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One Ocean Expeditions is offering 20% off an August photography expedition to see polar bears, walruses and whales as well as Inuit settlements in Canada's Arctic and Greenland.

"Arctic Cirle in Focus: Photo Symposium" sails Aug. 2 aboard an expedition ship called the Akademik Ioffe/One Ocean Navigator.

In addition to remarkable wildlife sightings, passengers will get a firsthand glimpse of the landscape of glaciers, fjords and icebergs.

The voyage begins in Iqaluit, capital of Nunavut, the northernmost territory in Canada, and takes 11 days to sail to Kangerlussuaq on the west coast of Greenland. It includes stops in places like Monumental Island, known for its walrus populations, Cape Mercy and Sondre Stromfjord, one of the longest fjords in the world.

While on board, experts on this cruise provide background information with lectures about the wildlife, history and geology of the Arctic. Professional photographers, including resident ship's photographer Daisy Gilardini, also will be making presentations and offering passengers one-on-one photographic tips.

The ship holds fewer than 100 passengers and was designed for polar research. It has a lobby, bar, small fitness center, dining room, library, a mud room (for drying and storing the gear you need for land excursions), sauna and saltwater plunge pool.

Prices start at $5,595 (with the discount) per person and includes the trip as well as all excursions. International airfare and transfers are extra.

Info: One Ocean Expeditions, (855) 416-2326

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20% off Arctic Circle photo cruise from Canada to Greenland in August

Submitted by Makenzi Henderson on Mon, 04/06/2015 - 7:51pm.READ MORE:

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) -- The Azalea Festival home tour features a house that celebrates captains and seafaring.

The Smiths said they have owned the Greek-revival cottage at 321 S. 4th Street in Wilmington for 25 years. According to the Azalea Festival website, William Cooke, the captain of the original cutter Diligence, built it in 1844. It has the original fireplaces, wood floors and detached kitchen.Suzanne Smith said the detached kitchen is one of the only ones in southeastern North Carolina.

The Smiths restored the kitchen, shored up the foundation and replaced the old wiring. They said it's a lot of work, but worth it.

"Oh, it's completely worth it. I feel really happy. The only room we haven't done now is what I call the real kitchen, the one I cook in. But, we're out of energy right now," Suzanne Smith said while chuckling.

She went on to say that she and her husband, Herman, have added some nautical touches, like the bust of a Mermaid, to the home to honor the Captain Cooke.

The Historic Home Tour is Saturday, April 11 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, April 12 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are Tickets $25 in advance, and $30 on the day of the event. The ribbon cutting will be at the MacRae-Willard House at 520 Orange Street on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. Click here for more information.

According to the Azalea Festival's website, the North Carolina Azalea Festival Home Tour is an annual event held by the Historic Wilmington Foundation. Proceeds from the Home Tour will advance the Historic Wilmington Foundations efforts to protect and preserve the irreplaceable historic resources of Wilmington and the Lower Cape Fear region. Since 1966, the foundation has successfully saved more than 200 historic properties from demolition.

Disclaimer: Comments posted on this, or any story are opinions of those people posting them, and not the views or opinions of WWAY NewsChannel 3, its management or employees. You can view our comment policy here.

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HISTORIC HOME TOUR: William Cooke House

CRAZY Boat Accident Caught On Camera
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CRAZY Boat Accident Caught On Camera - Video

Clash of clans - FaiLtAge 5 ( No ones safe this time! )
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Clash of clans - FaiLtAge 5 ( No ones safe this time! ) - Video

Mediacom Home Controller: Add Contacts and Get Notifications
https://mediacomcable.com/site/home_security.html Learn how to add a contact and easily manage your Mediacom Home Security and Automation System remotely with our email and email-to-text ...

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Mediacom Home Controller: Add Contacts and Get Notifications - Video

According to a report released this morning by security provider Veracode, many of the Internet of Things devices that consumers are buying for their increasingly connected homes are vulnerable to hacker exploits. While Veracode looked at different devices and vulnerabilities, its overall findings mirror those by Synack, which we reported on last month.

According to the Veracode report, for example, a vulnerability in the Ubi voice-controlled Internet appliance could enable criminals to monitor the ambient noise or light in a room to determine whether someone is home or away. Similarly, a weakness in the Chamberlain MyQ Garage garage door opener could alert thieves to a doors opening and closing, again giving a clue to good times to break in.

The Internet of Things is getting more and more popular, said Veracode security research architect Brandon Creighton, and its grown into a phenomenon that doesnt just exist in the realms of technical people who are buying little components and plugging them together. Its now a consumer-level thing, and you can buy most of these devices at a Target or a Home Depot. Even though theyre packaged as hardware devices, in reality theyre just like any other technological system in that theyre primarily comprised of software. And software can be hacked if its properly protected.

