LAS VEGAS— Sin City has the greatest density of surveillance cameras per square mile anywhere outside the Pentagon, and that fact makes Vegas an appropriate host for both Black Hat and Def Con, the yin and yang of information security conferences. The two have become the anchors for a collection of security events here every summer (including BsidesLV  and PasswordsCon) that results in a week-long festival of infosec overload so scary, it's now even more frightening to use hotel Wi-Fi.

CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});While Jeff Moss, aka "TheDarkTangent," is the founder of both Black Hat and Def Con, the two events have continued to diverge. This year, however, they carried a very similar message: security has reached a critical point, and the people gathered at both events have never been more relevant to society as a whole, for better or worse. "This is our moment right now," Moss said during the introduction of his Black Hat keynote. "When was the last time we were this relevant and this in demand? I would say during the dot com (boom)... but if you think about it, all you needed was green hair to get a job back then."

Moss challenged attendees at Black Hat to do something real in the coming year. "I have the sense that we don't have unlimited time," he warned. "If we're going to make some moves, we're going to have to make them soon." The message at Def Con was similar—a call to action in a world where state actors and other maleficent forces are taking advantage of an ever-growing number of vulnerabilities in systems ranging from mobile applications to "Internet of Things" devices. The looming threat of surveillance makes it increasingly difficult to live a private life.

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Flickr user: eutrophication&hypoxia

Researchers have developed a method to produce ammonia starting only with air and water. Not only is it more energy efficient than the century-old Haber-Bosch process that’s currently in use, but it’s also greener.

The ability to mass produce Ammonia—made up of three parts hydrogen and one part nitrogen (or NH3)—has had a momentous impact on society. Without the ready availability of this chemical, it is estimated that as many as a third of us won't be alive. This is because its main use is in fertilizer production, which has helped improve crop yields and sustain a large population.

Developed in 1909, the Haber-Bosch process—often cited as the most important invention of the 20th century—involves heating nitrogen and hydrogen gas at very high temperature and pressure in presence of an iron catalyst. The presence of the catalyst, which doesn't take part in the reaction but lowers its energy threshold, is vital. Haber-Bosch was used to produce about 140 million tons of ammonia in 2012, but it consumes nearly two percent of the world's energy supply.

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Stack Exchange

This Q&A is part of a weekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 100+ Q&A sites.

user3150201 asks:

Most Java applications don't look the same as C/C++ applications. Swing might have been designed on purpose to have a distinctive look. SWT for example tried to look native and doesn't completely succeed.

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Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

In the vexing pursuit of passwords that are both easy to remember and hard to crack, many people embed clues into their login credentials, choosing for instance, "playstationplaystationdec2014" to safeguard a recently created gaming account or "L0an@ w0rk!" for an IT administrative account at a financial services company. Now, a whitehat hacker is capitalizing on the habit with a tool that automates the process of launching highly targeted cracking attacks.

Dubbed WordHound, the freely available tool scours press releases, white papers, and Twitter accounts belonging to companies or sites that have recently suffered security breaches. The software then generates a list of commonly found words or phrases that attackers can use when trying to convert cryptographic hashes from compromised password databases into the corresponding plaintext passcodes. The tool, devised by security consultant Matthew Marx, was unveiled Wednesday at Passwords 14 conference in Las Vegas.

"People are influenced greatly by their environment when choosing a password," Marx, who works for consultancy MWR Info Security, told Ars. "It could be a work environment, their personal life, or the sport teams they like. I wanted to create a tool that leveraged this human vulnerability."

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Megan Geuss

CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});RENO, NV—On an uncharacteristically rainy day in western Nevada, a small tour bus of journalists rumbled past security gates at the Ormat Steamboat Complex in Washoe County. We were there to learn about geothermal power, a renewable energy resource produced by transferring heat from underground rocks up to power plants.

Most people think of Iceland when they think of geothermal power. On that island, approximately 90 percent of homes are heated by geothermal energy. But some 12 gigawatts of geothermal power are generated worldwide, and the US is one of the largest producers of it, generating nearly 3.4 gigawatts in 2013.

