http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/blog67225.html I am an English geek with the perfect job: I write about technology for a living. Something I've been doing for a couple of decades now. For the past 14 years I have been a Contributing Editor at PC Pro magazine, the biggest selling monthly IT publication in the UK, as well as a contributor to numerous other publications. I was fortunate enough to win the UK IT Security Journalist of the Year 2006 award as well as Best Security Feature 2006 and 2007, and although it doesn't seem like it it was 11 years ago that I became UK Technology Journalist of the Year. My latest book 'Being Virtual' is due to be published by Wiley in April 2008. http://www.daniweb.com/forums/dani-images/misc/dani/logo.gif http://www.daniweb.com http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2448.html Have you ever wondered exactly how a botnet works? A wotnet, you ask? A botnet, I say. You know, the thing that your computer might well be a part of, without your knowledge or approval, which is used to launch distributed denial of service attacks, send spam, distribute malware and above all else make the criminal gangs that control them lots and lots of money. Now are you ever so slightly curious as to how a botnet works, how it does the Borg thing and assimilates your computing resources, what damage it does, how much money it makes and how you can prevent yourself from being just another... Tech Talk Wed, 14 May 2008 07:08:31 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2448.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2446.html According to security experts Sophos a man has been arrested after allegedly trying to sell a hard drive which had previously belonged to Formula One racing driver Adrian Sutil and contained personal and financial data. The police in Germany are said to be questioning the man regarding a blackmail attempt concerning both Sutil and fellow F1 driver, and global media sensation, Lewis Hamilton. Reports suggest that the man, currently only being referred to as Dieter, had tried to sell the disk to Bild Motorsport magazine, a racing enthusiast publication in Germany, for 10,000 Euros. And the... Coffee House Tue, 13 May 2008 11:25:17 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2446.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2438.html News is breaking that Microsoft is preparing a 65nm GPU for the next Xbox 360, codename Jasper and due in August. The most recent updates to the ever popular games console, namely the Falcon revision, seem to have helped a lot with RRoD failure: also known as Red Ring of Death. This occurs when the system overheats, burns and crashes with a telltale three flashing red light rings to the front of the console. It has blighted the hardware since launch, and has yet to go away completely. Falcon improved the cooling capability and reduced the size of the CPU die to 65nm. Which is where Jasper... Coffee House Mon, 12 May 2008 05:44:28 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2438.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2437.html A report entitled "Exploiting the Trust Hierarchy among Email Servers" published by Pablo Ximenes from the University of PR at Mayaguez, USA and Andre dos Santos at the State University of Ceara, Brazil suggests that Google Mail is flawed in such a way so as to turn it into massive spam machine. The report says that the researchers have uncovered a flaw in Google's free email service, Gmail, and that it "presents a vulnerability report and a proof of concept attack that demonstrate how anyone with no special internet access privileges other than being able to connect to SMTP (TCP port 25)... Tech Talk Sun, 11 May 2008 19:53:26 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2437.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2427.html It has emerged that Belgium is the latest country to feel the force of the Chinese cyber-super-power, with Belgian ministers claiming that state sponsored hackers have been targeting Federal Government computers. The Justice Minister in Belgium, Jo Vandeurzen, has claimed that the spate of hacking attacks also reported to parliament by Foreign Affairs Minister Karel De Gucht, definitely originated in China and are likely to have been at the direct bequest of the Beijing Government. Of course, Belgium has no need to feel lonely in the face of this apparent Chinese cyberspy attention. As... Tech Talk Thu, 08 May 2008 07:36:46 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2427.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2419.html Microsoft has launched a new add-in, designed specifically to simplify the process of creating content that is accessible for visually impaired and what it refers to as 'print disabled' individuals. The new Save as DAISY XML add-in is open source, being developed in conjunction with the Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) Consortium, and will convert Open XML based files into DAISY.XML which is part of the globally recognized DAISY standard for reading and publishing navigable multimedia content. With groups like the World health Organization and the World Blind Union telling us... Software Development Wed, 07 May 2008 07:31:30 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2419.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2409.html The trouble with being a mobile kind of guy is that the proliferation of mobile gadgets that I tend to carry around with me demand a small suitcase to bring the power supplies along if I am to be away from home for longer than a day or so. Sure, battery longevity is improving all the time, and convergence means that I can carry multiple technologies with me in a single gadget these days, but the power supply problem remains. If I want to travel light and leave the laptop at home, that means I don’t want to fill a laptop sized bag up with plugs, PSUs and cables to be honest. Which is where... Tech Talk Mon, 05 May 2008 18:41:48 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2409.