Category Archives: Geek news

Ice Cream Sandwich Coming in October or November

Posted on by
Reply

At the Google I/O event earlier this year in San Francisco, the “search giant” Google announced that they would name the next major version of the Android mobile operating system ‘Ice Cream Sandwich,’ which developed the acronym ICS shortly after. A launch date for ICS was not discussed or announced, but it was expected to be announced or at least rementioned in the fourth quarter.

Google’s former CEO and current chairman of the board of directors, Eric Schmidt, has stated that the release of ICS is planned for October or November. This was revealed during a presentation at the Dreamforce conference, when Schmidt stated that Google is excited about the upcoming launch of ICS.

ICS is meant to be a uniformed platform for Google’s tablet and mobile platforms. Little is actually known about ICS because Google’s “open platform” is developed entirely behind closed doors without a “public roadmap.” Screenshots have been leaked last month that provided a new Honeycomb-like application launcher interface that was running on an Android phone.

Google is supposedly preparing a new “flagship smartphone,” which is rumored to be called the Nexus Prime or Nexus 4G. This is supposed to ship alongside the ICS release. This device will be considered a competitor to Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5, though many phones have tried in the past and failed to deliver.

Source: Ars Technica

WikiLeaks Has a Leak Once Again: Database Appears Online

Posted on by
Reply

WikiLeaks has once again lost control of its cache memory, which contains a quarter-million US State Department cables. This is the second time this year, and this time the leaked files are supposedly available online. These uncensored cables are contained in a 1.73GB password-protected file named cables.csv. Apparently, this file is now circulating the Internet according to Steffen Kraft, editor of the German paper Der Freitag. He announced last week this his paper had found the file and easily obtained the password in order to unlock it.

Unlike the original cables that WikiLeaks began publishing last fall, these cables are raw and unredacted, thus containing the names of informants and suspected intelligence agents that were blacked out of the official releases. Der Freitag stated that the documents include the name of suspected agents in Israel, Jordan, Iran and Afghanistan. It even mentioned that interested parties, such as the Iranian government or intelligence agencies, could have already discovered and decrypted the file in order to uncover the names of informants.

“The story is that a series of lapses as far as I can see on behalf of WikiLeaks and its affiliates has led to the possibility a file becoming generally available which it never should have been available,” confirmed former WikiLeaks staffer Herbert Snorrason, of Iceland, who left the organization as part of a staff revolt last year, and is now part of the competing site OpenLeaks.

The German newsweekly Der Spiegel confirmed the information about the exposed file and password. According to them, the cables were contained in an encrypted file that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had original stored on a subdirectory of the organization’s server last year, which was not able to be searched for on the Internet unless someone already knew the location.

Assange stated that he gave the password for the file to an “external contact” in order for them to access the file’s content. With both the file and the password now online, the leak is complete. “The issue is double: on one hand there is the availability of the encrypted file, and on the other the release of the password to the encrypted file,” Snorrason told Threat Level on Monday. “And those two publications happened separately.”

Snorrason quickly added that the password leak was done “completely inadvertently.” He also declined to identify who leaked the password, as well as the circumstances of the leak. He did, however, state that it was someone who was neither with WikiLeaks nor OpenLeaks.

Last year, former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg and another WikiLeaks staffer led a staff revolt at WikiLeaks following a rift with Assange, and finally left the organization and set up OpenLeaks.org. When they left WikiLeaks, they took the contents of the WikiLeaks server with them, which included the encrypted file. Last December, Domscheit-Berg returned most of what he had taken, including the file containing the cables.

Supporters of WikiLeaks released an archive of the data that Domscheit-Berg had returned, which he did as a public service to provide readers with access to everything WikiLeaks had previously published. Among the documents that Domscheit-Berg released was the encrypted file containing the cables. Several months later, the person to whom Assange had provided the password somehow ended up making it publicly available online. Der Spiegel did not state on why or how that person published the password, and Snorrason declined to say any more in fear of guiding people to the password.

“It’s not very obvious how the password was made available, and we’re not keen on making it any more obvious how or why it might have been published,” Snorrason said.

The encrypted file and the password went pretty much unnoticed until very recently. Der Spiegel implied that Domscheit-Berg or someone connected to his rival OpenLeaks organization was responsible for calling Der Freitag’s attention to the file and password in order to make a point that WikiLeaks is unable to properly secure the data it possesses. Domscheit-Berg did not respond to en e-mail that Ars Technica sent regarding a question from Threat Level on Monday.

WikiLeaks completely lost control of its database of cables, allowing some 130,000 to access them. Last year, as the organization and its media partners were beginning preparations to publish stories related to the cables, a WikiLeaks member gave the entire database to a freelance reporter, Heather Brooke. Brooke was not a member of the approved cabal of media outlets that had been given access to the documents. Her possessing these documents directly threatened to derail the plans that WikiLeaks and its media partners work out for publication. The Guardian newspaper in the UK made an agreement with Brooke that she wouldn’t publish any of the cables or stories related to them.

