moonbuggy

`Pope Benedict XVI got an iPod on Friday, thanks to a group of workers at Vatican Radio.

According to a Catholic News Service story, the pontiff got a 2GB white Nano, loaded with, among other things, the radio station’s programming in English, Italian and German, as well as classical tunes from Mozart, Chopin and Stravinsky.’

`Lawyers in South Korea have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 230,000 victims of identity theft in an online game.

The suit will claim damages of about $1,000 for each plaintiff whose identity was used to register new accounts in NCsoft’s popular games, Lineage and Lineage 2, according to media reports.

Most of the identify thefts took place over the past six months as underground gaming syndicates stole victims’ official Korean ID numbers in hacking attacks and used them to register hundreds of thousands of Lineage accounts.’

`The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the online music pricing of the world’s major music labels, sources say.

The probe closely tracks a similar investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into the pricing of digital music downloads, sources familiar with the matter said. One music industry source said some subpoenas may have been issued already in connection with the probe, while other labels had been tipped off that subpoenas would likely be coming in the next few days. It appeared that Sony BMG had already received a subpoena. The major record labels include Warner Music Group, EMI, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony and Bertelsmann.’

`Google Inc. is switching its servers to run on Advanced Micro Devices Inc. chips instead of those made by Intel Corp., according to a Morgan Stanley report.

Google, which has more than 200,000 servers, has started to buy Advanced Micro’s Opteron processors with almost all new purchases, Morgan Stanley analyst Mark Edelstone said. He raised his earnings estimates for Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro.’

`It certainly was not part of Britain’s plans to win the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq. But the Foreign Office has been apparently paying for an adult sex chatline in a Baghdad street for 17 months without knowing it.

The Foreign Office has had to tell MPs that an investigation into how a diplomat lost two satellite phones in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism but more to do with a budding entrepreneur and a telephone porn network.

FO officials had already admitted that the lost phones had cost them £594,000 in unauthorised phone bills but it is now bracing itself for an extremely critical report from the Commons public accounts committee on how it came to pay phone bills, which at one stage hit £212,000 in one month, without asking questions.’

`The intrusion of cellular phone rings into theaters, schools and nearly every other nook and cranny of modern life may soon hit a wall.

Playing to the backlash against ubiquitous communication, a company called NaturalNano is developing a special high-tech paint that relies on the wizardry of nanotechnology to create a system that locks out unwanted cell phone signals on demand. [..]

His firm has found a way to use nanotechnology to blend particles of copper into paint that can be brushed onto walls and effectively deflect radio signals.

The copper is inserted into nanotubes, which are ultra-tiny tubes that occur naturally in halloysite clay mined in Utah. The nanotubes are about 20,000 times thinner than a piece of paper, too small to be seen with even a conventional microscope. At this size, which is near the molecular scale, materials have different physical properties than they normally do.’

`Several groups around the world have gained approval to develop implants that can monitor and control the behavior of a wide range of animals.

In the United States a team funded by the military has created a neural probe that can manipulate a shark’s brain signals or decode them. More controversially, the Pentagon hopes to use remote-controlled sharks as spies.

The neural implant is designed to enable a shark’s brain signals to be manipulated remotely, controlling the animal’s movements, and perhaps even decoding what it is feeling.’

`WElL I GOT NEWS FOR U MISTER I GOT MORE FIREWALL POWERS NOW SO IM SECURE AND IM USING WINDOWS 98 SO IM REALLY SECURE FROM HACKERS LIKE YOU SO YOU BETTA JUST GIVE UP CUZ U GOT NO HOPE MISTER.’

`A mystery is deepening around a report about the emergence of a virus that can pass from a PC to a mobile device, with some antivirus vendors saying they have not seen the code to confirm it.

The Mobile Antivirus Researchers Association (MARA) said Monday it anonymously received the code, named “Crossover.” Microsoft Corp., whose software the virus reportedly affects, said Wednesday it is investigating the reports but has not heard of any customer complaints. [..]

At the moment, the antivirus community only has MARA’s word that the virus exists, [a technology consultant] said.’

`Microsoft will introduce a search engine better than Google in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday.

“What we’re saying is that in six months’ time we’ll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google,” said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

“The quality of our search and the relevance of our search from a solution perspective to the consumer will be more relevant,” he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.’

`The Bunker is situated on 18 acres of land and surrounded by concertina wiring in Kent, England. It is an impregnable fortress, sitting 30 metres below ground. It has concrete walls three metres thick, steel doors weighing over two tons that protect the servers and digital storage units within.

Layered on top of this physical inaccessibility is a 24-hour watch with guard dogs, CCTV and a series of sophisticated access controls that offer the ultimate in protection from a myriad of attacks, including crackers, terrorist attack, electro-magnetic pulse, electronic eavesdropping, HERF weapons and solar flares.’

`Have you ever hit “Send” on a text message on your mobile phone before addressing it? Ever wondered where all those lost SMS text messages go? If so, you might want to speak with Stan Bubrouski, whose cell phone has been channeling wayward text messages from across the country for years.

