Friday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 11:44 PM CET - Feb,21 2003
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- Cash machines vulnerable to hackers - A corrupt banking employee
can guess your pin number in just 15 attempts because of a weakness in
banks' computer systems, say computer scientists in Cambridge. Publishing
their findings in an online technical report, Mike Bond and Piotr Zielinski at
Cambridge University describe a weakness in the computer hardware systems used
to verify PIN numbers from ATM cash machine transactions. It could be used to
generate millions of pounds for a thief each day, they say. These four digit
numbers should normally take an average of 5,000 attempts to guess correctly.
In practice this is not an option because software in the ATMs only allows you
three wrong attempts before locking you out.
- AOL probes hacker "breach" -
AOL is investigating reports that crackers gained access to its customer
database through a combination of cracking and social engineering exploits.
The allegation of an extremely serious security breach is published today in
Wired. The publication interviewed hackers who claim to have gained full
access to Merlin, AOL's latest intranet-based customer database application.
If true, the breach potentially exposes the private information of AOL's 35
million users.
- Crypto attack against SSL outlined - Swiss security
researchers have discovered
an attack against implementations of the ubiquitous SSL protocol (you can
also check my exploit posts (1
/ 2 /
3) at
Neworder) that could potentially compromise email passwords, though not
ecommerce transactions. The protocol itself has not been compromised and the
weakness only applies to versions of OpenSSL prior to version 0.9.6i and
0.9.7a, according to early analysis. Users of earlier versions of OpenSSL are
strongly advised to upgrade.
- Microsoft Accidentally Shares Office 2003 - Microsoft posted the
second beta of Office 2003 to its Microsoft Developer Network Web site on
Wednesday,
only to pull it a few hours later. "A copy of the second beta was
inadvertently posted yesterday. It was subsequently pulled because it is not
ready for customers," a Microsoft spokesperson in Europe said Thursday. "We
expect the beta 2 to ship in March." Microsoft won't specify how many MSDN
subscribers downloaded the beta, saying only that it was "a very low number."
- 'Honest Thief' confronts music industry -
A Dutch company calling itself an "honest thief" has become the latest
threat to an entertainment and recording industry beset by swelling numbers of
file-swapping services. Operating in the Netherlands, Internet services
company PGR--doing business as The Honest Thief--plans in the spring to
license its software and provide legal advice to others who hope to set up the
newest incarnation of peer-to-peer services.
- Hitachi licenses on-chip interconnect technology - Hitachi
Information Technology Co. Ltd. has
licensed an on-chip interconnect technology from Sonics Inc. and plans to
use it to stitch together different intellectual property blocks on a chip,
the companies said. The license will allow Hitachi-IT to use Sonics' Smart
Interconnect technology when designing system-on-chip (SoC) devices for its
customers, who in turn will need to negotiate a separate license with Sonics
when the SoC is ready for production, said David Lautzenheiser, vice president
of marketing at Sonics.
- Toshiba to launch HDD/DVD player/recorders in US and UK markets -
According to the Japanese-language Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, Toshiba is
launching HDD/DVD player/recorders in the US and UK. It launched versions of
these products in Japan last year. Toshiba will release the RD-XS30 HDD/DVD
player/recorder in the UK in April. This HDD/DVD player/recorder, which
Toshiba claims to be the thinnest DVD player in the market at 78mm, features a
built-in 60GB HDD for recording. The company launched the same model in Japan
last November. Toshiba projects selling 1,000 RD-XS30s in the first month of
release and up to 10,000 units per month this summer in the UK. The device
allows users to dub data/recordings from HDD to DVD-R, DVD-RAM, CD-R and CD-RW
discs.
- DVD player single-chip solutions may fall under US$10 - Taiwan IC
design industry sources expect that single-chip solutions for DVD players may
fall
under US$10 from the current US$15 as more competitors enter volume
production. The current price does not include RF ICs, while the lower price
estimate does.
- IDF Spring '03 : Day 3 Keynote, and PCI-Express - Hexus has posted
two IDF
Day 3 articles, and also Tom's Hardware has posted
day 3 of their IDF coverage.
- Samsung SM-348 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo Review - Last year, Samsung took
its CD writing speed to 32X. This year, the company improved its technology,
pushing speeds to a whopping 48X with the
Samsung SM-348 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive ($130 street). Updated from the
SM-332, the SM-348 gives you faster burn speeds and read times. It offers
speeds of 24X for rewriting, 16X for DVD reading, 48X for CD recording, and
the usual 48X CD-ROM read rate. We burned a 325MB file in less than 2 minutes.
