Michalis Nicolaides – Page 33 – Software Solutions, Games and Technology

Solve Puzzles in the Name of Science

Scientists were trying to solve the mystery behind a protein which is the key for the development of AIDS. They were trying for a decade without any results and then a company decided (2008) to create a game named “Foldit”. Foldit is an online game where users fold proteins and create different shapes according to some basic rules. Gamers managed to decipher the structure of that key protein in three weeks and now the research for AIDS and HIV has a bright future

OS X Lion Security is for Lulz

I have already posted that Apple laptops can be easily hacked. Now, with the new version of Apple’s OS X, you thought that security will be improved but this is not the case. OS X Lions passwords can be hacked faster and easier than ever. You don’t even have to crack the passwords, you can just change them to whatever you want if you have physical access to the terminal. By cracking the password, we mean to find the password from its hash or with a brute force attack. If you have access to a computer, you can change the password with the following command

The Moons of Saturn in a Photo

Spacecraft Cassini took a photo during its journey and five moons of Saturn are in it. On the left side of the photo and 179 kilometers across is Janus. Next moon from the left, the smallest in the picture and about in the center is Pandora, 81 kilometers across. It appears to be in the ring but actually is between the A and F rings. After Pandora we see Enceladus, the bright one in the center and 504 kilometers across

INSA has been hacked

Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) has been hacked. INSA’s Cybersecurity Council released a document explaining that government and private sector should work together to solve cyber security vulnerabilities. Two day after the release, they have been hacked. Details of U.S intelligence officials have been posted on Cryptome with the title “INSA Nest of Official and Corporate Spies”. Information leaked about the members of INSA includes names, emails and in some cases addresses. Cryptome posts interesting documents worth checking out. Hackers

Google gravity project

You can play with Google gravity project by going to Google and search for “Google gravity” with the “feel lucky” option. Alternatively, you can visit the page directly by clicking Google Gravity. Gravity pulls everything to the ground, everything. Gravity affects search box, search results, images and anything else you can imagine. After the collapse you can perform searches and see the results falling from the sky. You can click the results and navigate to the sites like you normally do or just drug and drop them around and see how gravity works. It is very funny and gravity algorithm is good enough to make it look realistic

Hackers poisoned GoDaddy

GoDaddy, the largest domain registrar and web hosting company poisoned with a modified .htaccess, an Apache web server configuration file. A number of websites hosted on shared servers compromised and when someone was visiting those websites through a search engine, they were being redirected to sokoloperkovuskeci.com and then again to some other malware sites. GoDaddy informed users that they are looking to resolve this issue. Affected websites may have been blacklisted from search engines so if you are one of those affected check it out

News feed for hacking is huge

Every day I read news about technology, science, gadgets, trends and local news but the category with the most news is hacking. Every day hundreds of websites are hacked, including few companies, and tens of hacking tools are created or new versions are released. You will not see all this here, I try to filter those for you and give you only the most important ones. For example if several websites are hacked, I will post only the one(s) that affected the most Internet users like i did with uTorrent. If some companies are hacked, I will post the one(s) with the highest reputation or the one that is specialized in security which is ironic

uTorrent website hacked

uTorrent website hacked and the attacker replaced the torrent client with a fake antivirus software. The fake software has the name “Security Shield” and prompts the victims that they have virus and then offers them to clean their pc after payment. The attack took place at September 13th 4:20 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) and the users who have downloaded the file between 4:20 a.m. and 6:10 a.m. Pacific time, they have been infected

Google Flights Search

Google Flight Search is the Google’s new tool. You can search for flights and get the results ultra fast. It is nicer and simpler than other similar sites. You can narrow your results by setting the maximum amount you are willing to pay, the maximum duration of the flight you want or the number of stops you prefer. There are filters you can add very fast and easily. You can make a new search for another destination with just a click in the map. It does not support

Intel and Google team up for Android

Nowadays more and more consumers turn into smartphones and tablets. Intel and Google team up and future releases of Android platform will be optimized for Intel’s Atom low power processors. Intel also announced that their processors will consume 20 times less energy in idle mode by 2013 without compromising performance. More power with less energy, we will enjoy our Android devices more without charging so soon