NASA wants to know how much water had Venus

A week after launching MAVEN , a mission to investigate the atmosphere of Mars , NASA is preparing to do the same with Venus.

"It is appropriate that the dates of these two releases have been so close because both detailed study atmospheric losses Kelly - Fast , MAVEN program scientist and member of the Planetary Astronomy Program at NASA 's headquarters in Washington - . The VESPR observe Venus from above the absorbing atmosphere of the Earth , and travel to Mars MAVEN to a study of more duration. "

The VESPR is a system of two platforms, in which a Terrier- missile originally built to be a ground-based missile and later redesigned to support scientific missions combined , and a Black Brant sounding rocket Mk1 model with a telescope inside. The integration took place at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia NASA .

The experiments study the ultraviolet ( UV ) emitting atmosphere of Venus, and can provide much information about the history of water on the planet . Measures such as this can not be carried out using ground-based telescopes because our atmosphere absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation before it reaches the ground.

Therefore, the sounding rocket will carry the telescope more than 110 miles above the surface of the Earth. By now the atmosphere is sufficiently thin to allow UV readings .

" Today, Venus has a very thin atmosphere , which contains very little water, but we believe that the planet , originally , was a valuable ocean water " qualifies John T. Clarke, principal investigator for the mission and a member of Boston University .

Scientists are still trying to determine whether water existed on the surface of Venus , or is only found in the upper layers of the atmosphere , where temperatures were cooler . If ever the surface temperature had remained below the boiling point for long enough, the rivers could have flowed across the planet , and even Venus could have had ice.

Hydrogen and deuterium
The key to solving much water at that time was Venus lies in knowing how much hydrogen and deuterium ( a heavier version of hydrogen) remains in the atmosphere . Both can be combined with oxygen to make water, both in the familial form of H2O and the rarest , consisting of deuterium and oxygen , called HDO (which also produces small amounts of D2O) .

The high intensity ultraviolet light from the sun has broken away nearly all water molecules that may be in the atmosphere of Venus. Being lighter components , normal hydrogen molecules escape into space more rapidly than do the heavier deuterium . Comparing the amount of deuterium in the atmosphere there now with the amount of hydrogen , researchers can estimate how much water Venus disappeared and how fast did this circumstance.

Initial estimates made ​​from data collected by the NASA Pioneer Venus spacecraft in 1978 and other observations indicated that Venus might have once had enough water to cover the entire globe with seven meters of liquid . But it turns out that the amounts of hydrogen and deuterium may vary at different heights of the Venusian atmosphere , which would change the calculations. To help address these concerns, the VESPR make specific measurements in the upper atmosphere .

VESPR instrumentation to observe Venus for eight minutes , and your data will be transmitted in real time, before the load returns safely to Earth by parachute . Later , it will try to load the instruments to be used in future expeditions .

Clarke and his team combine these measurements with observations of Venus made ​​recently with the Hubble Space Telescope NASA. The group is also working with Jean- Loup Bertaux, the French National Center for Scientific Research to study the planet using the UV instrument of Venus Express spacecraft of the European Space Agency

Finally the Ipad App Store have a tailor

Apple wants to join the Black Friday that will take place on November 29. Therefore, as reported by Mashable, the company Apple wants to make shopping easier throwing that date with its first application from the App Store exclusively for iPad .

According to the newspaper , the Tablet Store is designed specifically for iOS 7, so it has the 'look and feel ' of this operating system . Furthermore advantage to using gestures that users have a better experience when exploring and buying.

For example, Apple Store for iPad you can zoom in with the classic gesture of two fingers to see the details of the products or the material on which they are built. The aim is that the buyer can get an idea a little full of articles , as if he were seeing in person.

Mashable said that the application does not offer much different content to what appears currently on sale in the Apple website . However, the interface of the App Store for iPad offers information to help users make purchasing decisions, showing for example the difference between Wi - Fi version of a tablet and 4G connectivity option . Also, with this application you can also find information on the location of the stores.

Apple Store for iPad arrives just in time for the 'Black Friday' . For those not aware of the issue , the Friday that follows Thanksgiving Day in the United States is known as ' black Friday ' , a date that kicks off the holiday shopping season with major reductions in commercial establishments such country. Some online stores carry out the 'Cyber ​​Monday' or ' Cyber ​​Monday ' , which make their big discounts. The app can be downloaded for free through the iOS app store for the United States.