WikiLeaks responded to the leak on Twitter on Monday by writing: “There has been no ‘leak at WikiLeaks’. The issue relates to a mainstream media partner and a malicious individual.”

Source: Ars Technica

FBI Arrests Anons in US; UK Police Snatch a LulzSec Member

Posted on by
Reply

To go along with the recent news of Anon and LulzSec arrests, the FBI has made a series of raids in the United States and has arrested 16 people accused of participating in “Anonymous-branded cyberattacks.” These arrests were made in the following places: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico and Ohio. Raids and equipment seizures were also conducted in New York.

14 of those arrested have been charged with conspiring with others to damage computer systems belonging to PayPal. PayPal fell victim to a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack performed by Anonymous after the site blocked the ability to donate money to WikiLeaks, an action named “Operation Avenge Assange.” The defendants range in age from 20 to 42 years old, with 11 males and two females. The 14th defendant has had his or her name withheld.

Unrelated to these FBI raids, a 21-year-old man was arrested for breaking into the InfraGard Website, tweeting about what he did, and providing instructions so that others could do the same. Another 21-year-old man was arrested for stealing confidential information from AT&T’s systems while working as a customer support contractor. This data was published as part of LulzSec’s “retirement from the public eye.”

The Department of Justice has stated that to go along with the 14 arrests made in the United States, one arrest was made in the UK and four were made in the Netherlands. The arrest in the UK was of an unnamed 16-year-old who goes by the online name “tflow.” tflow was a prominent member of Anonymous during the DDoS and hacking operations, as well as a member of LulzSec.

LulzSec came out of “retirement” yesterday with its News International hack. But more interesting is the fact that in IRC channels, they said that they are unaffected by the arrests and raids. They have been keen to point out that Anonymous did not mask their identities with their LOIC tool for DDoS’ing. However, LulzSec masks their identities using software such as Tor and anonymous VPN connections. However, if the “tflow” in custody is actually tflow, then he would be the first member of LulzSec to be arrested. But in the bigger picture, it would mean that perhaps LulzSec wasn’t as anonymous as they thought they were. If that’s true, they will be a little bit nervous in the next few weeks.

Source: Ars Technica

UPDATE: A tweet has come in from LulzSec stating the following: “Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it’s all over now… wait… we’re all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?” In accordance, AnonSec has tweeted: “The good news everybody: Ryan has little to do with LulzSec besides running IRC. All 6 members of LulzSec are fine and safe.” If this is all true, then their stories match, though they should since some of them are one in the same. However, it is also clear of two things: either they arrested someone who is truly just responsible for small odds and ends, or they are covering up the arrest and trying to cast him off as someone who was unimportant in attempts to keep the public thinking LulzSec is powerful. Either way, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be stopping anytime soon.

MySpace Sold for Huge Loss

Posted on by
Reply

Social networking is not always the get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not all fun and games, parties, and wiring in to code. Your ideas must be outstanding, unique, and superior to that of your competition. This is what Facebook has done to MySpace, improving on nearly ever aspect of social networking. That being said, MySpace has been sold.

MySpace was bought by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $580 million back in 2005. It started looking like a really good investment, as it became the popular social network for the next couple years. Then, the Facebook era came and took over really quickly. News Corp has finally decided that it must sell MySpace and get over the loss, selling for just $35 million.

Ars Technica advised the owners of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to “get out now while the going is good.” However, that’s absolutely absurd. That’s like telling Apple to quit since they’re doing well. The reason MySpace failed is because it was unattractive, buggy, had terrible servers, was full of creepy pedophiles, and the entire layout was not convenient. Facebook utilized all of those things and made a brilliant social network. That being said, the only way Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will go down the drain is if someone comes out with a new social network that is way better than theirs. It could be done, as I even have ideas, but it would take time. That being said, they would have warning once the project is released to back out if they feel they needed to.

I suppose the underlying difference is that the popular social networks out now were coded and put together by geeks, while MySpace was founded by an entertainment group, struggling to keep up with the new technologies. There is no room in the technological world for people pretending, as you will get bit in the ass when something new comes out and you haven’t the slightest idea how it works.

Source: BBC

Microsoft Office 365 Goes Live

Posted on by
Reply

Microsoft has launched Microsoft Office 365, a cloud-based productivity and collaboration suite. Office 365 combines access to Exchange e-mail, Lync messaging, SharePoint collaboration, the Office Web Apps, all into one monthly subscription. They happen to be quite proud of launching this, and the pricing isn’t too ridiculous given the capabilities.

There are seven different price plans available. There is a price plan for small businesses and individuals at $6 per user per month, four enterprise plans ranging from $10 to $27 per user per month; and two for kiosk workers, ranging from $4 to $10 per user per month. The small business and enterprise plans offer 25 GB of e-mail, which one would probably never reach, SharePoint access, and Lync messaging. The more expensive prices add Office Web App access, the full desktop Office suite, and Lync voice capabilities.

