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Submission + - Social networks help fuel democracy in Moldova (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

koavf

on Wednesday April 08, 2009 @12:34AM

koavf writes: "Young Moldovans have employed text messaging, Facebook, and even a custom searchable tag on Twitter to help oust the Communist government amidst allegations of vote tampering. With social networking technology, a half-dozen democrats recruited over 15,000 youth to storm Parliament in a matter of hours. In a television broadcast, Moldovan president Voronin described the protests as "well-designed, well-thought out, coordinated, planned and paid for.""

Submission + - SPAM: Researcher's Death Casts Pall Over Major TCP Fix

Submitted by

narramissic

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @08:56PM

narramissic writes: "Security researcher Jack Louis died on March 15 of smoke inhalation from a fire in his home. Prior to his death, Louis had discovered vulnerabilities that could be used to attack computers via the Internet. 'These vulnerabilities have been around for a long time, and to the best of our knowledge they have not been used in the wild,' said Robert E. Lee, the Outpost24 researcher who worked with Louis on the issue, and who has had to step in to fill his colleague's shoes. Louis didn't have the chance to hand over all of his vulnerability research before his death, Lee said. 'There were a number of additional [vulnerabilities] where Jack didn't have enough information to give the vendors,' he said."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Microsoft kicks Windows XP off support list (pcauthority.com.au)

Submitted by Slatterz on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @07:01PM

Slatterz writes: Come next week, Microsoft will be in the unusual position of no longer offering mainstream support for its most widely used product. Windows XP will pass another milestone on the road to retirement next week when Microsoft withdraws mainstream support for the operating system. Mainstream support for XP will end on 14 April 2009, over seven years after the operating system originally shipped. While the company said that it will continue to provide free security fixes for XP until 2014, any future bugs found in the platform will not be fixed unless customers pay for additional support. Windows XP accounts for about 63 per cent of all internet connected computers, according to March 2009 statistics from Hitslink, while Windows Vista makes up about 24 per cent.

Submission + - New Tools Automate Hacking of Backbone Networks

Submitted by yahoi on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:59PM

yahoi writes: A pair of German researchers at Black Hat Europe next week in Amsterdam will release tools that hack backbone technologies used by service providers in MPLS and Ethernet enterprise network service offerings. Until now, the exploitation of these network technologies has only been theoretically possible: "Our release of the tools closes that gap of these attacks being only theoretical, to being practically exploitable now," says Enno Rey, one of the tool's developers. "These technologies do not provide any security themselves, but just rely on the assumption that the underlying network is secure."

http://www.darkreading.com/services/data/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EY5MX5WBIUF0IQSNDLPCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=216403220

Submission + - Digitally remastered Beatles coming in September

Submitted by mknewman on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:47PM

mknewman writes: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/07/beatles.remastered.catalogue/index.html

Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music have announced that as the date for the release of the entire original Beatles catalogue, digitally remastered.

That includes all 12 Beatles albums in stereo, with track listings and artwork as originally released in the UK. The package will also contain the LP version of "Magical Mystery Tour" (initially released as a double-EP in Britain, though available on CD since 1987) and the collections "Past Masters Vol. I and II" combined as one title

In acknowledgment of the more technologically advanced listeners, each CD will contain, for a limited time, an embedded brief documentary film about the album.

The documentaries contain archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-released studio chat from the Beatles.

Submission + - IPRED law in Sweden - Watching the watchers

Submitted by digithed on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @04:10PM

digithed writes: In response to Sweden's recent introduction of new laws implementating the European IPRED directive a new Swedish website has been launched allowing users to check if their IP address is currently under investigation. The site also allows users to subscribe for email updates telling them if their IP address comes under investigation in the future, or to report IP addresses known to be under investigation. The site can be found at: http://ipred.bitchware.se/

This is an interesting use of people power "watching the watchers". The new Swedish laws implementing the IPRED directive require a public request to the courts in order to get ISPs to forcibly disclose potentially sensitive private information, and since all court records are public in Sweden (as are all government records) it will be easy to compile a list of IP addresses which are currently being investigated.

Submission + - Microsoft Sued for $558 Million Over Uniloc Patent (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by eldavojohn on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @03:54PM

eldavojohn writes: Microsoft has been served papers claiming their state of the art product activation system infringes on a Singapore based company named Uniloc's patent. Bloomberg is reporting that a lawyer for Uniloc asked a federal court for $558 million in royalties from Microsoft. The official court order is here in PDF. This concerns the activation system of Windows XP operating system and some Office programs--Uniloc has decided that royalties of $2.50 for each of the 223 million activations is a fair price for Microsoft to pay. The patent ax swings both ways. The two seem to have a long history of court action.

Submission + - SPAM: Heat shield from hell to protect future astronauts

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @03:31PM

coondoggie writes: "NASA today made one of the most important decisions for the future of its space flights — the heat shield material that will protect future space explorers from the hellish heat of space travel. The space agency went with a technology it was quite familiar with, a fiberglass, silica, epoxy combination known as Avcoat. The heat protection technology was used on the current space shuttle missions as well as the Apollo spacecrafts, NASA said. On the blistering return through Earth's atmosphere, the module will encounter temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Heating rates may be up to five times more extreme than rates for missions returning from the International Space Station, NASA said. Orion's heat shield, the dish-shaped thermal protection system at the base of the spacecraft, will endure the most heat and will erode, or "ablate," in a controlled fashion, sending heat away from the crew module during its descent through the atmosphere. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Sun made colossal mistake in turning down IBM (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