We also ran the Titanic DVD in the background with MusicMatch playing an MP3,
and still the drive was able to burn without difficulty.
- Canon i70 Color Bubble Jet Printer Review -
The Canon i70 Color Bubble Jet Printer ($300 street) combines mobility and
speed in a portable printer that produces clear text and fine color photo
output for general use. The i70 operates with a USB connection to a PC, or you
can print directly to Bubble Jet Direct-compatible Canon digital cameras and
camcorders. The 4-pound i70 fits into a standard-size briefcase when the 2.0-
by 12.3- by 6.5-inch (HWD) case is closed. With its input tray extended
(there's no output tray), the i70 measures 6.6 by 12.3 by 12 inches. You can
stack 30 sheets of standard paper or five envelopes in the input tray.
- LCD 17: Samsung 17in & NEC LCD1760V vs. Everyone Else -
Any self-respecting buyer of a 17-inch LCD monitor starts out by making a
list of self-respecting monitors. This list would naturally include the
Hitachi CML174SXW and the Iiyama AS4314UTG, both of which have been tested by
Tom's . But we hadn't yet tested the 171N, a 25 ms, or the LCD1760V, a 16 ms.
Well, this is now remedied, and for good measure we've thrown in some general
details on LCDs: frequencies, technologies, interfaces, etc.
- R350 Specs -
German CHIP Online has published some info in regards to the upcoming R350
and RV350 VPU line-ups from ATI. Radeon 9800 -
Process: 0,15 um, Core clock: 375 MHz, Memory type: DDR-I (128MB), Memory
clock: 350 MHz; Radeon 9600 Pro - Process:
0,13 um, Core clock: 400 MHz, Memory type: DDR-II (128MB), Memory clock: 400
MHz; Radeon 9600 - Process: 0,13 um, Core
clock: 300 MHz, Memory type: DDR-II (128MB), Memory clock: 300 MHz;
Radeon 9200 - Process: 0,15 um, Core clock:
275 MHz, Memory type: DDR-I (64MB), Memory speed: 275 MHz. It will be
followed shortly by the Radeon 9900, which will debut in May or
thereabouts. The 9900 will feature an impressive 256 MB of RAM on the card,
and will come in both "9900 Pro" and regular "9900" versions. Consumers may
have to pay close to US$500 for the 9900 Pro card, however.
- Xabre II specs - According to
XabreGamers, there are 2 models : the SiS 340 aand 341 both support DX9
and AGP8x. Both models will have 500Mhz DDRII memory (!!) and will have the
core clocked at 375Mhz. The only difference lies with the number of pipelines
: 8 for the SiS340 and 4 for the SiS341.
- SQL Server Critical Update Wizard 8.00.0194 -
The SQL Critical Update Wizard was developed specifically for the home and
small business user, though enterprise customers may also download and deploy
the wizard to their internal customers. The SQL Critical Update Wizard will
walk you through the steps of detecting a vulnerability to Slammer and
updating the affected files. SQL Critical Update Wizard runs on WindowsR 98,
Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
- Alcohol 120% v1.4.1.221 -Alcohol
120% (download)
is a combination of both Alcohol 52% and Alcohol 68%. It enables users to both
copy and emulate real or virtual CDs & DVDs. Alcohol 120% can handle the
creation of 31 virtual CD & DVD-ROMs, allowing the user to play discs whithout
needing the physical disc. It also allows users to make copy CD & DVD to CD-R
/ CD-RW / DVD-R / DVD-RW / DVD-RAM / DVD+RW.
- WinOnCD 6.0 Service Pack 1 -
The first Service Pack (download)
for the great CD mastering program WinOnCD 6 has been released.
- SecureCRT 4.0.4 -
SecureCRT
(download)
gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2t servers. SSH
security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local
applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel. The VCP utility
secures file transfers using SFTP. This new version fixes some CRC
errors during transferring files using bulletin board ZModem, VCP looks for a
newline or carriage return character in order to determine if the ENTER key
was pressed when authenticating, On Windows NT 4.0, sometimes certain keys
(SSH2) did not work after authenticating.
- Tweak-XP Pro 2.08 -
Tweak-XP Pro bundles more than 37 different utilities in one: it was
developed to combine both tweaking and optimizing features to increase the
speed of your Windows XP system.
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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