Announcing the product’s launch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer particularly emphasized the value Office 365 can offer small businesses. Unlike BPOS, Microsoft’s previous cloud-hosted Exchange, SharePoint, and Office Communications offering, which had a five-seat minimum, Office 365 can be used even for single-person businesses. Small organizations have access to the full range of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync capabilities, with almost none of the administrative overhead. Ballmer claimed that this levels the playing field between small and large companies, saying that Office 365 gives “small and midsize businesses powerful collaboration tools that have given big businesses an edge for years.”

The availability for Microsoft Office 365 has been promised as 99.9 percent. Its BPOS service has suffered many periods of downtime lately, as well as network connectivity problems that prevent North American customers from using their e-mail.

Source: Ars Technica

Bill Gates Developing the Developing World

Posted on by
Reply

On Sunday, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, gave a magnificent speech. This speech, however, had barely anything to do with any computing. Bill Gates has a new passion, and that passion is medicine for the developing world. It was rather ironic, as the venue of the speech was Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting, which is focused on the future of medicine. Gates was named to the board of the Lindau Foundation, which runs the annual gathering of past Nobel Prize winners. Bill Gates gave a short talk of his own and appeared in a panel discussion.

Gates set up his speech by referring to what he called “the miracle of the microprocessor.” He said that it took roughly an entire generation to appreciate fully what the microprocessor had done for the world. He sees the same potential that the microprocessor had on the computing world that transformation in fields such as materials science, agriculture, energy, and health could yield. Gates stated that “if diseases of the poor attracted talent based on human impact of their solutions, they’d have five times the people working on them as they have now.”

Gates talked a bit about the role of foundations in the process of diseases. The funding structure works fairly well in the United States. The government funds basic research and then the commercial sector takes some of those ideas and developed products and services out of them. However, this doesn’t work for diseases of the poor, as there is no market to pay for the results. Gates feels that foundations can take the place of companies when it comes to some of the development costs in this area.

The Gates foundation has also chosen to fund some of the research that appears riskier than most governments are likely to fund. That’s a role that Gates sees as being increasingly important as budget constraints are forcing science budgets to flatline around the world. That will almost certainly cause funding agencies to increase their conservatism, focusing on established labs and projects that are highly likely to produce information. Without foundations, younger investigators and high-risk projects are likely to be passed by. The Gates Foundation’s funding evaluation process ensures that the people evaluating applications for scientific merit don’t see the records of the people who are doing the proposing, so there’s going to be less of a bias towards funding large, established labs.

Gates sees promise in two specific areas. One is the development of new insecticides, which help control the spread of mosquitos that carry and spread many diseases in the developing world. As their annoyance extends to the developed world, any results would seem to be ripe for commercial follow-up, though this aspect wasn’t mentioned by Gates. The second area is basic study of the immune system. Immune function is essential for the control of so many disease, and major results can have an impact well beyond their immediate area of focus.

Gates also mused a bit about what he had discovered about the scientific process. He said that not one group has all the necessary data and skills to build a complete picture. “You need both lab work and theory,” Gates suggested. And bringing disparate research groups together is one place where the technological progress he helped foster has played a significant role. “The ability to work at a distance is so much greater, which is good,” Gates said.

The Gates Foundation allocated $1 billion per year for 10 years to vaccine development. Vaccines are relatively neglected by pharmaceutical companies, as they bring in low profits compared to “blockbuster drugs.” Vaccinations are useful, especially in the developing world, where citizens don’t benefit from the high levels of sanitation and the sophisticated medical treatments available elsewhere. Bill Gates has personally supported and voiced his support for vaccine use, something that is controversial in the United States.

Source: Ars Technica

Advice for spicing up Word documents

Posted on by
Reply

We’ve all had to type a paper or report using Microsoft’s word processing program at one time or another. Well, Yardena Arar over at pcworld.com offers nine tips and tricks for spicing these documents up. No longer will you have to turn in the same boring report to your teacher, gone are the statistical analysis documents that drone on and on.

New Microsoft Office available today

Posted on by
Reply

The newest version of Microsoft’s Office software hits the shelves today. You can get the basic version for $150, the $280 version adds Outlook  or the $500 package that has Publisher and Access, a database program. If any of these are too expensive, you can download the four core programs for free from the internet, just be prepared for some features to be missing.

Computex computer fair

Posted on by
Reply

What you’re looking at is the Computex computer fair in Taipei. This massive collection of the biggest names in IT runs from June 1-5 and is where companies introduce their newest toys. While I haven’t gone personally, I’ve seen pictures of some of the new gadgets coming out in the near future. I was surprised by how e-readers coming out, as well as more tablet computers and computers that are trying to include everything from 3-D to touch screen functionality. I even saw a company reveal a computer capable of working underwater. If your passport is in order and you have some money burning a whole in your pocket, I would definitely recommend going. It looks like it would be a very interesting, eye opening experience.