Posts by happygeek

Seriously, there's nothing meh about 25 million packets per second...

An unnamed Asian company operating within what has been described as a 'high risk e-commerce industry' has been targeted by a botnet which launched a DDoS attack of unprecedented magnitude. According to Distributed Denial of Service mitigation experts Prolexic, which claims to have successfully combated the attack, the volume of this particular attack was nothing short of extraordinary.

How so? Well, consider that most high-end border routers employed by your average ISP are capable of forwarding around 70,000 packets per second typically. Now consider that the volume of this DDoS attack using TCP SYN Floods and ICMP Floods reached 25 million packets per second at its peak.

Prolexic were able to determine that the botnet being used by the attacker consisted of no less than 176,000 zombie computers. This in itself should be enough to raise eyebrows within the security industry seeing as the previous five attacks that Prolexic successfully mitigated featured no more than 5,000 to 10,000 bots being deployed for each.

Paul Sop, chief technology officer at Prolexic, explains that the Asian company being targeted had unsuccessfully attempted to stop the attacks for "many months" with the help of both the ISP and carrier concerned. However, the sheer volume of the packet flooding proved too much. Prolexic was able to mitigate the threat by distributing the traffic between a number of global Tier 1 carriers and 'scrubbing' network centers. Sop warns that this massive attack in Asia could be "an early …

I prefer PG Tips myself (Brit tea-based joke...)

Erm, run that past me again Vinod?

Your email has been received, I am now awaiting a response from the other member concerned before taking any further action.

Apple hacking PWN2OWN supremo and security researcher Charlie Miller is preparing to reveal just how to hack an Apple MacBook battery. Yep, you read that right: Apple battery hacking could be coming to a MacBook near you soon. Well, near you if you happen to be in Las Vegas for the annual Black Hat conference in August that is. Otherwise, DaniWeb suspects you probably won't see any such thing.

Miller, the principal research consultant with Accuvant Labs, says he will demonstrate how to reverse engineer both the MacBook embedded controller (that controls battery charging) firmware and the firmware flashing process in order to completely reprogram the smart battery itself in effect. Something that Miller reckons could enable hackers to overcharge the battery to the point of potentially causing a fire.

The word to focus on here is 'potentially' though as, to the best of our knowledge, Miller has not been able to set fire to a battery or explode a MacBook as of yet using this particular hacking technique.

That said, the concept of being able to factory reset the battery controller to any defaults you like is an interesting one, especially as the changes made will be persistent and able to survive an OS reinstall. Malware authors will, no doubt, be listening carefully at Black Hat in August.

Tal Be'ery, Web security research team leader at Imperva, has been taking notice already and told DaniWeb that while the vulnerability is certainly an original one that …

The news article suggestion could be a tad difficult as it wouldn't be news by the time the competition was over :)

Arf :)

The world would be better without sanctimonious a-holes as well, but that's unlikely to happen either...

What exactly is wrong with my first post above?

It is another example of you trying to act like a moderator/admin when you are not, I'm afraid to say. The OP was asking for specific help from the mods/admins and you jumped in with a response which was not helpful and did not address the actual question.

If you re-read the original question then hopefully you will see why this is so.

@Happygeek: Was that account already used/verified?

The account is showing as registered rather than awaiting email confirmation, which rather suggests it was set up by someone with access to the yahoo.com email account in question...

How can any one use my yahoo ID , its 100% confirm its my id, i have tried to add through control panel but it didnt worked... now please change and send me a reponce over my yahoo ID.

In the first instance please send me an email, from your yahoo.com account, to happygeek@daniwebmail.com to confirm that the yahoo account is yours.

She should have said yes, yes, yes...

:(

That's bizarre - I'm sure I replied to this just after it was posted but my response seems to have vanished into the ether.

Anyway, what I said was the yahoo addy you have provided is, indeed, associated with another DaniWeb member (who joined on June 30th 2011) which is why you are unable to use it.

I want to change my email address from greatmajestics@hotmail.com to greatmajestics@yahoo.com , i want to recieve alerts on yahoo ID.. But when i tried to change it give me already present warning... It is requested to admin or mod to please correct this problem.

Done

No Ken, please do not mention site name and details. That's called spamming...

Love Love - Amy MacDonald

Talking of which... :)

Seriously, 'buy a new laptop' could be a perfectly legit response - it depends entirely upon the question...

“Your PC may be infected” says Google, which has taken the unusual step of warning users that a couple of million or so of them have most likely been taken in by a fake AV scam. According to a post on the official Google blog by security engineer Damian Menscher, Google has noticed an unusual pattern of user activity. “We found some unusual search traffic while performing routine maintenance on one of our data centers” Menscher explains, adding that they then collaborated with other security engineers at various companies which were sending the modified traffic in question to determine that the machines responsible were infected with a particular strain of malware.

