Iran has invested a lot in cyber capabilities, both offensive and defencive. They moved all government websites to local servers to protect them from attacks few months ago. Now they are hiring an army of hackers in order to become a cyber super power. According to rumors, they are building their arsenal and they will target US facilities like power grid and water systems. They will not attack just yet but they are being prepared for a future confrontation with the United States. One of the main reasons of Iran cyber decisions is the Stuxnet trojan and I can’t blame them. The soldiers of the future are hackers and the next war will most probably be electronic targeting valuable facilities.
Bad news for CISPA, good news for us
I was waiting for something like this one but even so I am very surprised. Cyber Inteligence Sharing and Protection Act is the new Internet bill, after SOPA and PIPA failed, which protects companies and blames Internet users for any copyrighted material. Big Internet companies prefer that bill because they care only for themselves and not for their users. The White House, after reviewing the bill, decided that will endanger Americans’ privacy and released official warning for a veto against CISPA. The statement claims that it will endanger user’s privacy, CISPA will shield companies from liability and grands NSA more power that it needs. Using web browsers which provides anonymity or encrypting your emails will be considered as a threat according to CISPA proposal.
Internet still expanding
nternet is still growing very fast and now the total website addresses are about 677 million. This is an increase of 150 million since the last topic on how many websites exist. From around 526 million websites on November 2011 to 677 million websites on April 2012. This is about 30 million new websites per month. Apache, as expected, is the number one choice web server with a 65.5% market share. Internet will continue expanding as more and more people and companies want their corner in that vast place called Internet.
Anonymous create PasteBin alternative
Anonymous were using PasteBin as a tool to post and share information they acquired or exploits they found. PasteBin was their first choice until it decided to censor its content and comply with law enforcement requests. Anonymous decided to create their own, uncensored alternative called AnonPaste. The site is based on the open source project ZeroBin. AnonPaste server has no knowledge of the pasted data. Stored data is encrypted and decrypted by the browser with 256 bits AES encryption algorithm. Anyone can paste anything anonymously just by opening the site and paste your content. The only thing you set is the expiration limit with minimum 10 minutes and no maximum. The maximum is when the website is closed or decide otherwise but until then your pasted data will be there. If you want to share your information, now there is a secure way to do this.
Flashback Removal Tool
As me mentioned in a previous post Flashback infected more than 600000 Macs. F-Secure released manual steps on how to remove the trojan from your computer. Now they have turned those steps into a tool that can check and remove the trojan for you automatically. On the other hand, Apple announced that they are working on a fix but until now there is no response. Maybe they are still working on it. Maybe they are still working on a Java vulnerability patch too. It seems that trojans and viruses are not Apple’s strong points. Visit the source link and download the Flashback removal tool, you can get rid of the trojan in 4 simple steps.
Patent wars are far from over
It seems that patent wars are far from over. Companies pay several millions or even billions in order to purchase patents for their arsenal. Microsoft will pay $1.056 billion to AOL for more than 800 of its patents (and patent applications). The transaction will most probably completed by the end of 2011. Microsoft wants to enhance its patent portfolio and be prepared for patent lawsuits. Nowadays, companies are as strong as their patent arsenal and they try to be on top not by innovating and creating better products but by suing their opponents. Facebook recently bought patents from IBM to protect itself from Yahoo! and sue them back. IBM has the greatest patent arsenal but we don’t see them in patent lawsuits. On the other hand we are tired to see Apple, Microsoft, Google and Samsung suing each other. While large companies upgrading their patent arsenal, patent law will make it impossible for new companies to create rival products. There are so many patents and some of them are very generic which makes it almost impossible to create a new product without at least one patent infringement (even without knowing it).
Flashback infected about 600000 Macs
Several months ago I have written a post, with some history in it, about Mac and Trojan Horses. That post was about Flashback too (Flashback.C), a modification of the original Flashback. I bet that some Mac users didn’t get the memo or they still think that viruses and trojans are only for PC users. Today more than 600.000 Macs are infected with Flashback (original and variations), that’s a 6 followed by many zeros. Flashback.I spreads through infected sites exploiting Java vulnerabilities. When a user visits one of the infected sites a JavaScript loads a Java applet which infects user’s system. After Flashback is installed to a system, it injects malicious code into web browsers and other applications in order to gather user information and passwords.
Peter likes Galaxy Note
Peter is not a friend of mine, he is not even human, he is an elephant and a very smart one. He uses Galaxy Note to play musical instruments, draw things and take pictures. This is the second Galaxy Note commercial I post but I don’t do it for Samsung. I just found it very funny and if that was the purpose of the ad then they succeeded. I love to see strange gamers and this is not the first time we see one in this website, if you missed the Bearded Dragon playing games on a smart phone visit Strange Gamer and watch that too. The link was sent to me via email but YouTube says that it is from Mashable and I like giving credits. Enjoy the video and wait for the next strange gamer.
Duqu’s secret programming language
Kaspersky experts were called to investigate Duqu and they discovered that its framework was written in a programming language they didn’t recognize. The mystery of the unknown programming language is solved. Duqu framework is (most likely) written in an custom object-oriented extension of the programming language C called “OO C”. That code it is compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler 2008 with some special options (“/O1″ and “/Ob1″) that optimizes the code size and the inline expansion. Despite the fact that it is a malicious software, the developers have done an excellent job and they make the life of security expert difficult.
Siri – The Horror Movie trailer
You have heard a lot about Siri and how amazing is and how helpful. Some of you might even have an iPhone with Siri and talk to her every day. But what if Siri is not as friendly as you think she is. What if the next update change her and make her something scary, something… deadly? You should watch this trailer of the horror movie about Siri. After watching this video, you will change you mind about Siri and next time that it will ask for upgrade you will think again. I don’t want to scare you, watch the trailer and Beware the upgrade.