Cisco backs down on cloud control of routers

The Register reports about the uproar of Cisco's Linksys EA4500, EA3500, and EA2700 routers customers. An automated update installed new firmware so that they could be fully configured using only its Connect Cloud service rather than via local management software, excluding functions such as parental controls and USB storage. This Cloud connect thing raised some security concerns about the cloud service and others pointing out that the terms and conditions of the Connect Cloud service seemed rather broad, granting Cisco the right to monitor traffic and internet usage and share it with third-parties as it liked, as well as the right to disconnect service.

Cisco responded quite quickly they reversed the update and made it a choice for the customer to use Cloud connect or not. They will also change their terms of services: "The Cisco Connect Cloud service has never monitored customers’ internet usage, nor was it designed to do so, and we will clarify this in an update to the terms of service".

Either it was designed to do so or not we will never know but quite some large and small businesses were not pleased so it was a bad move which costs them credibility. Not good for a company which delivers routers and firewalls and other networking stuff.

Half the team at the heart of the RBS disaster WERE in India

Outsourcing has its own limits as reported by
The Register. Mishandling of batch schedule data while backing out of an update to CA-7 batch processing software last week caused the disruption that led to 16.9 million customers at RBS, Natwest and Ulsterbank being frozen out of their accounts for days, and ongoing issues in some cases. The formerly 60 man team who where seated in the UK had been cut in two and replaced with workers in India in a attempt to cut costs. This did not work out very well as noted by the bank customers. The problem has not been that there are not competent people in India but to hire the right people is. Lesson learned: you certainly should reconsider before outsourcing of critical parts of your main dataprocessing.

Scientists crack RSA SecurID 800 tokens

Ars Technica reports about scientists cracking the RSA SecurID 800 token in under 15 minutes. After the notion that internet, intranet and networking in general can not be secured completely by any means now we know that securitytokens are not safe either. Of course there several classes of security devices but more then one layer security is for sure something you should consider.

Office printers spew reams of garbage as 2-year-old Trojan runs wild

The Register reports about the unplanned side effect of malware Milicenso Trojan which make printers spewing reams of garbage. Of course this is not intended by the malware maker but a side effect of using the Windows printerspooler as a attack vector. Next time you get garbage documents by your manager you now know it is caused by malware but probably not at his computer.

3.3″ HDMI-dongle Android Pocket TV funded within 1 week on Kickstarter

Ars Technica has a report about yet another small ARM-computer. This time it is a HDMI-dongle sized Pocket TV with Android 4 as OS. Quite impressive specs for such a small form factor: 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 CPU, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of internal storage, built-in microSD slot, a USB 2.0 port, and WiFi. Earlier this year the FXI Cotton Candy has been announced which is sligthly more expensive: $199 against $160 but has more RAM and a somewhat faster CPU.

With a lot of this small sized gadgets the number of ARM based computing devices are growing at a rapid pace. This partly explains the big dollars Intel is spending to create a serious competitor for ARM chips. It is quite ironic they already did have Xscale ARM processors but saled it a few years ago as "not interesting for making profits".

Intel partners prep 20 Clover Trail Windows 8 tablets

The Register reports about the Computex trade show in Taipei. Intel keynote revealed the plans of delivering 20 new tablets for Windows 8 by partners based on the next generation powerfriendly Atom. Main advantage for users seems to be the ability to run apps on native X86 hardware in contrast to Window RT on ARM-processors. Big question is do users want those native apps? Apple and Android seems to prove they do not.

Magnetic medicines hit the cancerous spot

Not ICT related but a very interesting piece at The Register about drug delivery using gold-coated iron oxide nanoparticles for enhanced tumour targeting with external magnetic fields. By guiding these particles to a tumour with external magnetic fields they reduce the sideeffects to other bodyparts. A other mechanism that could be used is placing a magnetic core into a tumour to pull the magnetic medicines to the cancerous spot. Of course preventing cancer remains the best remedy but a better cure is still very welcome because the still expected rise of cancer patients in the near future.

