Megaupload Founder Kim Dotcom out on bail
Kim Dotcom the founder of the formerly number 1 file sharing website in the world Megaupload is out on bail with some very strict clauses. He can not leave his home unless he gives police a full 24 hours notice and cannot leave within 80 kilometers from his home (about 50 miles) and no helicopters are to land on his premises. Both of these measures are in place to reduce his chance of running away. He also can not access the internet at all which basically puts a huge road block in his ability to communicate with even his US defense team since he can’t email, use his VoIP phones or instant messaging. His restriction to the internet is with the hopes that he can’t build back Megaupload in a country that will allow him to bypass restrictions.
Hard drives – Another step forward
Scientists have discovered that switching the on and off portion of a hard drive, the 0s and 1s can be done with a very short pulse of heat from a laser. What this breaks down to are harddrives that can essentially process and record terabytes of information per a second, this is literally hundreds of times as fast as current technology allows for even with the most sophisticated of drives.
Aside from the obvious benefits of a system that writes faster it also has implications on future machine functionality for computers that have inadequate RAM and use page filing to compensate.
Windows 8 Features
Windows 8 is looking to be more impressive as more and more information is released from basic usability improvements over Windows 7 to standardization and ease of use for developers for the OS as well as business applications. Windows 8 will be available in x32, x64 and x86 as well as on ARM chipsets from Intel and AMD. Windows 8 is going to be the first version of Windows to work seamlessly on desktop, laptop or tablet.
Windows to go gives a user the ability to create a complete Windows 8 image on an “USB live” drive that can be used on any Windows 7 or 8 system on an USB 2.0 or 3.0 compatible drive. For businesses, consultants or even students this means being able to carry around a full version of windows with a complete user profile. Windows to go does not support hibernate functionality and if removed from a desktop the system will freeze out BUT Microsoft has had some foresight to allow it to resume function if the USB is inserted within the next minute or so.
Windows 8 is going to support the Kinect, which from its initial release on Microsofts’ Xbox 360 gaming system has gained a huge following in the mod community and has even prompted Microsoft to work on a Kinect development kit. As prices drop for the actual hardware of the kinect it could potentially be a standard device on even notebooks.
The system requirements for Windows 8 one of the more impressive improvements that Microsoft has made, managing to do more with lower system requirements.
32-bit
1 GHZ Processor
1 GB RAm
16 GB HD space
Direct X9
The 64 and 86 bit versions only require an extra gig of ram and an extra 4 gigs of harddrive space.
Some other keynotes to look at
- Boot time as fast as 10 seconds
- Windows defender much improved antivirus optimized for windows 8
- Internet explorer 10 to support html5 and improved safety
- Windows developers offered 80 percent of sales for apps
- Release date mid to late 2012
Facebook looking to raise 5 billion in funds
Facebook is finally going to become a publicly traded company and is looking to raise at least 5 billion dollars and upwards of 10 billion dollars when they become public.
Below is an interesting article that lays out point for point the most prudent pieces of information of how Facebook is running.
France to Google “Free is unfair”
In a ruling this past Tuesday, French mapping company Bottin Cartographes won an unfair competition complaint against Google France, claiming that Googles’ free mapping service was meant to undercut their pay-for mapping service until Google could win over market control of online mapping services in France. Google has been ordered to pay 500,000 euros (Dollar equivalent of about 655 K) and a 15,000 Euro fine (Dollar equivalent of a little over 19K).
Google intends to appeal the decision and believes “a free high-quality mapping tool is beneficial for both Internet users and website”.
Molybdenite: Building a better chip
As the physical size of computer components shrinks there are unique challenges that come up because of downfalls of the materials being used. Silicon becomes more susceptible to oxidation when it produced at increasingly smaller size, for electronic components this can mean loss of function or efficiency. In recent years graphene has been an up and coming rival for silicone but even IBM has said that its not a practical choice for replacement because it can’t be turned “on and off” like silicon can, which is essential, but it can be used to compliment silicon structures.
Molybdenite has a distinct of all inclusive advantages over silicone, it can turn on and off in the way that silicone can, it can be produced much smaller and not suffer the same oxidation that silicone does, even still it has better efficiency with relaying and transferring signals, it is a flexible material, they can be switched on and off more quickly as well.
While silicone won’t decline any time soon it’s going to be interesting to see how molybdenite will develop as an electronics material.
Symantec on pcAnywhere
In light of the reported security breach of Symantec, the company has reported that the stolen source code is of little consequence as long as upgrades are performed. They are even offering up a free upgrade of pcAnywhere 12.5 to all customers, even those that would not have qualified for support. Though the hacker responsible has not been caught yet Symantec continues to plug away to assure its users safety and security.
Megaupload servers could be wiped clean
Having been taken down by the US for facilitating the transfer of copy written material (due to having some servers located on US soil) Megaupload, one of the most popular sites on the internet is now not only shutdown but faces having its servers wiped completely. Megaupload made use of other companies to host their data, two of these companies Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc. may begin to delete the data they have stored this Thursday according to a letter filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Megaupload, who has their funds frozen at the moment can not afford to pay for the information to continue to be stored. At risk is the data of millions of people who uploaded legitimate and personal information that they used Megaupload to host. In the process of trying to protect copy write holders from pirating it might cause a tremendous amount of collateral damage to legit users of this type of service.
