Computers / software

Political denial-of-service attacks on the rise
The cases of Estonia in 2007 and Georgia in 2008 illustrate how dedicated denial-of-service attacks can nearly paralyze a country; trouble is, now attackers can purchase tools such as Black Energy or NetBot Attacker, made by Russian and Chinese hackers, respectively, for less than $100 a piece
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Kaminsky: MS Crash Analyzer a "game changer"
Microsoft released an open-source program designed to streamline the labor-intensive process of identifying security vulnerabilities in software while it is still under development
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Swimming pool game inspires robot detection
Researchers use the Marco Polo game to solve a complex problem — how to create a system that allows robots not only to “sense” a moving target, but intercept it
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Critics: Commercially driven deep packet inspection (DPI) is akin to wiretapping
New technology now allows third parties to engage in deep packet inspection (DPI), a technique that makes it possible to peer inside packets of data transmitted across the Internet; data collected is then sold to other companies to allow them more targeted advertising
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Computer models of unconventional warfare
Wildcats researchers to design intelligent software that can analyze the behavior and customs of political and cultural groups; part of the Asymmetric Threat Response and Analysis Project, known as ATRAP
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Debunking IT myths
As IT spreads, so do IT myths and legends; two experts debunk some of the more popular myths
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New software allows laptops to talk back boldly to laptop thieves
Your laptop has been stolen? New software allows you to tell those thieves exactly — and when we say exactly, we mean exactly — what you think of them; software also helps police locate the stolen computer
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Researchers spoof, bypass face-recognition authentication systems
Vietnamese researchers have cracked facial recognition technology in Lenovo, Asus, and Toshiba laptops; the researchers demonstrated feat at this week’s Black Hat DC event
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Cybersecurity contractor's network hacked
A large U.S. government contractor specializing in providing cybersecurity and privacy services, has warned its employees their personal information may have been stolen after hackers planted a virus on its computer network
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World's largest supercomputer will be used for nuclear stockpile research
IBM to build a 20 petaflops supercomputer, called Sequoia, for the Lawrence Livermore lab; a petaflop stands for a quadrillion floating-point operations per second; to put Sequoia’s computing power in perspective, what it can do in one hour would take all 6.7 billion people on Earth with hand calculators 320 years, if they worked together on the calculation for 24 hours per day, 365 days a year
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Experts watch for Conficker superworm to be activated
Conficker has infected at least 9 million computers; security experts anxiously wait for it to be activated; infection dwarfs the zombie army created by the infamous Storm worm, which reached a mere 1 million at its peak in September 2007
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Pair behind Chinese counterfeit computer components arrested
Two California men arrested for illegally exporting sensitive technology to China; pair also accused of conspiring to purchase counterfeit electronic components for distribution in the U.S.
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Software analyzes news reports to identify terrorists
Rice University researchers develop artificial intelligence-based computer program which can scan news reports quickly to identify which terrorist group is behind a terrorist attack being covered in the reports
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New, major weakness in Internet security reported
New weakness discovered in Internet security; the vulnerability allows impersonation of secure Web sites and e-mail servers; it also allows hackers to perform virtually undetectable phishing attacks
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IRS's IG says agency IT staff too lax
IG report says IT staff were not always saving or reviewing system audit logs, and clock settings on some firewalls and routers did not comply with IRS rules, increasing likelihood of unauthorized intrusion
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