Ormat’s Steamboat Complex is within the Reno city limits, and it’s made up of seven smaller plants that collectively generate 78 megawatts of power. A typical coal-fired power plant can generate around 660 megawatts of power, so Ormat’s 78 megawatts are not a lot by comparison. But when compared to other renewables, geothermal has some advantages.

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A near-production model of TrackingPoint's AR 556, the 5.56mm NATO precision guided firearm. Lee Hutchinson

Since first running into TrackingPoint at CES 2013, we’ve kept tabs on the Austin-based company and its Linux-powered rifles, which it collectively calls "Precision Guided Firearms," or PGFs. We got to spend a few hours on the range with TrackingPoint’s first round of near-production bolt-action weapons last March, when my photojournalist buddy Steven Michael nailed a target at 1,008 yards—about 0.91 kilometers—on his first try, in spite of never having fired a rifle before.

But big, heavy, bolt-action rifles were only the beginning, with the underlying idea being that the company would scale its weapons both up and also down in size. And, last month, we day tripped back out to the Best of the West range just outside of Austin in Liberty Hill to lay hands on TrackingPoint’s newest set of PGFs, the TP AR 556 and TP AR 762. Unlike the big XS-series long rifles we fired last time, these newest PGFs are semiautomatic carbines—the type of weapon that the media usually (and incorrectly) refers to as "assault rifles."

But the smaller form factor wasn’t the only thing that TrackingPoint had on tap for our demo that day. Last trip out, the highlight was hitting targets at 1,000 yards; this time, we’d be aiming at targets a bit closer in… but aiming through a tiny wearable screen while looking backward, over the shoulder.

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The launch of the QNAP TS-x51 series was covered in great detail. QNAP took the lead over other NAS manufacturers in opting for the 22 nm Atom SoCs. While we were expecting the first Silvermont-based NAS units to use either Avoton or Rangeley, QNAP surprised us by opting for Bay Trail-D with the Celeron J1800. The advantage was that the Celeron J1800 included the Quick Sync engine, which enabled some nifty multimedia features targeting home consumers.

Fast forward a few weeks, and we have QNAP's play targeting business users using the same platform. The difference in the hardware relates to the choice of the Bay Trail-D part. Instead of the Celeron J1800 (which was a 2C/2T part), we have the Celeron J1900 (a 4C/4T part). While the 2-bay version comes with 2x GbE ports, the others come with 4x GbE ports. All the innovative features from the TS-x51 series (hardware transcoding and Virtualization Station, mainly) are present in the x53-Pro series too. Due to the availability of more resources, it is possible to run two VMs concurrently in the x53 Pro (compared to one in the x51). Since we have already touched upon the two main features in our x51 launch piece, we will not discuss them in detail here.

QNAP has bundled all the business-oriented features of the x53 Pro under the QvPC umbrella. QNAP projects using the x53 Pro NAS as a business PC in addition to fulfilling the tasks of a SMB networked storage device. The display is driven through the HDMI port and the interface is through the HD Station package (Hybrid Desk). Three 'views' are made available:

• QVM Desk: Users have a window into any of the VMs running on the unit.
• Defense Desk: Users can access the Surveillance Station UI for monitoring the IP cameras being recorded on the NAS
• Local Display Desk: Users have access to the X-Windows session on the NAS, enabling access to apps such as XBMC, Chrome, YouTube, Spotify etc. - all of which are specific apps for the NAS. Obviously, the NAS can be administered from within this UI also

The HD Station package also supports touchscreen monitors. Since Virtualization Station is supposed to soon support Android VMs, this is going to be a nifty feature.

Another SMB-targeted feature in QTS 4.1 is  IT Management Station, based on Mandriva Pulse. It enables management of IT resources and applications for the whole business in a simplified manner. Tasks include inventory management, remote control, cloning, deployments and backup / restore.

The x53 Pro series (like the x51 series) also supports the UX-500P / UX-800P expansion towers. Using these, consumers can add 5 or 8 bays to their existing NAS by connecting via an USB 3.0 port. The various models in the x53 Pro series, along with their specifications, are provided below.

