Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:50 AM CEST - Oct,20 2004
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- Microsoft researching a new first-line worm defense -Microsoft
research labs
are working
on a new technique, code-named Shield. Software patching has not been an
effective first-line defense preventing large-scale worm attacks, even when
patches had long been available for their corresponding vulnerabilities.
Shield uses a shielding process that precedes the patching process. This will
cover the critical time window between the vulnerability disclosure and patch
application, when more than 90% of the attacks take place today.
- Can Laser Printers Fight Crime? - What if you could print your own
driver's license at home, instead of having to wait in line all day at the
DMV? That's the potential of an emerging technology in the works at Purdue
University. Although it may not be apparent,
all laser printers leave specific markings on each document they print, a
process called banding. Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
has pioneered a tracking system that uses banding to trace a document back to
the printer from which it originated.
- Watchdog issues porn dialler guidelines - The body that regulates
premium-rate telephone services has
issued guidance
telling users how to deal with porn diallers.
The leaflet from ICSTIS (PDF) explains how to distinguish legitimate
dialler services from those that reroute dial-up connections by tricking
consumers. It also explains how to make a complaint if you think you have been
duped into downloading a dialler.
- Google Script Insertion Exploit - Google's custom websearch
does not prevent javascript from being inserted into the url of the image,
allowing malicious users to modify the content of the google page allowing in
phishing attacks, or silently steal search terms/results/clicks or modify
actual searches to always contain controlled results. With Googles trusted
status, the risk is almost certainly high.
- Off-topic: The Man Who Could Have Been Bill Gates -
BusinessWeek discusses They Made America, a new book which claims Bill
Gates got the rewards due
Gary
Kildall. The book attacks the reputations of key early PC era players -
Gates, IBM, and QDOS programmer Tim Paterson - asserting that Paterson copied
parts of Kildall's CP/M and that IBM tricked Kildall, allowing Gates to
prevail and depriving Kildall of untold riches and credit for a seminal role
in the PC revolution.(thanks
Slashdot.org)
- Off-topic: Gates: PC will replace TV, TV will become a giant Google -
Gates explains that Microsoft has been experimenting with
the 1970s-style split screen concept, where half of the TV is the regular
broadcast program, and the other half is an interactive page. For viewers with
zero attention spans - like Gates himself - the "interactive" page is always
available. It will be broadcasting's salvation, he explains, because
broadcasters will be able to make up the revenue they've lost from
PVR-skipping by forcing viewers to look at Google-style ads.
- Off-topic: Busting the Biggest PC Myths -
PCWorld expose the bad advice that wastes your time and money
- Microsoft Sets Licensing Policy for New Chips - Microsoft on
Tuesday agreed
to require only a single license for server software that runs on
computers powered by a new generation of chips that squeeze multiple
processors into a single package.
- New iBooks, xServe RAID 5.6TB, PowerMac G5 1.8GHz released - Apple
has released
a bevy of revised systems today- iBooks: 1.25GHz/1.33GHz with Airport
extreme and Combo, a xServe RAID model with 5.6TB of storage and a single CPU
PowerMac G5 1.8GHz.
- Intel's dual-core Xeon due in 2006 - Intel's first dual-core
Xeon processor is scheduled to arrive in the first quarter of 2006, a
company executive said Monday, meaning that a competing chip from rival
Advanced Micro Devices will likely arrive several months earlier.
- AMD Assaults New Performance Heights with New Chips - As expected,
AMD, on Tuesday officially released its new microprocessors -
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ and AMD Athlon 64 FX-55. The FX-55 product operates at
2.60GHz, has dual-channel memory controller, 1MB of L2 cache, bringing new
performance heights to Sunnyvale, California-based AMD. The model 4000+
processor is clocked at 2.40GHz, contain 1MB of L2 cache and sport
dual-channel memory controller, fully copying specs of the previous top chip
AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 processor for Socket 939 infrastructure. The company
also cut the prices of its mainstream Mobile Athlon 64 processors, and
those of the XP-M chips. The latter saw a number of lower-end parts knocked
off AMD's official price list.Intel Corporation is expected to respond to the
new "FX" chip with a new "Extreme Edition" microprocessor clocked at 3.46GHz
and featuring 1066MHz Quad Pumped Bus along with 2MB L3 cache. In related
news,
VIA Technologies today announced that its VIA K8T890 series chipsets will
support the new AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 processor and AMD Athlon 64 processor
4000+.
- nForce4 Ultra & SLI preview - As can be seen from the benchmarks,
there is really little to discuss here. With the memory controller on the AMD
Athlon 64 CPU, it is going to be hard for anyone to squeeze out a major
performance difference. In 3D gaming and all sorts of applications,
we saw
the nForce4 and the current K8T800Pro chipsets stay pretty much even in terms
of performance. Worth remembering too is that retail K8T800 solutions have
been on the market a while now and are starting to mature, while no
motherboard builder has yet to show us a working nForce4 retail sample. And
rest assured that SLI support is on the way from VIA as well.
- Sennheiser RS 65 Headphone review - The unifying characteristic of
consumer cordless headphone systems used to be, of course, that they sucked.
Crummy sound, lousy range, poor ergonomics. For a lot less than you used to
have to pay for a good wireless 'phone system,
Sennheiser's RS 65
headphones solve all of thes old cordless problems. They're not perfect,
but they're very good.
- Motherboard Troubleshooting Guide - Zone365 has posted a
Motherboard
Troubleshooting Guide.
- BWMeter 2.10 -
BWMeter is a powerful bandwidth meter and monitor (download),
which measures and displays all traffic on your network. Unlike other
products, it can analyze the data packets (where they come from, where they
go, which port and protocol they use). BWMeter can create statistics for all
computers in your network, measuring and displaying all internal network
traffic as well as download and upload from the internet.
- Bench'emAll -
This is a tool to launch a set of your favourite 3D game benchmarks and
synthetic 3D tests in a single batch job automatically. Bench'emAll! will do
all the boring stuff for you: start the benchmark, wait for result fps and
write result to the file.
- Codec Pack All in 1 6.0.2.1 -
The pack includes DivX 5.2.1, Koepi's XviD Codec 1.0.2 Final, DivX, XviD -
FFDShow 12.10.2004, MPEG2 3.0.0.0, Subtitles G400 2.83, Subtitles DVobSub
(Win9x, Win2k a WinXP) 2.23, 2.33, OGG Vorbis 0.9.9.5, AC3 1.01a RC5, Morgan
Multimedia Stream Switcher 0.99.
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Updated:05:35 PM CEST Jun,04
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