Google is unveiling early-stage designs, software code, and documentation of a project whose goal is to let users of the company’s Chrome OS print documents to any printer from any application. Called Google Cloud Print, the technology would dispense with the need to install printer drivers by routing print jobs from Web, desktop, and mobile applications via a Chrome OS Web-hosted broker
Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus. A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection. Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly. The latest updates can spot if a system is compromised by the Alureon rootkit and halt installation
A former high-ranking National Security Agency employee was indicted on 10 felony charges Thursday for his alleged role in leaking classified information to a news reporter. The federal indictment does not identify the reporter, but several news organizations, citing government sources, named a former national security correspondent for The Baltimore Sun as the recipient of the leaks. Thomas Andrews Drake, a 52-year-old Howard County man who worked as a process improvement
official at NSA from 2001 until he resigned in 2008, is accused of copying and storing classified documents at his home and then destroying the documents and lying to investigators when authorities found out
A new type of malware infects PCs using file-share sites and publishes the user’s net history on a public web site before demanding a fee for its removal. The Japanese trojan virus installs itself on computers using a popular file-share service called Winny, used by up to 200m people. It targets those downloading illegal copies of games in the Hentai genre, an explicit form of anime. Website Yomiuri claims that 5500 people have so far admitted to being infected. The virus, known as Kenzero, is being monitored by web security firm Trend Micro in Japan. Masquerading as a game installation screen, it requests the PC owner’s personal details. It then takes screengrabs of the user’s web history and publishes it online in their name, before sending an e-mail or pop-up screen demanding a credit card payment of ¥1500 (£10) to settle your violation of copyright law
and remove the web page
Data centre executives from Google and other large companies are pushing back against new efficiency requirements proposed by a prominent standards group, saying they are too prescriptive
and don’t leave them room to innovate
Google announced two new Twitter projects yesterday, presumably to coincide with Twitter’s Chirp conference which began yesterday and runs through today. The first is the ability to see a term’s popularity on Twitter over time, and even replay
tweets that include that term. The second Twitter feature Google added is called Google Follow Finder
The Library of Congress is to archive every single public tweet ever made. Twitter says since they started in 2006, billions of tweets have been created and 55m are sent every day. The digital archive will include tweets from President Barack Obama on the day he was elected as well as the first tweet from co-founder Jack Dorsey
The National Security Agency has developed a software tool that detects thumb drives or other flash media connected to a network, and any federal agency can get a copy free — no box tops or coupons required. The NSA provided a brief tantalising description of its USBDetect 3.0 Computer Network Defence Tool in the unclassified part of its fiscal 2011 budget request. The software, the NSA said, provides network administrators and system security officials with an automated capability to detect the introduction of USB storage devices into their networks. This tool closes potential security vulnerabilities; a definite success story in the pursuit of the [Defence Department] and NSA protect information technology system strategic goals
A cyber attack earlier today left Optus’s business customers with limited internet access to the US and wreaked havoc on corporate email systems. An Optus spokeswoman confirmed that a denial-of-service attack on one of the carrier’s business customers swamped the link, slowing internet traffic to a trickle
Network and Web site operators are coming under increasing pressure to support IPv6 — the long-anticipated upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol — as more market indicators point to the rapid depletion of addresses for IPv4. The Number Resource Organisation (NRO announced on Tuesday that only 8% of IPv4 addresses remain unallocated. The NRO consists of the five Regional Internet Registries, which dole out blocks of IPv4 and IPv6 address space to carriers
Twitter is finally taking off the training wheels and moving into the world where real businesses tread with the launch today of its first advertising model. coming up with a business plan or even talking about one. Just last October, Twitter CEO Evan Williams told an audience at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco that the company wanted to focus on developing the site, instead of on a business model. But the time has come for Twitter to figure out how to make money over the long haul
Handheld device maker Palm is in the market for a buyer, as sales of its latest smartphones fail to catch up rivals such as Apple and BlackBerry. Palm was a trailblazer for handheld devices but its latest offerings, the Palm Pre and the Pixi, have not sold as well as hoped. Computer firms such as Dell and HP could be among potential bidders
Child pornographers can be captured and prosecuted without having to resort to mandatory internet filters, says Barack Obama confidante and US Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich. The Rudd government has said the mandatory filters are crucial in its arsenal of online weapons aimed at stamping out child pornography and other forms of illegal material
A malicious advertisement has been found within an application for Facebook that redirected users to fake antivirus software, according to a security researcher. The banner advertisement for greeting cards was intermittently displayed with an application called Farm Town, which has more than 9 million monthly users according to information published on Facebook. If the bad Shockwave Flash advertisement was displayed, the user was redirected from Facebook through several domains and ended up on a Web site selling fake antivirus software, said Sandi Hardmeier, who studies malicious advertisements and blogged about the issue
Internet Industry Association (IIA) chief executive officer Peter Coroneos has said he plans to ask his members to sign a declaration calling for more transparency in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) talks being held this week in Wellington, New Zealand. Unfortunately, The US Trade Representative issued a release just prior to the launch of the New Zealand round of ACTA negotiations that has left no doubt that the US is the biggest barrier to official release of the ACTA text. The full text of the release is couched in terms of improving transparency, but is really a thinly-veiled shot at the European Union’s public demands for release of the text
Google announced that it has re-architected the platform underlying its Docs web-based applications. The Mountain View-based web search powerhouse said at its Atomosphere 2010 event that the new web app infrastructure would improve performance and offer more flexibility in delivering new features more quickly. Public preview versions of Docs’ spreadsheet and document editors and a new drawings app are online now. The upgrade, however, will also ditch Google Gears in favor of HTML 5 for offline functionality starting May 3. For non-connected scenarios, the new foundation will take advantage of emerging standards within the HTML 5 specification to handle offline work in Docs
MI5 is ditching staff who lack computer skills in a programme of compulsory and voluntary redundancies. The Intelligence and Security Committee said the service had been reviewing its staff profile and one area of concern was the level of IT skills. MI5 director general Jonathan Evans told the committee: I think some of the staff perhaps aren’t quite the ones that we will want for the future.
It also said MI5 faced cuts because of the state of the public finances
Apple has already made no bones about its telco-bypassing content strategy — which, as I have previously observed, makes redundant the millions companies like Telstra have put into staking claims in the content space. But by intrinsically supporting VoIP — and then allowing developers to fund it with iAd, a mobile advertising model that seems to offer absolutely nothing for the carriers that deliver it — Apple has pushed mobile telcos into a difficult place from which it will be hard to emerge
For all its ideals in support of openness and freedom of information, those behind WikiLeaks — especially its key founder, Julian Assange — dwell in shadows and intrigue. They have no headquarters, no offices and the barest of a formal structure. Assange is particularly elusive, part obviously through necessity and part mercurial make-up. Home — or the nearest he has to one — is said to have been eastern Africa for the past two years or so
Japan’s largest business newspaper, the Nikkei, joined the trend of other news sites last week by requiring readers to pay to view its Web site. But, in a twist, it also imposed a policy severely restricting links to its articles — or even its home page. Links to Nikkei’s home page require a detailed written application. Among other things, applicants must spell out their reasons for linking to the site
RSS – Posts