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Visa and Mastercard Breach

March 29th, 2012

Tyler

Visa and MasterCard have reported that there has been a major breach of a US-based payments processor. KrebsonSecurity.com has stated that as many as 10 million credit cards may be affected, while The Wall Street Journal identifies the compromised processor as Global Payments Inc.

Reports have stated that Visa is sending a warning to banks of a network intrusion that lasted from January 21 to February 25. According to KrebsonSecurity, Track 1 and Track 2 data was lifted, meaning the hackers have everything they need to clone counterfeit cards. A forensic company and the US Secret Service are currently conducting an investigation.

After the reports were published, Global Payments released a statement confirming that it had “identified and self-reported unauthorized access into a portion of its processing system.” It continued:

“In early March 2012, the company determined card data may have been accessed. It immediately engaged external experts in information technology forensics and contacted federal law enforcement. The company promptly notified appropriate industry parties to allow them to minimize potential cardholder impact. The company is continuing its investigation into this matter.”

Visa, meanwhile, issued its own statement that said in part: “Visa Inc. is aware of a potential data compromise incident at a third party entity affecting card account information from all major card brands. There has been no breach of Visa systems, including its core processing network VisaNet.” MasterCard said its employees are “investigating a potential account data compromise event of a U.S.-based entity and, as a result, we have alerted payment card issuers regarding certain MasterCard accounts that are potentially at risk.”

The reports do not elaborate on the number of cards that may have been compromised. A company that works with credit unions, PSCU, has identified as many as 56,000 accounts that may be at risk. Avivah Litan, an analyst for Gartner who follows the credit card industry, has issued a report that says her sources “are seeing signs of this breach mushroom.”

Source: Ars Technica

March 28th, 2012

Tyler

If you didn’t know by now, all touch screens are different. Screens that use the same technology will behave differently depending on the controllers used and other details. Windows 8 will have to deal with a bunch of touch implementations, and the Building Windows 8 blog has a new post, which describes some of the challenges.

The post shows some of the challenges and problems that variations can cause, with inaccurate taps, misinterpreted gestures, and strange tracking issues where dragged objects disappear from beneath from your finger.

Hardware with a Windows 8 logo will be required to prevent many of the issues that can happen with poor touch screen implementations. Windows 8 is also designed to work with existing Windows 7 touch systems in addition to new, Windows 8-spec machines. Backwards compatibility is a must when it comes to the software and hardware industries, especially operating systems and gaming consoles.

Machines built for Windows 8 will support a minimum of five touch points. None of the core gestures will use more than two, however, to ensure that basic interactivity and communication is always possible. The swipe-from-the-edge gestures are designed to be sensitive to the restrictions of Windows 7 hardware, a 20 pixel buffer at the edge of each screen. This way, even if the gesture does not start right at the very edge, it will still interact appropriately.

Although Windows 8 machines will provide the absolute best touch experience, users of current Windows 7 touch systems, such as Samsung’s Slate 7, will see the best ever Windows touch experience by simply upgrading to Windows 8.

Source: Ars Technica

March 27th, 2012

Tyler

Approximately half of iPhone 4S owners using Siri are “very satisfied” with that particular service, according to a newly published survey by market research firm Parks Associates. They also noted that the most common uses for Apple‘s “virtual personal assistant” are still pretty standard, like making phone calls or dictating text messages.

According to the survey of 482 iPhone 4S users, 87% are still using Siri at least once per month, and 55% of those are “quite satisfied” with Siri’s functionality. 9% were unsatisfied and the rest fell in between. John Barrett, Parks Associates Consumer Analytics Director, stated that users tend to like Siri “because it’s convenient, easy to use, and help for remembering important information.”

About one-third of those surveyed said they had never even used Siri to plan something, and according to the Wall Street Journal, “those categories also had some of the lowest percentages of users that did either daily or almost daily.”

Barrett said some complaints of Siri were that “[it] didn’t work well against background noise. Others said it had trouble understanding commands. These problems could be amplified in a noisy living room, where the main TV would be located.”

I have the iPhone 4 without Siri capability, so I cannot judge how well the functionality of Siri really is. I can only go by what a few have said or what I read. If you use or have used the iPhone 4S, feel free to comment below on if you still use Siri and if you were satisfied with its functionality.

