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The Internet

Submission + - Researcher sets up illegal 420,000 node botnet for IPv4 internet map (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "An anonymous researcher has taken an unorthodox approach to achieve the dream of mapping out the entire remaining IPv4 internet, and has broken enough laws around the world to make them liable for many thousands of years behind bars in doing so, if current sentencing policy prevails.

Getting the sheer numbers of IPv4 addresses involved would take a huge amount of scanners to make billions of pings. While noodling around with an Nmap scripting engine the researcher noticed a lot of virtually unsecured IPv4 devices – only requiring the admin/admin, root/root login, or either admin or root with the password field blank. What if these could be used as a temporary botnet to perform?

"I did not want to ask myself for the rest of my life how much fun it could have been or if the infrastructure I imagined in my head would have worked as expected," the report "Internet Census 2012" states.

"I saw the chance to really work on an Internet scale, command hundred thousands of devices with a click of my mouse, portscan and map the whole Internet in a way nobody had done before, basically have fun with computers and the Internet in a way very few people ever will."

The report states a 46 and 60 kb binary was written in C with two parts; a telnet scanner to try the login connection and propagate and then control code to assign scan ranges and feed the results back. A reboot of the infected system would wipe the binary completely and the code didn't scan traffic running though the device or any intranet-connected systems."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft begins automatic Windows 7 SP1 rollout (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Microsoft will start the automatic rollout of Windows 7 Service Pack on Tuesday.

The extensive software update will be handled via Windows Update, and will make its way onto PCs whose users have Automatic Update enabled.

"Updating customers to Windows 7 SP1 is part of our ongoing effort to ensure continued support and improved security updates for customers who have not yet installed SP1," the company wrote in a blog post.

The update only applies to consumer PCs – systems managed by the Systems Center Configuration Manager or WSUS Server are still wholly controlled by their admins, who can make the final call about when to install SP1.

Windows 7 SP1 was released in February, 2011. It fixed bugs relating to printing and HDMI audio, and added support for Advanced Vector Extensions, various identity services, RemoteFX, and dynamic memory, among others. The update requires 1050MB of free disk space on 64-bit Windows systems, and 750MB for 32-bit.

Windows 7 is not due to get a second service pack, as had been traditional for previous versions of the operating system, with Microsoft instead moving to a monthly patch cycle."

Submission + - Drilling into 3D printing: Gimmick, revolution or spooks' nightmare? (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "3D printing, otherwise known as additive manufacturing, is a subject that pumps out enthusiasts faster than any real-life 3D printer can churn out products.

In conventional machining, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CADCAM) combine to make products or parts of products by cutting away at, drilling and otherwise manhandling materials. With 3D printing, CADCAM works with product scanners, other bits of IT and special plastics and metals to build products up, whether through the squirts of an inkjet-like device or the sintering of metal powder by lasers or electron beams.

Rather in the same way, America’s somewhat self-conscious Maker Movement – several thousand DIY fans out to revive manufacturing through the web and from the privacy of their own garages – promotes 3D printing with layer upon layer of hype.

It’s true that 3D printing has its good points. Without having to engage in expensive retooling, a 3D printer can easily be reprogrammed to make variations on a basic product — good for dental crowns, for example. 3D printing can also make intricate products with designs that cannot be emulated by conventional, "subtractive" techniques.

In principle, though not always in practice, 3D wastes less material than conventional techniques. And while jewellery, toys, footwear, the cases for mobile phones and other smallish items lend themselves to 3D, researchers at the European aerospace and defence giant EADS have for two years hoped that they will one day be able to print titanium components directly on to the structure of an entire wing of an Airbus."
Google

Submission + - Google Drive goes titsup for MILLIONS of users (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Google Drive has been titsup for the last few hours with many users being greeted by 502 error messages when they attempt to access the online storage service.

For many, it remains stubbornly offline for now.

Google confirmed that there was a problem with Drive about two hours ago after users complained about service disruption.

In the last hour the ad giant posted a little more detail about the outage on its Apps Status Dashboard:

        We're aware of a problem with Google Drive affecting a significant subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Google Drive."

Submission + - CCTV hack takes casino for $33 MILLION in poker losses (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "A sophisticated scheme to use a casino's own security systems against it has netted scammers $33m in a high-stakes poker game after they were able to gain a crucial advantage by seeing the opposition's cards.

The team used a high-rolling accomplice from overseas who was known to spend large amounts while gambling at Australia's biggest casino, the Crown in Melbourne, according to the Herald Sun. He and his family checked into the Crown and were accommodated in one of its $30,000-a-night villas.

