The Great Geek Manual News

Internet criminals have been getting more “professional” for years, trying to run their businesses like Big Business to get better and more profitable at selling stolen data online. Now the bad guys of the cyberunderworld are exhibiting other unexpected traits: remarkable patience and restraint in stalking their victims.

A new report by antivirus software vendor Symantec Corp. details a startling trend that highlights the inventive ways criminals are figuring out ways to make money online.

Hackers are sometimes breaking into online businesses and not stealing anything. Gone are the bull-in-the-China-shop days of plundering everything in sight once they’ve found a sliver of a security hole.

Instead of swiping all the customer data they can get their hands on, a small subset of hackers have concerned themselves with stealing only a very specific thing from the vendors they breach – they want access to the compromised companies’ payment-processing systems, and nothing else, according to the “Symantec Report on the Underground Economy,” slated for release Monday.

Those systems allow the bad guys to check whether credit card numbers being hawked on underground chat rooms are valid, the same way the store verifies whether to accept a card payment or not.

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Source: The Globe and Mail

Although rumors persist of their use in restaurants and movie theaters, the use of cell phone jamming equipment remains illegal in the US. Right now, the only permissible use is by federal law enforcement officials, but that may change if state prison officials in South Carolina and a manufacturer of jamming equipment have their way. Both would like to see state law enforcement get permission to use the jammers, which may push the technology a bit closer to the mainstream.

Jammers are relatively simple, as they simply rely on flooding the frequencies that cell phones use with electromagnetic noise, blocking any effective transmission within a limited radius. Right now, the FCC is responsible for enforcing the ban on devices that block signals from cell phones, an authority that dates back to the Communications Act of 1934. The FCC notes that “the Act prohibits any person from willfully or maliciously interfering with the radio communications of any station licensed or authorized under the Act or operated by the US government.” First time offenders may face either fines of up to $11,000 or a year in prison for each violation.

You can imagine how many offenses jamming something like a crowded movie theater might involve. Nevertheless, it’s widely reported that the FCC has yet to actually hold someone accountable for doing so, and it’s also widely reported that distributors have shipped the equipment to do so here from overseas; see, for example, this story in Slate.

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Source: Ars Technica

IBM produces the most powerful and energy efficient computers on the planet, according to the latest supercomputing Green500 list.

The top 20 most efficient supercomputers are built by IBM, or use the company’s high performance computing technology, according to Green500.org list; overall Big Blue holds 39 of the top 50 positions, in a list made up of computers used in astronomy, meteorology and pharmaceuticals research.

“Modern supercomputers can no longer focus only on raw performance. To be commercially viable these systems must also be energy efficient,” said David Turek, vice president of Deep Computing at IBM.

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Source: iT News

“It’s over,” said Julie Amero. “I feel wonderful.”

This is not, to be sure, how most people would react upon being slapped with a $100 fine and having their professional credentials revoked. But after a four-year ordeal, during which the unassuming substitute teacher was decried as “disgusting” in the local press and convicted of felonies carrying a 40-year prison term, the plea agreement she reached with Connecticut prosecutors Friday must have come as a relief—even though a forensic report made public today shows she probably did nothing wrong.

Amero’s bizarre trip through the legal system began in a Norwich middle-school English classroom on an October morning in 2004. According to Amero’s account, she was just browsing the web and waiting for the day to begin—searching for nothing more salacious than sites about hairstyles. What she got, as her seventh-grade students were quick to notice, was a Kama Sutra’s worth of pornographic images and pop-ups, which the hapless sub says she had no idea how to halt.

Having been warned (she would later say) against shutting off the machine, and a bit fuzzy on the distinction between turning off the monitor and powering down the computer, Amero hurried to the teacher’s lounge for help. Instead of a copy of The Internet for Dummies, Amero was handed an indictment on charges of endangering the morals of a minor.

