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Buster of myths, MAKE cover man, Maker Faire keynoter, Adam Savage is a busy man! So he needs an assistant for his workshop.

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First launched in 2006, Orbit Downloader is a popular file downloading software that can integrate with nearly every popular web browser and speed up download of files over the Internet. With features like clipboard monitoring, peer-to-peer transfer to increase speed, and URL sniffing that enabled download of embedded videos from streaming websites made it one of the most successful download managers. Now a new research by security firm and anti-virus product manufacturer ESET has revealed that the program includes code designed to carry out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on other machines.

The discovery came to light during a routine examination of the Orbit Downloader software package by the security firm. Apparently, when the main Orbit Downloader executable is run, it communicates with the orbitdownloader.com site, silently downloading a DLL file and a configuration file containing a list of targets to attack and a randomly-generated IP address for each.

The program then conducts either a SYN flood attack or a wave of HTTP connection requests on port 80 (the HTTP port) and UDP datagrams on port 53 (DNS). The IP address that accompanied the URL in the config file is used as the source address for the attack.

On a test computer set up in their lab with a gigabit Ethernet port, HTTP connection requests were sent at a rate of about 140,000 packets per second, with falsified source addresses largely appearing to come from IP ranges allocated to Vietnam. These blocks of IP addresses were hardcoded into the DLL file.

At this point, nobody is sure who is to blame for its possible that the servers of Orbit Downloader were compromised unbeknown to them, although its apparent that the author has gone to some lengths to hide the malware, as explained by ESET:

The first step is that files are encoded in base64, an encoding scheme most often used to send binary files as file attachments.  After decoding, the data is then XORed with a fixed 32-character string.  That 32-character string is actually the MD5 hash of a 9-character password that is hardcoded into the DLL file.  After this operation, each pair of consecutive bytes are XORed together to generate a single byte of plaintext.

While each download of the encrypted data from the server varies, the actual content, once converted to plaintext, has remained constant for considerably longer periods of time.

The additional malware code appears to be added sometime between the release of version 4.1.1.14 (December 25, 2012) and version 4.1.1.15 (January 10, 2013).

Following this news, many file download sites including BetaNews, Softpedia, Softonic and MajorGeeks have all removed Orbit Downloader from their sites. If you are using this program, you should uninstall it too.

Google Glass has made its way to the OR. A surgeon from Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center donned the new headset during a routine surgery last week, and streamed point-of-view footage live to a group of students on the other side of town. "I can start to appreciate the connectivity it gave me," says Dr. Christopher Kaeding, the surgeon who wore Glass. During surgery, Kaeding also consulted with a separate colleague through the headset, which Ohio State says is the first time that a live point-of-view collaboration has ever occurred during an operation using Glass.

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What happens when a professional illustrator collaborates with a 4-year-old? When Mica Angela Hendricks pulled out her sketchbook in front of her daughter, she found out. "I’m all about kid’s crafts, but when it comes to my own art projects, I don’t like to share," says Hendricks on her blog. "Since she was engrossed in her own project, I thought I might be able to pull it off... I should've known better."

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Watching the films of some of our most revered filmmakers, it’s often difficult to point out exactly why their work is so much better than others. It’s when they discuss their work, how they did it and views on other films that we truly see where their genius comes from.

Joss Whedon did a long interview with Entertainment Weekly this week and lots of the opinions expressed there have been highlighted. The possibility of killing characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron and his problem with The Empire Strikes Back are two examples. Now a new quote has been called out where the director of The Avengers points at one specific scene in Steven Spielberg‘s 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a perfect example of what’s wrong with not only cinema today, but culture in general.

Here’s the quote from Entertainment Weekly (via the Huffington Post):

A movie has to be complete within itself; it can’t just build off the first one or play variations. You know that thing in Temple of Doom where they revisit the shooting trick? … That’s what you don’t want. And I feel that’s what all of culture is becoming — it’s becoming that moment.