Interestingly, QNAP has two SS- models which support only 2.5" drives. It looks like the market for NAS units which support only 2.5" drives is slowly taking off. Earlier this year, we saw the introduction of Synology's DS414slim sporting a Marvell ARMADA 370 SoC. However, these are based on Bay Trail Celerons, and definitely much more powerful. With SSDs becoming cheaper by the day, all-flash arrays will soon be within the reach of even SMBs. Units such as the SS-453 Pro and SS-853 Pro are well-suited to tap into that market.

A rendering of ISEE-3. NASA

A vintage NASA satellite will fly past our moon Sunday before embarking on a unique citizen science mission.

The International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) will have the closest view of the moon at 11:16am PDT. Members of the rebooted mission partnered with Google to create a website where they will host a video hangout beginning at 10:30am PDT.

The website, which launched on Friday, will play a greater role in the future as a source to view data from the ISEE-3 as it orbits the sun.

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Jon Richards, SETI Institute

The SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array survived a massive Northern California wildfire this week that briefly disrupted its search for life in space.

"Yes, we are up and running again," said the observatory's senior software engineer, Jon Richards, in a Saturday e-mail to Ars.

Power was disrupted Tuesday and the facility's 42 antennas got too hot and had to be powered down to cool off before resuming operation Friday. The observatory almost went up in smoke after the Eiler fire jumped a highway days ago and came within a mile of the antennas.

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An anonymous author who claims to be the hacker who penetrated controversial UK-based Gamma Group International and aired 40 gigabytes of its dirty laundry has published a how-to guide for other hacktivists.

"I'm not writing this to brag about what an 31337 h4x0r I am and what m4d sk1llz it took to 0wn Gamma," wrote the author, who rightly cautions that the unauthorized access of other people's networks is illegal. "I'm writing this to demystify hacking, to show how simple it is, and to hopefully inform and inspire you to go out and hack shit. If you have no experience with programming or hacking, some of the text below might look like a foreign language. Check the resources section at the end to help you get started."

The do-it-yourself guide explains how hackers can map entryways into a target's network, scan for vulnerable services and exploit any that are found. It also lists some of the most common methods hackers use to keep their IP addresses and other digital fingerprints off their attacks. Among other things, the how-to suggests installing Whonix inside a hidden encrypted volume created by TrueCrypt and carrying out all operations from there. It also counsels against using Tor and instead using hacked servers. Again, this is illegal.

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Sean Gallagher

LAS VEGAS—Phil Zimmermann, the creator of Pretty Good Privacy public-key encryption, has some experience when it comes to the politics of crypto. During the “crypto wars” of the 1990s, Zimmermann fought to convince the US government to stop classifying PGP as a “munition” and shut down the Clipper Chip program—an effort to create a government-mandated encryption processor that would have given the NSA a back door into all encrypted electronic communication. Now Zimmermann and the company he co-founded are working to convince telecommunications companies—mostly overseas—that it’s time to end their nearly century-long cozy relationship with governments.

Zimmermann compared telephone companies’ thinking with the long-held belief that tomatoes were toxic until it was demonstrated they weren’t. “For a long time, for a hundred years, phone companies around the world have created a culture around themselves that is very cooperative with governments in invading people’s privacy. And these phone companies tend to think that there’s no other way—that they can’t break from this culture, that the tomatoes are poisonous," he said.

A call for crypto

Back in 2005, Zimmermann, Alan Johnston, and Jon Callas began work on an encryption protocol for voice over IP (VoIP) phone calls, dubbed ZRTP, as part of his Zfone project. In 2011, ZRTP became an Internet Engineering Task Force RFC, and it has been published as open source under a BSD license. It’s also the basis of the voice service for Silent Circle, the end-to-end encrypted voice service Zimmermann co-founded with former Navy SEAL Mark Janke. Silent Circle, which Ars tested on the Blackphone in June, is a ZRTP-based voice and ephemeral messaging service that generates session-specific keys between users to encrypt from end to end. The call is tunneled over a Transport Layer Security-encrypted connection through Silent Circle’s servers in Canada and Switzerland. ZRTP and the Silent Circle calls don’t rely on PGP or any other public key infrastructure, so there’s no keys to hand over under a FISA order or law enforcement warrant.