Compromising the Chamberlain MyQ Garage could give thieves information about whether the door is open or closedor even let them open it themselves.

In designing the study, Creighton said we wanted to choose devices that had an impact in the real world, or at least the potential for it. To that end, his team looked at always-on systems that are marketed to end users who dont possess any particular technical expertise. In addition to the Chamberlain MyQ Garage and the Ubi, the firm tested the Chamberlain MyQ Internet Gateway, the SmartThings Hub, the Wink Hub, and the Wink Relay.

Researchers conducted 10 tests, classifying the results into four categories: user-facing cloud services, back-end cloud services, mobile application interfaces, and device-debugging interfaces. They found vulnerabilities across most categories in all but one of the devices.

The SmartThings hub did pretty well on the tests we applied, Creighton said. We didnt do an in-depth security review on every aspect of the devicewe didnt go into the firmware. Were not saying theyre secure, were saying that for these tests, they did pretty well.

The Veracode report looks at the hypothetical effects of drastic security breaches of the systems tested. An Ubi attacker, for example, could learn a lot about the targets personal life and habits.

Veracode installed and configured the devices according to their included documentation, and then monitored and captured all the communication between the devices and their surroundings. When youre thinking about IoT devices as a consumer, its important to think about the fact that these are not just isolated things sitting in your house, Creighton said, there are any number of services they may be communicating with.

And the security of the system as a whole often relies on those services being secure as well. We didnt have permission to scan those services, so the flaws we did find were mostly in the devices themselves, and related to the communication between the devices and the servers.

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Many connected-home devices lack robust security features, security firm claims

Mention Flir Systems to a security aficionado or a defense-industry watcher, and they'll probably mention thermal imaging, the technology that lets you see where the bad guys areor where theyve beenbased on their body heat. Today Flir announced its entry into the increasingly crowded home security camera business with the Flir FX. While were disappointed to report that the Flir FX isnt capable of thermal imaging, Flir has come up with a trick that could be even more useful when youre looking for evidence of a crime.

One of the most common problems with security cameras is sorting through all the video they capture in order to find the information thats most important. Fast-forwarding or rewinding hours of video to find the 10 seconds of crucial evidencethe burglar breaking in, the thief snatching your bike off the front porch, the house cleaner sneaking into your liquor cabinettakes the patience of Job and the eyes of a hawk.

Were solving the too much video problem, John Distelzweig, VP of Flirs security division, told me in a briefing last week. Were bringing forensic technology to the connected-home space. Weve taken a mid-range industrial camera, and added a MicroSD card and a battery so it can operate without Internet access for up to four hours.

The indoor Flir FX has a second battery in its base.

Flirs solution, dubbed RapidRecap, enables you to watch an entire days worth of video in just a few minutes. It combines dozens of time-stamped motion events into a single clip: So instead of watching the delivery person leave a package on your door, followed by several hours of inactivity; then seeing your letter carrier deliver the mail, and only after sitting through several more hours of innocuous activity, finally catching a thief purloin the package from your porch, you can watch all three of those peopleand as many more who happen to pass before your cameracome and go all at the same time. A box overlaid on each person displays the exact time their movement was captured. This is much easier to watch than to explain; fortunately, Flir has embedded a host of sample videos on this page of its website.

The Flir FX captures 1080p video and stores it on an included 8GB MicroSD card (the slot can accommodate cards with up to 64GB of capacity). The camera uploads the video clips it has captured to Flirs cloud-based servervia your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networkas bandwidth allows. RapidRecap videos based on these clips are created on the server at the users request. The demos look terrific. We have a camera in house now and will be able to report soon on how well the technology works in the real world.

The camera has a 160-degree field of view and is equipped with infrared LEDs that can deliver up to 33 feet of range in a dark environment. The $200 camera can be enclosed in an IP66-rated outdoor housing, a waterproof sport housing ($60), or installed on a dashboard mount ($50). The outdoor enclosure includes powerful LEDs that increase the cameras night-vision range to 65 feet. Flir also sells the Flir FX preconfigured with the outdoor housing for $250.

One camera, four configurations, including one for action shooters (with the right accessories, that is).

As with many products in this class, youll need a paid subscription to get the most benefit from the Flir FX. Unlike most of its competitors, however, Flir offers a free tier that stores video motion events dating back 48 hours and enables you to create three RapidRecaps per month. Flir Cloud Plus provides seven days of storage and an unlimited number of RapidRecaps for $10 per month (new cameras come with a 30-day free trial to this level of service). If you need even more cloud storage, Flir Cloud Premium delivers 90 days of cloud storage for $20 per month.

Flir is taking preorders for the Flir FX now and expects to begin filling those orders by the middle of April.