Google decided to warn anyone matching the traffic pattern it has identified (involving the sending of traffic through particular proxies) when making a search by displaying a notification atop of their search results that says “Your computer appears to be infected” and offers advice on how to fix the problem.

The malware in question would appear to be installed when users are taken in by one of up to a hundred different fake antivirus warning scams that have been circulating for the longest time, although Google has so far been unable to actually name the miscreant malware.

Welcome to DaniWeb Toni

"May your ear-holes turn into a-holes and crap all over your face"

My first wifes' mother (toned down for a DaniWeb audience) :)

Just to clarify, Walt, let me restate the rule so there is no confusion on your part:

Do ensure that all posts contain relevant content and substance and are not simply vehicles for external links, including signature links

Posts that are not relevant and/or have no substance and act as vehicles for external links break the rule.

Posts that are not relevant and/or have no substance but do not have external links do not break the rule.

As Nick says, being stupid isn't currently a crime. Those posters who do not break this, or any other rule, but otherwise fall into the annoying dumbass category should be dealt with by way of a guiding hand PM from the mods which serves to gently prod them in the right direction towards becoming a valuable member of the community.

Well, the way it usually works when a member suggests a new forum is required is for that member to prove it is needed by doing the donkey work and throwing a bunch of links in the direction of management (in this thread is fine) to current and active and relevant posts in other forums that show there is a demand for it...

Set fire to the rain - Adele

"Our Viruses, Spyware and other Nasties forum is the place for Q&A-style discussions related to Windows security. Post a HijackThis log here if you think you've got viruses, spyware, adware, malware, or other unwanted guests."

Or were you thinking of something different?

Anyone else think that this is a retro step in terms of carrying more, rather than less, stuff around with you? I thought the whole point of smartphones, tablets and the like was to reduce the gadget clutter not increase it...

It doesn't take long to fill up a 16GB or 32GB iPad with stuff, but what do you do when that data storage capacity is reached? Apple has not opted for an upgradeable storage option with the iPad, for reasons which escape me to be honest, so if you find yourself hitting the limits you may think your only option is to discard data or take the plunge and upgrade to the 64GB iPad. The former is far from ideal, the latter far from cheap. However, there is an alternative in the shape of the Kingston Digital Wi-Drive which goes on sale in August.

The Wi-Drive is, essentially, a combination of portable storage and local user MiFi device. About the same size (121.5mm x 61.8mm x 9.8mm) as an iPhone, and finished in a similar glossy black casing, the Wi-Drive is compatible with your iPad, iPhone (3G/3GS and 4) as well as the iPod Touch and even comes with an accompanying Wi-Drive app. It adds either 16GB or 32GB of additional data storage capability to your iOS device, data which can be wirelessly shared between a maximum of three users within a range of about 30 feet.

It's certainly easy enough to use: dragging and dropping of files from computer to Wi-Drive via USB cable is the name of the game, followed by downloading the Wi-Drive app (which is free from the App Store) and then connecting your iPad to the device. The Wi-Drive …

Probably a lot more interesting than that pointless reply, to be fair...You wouldn't just be here to spam your signature links would you now?

Boatman - The Levellers

You're not getting arrested either, on the upside :)

The British website for pop sensation Lady Gaga has been hacked, it's official. The website was targeted by the US SwagSec hacking group it would appear, a group which has a track record (if you'll excuse the pun) of hacking the official websites of pop stars having already hit Justin Bieber and Amy Winehouse to name but two. Universal Music has now confirmed that part of a database was copied and the names and email address records of Lady Gaga fans accessed. The record label was at pains to point out that no passwords or credit card data was stolen. Although precise numbers are not known, it is thought that thousands of fans have had their personal information accessed by the hackers. SwagSec hackers also, according to a number of reports, issued a death threat against Lady Gaga.

Universal Music has now notified all the fans who might have been affected by the security breach, and have issued assurances that security will be beefed up to prevent any repeat of the incident. John Stock, a senior security consultant at vulnerability management specialist Outpost24, however, insists that there must be "some red faces in the Haus of Gaga" and warns that while no financial data may have been taken on this occasion "the potential consequences are still extensive". Not least, as Rob Rachwald, Director of Security Strategy at Imperva notes "it's a safe bet that Lady Gaga fans are getting fraudulent email messages offering exclusive Lady …

That might be a tad difficult from the virtual naughty corner :)

Oops! In that case, no problem m'lady... ;)

Welcome aboard...

If he hadn't fixed it by now, some SEVEN YEARS after the last post in that thread, I doubt it's really proving problematical any more...

Bam Bam by Toots and the Maytals

I'm not interested in discussing the issues.