The NSA spying allied states and attacks on PHP and Adobe starring in October ESET October analyzed from a security perspective .

The month of October , from the point of view of safety , has been characterized again by the detailed information espionage cases conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA ) of the United States to allies . Although until now it was known that this spy was done to citizens around the world , the information published in recent weeks revealed that senior political officials or companies were also in the spotlight of this agency.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was the first to show their outrage to check that your mobile phone was monitored for ten years. At this protest followed others, mainly from European countries that the U.S. accused of spying on its allies. However, these accusations ended also affecting those countries that considered themselves victims , when found in another document leaked by Snowden these countries (which is Spain ) provide regular information to the NSA intercept all communications , including calls mobile or emails, among others.

" Honestly , all this controversy over espionage between countries is somewhat absurd after checking that everyone spies on other countries, whether allies or not ," says Josep Albors , laboratory director of ESET Spain . " Intelligence agencies are for. The problem is not that governments find spy . The problem is figuring out what spy : if , as they say, to ensure national security, or use this information to gain economic and political advantage over other countries. "

And with other information leaked last month , we met how the NSA and its British namesake , the GCHQ spying Google and Yahoo! also intercepting information sent between data centers that have these companies worldwide . This is possible because the synchronization between servers is done unencrypted , which greatly facilitates the work of spying on these communications.

Attacks on PHP and Adobe
Going back to the proper computer security , last October we have seen two major attacks occurred that affected the PHP website and Adobe. The attack on the PHP.net site caused considerable confusion at first when Google named him one infected site and many thought that it was a false positive. However, the administrators of the site conducted an investigation and found how, indeed , their website was serving malware.

The analysis revealed that an attacker had succeeded in bringing a Javascript exploit the PHP website to try and infect as many visitors as possible. The fact that this site has a high visitor numbers caused the number of potential victims who were exposed to infection was great.

For its part , the company Adobe also affected by a major attack on its servers. Earlier this month knew the news that an attacker had gained access to company servers and get data from three million users including their identifiers , encrypted passwords and credit card numbers . It also managed to steal the source code of several programs which include Adobe Acrobat , Cold Fusion and Cold Fusion Builder.

However, later this month met more details about this attack and found that it was much worse than it looked . The number of users affected now stands at 38 million and, in addition , the company admits that part of the Photoshop application code was stolen by the attackers. The source code theft is something that can involve threats directed at exploiting security flaws undiscovered in programs that use hundreds of millions of users worldwide , and it is something we should consider as serious.

For its part, Microsoft started releasing security patches month including the solution to the serious vulnerability discovered in September in the Internet Explorer browser . Recall that this security hole in versions 8 and 9 of the browser allowed remote code execution and had already begun to be used for attacks .

In addition , Microsoft surprised everyone by paying the not inconsiderable amount of $ 100,000 to a British researcher for reporting a security flaw in version " preview" of Windows 8.1. The high amount of money paid to suspect that the ruling was especially critical , but good to know that companies are willing to generously reward researchers who report on these failures to prevent their use by criminals .

ESET 's lab also held during the month of October to discuss several interesting threats . One was the bot Napolar , also known as Solarbot . Some of the interesting features of this malware are spread through Facebook , the techniques used to obstruct the analysis by researchers or openly promoting an elaborate promotional website .

Another malware sample analyzed during October was the Win32/KanKan . This malware is designed to mainly affect Chinese users and is peculiar to include Office plugin no use more than persist in the system, install Android applications transparently to the user and be signed by a Chinese company , known to develop one of the most popular bittorrent clients .

Again the routers were also protagonists in the section on hardware vulnerabilities . Various models of brands such as D -Link , Planex , Hitron or Tenda Technology presented several security flaws that allowed even get to take control of the device remotely . Being a device present in millions of homes and to which few users pay attention , is a very interesting target for attackers.

Privacy Policy renovated to Google and Facebook
Two Internet giants like Google and Facebook are almost simultaneously announced several changes to its privacy policies . These changes have not been received with enthusiasm precisely because, in the case of Facebook eliminates the option to keep our profile is indexed by search engines and also allows minors to be contacted by strangers in this network and not only by your friends or friends of friends.

Google also got rid of the controversy by announcing that , in a few weeks , used data from the Google Plus social network advertising. This way you can use, for example , scores made ​​by a user in a restaurant and add your comment and photograph the advertising displayed when someone look Local .

