Pc News

[Nushabeh]

mashalla red ..

[Rasputin]

محققان هشدار دادهاند، افزايش چشمگير فروش IPOD ها و ديگر دستگاههاي قابل حمل پخش موسيقي، ميتواند به معني افزايش تعداد مبتلايان به مشگلات شنيداري ميشود.

به گفته محققان استراليايي از لابراتور ملي شنوايي در سيدني، گوش دادن به موسيقي از طريق هدفون با ولوم خيلي زياد باعث بروز مشگلات شنوايي دائمي در افراد ميشود، با اين حال طبق آمارهاي در دست، در حدود يگ چهارم از افراد اين گار را انجام ميدهند. IPOD اگنون معروفترين دستگاه قابل حمل پخش موسيقي در دنيا است؛ شرگت اپل سال گذشته 20 ميليون IPOD فروخت.
تحقيقي جديدي گه توسط موسسه RNID صورت گرفته است، نشان ميدهد؛ در حدود 39 درصد از جوانان 18 تا 24 ساله روزانه حداقل يگ ساعت با هدفون موسيقي گوش ميدهند و از اين ميان 40 درصد ميگويند؛ موسيقي را با ولوم بسيار بالا گوش ميدهند.

به گفته محققان، اصوات بلندتر از 80 دسيبل براي گوش مضر هستند، با اين حال دستگاههاي MP3 پلير ميتوا ند اصواتي به بلندي 105 دسيبل توليد گند. خطر آسيب ديدن گوش به بلندي صداي پخش شده از طريق هدفون و مدت استفاده از آن بستگي دارد، با اين ايده، ممگن است ماهها طول بگشد تا بروز آسيب مشخص شود. اولين نشانه از بروز صدمات، شنيدن صداي زنگ و يا وزوز در گوش است.

[Rasputin]

Web of Crime: Internet Gangs Go Global

When you think of a computer hacker, who comes to mind? It could be this: a teenage boy, sitting in his parents' basement, turning his attention away from his video game long enough to break into his school's computer network so he can alter his grades before they're officially released.


That image might have been accurate a few years ago, but today the game is changing. In the past, hackers and writers of malicious software (aka malware) were seeking attention and notoriety. Creators of viruses and worms were looking for bragging rights. Now they're after money--and they're finding it.


The transformation in motivation has changed the types of attacks, and it has also altered the profile of the attackers. Teens seeking notoriety may still be involved, but these days the likelier culprit is a hardened criminal in search of financial gain.


And that criminal isn't working alone. Loosely organized groups--which Ken Dunham, director of malicious code at security company IDefense, and other security experts call "Web gangs"--conduct much of the illegal activity online. The structure of Web gangs may be patterned on that of traditional organized crime, in which the members of the group may never come into contact with one another and may never be aware of who they are working for.


Many intelligent, tech-savvy criminals now "work as mercenaries for the highest bidder," says Tom Kellerman, until recently a specialist in data risk management for the World Bank. He calls organized Web crime "the cocaine of the new millennium," likening its mystique of lawlessness and easy money to that surrounding drug trafficking in the United States during the 1980s.


And online attacks are certainly on the rise: Investigators uncovered more than 422 new Internet security vulnerabilities during the second quarter of 2005, according to a security report for that time period that the SANS Institute released in July. This figure represents an increase of nearly 20 percent over the corresponding number for the second quarter of 2004.


In its report, SANS asserted that people who don't address these critical new Internet security vulnerabilities face a heightened threat that remote, unauthorized hackers "will take control of their PCs and use them for identity theft, for industrial espionage, or for distributing spam or pornography."

Who Are Today's Cybercriminals?

Just ask Barrett Lyon, founder of Prolexic Technologies, a company dedicated to protecting businesses from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Last year, Lyon spent several months posing as an online crook to infiltrate a Russian crime syndicate that had used DDoS attacks to bring down several legal online gambling and retail sites after at least some of those sites refused to pay extortion money.


Lyon's work helped detectives at the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit secure the July 2004 arrest of Ivan Maksakov--a 21-year-old Russian mechanical engineering student at the time--and several others. According to sources at the U.S. State Department, Maksakov has confessed in full to his role in the scheme and is participating in the investigation.


Lyon says that at least ten other individuals seem to have been involved in Maksakov's group. "From what I understood, he and a bunch of his friends hung out in chat rooms, and he was being hired to attack companies," Lyon says.


Barrett Lyon, left, worked undercover with Dayton Turner to expose an international Web gang.Lyon's undercover work--done with the assistance of Dayton Turner, a Prolexic senior engineer--gives him insight into just who is behind financially motivated attacks. "The guys who used to be after bragging rights are now after money," he says.

