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At the end of August, hackers part of Team GhostShell published the details of around 1 million accounts stolen from over 100 websites worldwide as part of an operation calledProject HellFire. Now, the collective has turned its attention to the world’s top 100 educational institutions in what they call Project WestWind.“We have set out to raise awareness towards the changes made in today's education, how new laws imposed by politicians affect us, our economy and overall, our way of life,” the hackers explained.
“How far we have ventured from learning valuable skills that would normally help us be prepared in life, to just, simply memorizing large chunks of text in exchange for good grades? How our very own traditions are heard less and less, losing touch with who we truly are? Slowly casting the identities, that our ancestors fought to protect, into exile.”The list of affected universities includes Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, Princeton, John Hopkins, Imperial College London, University of Michigan, Tokyo University, University of Wisconsin, University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Kyoto University, University of Houston, Linkoping University and New York University.The University of Edinburgh, University of Maryland, University of British Columbia, University of Texas, University of Colorado, Duke University, Rutgers University, Manchester University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Zurich, University of Florida, University of Berlin, Utrecht University and Osaka University have also been targeted.However, the list of victims doesn’t end there. It continues with Heidelberg University, Moscow State University, University of Freiburg, Boston University, Texas A&M University, McMaster University, University of Gottingen, Purdue University and many others.The hackers claim they could have stolen hundreds of thousands of record sets, just as they did last time, but they only published around 120,000 to “keep the leaked information to a minimum.”Furthermore, they claim that many of the servers they penetrated are highly unsecure, some of them even hosting malware, despite the fact that they store credit card details.
While performing a review of Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager (CallManager) – a software-based call-processing system –, security researcher Roberto Suggi Liverani found a way to break the PINs of registered accounts by performing a brute force attack.“When looking at the phone handset configuration, some URLs are set to allow the handset to retrieve Personal Address Book details or access the Fast Dials. That caught my attention and I immediately pointed my web proxy to those URLs, forgetting about the handset interface,” the expert explained.The researcher noticed that the handset itself is actually performing simple GET HTTP requests to the CallManager to initiate the login sequence.The response contains a “sid” token which is needed to perform the brute force attack. Because it isn’t possible to perform a userID enumeration, the attack is done with an application such as Burp. The technical details for the attack are available on Roberto Suggi Liverani’s personal blog.
“The Amazing Spider-Man” may have not set any box office record but it still performed very well, while also faring exceptionally with the critics. A sequel has long been confirmed but, until now, director Marc Webb’s return was uncertain. Columbia Pictures President Doug Belgrad has just confirmed it: Webb will be back for the sequel, though it’s too early to discuss the threequel as well. “We could not be more confident in the direction we are taking this new Spider-Man storyline and we are tremendously excited to be ramping up production again with Marc at the helm and Andrew continuing on as Peter Parker,” Belgrad says. “We can’t wait to share what we have in store for Peter and Spider-Man with audiences worldwide,” he adds. As we also reported some time back, Webb’s return was unsure but very unlikely because of a previous commitment with Searchlight Fox, which stood great chances of preventing him from doing another project as big as “Spider-Man.”It turns out that said obstacle has just been overcome.
We knew that notebooks had lost, and are still losing, ground to tablets and phones, but we did not actually see all that much to suggest that the ones who make laptops are ready to resign themselves to this situation. Granted, we did see some companies quitting the market, but the big names like Dell, ASUS, Toshiba, HP and Acer kept trying to reinvent the brand. Intel's relentless campaign to promote ultrabooks also played its part. Alas, growth in global demand has dropped, so it doesn't make so much sense to keep producing laptops with few buyers. According tochassis, battery pack and thermal module manufacturers, all the companies mentioned above will reduce the number of different designs by 20%, on average, starting in 2013. This will allow them to focus on the ones with high market potential and profitability.
As you probably know by now, Microsoft went through a serious rebranding process in preparation for the Windows 8 launch, so the company recently received a brand new logo.The logo features four different colors that remind us of the old-fashioned Windows operating system, but the meaning of each of these actually concerns the other products of the company.Seth Eliot, a Microsoft employee, revealed that blue comes from Windows, Windows Live, Server, SQL Server, Azure, Outlook.com and Internet Explorer, while red is being used for Office. Green represents Xbox and Xbox Live, while yellow “is still a mystery.” It probably stands for Bing, the company’s search engine though.There are however several important Microsoft products that aren’t included in the logo, such as Skype, Windows Phone, Dynamics and Visual Studio, so don’t be too surprised if some of these will get a new logo anytime soon.
The Redmond-based technology giant Microsoft has about 6,000 job openings at this moment, but it claims that the available labor pool in the Unites States forces it to look on other continents for new employees.
What’s more, Microsoft emphasized that the Congress should issue more high-tech visas for foreign IT workers, while all collected funds could be then used for other training programs.According to Information Week, Microsoft currently has 6,000 job openings, 3,400 of which are aimed at IT pros such as software engineers and developers. There are only 40,000 STEM graduates every year in the United States, said Microsoft Chief Counsel Brad Smith during a forum on immigration policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. What’s more, finding qualified workers for areas such as cloud computing and mobility is quite a difficult challenge, as the number of applicants is surprisingly low.This means that large IT corporations in the United States have to face a terrible shortage when it comes to IT professionals, so searching outside the country is the only viable solution.There’s a big problem however, even when trying to hire employees based in Europe or in Asia: the government doesn’t issue enough visas, so foreigners can’t be employed in the United States.Smith said that the Congress should approve an additional 20,000 STEM visas each year, but also 20,000 new green cards for tech employees. Microsoft’s official emphasized that the government could collect up to $500 million if companies would be charged between $10,000 and $15,000 for each visa, so all the money could be then used to support similar training programs across the United States.