Also in October we learned the news of the arrest in Russia of the alleged perpetrator of the Blackhole exploit kit . This kit is one of the most currently used by criminals and the arrest of its creator can help your disappearance . However, there are many other exploit kits on the market so this fight against cybercrime needs to continue .

Windows Phone overtakes iOS in 19 countries

Operated smartphones with Microsoft 's mobile operating system , especially the Nokia Lumia 520 - have experienced strong growth in emerging markets.


Windows Phone begins to consolidate its position in some countries. The consultancy Kantar reports an average share of 10% in the five major European markets , France, Italy, Spain , Britain and Germany. In the case of Italy, it is noted that Windows Phone has sold over the past three months that Apple iPhones terminals .

For its part , the consultancy Canalys submitted a parallel report on the smartphone market in the third quarter . The conclusion is that although Windows Phone only has a 4% global share of the market, the terminals operated by that operating system show a strong upward trend. In a group of 19 countries , Windows Phone even has surpassed Apple 's iOS .

The largest share is for Finland, Nokia 's home market , where Windows Phone reaches 39 % of preferences.

In Vietnam , Windows Phone had a share of 16 percent during the last quarter, while preferences reached 15 , 11,11 and 8 % in Italy , Thailand , Turkey and Russia , respectively.

In emerging markets, the economic model Lumia 520 concentrates most purchases. " The new Lumia models help to strengthen this position during the holiday quarter ," writes Canalys in a statement, adding that Microsoft is interested undoubtedly preserve this impulse when purchasing the mobile phone division of Nokia is formalized in early 2014 .

The company also notes that when the phones are no longer "Nokia Lumia " to become a " Microsoft Lumia ", you can definitely known if users buy the Lumia models because they prefer the Windows Phone operating system or, on the contrary, buy because they carry the Nokia logo .

Bitcoin encourages piracy , according to RIAA

According to the record industry, the digital currency Bitcoin contributes to piracy.

The digital currency Bitcoin has received much attention lately, especially when the FBI closed the illegal market Silk Road , which operated precisely based on such digital payment method .

Because this coin is beyond the control of the authorities , enabling anonymous transactions , Bitcoin has been pressured and attempted regulation by governments. In the case of Germany, for example , the interest is not to eliminate Bitcoin as a payment system , but to tax with tax. A notorious investor , meanwhile , has recommended investing in Bitcoin .

The last contribution to the debate is that the record industry group has targeted the Bitcoin detractors . According to the site TorrentFreak , the RIAA American Association stated that the currency would favor digital music piracy . For this reason, recently delivered to U.S. authorities a list of the 10 most active piracy sites , one of which is The Pirate Bay.

According to RIAA , The Pirate Bay remains operational , despite the capture and prosecution of several of its leaders . The reason is , according to RIAA , that TPB has begun to receive donations through encrypted currency Bitcoin .

However, TorrentFreak has analyzed the TPB given destiny through Bitcoin donations , noting that the organization has donated much of the funds to third parties. In the list published by TPB in place , part of the donations in Bitcoin were provided for testing open source software TrueCrypt encryption .

According to TPB , the donations received are not managed by the operators of the site itself , but transferred to a fund administered by representatives of the Swedish Pirate Party , which donates the Bitcoin for other projects.

Discoverd a virus capable of stealing ATMs

The new threat looming over ATM is called Ploutus and , apparently , has been created to target Spanish-speaking areas .


It is not the first time that cybercriminals venture into the world of ATMs, but the alarms are triggered whenever malware is targeting these devices .
Ploutus

And is that security experts fear the attacks through this route , really dangerous for his activity and scope, these were increased in the coming years .

The latest example is Ploutus , a virus that facilitates the extraction of money from their connection to the keyboard and the introduction of a touch panel which determines the amount to stealing .

This control panel is configured in Castilian so Kaspersky Lab, which is who has reported its existence , suspects that this piece of malicious software has been designed to operate only Spanish-speaking areas . In fact his trail has been detected in Mexico .

Its two most prominent are particularities of a code that needs to be activated and interacts without problems with teller services .

This suggests that Ploutous " was developed with knowledge of the operation of these systems " point from Kaspersky . " In addition, the infection vector system is via a bootable CD- ROM so that it requires physical access to the computer to compromise ," they add .