Meet 'Flame', The Massive Spy Malware Infiltrating Iranian Computers

Wired reports about another advanced massive spy malware attack 'Flame(r)' mainly spreaded in the Middle East with Iran as the main target. The malware has been detected by Kaspersky and filed under the name Flame and by Symantec filed under the name Flamer. The fully build up malware with all modules installed consists of 20 Mb code and looklikes to be part of a forth going cyberwar initiative. It again raises some concerns about internet safety because the malware is capable of infecting a fully patched Windows 7 PC probably using a zeroday vulnerability.

The internet never has been a safe place before and it yet had become more unsafe now.

Van Jacobson Denies Averting Internet Meltdown in 1980s

Wired.com reports about Van Jacobson who recently earned a spot in the inaugural class of the Internet Society’s (ISOC) Internet Hall of Fame, alongside such as names as Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker, and Tim Berners-Lee.
Back in 1985 Van Jacobson managed to speed up the TCP/IP protocol by implementing Slowstart. Which makes the protocol a lot more efficient then it was those days. He himself denies that he averted a Internet meltdown then because the protocol did work at that time albeit much slower.

Return of the Vacuum Tube

ScienceNOW reports about the return of the vacuum tube. Known of the sixties before the birth of the transistor tubes were used in almost everything needing electrical amplifying. The new generation vacuum tubes will be nano sized and function in the Teraherz range. Two most important features of the nano vacum tubes are their speed and their insensitivity for radiation which are very welcome in space and military equipment.

Review of Raspberry Pi

The Register reviews the RaspberryPi and they are thrilled about it. But their comment that the original goal only will be reached with good programming samples and other educational materials is a good one. Hopefully the foundation will be able to manage that by this Autumn!

ARM arrives on servers with Calxeda's Ubuntu demo

ZDNet UK has a report from Ubuntu Developer and Cloud Summit in Oakland, California where ARM server maker Calxeda showed off their EnergyCard prototype in a 2U chassis that supports up to 48 quad-core nodes at under 300 watts. As should be at an Ubuntu event this server was running Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS but Calxeda is expecting Redhat, CentOS and other distro's will follow soon.

A common criticism levelled at proponents of ARM-based servers is that x86 applications need to be rewritten for the RISC architecture, but Calxeda says this is not the case for the majority of web applications. "The development toolset for ARM is already robust, thanks to the embedded and mobile markets, Most apps can be developed on one [processor architecture] and will run on the other without change, if you are talking about most web app infrastructure (Java, PHP, Python, etc)."

So whereas AMD failed in the serverbusiness we at least have a real competitor for Intel now.

Feds Seized Hip-Hop Site for a Year, Waiting for Proof of Infringement

Wired.com shows what happens if you give **IAA too much priviliges. After more then a year seizure by ICE the site Dajaz1 has been given back to the rightfull owners. It took that long before RIAA had to admit that they did not have any evidence of copyright infringement against Dajaz1. In the mean time everything around this case had been sealed so even the accused site-owner and his laywer could not take notice of the accusations. These same **IAA where pushing for PIPA SOPA and ACTA and they will continue to do so. Hopefully this report helps to enforce net neutrality against these assholes.

Redmond man unmasked: UK.gov open standards stalled

Some things never change! The Register reports the UK government has had to delay closure of talks on open standards in public sector IT following what it called a "conflict of interest" involving a Microsoft consultant. It is Microsoft trying to influence decisions about open standards like they did with the OOXML standard. Open standards are of course not Microsofts interests because it gives everybody else the opportunity to make a alternative Office package with 100% compatibility.

Hackers now pick tools from script kiddies' toybox – report

The Register reports from Infosec 2012. Research show that hacking tools formerly used by scriptkiddies only are now used by experienced hackers too. Main reason seems to be that quality of those tools have become really good (enough) now. Disturbing point in this news is that automated defenses against this tools are not there yet or are not used to their full capacity.

