Recent Posts
Good thing I didn't get my hopes up...Well really this is even better news.; more punishment for IE users!!!-icekin (October 24, 2008, 10:37 PM)
| Hi all. Not much in the way of meta-news this week (haha, I'm hilarious), and not a whole lot in the way of real news, sorry guys  Oh, and I've fixed my macros to operate entirely on the new layout, so......yay for me? No Word Man, there is no CISCO news OK?  As usual, you can find last week's news here. |
The grammatically challenged felines known as LOLcats are clawing their way off computer screens and into the mainstream art world.
Works by nearly 30 artists influenced by the pidgin-speaking-cat meme will be auctioned off Thursday during a sold-out art show in San Francisco -- with proceeds going to benefit an adult-literacy program.
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.
We always knew those electromagnetic emanations would amount to no good, and now here they go ruining any shred of privacy we once thought to possess. Some folks from the Security and Cryptography Lab at Switzerland's EPFL have managed to eavesdrop on the electromagnetic radiation shot off by shoddy wired keyboards with every keystroke. They've found four different ways to listen in, including one previously-published general vulnerability, on eleven keyboard models ranging from 2001 to 2008, with PS/2, USB and laptop keyboards all falling to at least one of the four attacks. The attack works through walls, as far as 65 feet away, and analyzes a wide swath of electromagnetic spectrum to get its results. With wireless keyboards already feeling the sting of hackers, it's probably fair to say that no one is safe, and that cave bunkers far, far away from civilization are pretty much our only hope now. Videos of the attacks are after the break.
Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update to address a critical flaw that could allow a remote attacker to take over Windows computers without any user interaction.
"This security update resolves a vulnerability in the Server service that affects all currently supported versions of Windows," said Christopher Budd, a MSRC security program manager, in a blog post. "Windows XP and older versions are rated as 'Critical' while Windows Vista and newer versions are rated as 'Important.' Because the vulnerability is potentially wormable on those older versions of Windows, we're encouraging customers to test and deploy the update as soon as possible."
I've seen lots of people recently saying that Firefox's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine blows Google's V8 out of the water...but was a little skeptical so I decided to do some benchmarks of my own. Now with any benchmark, everything here needs to be taken with a grain of salt as performance will certainly vary upon which sites you are viewing. For this test I have used WebKit's SunSpider. Also, since Chrome and Safari do not have native ports available on Linux right now, I had to do the test under Windows XP. The test machine is dual-core so multi-process/threaded apps should show a benefit, but I feel it's totally fair as single-core machines are quickly going the way of the dinosaur and do not accurately represent the future, which is what we're talking about here. Also as Chrome does not have a stable/final release yet, I've compared with many other browsers' development builds.
Silverlight 2 is a cross-platform browser plugin that enables rich media experiences and .NET RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) within the browser.
Silverlight 2 is small in size (4.6MB) and takes only 4-10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn't already have it. It does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer to run - the Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to play video or run applications.
Last year one of the more troubling provisions of the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) finally came into effect. This piece of legislation made it a criminal offense to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data residing within the UK if demanded by authorities as part of a criminal investigation. The penalty for failure to decrypt is up to two years imprisonment for "normal" crime, and up to five years for "terrorism."
As two men accused of "terrorism" discovered last week, the long-standing right to silence does not trump the RIPA powers. The UK's Court of Appeal judged last week that the pair, named only as "S" and "A," could not depend on their right of silence to refuse to provide decryption keys. In the decision, the Court stated that although there was a right to not self-incriminate, this was not absolute, and that the "public interest" can supersede this right in some circumstances.
Australia's plan to subject every Internet user in the country to mandatory content filtering just keeps getting stranger. Although the current government says it simply inherited the program from its predecessor and that the filtering will be voluntary, it seems intent on continuing the rollout plans even as it has become apparent that some level of filtering will be mandatory. Now, an Australian newspaper has uncovered documents showing that the government minister responsible for the program has ignored performance and accuracy problems with the filters, then tried to suppress criticism of the plan by private citizens.
The filtering plan as it now appears consists of two tiers. One would apply to all Australian Internet access and would block access to content deemed illegal (though how that term will be defined hasn't yet been disclosed). A second tier would be switched on by default, but users would be allowed to opt-out; this tier would target content inappropriate for children.
Less than a year after announcing Android, the open-source phone operating system intended to jump-start the mobile Internet, Google began sharing the project's underlying source code.
The Android Open Source Project site includes a project list, a feature description, guides to the roles people can have in the project and how to contribute, and of course the Android source code itself.