The player then joined a private high-stakes poker game in a private suite. At the same time, an unnamed person got access to the casino's CCTV systems in the poker room and fed the information he gleaned back to the player via a wireless link. Over the course of eight hands the team fleeced the opposition to the tune of $33m."
Google

Submission + - Search engines we have known ... before Google crushed them (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Feature Remember when the internet was young, moving your bulky monitor was a two-person job and 1.4MB disks didn't look like a typo? Back then (most) people didn't have to choose which web search engine they were going to use: it came prepared by the operating system maker, such as Microsoft and MSN Search, or the folks you got your broadband from, like AOL Search.

These days many still aren't looking very far for a search engine: Google remains dominant, but an aberrant few are into Bing, Baidu, Yahoo! and Ask.com.

Some web crawlers were crushed by the Chocolate Factory's massive popularity, others morphed into something else entirely, these are the old navigators of what we once and without irony called the World Wide Web. Unsurprisingly, most of them are linked. So let's play the connect game, starting with:

AltaVista
Ask folks to name an old search engine, and AltaVista is the one that springs most readily to mind. It was created by researchers Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier and Michael Burrows at the once mighty Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC, as a way to retrieve files from the public network more easily.

AltaVista was launched for everyone else's use in 1995 and immediately took off. Monier's web crawler was fast and multi-threaded and could cover a lot more web pages than other engines using advanced DEC hardware, making it the first full-text database of the net.

A year later, AltaVista was providing Yahoo!'s search results and getting millions of hits every day, but like most of the old guard, its popularity was going to be short lived. DEC was snapped up by Compaq in 1998 and the following year Compaq redesigned the once clean interface to a portal, much like Yahoo!'s, with shopping, email and other stuff provided."

Submission + - Samsung's new Galaxy S 4: iPhone assassin or Android also-ran? (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "After weeks of hypegasmic drum-beating at a level unusual for the Korean consumer-electronic giant, Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S 4 at an embarassingly over-the-top, show biz–infused gala on Thursday evening in New York City, an extravaganza that overshadowed the fact that the Galaxy S 4 appears to be fine Android phone, and one that – as demoed, at least – may not have put all other Android phones to shame but one that does make Apple's iPhone 5 look like yesterday's newspaper.

No matter how you spin it – be you fanboi or fandroid – Tim Cook & Co. have a heavy-hitting competitor on their hands, despite some pundits' predictions and Apple-executive smokescreening.

Before we dip into the Galaxy S 4's software-based advances – and knowing that Reg readers are more interested in fact-based geekery than razzle-dazzle glitziness – let's first roll through Samsung's new smartphone's tech specs, beginning with the should-be-obvious fact that it's based on Google's Android OS; version 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, to be exact. That base system, however, has been enhanced with a host of Samsung-only features which we'll get to in a moment.

During the event, no mention was made of the processor running the Galaxy S 4, but in the company's release detailing the handset's specs, Samsung says that the phone will come in two basic versions, a 1.9GHz quad-core and a 1.6GHz "Octa-Core", to be sold in different markets."

Submission + - Ten pi-fect projects for your new Raspberry Pi (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "There was an article a while back, in Scientific American I think, that posed the question: given a super-powerful computer, with infinite computing power shoe-horned into a coke can, what would you do with it?*

The arrival of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) prompted a similar sort of question: given an (almost) disposable PC with late-1990s power, what would you do with it? Other than, of course, to use it as a cheap media centre.

Yes, yes, we all know it supposed purpose is to teach kids to code, but I mean, come on, where's the fun in that? If the target audience are anything like my two iPod junkies, then just learning to writing code is only going to interest the tiniest minority. Thankfully, it turns out that there's quite a lot you can do with your RPi. Which is important, because your average Linux head isn't going to persuade ten year olds to start pootling around with Scratch. But if a £29 PC is merely the gateway to doing other more exciting STUFF, then they may have to learn some coding to get it all to work."

Submission + - Infinite loop: the Sinclair ZX Microdrive story (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "They would, Clive Sinclair claimed on 23 April 1982, revolutionise home computer storage. Significantly cheaper than the established 5.25-inch and emerging 3.5-inch floppy drives of the time — though not as capacious or as fast to serve up files — ‘Uncle’ Clive’s new toy would “change the face of personal computing”, Sinclair Research’s advertising puffed.

Yet this “remarkable breakthrough at a remarkable price” would take more than 18 months more to come to market. In the meantime, it would become a byword for delays and disappointment — and this in an era when almost every promised product arrived late.

Sinclair’s revolutionary product was the ZX Microdrive. This is its story."

Submission + - Self-healing chips survive repeated LASER BLASTS (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "odern high-speed integrated circuits can be fragile things. Even a single fault can often render them completely inoperable. But a team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) says it has developed an "immune system" for chips that can allow circuits to route around problems and keep working in the face of failures – even ones as catastrophic as being blasted with a high-energy laser.