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YouTube

New York authorities have subpoenaed Twitter to unmask who's behind a parody account that tweeted responsibility for last month's Brooklyn Bridge caper.

The New York Police Department awoke July 22 with egg on its face when two giant American flags atop two locked 276-foot towers were stolen from one of the Big Apple's most heavily guarded landmarks and were replaced with bleached-out Old Glories.

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Spry Fox

When the game designers at Spry Fox named their latest puzzle game after Robert Frost’s most famous poem, we didn’t expect much depth or inspiration from the source material. Frankly, Frost’s The Road Not Taken, while sweet and lyrical, hides little under the surface to work with, particularly from a gaming perspective. Pick between one of two roads? Even text adventures gave players the choice of north, south, east, or west.

Thankfully, the game’s title is misleading, at least at first blush. Road Not Taken’s hand-drawn world and puzzly play rarely boil down to obvious, binary choices. The game revolves around a really refreshing spin on the well-trodden “match three” puzzle genre (which is to be expected from the designers who pulled off a similar, stellar feat in 2010’s Triple Town).

But there’s a point to the game’s name. As players get a feel for RNT’s pace—with randomly generated puzzles, a constant flow of new things to interact with, and heavily ramping difficulty—they slowly come to grips with the game’s very difficult core. Not in terms of how hard or clever the game is, mind you, but the fact that this is a puzzle game about death, disappointment, and family. Spry Fox treats that somber quality with elegance and simplicity, meaning the game is a wonder to play, but rarely do puzzle games (Tetris, Candy Crush) include death as a major feature. RNT stands out because of how it embraces that design choice, a fact that really makes all the difference.

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Up with a balloon, down with an aerobrake. NASA's Martian robots have used the planet's thin atmosphere to their advantage while landing, slowing down through a combination of aerobraking and parachutes. But the space agency hopes to put larger hardware on the red planet's surface—eventually followed by manned exploration. Those missions will require correspondingly larger braking hardware.

As part of its technology development program, NASA's testing a system called the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator. Rather than a solid shield, the LDSD has a rim of inflatable material that greatly enhances its braking capabilities when fully deployed. In addition, the system includes a large parachute that's able to be deployed at supersonic speeds.

In June, NASA launched what you could call a "falling saucer." Carried aloft by a balloon, then rocketed further into the stratosphere, the payload tested the deployment of both the inflatable heat shield and the parachute during the ensuing free-fall.

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Shutterstock

Ever since the Apollo 11 headed to the Moon in late 1969, astronauts have complained of sleep deprivation. Now a study has shed light on the extent of the sleep deprivation and fatigue suffered by those who travel into space.

In accordance with official NASA flight schedules, astronauts are ordered to get 8.5 hours of sleep every night. But after tracking the sleep patterns of 85 crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and space shuttles, researchers have discovered that astronauts on shuttle missions sleep for under six hours per night on average and just over six on ISS missions.

Crew members on modern space missions sleep in quiet, darkened chambers, and three quarters of astronauts take sedatives—yet the problem still prevails. It was not only that astronauts failed to get the required amount of sleep, however. In the three-month pre-flight training period, sleep was also found to be significantly disturbed. During this time crew began to build up a long-term sleep deficiency, averaging less than 6.5 hours while in training.

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While AMD’s FX-9590 CPU has been in systems for over a year, it suddenly comes to market as a retail package for end-users to buy with a bundled liquid cooling system. This 220W CPU that has a turbo speed of 5.0 GHz still sits at the top of AMD’s performance stack, despite subsequent improvements in the architecture since. We have decided to grab ASRock’s 990FX Extreme9 and an FX-9590 for a review to see if it still is the AMD performance CPU champion.

Adam Walker is the first Briton to complete the Ocean's 7 challenge, a tough series of long-distance, open-water swims.

Alastair Leithead visits the San Diego research centre where a serum used on two US Ebola patients was developed.

