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801

Living Room / News Article: Google Unveils The G1

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 07:23 PM »

Google has unveiled their much awaited G1 iPhone competitor.

The long-awaited, breathlessly-rumored, Google-powered (and still unavailable until next month) G1 phone was unveiled today with a list price that undercuts Apple's iPhone by $20 but with few design or software elements that had not been anticipated.

The handset is made by HTC and the service is provided by T-Mobile -- but the buzz is all about the completely open source Android platform developed by Google, which allows third-party developers to create applications.

Full Story

Ehtyar.

802

Living Room / News Article: Aussie Speed Cameras To Become Surveillance Devices

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 07:20 PM »

As if speed cameras in this country weren't already a spectacular indicator of our government's disregard for the rights of its citizens, the state and federal government want all fixed a mobile speed cameras to take photos of all passing vehicles clear enough for positive ID of the occupants. Can anyone say "surveillance society"?

State and federal police forces want full-frontal images of vehicles, including the driver and front passenger, that are clear enough for identification purposes and usable as evidence in court.

"All vehicles passing through a fixed or mobile ANPR camera will have the data recorded and available for interrogation," CrimTrac told the Queensland TravelSafe inquiry into the use of ANPR for road safety.

Full Story

Ehtyar.

803

Living Room / News Article: Firefox Update Fixes Several Flaws

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 07:12 PM »

Firefox 2.0.017 and 3.0.2 have been released, which fixes several bugs and security vulnerabilities.

Mozilla released Firefox 2.0.017 and Firefox 3.0.2, updated versions of its browser, on Wednesday to address a dozen security vulnerabilities. Four are ranked by Mozilla as critical, one high, two moderate, and the rest of the patches are considered low priority. About half do not apply to Firefox 3.

The updates are pushed automatically to current users and will take effect the next time the browser is restarted. Current users of Firefox 2 are encouraged to upgrade by manually downloading Firefox 3 as soon as possible.

Full Story

Ehtyar.

804

Living Room / News Article: HP and Symantec Develop Sandboxed Firefox

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 07:08 PM »

HP and Symantec have joined forces to develop/release a sandboxed Firefox on HPs new HP Compaq dc7900 enterprise desktop.

Today, the hardware maker unleashed the HP Compaq dc7900, a business desktop with a version of Firefox that isn't really there. Developed in tandem with Symantec, the Firefox for HP Virtual Solutions browser operates in a runtime netherworld that's separate from the rest of the machine.

This means that when malware attacks, the machine itself is unharmed. "[This virtual Firefox browser] ensures that employees can utilize the World Wide Web productively, while keeping business PCs stable and easier to support," writes Symantec technical product manager Scott Jones. "Changes made to a PC while surfing the Web are contained in a 'virtual layer' and do not permanently alter the machine."

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Ehtyar.

805

Living Room / Introduction To Public Key Cryptography

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 07:03 PM »

A nice introduction to public key cryptography, focusing on RSA.

Cryptography, the art of concealing the meaning of messages, has been practiced for at least 3000 years. In the past few centuries, it has become an indispensable tool in the military affairs, diplomacy, and commerce of most major nations. During that time there have been many innovations, and cryptography has changed and grown to accommodate the increasingly complex needs of its users. Present techniques are very sophisticated and provide excellent message protection. Current developments in computer technology and information theory, however, are on the verge of revolutionizing cryptography. New kinds of cryptographic systems are emerging that have incredible properties, which appear to eliminate completely some problems that have plagued cryptography users for centuries. One of these new systems is public key cryptography.

In public key systems, as in most forms of cryptography, a piece of information called a key is used to transform a message into cryptic form. In conventional cryptography this key must be kept secret, for it can also be used to decrypt the message. In public key cryptography, however, a message remains secure even if its encryption key is publicly revealed. This unique feature gives public key systems great advantages over conventional systems.

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Ehtyar.

806

Living Room / Blog Post: India Uses Brain Scans To Confirm Guilt In Court

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 06:59 PM »

Inidia is now using EEGs to determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant in court.

This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals’ defenses begins with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence, eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime — as prosecutors see it — and the resulting brain images are processed using software built in Bangalore.

The software tries to detect whether, when the crime’s details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions — the areas that, according to the technology’s inventors, show measurable changes when experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to consciousness. The inventors of the technology claim the system can distinguish between people’s memories of events they witnessed and between deeds they committed.

Full Blog
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Ehtyar.

