Posts by WASDted

On Thursday, notorious computer hacker Albert Gonzalez (aka SoupNazi) was sentenced to 20 years in prison. That is the longest sentence ever to be slapped on someone for hacking. He was accused of targeting a bunch of retail stores in the U.S. including Barnes & Noble, BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, The Sports Authority and TJ Maxx to name a few. According to Law.com, on September 11, 2009 [ironically] this cyber terrorist pleaded guilty to several counts of computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft. It was believed that Gonzalez would hack into and steal information from the computer systems of Heartland Payment systems, a company that handles the processing of credit and debit card payments for national retailers. He would then use this stolen information to hack into physical stores by driving up to them and accessing their wireless networks, then plating a virus that would give me access to customer names and credit card numbers.

Oddly enough Gonzalez used to be a Secret Service informant. Kind of makes me wonder what kind of judgment our government uses and who they trust. After already serving 22 months in prison and before being sentenced Gonzalez told Judge Patti Saris of the District of Massachusetts "I had a government agency that believed in me. I threw it away, not because of egoism or greed, but because of my inability to stop my curiosity and my addiction. I have no one to blame but …

@ddanbe you are welcome :) and your thoughts on it will be appreciated i'm sure.

I wonder if anyone has used MonoDevelop and what your thoughts are. I am not a developer but I have tinkered with Visual Studio .NET and I must say it is powerful but it has its flaws. I just heard that MonoDevelop is an alternative IDE designed for C# and other .NET languages and I'm wondering if it is good enough for someone who wants to get their feet wet with some serious development. The nice thing about it is that it is free to download and it now fully supports Windows.

Anybody?

Today the cyber security experts at Norton announced the top 10 riskiest U.S. cities for cybercrime. The next time you pay a bill or update your status on Facebook you might want to look over your shoulder [virtually]. It seems Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and Washington D.C. are the riskiest all around cybercrime cities, thanks in part to the large number of Wi-Fi hotspots.

Let’s have a look at the top 10:
1) Seattle
2) Boston
3) Washington, D.C.
4) San Francisco
5) Raleigh, N.C.
6) Atlanta
7) Minneapolis
8) Denver
9) Austin, TX
10) Portland, OR

The above rankings were determined by combining data from Symantec Security Response as well as third-party data about online shopping and Wi-Fi hotspots. Now more than ever people are relying on the Internet for their daily communications, online shopping and paying their bills. These activities can expose a user to heightened risk levels, especially if conducted on public networks such as wireless hotspots at your local coffee shop or bookstore. Apparently living in a techno-savvy city such as Seattle or San Francisco does not make you any less susceptible to cybercrime, to the contrary in fact. In a press release put out by Norton, Bert Sperling, founder of Sterling’s Best Places said “Despite people’s familiarity with technology and the Internet, this study shows that everyone is exposed to a certain level of risk …

On March 10th Panasonic teamed up with Best Buy, DIRECTV and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment to offer consumers a "Full HD 3D" home theater system. The set includes a 50-inch class (49.9” measured diagonally) Panasonic VIERA VT20 Plasma 3D HDTV and a Panasonic BDT300 3D Blu-ray Disc Player and it retails for $2899.99. For that price you also get one [yes just one] pair of 3D glasses. The glasses look great, resembling high-tech sunshades but in my opinion they cost too much [around $150 a pop]. The first customer to purchase this set from Best Buy’s store in Union Square, New York received one year of free programming from DIRECTV. According to Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek article today , Panasonic has already sold out its 3-D Televisions in U.S. stores. Consumers are buying into the notion that 3-D content will be widely available soon. We can expect movies like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland to be available in 3D Blu-ray. DIRECTV said it will offer 3D pay-per-view and on demand channels. The 2010 FIFA World Cup [of soccer] has partnered with Sony to deliver 3D images from up to 25 matches. Imagine penalty kicks from the goalie’s perspective in 3-D, w00t! But wait…

All that sounds great but how great is 3D technology at this point?
I visited the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January of this year, where 3D televisions were one …