Nature News reports a nice crack: a team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim succeeded in cracking commercial encryption systems by intercepting photons of light to create a security leak; the whole procedure leaves no trace.
Month: August 2010
Bookmark: “We come in peace” – the Chaos Communication Congress announced
StandardWe come in peace, said the conquerers of the New World.
We come in peace, says the government, when it comes to colonise, regulate, and militarise the new digital world.
We come in peace, say the nation-state sized companies that have set out to monetise the net and chain the users to their shiny new devices.
We come in peace, we say as hackers, geeks and nerds, when we set out towards the real world and try to change it, because it has intruded into our natural habitat, the cyberspace. Let us explore each other’s truly peaceful intentions at this year’s Chaos Communication Congress 27C3 to be held from Monday December 27 to Thursday December 30, 2010 in Berlin, Germany.
27C3 calls for participation! The following areas are of particular interest this year:
Gender equality and diversity summit at the Open World Forum (Paris)
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The Open World Forum is an annual event held in Paris in the fall and bringing together actors from the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) world. This year, a special satellite session will be dedicated to women’s participation in communities and business activities in relationship with FLOSS. Panel discussions and workshops will be organized and many questions will be addressed. To assess women’s participation, a questionnaire has been prepared: I invite you to fill it in order to provide more depth in the vision of the subject.
Journal Club: PNAS, Science, PLoS papers to read
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Here are some papers with interesting titles and abstracts:
Bug 626593 – Gnome ate my boyfriend! Help!
StandardA bug… or a feature? Awesome!
Bookmark: Foldit, biology for gamers
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In the very latest Nature issue (August 5), a paper presents Foldit which is a program for predicting protein structures. But it’s kinda special program: better say, it’s a multiplayer online game. Thus, its leitmotiv is “Solve puzzles for science”.
Bookmark: Scientopia
StandardScientopia is presented as “a collective of people who write about science because they love to do so”. Sounds nice. Participation seems a bit restrictive, though. Haven’t had a closer look yet, but I read this on Pharyngula’s blog (and it is not that far from my first impression):
Although, I do have to say that I’m not a fan of their published code. It throws around the word “respect” way too much, which happens to be one of those words that annoys me, because it is too easily assumed when it should be earned. I don’t respect everyone who blogs on science, and not everyone respects me (nor should they)…but it does put me on edge when a group announces a demand for mutual respect and also lays out a protocol for eviction, when I know that several of the people in the collective had little respect for some others on the Sb network. I have no respect for the pretense of respect.
Read and see.
Call for participation: GMOD Tools for Evolutionary Biology Hackathon
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Here is an announcement I received through a mailing-list in evolutionary biology. I paste is such as below, it may interest people 🙂
Bookmark: Women’s Caucus internship opportunity
StandardThe Women’s Caucus at the FSF (Free Software Foundation) is seeking an intern to assist with its work to increase the number of women involved in free software. Please check the offer online.
Le Caucus est une initiative de la FSF (Fondation pour le Logiciel Libre) visant à augmenter la participation féminine dans les communautés libristes. Vous pouvez lire la traduction des recommandations en français (faite par votre humble serviteure qui est intéressée par toute suggestion d’amélioration). Ils proposent donc un poste de stage pour une personne intéressée par la thématique. L’offre (en anglais) est sur le site de la FSF.
Bookmark: Bethesda statement on Open Access publishing
StandardIt can be read here. A translation in French is also available.
Bookmark: The third reviewer
StandardIl s’agit d’un forum pour scientifiques où ils peuvent commenter des papiers récemment publiés. Un peu comme un Journal club. Pour l’instant, le thème ayant le plus d’articles est Neurosciences, mais la Microbiologie commence à arriver aussi.
Le (très) mauvais point : les articles non open access ne présentent que les abstracts (résumés). Donc, si on n’a pas accès au journal, c’est loupé pour lire le tout.