Today, an internet milestone is reached with the 25th anniversary of the day the first dotcom website was registered. Back in March 1985, Symbolics computers in Cambridge, Massachusetts made history with an internet address ending in dotcom. Later that year, another five companies followed suit, effectively setting the very slow trend moving. It wasn't until…
Read more
Exploiting Weakness in RSA Security Technology
Three University of Michigan computer scientists say they have found a way to exploit a weakness in RSA security technology used to protect everything from media players to smartphones and e-commerce servers. RSA authentication is susceptible, they say, to changes in the voltage supply to a private key holder. While guessing the 1,000-plus digits of…
Read more
How To of ‘Aurora’ Attack
Do you have branch offices in China? iSec has published a new report outlining the severity of the attacks on Google.cn, allegedly by the Chinese government, dubbed 'Aurora' attacks. Up to 100 companies were victims, and some are speculating that resistance to such attacks is futile. The report lays out the shape of the attacks…
Read more
NHTSA Has No Engineers to Investigate Toyota
An official from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told investigators that the agency doesn't employ any electrical engineers or software engineers, leaving them woefully unable to investigate correctly what caused the most recent Toyota recall. A modern luxury car has something close to 100 million lines of software code in it, running on 70…
Read more
Microsoft Announces New Mobile OS
Microsoft on Monday announced its next-generation mobile operating system Windows Phone 7 Series, which will bring together the Zune multimedia experience and Xbox Live gaming to mobile phones worldwide. Manufacturers have already begun building phones featuring Windows Phone 7 Series with plans for release by the 2010 holiday season, according to Microsoft. Manufacturers on board…
Read more
IBM shows US Air Force Value of Cloud Computing
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – IBM said Thursday it has been enlisted by the US Air Force to show how defense and intelligence networks can safely soar into the online software "cloud." "Our goal is to demonstrate how cloud computing can be a tool to enable our Air Force to manage, monitor and secure the information…
Read more
Google Investigating Employees in China
The Guardian is reporting that Google China is investigating its staff about The Incident. ""We're not commenting on rumor and speculation. This is an ongoing investigation and we simply cannot comment on the details," a Google spokeswoman said. Security analysts told Reuters the malicious software or malware used in the attack was a modification of…
Read more
Best Buy “Optimization” Harms Performance
The Consumerist deconstructs the appalling 'optimization' service that Best Buy has been pushing on consumers in recent weeks. The retailer charges 40 bucks to give you a slower PC and makes bizarre claims that it makes it go 200% faster. 'We ran the 3DMark 2003 graphics benchmark on each laptop, comparing optimized and non-optimized settings.…
Read more
Google Docs to Allow Storage of Any File Type
Google is opening up its Docs hosted office productivity suite so that users can store any type of file in it, giving the popular software-as-a-service product an important online storage component. The functionality will be rolled out over the coming weeks to all Docs users, both the ones who use the stand-alone suite as well…
Read more
MagicJack to Launch Service for Cell Phones
Ymax, the inventor of the magicJack, told attendees at the recent Consumer Electronics Show that it will develop a consumer femtocell that will allow consumers to place cell-phone calls without using their minutes. The unnamed femtocell will be priced at about $40 and be available during the second quarter, a company spokeswoman said Monday. Femtocells…
Read more