Flashback infections not waning after all; 650,000 Macs still hijacked

Ars Technica reports that numbers of Flashback infected Macs are still above the 600,000. Citing Kasperski Labs which explains why numbers earlier this week by other anti-virus firms were wrong. A large number of the infected machines are not able to reach their C&C servers but they are still infected. Of course fanbois blame everybody but Apple. Which will not help to raise the notion that looking at the rising number of Apple Macs they have become an attractive target for crooks and criminals.

When the cops subpoena your Facebook information, here's what Facebook sends the cops

The Phoenix Boston blog does give a interesting insigth of what information Facebook stores and make available to the cops when asked. Besides the obvious account information as date of birth, address etc. they also give a list of friends, used ip-addresses, logs etc. The information in the Phoenix files goes back to 2009 and at that date they apparently already stored tagged photos on other accounts which identifies the suspect in this case. If you ever wondered what privacy remains on Facebook the answer is nothing you, your family your friends or foes ever posted on Facebook.
It also reminds me why I do not have a Facebook account.

550,000-strong army of Mac zombies spreads across world

The Register reports about a special created Mac trojan botnet. Although not infected at large as Windows computers Apple is apparently reaching a critical mass which appears to be attractive to malware writers. Apple has not been very fast with closing the critical bug in Java which made this exploit possible and they should learn a few things by now.

Rapidshare is legal, finds German court

Techworld.com reports about a decision of a German court that Rapidshare has a legal businessmodel and does not have to scan the files during the upload process. They are ruled actively monitor incoming links from external sites to the files it hosts and take down any illegal files thus identified. That 's a existing policy of Rapidshare but has been voluntarily so far. Rapidshare will appeal because they think it's wrong to turn hosters into policemen through the means of laws and court rulings. To be continued!

Microsoft SQL Server medusa turned into cloud pussy cat

The Register reports about startup DH2i's DxConsole which virtualises the MS SQL Server database's processes.
Clients using the virtualised SQL Server instances think they are accessing their own private copy of the software but they are not; they are using a shared infrastructure of databases, servers and storage, with the DxConsole product keeping track of which client is doing what and turning Microsoft's sequel serpent into a private cloud utility.

It looks like that after server virtualisation, app virtualisation is the next big thing.

A cloaking device from off-the-shelf superconductors and magnetic tape

Ars Technica reports about a "cloaking" technique under relatively simple laboratory conditions. As stated the real achievement of the experiment is: producing magnetic masking with relatively inexpensive components, as opposed to previous cloaks that require exotic materials and often much colder temperatures.
It is not ductape with some icecream yet but it is a real step forward.

Sen. Wyden demands vote on American copyright, patent treaties

Ars Technica reports about two amendments of Senator Wyden one which will force ACTA to come before Congress for approval. And two will make the US Trade Representative, which negotiates US trade deals, drop the veil of secrecy around its copyright and patent negotiations. Of course they have not been voted but the fact that they exist give hope that the big media have not won yet. They do have deep pockets though so the battle is not over.

Fujitsu's supercomputing MONSTER thrashes Top 500 rivals

The Register reports about the fastest numbercruncher today: Fujitsu's K computer with its confirmed 1st place as emperor of the Top 500 supercomputer list with a ball-breaking 10.51 petaflops. The second system is a 2.566 Pflop Tianhe-1A supercomputer at the Chinese National Supercomputing Centre in Tianjin, made by NUDT. Third is a Cray Jaguar at the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, rated at 1.759 PfLops.

The numbers involved are bizarrely large. The K computer has 17.6PB of storage, mostly Fujitsu Eternus arrays. There are 864 racks, housing 88,128 SPARC64 VIIIfx processors: each one a node in the system. Each processor has 8 cores, running at 12Gflops and 2GHz, connected by a Tofu 6D mesh torus interconnect that can support more than 100,000 nodes. That means a grand total of 705,024 cores. This baby is a monster!