Bubrouski, a computer science major at Northeastern University in Boston, is the proud owner of ‘Null@vtext.com,’ an account on the popular Verizon text messaging service that allows Internet users to send e-mail and IM messages directly to his cell phone as SMS text messages.’

It’s kinda freaky to see such a well animated face on a strange robot stumbling about the place.

(7.2meg Windows Media)

`DefenseReview.com has received video footage of a weaponized version of the AutoCopter self-stabilized unmanned mini-helicopter being tested for the first time in sunny Huntsville, Alabama (The download link for this video is further down in this article.). The AutoCopter is made by Neural Robotics Incorporated (NRI), and the weapon portion of the package is a 12-gauge Military Police Systems (MPS) Auto Assault-12 Full-Auto Shotgun (a.k.a. AA-12 Full-Auto Shotgun), which DefRev first reported on back in June of last year (2005). NRI is calling the newly-weaponized AutoCopter the “AutoCopter Gunship”. Catchy.’

`Engineers at Panda Software, while in the process of researching a new trojan, uncovered evidence this week that led them to a web site touting custom-built viruses for sale. For the low, low price of only US$990, a user gets his or her own pet trojan horse, complete with tech support. If the file is discovered—as this current model was—the designer provides a guarantee to alter it so that it may continue to avoid detection in the face of updated antivirus software.

The trojan goes by the moniker Trj/Briz.A, and scans the user’s hard drive for information that could be used for financial and identity data. It then sends that information to an attacker working behind the scenes. Additional features include the ability to gather IP addresses and in some cases, the physical location of infected computers. It can also modify the machine to prevent access to web sites devoted to antivirus products.’

`In the Peoples’ Republic of China, most computer users type out their Chinese in transliteration, using the standard Roman alphabet keys on a QWERTY keyboard. To generate a character, you type out its sound according to the same spelling system—called Pinyin—that represents the name of China’s capital with the word “Beijing.” The computer automatically converts the Pinyin spelling to the correct Chinese characters on the screen.

Or at least it’s supposed to. There are lots of Chinese words that sound similar but look different on paper. If you’re using the Pinyin input method, you’ll have to put in some extra effort to make sure the right characters show up onscreen. First, you can follow a syllable with a digit, to indicate which of several intonations you want. If the computer still doesn’t have enough information to pick a character, you’ll have to choose from a pop-up list of possibilities.’

`NVIDIA will launch its Quad SLI technology on the 22nd March, according to a report on TGDaily,

Sources indicate that the four-way graphics solution will be announced in conjunction with the GeForce 7900 GTX that is understood to be available from the 9th March if the company’s previous track record of hard launches continues.

Dell and NVIDIA showcased the new quad GPU architecture at CES in January, but it seems that Dell’s customers will not be the only people who’re able to buy into this insane amount of graphics power.’

`Atop each of the Trump towers in New York City, there’s a new type of wireless transmitter and receiver that can send and receive data at rates of more than one gigabit per second — fast enough to stream 90 minutes of video from one tower to the next, more than one mile apart, in less than six seconds. By comparison, the same video sent over a DSL or cable Internet connection would take almost an hour to download. [..]

Blasting beams of data through free space is not a new idea. LightPointe and Proxim Wireless also provide such services. What makes GigaBeam’s technology different is that it exploits a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Their systems use a region of the spectrum near visible light, at terahertz frequencies. Because of this, weather conditions in which visibility is limited, such as fog or light rain, can hamper data transmission.

GigaBeam, however, transmits at 71-76, 81-86, and 92-95 gigahertz frequencies, where these conditions generally do not cause problems. Additionally, by using this region of the spectrum, GigaBeam can outpace traditional wireless data delivery used for most wireless networks.’

`This idea came to me when I was desingning a flat HTPC. I wanted to use an AGP-riser, because with that the PC wouldn´t have to be any thicker than the connectors on the motherboard. Of course the psu came in the way of my plans and I ditched the htpc project. I then decided turn the plan vertical and mod my girlfriends PC, because her computer was noisy and ugly (some old compaq case). Because of the comments I have received from my friends, I have to state that this case has nothing to do with Xbox360. I Designed my case before I ever saw the xbox.’

`An Amish teenager will pay a fine and restitution to a neighbor for illegally tapping into his telephone line.

James Bontrager, 17, W3950 Grand River Road, Markesan, pleaded guilty in Green Lake County Circuit Court Jan. 23, to a charge of telecommunications fraud.

He was fined $367 and ordered to pay $36.09 in long distance charges to CenturyTel for calls the teen made on his neighbor’s phone line to a relative in Indiana. The Amish traditionally shun telephones and other modern conveniences in their homes.’

`The MPAA filed lawsuits against Torrentspy, Isohunt, Torrentbox, Niteshadow and Bthub. This could have a huge impact on the Bittorrent community since Torrentspy and Isohunt are two of the most frequently visited torrent sites.

But on the other hand, Isohunt and Torrentspy are torrent search engines and DO NOT host any torrents so the MPAA may have a hard time to built a strong case.’