Bottlenecks and extending computer lifespan
Bottlenecking refers to a limit-cap that occurs in any system, natural or mechanical due to one or more pieces of that systems that limit the performance of the rest.In nature, food availability limits population size, but in computers, depending on what you are using it for, a bottle neck can occur in one of many places in the system. As programs improve and advance they require larger amounts of memory and system resources to run which can make using older devices a hassle. There are however ways to keep an older system relevant and useful.
Random Access Memory or RAM is a form of temporary memory that runs at blistering speeds, whenever a program or utility is accessed RAM is utilized in order to run the program. This is one of the more common starting places for a bottleneck in a system to occur. Spreadsheets, design programs, browsers, movie editing software can all eat up tons of RAM, when the RAM can not handle any higher of a load the memory is moved over to the page file system from the computers hard drive, which can slow down a system tremendously. Though ram is cheap, purchasing pre-built systems with extra ram usually costs double or triple the price of purchasing RAM from a third party vendor and and doing the installation on your own.
Installing ram is a fairly easy task and can be done in a few short steps.
1. Identify how much current RAM is installed by checking the system specs.
2. Refer to the users manual or contact the manufacturer to identify the type of RAM that the system uses and the max it can handle.
3. Open up your system chasis, unplug your system and ground yourself.
4. Carefully insert your RAM into the RAM slots in your motherboard (this should be a tool less) action.
5. Push down the RAM into the slots firmly and lock it in.
6. On start up the computer should recognize the extra RAM and that’s all there is to it.
Average computers usually start with around 2 gigs of RAM, which is a safe point to boost an older model up to keep it current for general use. For use in memory intensive situations its best to tailor it to the program that you are using. Some photo editing programs require at least a Gig of ram just to run and will pull much more when rendering effects.
There is however a point where adding RAM will have no discernible effect on computer performance, if a computer never utilizes above 1 gig of ram at any point and has 8 gigs installed, adding another 8 will not double performance. The idea is to install an appropriate amount dependent on what your machine is used for.
Symantec victim of breach and code theft
In 2006 Symantec was subject to parts of their source code being stolen, in response to threats of disclosure of the source code Symantec has taken a proactive route by keeping their customers in the loop. While they suggest that keeping updated and using current itterations of their products will essentially make any problems something to not worry about, they however stress that their PCanywhere application is at particular risk and should only be used for business critical applications.
January 24, 2012, 22:50 PST
Symantec can confirm that a segment of its source code has been accessed. Upon investigation of the claims made by Anonymous regarding source code disclosure, Symantec believes that the disclosure was the result of a theft of source code that occurred in 2006. Since 2006, Symantec has instituted a number of policies and procedures to prevent a similar incident from occurring.
Furthermore, there are no indications that customer information has been impacted or exposed at this time.
What products were impacted?
Our investigation continues to indicate that the theft is limited to only the code for the 2006 versions of Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition; Norton Internet Security; Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack); and pcAnywhere.
Based on our analysis, the Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition code in question represents a small percentage of the pre-release source for the Symantec AntiVirus 10.2 product, accounting for less than 5% of the product.
The Symantec Endpoint Protection 11 product – which was initially released in the fall of 2007 – was based upon a separate code branch that we do not believe was exposed. This code branch contains multiple new protection technologies including Heuristic Protection, Intrusion Prevention Security, Firewall, Application Control, Device Control, Tamper Protection, redesigned core engines, as well as our Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager (SEPM). Customers on Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.x are at no increased security risk as a result of the aforementioned code theft.
What new risks could result from this disclosure?
Our analysis shows that due to the age of the exposed source Symantec anti-virus or endpoint security customers – including those running Norton products – should not be in any increased danger of cyber attacks resulting from this incident.
Customers of Symantec’s pcAnywhere have increased risk as a result of this incident as discussed below.
What should I do if my organization uses Norton Antivirus Corporate Edition, Norton Internet Security, Norton SystemWorks (Norton Utilities and Norton GoBack), Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 11.0, or Symantec AntiVirus 10.2 ?
There is nothing additional that customers of these products need to do beyond adhering to best practices. The code that has been exposed is so old that current out-of-the-box security settings will suffice against any possible threats that might materialize as a result of this incident.
Our recommended best practices include:
Making sure your AV definitions are up to date
Making sure your software is upgraded to the latest maintenance version
As it makes sense for your organization, upgrade to the latest version of Symantec Endpoint Protection, which is SEP 12.1 RU1. Our analysis shows that the code theft does not require organizations to accelerate an upgrade to SEP 12.1.
What should I do if my organization uses pcAnywhere?
Our current analysis shows that all pcAnywhere 12.0, 12.1 and 12.5 customers are at increased risk, as well as customers using prior versions of the product. pcAnywhere is also bundled with numerous Symantec products. The full standalone product is bundled in a number of Altiris based solutions. A remote access component of pcAnywhere, called the pcAnywhere Thin Host, is also bundled with a number of Symantec backup and security products.
Symantec recommends that customers follow general security best practices, as well as configuring pcAnywhere in a way that minimizes potential risks. Symantec also recommends that customers only use pcAnywhere for business critical purposes.
To assist customers with understanding the risk and best practices, customers should refer to our posting on Symantec Connect.
