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I’ve noticed that a couple of barn dogs like to eat HoofSnax or FlaxSnax if they are left within reach. I’ve wondered if the biotin if the HoofSnax would hurt the dogs in any way. Also I’ve noticed that the horses love dog Milkbones too. Would there be any problems with feeding the occasional horse treat to a dog or dog treat to a horse? Thanks, VC, Florida

Dear VC,

Generally, it’s best to feed treats and foods made specifically for a particular species of animal just to that animal and not to another species. This is because, even though dogs, horses, cats, and humans are all mammals, we’re each made and function a little differently and therefore we metabolize some ingredients a little differently. You may already be aware of some of these differences.

For example, I love chocolate! And it has no effect on me except to make me deliriously happy (and extra “curvy”). However, dogs metabolize chocolate into caffeine–which they are very sensitive to–and can develop serious heart and muscle dysfunction as a result. So, no chocolate for dogs. In the same way, my husband takes acetaminophen (Tylenol) for his aches and pains but we’re very careful to keep it away from our cat because this particular drug is toxic to the feline species. An example in horses is food or mineral blocks made for cattle may contain the growth promotant monensin (Rumensin) which can be fatal in equine.

So I don’t mean to scare you, but unless you carefully read the individual ingredients on the label of each product you wish to share among species—and diligently cross check it against the known toxins for that species—you might be setting up either your dogs or your horses for trouble. I suggest feeding the horses “horse treats” and the dogs “dog treats” (and the people “people treats”) unless you do your homework.

This week, I’ll do your homework for you! Here are the ingredients in HoofSnax:

wheat flour, ground flaxseed, stabilized rice bran, oats, brown sugar, vegetable oil, cinnamon, brewer’s dried yeast, artificial flavors, salt, rosemary, and biotin

I don’t see anything in this ingredient list that should be a problem for dogs. There’s 20mg of biotin (one daily serving for a horse) in 7 cookies, which means there’s about 3mg of biotin in one cookie. I looked on the label of a dog skin & coat supplement that contains biotin and a 50 lb dog would get 3mg per serving so this amount of biotin should be safe in a dog.

FlaxSnax has the same ingredients as HoofSnax minus the biotin.

Finally, about feeding Milk-Bones to horses. They contain:

wheat flour, wheat bran, beef meal and beef bone meal, wheat germ, milk, beef fat preserved with tocopherols, salt, minerals, chicken meal, malted barley flour, brewers dried yeast, sodium metabisulfite (dough conditioner), vitamins, poultry digest, dried cheese, natural and artificial flavor, malic acid, garlic powder.

Again, I don’t see anything that jumps out as toxic to horses, just some things they’re not used to eating, such as beef, chicken and other poultry, and dairy products. I have a horse with a very sensitive GI tract and I would not give a dog treat to him for fear of causing colic, diarrhea or other disturbance.

By Jack M. Germain, TechNewsWorld

In the field of computer technology, some topics are so frequently and fiercely disputed that they almost resemble religious feuds — Mac vs. PC, for instance, or open source vs. proprietary software.

Other topics, though, don’t see nearly the same level of high-profile debate. Take the invulnerability of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption, for example. Governments and businesses place a great deal of faith in the belief that AES is so secure that its security key can never be broken. However, a team of researchers from Germany, France and Israel has recently demonstrated what may be an inherent flaw in AES — theoretically, at least.

So how secure is AES really? Is AES now vulnerable to a new attack, as the researchers claim?

Maybe yes, and maybe no. The research is mainly theoretical. Still, as technology evolves, successful attacks against AES may turn up, and they may be difficult to ignore.

“Can somebody repurpose and weaken the strength of the AES algorithm? Yes. That’s what cryptographers do. But we don’t have to worry about AES being weakened anytime soon. Still, AES in theory has flaws. The bottom line is that AES isn’t broken,” Ozzie Diaz, president and CEO of wireless security firm AirPatrol, told TeckNewsWorld.

What is it?

The AES protocol is a set of three block ciphers selected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2000 after a three-year competition. NIST is a federal technology agency that develops and promotes measurement standards. Its selection ousted Data Encryption Standard (DES) as the national and international security encryption standard. DES was the most widely deployed block cipher in both software and hardware applications.

