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Comments: 28 + -   The Coming Botnet Stock Exchange on Monday March 15, @02:22PM

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 15, @02:22PM
from the where-do-i-go-to-invest dept.
botnet
Trailrunner7 writes "Robert Hansen, a security researcher and CEO of SecTheory, has been gleaning intelligence from professional attackers in recent months, having a series of off-the-record conversations with spammers and malicious hackers in an effort to gain insight into their tactics, mindset and motivation. 'He's not the type to hack randomly, he's only interested in targeted attacks with big payouts. Well, the more I thought about it the more I thought that this is a very solvable problem for bad guys. There are already other types of bad guys who do things like spam, steal credentials and DDoS. For that to work they need a botnet with thousands or millions of machines. The chances of a million machine botnet having compromised at least one machine within a target of interest is relatively high.' Hansen's solution to the hacker's problem provides a glimpse into a business model we might see in the not-too-distant future. It's an evolutionary version of the botnet-for-hire or malware-as-a-service model that's taken off in recent years. In Hansen's model, an attacker looking to infiltrate a specific network would not spend weeks throwing resources against machines in that network, looking for a weak spot and potentially raising the suspicion of the company's security team. Instead, he would contact a botmaster and give him a laundry list of the machines or IP addresses he's interested in compromising. If the botmaster already has his hooks into the network, the customer could then buy access directly into the network rather than spending his own time and resources trying to get in."
Read More... 28 comments story

Comments: 88 + -   Color E-Book Displays Coming From E Ink Next Year on Monday March 15, @01:40PM

Posted by Soulskill on Monday March 15, @01:40PM
from the new-spectrum-of-displays dept.
displays
waderoush writes "E Ink, which makes the monochrome electrophoretic screens used in the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader line, and other e-readers, is gearing up to supply manufacturers with the first color versions of its displays by early next year, according to an Xconomy interview with T.H. Peng, a vice president with Taiwan's Prime View International, which bought E Ink last year. Peng argues that E Ink has nothing to fear from the e-book apps on the Apple iPad and other devices with color LCDs, which, in his view, produce more eye strain and aren't as suitable for digital reading. Nonetheless, the company says its first color screens in 2011 will have newspaper-quality color, followed within a couple of years by improved versions that can handle magazine-style content."
Read More... 88 comments story

Comments: 292 + -   US Intelligence Planned To Destroy WikiLeaks on Monday March 15, @12:59PM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @12:59PM
from the how's-that-working-out-for-you dept.
government
An anonymous reader writes "This document is a classified (SECRET/NOFORN), 32-page US counterintelligence investigation into WikiLeaks (PDF). 'The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the US government are providing sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org cannot be ruled out.' It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization. Since WikiLeaks uses 'trust as a center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insiders, leakers or whistleblowers,' the report recommends 'The identification, exposure, termination of employment, criminal prosecution, legal action against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could potentially damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others considering similar actions from using the Wikileaks.org Web site.' [As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks' source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective]. As an odd justification for the plan, the report claims that 'Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website.' The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks — US equipment expenditure in Iraq, probable US violations of the Chemical Warfare Convention Treaty in Iraq, the battle over the Iraqi town of Fallujah and human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay."
Read More... 292 comments story

Comments: 257 + -   How To Guarantee Malware Detection on Monday March 15, @12:19PM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @12:19PM
from the pardon-my-skepticism dept.
security
itwbennett writes "Dr. Markus Jakobsson, Principal Scientist at PARC, explains how it is possible to guarantee the detection of malware, including zero-day attacks and rootkits and even malware that infected a device before the detection program was installed. The solution comes down to this, says Jakobsson: 'Any program — good or bad — that wants to be active in RAM has no choice but to take up some space in RAM. At least one byte.'"
Read More... 257 comments story

Comments: 128 + -   Speed-Assembling Servers on Monday March 15, @11:31AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @11:31AM
from the summon-precision-and-a-crown-and-coke dept.
hardware
Nieriko writes "The Planet is holding competitions to speed-assemble rack-mounted servers. It's like watching latter-day Marines field-strip and assemble their weapons. There is a video on youtube about this incredible contest. Looks pretty challenging."
Watch Video... 128 comments story

