christchurch writes "Russia unmanned cargo ship Progress M-54, carrying food and supplies, docked at the International Space Station safely yesterday. A two-man replacement crew is scheduled to head to the station on 1st of October, along with an American scientist-businessman, Gregory Olsen, who is paying the Russian space agency $20 million for a weeklong visit."

NoFrance writes "Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev has taken the record for most time spent in space away from fellow Russian Sergei Avdeyev. At 748 days in space, Krikalev has an impressive list of accomplishments to his name, including : back-to-back 6 month tours on mir, he flew on the first joint US-Russian space shuttle mission, and a member of the first crew to live on ISS. He is currently commander of the ISS in a six-month stint that began on 14 April. Most impressive is his ability to deal with the physical hardships in space. In space most people lose around 1.5% of their bone mass per month, even with a disciplined exercise regime. And growing the bone mass lost from a 6 month stint back, can take a long time."

Juha-Matti Laurio writes "Internet Storm Center's Diary reported today: Due to a number of very well working Windows exploits for this weeks patch set, and the zero-day Veritas exploit, we decided to turn the Infocon to yellow. The following Internet Threat Level meters are at level 2/4 because of Windows Plug and Play vulnerability's several exploit codes too: Symantec ThreatCon as a part of global DeepSight Threat Management System saying Increased alertness and Internet Security Systems X-Force with Increased vigilance at AlertCon."

k4hg writes "Remember the US Naval Academy satellite with the measuring tape antennas? Well, not only is it still alive after nearly four years in orbit (be sure to read the 2001 Slashdot articles to see who was right and wrong about it working at all!), but the latest satellite to come out of the same lab, called PCSat2, was installed Wednesday on the International Space Station. It is bolted to the space station on the P6 truss, but is otherwise independent, only benefiting from the high mass to drag ratio of the ISS to prolong orbital life. The satellite is alive and transmitting on amateur radio frequencies, I could hear it on a marginal elevation in the Florida Keys. When it come in range of a ground station with better coverage, the data will be viewable here in real time. This new system is in addition to the amateur radio station already operational on the ISS. And yes, they used tape measure antennas again, you could see them deploy on Nasa TV!"

ndansmith writes "Wired has got an interview with Mike Lynn, who revealed a major vulnerability in Cisco IOS at Black Hat 2005 in Las Vegas, and who has subsequently become the subject of an FBI investigation. A quote from Mike Lynn: 'Cisco said, "You guys are lying. It is impossible to execute shell code on Cisco IOS." At that point (ISS) management was annoyed.... They were like, "Mike, your new research project is Cisco IOS. Go find out how to exploit bugs on Cisco IOS so we can prove these people wrong."'"

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Lynn, formerly a researcher for Internet Security Systems resigned today rather than conceal his research into serious new flaws in Cisco routers, according to stories at Washingtonpost.com and CRN. Interestingly, Cisco says the the problem is not a security vulnerability, although it chided Lynn for not going through proper vulnerability disclosure channels. Both stories note that Lynn is in danger of being sued by Cisco for revealing the information, details of which were pulled at the last minute from the materials handed out to Black Hat attendees." Update: 07/28 12:23 GMT by Z : SimilarityEngine writes "Cisco and ISS are filing a law suit against Michael Lynn and the management of the Black Hat Conference, following Lynn's presentation discussing a vulnerability in IOS."

billyj4 writes "A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August."

Fourmica writes "USA Today (by way of TechNewsWorld) has a surprisingly insightful look at the planned 'rescue option' for Discovery's upcoming launch. The plan, which has been mentioned here before, is to have the crew hole up on the ISS until Atlantis can launch to bring them home. My question is, why shove everyone into the ISS? Why not just dock with it, and share the life support supplies between the two systems, instead of cramming everyone into the station?" See this earlier story on the same topic.

hpulley writes "The shuttle's new fuel tank, supposedly redesigned to be safer, has a crack in it. Pictures were sent to the manufacturer who decided that it is too small to be worrisome. Hmm, what caused the Columbia disaster, pieces of foam? Meanwhile, there will be a second shuttle on standby, just in case the first one has problems after being hit by foam, etc. If the first shuttle has a design flaw, what's to say the second one isn't afflicted by the same problem? Won't there be a good chance of them stranding the rescue crew in addition to the original crew? If an aircraft crashes and the redesign to fix it crashes, would you send another of the same type to rescue it? Of course not! The ISS is going to be a smelly, scary place with the regular complement and two shuttle crews onboard and no way home but a Russian Soyuz capsule that isn't slated to launch again until September and has seats for just three..."