Why should you care? AES encryption is the vault that secures online information and financial transactions by financial institutions, banks and e-commerce sites. So a tear in the AES fabric means an opening for hackers to get at valuable personal and business information.

AES is used in three versions: AES-128, AES-192 and AES-256. These numbers represent the encryption key sizes (128 bits, 192 bits and 256 bits) and in their number of rounds (10, 12, and 14, respectively) required to open the vault that is wrapped around the data.

The detractors

In their published report, entitled “Key Recovery Attacks of Practical Complexity on AES Variants With Up to 10 Rounds” (PDF available here), three researchers challenged the structural integrity of the AES protocol.

Although the research suggests AES might no longer be considered theoretically secure, the crucial question facing all of us now is how far it is from becoming practically insecure, concluded Alex Biryukov and Dmitry Khovratovich (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg), Orr Dunkelman (of Paris, France), Nathan Keller (Einstein Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University) and Adi Shamir (Computer Science department of the the Weizmann Institute at Rehovot, Israel).

“The findings discussed in ‘Key Recovery Attacks of Practical Complexity on AES Variants With Up to 10 Rounds’ are academic in nature and do not threaten the security of systems today. But because most people depend on the encryption standard to keep sensitive information secure, the findings are nonetheless significant,” Fred Touchette, AppRiver senior security analyst, told TechNewsWorld.

A new worry?

If AES is now theoretically compromised, the real-world impact could be considerable, according to Diaz.

“My speculation is that the greatest vulnerabilities will be for wireless systems for two reasons. Most investments in network media are in wireless systems, and there is no physical barrier to entry for accessing the network,” he said.

However, some good may come from even an academic demonstration of a flaw in AES, he conceded. Inflection points always occur in an industry in the form of disruptions. A disruption to the viability of a system today will lead to innovation in filling those gaps or completely changing the rules of the game, he said.

“AES is the standard in wireless and IT encryption. It keeps the mouse trap evolving faster than the mouse can move,” said Diaz.

Cracked or broken?

The AES crypto is not broken, asserted Touchette. As in previous techniques, the latest attack techniques on AES-192 and AES-256 algorithms are impractical outside of a theoretical setting.

“But they do nonetheless provide theoretical proof that versions of AES could be susceptible to attack,” he warned.

When these cryptos became a new standard, they were declared completely unbreakable. Many other algorithms out there still remain unbreakable, but as long as our systems get stronger and faster, the need for longer and tougher encryption will also grow. Just because the puzzles get harder doesn’t mean that people will stop trying to solve them, he added.

An early warning

“AES is not compromised. It is safe to use. There are no problems with it,” Paul Kocher, president and chief scientist at Cryptography Research, told TechNewsWorld.

Still, researchers are finding that it would not take as much to crack AES as previously thought, suggested Kocher, and that makes the report a significant finding.

Users are already paranoid over attacks that they don’t understand, he noted, nd while attackers do improve over time, nobody actually breaks anything, he said.

“There is plenty of software bugs for attackers to use to bypass breaking the keys. That’s what keeps me awake at night, not the algorithms,” said Kocher.

Originally published on TechNewsWorld

© 2009 ECT News Network. All rights reserved.

© 2009 BetaNews.com. All rights reserved.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Way back in 2006, MySpace and Google signed a three-year deal that was supposed to have the search giant become the social network’s exclusive search provider in exchange for $900 million.  Now, unfortunately for MySpace, around $100 million of that amount isn’t going to change hands.

The amount of money Google was supposed to pay MySpace was in part dependent on traffic levels, and it’s no secret that those are in iffy shape.  As a result, News Corp. execs admitted to analysts yesterday, a significant amount of cash is going to stay with Google.

Rupert Murdoch said, "It’s quite simple.  We’ve not been making our minimum guarantees so our search revenue will not be what our revenue was."

Still, it’s worth noting that Murdoch didn’t appear to be losing sleep over the development.  In fact, he wasn’t even keeping close tabs on it.  Staci D. Kramer reported, "When I asked during the press part of the call how far short of the $900 million the deal would run, Murdoch at first guessed it would come in as much as $300 million short but other News Corp. execs on the call tried to reign that in, saying more like $100 million or maybe 10 percent, which would be $90 million."