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Source: Ars Technica

Facebook has won a $873-million (U.S.) judgment against a Canadian man who bombarded users with millions of unsolicited messages about drugs and sex.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel signed the default judgment Friday, resolving a lawsuit that Facebook filed in August against Adam Guerbuez of Montreal and his business, Atlantis Blue Capital.

Facebook alleged that Mr. Guerbuez had fooled users into revealing their passwords so he could send out more than 4 million messages that included promotions for marijuana. Mr. Guerbuez could not be located for comment.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company predicted the judgment will be difficult to collect, but is hoping that its size discourages future abuses at its site.

Source: The Globe and Mail

Ninety per cent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted.

So says Keith Bakker the founder and head of Europe’s first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts.

The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam has treated hundreds of young gamers since the clinic opened in 2006.

But the clinic is changing its treatment as it realises that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counselling is the way to treat these people.

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Source: The BBC

China’s internet censors appeared to be trying to block fans from accessing websites related to the album, which is titled Chinese Democracy.

Delayed since recording began in 1994, Chinese Democracy was released in the US on Sunday. It is unlikely to be sold legally in China, where censors maintain tight control over films, music and publications.

In an article published on Monday headlined American band releases album venomously attacking China, the Global Times said unidentified Chinese internet users had described the album as part of a plot by some in the West to “grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn.”

The record “turns its spear point on China,” the article said.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to faxed questions about the article, although a spokesman said: “We don’t need to comment on that.”

The album’s official site chinesedemocracy.com was inaccessible in communist China on Monday and internet portal Baidu.com blocked music-related searches for Chinese Democracy.

However, Chinese internet users were still able on Monday morning to listen to the album’s 14 songs on MySpace.com, the band’s homepage remained accessible and bloggers were allowed to have their voices heard.

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Source: The Age

Paul McCartney has pooh-poohed the suggestion that Beatles tracks could finally appear on iTunes because negotiations with EMI have once again stalled.

The long and winding road to get the Beatles’ back catalogue onto iTunes has proved a huge headache for Apple, which continues to be in talks with the band’s label.

McCartney, who was speaking yesterday at the launch of his new Electric Arguments album by his side project, The Fireman, said an agreement was yet to be reached between EMI and the Beatles.

“That is constantly being talked of – we’d like to do it,” he said, according to Reuters/Billboard. “What happens is, when something’s as big as the Beatles, it’s heavy negotiations.”

Macca added: “We are very for it; we’ve been pushing it. But there are a couple of sticking points, I understand. So the last word I got back was that it had stalled, the whole process.

“[EMI executives] want something we’re not prepared to give them. Hey, sounds like the music business.

“It’s between EMI and the Beatles – what else is new.”

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Source: The Register

It would be tempting for those in the video game business to take some recent news — for instance, that October sales were through the roof, or that the latest World of Warcraft expansion broke the all-time record for single-day PC game sales — as proof that their industry may be immune from the deep despair confronting the global economy.

And indeed, that seems to be exactly what many people in the industry are choosing to believe: that in rough times, people always spend money on entertainment, and that as entertainment goes, video game software and hardware offer much higher value than other options. In other words, the theory goes, the video game industry is recession-proof.

But people holding to that notion may yet want to consider getting their resumes ready or holding off on buying that Porsche, since all optimism aside, the future may not be so bright. It’s true that sales may be up in the short term, and look good for the holidays, but Wall Street doesn’t appear to be impressed.

Still, many in the industry contacted for this article say they think the sector could in fact turn out to be one of the few winners as general economic conditions get darker and darker.

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Source: CNet

Microsoft has announced a deal to distribute a second season of “The Guild,” along with an in-game advertising deal with THQ.

Microsoft has landed an exclusive deal to distribute the second season of the “Internet cult hit” The Guild, and will be distributing the series’ 12-episode run via the Xbox Live Marketplace, MSN, and the company’s Zune Marketplace. The series will be sponsored by mobile operator Sprint. The first season of the show is being re-released across those platforms starting today; new episodes will begin appearing once a week beginning November 25. Episodes will be available for free.