Anonymous, Decentralized and Uncensored File-Sharing is Booming

The arms race between media corporations and filesharers continues. According to TorrentFreak the next generation filesharing is here and it is anonymous, decentralised and uncensored. Retroshare is such a program although it exists since 2006. After the loss of fileshare host Megaupload and the proposed SOPA legislation, downloads of the program are booming. It will take some time before becoming as easy and usefull as torrentclients and magnetlinks but it will. Of course the large media corporations will ask for more and especially more ugly legislation then SOPA was but they can not win and they should know that.

IBM touts quantum computing breakthrough

Computerworld has the story that IBM reached another breakthrough in quantum computing. The breakthrough allowed scientists to reduce data error rates in elementary computations while maintaining the integrity of quantum mechanical properties in quantum bits of data, known as qubits. It will probably take another 15 years before the first real quantum computers are build but they are at least not only theoretical possible anymore.

Child abuse suspect won't be forced to decrypt hard drive

The Register reports an important ruling in a case about encrypted harddrives. The ruling by the Atlanta-based US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of an unnamed suspect from Florida goes against US legal thinking in previous cases where courts held a person ought to be obliged to turn over encryption codes or passwords in a criminal investigation. The ruling probably will hold to the Supreme Court but do not expect to end it there. In name of "think of the children" we are likely to see a prohibition of encrypting harddrives for personal use in the near future in the US.

Global DNS takedown plotters disowned by Anonymous

The hard part of being anonymous is to be recognised when someone anonymous pretends to be you. The Register reports that the most likely trustworthy source of Anonymous denies any involvement with a announced attack against the DNS rootservers on 31st March. The twittersource suspects fear-mongering from NSA or likewise organisation to gain support for the 2012 cyber-security bill in the Senate. The sad part is that it is a very likely possibility. Most people writing new legislation do think they do not have to obey those same rules themselves.

Squirrelled away: seeds survive 30,000-year winter

The Register has a remarkable report about 30,000 years old seeds which has used to grown viable plants from them. Not technology related indeed but interesting questions about the origin of permafrost. The possibility of more seeds or other old DNA present in the permafrost raises more and more questions.

Slow smartphone? It's not the network, it's NAND flash

Computerworld reports some interesting research. While users and experts typically point to processor chips and wireless network connectivity as the culprit of poor smartphone performance, storage is more of an issue, according to researchers from Georgia Institute of Technology and NEC Corp. This researchers are of course not neutral because they want to promote phase-change random access memory (PRAM) as some form of caching for writing NAND flash. But even keeping that in mind the speed differences between the tested embedded flash memory cards are really remarkable.

'Predictably random' public keys can be cracked - crypto boffins

The Register reports about public keys who can be cracked because poor random-number generation algorithms led to shared prime factors in key generation. The SSL protocol itself is not the problem but the bad choice of random numbers which appear not be that random at all. Two per thousand keys are affected which is a lot observering the growing number of keys used today. Vendors have been warned but how many will take action for existing customer installations? Undoubtly to be continued!

SOPA is dead. Are you happy now?

The Register has a thougthfull article about SOPA and PIPA. Both are bad regislation but the interests of intellectual properties will not go away. So tech corps will have to come to some common ground for what is acceptable IP protection and what not.

UK student faces extradition to US after piracy case ruling

The Register reports as one of the many about the extradition request upon a UK student. Some judge allows it and of course there are some ways to appeal but it is really incredible that some copyright infringement fits as basis for criminal charges. The authorities in the UK dropped charges by lack of criminal acts but it will not stop the media corporations behind the US government to procede. Maybe it is time to boycot all US entertainment and media corporations for the bigger part they produce crap anyway.

Will Medfield be the chip Intel needs to take on ARM?

Ars Technica has a first view on the new Intel Medfield processor designed to compete with ARM processors in mobile phone business. And it looks like they are on their way into that market and it will become better when they are at the 14 nm processing stage. Big question is who wants Intel as the main supplier were you can have ARM as a mere chip designer and create your own SoC?