iOS is by no means feature-complete. But it’s getting harder to identify the low-hanging fruit — the things you just know Apple has to be working on, not just the stuff you hope they are. The biggest one left is mapping. Today brings a report from 9to5Mac that Apple is set to switch the back-end data in iOS’s Maps app from Google to its own mapping services; John Paczkowski confirms it, quoting a source who claims the new Maps will “blow your head off”.

I’d camp for it. Easy. I feel like it’s a space that could be much improved–even over Android Maps, which are phenomenal.

A new study by the University of California, Berkeley, suggests athiests and agnostics are more willing to help other people than those who identify themselves as religious.

The reason for this difference, the study found, is because atheists are driven by emotions, such as compassion, as opposed to religious people, who may be more influenced by “doctrine, a communal identity, or reputational concerns.”

“This research suggests that although less religious people tend to be less trusted in the U.S., when feeling compassionate, they may actually be more inclined to help their fellow citizens than more religious people,” study co-author and social psychologist Robb Willer said in a statement.

Surprise.

The steps to conduct similar attacks are:

• Collect a large number of URLs from the targeted website. Preferably big media files (jpg, pdf, mpeg and similar)
• Put these URLs in a Google feed, or just put them in a Google Spreadsheet
• Put the feed into a Google service, or use the image(url) command in Google spreadsheet
• Sit back and enjoy seeing Google launching a Slashdot-style denial of service attack against your target

Nasty.

Internet criminals are sidestepping the need to launch DDoS attack from large networks of malware-compromised bot PCs by using simpler server ‘booter shells’, mitigation firm Prolexic has warned.

America’s 10 most wanted botnets

‘Booter shells’ or plain ‘booters’ are simple PHP, .ASP or Perl script template files planted on compromised servers to direct Get/Post commanded HTTP floods to overload target servers.

As Prolexic explains in its advisory, the approach has several advantages over conventional botnet DDoS attacks, starting with technical simplicity. Even non-technical users can place them on hosted or compromised servers, building a bot from individual servers with up to 1,000 times the capacity of a single PC.

Internet criminals are sidestepping the need to launch DDoS attack from large networks of malware-compromised bot PCs by using simpler server ‘booter shells’, mitigation firm Prolexic has warned.

America’s 10 most wanted botnets

‘Booter shells’ or plain ‘booters’ are simple PHP, .ASP or Perl script template files planted on compromised servers to direct Get/Post commanded HTTP floods to overload target servers.

As Prolexic explains in its advisory, the approach has several advantages over conventional botnet DDoS attacks, starting with technical simplicity. Even non-technical users can place them on hosted or compromised servers, building a bot from individual servers with up to 1,000 times the capacity of a single PC.

What follows is a list of the best advice from security gurus, network administrators, and those responsible for securing company information. The lessons were passed down to them from real-world experience, a supervisor, an industry colleague, or in one case, a complete stranger.

Tip #1: Security must enable business, not prevent it

“I don’t know anything about what you do, for all I know, you are doing your job perfectly, but you have disabled my ability to do my job,” said a company executive to Stewart Allen, now an Information Security Consultant at Metrolinx.

Great list.

I want to share something else. I have seen so much death in my short life. I have had to do procedures called “Infant Trauma Surveys” which required us to image every single bone in a babies body. The purpose of these exams were to determine whether or not the child was being abused. The parents of these children were often told that their child was being checked out for growth defects. My coworkers and I knew even before we started imaging whether or not the child was a victim of abuse. The babies that were abused never cried as we took them away from their parents. Their eyes didn’t dart around the room looking for something to play with. They would lie down in any position we wanted without any effort from us. They would just lie there, too afraid to do anything. We always started from the head and worked our way down. The machine we used for these procedures would allow us to instantly see the radiographic image. I have always had a love for children so I would always volunteer to help hold them still for the procedure. This eight month boy gave me no resistance at all.

Read the whole thread.

He says, “Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?”

“Hah!” I say. “There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.” His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was “playing” – working, really – with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

This adds up to a disturbing conclusion: China’s manufacturing rise has been illegally aided. Many advances are certainly due to the PRC’s own strengths; others stem from voluntary cooperation by foreign partners. But it is all too easy to find examples of Chinese theft that correspond well to spurts in manufacturing capability in advanced electronics, energy, autos, etc.