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The versatile Flir FX home security camera delivers a slick forensic feature

It's not just home broadband routers that have hopeless security: according to security outfit Veracode, cloudy home automation outfits also need to hang their collective heads in shame.

With nothing but standard by-the-manual configurations and network traffic capture but with no attacks against the devices or the cloud services the testers reckon they turned up a variety of vulnerabilities in kit from Chamberlain Group, SmartThings, Ubi and Wink.

It seems that if you're the kind of uber-lazy gadget-fan who can't imagine pressing a button to do something voice control is possible, you're matched by uber-lazy device developers. Versacode found that all but one of the devices it tested failed even its non-hostile vulnerability tests.

The products tested were Wink's WinkHub and Wink Relay home automation controllers; Unified Computer Intelligence's Ubi always-on voice activation system; SmartThings' home automation and home access control hub; and Chamberlain Groups' MyQ Garage (an Internet interface to garage door systems) and MyQ Internet Gateway (which extends control to switches and electrical outlets).

The tests covered:

The Veracode white paper is available with registration here.

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Your home automation things are a security nightmare

In the latest blow to Internet of Things (IoT) security, an analysis of smart home devices has found flaws that could give attackers access to sensitive data or allow them to control door locks and sensors.

The research was performed by a team from application security firm Veracode for six up-to-date devices acquired in December and found serious issues in five of them. The tested devices were the Chamberlain MyQ Garage, the Chamberlain MyQ Internet Gateway, the SmartThings Hub, the Ubi from Unified Computer Intelligence Corporation, the Wink Hub and the Wink Relay.

All of these devices enable remote control and monitoring over the Internet of various home automation devices and sensors, including door locks, interior switches and power outlets. Most of them connect to cloud-based services and users can interact with them through Web portals or smartphone applications.

The Veracode team didnt look for vulnerabilities in the firmware of the tested devices, but instead analyzed the implementation and security of the communication protocols they use.

The researchers looked at the front-end connections, those between users and the cloud services, as well the back-end onesthose between the devices themselves and the cloud services.

For front-end connections, they found that with the exception of SmartThings Hub, none of the devices enforced strong passwords. In addition, the Ubi did not enforce encryption for user connections, exposing them to possible man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks.

For back-end connections the situation was even worse. The Ubi and MyQ Garage did not employ encryption, did not offer adequate protection against man-in-the-middle attacks and did not protect against replay attacks, which enable man-in-the-middle (MitM) attackers to capture traffic and then play it back, potentially triggering unauthorized actions. In addition, the Ubi did not properly secure sensitive data.

MitM protection was lacking across all devices with the exception of the SmartThings Hub, either because TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption was not used at all or because it was implemented without proper certificate validation.

This suggests that those who designed these IoT devices assumed that the local area networks theyll be installed on were secure. Thats an error, because research over the past several years have showed that if theres anything worse than the security of IoT devices, its the security of consumer routers. Security researchers find serious vulnerabilities in routers on a routine basis, most of which enable hackers to perform man-in-the-middle attacks, and those flaws have resulted in millions of routers being compromised in large-scale attacks over the past few years.

The misguided trust of IoT manufacturers in the security of home networks is also reflected by the debugging interfaces and other services their devices expose to such networks.

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Researchers show that IoT devices are not designed with security in mind

Some day, we will all live in smart homes. Automated gadgets running on the Internet of Things will manage our lighting and heat, keep our appliances humming, and free us up to do more important things, like play Candy Crush Saga 24/7.

Before they do all that, though, the Internet of Things, or IoT, has a lot of growing up to do.

So far, tech startups have done a great job of churning out inexpensive gizmos that turn on the lights when you enter the room or start the coffee when you wake up, but theyve done a mostly terrible job of making sure random strangers cant also flip on your Philips Hue or control your Keurig.

Last July, Hewlett-Packard released a scathing report on the poor security of IoT devices, noting that more than seven out of 10 have some kind of vulnerability.

Over the past three years, devices like Nests smart thermostat, Kwiksets SmartKey lock, Foscams baby monitors, and thousands of home security cameras have been compromised in the lab or in the wild.

A report scheduled to be released on Wednesday by enterprise security firm Veracode details some of the ways IoT devices can be hacked, controlled remotely, and even used to spy on you.

Given the right circumstances, an external attacker could know when youre not home, open and close your garage door, turn your lights on or off, and even eavesdrop on your conversations.

Safe...for now

Thats the theory. In practice, at least for now, smart-home hacking isnt that big a concern.

IoT devices arent widespread enough yet to be tempting targets for hackers. Not when theyve got all these juicy insecure corporate databases to pilfer from.

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Your smart home will be hacked. Heres how to stop it