[Rasputin]

IBM Software Continually Backs Up Laptop Files

PARIS-- IBM will release new software next month for automatically backing up files on laptop computers. The product will be aimed primarily at mobile workers and is intended to protect data in the event that files are accidentally deleted or become corrupted, or if a laptop is stolen, IBM says.

Called Tivoli Continuous Data Protection for Files, the software creates a local backup copy of files each time changes are made, according to Steve Cliff, a United Kingdom regional sales manager for IBM's Tivoli storage software. When the laptop is connected to a network--via a Wi-Fi connection, for example--the software also backs up the data to a remote server.

The product will join an emerging field of so-called continuous data protection (CDP) products. Other vendors include Storactive of Marina del Rey, California, and startup Lasso Logic, in San Francisco. In addition, Veritas is currently beta-testing a CDP product called Backup Exec "Panther".

Still, IBM claims its product is a novel one. Some other systems require a dedicated server to monitor and store file changes, the company notes, while others back up files only periodically--every hour or so--rather than continually.

IBM is aiming its product at both large and small businesses. While the company is marketing it primarily for laptops, the software also works on desktop PCs and enterprise file servers. It will be available via Internet download starting September 16 and on CD the following month, priced at $35 per laptop or desktop and $995 per server processor, IBM says.

[Rasputin]

Microsoft Previews Vista, Next Office

Previews of new Windows Vista graphics and a dramatic interface overhaul for Microsoft Office are on the agenda for Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' keynote today at a developer conference in Los Angeles.

Vista highlights include new ways to manage open windows, and enhancements to the interface for file directories and more. The first public peek at Office 12, meanwhile, may generate even more excitement since it is so different in appearance from previous versions. (PC World Editor in Chief Harry McCracken takes an in-depth first look at Office 12 in his Techlog blog.)


Thousands who make their living creating Windows applications and Office add-ons are expected to attend Gates' speech kicking off the three-day Microsoft Professional Developers Conference. The event is to independent software vendors (Microsoft executive refer to them as ISVs) what WinHEC last spring was to hardware engineers--a chance to familiarize themselves with both the coming generation of core Microsoft products that their own products will depend on, and the software development tools they'll use to create them.

[The way it is]

[Nushabeh]

really thats interesting... hmmm they trying to spy on us!!!

[The way it is]

[Rasputin]

Yes my friend.i know it but nothin is sure & 100% for now.thx for your opinion .

[Rasputin]

Mobile Phone Standards to Launch in 2006

The mobile phones for sale during the 2006-2007 holiday season should be a lot more secure than this year's crop, thanks to a new mobile security specification that likely to be released in the first half of 2006.


The specification is being developed by the Trusted Computing Group, an industry association backed by mobile vendors such as Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung.

The TCG has already created standards for PCs, servers, and networks designed to make computing more secure; and at this week's Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association Wireless IT and Entertainment conference in San Francisco, the group took a step toward finalizing its mobile standard.

Today, the TCG released a number of "use cases" defining the areas that it expects its mobile standards to cover. These documents discuss things such as locking down phones to make them harder to use when they are lost or stolen, managing software updates and patches, and supporting secure payments via mobile devices.

The Road Ahead

Still, the hard work of defining the mobile specification remains to be done, according to Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates who serves on the TCG's advisory council.

"They're basically saying that they're working on it," Kay said of the TCG. "They've defined the scope of their mission and a timetable for completing it, but they haven't defined the specifications."

In a statement released today, the TCG said that it expects to have a publicly available mobile phone specification ready in the first half of 2006. If this happens, devices supporting the specification should begin to emerge by the end of next year, Kay said.

The first mobile phones built with the TCG's mobile security technology should be harder to use without proper authorization. As more infrastructure is built to support the TCG standards, phones will become more resistant to mobile viruses and other forms of abuse, Kay said.

Farther along, when mobile phones become even more secure, they could evolve into a kind of electronic wallet that could be used to authenticate buyers and sellers in online transactions, he said.

[Rasputin]

Privacy in Peril

know your name. I know where you live, and everywhere you've ever lived. I know when and where you were born. I know how many credit cards you have--and how good you are about paying them off. And I know all about your insurance claims, your work history, and whether you have a criminal record.

At least, I could uncover all of that, and a broad range of other sensitive personal information about you. All I'd have to do is pay between $10 and $50 to any of a vast number of online information brokers--companies such as Intelius and ZabaSearch, and larger firms like Acxiom and ChoicePoint--and in 15 minutes I'd have as much information about you as I could possibly want.


With a name, an address, and a Social Security number, a person can take out loans, open credit card accounts, lease an apartment, and commit crimes, all in your name. When their actions get confused with yours, you may get stuck with the bills or, in extreme cases, be arrested. That your data is readily available via the Internet only increases your vulnerability.


