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Security

Submission + - Dreamlab cracks wireless keyboard encryption (heise-security.co.uk)

Submitted by
Felix
Felix writes: "Wireless keyboards and mice are becoming an increasingly common sight on desks. However, wireless hardware carries large hidden risks. Dreamlab Technologies has shown that it is possible to capture and decrypt keystrokes, meaning that user names, passwords, bank details or confidential correspondence can be very easily eavesdropped. Checkout http://www.dreamlab.net/ for further information."
Security

Submission + - US Botmaster admits infecting 250,000 computers

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: A Los Angeles man on Friday admitted infecting 250,000 computers and stealing the identities of thousands of people by wiretapping their communications and accessing their bank accounts. John Schiefer, 26, agreed to plead guilty to four counts of fraud and wiretap charges that could lead to a US$1.75 million fine and send him to prison for up to 60 years, the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's office said. Prosecutors said Schiefer and an unspecified number of conspirators installed malicious computer codes that acted as a wiretap on compromised computers and intercepted messages to www.paypal.com and similar Web sites. He retrieved usernames and passwords and used them to access an unknown number of bank accounts. Prosecutors said they were still investigating how much money was stolen and the number of victims.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - I hope the GetTheFacts add pops up! 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: from MicroSofts site "The Infolect® application, which went into production in September 20"......."In the past six years, there have been no production outages at the London Stock Exchange, and the new systems running on Microsoft technologies are critical to maintaining this 100 per cent reliability record."
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=200042

and a 2 years later
"London Stock Exchange blames outage on Infolect"

http://www.cio.co.uk/concern/security/news/index.cfm?articleid=2248&pagtype=allchantopdate
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Tracking people using bluetooth. (bluetoothtracking.org)

Submitted by
damdam
damdam writes: "A Dutch guy seems to have set up a small network of bluetooth scanners in his town of Apeldoorn scanning for bluetooth devices. He has all the information logged to a central database and you can search it over the web. On his website it says "Some of these matches were only minutes apart. Therefore I could even calculate the approximate speed of someone moving from one location to another.". There are also some interesting statistics on his site showing traffic volume in his hometown (based on bluetooth signals) and he even lists popularity of certain Nokia phones. It's interesting to see how much information an individual can gather using old equipment. I just noticed this guy is the same guy as the one running the wired house on Icepick.com. Seems like tracking people is his thing."
NASA

Submission + - NASA throws a hell of as party!

Submitted by
AlHunt
AlHunt writes: "From The Article:

Everyone knows exploring space is dangerous, and the costs are astronomical. Which is why, just last month, NASA was able to squeeze $1 billion extra from the Senate.

That very same day, NASA also posted an online notice few people saw — seeking four-star hotel bids for its December awards,


So NASA is urinating away 4 million of your tax dollars this year, throwing luxurious parties and patting themselves on the back. In December they'll dump $400,000 to $500,000 in Orlando, according to CBS News.

I love space exploration as much as anyone. If they wanted billions to go to Pluto, I'd probably never say a word. But high dollar shindigs? Give me a break. I work with an organization helping to feed the hungry. We get a $30 to $1 return on our transportation budget (and we buy our own gas, use up our own office supplies and take no pay so almost every penny donated goes to transportation) — in other words, Decembers Awards budget (a paltry $28K) would let me put $840,000 worth of food in the warehouse.

So, here's my challenge, Rocket Scientists — Take a pass on the coconut shrimp and send the savings our way. I'm sure we can feed a few thousand families for your sacrifice."
Bug

Submission + - Virus that came Pre-Installed on Maxtor HD 1

Submitted by
kirouac
kirouac writes: "Security mavens from Kaspersky say they have discovered a nasty virus that came pre-installed on Maxtor external hard drives sold in the Netherlands. The virus, dubbed Virus.Win32.AutoRun.ah, was found on the Maxtor 3200 Personal Storage, according to this press release from Kaspersky (translated from Dutch to English courtesy of FreeTranslation.com). The company said the virus roots around a computer in search of gaming passwords. The malicious code also rifles through a computer's contents and deletes mp3 files, according to a separate description of the virus, also from Kaspersky. A spokesman for Seagate, which recently acquired Maxtor, said the company was investigating Kaspersky's findings. "This scenario seems unlikely because the 3200 does not have any software preloaded on the drive so there is not an opportunity for a virus to be loaded," he said. Yes the drive is formatted but I have never heard of a virus that lives in the master boot record.""
Caldera

