Top 20 of the Last 2 Weeks
Past Articles
| Friday, January 02 |
| · | 25 Years of Mac: From Boxy Beige to Silver Sleek (0) |
| · | The biggest threat to open source in 2009 (0) |
| · | Yahoo, Intel have high hopes for Internet TV (0) |
| · | Are ID cards in Britain the road to 1984? (0) |
| Thursday, January 01 |
| · | New Mac Mini at Macworld, Will Look Like iMac + Time Capsule (0) |
| · | Georgia Sex Offenders Have to Give Internet Passwords to Authorities (0) |
| · | Sexiest Geeks of 2008 (0) |
| · | Who Leaked Windows 7? (0) |
| · | Dell reorgs amid slumping profits (0) |
| · | Security predictions for 2009 (0) |
| · | Microsoft layoffs coming, Xbox staff likely unaffected (0) |
| · | Dev-Team teases v2.2-compatible iPhone 3G unlock for the New Year (0) |
| · | Report Accuses Microsoft of Purposefully Leaking Windows 7 Beta (0) |
| · | 2008: A year of cowboys in IT security (0) |
| · | Treasure Hunter Claims Google Maps Treasure Find (0) |
| · | Verisign Discontinues Flawed MD5 Certificates (0) |
| · | Leap-year glitch freezes Zune MP3 players (0) |
| · | Muslim hackers attack Israeli websites as Gaza strikes continue (0) |
| Wednesday, December 31 |
| · | Why game devs should support OS X and Linux (0) |
| · | First look: Linux kernel 2.6.28 officially released (0) |
| · | Spammers Face Fine up to €250,000 in Ireland (0) |
| · | UK government loses a computer a day (0) |
| · | Hackers 'selling fake anti-malware' (0) |
| · | Windows Media Player flaw denied (0) |
| · | Fatal virus reeking havoc on Ethiopia’s computers (0) |
| · | Microsoft proposes 'pay-as-you-go' PC (0) |
| · | iPhone hackers tell all: dev team presents at 25C3 (0) |
| · | SSL broken! Hackers create rogue CA certificate using MD5 collisions (0) |
| · | NASA faults equipment in Columbia shuttle disaster (0) |
| Monday, December 29 |
| · | Cryptol, the language of cryptography, now available (0) |
| | Older articles |
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Lenovo planning to cut 200 jobs in China
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 01:14 AM (Reads: 164)
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Source: Neowin
Chinese computer manufacturer, Lenovo is planning to cut 200 jobs at the company's headquarters in Beijing, Reuters reports.
Lenovo is only one of the growing number of companies slashing their work force due to the poor economic state. Lenovo plans to announce restructuring changes on January 8, 2009, which it hopes will get it out of debt, since acquiring IBM's PC unit back in 2005 for $1.25 Billion.
Recently, IBM has been moving back from the Lenovo series after it had a number of sell-offs over the past year, where customers are not adopting the brand as expected in North America. IBM, which currently still has shares in Lenovo, has a sales agreement to continue selling desktops and laptops until 2010, where both companies could see a departure if sales continue to decline.
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How to Succeed in Tech in a Downturn
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 01:13 AM (Reads: 267)
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Source: PC World
The economy is in trouble -- everywhere. Even outsourced providers are nervous. Already under stress, IT staffers see their jobs getting more and more difficult as they must do more with less, all while wondering if they'll keep their jobs at all.
That's why you need a plan for your tech career. The worst thing you can do is give up or panic. Although tech jobs are under increasing pressure, the reality is that the technology jobs market overall is still doing better than the market for other types of jobs. That doesn't mean you're immune from layoffs, stagnant salaries, or increasing workloads, but it does mean you have more options than many other workers -- if you're willing to be flexible.
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PwC wrestles with Satyam dilemma
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 01:12 AM (Reads: 290)
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Source: India Times
The statutory auditor for Satyam Computer Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), may review its “continuance” with the troubled software firm. The company’s image has been tarnished after its scuppered bid to buy two firms linked to its promoter B Ramalinga Raju.
“We do re-visit the process acceptance and continuance, whenever there are any major developments. We have been statutory auditors for the company for at least six years now. But we need to assess whether our judgement (on the company) continues to hold good. A re-evaluation is in sync with international norms on auditing,” said a source privy to the developments at PwC, who wished not to be named.