807

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 06:31 PM »

oh
my
GOD
These are so good Deo, keep up the awesomeness 

Ehtyar.

808

Living Room / Re: Sarah Palin, Hacked!

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 24, 2008, 06:27 PM »

Seems this thread is a little behind the times, but if anyone's curious, they found the perpetrator, but he wasn't charged.

Ehtyar.

809

DC Gamer Club / Re: Who Amongst us Plays WoW?

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 23, 2008, 07:20 PM »

I played for two years but stopped and have been trying other mmorpg games since. Nothing catches me like WoW did, but I am totally bored / braindead when I've decided to go back in the past after 20 minutes. Also I really don't like the values it promotes, I can expand on some other time that if you don't mind a critical note

-justice (September 20, 2008, 03:28 AM)

I've been quite disenchanted with WoW for quite some time. I play it primarily because a good friend from overseas plays it with me. I've been complaining a lot lately about the tactics blizzard use to downgrade efficiency in the game thereby keeping you playing longer for less of a reward with next to no effort on their part. I would be interested to hear a negative take on WoW from someone else. Please do elaborate.

Ehtyar.

810

General Software Discussion / Re: The New (And Improved?) VLC

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 23, 2008, 06:42 PM »

It's good to get the opinion of someone who has actually a good portion of the new features, even if it is mostly bad news. I too agree there are some rough edges in the new interface and functionality. Hopefully there will be fixer-upper going on before the next revision.

Ehtyar.

811

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 23, 2008, 04:15 PM »

The article I referred to is about the fact that details of the vulnerability will not be released to the public at the moment.
Your article, while a very educational read, is very general in its details and is not specifically related to the "clickjacking" vulnerability specifically.
I fail to see the downside of NoScript + Firefox, it works very well for me
What would you like to discuss about the registry hacks?

Ehtyar.

812

General Software Discussion / Re: The New (And Improved?) VLC

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 23, 2008, 04:07 PM »

Also, here's a link: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

-jgpaiva (September 23, 2008, 02:46 AM)

Oops, thanks jgp.

I hope they upgrade the portable version as mine only has audio?

-CleverCat (September 23, 2008, 02:56 AM)

John Haller's portable version is unnecessary. All you need for a portable VLC is to install it from the zip file and make a batch file for it containing this:

[Select]

@start %~dp0vlc.exe --no-plugins-cache --config=%~dp0vlcrc %*

If you'd rather not see the command line window you can use vbscript or hwind

Ehtyar.

813

General Software Discussion / The New (And Improved?) VLC

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 10:35 PM »

Recently VLC was updated from 0.8.6 to 0.9.2 (0.9.0 & 0.9.1 were skipped due to blocking bugs, anyone notice a little lag? ). The new release includes the following improvements:
1. New interface based on Qt (see screenshots below).
2. Improved playlist with support for:

• Media library support
• Live search
• Shoutcast TV listings
• Audioscrobbler/last.fm
• Album art support

3. New demuxers
4. New decoders
5. New video/audio/stream output and filters
6. Improvements to the developer interface/libVLC via Google's Summer of Code.
7. A beta LUA module for providing additional functionality.
I am posting this information because after using the new version for some days, I like it much better than the earlier UI, though there are some features that tick me off, so I would like the opinion of other users on the subject.
Firstly, there's the new main window, as shown below. It has much enhanced menus (though they're not visible here) as well as better volume control and an improved controls bar. The volume control appears to ramp the volume to 200%, though playing the same video in 0.8.6 and 0.9.2 side-by-side 100% in the new player sounds exactly the same as 100% in the old player.

Then there is the new open dialog, which unfortunately IMO is quite the step backward. VLC now appears to handle indexing of files itself, which in windows causes some big issues when indexing a large directory, and the interface is not particularly intuitive. I've also found that, occasionally, trying to open something in VLC via one of the open dialogs causes a CPU spike prior to the display of the dialog itself, and the fullscreen control panel appears briefly at the bottom of the screen.

Speaking of the fullscreen UI, here it is. It has also been a much missed feature of VLC.

And just for comparison sake, here is the old UI:

I've never been a fan of VLCs skinning options, as you always seem to lose controls and menu options with the skins, indeed frequently you lose the menus altogether. I am however a fan of the new VLC as a whole, and I hope the new UI at least will encourage users to move away from behemoths like QuickTime and WMP to this free, open alternative. Please let us know your opinion.

