Technology

Not long ago, PCs compromised by malware were put to a limited number of fraudulent uses, including spam, click fraud and denial-of-service attacks. These days, computer crooks are extracting and selling a much broader array of data stolen from hacked systems, including passwords and associated email credentials tied to a variety of online retailers.

At the forefront of this trend are the botnet creation kits like Citadel, ZeuS and SpyEye, which make it simple for miscreants to assemble collections of compromised machines. By default, most bot malware will extract any passwords stored in the victim PC.s browser, and will intercept and record any credentials submitted in Web forms, such as when a user enters his credit card number, address, etc at an online retail shop.

Some of the most valuable data extracted from hacked PCs is bank login information. But non-financial logins also have value, particularly for shady online shops that collect and resell this information — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Researchers at North Carolina State University have shown conductive wires that can be stretched up to eight times their original length while still functioning.

The wires have been tested, and demonstrated in the video below, to work perfectly well as headphone wires. Sound continues to reach the headphones even as the wires are stretched.

The wires themselves don’t stretch, but instead use a liquid alloy of gallium and indium housed in a very plastic polymer the researchers say, in the paper Ultrastretchable Fibres with Metallic Conductivity Using a Liquid Metal Alloy Core, is hollow fibre composed of a triblock copolymer, poly[styrene-b-(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-styrene] (SEBS) resin — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

Universal’s channel is the one that took the biggest hit. According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company’s YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its pre-existing tally of 7 billion views Tuesday.

Sony/BMG was the second largest sufferer, dropping more than 850 million views in one day, bringing its total number of views to a mere 2.3 million. RCA, which got off scot free by comparison, dipped 159 million views. Its tally now sits more modestly at 120 million views — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Prestashop is arguably the #1 open-source e-Commerce solution on the web. It offers countless features, add-ons, and themes, but its lack of good documentation has given newcomers the perception that it’s unapproachable. In this article, I’ll walk you through the process of building your own custom theme, as well as creating and customizing Prestashop modules.

Prestashop runs on PHP and mySQL, and relies on the Smarty engine for its Templates (pages). Don’t worry, if you’re not familiar with Smarty. You basically use it to create pages with placeholder sections, and Prestashop fills in the info when the page loads. It’s easy to transition to, if you’ve used something like Handlebars or Underscore templates — via Nettuts+

As part of a $1 billion upgrade of its city campus, the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) is installing an underground automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) for its library collection.

The ASRS is in response to the need to house a growing collection and free up physical space for the new library of the future, which is to open in 2015 to 2016, so that people can be at the centre of the library rather than the books.

Having the extra space will allow for more interactive learning environments where students can work more collaboratively in the library — for example, mixed media spaces for video editing and production.

The ASRS, which will connect to the new library, consists of six 15-metre high robotic cranes that operate bins filled with books. When an item is being stored or retrieved, the bins will move up and down aisles as well as to and from the library. Items will be stored in bins based on their spine heights — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Microsoft gave Windows 7 users a way to run older applications via Windows XP Mode. With Windows 8, however, that mode is no longer officially supported, and if you want to run Windows XP in a virtual machine, you need the license for it. Lifehacker reader Miloš, however, has found a workaround.

He discovered that within the free WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe file, there’s a VirtualXPVHD file containing the Windows XP virtual machine, which you can open in VirtualBox — via Lifehacker

Ouch. Google Apps has ditched its free version, meaning anyone who wants to use the business version of Google’s mail, calendar and office suite will now have to pay $US50 a year per user for the privilege.

Google’s announcement, via a blog post, makes it clear that the change doesn’t affect individual Google users, who can continue using Gmail and its sibling for free with a personal account. However, the previous option which allowed companies with less than ten employees to use apps for free (while utilising their own domain) has been retired — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Complaints have prompted mobile phone game developer Gameloft to reduce the cost of playing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

The freemium game is free to play or gamers can pay to progress faster. But some players say it can take years to finish without spending cash.

Campaigners worry about the number of such freemium games aimed at children.

But Gameloft said the complaints were from older users known as bronies, not from children or their parents.

A brony is the term used to describe the adult fans of the My Little Pony game and of the TV show of the same title.

The game can be downloaded free from Apple’s App store or the Android equivalent, Google Play.

It involves building and managing the town of Ponyville. Despite being free, players have the option to pay to progress faster, using the game’s premium currency, gems — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Police have smashed a Romanian organised crime gang that allegedly hacked into the computer systems of small businesses, with credit card details of 30,000 Australians used in $30 million worth of illegal transactions around the world.

An Australian Federal Police and Romanian National Police investigation led to the arrest of 16 gang members this week, and seven people in Romania have been charged.

It is said to be the biggest data theft investigation in Australia’s history — via redwolf.newsvine.com

So you’ve contracted a virus that’s taken over your computer, and you can’t even boot up to try and troubleshoot the problem. The solution: Create a rescue CD, boot into a safe environment, and rid your PC of any nefarious software while it sleeps. Here’s how to do it with minimal effort.

This year, a new product called the FixMeStick came out that makes virus eradication dead simple. With just a couple of clicks, you can boot using your FixMeStick so that it can attack the viruses while they’re inactive, leaving them defenseless. The only problem: the FixMeStick costs $59.99, which is more than most people are willing to spend.

Luckily, you can easily create your own FixMeStick-like rescue disc with just a blank CD and one of many free programs. Here, we’ll show you how to put one together and use it to eradicate any viruses on your system — via Lifehacker