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2401.html Rather aptly located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Computer History Museum will open its doors to the Charles Babbage Difference Engine Number 2 on May 10th. One of only two such working devices in existence, the first being housed within the Science Museum in London, the Babbage Engine holds a priveleged position as being the first truly automatic computing engine design in the world. Babbage (1791-1871) himself failed to build a complete working model of his design, through a lack of money and the sheer scope of the project, hardly surprising when we are talking about Victorian times... Tech Talk Sat, 03 May 2008 08:38:50 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2401.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2391.html Threat statistics just released by managed security company Network Box reveals that phishing attacks now account for 67 percent of all malware by volume. This compares with just 24 percent in February and 48 percent in March, suggesting that the phishers are continuing to be successful where other distribution and infection mechanisms are failing. When it comes to the geographic source of distribution, look no further than the USA which dominates the landscape for pushing out spam and malware. Indeed, it retains the unwanted title for the fourth consecutive month according to Network Box... Tech Talk Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:39:14 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2391.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2390.html File under very strange but oh so true: Google has launched a bunch of new themes for the iGoogle personalised homepage by artists as diverse as Rolf Harris and Ronnie Wood. These iGoogle skins can be used freely to decorate and personalise your iGoogle homepage, apparently. I am not sure I would want the Rolling Stones to take over Google, but am absolutely certain I don't want Rolf Harris, he of the 'can you tell what it is yet' catch-phrase, anywhere near my search results. Rolf, once voted the most popular artist in the world by people who one has to assume did not take appreciation of... Web Development Wed, 30 Apr 2008 05:35:05 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2390.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2383.html Security vendor PC Tools has published the source code and mathematical algorithm used in the domain name generation technique applied by the latest Kraken bot variant, Bobax. Analysis by researchers at PC Tools has uncovered how Bobax talks to control centres via HTTP using pseudo-random DNS names with a variable seven to twelve character length followed by a number of default suffixes in order to evade host intrusion prevention systems. Of course, commands and data will be encrypted for transmission but there are also randomly generated faked headers employed in a further attempt to stay... Software Development Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:33:29 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2383.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2378.html Speaking at the Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 in London, the VP of legislative affairs with AT&T, Jim Cicconi, has claimed that without investment the Internet's current network architecture will be at full capacity by 2010. That's just 24 short months from now, and with the ever increasing volume of video and user-generated content that is constantly being uploaded it is hardly surprising. VeriSign, are certainly not surprised, and have been arguing for some time that the Internet is full and we need to get off - or at least get on with increasing capability to cope with this increased... Tech Talk Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:09:58 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2378.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2373.html Can it really be 4 years back that Microsoft produced that always destined to fail product the datacasting SPOT watch? Yep, apparently it can, and apparently it has finally been killed off once and for all. Heck, how could it have succeeded? Cast your mind back to 2004 and think of the exciting new smartphones that were just starting to appear, how mobile phone technology was making that decisive move towards data, how WiFi was a reality. Then think how anyone at Microsoft could seriously expect us to go bananas about a larger than you might like wristwatch, that also cost more than you might... Tech Talk Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:48:10 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2373.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2371.html There has been plenty of speculation regarding the what and when of the next generation iPhone from Apple, with some claiming to have laid hands on the device already and others citing new features a-plenty. So far the most reliable reports would appear to have come from the direction of Engadget which claims "on authority" that a "trusted source" has played with one and can reveal it has 3G capability and proper GPS built in. Other changes would seem to be to the look and feel, with he metal backplate being replaced by a full glossy black finished casing all the way from top to bottom. To... Tech Talk Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:34:51 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2371.html http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2359.html Mark Furber, MD of a UK strategic online marketing company called NetCallidus, is warning anyone who might be listening that the publicly funded QUAERO European search engine research project is doomed to failure. Expensive failure at that: Furber says that the project, hyped as at the Euro equivalent of Google (don't we already have one of those, and it is called Google) will cost £75 million before vanishing into the ether. Something that Furber says is ridiculous as Internet technology will have significantly changed by 2013. Some, of course, might accuse Furber of doing nothing more... Site Management Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:38:57 CDT happygeek http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2359.html