Ehtyar.

814

General Software Discussion / Re: Reading Administrator account files from USB

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 09:15 PM »

I've had to do a similar thing myself. Follow the instructions here to take ownership of the folder.

Ehtyar.

815

Living Room / Re: News Article: Comcast Discloses Bandwidth Throttling Practices

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 03:52 PM »

Welcome to Australia fellows, throttling is standard practice here - unless you're lucky enough to choose the right ISP

-4wd (September 22, 2008, 07:25 AM)

Here it is simply because each successive government appears incapable of doing anything whatsoever about the abhorrent state of the countries' networking infrastructure, and of course the ISPs are all too happy to help out by traffic shaping and limiting monthly downloads.

Ehtyar.

816

Living Room / News Article: Comcast Discloses Bandwidth Throttling Practices

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 06:49 AM »

Comcast has finally relented and admitted that it throttled p2p traffic on its network to the Federal Communications Commission.

Comcast came clean with the Federal Communications Commission late Friday, detailing how it throttled and targeted peer-to-peer traffic -- maneuvers it has repeatedly denied.

The cable concern said it indeed hit "particular protocols that were generating disproportionate amounts of traffic." The peer-to-peer protocols, Comcast said, include Ares, BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack and Gnutella -- vehicles used to transport copyrighted material without the owners' permission.

Full Story

Ehtyar.

817

Living Room / Vuln. Alert: VMWare ESX RCE

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 06:46 AM »

VMWare has patched two buffer overflows in its ESX server software that could potentially allow remote code execution by an unauthenticated party.

VMware has fixed critical security bugs in two of its virtualization products that could allow a remote attacker to remotely install malware on a host machine.

The patches, which apply to ESXi and ESX 3.5, fix two buffer overflow bugs that reside in a component known as openwsman. It provides web services management functionality and is enabled by default. The vulnerabilities could be exploited by people without login credentials to the system.

Full Story

Ehtyar.

818

Living Room / Re: How to avoid going broke on Red Bull or Jolt Cola

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 06:00 AM »

Very good read. I look forward to trying it, thank you 

Ehtyar.

819

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 22, 2008, 12:37 AM »

Why is killing all scripts throwing the baby out with the bathwater (assuming of course the end user has the sense to enable scripting they trust)?
The article is specifically about the lack of info. regarding the exploit. It is unlikely we will get details until adobe has had their way with it.

Ehtyar.

820

Living Room / Re: Vuln. Alert: Browser 'Clickjacking'

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 21, 2008, 04:00 PM »

All about active content. If I thought the average user even knew what that term meant I'd say NoScript should be compulsory for every browser user. Alas that won't be happening, and users who continue to ignore online threats will continue to be bit by them, and I'll have news like this to report each week.

Ehtyar.

821

General Software Discussion / Re: Web Developer Tools Needed: Website Downloader and Broken Image/Link Checker

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 20, 2008, 04:19 PM »

Httrack is an excellent free website downloader. Sorry I have no suggestions on the link checker.

Ehtyar.

822

DC Gamer Club / Re: Who Amongst us Plays WoW?

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 19, 2008, 05:42 PM »

Balnazzar - PVP
affliction blood elf lock

Ehtyar.

823

Living Room / Re: Blog Post: GPS Spoofing

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 19, 2008, 04:47 PM »

Something more like a digital signature I think. DSA on the server and client side should ensure secure communication.

Ehtyar.

824

DC Gamer Club / Blog Post: Bejeweled + WoW = Entertainment While Queued

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 19, 2008, 04:30 PM »

An innovative addon developer has created bejeweled for WoW, lessening the boredom one may suffer while waiting for BGs etc.

Where will PopCap Games' megahit puzzle game Bejeweled pop up next? Would you believe ... World of Warcraft?

A version of the match-three game is set to launch next Thursday within the World of Warcraft MMO (massively multiplayer online), letting players kill time with puzzles during raids and long stints farming rare items.

Full Blog

Ehtyar.

825

Living Room / News Article: EFF Sues For Details of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

« Last post by Ehtyar on September 19, 2008, 04:27 PM »

The EFF and Public Knowlege are sueing the Federal Government for details regarding the up and coming Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge are two public interest groups leaving no stone unturned when it comes to trying to uncover details about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Details of the proposed multicountry accord are sketchy at best. Speculation is running rampant that, if ratified, the agreement might criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers' communications.

Full Story

Ehtyar.