Submission + - Half of SCO's Accountants Quit (groklaw.net)

Submitted by
Groklaw Reader
Groklaw Reader writes: "Apparently, SCO's lawyers were working overtime last Sunday, because they wrote a quick plea to the bankruptcy court for permission to hire accounting temps. Why? Approximately half of SCO's finance department has resigned or been fired. Two who resigned had over ten years of experience each. One can only assume that they know what's about to happen to SCO."
Programming

Submission + - C#, C++, Delphi and Java compilers tested

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Developer named Master Alex, took LZMA SDK and compiled a set of benchmark using SDK as an algorithm base. Here he put an archive with source and compiled in Delphi, C#, C++ and Java binaries. Results are put here and retested here. See, Java runtime code speed in decompressing under Windows x64 is only 15% slower then that of C++.

So, the question is can you provide an optimized code in Delphi 7 so it achieve the same (+-10%) speed as C++ compiled code? Or is it impossible? It presumed that Delphi binaries are very fast, almost of C++ speed.
Intel

Submission + - Intel's Israelis Make Chip to Rescue Company From

Submitted by
MarvinTM
MarvinTM writes: "Ian King — Bloomberg Five hundred employees and guests crowded under a white tent half the length of a football field at Intel Corp.'s Santa Clara, California, headquarters as Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini put his company's newest line of computer chips through their paces. "These are the best microprocessors we've ever designed, the best microprocessors we've ever built,'' Otellini told the audience. "This is not just incremental change; it's a revolutionary leap.'' Otellini's pronouncement relegated to obsolescence Intel's Pentium chip, which once powered more than 80 percent of the world's personal computers. That wasn't the only surprise last July. A camera zoomed in on engineers in lab coats in Haifa, Israel. The video revealed that the chip Intel is counting on to recover from a battering by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. wasn't invented in Silicon Valley. Instead, Intel is betting on a group of Israeli mavericks and a design bureau 7,400 miles away. Shmuel Eden, former head of the Israel Development Center where the new Core 2 Duo was created, says he's fed up with the perception that Intel's prowess is fading. "They (the Israelis) saved the company,'' Doug Freedman, an analyst in San Francisco for Greenwich, Connecticut-based brokerage American Technology Research, says. "Without those new products, Intel would be in a lot more trouble.'' Otellini's bet on the Israelis required a shift in thinking about how processors work -and how Intel markets them. Intel had always promoted the mantra that faster clock speed, the rate at which a chip executes instructions, was the key to measuring how well a computer performs. FULL ARTICLE: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive &sid=a2mgYutwVFnM"
Microsoft

Submission + - M$ Vista DRM lock-in and who to blame

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Charlie Demerjian over at The Inquirer has a brilliant and impassioned rant about DRM infections, who causes them, who wants them and why hardware vendors don't have the spines to stand up for their rights and for the rights of users. From the article: "THE RECENT BILE directed at DAMMIT [ATI+AMD] over the framebuffer lockout is entirely misdirected. Or, at least, the reason to blame the firm is wrong. The hardware providers may be guilty as hell here, but not for this — the real evil here is Microsoft with its DRM fetish. The loser? You, once again". Read the article here.
Music

Submission + - Pirate Party policies pirated by Norway's Liberals

Submitted by Ghoti
Ghoti writes: In an unexpected move, Norway's Liberal Party has decided to adopt "pirate copy" of the Swedish Pirate Party's policies on copyright extension, legalised file-sharing, free sampling and a ban on digital rights management (DRM), according to a recent statement (Norwegian link only). In light of the recent EMI/Apple deal and the European Union's ongoing fight against DRM, the spread of ideas like these to mainstream political parties give a faint promise that the fight for fair use and against corporate lock-in for digital media may yet be won!
Data Storage

Journal Journal: 50 terabyte flash drive made of bug protein

Journal by Ergasiophobia

A prototype USB drive using bug protein to store data in the neighborhood of around 50 terabytes worth of data could be here in less then 18 months. This idea first started out by coating DVDs with a layer of protein so that one day solid state memory could hold so much information that storing data on your computer hard drive will be obsolete, says Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston while reporting on his findings at the International Conf

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