March 2009
22 posts
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Canadians find vast computer spy network →
Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers and stole documents from government and private offices around the world, including those of the Dalai Lama, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
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Week in gaming:... →
As might be expected, GDC dominated the gaming news this week. Here’s a rundown of the most important gaming stories from the past week.
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BIOS-level rootkit attack scary, but hard to pull... →
For the security-conscious, the idea that malware, viruses, and Trojans could be lurking around every digital corner is frightening enough. Now, a duo of Argentinian researchers has demonstrated how code can be embedded and flashed into a system’s BIOS. We’ve been down this road before, but it’s definitely much harder to detect and root out such attacks.
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Botnet based on home network routers →
DroneBL a distributed DNS Blacklist service, says in a recent blog post that a botnet named Psybot gained control of approximately one hundred thousand routers and that it became a victim of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that was carried out by this botnet.
A botnet consisting primarily of routers is actually rather unusual. Usually Windows PCs are enslaved to act like zombies in...
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WatchThe Website Is Down: Excel Hell
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WatchLittle Red Riding Hood - 2009
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The Big Takeover →
The global economic crisis isn’t about money - it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution.
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The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security →
There’s lots of innovation going on in security - we’re inundated with a steady stream of new stuff and it all sounds like it works just great. Every couple of months I’m invited to a new computer security conference, or I’m asked to write a foreword for a new computer security book. And, thanks to the fact that it’s a topic of public concern and a “safe...
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Particle Oddball Surprises Physicists →
Scientists of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced that they have found evidence of an unexpected particle whose curious characteristics may reveal new ways that quarks can combine to form matter.
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Are You Left-Brained or Right? →
Do you see the girl spinning clockwise? Then you’re using your right brain.
Do you see her spin counter- clockwise? You’re likely using your left brain.
Some people have the ability to see both. (If you read this post in a feed reader, it probably won’t work, please click through for the test.)
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Was Einstein Wrong?: A Quantum Threat to Special... →
Our intuition, going back forever, is that to move, say, a rock, one has to touch that rock, or touch a stick that touches the rock, or give an order that travels via vibrations through the air to the ear of a man with a stick that can then push the rock—or some such sequence. This intuition, more generally, is that things can only directly affect other things that are right next to them. If A...
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Google Voice May Threaten Other Phone Services →
SAN FRANCISCO — Google stepped up its attack on the telecommunications industry on Thursday with a free service called Google Voice that, if successful, could chip away at the revenue of companies big and small, like eBay, which owns Skype, telephone companies and a string of technology start-up firms.
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12 changes that would give US cybersecurity a much... →
Potential cyber attacks against federal and private-sector networks loom larger every day and while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has made some important efforts, it has yet to fulfill many of the myriad responsibilities placed on it by the national cybersecurity plan. Those were the main conclusions of a Government Accountability Office report out today on the status of US national...
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DHS cybersecurity head resigns, with parting shot... →
Less than a year after leaving Silicon Valley for the Beltway, tech entrepreneur Rod Beckstrom has resigned his post as the head of the National Cyber Security Center at the Department of Homeland Security. In a sharply worded letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, Beckstrom complains of inadequate funding and cites efforts by the National Security Agency to “subjugate” the NCSC to...
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Stephen Wolfram and the techno-dianetics of... →
Physics prodigy turned software entrepreneur Stephen Wolfram can fairly claim to have revolutionized the math software niche with the 1988 launch of Mathematica, and that must have given him a taste for being the guy who revolutionized something, because with his 2002 book, A New Kind of Science), he set out to revolutionize nearly every scientific discipline at one whack, from biology to...
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After 60 years Circuit City powers down →
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — What began 60 years ago as a humble television store in this sleepy Southern capital ended Sunday as Circuit City closed its doors for good — its 567 remaining U.S. stores to be left broom clean and vacant. For the last month and a half, a group of four liquidators have conducted going-out-of-business sales for what was the nation’s second-largest consumer electronics...
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Why we've reached the end of the camera megapixel... →
Akira Watanabe, manager of Olympus Imaging’s SLR planning department, has officially thrown down the gauntlet and drawn a line in the megapixel sand. “Twelve megapixels is, I think, enough for covering most applications most customers need,” he told ZDNet this week at the annual Photo Marketing Association convention. But is he right?
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Into the darkness of cyber warfare →
I have been reading extensively about whether cyber warfare exists, whether it is a defensive only engagement, and if it does exist does it actually involve combat. These questions are born upon the back of the military establishment well entrenched into the ideas of high intensity conflict. I on the other hand see much of cyber warfare not through the goggles of an army armor officer, but the mud...
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Enzyme behind cancer spread found →
Scientists say they have identified an enzyme that helps cancer spread around the body. Cancer metastasis, where the cancer spreads from its original location, is known to be responsible for 90% of cancer-related deaths.
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Opinion: Windows 7's UAC is a broken mess; mend it... →
The changes Microsoft has made to Windows 7’s UAC render it little more than a pesky annoyance. If this is the path the company wishes to go down, it should stop doing things by halves and kill it off altogether.
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Obama Stimulus Pours Millions into Cyber Security →
As his administration continues to work on an stimulus plan that can save America’s economy, Obama’s latest course of action will see millions of dollars being allocated to heighten cyber security. The move will assist government officials in preventing future attacks on the United States.
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