2004 November

Burt Rutan is at it again… Free registration required to read the article. From the New York Times, by Matthew L. Wald
Outsiders look at the GlobalFlyer, a single-seat airplane designed to make the first solo, nonstop, unrefueled flight around the world, and wonder how a pilot could function for 70 hours in a [...]

It doesn’t take a prolific e-mailer to see that the spam of this holiday season is going to be… the Robosapien Robot (a seemingly cheap-ass Aibo knock-off). You’ve probably already seen these Robosapiens gaining sentience in local electronics stores, too. Has anybody bothered to check the specs on these monsters? At least I finally stopped [...]

Sure, most of us love Google and use it every day. How could we not? But some people are borderline fanatical about it. Take Gnomie Eric Leebow, for instance, who writes:
Please tell everyone about Google Search Engine for this holiday season. Here’s why: Google = 6, Search = 6, Engine=6. Combined 6 [...]

Free Internet-based phone calls are the newest feature of the popular Kazaa file-sharing program.
The offering, in a software upgrade this week, comes as Kazaa’s maker, Sharman Networks Ltd., faces increasing pressure to retain a user base eroded by rising competition from other file-sharing services and a full-court press by the recording industry.
See, P2P software can [...]

The SCO Group Inc.’s Web site has once again been attacked, but this time hackers didn’t just target the site for a distributed-denial-of-service attack—they defaced the Web site itself.
The site was altered in at least two ways sometime during the Thanksgiving weekend. The most obvious attack was on SCO’s home page, where a banner [...]

Register.com Inc., which made a name for itself as a domain name registrar, is branching out into the data backup field with an offering the company says is easy enough for small businesses and individual users to embrace.
The New York-based company on Friday plans to release its Register.com Data Backup Service, an automated backup tool [...]

This Hector Protector button has been created by the NetSafe Programme of New Zealand to help keep children safe online. The function of this button is to give a child the ability to quickly cover the screen of the computer with a screensaver of Hector Protector when they encounter material that frightens or upsets them. [...]

CRITICAL:
Highly critical
IMPACT:
System access
WHERE:
From remote
SOFTWARE:
WS_FTP Server 5.x, WS_FTP Server 4.x, WS_FTP Server 3.x
Reed Arvin has discovered some vulnerabilities in WS_FTP Server, which can be exploited by malicious users to compromise a vulnerable system.
The vulnerabilities are caused due to boundary errors within the handling of the “SITE”, “XMKD”, “MKD”, and “RNFR” commands. This can be exploited to [...]

In other words, don’t host any games for players outside your local network until they fix it…
CRITICAL: Highly critical IMPACT: System access WHERE: From remote SOFTWARE: Orbz 2.x
Luigi Auriemma has reported a vulnerability in Orbz, which potentially can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a vulnerable system.
The vulnerability is caused due [...]

A practical solar energy system usually includes solar cells that convert light to electricity and batteries that store the energy for later use.
Scientists from Toin University of Yokohama in Japan have designed a single, compact device that can both convert solar energy to electricity and store the electricity. “We succeeded in incorporating both photovoltaic and [...]

From eSecurityPlanet.com:
In addition to Microsoft Internet Explorer, … a new bug…targets the Mozilla Browser, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Apple Safari. It causes them to crash and could potentially form the basis of an exploit that would affect virtually all major browsers.

The bad guys might not be as smart as we fear they are.
Where are the stories of stupid hackers and data thieves? We seem to be idolizing them as smart, crafty and wise. No matter what we do, they seem to find a way into our networks. If our technological controls are tight, they’ll use [...]

In 1984, after all the receipts were added up, the cost of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” would have set you back $12,623 - the goods alone accounting for 62 percent of your total bill. Today, the numbers tell a different story. The total cost has climbed to $17,297, a 1.6 percent annualized [...]

Alysha Naples from BlueGreen has assembled a small Holiday wish list for those of you who aren’t feeling terribly creative this holiday season. It definitely skews to the less geeky crowd, which is probably a welcomed change of pace around your place. I’ve included direct links for the products where appropriate for your clicking pleasure.
UNDER [...]

“Barnes & Noble Inc. has teamed with SBC Communications Inc. to make Wi-Fi service available at more than 600 of its bookstores nationwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“The company joins the likes of Starbucks and McDonald in offering wireless services. Through the agreement announced Tuesday, Barnes & Noble’s service will come from SBC’s FreedomLink. [ [...]

Flightgear is an Open Source flight sim that has been built up by a world-wide team. Here we talk to Curtis Olson about aspects of the project including satellite mapping and flight dynamics.
How and when did flightgear get started?
FlightGear got started way back in 1996 when a couple young, naive disgruntled MSFS users thought that [...]

The newest version of Eudora e-mail includes ScamWatch, which analyzes Web links embedded in e-mail messages to warn users when they don’t match hostnames. Such discrepancies in IP addresses could signal the e-mail is a fake used to con people into giving up sensitive data later used to clean out their accounts. “Ultimately, what we’re [...]

After I revealed Wednesday that Microsoft had cancelled Windows 2000 Service Pack 5 (SP5) and would instead issue a final Update Rollup for Win2K in 2005, Microsoft on Wednesday posted a public confirmation of the news on its Web site. On the Windows 2000 Update Rollup Announcement page (URL below), Microsoft confirms that the Windows [...]

Advanced Micro Devices’ new Mobile Sempron processor gives the company a fresh chip for the holiday season, but it probably won’t help it overcome the solid advantage that rival Intel holds in the notebook market.
The new Mobile Sempron 3000+ is designed for thin-and-light notebooks, usually categorized as systems weighing about 5 pounds. Two European PC [...]

MICROSOFT Corp. is staging another attack against software pirates with an amnesty program for unwitting users of bootlegged copies of its Windows XP operating system (OS).
The project enables the software giant to collate information about the sources of pirated software and quickly work with authorities to capture illegal traders.

Read more…