It doesn’t look like this represents as big a blow to MySpace as one might expect, then, which may mean its other revenue sources are proving more than productive.

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According to the OTX GamePlan Insights provided to Gamasutra, those who own the Xbox 360 version of an original are abandoning ship and going for th…

Famous rock band No Doubt has sued Activision over the use of its avatars in the game Guitar Hero 5. No Doubt says that the deal it signed with Activision only permitted the avatars to be used when playing No Doubt songs. The problem is that Activision has it set up that you can play any song in the game with the No Doubt avatars. That I’m even writing about this is rather depressing.

As easy as it is to ride No Doubt for being a bunch of nerds, the fact is if the contract the band signed with Activision specified that the avatars could only play No Doubt songs, well, then Activision is in the wrong here.

The band said in a statement:

No Doubt agreed to place avatars containing their name and likeness performing three No Doubt songs in the upcoming Band Hero game of the Guitar Hero series from Activision.

Without the band’s knowledge or approval Activision turned the group into virtual karaoke players by having them perform over 60 additional songs by other musical groups.

Meanwhile, Activision said:

Some of the world’s most popular and iconic artists have been featured in Guitar Hero as playable characters, and we are proud to count No Doubt among them. Activision has a written agreement to use No Doubt in Band Hero — an agreement signed by No Doubt after extensive negotiations with its representatives, who collectively have decades of experience in the entertainment industry. Pursuant to that agreement, Activision worked with No Doubt and the band’s management in developing Band Hero. As a result, Activision believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band members in the game and that this lawsuit is without merit. Activision is exploring its own legal options with respect to No Doubt’s obligations under the agreement.

And there you have it. What a way to start the day~!

We’ve discussed in the past the odd idea that any government should be able to copyright anything it produces, but plenty of governments still do maintain things like “crown copyright” or other similar concepts for content they create. Yet, it looks like some countries have gone one step further. They copyright their money. Yes, Michael Scott points us to a blog post from an American law professor, Eric E. Johnson, who was on a trip to Canada and was surprised to discover that they have copyright notices on their paper currency. Of course, this should make you wonder: if you counterfeit some Canadian money are you also on the hook for copyright infringement violations? Or is there some other reason for the copyright notice. Are they afraid other nations might copy the design without compensation?

Finding the whole thing bizarre, but remembering that I have some Canadian currency from my last trip there, I checked — and, indeed, in tiny print in the lower right-hand corner, there is a copyright notice. And then… bonus. Tucked in with my Canadian cash was a 5 euro bill as well… and it also appears to have a copyright notice on it right at the top in the center (though, it’s tiny). I did a quick search, and indeed, it appears that the design of the euro is also covered by copyright with specific limitations on copying. Of course, I thought that was what counterfeiting laws were for — so why even bother with copyright?

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Remember, remember, the 9th of November!
Gadgets, technology, and beer.
I see no reason why gadgets and tech
should ever bring little cheer.

Last year’s Columbus meetup was a huge success, and folks have been asking me when we’ll do it again. Well mark your calendars for Monday, November 9, and join us for a friendly evening of networking and libations at the Surly Girl Saloon, my favorite cowgirl/pirate themed bar!

Look out, Walmart. Best Buy is going to sell Modern Warefare 2 at midnight too. But unlike Walmart, Best Buy’s average middle of the night clientele doesn’t look like this. or this. or this. The line will start at 10:30 p.m. and at 12:01 a.m., you and a few other socially-stunted gamers will get a chance to buy the game. How exciting. If you must be the first to own the game, there is a nice little advantage to buying the game at Best Buy instead of Walmart though.

Yeah, Best Buy will be offering an instant $10 gift card to Reward Zone Gamer’s Club members, which is more than enough reason to buy the game at Best Buy if you ask me. Hell, I would buy the game at PetCo if they offered me $10 off. Plus, there will be additional giveaways during the event.

Click over to the Best Buy info page for the complete list of participating stores.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

Given the choice between speed and security, Betanews readers this week have been siding with security, in a show of support that suggests that Windows Vista had the right idea after all. This morning, Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users who have their Automatic Update notifications turned on manual will be making that choice, as Microsoft has published update 976749 — released as a manual update on Monday — to its Windows Update service, not as a “security update” or anything “critical” or even “important.”

