Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 02:40 PM CET - Feb,02 2002
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- Interview with an ex-hacker - According to the defacement
archive at Alldas.de, the hacker group known as the 'sm0ked crew' only terrorised websites
throughout February of last year. But that was maybe enough for one member of the crew,
Splurge, who decided to call it quits and go straight in the security industry.
Eighteen-year-old Splurge, who withheld his real name, contacted vnunet.com to tell us
his story. What prompted him to switch from a life of box breaking and defacing, to
the somewhat more acceptable career of a security consultant selling denial of service
(DoS) filter systems?
- Microsoft's New Security Chief Was Hacker Hunter - Microsoft's
new security czar may
not be an expert in patching holes in software, but he has experience in hunting down
and prosecuting hackers who like to exploit such vulnerabilities. Scott Charney, who
Microsoft named Thursday as its chief security strategist, spent most of the 1990s at the
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he headed the division responsible for computer
crimes.
- Top News Sites Close Script Hacking Hole - A security flaw at
leading online news providers MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com, and WashingtonPost.com could have
allowed attackers to generate bogus articles using the sites. The security glitch, known
as cross-site scripting (CSS), opened the door to what experts call subversion of
information attacks. Such attacks can be used to spread false information, manipulate
stock prices, and perform other malicious acts.
- FBI closes anarchist website - Armed FBI agents have raided the home of an 18
year-old Los Angeles geek and confiscated computer equipment used to run an anarchist
website. Although the Raisethefist.com site is no longer online, a report from the
site's owner, Sherman Martin Austin, is in circulation. "Heavily armed with
high-powered machine guns, shotguns and hand guns, the FBI, Secret Service and Los Angeles
Police Department surrounded the founder of Raisethefist.com in his house. Within seconds
a swarm of FBI raided the house with automatic weapons and shotguns," said Austin's
statement. All computers on a network within the house were seized, including those
serving the Raisethefist.com website via a DSL connection. Austin also hosted other
anarchist sites including LAanarchists.org, which was also disrupted.
- D-VHS format better than DVD - 20th Century Fox, Universal,
DreamWorks, and Artisan said Wednesday they plan to release feature films in D-VHS format, videocassettes that offer better images than
standard VHS or even than DVD can now provide. Initial titles will include The Terminator
movies, Die Hard, X-Men, and U-571. The D-VHS tapes will be aimed at
those who own high-definition televisions, whose crisp digital images are set to replace
the old standard of analog TV. D-VHS machines also will be able to play standard VHS
tapes. The four studios will release films on a digital VHS system created by JVC, whose
current D-VHS player has a list price of just under $2,000.
- Fujitsu Siemens drops PPC 2002 bomb - Fujitsu Siemens' German
branch today issued a press release stating that the company will be launching a new
handheld at CeBIT 2002. Named Pocket LOOX, the new handheld is the successor to
Fujitsu-Siemens' SX45 device which features the Pocket PC 2000 operating system and
built-in GSM/GPRS wireless capabilities. Like its predecessor, the Pocket LOOX has a
CompactFlash Type II slot, but an in addition a SD Card expansion slot has also been
placed on the left side of the device.
- Win a Nokia 5510 mobile phone - This funky new phone from Nokia
lets you play up to two hours of CD-quality music or listen to the built-in FM radio. Enter the competition.
- Intel McKinley details leak - In the presentation,
Intel reveals details
of its next generation McKinley 64-bit processor, which as we noted in a report on the
Solid State Conference the other day, will use low latency level three cache design. It
will also use next generation non volatile memory. And Intel claims McKinleys in the
future will run at .13 micron and at 5GHz at normal room temperature, because of the low
power circuits it will use.
- ATA Hard Disk Shootout - Even while IDE drives are still stuck
at 7,200 RPM spindle speeds, the other major factors contributing to good overall disk performance have gradually gotten better with time.
- VisionTek Geforce3 Ti200 Review - Looking for an upgrade
from your measily ATI rage 128? :) Then look no further. The Geforce 3 ti 200 from
Visiontek has got to the best buy for upgrading your video card to date. The price
clocking in at 150$ with a good deal doesn't come with any strings attached, just one hell
of a nice card, not to mention its flawless drivers from nVidia.
