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Submitted by actz
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Friday, 16 February 2007 |
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CALL me, or better still, don't. The backlash has begun against the mobile phone. Despite being so indispensable in the modern age that in Britain there are now more phones than people, the pocket friend has been dismissed as a foe in a BBC poll that rates the mobile among the "worst inventions" in history. While the chirrup of novelty ring tones can be annoying, few would have guessed it was second only to biological weapons and atomic bombs as the public's least favourite appliance of science. Source: Scotsman
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Submitted by actz
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Thursday, 15 February 2007 |
 Microsoft has issued 12 security bulletins addressing 20 vulnerabilities in Windows, including the first patch for a shipping component of Windows Vista since January's consumer launch. Among the patches in the monthly update is a fix for a critical vulnerability in the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine for Windows Vista. The component powers the Windows Defender and OneCare security software for the operating system. The flaw could allow attackers to take control of a system, Microsoft warned. "Because Windows Defender is a component of Windows Vista, Windows Vista is vulnerable," a Microsoft spokesman told vnunet.com. Source: Vnunet
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Submitted by psYchotic
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
 Picking a password is a tricky business. And the temptation is to go for something that is easy to remember like our partner's birthday, a pet's name, or a film star. The trouble is, given just a few attempts it also makes it pretty easy to crack. "Hackers today will often use a dictionary style attack. This means they can very quickly use all of the words in the dictionary as well as common celebrity or sports names," explained McAfee security analyst Greg Day. "For example, many people still use what they think is a smart technique of switching out some of those characters for numbers, for example changing an A into a 4. But that's a very commonly known technique." "I think what worries us more these days is we use online communities, like MySpace or Bebo, to meet and chat with other people, and people are so willing to hand over this information - favourite film star, etc. As a password stealer I only need to chat to you for a few minutes and I can probably commonly guess your password." The ideal password is used for one site only, it uses letters in both upper and lower case, numbers, and other characters. Something like this: EAJst9s74*$D!2 - but the problem is that it is just not easy to remember. Source: BBC News
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Submitted by psYchotic
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
 A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry. Entitled "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe. Source: Ars Technica Full story
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Submitted by actz
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
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 All AMD fans got a huge present today, as AMD announced across the board price drops for their dual-core X2 line, as well as a few single core price drops as well. Some of the price drops are massive, over 35%. The X2 5600+, for instance, went from a PIB price of $505 down to $326, which is around what the 3800+ cost just a year ago. For those looking to build a machine on a budget, the lower end of the X2 line has been brought down as well, with the newly introduced 3600+ and the infamous 3800+ coming in at $102 and $113, respectively.
The price drops probably have a lot to do with AMD getting ready to move more of their CPUs over to 65nm and to help further phase out socket 939 in favor of AM2.
Source: Tech Spot
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Submitted by actz
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Wednesday, 14 February 2007 |
 A ruling against Google in a copyright case in Belgium may influence courts in other European countries, but not the United States where laws are more permissible, copyright lawyers said Tuesday. A Belgian court on Tuesday ordered the search giant to refrain from showing excerpts of articles from French- and German-language Belgian newspapers on Google News and Google's Web search site for Belgium, reaffirming an earlier ruling by the same court against the company. However, in a nod to Google, the court reduced the daily fine Google faces if it fails to heed the order, from $1.3 million to $32,500. Source: ZDnet
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Submitted by actz
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Friday, 09 February 2007 |
 The RIAA has seized on the weakest part of Steve Jobs' anti-DRM manifesto by banging on Apple to license its FairPlay technology to other companies. "Apple's offer to license FairPlay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels," the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) said. "There have been many services seeking a licence to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time." This statement from the music labels' trade group serves as a weak, although well targeted, response to Jobs' letter issued on Tuesday. In the online letter, Jobs called for music labels to give up their crusade to lock down digital music with DRM technology. By opening up the tunes, the labels could benefit from a more vibrant and competitive device and music service market, Jobs argued. Source: The Register
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Submitted by psYchotic
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Wednesday, 07 February 2007 |
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Despite all the talk surrounding its security and beefed up anti-piracy measures we all knew that it wouldn't take long for hackers to take a stab at Vista's activation scheme. Cracked copies of Windows Vista started flooding the internet soon after the operating system was released to manufacturing and ahead of its official release. Source: DailyTech Full story
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Submitted by psYchotic
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Wednesday, 07 February 2007 |
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 The man responsible for unleashing what is believed to be the first self-propagating cross-site scripting worm has pleaded guilty in Los Angeles Superior Court to charges stemming from his most infamous hacking.
Samy Kamkar, who was 19 when he unleashed the attack on MySpace.com in October 2005, was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to perform 90 days of community service, according to a MySpace statement released Wednesday. Source: SC Magazine Full story
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Submitted by actz
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Tuesday, 06 February 2007 |
 It was always an unfriendly sort of rivalry, but lately the claws have come out and it has become even harder to imagine a happy ending. Only a week after the launch of Microsoft’s new computer operating system Windows Vista, the company’s long-term rival Apple has claimed that the software is incompatible with its own music download service iTunes. Vista was introduced with great fanfare last Tuesday. Bill Gates, the head of Microsoft, described it as the most expensive piece of software ever developed and said that it would usher in a new era of “connectivity” in home computing. Source: Times Online
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Home 
After all the speculation comes the real thing... Very soon, PS3 owners will be able to download Sony music and TV shows on their consoles. 
M$ Agent #2