Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 04:57 AM CEST - Jun,16 2004
- Post a comment / read (7)
- Blackout hits major Web sites - A domain name outage Tuesday
morning that left many popular Web sites such as Yahoo, Google, Microsoft.com
and Apple.com temporarily inaccessible was the result of an Internet attack,
according to Web infrastructure company Akamai.
The attack caused problems for more than two hours--from 5:30 a.m. to 7:45
a.m. PDT. Many of the world's most popular sites suffered from widespread
outages, according to Keynote Systems, which compiles statistics related to
Web surfing. On a typical day, the top 40 sites measured by Keynote rarely dip
below 99 percent availability. On Tuesday, however, Keynote saw availability
drop to 81 percent.
- Video game makers sue over copying program - Atari, Electronic Arts
and Vivendi Universal Games filed suit against the software company in New
York federal court,
asking a judge to block distribution of 321 Studios' Games X Copy software.
"Federal law makes it clear that it is illegal to manufacture, distribute, or
sell devices or programs that circumvent technological protection measures
built into video games," Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment
Software Association (ESA), said in a statement. "That's exactly what 321
Studios’ Games X Copy does, and we fully expect the court to grant our request
to ban this product."
- U.S. declines to create do-not-spam list - The Federal Trade
Commission,
expected to announce its decision later in the day, said it feared that
unscrupulous senders of unwanted e-mails would mine such a registry of e-mail
addresses looking for new victims, according to a summary of the FTC's
decision obtained by The Associated Press.
- Canada's spam king apologizes - A Canadian man accused of being one
of the biggest spammers in the world by Yahoo Inc. has
agreed to stop sending unwanted e-mails and plans to help educate children
about the dangers of the Internet. The Heads have settled the lawsuit and
agreed to pay Yahoo at least $100,000 (U.S.). The exact amount of the payment
is confidential, but a lawyer for the family said it was "six figures."
Although the lawsuit was against all three men, the allegations centred on
Eric Head, 25, who ran a bulk e-mail business from the family's home in
Kitchener, Ont. Mr. Head has shut down his operation, called Gold Disk Canada,
and become a drummer in a rock band.
- DVD pirates to pay R112 000 fine and be deported home -
Three Pakistani nationals were fined a total of R112 000 in the Kempton
Park magistrate's court and will be deported to Pakistan after being convicted
of contravening the Counterfeit Goods Act for importing more than 8 000
counterfeit digital video discs (DVDs). The counterfeit DVDs, including new
movie titles such as Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Shrek 2 and
Spider-man 2, had a street value of several million rand. Fred Potgieter, the
managing director of the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft
(Safact), confirmed at the weekend that Farham Radiya was fined R60 000 for
importing 4 000 DVDs and Akhtar Ali, who arrived at Johannesburg International
Airport on the same flight from Dubai last Tuesday, was fined R12 000 for
importing 1 630 counterfeit DVDs and 1 000 pornographic DVDs.
- Symantec Enterprise Firewall DNSD cache poisoning Vulnerability -
Symantec Enterprise Firewall dnsd proxy, versions 8 and later,
is vulnerable to cache poisoning attacks when acting as a caching
nameserver. Is possible to inject false entries in its cache and make a false
DNS server look like authoritative of a zone, when it is not. Once this
information is loaded any request to a subdomain of that zone, will be
submitted to the false DNS.
- Linux bug discovered - Linux Bug has been discovered which allows
a whole system to be exploited by a simple C program. On the site
Linuxreviews.org the discoverer Oyvind Sather, from Norway, said that using
the exploit requires the (ab)user to have shell access or other means of
uploading and running the program-like cgi-bin and FTP access. Then it is just
a matter of running this code which
works on any normal user account. Along with the code needed to use the
exploit, Sather also posted several patches to 2.4 and 2.6 kernels that will
keep the exploit from crashing systems. The 2.4.xx kernel patch can be found
here. A patch for the 2.6 kernel can be found
here. (thanks
TheInquirer)
- Harvard man loses 3,000 weblogs - Eccentric software developer Dave
Winer has
removed access to 3,000 weblogs hosted by the company he founded Userland
at weblogs.com, without giving any prior notice. Bloggers have been told that
if they ask nicely, they may have their data back next month. Winer blamed a
computer for his decision.
- Yahoo giving 100MB -
New Yahoo email
sign up will get 100MB email storage for free!
- Microsoft on Track to Offer Anti-Virus Software -
Microsoft is still on track to offer an anti-virus product that will
compete against similar software offered by Symantec Corp and Network
Associates Inc., the world's largest software maker said late on Monday. Mike
Nash, chief of Microsoft's security business unit, told reporters that
Microsoft is developing software to protect personal computers running Windows
against malicious software, the worms and viruses that in recent years have
plagued users with data loss, shutdowns and disruptions in Web traffic.
- Java vs C++ "Shootout" Revisited - Lea used G++ (GCC) 3.3.1
20030930 (with glibc 2.3.2-98) for the C++, with the -O2 flag (for both i386
and i686). He compiled the Java code normally with the Sun Java 1.4.2_01
compiler, and ran it with the Sun 1.4.2_01 JVM. He ran the tests on Red Hat
Linux 9 / Fedora Test1 with the 2.4.20-20.9 kernel on a T30 laptop. The laptop
"has a Pentium 4 mobile chip, 512MB of memory, a sort of slow disk," he notes.
The results he got were that
Java is
significantly faster than optimized C++ in many cases.
- Nokia unveils six mobile models at conference in Singapore -
The top-of-the-line Nokia 6630, featuring a 1.3-megapixel camera with 6x
digital zoom, is a 3G handset that uses Symbian OS and supports both GSM
triband and WCDMA2000. The phone offers a download speed up to 384 Kbps and an
upload speed of 128 Kbps. Nokia plans to launch this phone worldwide in the
fourth quarter.