It’s an “Update for Internet Explorer” whose purpose is to “resolve issues that may occur after installing the Internet Explorer cumulative security update issued as MS09-054” — one of the major updates from the last Patch Tuesday round. The issue that update addressed is a very serious one, and Windows users who are concerned about their operating system possibly being vulnerable to a new class of attack, should apply that update and also apply the patch to that update, released this morning. Many users with Automatic Updates turned on full may wake up this morning with the update already having been applied.

Those folks may notice a difference, or they may not. There will be a performance cost, at least with respect to all versions of Internet Explorer since 5.01, but also to other features of Windows that rely on Internet Explorer. Betanews readers have suggested that this performance cost will be negligible, especially for those who do not time their browser with a stopwatch.

However, Betanews tests reveal the performance hit completely wipes out at least one category of speed increase that is the subject of recent Microsoft television advertising: a faster Web experience for those who prefer IE. Our tests show that, after update 976749 is applied, IE8 on Windows 7 is no faster than IE8 on Vista SP2 on the same machine.

Right now, the vulnerability exists more in concept than in practice. Although no known exploit appears to have been discovered yet, it’s the architecture behind that vulnerability that makes it very serious at the outset. Conceivably, if and when an exploit appears and a patch is published to thwart it, malicious users could craft a variation of the exploit quite easily. The problem has to do with a fundamental programming technique that could be discontinued in the future, but which is pervasive throughout applications of all classes, from Microsoft and everyone else, and not just for Windows. Microsoft is treating the issue quite seriously, judging from the company’s recent communications with us.

But the defense against this problem comes at an inopportune time for Microsoft, which is working to promote Windows 7 to consumers as better than its predecessor for being both more secure and faster. Of course, there are other Web browsers, perhaps all of which perform much faster and are arguably more secure. But Microsoft had been hoping to market IE8 as a solid contender, with some features like Web Slices and Accelerators that third-party alternatives have not yet matched. Microsoft may have to take a hit for publicly securing IE — arguably the more responsible course of action — at a time when Windows 7 is just coming out of the gate.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

As if a new Zelda game isn’t enough, Nintendo is sweetening the purchase of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks in Japan with a cool bonus. For those p…

In his latest column, James Capretta writes: “When Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled the revised House Democratic health care bill last week, the Obama White House hailed it as a “critical milestone” in the process. No doubt senior administration officials were relieved to see signs of “momentum” toward passage of something. But if the president really meant what he has said about health care policy throughout this year, his administration would be working to defeat the Pelosi bill, not supporting it.” Read the rest of the column.

Remember when the first VAIO P came out and everyone was like, “I can’t believe it has Vista! That angers me! I am currently outraged!” – something along those lines? Well now it has Windows 7 and comes in four different models ranging in price from $850 to $1900.

The base model features a 1.33GHz Atom CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB of RAM, and an 80GB 4200RPM hard drive for $850. Then there’s a model for $1000 that features a 1.6GHz CPU and 64GB SSD, followed by a $1500 model with a 1.86GHz CPU and 128GB SSD. The top of the line offering features Windows 7 Professional, a 2GHz CPU, and 256GB SSD for $1900.

VAIO P Series Lifestyle Notebooks [Sony via Electronista]

Kaiser Health News offers a humorous take on health policy developments with R.J. Matson’s “Hangnail.”

Kaiser Health News staff writers Mary Agnes Carey and Eric Pianin report on whether current timeline slips may or may not undermine health reform’s chances. “Passing a health care overhaul bill might be one of the hardest things Congress has ever attempted. But waiting until next year might jeopardize a top priority for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. The political peril of waiting until 2010 – a midterm election year – could mean the death of comprehensive health care legislation, according to some analysts. ‘If they’re going to do it, they have to do it this year,’ said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato. ‘Everyone knows that. They know it’” (11/5). Read the entire article.

 

While some Democrats seem rattled by election results this week, others say the GOP victories in two races for governor won’t change their approach to health overhaul legislation.

The Associated Press/The Boston Globe reports that Democrats celebrated, too, winning two House seats Tuesday, one a California that had been held by a Democrat and the other a New York seat that is traditionally Republican. “Depending on how quickly the newly elected lawmakers are sworn in, it was possible the most immediate impact of the elections would be to increase support for the legislation. ‘From our standpoint we picked up votes last night,’ said [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, D-Calif” (Espo, 11/4).

