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Privacy

Submission + - Official WoW Forums to Display Full Names (worldofwarcraft.com)

Submitted by Becausegodhasmademe
Becausegodhasmademe writes: In a move that has drawn heavy criticism from the World of Warcraft playerbase, Activision Blizzard announced today that the full name of posters on their public forums will be displayed alongside each forum post. The thread on the US WoW forum announcing the changes has reached 21,000 posts at time of writing, filled with complaints from customers very concerned about their privacy. In defense of the move, a community moderator posted his full name and challenged the players to find information on him. Within 15 minutes his personal information, including address, telephone number and the names and addresses of his family members were posted, causing the community moderator to delete his Facebook account.

The account cancellation page at worldofwarcraft.com is currently down, due presumably to the volume of customers canceling their accounts. As the privacy changes will affect European forums as well, many posters are questioning the legality of the change.
Databases

Submission + - How to Own a Database With SQL Injection (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: Threatposy has a cool guest column that lays out the techniques that attackers are using to penetrate databases via the Web through SQL injection attacks. "SQL injection is the most common penetration technique employed by hackers to steal valuable information from corporate databases. Yet, as widespread as this method of attack is, a seemingly infinite number of ‘sub-methods,’ or variations of SQL Injection attacks can be carried out against the database. One example would be the SYS.DBMS_PRVTAQIP package of a common Database Management System that contains procedures that are susceptible to SQL Injection and allows any user with EXECUTE privileges to execute commands under the elevated privileges of the SYS user.

Typically, when executed through a web front end, these attacks will not necessarily be caught by firewalls since they are using Port 80, and are hidden as part of the regular POST data when submitting a web form.
Security

Submission + - IT folks snoop your protected data (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: In a survey of IT professionals published Wedneday, 67% of respondents admitted having accessed information that was not relevant to their role, and 41% admitted abusing administrative passwords to snoop on sensitive or confidential information.

Submission + - Hands-on with Pixel Qi screens in full sunlight (olpcnews.com)

Submitted by
griffjon
griffjon writes: "Side-by-side comparison of the OLPC's screen and an Acer with the new Pixel Qi screen installed, both of course sharing Mary Lou Jepsen's screen technology:

"The XO's dual mode screen still rules in terms of pixel resolution at 1200 x 900 vs. the Acer's 1024 x 600. It was amazing to see Windows 7, Amazon Kindle software, the New York Times web site and a QuickTime video in direct sunlight. Shades of gray and some color tints are visible. Besides the XOs and e-ink based Kindle ereaders, no other color screen device I own can be seen as clearly in sunlight. Not even the famed iPad. In the video, you can see that at a certain angle where line of sight and sun are aligned, the new Pixel Qi screen glows as if backlit!""
Transportation

Submission + - Should Cities Install Moving Sidewalks?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: 'The real problem nowadays is how to move crowds,' said the manager of the failed Trottoir Roulant Rapide high-speed (9 km/h) people mover project. 'They can travel fast over long distances with the TGV (high-speed train) or airplanes, but not over short distances (under 1 km).' Slate's Tom Vanderbilt explores whether moving walkways might be viable for urban transportation. The first moving sidewalks were unveiled at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, and at one point seemed destined to supplant some subways, but never took root in cities for a variety of reasons. Vanderbilt turns to science fiction for inspiration, where 30 mph walkways put today's tortoise-like speed ranges of .5-.83 m/s to shame. In the meantime, Jerry Seinfeld will just have to learn to live with 'the people who get onto the moving walkway and just stand there. Like it's a ride.'

Submission + - Amazon's original Kindle patent could spell troubl (crunchgear.com)

Submitted by eReaderBen
eReaderBen writes: A patent applied for by Amazon in 2006 has been made public today as a consequence of its being granted, and its language is rather more wide-ranging (and forward-thinking) than we might have expected. Depending on the interpretation, Amazon’s patent may be broad enough to justify a lawsuit over devices like the Nook
IT

Submission + - 'Robin Sage' Duped Military, Security Pros (darkreading.com)

Submitted by ancientribe
ancientribe writes: A social networking experiment of a phony female military security professional known as"Robin Sage" (named after a U.S. Army Special Forces training exercise) worked way too well, fooling even the most security-savvy professionals on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. It also led to the leakage of sensitive military information after an Army Ranger accepted "Robin's" friend request on Facebook and his photos from Afghanistan exposed geolocation information accessible to "Robin." The researcher who conducted the experiment will show off his findings at the upcoming Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas, where the real woman pictured in the profiles is scheduled to introduce him for his presentation.
Cellphones