Google is not done with the year-long spring cleaning. As soon as Larry Page took over as CEO, Google started closing down or merging services and products that weren't getting much traction. The big ones are long gone now, but Google is still shutting down or changing features and smaller services to make for more streamlined products.In the latest cleaning batch, Google announced retiring several products and features as well as merging some into other existing products.
AdSense for Feeds getting the axe, FeedBurner may be next
AdSense for Feeds is getting the axe, it's no big surprise, RSS feeds are mostly an anachronism these days, for better or for worse.Rumors about Google's RSS tool FeedBurner impending demise have been intensifying lately and the shutdown of the monetization platform is only adding to the legitimacy of those rumors. AdSense for Feeds will be retired starting October 2nd and will be killed off for good on December 3rd.No more background images on the Google homepageGoogle is also killing off custom background images for the Google homepage. With iGoogle already on its way out, background images were the last way users could customize the Google homepage.The feature, dubbed Classic Plus, was introduced a couple of years ago, but it seems Google doesn't think it's seeing enough usage to justify keeping it.Users won't be able to upload new images starting October 16 and the background images will stop displaying in November. Any photo uploaded for the feature will still be available in Google+ Photos/Picasa.Badges in Google NewsOne feature that seemed, if not ridiculous, at least out of place is being removed as well, Badges for Google News. These badges were supposed to spur people to spend more time on the site and read more news there, but gamification really doesn't work everywhere, or even in most places.Other smaller features and productsInsights for Search has been merged into Google Trends which is getting a redesign to accommodate the merger. Places Directory, an Android app that was designed to help users find nearby places is getting shut down as well. Finally, +1 Reports in Webmaster Tools are being removed since the same data is available in Google Analytics.
56-year-old Paul Fitzpatrick thought he met the one when he was approached by 30-year-old Tunisian Mbarka. After they married, he came close to meeting his maker.Fitzpatrick is an ex-army law clerk from Burnley, Lancs, who went on vacation to Sousse, Tunisia, last year, after retiring and getting a divorce.
He didn't just enjoy the amazing Tunisian beaches and landscape, he also met a woman that would change his life. According to The Sun, he was approached by beautiful Mbarka, and they started what he thought was just a summer romance.“She was very beautiful and we got on well. It was a holiday romance and it was fantastic,” Fitzpatrick said.The Tunisian woman was 26 years his junior, and, when she called to say she missed him, he came running back to Tunisia. He flew back and forth 10 times until finally deciding to marry her. The couple would spend their honeymoon in the same place where they met.The first day they arrived in Tunisia for their honeymoon, he was locked in his bedroom by members of the woman's family. He was threatened and apparently kept there for 10 days, before he could escape and seek assistance from the British Embassy.The scammers reportedly threatened to cut off the man's fingers before taking his life.“I was terrified. I really thought they were going to kill me, “ he confessed.They took all his possessions – his cash, his laptop, even his clothes. When that wasn't enough, he was asked to wire his retirement fund and hand over credit cards and pin numbers. The man remained locked up until transfers went through.“They said he would cut off all my fingers if I didn’t give them my money. [...] They were demanding cash and cards and telling me to phone the bank for more money. [...] They took all the money I had on me, my laptop and clothes. I was locked up until the money came through from England. I have nothing left,” he explained. The woman that scammed him into marrying her and her family escaped with over $32,000 (€25,000).
The Martian crescent, in bright white, appears extremely clear in this February 2007 image collected by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft. This is the first-ever photograph of its kind to reveal the Red Planet in this manner. It was collected during one of the four flybys that Rosetta had to perform since launch, in order to enter the correct course that will take it towards a 2014 rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.The latter will enter the inner solar system at that time, and will provide ESA with a chance to study the changes that these objects go through as they get closer to the Sun. Usually, these comets spend most of their time in the Oort Cloud, an agglomeration of icy bodies located beyond the Kuiper Belt. The red colors in the image above are aberrations caused by light inside Rosetta's cameras. Though the Martian crescent may seem overexposed, the thin atmosphere around the planet can be seen at the 11 o'clock position.
A chemical blast at a large Japanese plant operated by Nippon Shokubai is set to create a serious dent in the global supply of diapers.The company produces super-absorbent polymers, required for manufacturing diapers, and controls about a fifth of the market, the Telegraph reports. The 900,000 square meter plant used acrylic acid to manufacture said polymer.
Its yearly output of 320,000 tons of the aforementioned polymer made the Japanese factory the largest global producer and distributor of the superabsorbent polymer. The polymer works by bonding hydrogen and water molecules, allowing it to quickly absorb infants' waste. This quality gives diaper companies that use the formula an edge over their competitors on the market. The resulting diapers can absorb 50 times their weight in liquid. The blast at the production plant is sure to affect sales of diapers worldwide. Other facilities are set to pick up the extra workload, but are not fit for the large scale of the operation. The company was planning to expand more on the Chinese market, and, with several contracts on the way, it was working overtime to cater to the large demand.Saturday's explosion at the Himeji plant in Japan, in the proximity of the city of Osaka, let to the death of a firefighter and the hospitalization of other 30 emergency service operators for severe injuries. 10 factory workers and 2 police officers were also wounded.Local authorities are still investigating as to the cause of the blast, but it is believed that it all started with an acrylic acid tank blowing up. After the initial, large blast, there was a smaller, second explosion, in which another acrylic acid tank went up in smoke. A third tank, containing toluen, followed. The explosions all took place between 2:30 PM to about 3 PM, NHK World News informs.Flames rose dozens of meters above the ground, destroying many of the plant's storage, development and office blocks. Locals were terrified, as the blast shook neighboring residential buildings to their core.