Comments: 118 + -   Iran Hacks US Spy Sites on Monday March 15, @10:45AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @10:45AM
from the because-they-can dept.
government
superapecommando writes "Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps hacked into 29 websites affiliated with US espionage networks, Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Sunday. 'The hacked websites acted against Iran's national security under the cover of human rights activities,' Fars reported. It did not disclose details of the attacks. The Internet has been used by Iranian opposition groups who contested the results of last year's elections there to organize demonstrations and share information about protests and arrests. The Revolutionary Guards is a military group that was founded after Iran's 1979 revolution. The group includes conventional army, navy, air force, and intelligence units, as well as the Basij paramilitary force and various business units."
Read More... 118 comments story

Comments: 191 + -   The Seven Hidden Browsers In the Windows Ballot on Monday March 15, @10:09AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @10:09AM
from the hanging-chads-need-not-apply dept.
microsoft
Barence writes "Two weeks ago Microsoft started rolling out a Windows update within the European Union, giving every Internet Explorer user the option to switch browsers. As well as the five big names, anyone who scrolls the ballot window to the right will find seven further browsers, none of which is exactly a household name. There's no quality control being offered, either — they're simply the '12 most widely-used web browsers that run on Windows 7,' based on usage share in the European Economic Area. But what are these unknown browsers actually like? To find out, seven PC Pro staff installed a browser each, used it exclusively for a day, and ran a variety of tests. The browser-by-browser verdict on the hidden seven: two are worth a look for specific reasons, the other five are only likely to give an internet novice a horribly outdated idea of what web browsing is like."
Read More... 191 comments story

Comments: 103 + -   Nose Scanners — the New Face of Biometrics? on Monday March 15, @09:26AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @09:26AM
from the check-out-that-schnoz dept.
biotech
An anonymous reader writes "Forget fingerprints and ID cards, this photo story shows how the latest thing in biometrics is nose scanning! Bath university researchers have claimed that the nose will soon be able to be used as a way of identifying a person. Apparently the 'PhotoFace system captures a 3D image of a person's face by taking several photos lit from different angles to throw shadows on the face and then building a model of facial features. The software determined that there are six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.' Some cool pictures make this worth a click — but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"
Read More... 103 comments story

Comments: 108 + -   Humans Continue To Be 'Weak Link' In Data Security on Monday March 15, @08:46AM

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday March 15, @08:46AM
from the handcuffs-please dept.
security
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Nearly 90 percent of IT workers in the UK have said a laptop in their organization has been reported lost or stolen, new research has found. Sixty-one percent said that this then resulted in a data breach, according to the '2010 Human Factor in Laptop Encryption Study: United Kingdom,' a report produced by the Ponemon Institute for Absolute Software."
Read More... 108 comments story

Comments: 86 + -   SpaceX Conducts First On-Pad Test-Fire of Falcon 9 on Monday March 15, @08:03AM

Posted by timothy on Monday March 15, @08:03AM
from the still-learning-how-to-stage-launches dept.
nasa
FleaPlus writes "On Saturday, SpaceX successfully conducted a launch dress rehearsal and on-pad test firing of their completed Falcon 9 rocket, with the 15-story tall rocket held down to prevent launch (videos). SpaceX is one of several likely competitors (ranging from the upstart Blue Origin to the more experienced Boeing) in NASA's new plans for commercial crew transportation to low-Earth orbit. SpaceX has been cleared by Cape Canaveral for the Falcon 9's first orbital launch next month, carrying a test model of the company's Dragon cargo/crew capsule, although CEO/CTO Elon Musk has cautioned that they're still in the equivalent of 'beta testing' for the first few flights."
Read More... 86 comments story
 

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Poll I prefer my (non-technical) books to be ...
Printed and bound.
Converted to some e-book form.
Recorded (abridged).
Recorded (unabridged).
Turned into movies.
What are "non-technical books"?
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Comments:224 | Votes:15177

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