Following up on last week's Best Budget PC Guide, today we have midrange systems with roughly twice the cost. Of all the systems types to configure, the midrange market can be the most difficult. With budget systems you're often limited in what you can do by price constraints while at the high end the best components are usually pretty clear cut choices; for midrange builds there are many factors to consider. One of the core questions you always need to answer is: what do you want to do with the system? Office PCs will often have a different goal than something for a student, and there are many ways to adapt a particular system to fit the needs of the user. We have two configurations again, one AMD and one Intel, with optional graphics cards for those who want a system capable of handling the latest games. Let's start with AMD:

Midrange AMD System Component Description Price CPU AMD A10-7850K (4x3.7-4.0GHz, 4MB, 95W, 28nm) $170 Motherboard MSI A88X-G43 $78 RAM Team Vulcan 2x4GB DDR3-2133 CL10 1.65V $78 Storage Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB $84 SSD Crucial MX100 256GB $109 Case Fractal Design Core 3300 $63 Power Supply Rosewill Capstone 450W 80 Plus Gold $60 Subtotal   $642 GPU (Optional) Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB $190 GPU (Alternative) Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB $138 Total with GPU   $832

Right from the first component choice – the APU – we have plenty of things to consider. I've tailored the above build more towards performance than price or power, so the A10-7850K is really the only APU that makes sense. (You can make an argument for an AM3+ CPU like the FX-6300 or FX8320, but considering that platform has been around a while and is basically fading away I'm hesitant to recommend that route.) Besides the quad-core (dual-module) CPU portion of the APU, the 7850K has the full 512 core (eight Compute Unit) GPU. The A10-7800 is an option to consider at its $155 MSRP, but the only place I can find with the part in stock charges $166; for $4 more you might as well just go whole hog and get the 7850K. Dropping down to an A10-7700K will lose two of the GPU CUs and 200MHz off the CPU for $15, so it's also worth a thought, but if you don't need faster GPU performance you might as well go for the A8-7600 for $110 at that point.

For the rest of the system, the MSI motherboard has AMD's latest A88X chipset, we've selected DDR3-2133 RAM to provide increased bandwidth for the APU graphics, and the case is Fractal Design's latest Core 3300 (though you can use the case in the Intel build as an alternative). For storage, we've again included both an SSD for the OS and apps with a rather large 2TB HDD for mass storage; you could easily drop the HDD if you don't need that much storage, but for any modern system I simply refuse to leave out an SSD. The Crucial MX100 isn't the fastest SSD on the planet, but the price makes it incredibly attractive. Finally, the power supply may be overkill for the base build, but having some power to spare means adding a graphics card is always an option.

Speaking of graphics cards, while the APU graphics will do fine for most tasks and even light gaming, if you want to be able to play most games at 1080p with medium or higher detail settings, a dedicated graphics card is required. Here we've listed two options: NVIDIA's GTX 750 Ti (Maxwell) card and AMD's R9 270X card. The AMD card is faster and costs more, and it also uses a lot more power; if you want 1080p with high quality settings in most games, that's the card to get (and it's reflected in the price of the system with the GPU). NVIDIA's GTX 750 Ti on the other hand uses less than 75W and doesn't even require a PCI-E power adapter, and it can still run most games at medium to high settings and 1080p. Either GPU is certainly worth considering, at least if you want to play games – and if you don't, just get the core system and you can always add a GPU at some future date.

Midrange Intel System Component Description Price CPU Core i5-4590 (4x3.3-3.7GHz, 6MB, 84W, 22nm) $200 Motherboard ASRock Z97 Anniversary $90 RAM ADATA 2x4GB DDR3-1866 CL10 1.5V $77 Storage Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB $84 SSD Crucial MX100 256GB $109 Case Antec Three Hundred Two $64 Power Supply Rosewill Capstone 450W 80 Plus Gold $60 Subtotal   $684 GPU (Optional) Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB $190 GPU (Alternative) Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB $138 Total with GPU   $874

The Intel system this round ends up costing about $50 more than the AMD setup, thanks to a more expensive CPU and motherboard. There are ways to keep the prices closer, but overall the i5-4590 strikes a good balance of price and performance. It's about $25 less than the slightly faster i5-4690 but only around 3-5% slower, and unless you plan on overclocking it should offer everything you need. As we discussed in our recent CPU State of the Part, looking at overall system performance Intel's processors make a lot of sense for those that want a faster system.