- Abit KR7A-RAID KT266A Review - In the scheme of things then,
where does the Abit KR7A-RAID motherboard stand? It's performance is just as good of the
Soyo Dragon Plus motherboard, which we previously had known as the best KT266A chipset
motherboard. The fact that the Abit board can beat the Dragon in some tests shows the time
that Abit spent on the motherboard was well used. It is fair to say the Abit
KR7A-RAID is the fastest single processor motherboard we have seen for the AMD
platform thus far.
- ATI RADEON 8500 vs NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti500 in 3ds max 4 - What is
the difference
between RADEON 8500 and GeForce3 graphics processors and the graphics cards based on them
from the point of view of a 3ds max user?
- The Pencil Trick For The Radeon 8500 - The Radeon 8500 is an
extremely fast card at stock speeds but I was excited on the thought overclocking
it to make it even faster. However, it turned out that my Retail ATI Radeon 8500 was a
lousy overclocker, hitting its max overclock at 312 MHz core and 292 MHz memory from a
stock speed of 275 MHz / 275 MHz. I thought that was all I could get until I read
something at the Rage3D forums that turned out to be a little gem of a mod. Apparently
it's possible to voltage mod the Radeon8500 with a simple pencil!
- Tyan Tiger MPX dual Athlon Motherboard Review - The most
important features of the MPX chipset is the addition of 66Mhz 64-bit PCI slots. While this
doesn't seem particularly impressive, it really is the next logical step since the regular
MP chipset left us with regular 33Mhz 64-bit PCI.
- Intel Northwood Pentium 4 vs. AMD Athlon XP 2000+ - Hardcoreware
take a look at both current top end CPU's: Intel's Pentium 4 2.2 GHz, and AMD's AthlonXP
2000+. Will extra cache and a die shrink give the P4 enough to run away with the
lead in performance? Which
CPU is the best buy today?
- Microsoft MapPoint .Net Beta Signup - The beta testing
period is important in finalizing the MapPoint .NET Web Service and in getting your
feedback for future releases. Login: MPNETBETA / FEB02
- APK Windows 2000 Tools 7.2000 - APK Windows 2000
Tools is a fine utilities package for Windows 2000/NT users. It provides a number of
useful system tools and gives you fast access to internal networking commands, resulting
in greater control over your system from one location.
- Microsoft Games SafeDisc Windows XP Fix - Problem: When running
a restricted user account with fast user switching under Windows XP, some games will not
start correctly. The game requests that the original disk be placed in the drive, even if
it is already present. To fix this issue, download and run this patch.
- Kaspersky (AVP) Weekly Update - This will update the Kaspersky
Anti-Virus (AVP) virus databases to the latest (February 01, 2002).
- Advanced StartUp Manager 1.35 - Advanced StartUp Manager is
program that allows you to control what programs run at system startup when you turn on or
logon to your computer. It supports Registry, StartUp folders in the Start menu and
Win.ini file.
- Style XP Beta 6.0 - This new version supports
Logons - you can import, delete, rename, preview, and manage Logons.
- Exact Audio Copy v0.9 beta 2 - EAC is a new audio
grabber for CD-ROM drives. It works with a new technology, reading audio CDs almost
perfectly.
- BearShare v2.4.2 - BearShare is designed
to let you share files with everyone on the Internet, and download files that other people
are sharing. The program works with all types of files, and lets you search for files that
contain specific words or phrases. BearShare is built on the Gnutella protocol.
- HyperSnap-DX Pro v4.30.00 beta 6 patch - HyperSnap-DX 4
is a screen capture tool for Windows. What's new : New function under "Options"
menu - "Image Position and Background", Still more options on
"Capture Settings" - "View & Edit" tab. For "Paste onto the
current image" with "Extend drawing space" options, you may now choose to
tile new images captured horizontally or vertically, with optional margin between them -
or preserve the relative on-screen position of captured pieces, as in Beta 4, Fix for
"Quick Save" problem, Scary! This is the first build with Microsoft new C++
compiler from Visual Studio.NET release. With better code optimizations this build is
slightly smaller than previous versions, even though new code (new features) are added.
- VIAs official patch, Version 1.04 - According to VIA, the new version of
their patch will increase performance with RAID cards from ACARD, Adaptec and
Highpoint and not only with Promise-cards anymore. We did a few test with all these cards.
In addition to that, we also checked the new patch with the Advance 29133, another
Ultra-ATA/133-PCI-Controller, which is not on VIAs list yet.
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Updated:03:22 PM CEST Jun,21
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