If you need a refresher, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones kills an Arab swordsman by smugly shooting him, an iconic moment improvised because Harrison Ford was sick that day, and one which became a comic highlight of the film. In Temple of Doom (a sequel by release, but prequel on the timeline) Jones has escaped the temple and two similar-looking swordsman confront him. He slyly reaches for his gun as a reference to his action in the previous film (which hasn’t happened yet in the diegetic space) but it’s not there. He fumbles around, smiles at the camera — at us — as a brief music cue from the previous film is played. Then he fights them another way. I couldn’t find the video, but here’s a screen cap.

Whedon’s claim is this scene is a great example of self-reference for the sake of self-reference ruining culture. While I do think culture copying itself for no reason, over and over again (as seen in pop music, fashion, sequels, reality TV, etc.) is the antithesis of creativity, I’m not so sure this moment is the one to point at as “the problem.” First of all, it’s a funny scene. Second of all, this kind of playful winking is part of the entire Indiana Jones saga. There’s the Ark on the wall in Last Crusade, Club Obi-Wan in Temple of Doom, Henry Jones’ photo in Crystal Skull and much more. (The fact that it doesn’t make sense in the story timeline is a different issue all together.)

The bigger issue Whedon is getting at here is that Spielberg relied on what had already happened for a cheap joke. Magnify that onto a larger scale and you have Saw VII, The Amazing Spider-Man reboot, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and One Direction. Things that are simply copying creative endeavors that have proven to be successful. Whedon’s issue is very few people create something new these days. And, even scarier, no one seems to care. They simply consume the same crap over and over again. This sentiment is a valid one.

But to blame poor old Indy? That seems a bit harsh.

Do you put stock into Whedon’s claim? Is this scene worthy of such scrutiny, or is it just one, small example of a problem that’s growing exponentially bigger with each passing day?

• Superhero Bits: Batman vs. Superman, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Arrow, Iron Man, Agent Carter
• Superhero Bits: Ben Affleck, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Stan Lee, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Guardians of the Galaxy
• Watch: Wasp Appears in Animatics for Bigger and Different Final ‘The Avengers’ Battle
• Joss Whedon Explains His Major Problem With ‘The Empire Strikes Back’
• Elizabeth Olsen in Talks for Scarlet Witch in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ [Updated]
• Joss Whedon Says Ultron Will Be More Grounded in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’

If critics had their way, you'd never see a sequel to Postal, Uwe Boll's widely-panned 2007 film inspired by the controversial video game. It seems the movie industry as a whole is also in opposition to such a project. But the one-of-a-kind filmmaker is undeterred. "You have to pay it because nobody else will pay it, so you have to give me money." That's the straightforward pitch Boll is delivering on Kickstarter in hopes of securing $500,000 to produce Postal 2, "a controversial comedy" that tackles today's most sensitive political issues.

"We take the biggest scandals of our democracy, like the happenings about Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and show that there is no difference between our democracy and the prison camps in Russia...

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James Franco likes books. James Franco likes movies. So it makes sense that he likes making movies adapted from highbrow literature. He recently tackled William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, and now he’s presenting his take on Cormac McCarthy’s 1973 novel Child of God. It tells the story of Lester ... More »

Bang With Friends has finally returned to Apple's App Store after being removed in May, but it's doing so on much more modest terms than it came in on. The hookup app, which anonymously connects people through Facebook, is changing its name exclusively on iOS to the more ambiguous "Down," likely referring to the primary action that users do on it: press a big, red button that reads "down to bang" to signify which friends they're interested in. Bang With Friends has also reworked that button to simply read "I'm down" on iOS, leaving what users choose to do when connecting through the newly desexualized app up to their own imagination.

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Digg Reader is a news service that wrangles the best stories from all over the web and delivers them to you in an attractive and sensible way. Using some social networking magic in addition to actual living humans, Digg decides what the most relevant and talked about stories of the day are. Today, they've released the Digg Reader app onto the play store and, my oh my, is it pretty.

   

All the makings of a great news app are there.