illumina+us writes "CNN is running an article about the recent space walk taken by the personnel of the International Space Station. On today's walk the two astronauts 'carried out a 1-foot-long, 11-pound satellite called Nanosputnik, designed for experimental maneuvering by ground controllers.'" The article also has some tidbits on the ISS's gyroscope problems and how the thrusters used to compensate have caused problems for spacewalks in the past.

sahirh asks: "I work as a penetration tester and recently started writing a whitepaper on the benefits of free, open-source security tools over commercial tools. Through my own experiences, I've found that many free tools such as Nessus and Kismet are more reliable and have better features than expensive commercial alternatives like ISS Internet Scanner or Airopeek. I've also noticed that tools like Ettercap have no commercial alternative. Further, the flexibility offered by the open-source nature of such tools is a great benefit. I'd like to ask for Slashdot's experiences and opinions on why you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on an expensive tool to perform a professional security assessment." Update: 02/07 11:15pm EDT by C : Thanks to all who wrote in to let us know the proper URL to the Kismet site.

what_the_frell writes "Newscientist is reporting that a large cluster of sunspots has just released huge amounts of radiation toward Earth. The crew of the ISS reportedly had to move into the bulkier Russian section of the station, while airlines rerouted planes away from the most affected regions. Look forward to varying degrees of radio & cell phone reception and some pretty cool aurora boreali until January 22, when the sunspot storm turns away from the earth, pointing its radiation elsewhere."

Ben Rothke writes "When most people think of forensics, television shows like Quincy and CSI come to mind. Where such shows deviate from reality is the unrealistic speed at which the actors are able to identify, apprehend and prosecute the perpetrators. In the real world, (unlike television, where the crime must be solved by the end of the family hour), crimes are solved with slow, deliberate and methodical steps. The prodigious incidence of digital crime has elevated computer forensics to a critical role within the field of information security. The focus of computer forensics is twofold: first is the attempt to determine whether a breach has occurred and to stop the perpetrator; second is prosecution of the offender, if the breach was a criminal activity." Read on for Rothke's review of Forensic Discovery.

caino59 writes "It hasn't been too long since the food shortage on the International Space Station - now the main oxygen generator has failed. Apparently, the backup supply should allow them to make it to 60 days, which is past the next scheduled trip up. Hopefully, previous crews didn't hog all the O2."

Spy der Mann writes "A Physics Today article entitled The Hydrogen Economy explores the possibility of using hydrogen as an energy source. The article explores the current methods, limitations, and the need for more research. For those wanting to point out the Hindenburg incident, the article doesn't talk about gaseous hydrogen only, but also about hydrogen fuel cells. My favorite quote: 'The natural world began forming its own hydrogen economy 3 billion years ago, when it developed photosynthesis to convert CO2, water, and sunlight into hydrogen and oxygen'. Interesting read for eco-fans."

Dan East writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, the two-man crew of the ISS had to ration food intake because the food supply had run mysteriously low. At a recent press release the reason for the shortage was revealed: the previous ISS crew consumed food meant for the other crew. "They had permission to do that but did not record how much they had eaten"."

forgotten_my_nick writes "According to BBC News, Russia has announced that it will no longer ferry US astronauts to space for free (It has been doing so for two years). From 2006 the US will be expected to pay."

CryptoJoe writes "Space.com and CNN report a successful docking between the Russian-built cargo ship Progress 16 and the International Space Station (ISS). NASA had indicated that a failure of Progress 16 would lead to the evacuation of the ISS because food supplies are critically low."

gollum123 writes "CNN and others are reporting that food is running so low aboard the international space station that both the crew members have been asked to cut their calories, at least until a Russian supply ship arrives in a little over two weeks. The situation is so bad that if a Russian cargo vessel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25 has a mishap or is significantly delayed, the astronauts, one American and one Russian, will have to abandon the station and return home months ahead of schedule. An independent team is looking into how the food inventory ended up being tracked so poorly and how it can be improved in the future."

mindpixel writes "Physics Today is running a story about Tim Koeth's 12 inch cyclotron. Here's a quote that says it all: 'I was sitting in Tom Devlin's modern physics lecture. He described the principle of the cyclotron. He said it required a lot of RF power. I was--and am--a ham radio operator, so RF was no problem. It needed a big magnet; I knew I could find one of those. How tough could a vacuum system and chamber be?'"