As we mentioned Tuesday, the first beta release of the new Firefox 3.1 browser has arrived. Firefox 3.1, which will land in final form near the beginning of 2009, promises speed improvements, a more refined search bar and support for new and emerging web standards. The browser will also contain a slew of small features that didn’t make the cut in Firefox 3.0.
While not all of the improvements are in beta 1, there’s enough to whet your appetite for the final release.
The PDC08 (Professional Developer Conference) will start in six days from now and will be packed with Windows 7 related sessions that promise to provide news about the upcoming Microsoft operating system. Not anyone can attend the conference which is held in the Los Angeles Conference Center from October 26 kicking off with a pre-conference session on that day. The registration fee for the full event is $2395 USD which might be a bit much for someone who just wants to find out more about the upcoming Microsoft operating system.
Channel9 announced recently that they will post recordings of all PDC08 sessions on their website for everyone to view. Each session should not take more than 24 hours after taking place to find its way on the Channel 9 homepage which is an excellent opportunity for anyone not attending to view the sessions and discover all the exciting news about Windows 7. The PDC08 is not only about Windows 7 and there surely will be some other interesting sessions that might be interesting to users. This is also an excellent way of watching a session that you missed while attending another session at the PDC08 in case you are one of the attendees.
| Hi all. Not much in the way of meta-news this week (haha, I'm hilarious), and not a whole lot in the way of real news, sorry guys Oh, and I've fixed my macros to operate entirely on the new layout, so......yay for me? No Word Man, there is no CISCO news OK? As usual, you can find last week's news here. |
The grammatically challenged felines known as LOLcats are clawing their way off computer screens and into the mainstream art world.
Works by nearly 30 artists influenced by the pidgin-speaking-cat meme will be auctioned off Thursday during a sold-out art show in San Francisco -- with proceeds going to benefit an adult-literacy program.
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.
We always knew those electromagnetic emanations would amount to no good, and now here they go ruining any shred of privacy we once thought to possess. Some folks from the Security and Cryptography Lab at Switzerland's EPFL have managed to eavesdrop on the electromagnetic radiation shot off by shoddy wired keyboards with every keystroke. They've found four different ways to listen in, including one previously-published general vulnerability, on eleven keyboard models ranging from 2001 to 2008, with PS/2, USB and laptop keyboards all falling to at least one of the four attacks. The attack works through walls, as far as 65 feet away, and analyzes a wide swath of electromagnetic spectrum to get its results. With wireless keyboards already feeling the sting of hackers, it's probably fair to say that no one is safe, and that cave bunkers far, far away from civilization are pretty much our only hope now. Videos of the attacks are after the break.
Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update to address a critical flaw that could allow a remote attacker to take over Windows computers without any user interaction.
"This security update resolves a vulnerability in the Server service that affects all currently supported versions of Windows," said Christopher Budd, a MSRC security program manager, in a blog post. "Windows XP and older versions are rated as 'Critical' while Windows Vista and newer versions are rated as 'Important.' Because the vulnerability is potentially wormable on those older versions of Windows, we're encouraging customers to test and deploy the update as soon as possible."
I've seen lots of people recently saying that Firefox's TraceMonkey JavaScript engine blows Google's V8 out of the water...but was a little skeptical so I decided to do some benchmarks of my own. Now with any benchmark, everything here needs to be taken with a grain of salt as performance will certainly vary upon which sites you are viewing. For this test I have used WebKit's SunSpider. Also, since Chrome and Safari do not have native ports available on Linux right now, I had to do the test under Windows XP. The test machine is dual-core so multi-process/threaded apps should show a benefit, but I feel it's totally fair as single-core machines are quickly going the way of the dinosaur and do not accurately represent the future, which is what we're talking about here. Also as Chrome does not have a stable/final release yet, I've compared with many other browsers' development builds.
Silverlight 2 is a cross-platform browser plugin that enables rich media experiences and .NET RIAs (Rich Internet Applications) within the browser.
Silverlight 2 is small in size (4.6MB) and takes only 4-10 seconds to install on a machine that doesn't already have it. It does not require the .NET Framework to be installed on a computer to run - the Silverlight setup download includes everything necessary to play video or run applications.
Last year one of the more troubling provisions of the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) finally came into effect. This piece of legislation made it a criminal offense to refuse to decrypt almost any encrypted data residing within the UK if demanded by authorities as part of a criminal investigation. The penalty for failure to decrypt is up to two years imprisonment for "normal" crime, and up to five years for "terrorism."
As two men accused of "terrorism" discovered last week, the long-standing right to silence does not trump the RIPA powers. The UK's Court of Appeal judged last week that the pair, named only as "S" and "A," could not depend on their right of silence to refuse to provide decryption keys. In the decision, the Court stated that although there was a right to not self-incriminate, this was not absolute, and that the "public interest" can supersede this right in some circumstances.