`The internal logs of at least 40 Sequoia touch-screen voting machines reveal that votes were time and date-stamped as cast two weeks before the election, sometimes in the middle of the night.

Black Box Voting successfully sued former Palm Beach County (FL) Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore to get the audit records for the 2004 presidential election.

After investing over $7,000 and waiting nine months for the records, Black Box Voting discovered that the voting machine logs contained approximately 100,000 errors. According to voting machine assignment logs, Palm Beach County used 4,313 machines in the Nov. 2004 election. During election day, 1,475 voting system calibrations were performed while the polls were open, providing documentation to substantiate reports from citizens indicating the wrong candidate was selected when they tried to vote.

Another disturbing find was several dozen voting machines with votes for the Nov. 2, 2004 election cast on dates like Oct. 16, 15, 19, 13, 25, 28 2004 and one tape dated in 2010. These machines did not contain any votes date-stamped on Nov. 2, 2004.’

`The idea emerged after Jonathan “Yoni” Shimshoni and a team of aspiring inventors in Israel watched a television documentary about victims trapped on the upper floors of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Shimshoni recalled seeing the towers ablaze and thinking, “This is nuts. This shouldn’t have to happen.”

The team came up with a $1 million escape device with expandable cabins that could be lowered like lifeboats outside a high-rise in distress.’

`Coinciding with the recent 50th anniversary of Silicon Valley, today IBM announced a chip-making advance that will allow it to create semiconductors with wires less than 30 nanometers wide — one-third the width in today’s industry-standard chips — which should keep Moore’s Law (the density of chips doubles every two years) in effect for several more years, according to experts.’

`Global supercomputer leader Cray has announced that the “Red Storm” supercomputer installed at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico is the first computer to surpass the 1 terabyte-per-second (1 TB/sec) performance mark on a widely used test that measures communications among processors in high-performance computing (HPC) systems and provides a key indication of the total communication capacity of the network.

Red Storm posted 1.8 TB/sec (1.8 trillion bytes per second) on the PTRANS interconnect bandwidth test that is part of the High Performance Computing Challenge (HPCC) test suite. By comparison, this figure represents 40 times more communications power per teraflop (trillion floating point operations per second) than the PTRANS result posted by an IBM Blue Gene system that has more than 10 times as many processors.’

`Japan’s obsession with camera-equipped mobile phones has taken a bizarre twist, with mourners at funerals now using the devices to capture a final picture of the deceased.

“I get the sense that people no longer respect the dead. It’s disturbing,” a funeral director told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.

At one ceremony several people gathered round the coffin and took out their phones to photograph the corpse as preparations were made to begin a cremation, she was quoted as saying.

“I’m sure the deceased would never want their faces photographed,” she said.’

`Call it a sexual revolution of the virtual kind — young Canadians are practicing a new style of safe sex and the only touching required involves a keyboard.

Of more than 2,500 university and college students polled across Canada, 87 percent of them are having sex over instant messenger, Webcams or the telephone, according to results of a national survey released on Monday.’

`Apprehending a notorious hacker rarely involves a car chase or a team of dedicated private investigators, but in the case of Vitek Boden, life imitated a Hollywood script.

Boden had waged a three-month war against the Scada (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system of Maroochy Water Services in Australia beginning in January 2000, which saw millions of gallons of sewage spill into waterways, hotel grounds and canals around the Sunshine Coast suburb. He was caught only after a team of private investigators hired by Maroochy Water Services alerted police to his location.

After a brief police pursuit from the Sunshine Coast towards Brisbane, Boden was run off the road. In his car was the specialized proprietary Scada equipment he had used to attack the system, and a laptop; however, it was a piece of $18 cable that ultimately led to his downfall.’

`US government officials took Sony BMG to task over its controversial use of rootkit-style copy protection at a security conference this week. If the technology proves harmful to consumers, tougher laws and regulations might be proposed, a senior Department of Homeland Security exec warned.

“Legislation or regulation may not be appropriate in all cases, but it may be warranted in some circumstances,” said Jonathan Frenkel, director of law enforcement policy with the DHS’s Border and Transportation Security Directorate, PC World reports.

Sony BMG’s flawed approach to Digital Rights Management technology was exposed after security researchers discovered XCP anti-piracy software, that shipped with some of Sony BMG’s music CDs, masked its presence and introduced a vulnerability that hackers and virus writers began to target. Under pressure, Sony was forced to recall discs loaded with the technology and create an exchange program for consumers.’

`Japanese peripherals specialist Elecom has introduced what it claims is the world’s smallest external hard drive. Its MF-DU204G packs in 4GB of storage capacity yet is sufficiently small to warrant its own, integrated USB connector.

The secret? The use of a bus-powered 0.85in HDD, Elecom said. The drive is packed into a unit that measures 6.8 x 3 x 1.3cm and weighs just 44g. The company bundles a USB extender cable should the drive prove too large and obscure other USB ports. Elecom also bundles USB Disk Pro, a security utility that password-protects the drive.’