• Digg Diggs Android!
• [Review] My Taptu: Social Media + News + Eye Candy = Success
• Google Reader App Update Brings Widgets And Other Improvements
• Flipboard Updated To Version 1.9.7, Brings Audio To Your Newsfeeds

Digg Reader Released For Android And It's Beautiful was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

With the burning fury of one thousand imploding Kryptonian suns, the Internet descended upon the news that Ben Affleck will be playing Batman like a school of piranhas in a kiddie pool. While many of you were seething with rage, enterprising filmmakers like YouTube’s SoylentBrak1 were creating mock trailers to give us a sense of just what it would be like to see Mr. Affleck as Bats, Bryan Cranston as Lex Luthor, and, of course, Henry Cavill as Superman once again. Judging by this fan-made teaser trailer, I have to say the results aren’t half bad. Now, it’s just up to David Goyer to write a monologue half as good as anything that’s come out of Walter White’s mouth in the last five seasons of Breaking Bad.

What do you think of this Man of Steel 2 fan trailer? What would you like to see happen in the follow-up film? Let us know in the comments below!

Dean Norris — Hank Schrader — is here to spoil the end of Breaking Bad. He’s sick of everyone asking, so he’s taken it upon himself to do this video for Funny or Die to reveal how it all ends. Although I’m pretty sure this is not how it will end. At least, not with that hair.

[o artigo abaixo contém spoilers]

Parece que depois do desligamento de Rob Liefeld a DC Comics resolveu começar a “retconar” o que o autor fez para os Novos 52 – a começar pelo Lobo. Depois de recusar 3 estudos de personagem feitos por Kenneth Rocafort, a editora aprovou um quarto estudo, o qual aparecerá pela primeira vez em Justice League #23.2: Lobo com texto da novata Marguerite Bennett.

Ainda que a capa da edição acabe entrando em contradição com o que foi divulgado hoje pela DC, parece que a decisão foi tomada mais recentemente; logo, ao precisar de uma arte para divulgar a solicitação da revista por imposição da distribuidora sobre todas as editoras, o antigo visual do personagem foi usado na arte anterior. De qualquer forma, os três estudos de Rocafort recusados pela DC foram:

A estreia acontece em Setembro, mês dedicado aos vilões.

A few years ago, YouTube switched to a streaming protocol called Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP, or DASH for short. While it's more efficient in most cases, you probably know it best as the thing that only lets you preload the video a few seconds ahead of the playhead, no matter how fast your connection is. Luckily, it's easy to disable.

First, you'll need to add YouTube Center to your browser of choice, either as an extension or as a user script. Once that's done, you'll notice a gear icon in the upper right corner of YouTube. From this dropdown menu, go to YouTube Center Settings > Player, and uncheck Dash Playback. Now, YouTube videos will be able to preload in their entirety, which is awesome if you're on a slow connection, or if you're jumping around from point to point.

YouTube Center obviously has a lot else going on, so be sure to poke around once you've cured this particular grievance.

Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, you'll need to enable developer mode in Chrome to install the extension, since it's not coming from the Chrome Web Store.

YouTube Center (Free) | GitHub via Ghacks

Nothing says "relaxing day at the beach" like sand, surf, sunscreen, and the sudden arrival of the world's largest militarized hovercraft, amirite?

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A few weeks ago, Country Day Montessori school hosted their second-annual “Hunger Games Summer Camp” and were suddenly met with a flurry of horrified reactions after a hand-wringing article by the Tampa Bay Tribune, which concluded with a boy being knocked over during a game of capture-the-flag. And on the surface, “Hunger Games Summer Camp” does sound a little…questionable? But it also seemed like an innovative way to integrate a thoughtful work of literature into a child’s every day experience.

Many works of children’s and YA literature are violent—people die in the Harry Potter universe as well, but no one gets upset about Muggle Quidditch. I was intrigued by the backlash against the camp, and wanted to know how they dealt with those questions of violence, and why, of all the books they could have structured their camp around, they chose Suzanne Collins’ dystopia?

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Necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is the father of designing things that you can fit into your butt to sneak them into prison. And so a phone shaped exactly like a small butt plug has come into our world, and the UK government is trying to ban it.

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Segundo informações apuradas pela Folha, sites estrangeiros que operam no Brasil passarão a pagar mais tributos a partir de 2014. O aumento nos impostos irá atingir empresas como Google, Facebook e Netflix. O ministro das Comunicações, Paulo Bernardo, afirma que esta mudança tem...