However, when contacted PwC’s spokesperson said: “As auditors, we are not allowed to comment on audit clients due to client confidentiality.” The source quoted earlier did not categorically say that the relationship would be reviewed, but said such a review was a possibility given what had happened.
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Wikipedia reaches $US6m fundraising target
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 01:12 AM (Reads: 143)
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Source: Australian IT News
ONLINE encyclopedia Wikipedia said last week that it had attained its fundraising goal of $US6 million, enough to cover operating expenses for the current fiscal year.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said more than 125,000 people had donated a total of $US4 million since he made an appeal for funds on July 1.
"In addition, we've received major gifts and foundation support totalling $US2 million," Mr Wales said in a thank you letter on the website of his non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. "This combined revenue will cover our operating expenses for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009."
Mr Wales said the money would pay for "day-to-day operations: servers, hosting, bandwidth, our staff of just 23 people" and "continued development and improvements of open source software that powers all Wikimedia projects."
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China jails Microsoft counterfeiters
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 01:10 AM (Reads: 168)
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Source: ZDNet (Australia)
Eleven counterfeiters have been given jail sentences of between one and a half and six and a half years by a Chinese court after being found guilty of producing fake Microsoft software.
The "ringleaders of the world's largest software-counterfeiting syndicate", as Microsoft described them in a statement last week, were sentenced on New Year's Eve. According to Microsoft, theirs were the longest sentences given for this type of crime in China's history.
The syndicate was charged with making and distributing more than US$2 billion worth of fake Microsoft software, which had ended up all over the world. Nineteen Microsoft products were counterfeited, in 11 languages. A Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet.com.au sister site ZDNet UK on Friday that the products had included Windows Vista and XP, as well as Office 2007 and 2003, and Windows Server.
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Computer forensics - a subject every executive should understand
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:58 AM (Reads: 256)
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Source: Computer Weekly
One of the least researched, but most important subject areas for the future of business is the field of computer forensics. It's a huge area and a massive challenge for all organisations that rely on digital transactions.
In the past, long standing business partners would either trust each other, accept the facts of a printed audit trail, or simply succumb to the whims of a more important customer. Unfortunately, none of these options will work in the new business world of volatile business relationships with numerous, anonymous partners operating across complex supply chains.
Modern business practice demands accurate, independent and assured verification of transactions. That means that executives at all levels in an organisation need to be streetwise about the validity, vulnerability and availability of audit trails and digital evidence. Given the current capability of hackers and fraudsters to deploy anti-forensic techniques, that's a very tough call.
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Lockheed, Boeing eye huge cybersecurity market
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:48 AM (Reads: 189)
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Source: Delaware Online
Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., the world's biggest defense companies, are deploying forces and resources to a new battlefield: cyberspace. As the U.S. government increases spending for protection against computer attacks, new units of these military contractors are aiming to capture a share of a market that may reach almost $11 billion by 2013.
President George W. Bush announced a national cybersecurity plan in January to be supervised by the Department of Homeland Security, after an increasing number of attacks on U.S. government and private-sector networks by groups linked to foreign governments, organized crime gangs and hackers. In a Dec. 8 report, a panel of experts said President-elect Barack Obama should create a White House office to oversee the effort.
"The whole area of cyber is probably one of the faster-growing areas" of the U.S. budget, said Linda Gooden, executive vice president of Lockheed's Information Systems & Global Services unit, which includes a cyber-defense operation launched in October. "It's something that we're very focused on. I expect there will be a significant focus" under Obama.
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Hackers Cause a Run on GripShift
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:47 AM (Reads: 393)
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Source: PSP World
Gamestop employees were probably feeling perplexed all around the country this weekend as would-be hackers descended on their stores looking for copies of an old PSP game called GripShift. The auto-racing puzzle-platformer developed exclusively for the PSP won acclaim for its creative mash-up of different genres, but never sold in large quantities. Now, a hacker by the name of MaTiAz has discovered that the game can be exploited to potentially hack the PSP 3000.