jbrodkin

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @02:57PM

jbrodkin writes: "With IBM/Sun negotiations reportedly at a standstill, a consensus seems to be emerging among industry analysts: Sun has made a colossal mistake in turning down IBM's $7 billion acquisition offer. "My first thought was, IBM threw Sun a rope. They used it to make a noose," says Annex Research analyst Bob Djurdjevic. "Pure insanity" is the phrase used by Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Brian Babineau to describe Sun turning down the premium offered by IBM. IBM/Sun merger talks collapsed after "disputes over millions of dollars of payout to Sun executives, in addition to the takeover price and conditions attached to the deal," the Bloomberg news service reported Monday. "If it is indeed true that the Sun Board turned down the IBM offer because they thought a 100% premium on the value of their listing ship was too low a price in the midst of an economic storm, then Sun deserves to go down," Djurdjevic says. "And to go down in the history of IT as yet another company that let pride get in the way of good judgment.""

Submission + - 45th anniversary of the mainframe

Submitted by

jacobsm

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @12:00PM

jacobsm writes: "Today, April 7th is the 45 anniversary of the announcement of the IBM System 360. This computer is the foundation of all current mainframe computer systems. Some other historic events in 1964 were, Ford motor company introduced the Ford Mustang on April 17 and Stanley Kubrick had lunch with Arthur C. Clarke at Tavern on the Green in NYC to discuss the possibility of making the "definitive science fiction movie".....the result was "2001: A Space Odyssey". A PDF describing the history of IBM mainframe computing is at http://www.vm.ibm.com/devpages/jelliott/pdfs/zhistory.pdf"

Submission + - Anti-Counterfeit Treaty 'Classified', Alarming

Submitted by

nandemoari

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @11:59AM

nandemoari writes: "Details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being negotiated across the globe are now labeled as a "properly classified" national security secret by the White House, in spite of a Freedom of Information Act request. Leaked documents posted on WikiLeaks suggest that the proposed trade accord would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches, and allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor customer communications."

Submission + - New iPhone 3.0 OS Brings 802.11n, FM Radio, A2DP

Submitted by nandemoari on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @10:28AM

nandemoari writes: Apple is set to offer a host of interesting features on the new iPhone 3.0 OS. Among the most anticipated features is the addition of stereo Bluetooth-audio streaming (A2DP), which will allow current second-generation iPhone and iPod Touch owners to experience the cutting edge of mobile technology. Of course, Apple is expected to roll out additional features that will only be available to those who purchase the latest iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Among these exclusive "hardware features" are high-speed 802.11n WiFi (wireless network) capabilities and FM radio transmission.

Submission + - SPAM: Internet-Wide Problem to be Revealed at Black Hat

Submitted by

narramissic

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @10:05AM

narramissic writes: "Organizers of next week's Black Hat Europe conference say a presentation will be made that will be as important to Internet security as the one from Dan Kaminsky at a Black Hat conference last July about a widespread flaw in the DNS. Internet vulnerabilities not your thing? The conference will also feature cutting-edge presentations on security problems in Apple's OS X operating system, the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and SAP software."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - IceScan 0.0.7rc1 is out! (sourceforge.net) 1

Submitted by SF:darkkey on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @10:01AM

SF:darkkey writes: IceScan is a free open source network analyzing and security auditing tool for Unix-like and Windows operating systems. It uses libpcap, a packet capture and filtering library. Main features is active and passive scanning with various technics (for example, TCP SYN, IP protocol, TCP XMAS and more), passive OS detection and scripting engine. Get it from https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=185109 or from CVS! Windows binary release will come in next few days. We\'re lack of active developers, so any help in development would be very good. ChangeLog for IceScan v. 0.0.7rc1: * fixed minor bugs with running on Win32. + UDP scan and ping completely rewritten. + TCP and UDP scan now independent and can be run in parallel. * ICMP PortUnreach messages now handling in TCP/UDP raw scans. + OpenBSD port done. + first attempt to create script engine. * fixed ACK scan. + added group results by host in output. + added detecting if target is localhost. + boosted localhost scan, fixed filtered ports on localhost. + added passive OS fingerprinting. + added detecting MTU, remote line type and remote system uptime when possible. * fixed routing mask operation. + Ctrl-C signal correct handle in passive scan mode. * list and \"no\" scans work correct now. * fixed printing reverse hostname (domain name) in several places. + parallel DNS-resolver for resolving ip/revnames at active scan phase. + --system-dns ans --dns-servers options. + own DNS-resolver for resolving names/revnames at passive scan phase. * fixed cpcapreader::read_rawpacket segfault on BIG packets. * system dns servers extraction from resolv.conf(*nix) or registry. * added --tcp-options: set tcp options at raw scan. * added --open option: show only open(or possibly open) ports. * fixed ARP discovery. * fixed \"No Scan\" (S0) output. + added additional hosts debug stats. + added \"all-hosts\" congestion window. + added -w (dump recieved packets to tcpdump file) option. + added --pcap-filter (set the pcap filter) option. * manpage fixes

Submission + - UK ID cards could use chip and PIN (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by

nk497

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @09:56AM

nk497 writes: "The UK's identity card has been designed in such a way that there are no 'technical reasons' not to use it in Chip and PIN devices, such as bank machines. The head of the identity and passport service said that the government is in talks with financial institutions to do just that. James Hall said: "One of the reasons for the format of the card is we have the opportunity to put it in to card readers and potentially use it in existing networks such as the ATM network... if [banks] come forward with a compelling view of the rationale for chip and pin for them, that's definitely something we'll take extremely seriously." Anyone want their entire government identity tied to their bank statements?"

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