Motorola Planning 2GHz Android Phone For Later This Year 183

Posted by Soulskill from the soon-we-can-expand-crysis-jokes-to-phones dept.
rocket97 writes "On Wednesday, at the Executives Club of Chicago, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha reportedly decided to chat about the relatively near future of the mobile landscape as he sees it — which, in part, includes the ultimate demise of mobile computers in favor of highly-capable smartphones. This being his vision, Jha discussed Motorola's plans for a smartphone with a 2GHz processor — by the end of this year. While Jha did not want to divulge any further information, Conceivably Tech cites another anonymous Motorola executive who was a little more chatty, talking up a device intended to 'incorporate everything that is technologically possible in a smartphone today.'"

Submission + - Canon camera? Not so professional

Submitted by mbravo
mbravo writes: Turns out that every Canon prosumer and professional DSLR and even their professional video camcorder, the $8000 Canon XL-H1A, can only be used "for personal and non-commercial purposes". For everything else, you need a license from MPEG-LA and pay royalties, as detailed in an OSNEWS article by Eugenia Loli-Queru
Movies

Top 10 Things Hollywood Thinks Computers Can Do 874

Posted by CmdrTaco from the upload-a-virus-and-win dept.
An anonymous reader writes "From blowing up your keyboards to developing a malignant sentience, Expert Reviews rounds up the things that movie makers believe computers can do, even though they use the same technology every day to write scripts." I like the summary of how you crack a password in movies. I hate that this page splits into multiple pages. Very lame.
Intel

Submission + - Intel shows off first Light Peak laptop (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: Intel has provided the first hands-on demonstration of a laptop running its Light Peak technology — an optical interconnect that can transfer data at 10Gbit/sec in both directions — at the company's inaugural European research showcase here in Brussels. Intel has fitted Light Peak into a regular USB cable, with optical fibres running alongside the electrical cabling. Intel provided a visual demonstration of how data is passed through the cable, by shining a torch into one end of the cable, with two little dots of light visible to the naked eye at the other end. The demonstration laptop was sending two separate HD video streams to a nearby television screen, without any visible lag. The laptop includes a 12mm square chip that converts the optical light into electrical data that the computer understands.
Earth

An Animal That Lives Without Oxygen 166

Posted by timothy from the besides-me dept.
Julie188 writes "Scientists have found the first multicellular animals that apparently live entirely without oxygen. The creatures reside deep in one of the harshest environments on earth: the Mediterranean Ocean's L'Atalante basin, which contains salt brine so dense that it doesn't mix with the oxygen-containing waters above."
The Military

Indian Military Hopes to Weaponize the Searing "Ghost Pepper" 267

Posted by timothy from the there's-pepper-spray-and-pepper-spray dept.
coondoggie writes "The military in India is looking to weaponize the world's hottest chili, the bhut jolokia or 'ghost pepper,' according to a number of news outlets. The Bhut Jolokia chili pepper from Assam, India is no ordinary pepper. In tests first conducted by the New Mexico State University in 2008 and subsequently confirmed by Guinness World records and others, the Bhut Jolokia reached over one million Scoville heat units, while the next hottest, the Red Savina Habenero, clocks in at a mere 577,000. Scoville units are a universally accepted measure of chili hotness."
Networking

Athena's Free Firewall Browser 23

Posted by timothy from the should-you-choose-to-accept-it dept.
athenasec writes "Firewall Browser is a free configuration analyzer (download here), released by Athena Security, which works on Cisco, Check Point, and Netscreen firewalls for searching rulebases based on address or service ranges — the way change requests are actually made. The tool is available as a free download with no limitations, user license restrictions, or registration hurdles. Users can slice and dice any firewall-related question about the network, service objects, and security rules for a multi-vendor environment from a single flexible interface. There is also this how-to guide for applying the tool to day-to-day operational tasks."
Cellphones

Android 2.1 Finally Makes It To Droid 132

Posted by timothy from the for-all-your-robot-needs dept.
MrSmith0011000100110 writes "The lovely people over at AndroidCentral have broken the announcement that Android 2.1 is finally coming to the Motorola Droid, with actual proof on Verizon's Droid support page (PDF). I don't know about my Droid brethren, but I'm pretty excited to see the new series of Android ROMs for the Droid phone that are based on a stock Android 2.1. As most of us know, the existing 2.1 ROMs can be buggy as hell and either running vanilla 2.1 or a custom ROM; but this phone is still a tinkerer's best friend."

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