A Disturbing Trend

2001: Two people funded by state-owned Datang Telecom indicted for stealing secrets from Lucent.[1]

2002: Two people funded by Hangzhou city government indicted for stealing secrets from four firms.[2]

2003: PetroChina employee arrested for attempting to steal seismic imaging software from Silicon Valley firm (later pled guilty).[3]

2004: Canada’s Nortel discovers that China-based hackers have compromised its entire network.[4]

2005: Chinese national working at U.S. unit of Dutch firm AkzoNobel begins stealing material needed to replicate advanced industrial coating.[5]

2006: Two people indicted for stealing proprietary information from auto parts maker Metaldyne and seeking to pass it to Chinese firms.[6]

2007: Chinese national employed by Dow begins transferring trade secrets to Chinese government-controlled institutes.[7]

2008: Former DuPont employee picked by state-owned Pangang to make titanium dioxide, supposedly using DuPont production method (later pled guilty to espionage).[8]

2009: Ford Motor employee arrested for stealing trade secrets—later found guilty—supposedly on behalf of Beijing Auto.[9]

2010: Dozens of multinationals disclosed as targeted in China-based hacking of Google.[10]

2011: American Superconductor sues top Chinese turbine maker Sinovel for stealing software used to drive wind turbines.[11]

2012: NSA director acknowledges that China-based hackers compromised a company that provides computer security services to defense firms such as Lockheed Martin.[12]

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[1]News release, “New Indictment Expands Charges Against Former Lucent Scientists Accused of Passing Trade Secrets to Chinese Company,” U.S. Department of Justice, April 11, 2002, at http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2002/lucentSupIndict.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).

[2]News release, “Pair from Cupertino and San Jose, California, Indicted for Economic Espionage and Theft of Trade Secrets From Silicon Valley Companies,” December 4, 2002, at http://www.justice.gov/criminal/cybercrime/press-releases/2002/yeIndict.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).

[3]Rachel Konrad, “Chinese Man Sentenced to 2 Years for Silicon Valley Fraud,” Associated Press, December 18, 2004, at http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2004-12-18-corp-spy_x.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).

[4]CBC News, “Nortel hit by suspected Chinese cyberattacks for a decade,” February 14, 2012, at http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/02/14/nortel-chinese-hackers.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

[5]Ann Woolner et al., “The Great Brain Robbery,” Businessweek, March 15, 2012, at http://mobile.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-14/the-great-brain-robbery (accessed April 9, 2012).

[6]David J. Lynch, “FBI Goes on Offensive Against China’s Tech Spies,” USA Today, July 25, 2007, at http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-07-23-china-spy-2_N.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).

[7]News release, “Chinese National Pleads Guilty to Economic Espionage and Theft of Trade Secrets,” October 18, 2011, at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/October/11-crm-1372.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

[8]Karen Gullo, “Former DuPont Worker Pleads Guilty in Economic Espionage Case,” Businessweek, March 2, 2012, at http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-02/former-dupont-worker-pleads-guilty-in-economic-espionage-case (accessed April 9, 2012).

[9]China Daily, “Ford Engineers Yuxiang Dong China Steal Secrets Jailed for 70 Months,” April 14, 2011, at http://www.china-daily.org/China-News/Ford-engineers-Yuxiang-Dong-China-steal-secrets-jailed-for-70-months/ (accessed April 9, 2012).

[10]Kim Zetter, “Google Hack Attack Was Ultra Sophisticated, New Details Show,” Wired, January 14, 2010, at http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/ (accessed April 9, 2012).

[11]Ed Crooks and Leslie Hook, “American Superconductor Sues Chinese Group,” Financial Times, September 15, 2011, at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/df685246-df17-11e0-9af3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1qvfY4yzA (accessed April 9, 2012).

[12]Jason Mick, “NSA: China Is Destroying U.S. Economy Via Security Hacks,” DailyTech.com, March 28, 2012, at http://www.dailytech.com/NSA+China+is+Destroying+US+Economy+Via+Security+Hacks/article24328.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).