Oberton, the manufacturer and distributor of Buckyballs
Watch the video, in which a three year old is shown opening four different gun safes, three produced by Stack-On and one made by AMSEC.
An American gunsmith has become the first person to construct and shoot a pistol partly made out of plastic, 3D-printed parts. The creator, user HaveBlue from the AR-15 forum, has reportedly fired 200 rounds with his part-plastic pistol without any sign of wear and tear.
HaveBlue