Source: Ars Technica

March 26th, 2012

Tyler

Two US Senators have asked the Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to open an investigation into whether employers asking job applicants for usernames and passwords violates federal law.

The Associated Press and others reported on employers asking applicants for Facebook usernames and passwords over the past week. Facebook took a stand, stating that it could take legal action, although the company added that it has no immediate plans to do so.

US Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) are the senators responsible for asking the agencies to investigate whether or not asking an applicant for usernames and passwords violate current federal law. The Senators are planning to write legislation filling any gaps in federal law that might allow employers to require login information to social networking sites and e-mail accounts.

Forbes called the whole story “the great Facebook employee password nonissue.” They added that most of the cases reported by news media took place in 2010 or earlier. In a case involving the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, the department dropped the requirement, but still requests “voluntary” access to usernames and passwords. In 2009, in Bozeman, Montana, the city stopped asking applicants for Facebook passwords after a flood of opposition. Nowadays, it’s very rare to see applicants required to fill in this information. However, even a rare case can be quite disturbing.

Source: Ars Technica

March 22nd, 2012

Tyler

After the arrest of a few members and the revelation that Sabu was an FBI informant, a YouTube video was posted announcing that LulzSec is returning. On April 1, 2012, the group will be back, and attack corporations and governments. They have promised “epic operations and pranks.”

The LulzSec video insists that the group remains a concern. “Several days ago we decided to swiftly bring back our humble hacking group and set sail towards the Interwebz once again, much to the dismay of corrupt governments and corporations across the planet,” proclaims the video’s computer-generated voice. “It’s ridiculous to believe that by arresting the six prime members of LulzSec that you’ve stopped us. You haven’t stopped us, you have merely disrupted the active faction.”

“Lulzsec will start targeting governments, corporations, agencies, and quite possibly the people watching this video.” The motivation is similarly nonspecific: “We are here for the lulz, the fame, the anarchy, and the people.”

An Anonymous website linked LulzSec’s return to “Project Mayhem,” a new operation that seeks to use hacks and artwork to subvert or undermine governments and corporations, and ultimately create social change. On December 21, 2012, Project Mayhem will provoke a global financial meltdown through a series of bank runs. Critical infrastructure will be attacked as well. A website related to the project cites George Orwell and implies that the Proles will rise up on this date.

After an incident with security firm Imperva, Anonymous took offense to them calling the group a “handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots.” This led to Operation Imperva. Whether Project Mayhem, LulzSec’s return, or Operation Imperva will be successful is yet to be seen, but my money is on it happening just fine.

Anonymous has a history of announcing operations, later to denounce them due to internal feuds and disagreements on the operation, like “Operation Global Blackout.” However, it seems LulzSec runs on their own agenda and will make happen whatever they wish.

Source: Ars Technica

March 21st, 2012

Tyler

The Pirate Bay (TPB), a popular BitTorrent website, experienced a little downtime this week. After restoring their service, the operators confirmed that the outage was caused by routine maintenance and not a law enforcement raid. According to a blog post published by TPB, system upgrades were needed in order to accommodate the website’s continuing growth.

TPB has also announced an upcoming future infrastructure upgrade. They have decided to move its front-end proxy servers into the sky, creating a network of small mobile computers that are tethered to GPS-enabled aerial drones. The Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) will be harder for law enforcement agencies to terminate. Any attempt to ground its vessels will be viewed as an “act of war. The MPAA has declined to comment on whether or not it intends to bring its anti-air capabilities against TPB.

TPB plans to use low-cost Linux computers, including the $35 Raspberry Pi ARM board, to build its private fleet. Although the whole thing could just be a bad joke, a group of technologists apparently already have a real proof-of-concept ready to put into action.

The concept of aerial drones is a good example of how low-cost embedded Linux systems and wireless Internet technology can be used together to create ad-hoc networks in unexpected places.

Source: Ars Technica

March 20th, 2012

Tyler

Apple‘s iPad 3 is setting Apple sales records already after its first weekend on the market. Apple announced on yesterday afternoon that it has already sold 3 million devices since the iPad’s launch on March 16.

The iPad 3 has a few upgrades from the iPad 2, including a sharp “retina” display, an autofocus 5MP iSight camera, and 4G LTE networking options. This third generation device also has better graphics capabilities and battery capacity, mostly to power its 4x resolution increase.