The Guild is a Web-based scripted comedy written and produced by (and starring!) Felicia Day, who also appeared in Joss Whedon’s popular online effort Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog. The series focuses on the antics and misadventures of a group of online gamers, and its first season was supported by viewer contributions via PayPal. Under the Microsoft distribution deal, Day is actually keeping her rights to the show while collecting a licensing fee; she held on to the show for more than a year, refusing to relinquish business or creative control of the series.

“I don’t exaggerate when we say that we had dozens of offers for the show,” Day wrote in the show’s blog, “But I was adamant that we be able to retain ownership of the show and have the creative freedom to keep the show close to its roots and to our fans.”

The deal makes The Guild the first show to be distributed worldwide simultaneously across Microsoft’s multiple distribution platforms, and marks a new installment in Microsoft’s efforts to expand its online video offerings into original scripted content.

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Source: Digital Trend

Ninety per cent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive computer gaming are not addicted.

So says Keith Bakker the founder and head of Europe’s first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts.

The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam has treated hundreds of young gamers since the clinic opened in 2006.

But the clinic is changing its treatment as it realises that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counselling is the way to treat these people.

“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” he says.

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Source: The BBC

Piracy has been a bane for developers since day one of computing, but if you knew that your game had a 90% piracy rate, wouldn’t you be pissed?

World of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel isn’t pissed when he claims that the game is pirated at the rate of “about 90%.” He comes to this conclusion by looking at the number of unique IP addresses connecting to the game’s leaderboard server.

“We’re getting good sales through WiiWare, Steam, and our website. Not going bankrupt just yet!” he wrote rather plainly. Carmel added that a few players had illegally downloaded the game and then decided to purchase it, though he noted that those buyers formed a “very small percentage.”

Source: Digital Battle

Take a gold sample the size of the head of a push pin, shoot a laser through it, and suddenly more than 100 billion particles of anti-matter appear.

The anti-matter, also known as positrons, shoots out of the target in a cone-shaped plasma “jet.”

This new ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts.

Anti-matter research also could reveal why more matter than anti-matter survived the Big Bang at the start of the universe.

“We’ve detected far more anti-matter than anyone else has ever measured in a laser experiment,” said Hui Chen, a Livermore researcher who led the experiment. “We’ve demonstrated the creation of a significant number of positrons using a short-pulse laser.” Chen and her colleagues used a short, ultra-intense laser to irradiate a millimeter-thick gold target. “Previously, we concentrated on making positrons using paper-thin targets,” said Scott Wilks, who designed and modeled the experiment using computer codes. “But recent simulations showed that millimeter-thick gold would produce far more positrons. We were very excited to see so many of them.”

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Source: Phys Org

When the new Congress reconvenes in January, every geek’s favorite subcommittee—the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property—will be in the market for a new name. Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) plans to strip the SCIIP of its authority over IP issues, which will henceforth be handled at the full committee level, and instead give it jurisdiction over antitrust questions.

Included in the ambit of that IP jurisdiction is legislation, set to expire next year, that allows satellite TV providers to retransmit broadcast signals to rural customers.

Much initial coverage of the switch has hinted—and some positively screamed—that it represents a victory for content owners who had feared that with “Hollywood” Howard Berman (D-CA) slated to take the chair at Foreign Affairs, reform-friendly Rick Boucher (D-VA) might take the helm at SCIIP. But the Committee-watchers we contacted said that doesn’t compute.

Legal scholar Lawrence Lessig and Public Knowledge communications director Art Brodsky both suggested that Boucher was more likely interested in holding on to a top position at Energy and Commerce, where he currently chairs the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee. As Brodsky observed, Boucher’s intellectual interests may lean toward copyright and patent policy, but his constituents in southwestern Virginia care about coal. (Boucher’s office had not returned a call for comment at press time.)

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Source: Ars Technica