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Reuters reports that Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier sentenced to 35 years in military prison for the biggest breach of classified documents in the nation's history, says he is female and wants to live as a woman named Chelsea. 'As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning, I am a female,' Manning, 25, said in the statement read by anchorwoman Savannah Guthrie on NBC News' "Today" show. 'Given the way that I feel and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible,' Manning said. 'I also request that starting today you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun.' A psychiatrist, Navy Reserve Captain David Moulton, testified during Manning's trial that Manning suffered from gender dysphoria, or wanting to be the opposite sex, as well as narcissism and obsessive-compulsive disorder."

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All you need is DNA. A Canadian dentist says he's working with "American scientists" to clone John Lennon from a rotten molar the Beatles singer had extracted in the 1960s.

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From Italian artist Giuseppe Colarusso comes an outlandish collection of both handmade objects and digital creations that he describes as "unlikely... but not impossible."

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Heisenberg: The early years.

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Established filmmakers have been embracing Kickstarter with open arms this year, and now writer-director John Herzfeld is trying crowdfunding with a slight wrinkle on the formula: he's looking for $250,000 to finish a movie he's largely already shot. Reach Me is a film about 12 characters that are affected in various ways by an inspirational book written by a reclusive football coach. Actors like Sylvester Stallone, Danny Aiello, Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), and Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead) litter the cast, but according to the Kickstarter campaign one of the film's main investors dropped out during principal photography. Herzfeld and producer Rebekah Chaney put their own money into the movie to keep things going, but the production...

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Caleb Jamaal Clemmons, the 20-year-old college student who has been in jail for six months after posting a vague but provocative threat on his Tumblr blog, pleaded guilty to the charge of making terroristic threats today and was sentenced by a judge.

Superior Court Judge John Turner sentenced Clemmons to five years of probation. During that time he is banned from four counties, including the one in which his school is located, and he is not allowed to use social media. He must complete a mental health evaluation within 30 days of release. He must also complete a drug and alcohol evaluation and avoid contact with alcohol and illegal drugs during his probation.

He was additionally sentenced to six months in jail, which he has already...

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Even before it aired in its entirety earlier today, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's rare interview with Charlie Rose for CBS This Morning already caused quite the stir last night, with early clips revealing Ellison's prediction that Apple would suffer without Steve Jobs in charge. But those were far from the only incendiary comments that Ellison wanted to get off his chest. He also said Google acted "absolutely evil" in terms of its treatment of Oracle's Java programming language, and enthusiastically endorsed the US government's mass surveillance programs recently revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, saying they are "absolutely essential" for preventing attacks like the Boston Marathon bombing.

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You've probably heard the advice that you should "make yourself indispensable" in order to avoid layoffs, get the biggest raises, and earn praise and promotion opportunities from your managers. It's great advice, but how do you go about it? It's easier said than done, but it's not impossible. Here's how.

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The professor who built a villa on top of a Beijing skyscraper has been ordered to prove it was built legally or dismantle his new home. Professor Zhang purchased the top floor of a 26-story building some time ago, and spent six years building the two-story villa that sits on its roof. Reportedly without planning permission, Zhang moved ton after ton of rocks and foliage up to the roof, creating what he says is "just an ornamental garden." Although it could be mistaken for a rock garden from afar, closer inspection reveals there's clearly a house hidden within.

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An Apple without Steve Jobs? Larry Ellison dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. On tomorrow's episode of CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose asks the Oracle CEO how he thought the computer company would fare without his friend Steve Jobs, and his answer was that history will repeat itself again. "Well, we already know," Ellison told Rose. "We conducted the experiment. It's been done," he continued.

"We saw Apple with Steve Jobs," said Ellison, raising a finger of a single hand to the sky in a meaningful gesture. "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." Down came the finger again. "We saw Apple with Steve Jobs." Up went the finger.

"And now, we're going to see Apple without Steve Jobs," he ended, making it clear with a last downward...

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TV studios should get rid of release delays, and air their shows “instantly” in every country imaginable.

For years the above argument has been used in response to ever-increasing piracy rates. However, the start of Breaking Bad’s second half of the fifth and final season shows that mere availability is not always good enough.

Just a few hours after the first unauthorized copy of Breaking Bad appeared online, 80,000 people were sharing the episode simultaneously through the most popular torrent file. After 12 hours, half a million people had already grabbed a copy via BitTorrent, and this number is increasing rapidly.