Ding! Hoist by your own petard... :)

The EDL are racist hate-mongers. I was in Halifax a couple of weekends ago when they marched there and it reminded me of the National Front marching in the seventies: same thuggish/aggressive supporters, same racist sloganeering, same jumping on the prejudice bandwagon. I predict that the EDL will go the same way as the National Front, that is fairly rapidly into oblivion. And good riddance to it...

Oh, and before jumping to the political conspiracy theory regarding why the EDL website is down, ever thought it might just be crap coding, crap/cheap hosting, non-payment of bills yada yada yada. All are much more likely than 'the government' bothering with trying to bring down such an inconsequential political site as that.

No problem sir :)

The A Team by Ed Sheeran

It has nothing to do with the links in his sig being the same, it has everything to do with posting crap that is completely unrelated to the site let alone the forum in order to spam those links.

You cannot flag it because I have already deleted it.

Doubt that you'll see the other countries thing happening seeing as the brand is 'Great British Chefs' and comes off the back of a UK TV show where British chefs compete against each other :)

No, not funny. The user is a sig spammer and the post is now deleted...

Done

Cookery shows on the television have never been more popular, nor more populous for that matter. Celebrity chefs dominate the viewing schedules and best-seller lists alike, so surely anyone who wants to cook like a top chef has every opportunity to do so already. Why then, you might wonder, would you need an app for that? It's a good question and one that is answered by the Great British Chefs app in full. Take 12 great chefs with 15 Michelin stars between them, ask each of them to produce three complete menus worthy of their restaurants, and transfer these to the iPad (and iPhone) complete with the most beautiful photography, step-by-step recipe instructions and helpful hints and tips along the way.

You are introduced to each chef through a biography page and a video which explains their cooking style and thought process, and can select your dishes by choosing a menu from a specific chef, a meal type or by searching for a particular ingredient if you prefer. Whatever you choose you end up with some very high class photography illustrating what the dish looks like when prepared by a Michelin star chef (don't expect your end result to look anything like this though, unless you are an aspiring Masterchef contestant) and step-by-step cooking instructions. The recipe will also be graded according to difficulty, and there are a great many which fall into the complex category and these are best left to the more accomplished …

Erm, have your tried Amazon? Seriously.

Or were you actually asking about recommendations for a good C++ manual?

It is real, just very small :)

Can I just say, in a very loud voice, IWOOT! :)

There is an app for most things, but flying a helicopter has been (perhaps understandably) absent from the list. Sure, you can pilot a virtual helicopter or play a game involving a helicopter on-screen, but how about flying an actual helicopter in the actual sky using an actual iPhone?

Griffin Technology Inc, best known for a whole load of innovative hardware accessories for the original iPod, has today been demonstrating how to fly a real helicopter using an iPhone, or an iPad for that matter. OK, so it's a small helicopter, a remote controlled one in fact, but it's real and it does fly and you do control it using an iPhone app.

Helo TC is a functional touch controlled helicopter operated via an iPhone or iPad, effectively turning your iOS device into an indoor helicopter remote control unit. The helicopter itself charges from any USB power source, including your computer, and then you just slide your iPhone into the flight deck module and away you go: up, up and away.

The flight deck handles the infrared signal transmission, while the iPhone app handles the multi-touch display to control the Helo TC's throttle and flight control joystick. You can, if you are feeling brave and don't mind crashing a lot, even go into 'Tilt-to-Fly' mode and use the iOS accelerometers to handle flight: tilting forwards, backwards and side-to-side in an attempt to control flight.

With an average flight time of around eight minutes per …

After reviewing the Aurora laptop speaker system from the same manufacturer, and actually being very impressed with pretty much everything about it, I was rather looking forward to getting my hands on the Sound to Go portable speaker. Unfortunately my enthusiasm was somewhat short lived as the two devices really do not compare well with each other.

Whereas the sound from the Aurora was surprisingly good; well-rounded and dynamic with more than enough 'oomph' for the average user and certainly a huge advance in quality from the average laptop speakers, the Sound to Go was just OK. By which I mean that while it was better than the average built-in audio experience you are likely to get from anything but a high-end multimedia laptop, it's not exactly got the wow factor when it comes to sound reproduction. The design precludes any stereo separation for a start, despite the four one-and-a-quarter inch magnetically shielded tweeters. There's also a magnetically shielded three inch subwoofer with a built-in amplifier contained in the sleek cabinet, but it doesn't do a very good job of pumping up the bass. In actual fact, the bass output was truly weak in my opinion and rather let the whole unit down as a result.

The sound just wasn't dynamic enough for me, although at low volumes it was distortion free and 'pleasant' enough I guess. Just don't expect to go boom boom and shake the room with this thing, ramp …