Those features were definitely appealing to the market, both to previous iPad users as well as new iPad users. One survey taken at various Apple stores suggested that half of those waiting in line to buy one last Friday were first-time iPad users. The original iPad sold about 3 million units in its first full quarter of availability. The iPhone still is outselling the iPad by quite a bit, as the iPhone 4S sold 4 million units during its launch weekend and the upgrades weren’t quite as noticeable.

AT&T has announced that the iPad 3 has set a new single day device activation record for the company. This record was most recently set by the iPhone 4S last October.

The launch of the iPad 3 is Apple’s most aggressive so far. The device is currently available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK, and the US Virgin Islands. It will be available in 24 more countries starting this Friday, March 23. Those countries include Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

Source: Ars Technica

March 19th, 2012

Tyler

NetClean, a software company focused on tools for stopping the spread of child pornography online, has teamed with Microsoft in an effort to give law enforcement agencies access to Microsoft‘s PhotoDNA image-matching technology at no cost to help in the investigation of child sex abuse cases. PhotoDNA software can be used to comb through collections of digital images to identify copies of known child porn images, speeding up the work of investigators.

PhotoDNA uses a concept similar to facial recognition and other biometric systems to mathematically create a signature for a particular image. This process is called robust hashing, and it means to “calculate a unique signature into a ‘hash’ that represents the essence of a particular photo.” The hash cannot be used to recreate the image or identify individuals within the photo. However, it can be used to match copies of images even if they have been resized or altered in other ways.

The PhotoDNA technology is already in use by Microsoft and Facebook in cooperation with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Microsoft is offering the technology through NetClean’s free tool for law enforcement, NetClean Analyze, as well as through direct licensing of source code to agencies who want to integrate PhotoDNA into their own tools.

Microsoft is also building PhotoDNA into the Child Exploitation Tracking System, software that they developed in cooperation with Canadian law enforcement and is now managed and used by a consortium of US and international agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and FBI.

Source: Ars Technica

March 15th, 2012

Tyler

Usually, a new generation of console is released every six to seven years. This has been true with Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft for the most part since the start. The Xbox 360 was released in 2005, so one would think that it is up for its next version. Rumors have been flying about it coming this summer. However, Microsoft told Bloomberg that “there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 [in June] or anytime soon.”

“For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360,” company rep David Dennis told Bloomberg in an e-mail, which pretty much points out that there will not be a new Xbox before the end of the year. Sony President Kaz Hirai stated in January that a PlayStation 4 will not be shown at this year’s E3, for they are striving for a “ten year lifecycle” with the PlayStation 3.

The Nintendo Wii U is apparently the only new console we are getting this year. Nintendo may need to be a little ahead of the game, as the original Wii looks far behind in today’s gaming age. The problem with the Nintendo Wii was that its hardware could not push out HD graphics. While the Nintendo Wii sales dropped drastically, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are still selling just fine at newly lowered prices, and developers are continually pumping games to the consoles.

Source: Ars Technica

March 14th, 2012

Tyler

It comes as no surprise that Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) cluster is absolutely huge. It powers services like Netflix, Instagram, and Reddit. But just how big is left up to people to guess. Amazon won’t tell how big it really is. One man decided to find out for himself.

Huan Liu, a researcher with Accenture Technology Labs, was the one who decided to crunch the numbers. According to his calculations and estimates, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has just under half a million servers, or 445,000 to be more accurate.

Liu used a process called DNS translation to map out the internal IP addresses of each active AWS instance. This is made possible because EC2 publishes all public IP addresses used.

As of March 12, 2012, Liu estimates that the US East data center, based in Virginia, is the largest, with 5,030 server racks. Assuming that each rack boasts 64 blade servers, the total would amount to 321,920.

Liu’s results are guesses and that must be remembered. It is possible that other AWS services, such as S3, SQS and SimpleDB, could run on dedicated racks, in which case they would not be included in his calculations. Also, if there was any instance not active on a rack, it would not be counted.

Source: Ars Technica

Visa and Mastercard Breach

Touch Hardware Talk for Windows 8

Is Siri Still Being Used?

Senators Pondering About Facebook Password Requests

LulzSec Returns

The Pirate Bay to Use Aerial Server Drones

Apple Sells 3 Million iPad 3′s Over Launch Weekend

Microsoft Using PhotoDNA Technology

Xbox 720 Probably Not Coming in 2012

Amazon’s Cloud Nearly Half Million Servers

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