Some readers will remember that software exploits such as the one contained in Liberty City Stories helped hackers crack the original PSP 1000 before the creation of the Pandora Battery. Copies of GTA sold for ridiculously high amounts on ebay until alternative methods of hacking the console were discovered.
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Israeli Student Team Wants Help Hacking Hamas
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:46 AM (Reads: 253)
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Source: Israel National News
A group of Israeli students has decided to fight back against Hamas and to begin taking down websites that support it.
The students explain that as part of Hamas's war against Israel, supporters of the terror group have been busy over the past week hacking pro-Israeli websites. Sites that have been hacked include banks and news websites. The students opened a website called Help Israel Win with the purpose of fighting Hamas with the same weapon.
The most recent victim of the jihadi hacking campaign was the Debkafile website which was broken into Saturday night, at about the same time that IDF ground troops entered Gaza. "The attackers tried and failed to block and replace our content," Debka reported when the site came back up on the following day. "We did our utmost to restore service as quickly as possible and return to full operation."
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Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro to go Unibody, sans removable battery (Silver-Zinc replacement?)
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:43 AM (Reads: 178)
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Source: 9 to 5 Mac
Our folks in Asia are at it again with some pretty startling news. The 17-inch MacBook Pro is going Unibody, like the 13-inch and 15-inch models. That, in itself isn't really that big of a deal; it was widely expected. The big news is that Apple is making a super slim battery pack for the 17-inch MacBook Pros that will last much longer than current models. However, you won't be able to remove the battery pack. It will be inside the machine, just like iPods and iPhones. How? I've outlined a hypothesis on Apple pioneering Silver-Zinc battery usage here.
Those of us with three year old MacBook Pros can attest that these batteries lose a significant amount of performance over time and need to be replaced. It isn't quite clear how Apple will deal with this issue. They may have new technology that can take more charges, or they may offer a service replacement similar to the replacement of a motherboard or hard drive. Maybe swapping out the battery will be as easy as swapping out RAM.
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UK police to be allowed to hack into home PCs without a warrant
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:37 AM (Reads: 209)
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Source: Times Online
THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.
The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.
The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room. Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.
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Verbatim’s new quad-interface 500GB/1TB external hard drives
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:36 AM (Reads: 134)
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Source: ZDNet (Blog)
Storage company Verbatim will unveil two new pro-grade quad-interface external hard drives at this year’s Macworld Expo.
The drives will come with support for USB 2.0, Firewire 400 (up to 50Mbps), Firewire 800 (up to 100Mbps) and eSata II (up to 3Gbps). The 500GB and 1TB drives will spin at 7,200RPM and come loaded with 32MB of cache. The drives will support Windows 2000 and above and Mac OS X 10.1 and above.
Externally the hard drives will be housed in an aluminum case weighing in at 3.3 pounds and measuring 9 inches by 6 inches by 1.5 inches.
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RIAA dumps its primary evidence collector
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:34 AM (Reads: 145)
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Source: ZDNet (Blog)
The Recording Industry Association has dropped MediaSentry, an outfit that scans the Internet for folks allegedly uploading copyrighted music.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA quietly dropped MediaSentry, a company that provided the RIAA most of its lawsuit firepower. The Journal makes the leap that the RIAA’s MediaSentry move is an indicator of how the organization will be less lawsuit happy going forward. Last month, the RIAA said it would ease off mass lawsuits.
However, the RIAA’s breakup with MediaSentry may not be an indicator of a kinder-in-the-courtroom organization. Why? The Journal notes in the last paragraph of its story that the RIAA (all resources) has hired DtecNet Software ApS to replace MediaSentry.
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Israeli news site down, blames cyber attack
Posted by l33tdawg on Monday, January 05, 2009 - 12:34 AM (Reads: 156)
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Source: CNet News
First real war, now a cyber war? The Jerusalem-based Debkafile said it was temporarily put out of action Saturday evening by a cyber attack.
It's not clear whether this was a denial of service attack. Debka, which specializes in military and political analysis, sent out a note to subscribers that both its English and Hebrew sites had been under attack "since 19:00 local time." It did not get more specific and the site's publishers were not immediately available for comment.
The announcement took place in the shadow of the week-long conflict between Israel and Hamas. Earlier today, the Israel Defense Force sent its troops into Gaza in a move to smother missile fire.
