scubacuda writes "According to Wired, the University of Toronto's Internet Censorship Explorer permits people test the limits of national and organizational Internet-blocking schemes. Users enter a target URL (and a country), and the software then scans the ports of available servers in that country, looking for open ones to connect on from behind that country's firewall. Many consider port scanning a gray area, as it's often used by various hackers to find vulnerabilies that can be exploited."

underground alliance writes "According to BBC News, space shuttle flights could resume as early as this fall. The article says that 'Engineers have been put on standby to fix problems already raised by the investigating board, and devise a way of checking the exterior shuttle for defects while it is in orbit.' I think that this is a good move especially since ISS construction has been put on hold because without the space shuttle. The space shuttle is the only heavy freighter and the only means of putting a new ISS component in space."

randal writes "A security vulnerability in the Sendmail Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) has been identified by ISS. This bug can give an attacker the ability to gain remote root access to the targeted system. There is no known exploit code of this vulnerability in the wild at this time, but everyone should upgrade immediately. This issue affects all versions since 5.79. Open Source sendmail users can get source for the newest version (8.12.8) as well as patches for 8.9, 8.11, and 8.12 from sendmail.org. Commercial Sendmail customers can find patches at sendmail.com/security. Most major OS vendors will be releasing patches immediately." Update: 03/03 19:23 GMT by T : Reader Patchlevel points out that RedHat and OpenBSD have already issued patches.Update: 03/03 20:45 GMT by T : Reader Claude Meyer links to an update from SuSE, too. Update: 03/03 22:52 GMT by T : djcatnip points out that Apple has released a software update to patch OpenSSL and Sendmail for Mac OS X 10.2.4, and the Slackware site says they have updated to 8.12.8 as well.

Slashback tonight brings you updates on TurboTax and your boot sector, NASA's plans beyond the shuttle, Barry Shein on spam, Linux telemetry, and more. Read on for the details!

number6x writes "The Physics Today website has an article by Robert Laughlin titled "Truth, Ownership, and the Scientific tradition". The article deals with some recent blunders in the scientific community like the falsification of data at lucent covered here on slashdot. The article is mainly about the conflict between the free exchange of ideas that the scientific community needs to survive, and the demand for property ownership that commercial sponsors demand."

Uhh_Duh writes "cnn.com is reporting that the Russian space program has fallen on hard times and is no longer capable of launching independent missions due to budget problems. The article touches on the fact that their annual funding is about 309 million versus the U.S. budget of 15 billion. They've also announced that they will not be meeting most of their future deliverables for the international space station." (corrected, the title originally said "IIS" instead of "ISS)

BitHive writes "ISS has changed their policy for announcing security vulnerabilities. The new guidelines will give vendors thirty days to come up with a fix before disclosure is made, though there are a number of exceptions that can prompt faster disclosure. From the PC World article, these are: "The vendor issues a patch or announcement; an in-depth discussion of the problem occurs on a public mailing list; active exploitation of any form of the vulnerability occurs on the Internet; ISS receives reliable evidence that a vulnerability is in the wild; the media reports the vulnerability; or the vendor is unresponsive.""

ke4roh writes "Sailors, Africans, and Aussies will observe a total solar eclipse on Wednesday, Dec. 4. The International Space Station will only fly through a partial eclipse area, but they'll have a fantastic view of the dark spot on the Earth below. Mir cosmonauts photographed a similar view on August 11, 1999. It looks pretty weird if you ask me. See pictures and read more in NASA's report."

mbstone writes "MSNBC is reporting that NASA is threatening to mothball the International Space Station unless Russia coughs up its share of the money for maintenance and support missions. NASA is now making "contingency plans" to leave the station unoccupied for as long as a year. What I want to know is, why a contingency plan? Didn't NASA already have a plan in place? Are U.S. taxpayers going to pay millions extra to develop new mothballing equipment and procedures that could have been designed-in at far less cost?? Also, I would be glad to house-sit, I use very little oxygen."

eecue writes "The world's most popular DNS package is once again vulnerable. Even the advisory says it's only a matter of time before worms are written.... just like a couple years ago. I guess this is why i run tinydns."

