Submission + - Hitachi develops RFID powder
Dolda2000 writes: "Hitachi recently unveiled their newest RFID product: a 0.05 x 0.05 millimeter "powder type" RFID chip (for you barbarians in the west, 0.05 mm is roughly 2/1000 inch). From the article: "Like mu-chips [...] the new chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number." and "But since existing tags are already small enough to embed in paper, it leads one to wonder what new applications the developers have in mind.". It seems they hope to get them to market in 2-3 years."
Submission + - Smokers may be the weak IT security link
BobB writes: "Where there's smoke, there's a door. A U.K. security company is warning that smokers may impact IT security, leaving open doors that could let in intruders who could abuse a company's network.
It may sound slightly far-fetched. But a penetration tester from NTA Monitor Ltd., a company based in Rochester, England, gained access to a professional services company outside London that way.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/021607-smoke rs-may-be-the-weak.html"
'Daylight Savings Bugs' Loom 403
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has front page coverage of the looming daylight savings changeover, and the bugs that may crop up this year. With the extension of daylight savings time by four weeks, some engineers and programmers are warning that unprepared companies will experience serious problems in March. While companies like Microsoft have already patched their software, Gartner is warning that bugs in the travel and banking sectors could have unforeseen consequences in the coming months. ' In addition, trading applications might execute purchases and sales at the wrong time, and cell phone-billing software could charge peak rates at off-peak hours. On top of that, the effect is expected to be felt around the world: Canada and Bermuda are conforming to the U.S.-mandated change, and time zone shifts have happened in other locales as well.'" Is this just more Y2K doomsaying, or do you think there's a serious problem here?
Submission + - Ethics of proxy servers
Mav writes: "I was recently asked to host a website for free in return for a lot of advertising. After querying them about how they knew the site would produce traffic they stated the site was going to be running PHPProxy (an open source web proxy). The traffic was a result of him and his contacts (nearly one thousand of them) using the site to bypass his school's firewall in order to view their MySpace pages and get access to their MSN messengers. Given all the attention social networking sites have recently received and the various laws attempting to block or control access to them I feel guilty and unsure making this available. Are there legal implications that I need to worry about? Could I be held liable if one of the students got in trouble? Most importantly, what's the moral thing to do?"