Information brokers gather incredible amounts of personal data--not just credit details--from many different sources, including private companies and government agencies; then they sell it to businesses, to law enforcement, or to anyone who can demonstrate a need that the brokers consider legitimate. The laws limiting what information can be sold and who can receive it are weak and narrowly focused, so for the most part each broker is free to formulate its own standards.


And not all of them safeguard your data as well as they could, as shown by a number of highly publicized fraudulent purchases from, and hacks into, some of the largest sellers of personal info--firms like Acxiom, ChoicePoint, and LexisNexis. In early 2005, ChoicePoint revealed that it had sold information on 145,000 consumers nationwide. Reportedly, the buyers posed as legitimate business customers but were members of a Nigerian organized-crime group. ChoicePoint says that criminal attempts were made to use the identities of approximately 750 consumers. LexisNexis reported that it had uncovered 59 incidents over a two-year period in which unauthorized persons had gained access to personal data on 310,000 people in the United States.


Mickey Martinez, a Yale University law student who is a plaintiff in a ChoicePoint class-action suit, says that he received a letter the broker sent out to warn people who were exposed to identity theft as a result of its breach. "I was just outraged. No matter how zealously careful you are, carelessness [by] one of these outfits potentially can put you at risk."


He adds that he's been careful to shred personal documents, tell credit agencies not to send him preapproved credit offers, and refrain from conducting financial transactions over his wireless network, and yet he was still exposed. ChoicePoint offered to pay for a year's worth of credit monitoring, which he thinks is insufficient. "At the very least, they should offer a lengthier period of monitoring, and [issue] some sort of statement of responsibility: If something goes wrong, they will take upon themselves the financial burden and the hassle of fixing it," he says.


Information brokers aren't alone. At this writing the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse lists some 80 breaches of data for over 50 million people since February. Among the most serious incidents: CardSystems, a credit card processor, unwittingly coughed up information on 40 million people to a hacker; and a CitiGroup subsidiary lost data on 3.9 million people when unencrypted backup tapes it had shipped via United Parcel Service went missing.

[Rasputin]

Mobile games take a step forward

Games on mobile phones have come a long way since Snake or endless knock-offs of arcade classics such as Asteroids and Space Invaders.

Now many of the big name titles first created for consoles and PCs are turning up in shrunken versions for handsets that an increasingly large section of the population own.

But, says Thor Gunnarson of British mobile game maker Ideaworks3D, the whole industry is just getting started.

Handsets, he says, are getting powerful enough to cope with what he dubs "console class" gaming, which means they are able to cope with 3D graphics that scroll past at a rate of at least 20 frames a second.

Speed kings

Before now many of the mobile gaming conventions we are used to, such as competing against "ghost" opponents rather than real people, have come about because of the limitations of phone networks.

Data transfer rates on second generation networks are too slow to play real people in real time.

But, said Mr Gunnarson, such limitations disappear with 3G networks simply because they can ship more data back and forth more quickly.


Console class games are coming to phones
Once latency or delay drops below 3.5 milliseconds it becomes invisible to users, said Mr Gunnarson, and 3G networks will definitely ship data between handsets fast enough for that.

"That's good enough for multi-player gaming and real time racing," he said.

But what will also make a big difference is the way that people pay for the data they consume via their phone.

Currently most operators charge users for the megabytes they use. A pricing mechanism, said Mr Gunnarson, that does not encourage people to spend lots of time browsing the web or downloading extra levels for games.

[topboy89]

no1s gonna read all that

[Cop]

if u r interested u read! if not u dont

[Rasputin]

Hackers jailed over global virus

Two hackers have been jailed for helping to create a virus that infected thousands of computers worldwide.
Andrew Harvey, 24, of Sherburn Village, Co Durham, was jailed for six months, and Jordan Bradley, 22, of Darlington, was jailed for three months, on Friday.

The men admitted a conspiracy charge in May this year for their part in creating what was called the T-K Worm.

It used internet chat channels to infect other computers which then gave the hackers control of them.

They were arrested in 2003 after a joint investigation by hi-tech crime officers in Britain and the US.

The men, who did not benefit financially from their actions, were part of a group called the Threat Krew".

Newcastle Crown Court heard how one police computer became infected with the worm and spread it to 19,000 other computers in two weeks.

Harvey, of Meldon Avenue, Sherburn Village, and Bradley, of Bates Avenue, Darlington, admitted conspiracy to cause unauthorised modification of computers with intent between 31 December 2001 and 7 February 2003.

The arrests were witnessed by officers from the US Computer and Technology Crime Hi-tech team which flew in from southern California.