The team demonstrated the technology using a millimeter-wave power amplifier – a type of cutting-edge circuit used for next-generation communications, imaging, and sensing applications.

Even after they zapped the chip repeatedly with a laser, utterly destroying some of its components, the self-healing system was able to detect the faults, route around them, and continue to function at near-optimal efficiency."
Microsoft

Submission + - 1 in 7 WinXP-using biz bods DON'T KNOW Microsoft is pulling the plug (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "A large number of Microsoft customers are in for a rude awakening on 8 April 2014.

With less than 400 days to go, 15 per cent of those running Windows XP are still unaware that that’s the date Microsoft finally turns off all support for its legacy PC operating system, according to a recent survey.

After 8 April next year, Microsoft will no longer make bug fixes or security updates for Windows XP, meaning customers will be naked and vulnerable to hackers and viruses and on their own in terms of code updates and fixes. Support for Office 2003 also finishes on the same date, with the same implications.

The findings come from a survey of 250 strategic IT types by application migration specialist Camwood, which polled chief information officers, technology officers and IT directors at organisations that run more than 2,000 PCs.

Fifteen per cent is a decent chunk of the Microsoft customer base. Windows XP is still used on 39 per cent of desktops – just behind Windows 7 on 44 per per cent."

Submission + - Ten serious sci-fi films for the sentient fan (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Feature Zap guns, robots, lightspeed-smashing spaceships and bikini-busting princesses do not real science fiction make. Just ask George Lucas.

Star Wars defined movie SF in the mind of many a mainstream viewer. But while the film and its sequels and, er, prequels certainly provide the sci-fi enthusiast with thrills a-plenty — guilty or otherwise — they're not true science fiction. Or at least not good sci-fi. Cowboys and Indians in space — yes; SF — no.

Good science fiction, you see, is about big ideas. It's about exploring the human condition of the times in which it's written or filmed. Sorry, but a reducing good and evil to a force generated by intelligent bacteria in the blood of all living things is no meditation on the eternal verities.

Serious sci-fi can excite and delight, but it should also make you think. Star Wars pretty much lopped the legs off serious sci-fi movie-making with a scientifically implausible laser sword, but it didn't kill it off entirely. There have been some gems made since then."

Submission + - MakerBot demos 3D object scanner that fits on your desk (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "MakerBot, producer of the Replicator line of desktop 3D printers, took to the stage at the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, Texas on Friday to demo a prototype of its first desktop 3D scanner.

While 3D printing may be no big deal these days – numerous affordable models are available and enthusiasts are using them to print everything from bikinis to working firearms – the difficulty of creating high-quality 3D models of objects to print remains a barrier to wide adoption, something that MakerBot hopes to change.

"The MakerBot Digitizer Desktop 3D Scanner is an innovative new way to take a physical object, scan it, and create a digital file – without any design, CAD software or 3D modeling experience at all – and then print the item again and again," MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said in a statement.

The Digitizer works by placing an object on a spinning platform, scanning it using a combination of lasers and cameras, and then saving the collected data into a file format that's usable by 3D printing systems."
Google

Submission + - Microsoft backs law banning Google Apps from schools (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Microsoft is backing a bill in Massachusetts that would effectively force schools to stop using Google Apps, or any other service that uses students' data.

"Any person who provides a cloud computing service to an educational institution operating within the State shall process data of a student enrolled in kindergarten through twelfth grade for the sole purpose of providing the cloud computing service to the educational institution and shall not process such data for any commercial purpose, including but not limited to advertising purposes that benefit the cloud computing service provider," the bill states.

The proposed legislation was introduced by state representative Carlo Basile (D-East Boston), and Microsoft has said it is supporting it, using the old canard of wanting to protect children from harm. Blocking Google and other providers that use an ad-funded service model is just a side benefit, it seems."
Google

Submission + - Malware devs offer $100 a pop for 'active' Google Play accounts (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
iComp
iComp writes: "Virus writers are paying top dollar for access to "active" Google Play accounts to help them spread mobile malware across the Android ecosystem.

Google charges $25 to Android developers who wish to sell their wares through the Google Play marketplace but a denizen of an underground cybercrime forum is offering to purchase these accounts for $100 apiece, a 300 per cent mark-up.

The miscreant is offering "$100 for sellers willing to part with an active, verified Play account that is tied to a dedicated server". Developer accounts at Google Play can be used to offer malware up as legitimate apps before offering these Trojanised packages for sale to prospective marks.

The same wheeler-dealer is also selling an Android mobile malware creation toolkit that targets banking customers of Citibank, HSBC and ING and many other banks in multiple countries, reports investigative journalist turned security blogger Brian Krebs"

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