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iPhone Dev Team on the hunt for Jody Sanders and iphoneunlockuk
Posted by l33tdawg on Sunday, January 04, 2009 - 01:37 AM (Reads: 630)
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Source: iPhone Dev Team
After releasing their yellowsn0w software unlock on New Years Day, the iPhone Dev Team are now on the hunt for a certain individual named Jody Sanders of iphoneunlockuk.com for ripping off their work and profiting from it. I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I'm quite sure there isn't much legal recourse available to the Dev Team to get 'Jody' shut down considering they themselves are kind of in a grey area with regards to the work their doing. Sure the Dev Team isn't selling their software or otherwise profiting from all their iPhone unlocking work, however they are BREAKING Apple's agreements which has to be illegal on some level. From the Dev Team site: Seems like “Jody Sanders” of the West Midlands, UK (who we mentioned in our release post) is at it again and is stealing our work and passing it off as his own, he has done this before and this scam was reported by the Guardian and also by us before and was also covered in a very very long thread over at hackint0sh forums.
We specifically restrict the commercial use of our software, and yellowsn0w is included in these restrictions. This dodgy geezer is selling our software to you at a bargain £19.99 he says:-
“We can now fully unlock the iPhone 3G for use on any GSM network for just £19.99 DIY (£49.99 in-store at either London or Birmingham) - just in time for the release of the iPhone 3G PAYG in the UK (available from Carphone Warehouse and o2).”
Jody’s “software” contains our code and also copyrighted code from elsewhere. All you need is free and outlined here . What he is doing just isn’t cool. If you are in Birmingham or London then if you could find out any information about Jody Sanders at “iph*neunl*ckuk” we’d be very appreciative. My guess is that this story is definitely going to start making its rounds in the UK and on other major news sites and it won't be long before iphoneunlockuk finds themselves in legal troubles for something completely unrelated to actually selling the iPhone Dev Team's unlock software...
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Microsoft Virtual Earth gets a 48TB update
Posted by l33tdawg on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:38 AM (Reads: 1044)
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Source: Neowin
Over than past few months, the Microsoft Virtual Earth team has been preparing the service for one of it's biggest updates since the release. What's the definition of "one of it's biggest"? Well it's over 48TB of new and improved imagery. Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth technical evangelist at Microsoft, announced that the service has updated it's global vector data for the majority of it's tile sets.
The update includes multilingual tile sets for all zoom levels, localized tile sets for Japan, and all Bird's Eye imagery has been updated with new road map labels. Microsoft has also added tons of new imagery data for the following countries: Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Herzegovina, Hungary, Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
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Steve Wozniak to Appear with Axiotron at Macworld
Posted by l33tdawg on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:36 AM (Reads: 309)
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Source: Tech Whack (Press Release)
Modbook® manufacturer Axiotron® today announced that Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple® Computer and a member of Axiotron’s Board of Advisors, will participate in the unveiling of Axiotron’s latest products and technologies in the main presentation area of Axiotron’s booth (#502) at the Macworld Expo. Mr. Wozniak will join Axiotron CEO Andreas E. Haas on stage on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009, at 12 pm. The event is open to all Macworld attendees.
Axiotron’s booth will feature artists, designers and software representatives who will highlight the improved and enhanced Modbook® – the award-winning tablet Mac® computer – at numerous hands-on demonstration stations. Macworld attendees will also get an exclusive first look at Axiotron’s latest innovations, including Quickscript™, the company’s new handwriting recognition software.
At Tuesday’s unveiling event, Mr. Haas will offer a window into Axiotron’s unique product development process and showcase the company’s newest hardware and software products and technologies. Mr. Wozniak will present his vision of how Axiotron’s approach may represent a bridge between past breakthroughs and future innovations.
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Terrorists launder cash through online gambling
Posted by l33tdawg on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:36 AM (Reads: 405)
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Source: Telegraph (UK)
The security services have been warned that the internet is increasingly being used to train terrorists, raise money and as the main form of media to promote radical Islam.
Computer experts in al-Qaeda have created an "online University of Jihad" that is recruiting and training potential terrorists in Britain without them having to risk travelling to camps in Pakistan. A new generation of encrypted software has been developed called Mujahidden Secrets 2 whose updated security is said to allow militants to communicate freely by email without fear of being spied on by the intelligence services.