RedWolves2 writes "Today is ISS's second anniversary of Operations. Two years ago today NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev first boarded the ISS. In two years the station has grown to more then 200,000 pounds and has had 112 visitors."

adagioforstrings writes "CNN reports that a 300-tonne unmanned Soyuz-U launch vehicle exploded 29 seconds after take-off from Russia's Arctic Plesetsk cosmodrome late on Tuesday, its blazing debris showering onto the launchpad and its blastwave killing one and injuring eight others. A modified version of this same kind of rocket will be used to carry cosmonauts to the ISS later this month."

Ender writes "The Voice of America and the NY times (Free registration, yetti, yatta ...) are running articles informing us that the Russian space Agency Rosaviakosmos has an agreement with Moscow to send a TV contest winner to the International Space Station. All contestants would train for space flight during the programs and this would show the audience how cosmonauts are trained prior to their space flight." Boy bands are ineligible.

sckienle writes "MSNBC has an article starting "Missions to the international space station may have to be suspended because Russia cannot afford to build new craft to carry crews there...." This is a problem because a Soyuz capsule must be attached to the ISS for emergency evacuation. The problem is further complicated because any one Soyuz capsule can only be docked to the ISS for 6 months maximum. Nor are they and their boosters built for reuse. The CNN version of the information is here. I guess we need to find more billionaires to take the space vacation. How about it Mr. Gates?"

An anonymous reader writes "Centrifuge-cameras began exploration of genetic changes at the extremes of high gravity-- in the only animal with a completely sequenced gene library. Students at Harvey Mudd designed the 100G camera, Stanford is doing the gene array and NASA is spinning the 1 millimeter worms that are the model system for how to adapt and survive 100-times your terrestrial weight. Accelerated aging and slowed DNA repair are just two biological consequences of gravity changes. The Japanese (NASDA) are building the space station centrifuge for 2006. What other garden-variety objects can be photographed in that kind of ultra-spindryer?"

Grey-Ghost writes "A while back NASA contracted the Microgravity Research Development and Operations Center (MRDOC) Fluids and Combustion Facility (FCF). This facility is designed to perform about five micro-gravity combustion and/or fluid experiments per year once it goes up (scheduled for sometime in 2004). The project is mostly being developed by the coordinated efforts of Northrop Grumman and Analex but the facility is scheduled to outlast the completion of the currently scheduled fluids and combustion experiments. As someone working on the project, I haven't seen much coverage, but the experiments and technology that could come out of these experiments include molecular biology and/or nanotech construction (LMM), better fuel economy both in space and on Earth (MDCA), and answers to why your Katsup suddenly comes out after copious shaking (fluid shearing)."

rkowen writes "Finding superheavy element 118 would have been a giant step in the quest for the conjectured island of nuclear stability. But now the claimed discovery is thought to have been part of a pattern of deception by one physicist that goes back to 1994." We've done several previous stories: the discovery, hints of trouble, possible fraud. Between this and the Schon case one might think the physics community was full of frauds.

lurgyman writes "For all you morning people out there, NASA (bless their soon-to-be-slashdotted souls) has an article on how the International Space Station will flash brightly in the (very) early morning sky this week over much of the United States."

Updates from the field on Google access in the People's Republic of China, Lance Bass's space-shot (shot down), the gaming ban in Greece, recording artists and Internet music downloads, and more. Read on for the details.

Ender writes "As if the NASA folks at KSC did not have enough problems to deal with a the moment, (see previous /. article on the engine cracks and the following CNN article on the repairs) a NEW problem has sufaced in the Apollo Era transporter which vehiculates the Shuttles to the launch pads (crawler). They found many cracked bearings in the cylinders that lift the shuttle and its launch platform on the transporter. After this discovery they took a look at the other crawler and it too had quite numerous cracked bearings. No word from NASA yet but these findings may further delay the next Space Shuttle launch which is currently scheduled for NET (no earlier than) Sept 28th and by the same token slow down the assembly of the ISS. Complete articles at SpaceFlightNow and United Press International."