Australia's plan to subject every Internet user in the country to mandatory content filtering just keeps getting stranger. Although the current government says it simply inherited the program from its predecessor and that the filtering will be voluntary, it seems intent on continuing the rollout plans even as it has become apparent that some level of filtering will be mandatory. Now, an Australian newspaper has uncovered documents showing that the government minister responsible for the program has ignored performance and accuracy problems with the filters, then tried to suppress criticism of the plan by private citizens.
The filtering plan as it now appears consists of two tiers. One would apply to all Australian Internet access and would block access to content deemed illegal (though how that term will be defined hasn't yet been disclosed). A second tier would be switched on by default, but users would be allowed to opt-out; this tier would target content inappropriate for children.
Less than a year after announcing Android, the open-source phone operating system intended to jump-start the mobile Internet, Google began sharing the project's underlying source code.
The Android Open Source Project site includes a project list, a feature description, guides to the roles people can have in the project and how to contribute, and of course the Android source code itself.
As we mentioned Tuesday, the first beta release of the new Firefox 3.1 browser has arrived. Firefox 3.1, which will land in final form near the beginning of 2009, promises speed improvements, a more refined search bar and support for new and emerging web standards. The browser will also contain a slew of small features that didn’t make the cut in Firefox 3.0.
While not all of the improvements are in beta 1, there’s enough to whet your appetite for the final release.
The PDC08 (Professional Developer Conference) will start in six days from now and will be packed with Windows 7 related sessions that promise to provide news about the upcoming Microsoft operating system. Not anyone can attend the conference which is held in the Los Angeles Conference Center from October 26 kicking off with a pre-conference session on that day. The registration fee for the full event is $2395 USD which might be a bit much for someone who just wants to find out more about the upcoming Microsoft operating system.
Channel9 announced recently that they will post recordings of all PDC08 sessions on their website for everyone to view. Each session should not take more than 24 hours after taking place to find its way on the Channel 9 homepage which is an excellent opportunity for anyone not attending to view the sessions and discover all the exciting news about Windows 7. The PDC08 is not only about Windows 7 and there surely will be some other interesting sessions that might be interesting to users. This is also an excellent way of watching a session that you missed while attending another session at the PDC08 in case you are one of the attendees.
), made mention of FARR in their October issue. Take a look below. Unfortunately it's only a passing reference, though perhaps one day I'll be editor and we can be blazoned across the front page 
Congratulations Mouse Man 
I had no problem forming the habit...I must say, now I'm kinda glad I never fell into the habbit
In fact it's so bad that now I have installed and am really liking the Tab on Right extension, but I still hit the new tab button at least 3 out of 5 times-Edvard (October 20, 2008, 06:15 PM)
Thanks for the nice summary.My pleasure as always Mouse Man-mouser (October 21, 2008, 03:32 AM)
It may *work*, but it's a complete nightmare to parse.In all cases, data transferred between files and your programs is represented as Python strings within scripts, even if it is binary data. This works because Python string objects can always contain character bytes of any value-CWuestefeld (October 20, 2008, 08:04 AM)
Where the bloody hell are we?ROFL!! I didn't get it until I remembered you are Australian, hehe.
Inside joke-Fred Nerd (October 19, 2008, 04:28 AM)
As far as buttons go, the new one is a bit of a joke...The too-little-too-late new tab button. Really, if we wanted to go all the way to the right hand corner to open a new tab we'd just double click that micro-thin layer of blank tab bar above all our open tabsCtrl-T works great.. All hail
Tab Mix Plus.
-Ehtyar (October 18, 2008, 05:42 PM)-Deozaan (October 18, 2008, 05:51 PM)
.. All hail Tab Mix Plus.
.
.Also, I have a question: what's the ordering? Is it ordered by time or relevance? Not that it matters, I'm just curiousI'm afraid at the moment there is no ordering at all. I add them as I come across them. There will be sporadic chronological ordering where I have more than one article from the same website (which often happens with wired.com and theregister.co.uk).-jgpaiva (October 18, 2008, 11:22 AM)
Also, thank you for the info on botnets (8 and 9), I didn't even know there were names for specific botnetsIn actual fact, the botnets are simply named after the trojan that creates them. Some of the larger ones like Kraken also have several aliases.-jgpaiva (October 18, 2008, 11:22 AM)
Have you considered collapsible sections (spoiler tags) for each item? That would serve as a TOC and do away with a lot of scrolling.That's an interesting idea. I'd probably prefer a proper TOC myself, but what does everyone else think? If there's call for it, I'll try it that way next week.-nosh (October 18, 2008, 04:41 AM)