Democratic moderates also haven’t let the Republicans victories in Tuesday’s elections influence their votes on health care reform, Roll Call reports: “That’s because many Democratic centrists — particularly those representing conservative states and districts — were already nervous about how their health care vote might be received at home.” More Democrats were apt to blame the candidates instead of the Democratic Party for the governor losses in Virginia and New Jersey (Drucker and Newmyer, 11/5).

But the Los Angeles Times reports that some are rattled by the outcome: “Now, as the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate prepare for next year’s midterm elections, some moderate Democrats are wondering whether they can afford to follow President Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda on such controversial issues as healthcare and climate change.”

“‘There are going to be a lot more tensions between the White House and Congress,’ predicted Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), a member of the Blue Dog Coalition of fiscally conservative Democrats. ‘They’ve been under the surface so far — and they’re going to come out in the open’” (Oliphant, Nicholas and Parsons, 11/5).

YouTube has partnered with Funny or Die, the video comedy site founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, the duo behind such cinematic comedy gems as Anchorman and Talladega Nights. There is now a Funny or Die YouTube channel, and YouTube is giving it special promotion on the site’s home page.

Ferrell and McKay have uploaded the following video talking about YouTube:

Funny or Die gets nearly 2 million unique visitors a month in the US according to Compete data. With YouTube being the top video site on the web (not to mention the 2nd largest search engine), it stands to reason that this partnership will be good for both parties – more views for Funny or Die, and even more time spent on YouTube by people looking to watch funny videos.

It also helps that Funny or Die often includes appearances from other celebrities. "As comedy fans know, Funny or Die works with some of Hollywood’s top comedic talent to create a trademark blend of humor, celebrity and web originals. Jack Black, Natalie Portman and Lindsay Lohan are just a few of the famous names you can catch in hilarious Funny or Die sketches, and you never know who will show up next," says YouTube’s George Strompolos.

Ferrell has selected his favorite clips from the site to spotlight on the YouTube home page, and there are plenty more available on the actual channel. New ones will be uploaded every week.

Related Articles:

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Everlater, a Boulder, Colo.-based online platform for sharing travel experiences, has raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding led by Highway 12 Ventures.

PRESS RELEASE
Everlater (www.everlater.com), a company that has developed an innovative online travel journal that enables users and partners to easily record, share and discover travel experiences, announced today, that it has secured a Series A round of funding. Led by Highway 12 Ventures (www.highway12ventures.com) this investment will enable Everlater to expand its development, marketing and sales efforts. Terms of the inancing were not disclosed.

According to co-founder, Natty Zola, “We are excited to have our new venture capital partner join Everlater’s mission to be the dominant application to record and share travel experiences. Everlater currently provides tools to geographically organize photos, stories, and trip details in a beautiful online format. Our goal is to continue to build out these tools to make Everlater the obvious and best destination to record, share
and discover travel experiences.”

Everlater’s interactive web platform gives users a simple to use, rich media platform for capturing and sharing their travel experiences using text, maps, photos and video with easy sharing across social networking sites. Everlater is also partnering with the travel industry to provide a new marketing channel directly through existing social networks.

“The Everlater platform gives travelers a wonderful set of tools to record and share their experiences, while at the same time, providing travel industry partners with a powerful set of marketing capabilities”, said
George Mulhern, General Partner with Highway 12 Ventures. “We are very impressed with the solution Everlater has developed, their early progress with partners, and the co-founders, Nate and Natty.”

The company was selected to participate in the 2009 TechStars (www.techstars.org) program in Boulder, Colorado. The intensive three month program provides seed capital and mentorship from some of the
most successful entrepreneurs in the country.

About Everlater
Everlater (www.everlater.com) is a platform for sharing travel experiences online. Users map out their experiences, tell stories, show photos, play videos and record favorite restaurants and hotels. Each user and trip can easily be shared with friends and family through Email, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Everlater also extends its platform to partners in the travel and media industries as a new marketing channel.

Everlater, based in Boulder Colorado, is a 2009 graduate of TechStars. To learn more, visit www.everlater.com or directly at [email protected].

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