Ways to snoop 'private' web sessions identified

Furtive web surfers might not be able to rely on their web browser's private mode to hide their tracks.

Most web browsers offer a private mode, intended to leave no trace of surfing history on the computer. But Collin Jackson at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and colleagues, have found ways to detect which sites were visited with the mode enabled.

For example, many banking websites encrypt their data for security reasons by automatically establishing a secure key with the user's computer – but even if private browsing is enabled, details relating to the key remain stored on the computer's hard drive, allowing a hacker to establish that a particular site had been visited. A hacker could "guess what sites you've been to based on traces left behind", says Jackson.

These attacks on privacy "do not require a great deal of technical sophistication and could easily be built into forensics tools", he adds.
By Gareth Morgan/continue reading

Tisno photos

The next three weeks I will be here in Tisno.

New Batteries

Meteorite Impact Crater Found with Google Earth

Researchers poring over Google Earth images have discovered one of Earth's freshest impact craters -- a 45-meter-wide (148-foot-wide) pock in southwestern Egypt that probably was excavated by a fast-moving iron meteorite no more than a few thousand years ago.
read more

via

Quote of the Day

Photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters | Source: NYT

"Addiction is a brain disease. I'd send them to treatment, not prison."
NORA D. VOLKOW,
director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, supporting the Vienna Declaration, a statement that calls for drug users to be spared arrest and offered clean needles and methadone instead
via Time

Hanging Out

LAMBTON COUNTY, ONTARIO, Canada—Isaac Towell plays with newborn kittens on the front porch. Behind him is the mother cat, 1997.
© Larry Towell / Magnum Photos
more here

Just relax, too hot today.

via Pixdaus

Baboons beat car alarms

Baboons in Cape Town have learned to listen out for the tweet of a car's remote central locking before deciding whether to break in to search for food, according to the local authorities.

Blender Dog

My lazy Niki

Is that close enough for you?

(Image: CapeTownSailingAcademy.com/Rex Features)

The tale of Captain Ahab and the white whale has been invoked this week after a whale apparently attacked a yacht. How likely is an intentional whale attack? New Scientist has the answers.

Dog Days of Summer

Dogs predict epileptic seizures and warn owners

Andrew Eccles’s epilepsy has never been controlled by anti-convulsants, but now he hopes that a new, non medicinal form of support will help him to relax with his young daughter Katie - his name is Eddie.

Male Curiosity

via

Marriage

Husband and wife are in bed together.

She feels his hand rubbing her shoulder.

She: "Oh, that feels good."

His hand moves to her breast.

She: "Gee, honey, that feels wonderful."

His hand moves to her leg.

She: "Oh, honey, don't stop."

But he stops.

She: "Why did you stop?"

He: "I found the remote."

Incredibly detailed images of animals captured using high-speed photography

There's no escape for this locust caught by a Chameleon's sticky long tongue.

more here

KLAPA CAMBI - ''POSOLJENI ZRAK I RAZLIVENA TINTA''

How can a Turtle cross the road?

The recently-applied work of Banksy at an abandoned Packard auto plant in Detroit, Michigan

via

Chasing the unicorn

Runnin' Rhino by Allan Faustino via BoingBoing

Donkey cruelty

A donkey attached to a parachute flies over a beach in Golubitskaya. Russian beachgoers got a shock when they saw a donkey soaring in the blue skies over the beaches on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia. The donkey was flown in the skies as a result of an advertising campaign by Russian entrepreneurs to attract beachgoers to their private beach. Attached to a parachute, the animal screamed in fear as it circled over heads of holidaymakers sunbathing on a beach.
see video

It starts when you sink in his arms

via

The world's first ice cream van for dogs

Scientists say they identified two popular flavours - gammon and chicken, and a choc-chip-style treat with mixed dog biscuits - and the trick was getting the temperature and texture right.

read more

Top 10 Militant Animals

The use of dogs in warfare dates back to the late antiquity of the Greco-Roman world. Attila the Hun used large Molosser breeds in his campaigns. When the British attacked the Irish, they used dogs to fight, and the Irish in turn used Irish Wolfhounds to attack knights on horseback. In the 20th century, dogs' duties became more diverse. In World War I, dogs were used to locate wounded soldiers in the trenches and even had their own gas masks. Russian units trained dogs to carry bombs under invading tanks, and many armies used them as messengers. In World War II and Vietnam, scout dogs helped locate the enemy in dense jungles. Today, dogs are used to sniff out explosives and find hidden munitions, while attack dogs accompany many military police units. The U.S. Army assigns each dog a rank, one higher than that of their handler, and when the handler is promoted, the dog is promoted as well.

A sensationalist report in the Chinese press claims Afghanistan's Taliban has been training monkeys to wage war. TIME takes a look at animals pressed into service.

Mother and Daughter

A man is waiting in line for a hit movie.

Behind him are two women.

The usher comes along and says that he has two seats together.

Seeing the problem, the usher says to the man, "Let them go first. You wouldn't want to separate a woman from her mother, would you?"

The man says, "No, sir. I did that once, and I've been sorry ever since."

via

Mona Lisa's smile

French researchers studied seven of Paris's Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the Mona Lisa to analyse his technique that gave his works their dreamy quality.
Specialists from the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France found that da Vinci painted up to 30 layers of paint on his works to meet his standards of subtlety. Added up, all the layers are less than 40 micrometers, or about half the thickness of a human hair, researcher Philippe Walter said.
read more