From the looks of it, Breaking Bad is well on its way to beat the record of 2,580,000 downloads it set last year.

Data gathered by TorrentFreak throughout the day reveals that most early downloaders, a massive 16.1%, come from Australia. Down Under the show aired on the pay TV network Foxtel, but it appears that many Aussies prefer to download a copy instead.

The same is true for the United States and Canada, with 16% and 9.6% of the total downloads respectively, despite the legal offerings.

In the UK, Netflix subscribers could stream the latest episode a few hours after the U.S. premiere. However, tens of thousands preferred to download a copy via BitTorrent, good for 8.5% of all downloads.

The Netherlands, where Breaking Bad actually premiered on public television several hours before the U.S. release, takes fifth place in the country rankings, followed by Poland, Spain, Brazil, India and Sweden.

sample N=4,014

#	Country	%	City	%
torrentfreak.com
1	Australia	16.1%	Melbourne	4.8%
2	United States	16.0%	London	3.5%
3	Canada	9.6%	Sydney	2.9%
4	United Kingdom	8.5%	Perth	1.9%
5	The Netherlands	2.8%	Athens	1.5%
6	Poland	2.7%	Madrid	1.4%
7	Spain	2.5%	Warsaw	1.4%
8	Brazil	2.5%	Brisbane	1.2%
9	India	2.0%	Soa Paulo	1.2%
10	Sweden	1.9%	Adelaide	1.2%

It’s clear that the show’s makers have done their best to make the show available in many territories. This was unthinkable half a decade ago, but piracy is still far from defeated. So the question remains, why are all these people still downloading through unauthorized channels?

In part this might be because some people simply don’t want to pay for a subscription. They may find it too expensive or are simply not happy with the viewing options on offer. In many countries viewers still have to tune in at a fixed time slot while many prefer to program their own viewing schedule.

Others may simply prefer the unauthorized download option out of habit. As we observed earlier this year, many people who pay for a Netflix subscription downloaded Netflix’s exclusive Arrested Development release, preferring the download experience over online streaming.

The challenge for the entertainment industry is to take away these leftover incentives, and make sure that the legal options become the default for everyone.

Breaking Bad’s latest download figures make the show one of the most pirated in 2013 thus far. Nevertheless, it doesn’t come close to the record set by Game of Thrones, which became the most pirated TV-show of the spring season with 5.2 million downloads.

While one might think that the people connected to Game of Thrones are outraged by this mass piracy, the opposite appears to be true according to several insiders.

Game of Thrones director David Petrarca previously said he believes that the buzz created by pirates eventually leads to more paying subscribers, and last week Time Warner CEO Jess Bewkes said that it’s better than winning an Emmy.

“Our experience is that it leads to more paying subscribers. I think you’re right that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. That’s better than an Emmy,” Bewkes said.

In other words, Breaking Bad fans have to step up if they want the show to capture the most prestigious TV award of the year. An almost impossible task, but with seven episodes to go the race is still open.

Source: Breaking Bad Sparks Global Piracy Craze

hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds released Linux 3.11-rc5 yesterday wishing that it would have been a lovely coincidence if he were able to release final Linux 3.11 as on the exact same day 20 years ago Microsoft released Windows 3.11. 'Sadly, the numerology doesn't quite work out, and while releasing the final 3.11 today would be a lovely coincidence (Windows 3.11 was released twenty years ago today), it is not to be,' notes Torvalds in the release announcement."

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There's a good chance that your favorite blockbuster film this summer ended with the fate of the earth saddled on its protagonist's shoulders. Screenwriter Damon Lindelof, who served as one of Lost's showrunners and co-wrote Star Trek Into Darkness, told Vulture that such a level of story grandeur is all but inevitable nowadays: “Once you spend more than $100 million on a movie, you have to save the world."

Lindelof may be one of the culprits of that trend, but he's also one of the few blockbuster writers known for trying to make stories personal again. "Ultimately I do feel — even as a purveyor of it — slightly turned off by this destruction porn," Lindelof said. "In the old days, it was just as satisfying that all Superman...

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