The motherboard this time comes from ASRock and features Intel's latest Z97 chipset, and for the RAM we elected to go with a 1.5V kit of DDR3-1866 memory. While faster memory can help with the processor graphics on AMD's APUs, for Intel's CPUs the HD 4600 is usually limited by other factors than bandwidth. The same caveats about the storage components apply here as well, but if you're looking for alternatives the Samsung EVO 840 250GB is generally slightly faster than the Crucial MX100 while costing about $20 more.

The case for our Intel setup is an Antec Three Hundred Two, which is another popular option. Optional graphics choices can add a boost to gaming performance if you need it, but again a faster GPU could easily be added later on. If you're sure you won't want to add a dedicated GPU later, you can also save money on the PSU by going with the 300W Seasonic we used in our budget PC guide.

On either system, it's of course possible to go for a smaller micro-ATX case and motherboard. The prices are typically comparable and these days the only thing you're really sacrificing are expansion options, but considering many people don't run anything more than a hard drive and SSD along with a GPU, you really don't miss much. For mATX cases, you might like the Rosewill Line-M or Silverstone SST-PS07B. As far as mATX motherboards, the ASRock Z97M Pro4 would work well for the Intel platform, or for AMD the Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H will even save you a few bucks compared to the MSI board we listed above.

As before, we've elected to leave out the OS, keyboard, mouse, and display; these are all commodity items and most people have existing accessories they can carry over from an old PC. You can always use a free OS like Ubuntu or some other flavor of Linux, whereas Windows will generally add $100 to the total. As far as displays go, I'm a sucker for larger displays and I've been using 30" LCDs for most of the past decade – one of the best investments I've ever made in terms of computer hardware! For a good midrange display, I'd give serious consideration to the 27" 2560x1440 panels that start at around $300; if you don't want something that large (or expensive), there are also plenty of 23-24" IPS/VA displays for around $150.

Finally, let's quickly talk about pre-built systems and why I don't generally recommend them. Really, it comes down to one thing: the refusal of the big OEMs and system builders to deliver a competitively priced desktop that includes at least a good quality 250/256GB SSD (or even a 128GB SSD). $500 will get you a Core i5 or AMD A10 processor, 4-8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, and whatever case and power supply the OEM uses. Generally speaking, you get fewer features, lower quality parts, and a less attractive design – but you do get a valid Windows license along with a low-end keyboard and mouse.

We could easily take the above systems and remove the SSD and drop down to a 1TB HDD to save $140. Using lower quality motherboards can shave off another $30-$50. Wrap things up by using a cheaper case and power supply (another $50 saved) and guess what you have: a less desirable system for one, with a base price of $450 or so. Buy a Windows license and you basically have the equivalent of a pre-built system.

It's not that OEM systems are necessarily terrible, but it's the age old story: you get what you pay for. I for one would much rather have a decent SSD, motherboard, case, and power supply. You can pay a system integrator to put something together as well, but even then your choice of parts is often limited and the prices are typically higher than if you DIY.

On Friday afternoon, a US district judge for the Northern District of California rejected a settlement proposed by four major tech companies—Google, Apple, Intel, and Adobe—in a class-action lawsuit over improper hiring practices. The four companies were accused of conspiring to keep each others' employees from being poached, thus limiting their employees' potential salaries and stunting job opportunities.

A group of employees sued the four companies for this practice back in 2011, and in April of this year, the companies agreed to settle the case and pay back $324.5 million to more than 60,000 workers that ended up in the class. Today, however, US District Judge Lucy Koh said the settlement amount was not enough and "falls below the range of reasonableness."

The case has been followed closely, not least because a number of private e-mail exchanges between the heads of these major companies had been made public. With the earlier promise of a jury trial, it looked for a time like even more salient details would come to light. In April, The New York Times found one e-mail in which Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wrote to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, "If you hire a single one of these people, that means war.” In other court documents, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Jobs that a Google recruiter who had solicited an Apple employee would be fired.

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