- Lasers turn beam on TV recycling -
A laser technique to separate materials in cathode ray tubes (CRT) from TV
and PC monitors has been developed to help recycle the useful elements in
them. Tonnes of glass and other material is wasted in old TVs and PCs each
year, but it has proved difficult to dissect elements cleanly to use in new
tubes. The laser system, made in Finland, means no lead and pollutants are
mixed up with useful recyclable elements.
- Gainward CoolFX Powerpack! Ultra/2600 -
There's a performance increase to be had from the Ultra/2600 CoolFX, but
unless the price differential drops to within L100 of the air-cooled board,
the Ultra/2600 CoolFX is hard to recommend. Undoubtedly the fastest unmodified
consumer graphics card in the world in quite a few scenarios, but not far
enough away from boards like the X800 PRO, XT PE and other 6800-based cards to
be attractive, given the price.
- Sony DRU-700A review -
Sony’s DRU-700A is a superb first generation dual layer DVD ReWritable
drive. It can burn the ultra-high capacity dual layer discs with ease, but is
also lightning fast at burning both DVD+R and DVD-R media, and is a very solid
performer in the CD-RW/DVD-ROM areas as well. The drive is quick, quiet, comes
with a decent software bundle, and black or white faceplates, so aesthetics
should not be an issue.
- BTC DRW1108IM 8x DVD±RW review -
The DRW1108IM is the latest addition to BTC's growing lineup of DVD
writers. Announced in March, their new "DVD Dual" drive is capable of 8x DVD±R
and 4x DVD±RW writing speeds and has a maximum DVD read speed of 12x. The
DRW1108IM isn't just about reading and writing DVD's though. The drive also
boasts features like 40x CD reading and writing speeds as well as support for
MediaTek's Super Link technology. Best of all, BTC has included a great
software bundle from companies like Ahead Software and CyberLink.
- Fan Noise Controller roundup - PC fans can make a lot of noise, but
fan controllers can help. However, not all controllers live up to their
promise.
THG tested 15 to see what worked and what didn't.
- A-Top-Z-Alien PC Server Gaming Case review - TechMods has posted an
A-Top-Z-Alien PC Server Gaming Case
review.
- Brother HL-5140 review -
PCMag has posted a review of the Brother HL-5140 printer.
- TomTom Navigator review - Many cars can be outfitted with a
navigation system, but other alternatives are available that offer much more
than just navigation. We looked at
TomTom Navigator, which enables GPS navigation on the PocketPC and other
PDAs.
- The Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide -
The Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide provides an overview of the types of
malware and their risks, planning an effective antivirus strategy for your
organization, and responding quickly and effectively to infections or
incidents when they occur
- [!] Microsoft Updates XP's Service Pack - Microsoft released
an updated test version of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (network
installation ~
release notes) this week and says it is on track to deliver the
security-focused update in the third quarter. The long-awaited Release
Candidate 2 (RC2) version of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was made available
to beta testers on Monday and should be posted to Microsoft's Web site soon, a
Microsoft spokesperson says.
RC2 could be the final test version of the already delayed service pack,
which was originally due in the first half of this year. The updated test
version does not bring many obvious changes from RC1 released in March.
- OSX Emulator PearPC 0.2.0 -
This free,
open-source emulator allows Intel- and AMD-based PCs to run several
operating systems compatible with the PowerPC, including Mandrake Linux, BSD,
Darwin and Apple's Mac OS X.
- Coding Workshop Polyphonic Wizard 3.0 -
The Coding Workshop
Polyphonic Wizard (download)
is a software program for your PC that allows you to add new ringtones and
pictures to your polyphonic phone without the need for cables or sms (text)
services. All you need is your phone and this software to add new polyphonic
ringtones! All the technical details are taken care of. All you need to do is
pick a midi file, use the trim tool to select the part you want, then send it
to your phone.
- HJTHotkey 2.7 -
It will
run in the system tray and when a hotkey/shortcut key is pressed, it will
copy the word that has been selected and automatically search for that word on
Google, sysinfo.org (startup items, Toolbars, BHO's), windowsstartup.com
(startup items), answersthatwork.com (processes)or one of the offline BHO, CWS
and Toolbar databases depending on the hotkey that is pressed.
- News Interceptor 1.13 -
Version 1.13 of News Interceptor is now available for download. This new
version fixes some communication problems.
- Mozilla Firefox 0.9 -
The new release (changelog)
packs a whole bunch of improvements and new features, including a new default
theme, a new browser migration tool, allowing you to easily switch to Firefox
from IE or Opera, new theme and extension managers, improvements in speed and
minor fixes.
- McAfee AVERT Stinger 2.2.8 - A new version of McAfee Stinger (free
AV scanner/remover) is available for
download.
- DU Meter 3.06 Build 174 -
DU Meter (download from
SavageNews)
is an award winning utility from Hagel Technologies which provides an accurate
account of the data which is flowing through your computer's network
connection at any given moment. This readout is presented in both numerical
and graphical format, in real time. DU Meter includes extensive logging
facility, flexible events system, and more. It supports Windows 95/98/NT4/2000
and XP! DU Meter works with virtually all types of network connections: phone
modems, DSL, cable modem, LAN, satellite, and more
- RadLinker 1.010 -
RadLinker
is new tweaker/linker for ATI Radeon based graphics cards.
- Radeon Catalyst 4.7 Beta - The Guru of 3D has posted
Radeon Catalyst 4.7 Beta drivers for Win2k/XP. Try them at your own risk.
There is no word on performance just yet. The drivers can also be found at
StationDrivers. (thanks BloodUK).
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Updated:12:47 AM CEST Jun,04
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