At a select conference on the Terrorist Threat to Britain experts from Jane's Intelligence Group said an online community was growing with younger and more impressionable people inadvertently sponsoring terrorism. Terry Prattar, a specialist in counter-terrorism with Jane's Strategic Advisory Services, said: "Al-Qaeda want to create a University of Jihad on line, both in a spiritual and financial sense.
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If you love Windows XP, you’ll hate Windows 7
Posted by l33tdawg on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:35 AM (Reads: 1688)
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Source: ZDNet (Blog)
My colleague Jason Perlow has been playing with Windows 7, and he hates it. The sad thing is, all the things he hates are improvements, in my opinion, which just goes to show that you really can’t please everyone. But what’s sad to see is that every setting Jason describes as broken is in fact easily customizable so it works the way he wants it.
The crux of Jason’s complaint is simple: “I learned how to use Windows in 1998. Don’t change a thing.” Here’s his main argument in a nutshell: I find it difficult to believe that Windows 7 was created to be easier to use than Vista — if anything, they’ve introduced a number of UI changes that make the system much harder to navigate, particularly if you’ve never used Vista and are going direct to Windows 7 from Windows XP, which is the path that many users will experience. Yes, there’s a learning curve. And if you insist on using those techniques you learned back in the last millennium with software that was designed differently, you will be frustrated. But I believe that an open-minded XP user who actually takes a few minutes to learn how the new UI works will be more productive very quickly. The secret is breaking old habits and developing new ones. Let’s take all three of Jason’s examples and work through them.
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Longstanding Theory Of Origin Of Species In Oceans Challenged
Posted by l33tdawg on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:30 AM (Reads: 345)
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Source: Science Daily
Most scientists believe that allopatric speciation, where different species arise from an ancestral species only after breeding populations have become physically isolated from each other, is the dominant mode of speciation both on land and in the sea. The key to this theory is the existence of some kind of physical barrier that operates to restrict interbreeding (gene flow) between populations so that, given enough time, such populations diverge until they’re considered separate species.
For example, finches that were blown by storms from South America to the Galapagos Islands (and were studied by Charles Darwin) were consequently isolated from their host populations and these isolated breeding colonies evolved separately from each other until they became separate species.
Research by Dr Philip Sexton formerly of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (now at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, San Diego) and Dr Richard Norris (also of Scripps) suggests, however, that this mode of diversification may not be as prevalent for oceanic creatures as it is for land dwellers and somewhat controversially, they assert that the above model of speciation may actually be very rare in the world’s oceans.
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Last 15 Postings to HITB Forum
Packet Storm Security Latest
· USN-703-1.txtUbuntu Security Notice USN-703-1 - Paul Szabo discovered that the DECRQSS escape sequences were not handled correctly by xterm. Additionally, window title operations were also not safely handled. If a user were tricked into viewing a specially crafted series of characters while in xterm, a remote attacker could execute arbitrary commands with user privileges.
· USN-702-1.txtUbuntu Security Notice USN-702-1 - Gunter Hockel discovered that Samba with registry shares enabled did not properly validate share names. An authenticated user could gain access to the root filesystem by using an older version of smbclient and specifying an empty string as a share name. This is only an issue if registry shares are enabled on the server by setting registry shares = yes , include = registry , or config backend = registry , which is not the default.
· phpauctionsystem-insecure.txtPHP Auction System suffers from an insecure cookie handling vulnerability.
· phpauctionsystem-sqlxss.txtPHP Auction System suffers from cross site scripting and remote SQL injection vulnerabilities.
· joomlaphoca-sql.txtJoomla Phoca Documentation remote SQL injection exploit that makes use of index.php.
· lfi-rfi2.txtLocal / Remote file inclusion scanner that attempts to make use of a c99 shell on a vulnerable host.
· theratcms-sql.txtThe Rat CMS Alpha 2 remote blind SQL injection exploit that leverages viewarticle.php.
· walusoft-traversal.txtWalusoft TFTPServer2000 version 3.6.1 suffers from a directory traversal vulnerability.
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