Experts have warned that hackers may have created a network of “zombie” cellphones, similar to a network of virus-infected personal computers, to send spam or carry out cyber attacks.
‘Botnets’ is the term that computer scientists use for such networks of computers.
While millons of machines worldwide are said to be secretly running botnet software, [...]
Posts Tagged ‘computer’
Cyber criminals may have created first â€zombie†cellphone network
July 18th, 2009 |
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How to Get More Out of Your Home Network
July 17th, 2009 |
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For most people, a wireless router is just a way to share your broadband Internet connection across the several computers and wifi-enabled devices in your house. Your router is not just a point of connection to your cable or DSL modem, though – it connects every other computer and device in your house in one big network. With not much work at all, you can easily take advantage of this to make home-wide backups simple, to centralize your music collection, to share household files and services, and even to operate computers on other rooms. We’re used to going over the Internet to share resources on other computers, but all the Internet is is a gigantic, industrial-strength version of the network in your own home.
A quick overview of your home network
Your router is a simple device, really – all it does it bounce data from one computer to another. When I upload a picture from my laptop to my Picasa account, for example, my laptop requests a connection from my router, which accepts the connection and requests the file, which my laptop sends. Then the router readdresses the data in my photo to the modem, which readdresses it to a router on my broadband provider’s network, which sends it out onto the Internet bound for the routers at Picasa. (OK, I’m simplifying a little, but that’s the basic gist. All I’ve really left out are the order of priests who chant the holy invocations that run the Internet.)
Out on the Internet, every computer has an address, a crazy number that looks like this: 74.125.127.147 (that’s Google’s homepage, if you’re wondering). On your home network, every computer has an address, too – a crazy number that looks like this: 192.168.10.4 – the last two digits being anything from 0 to 255. On the Internet, the URLs we’re familiar with (google,.com, lifehack.org, etc.) are aliases for those crazy numbers – their secret identities. The crazy numbers are the “IP addressâ€, the location of the computer we’re looking for. On our home network, we’re stuck with the crazy numbers (for now – in a moment I’ll show you how to replace them with more memorable addresses.)
To find out the IP addresses of the computers on your home network:
- On Windows, open a command line (Start > Run and type “cmdâ€) and type “ipconfig†– several lines will come up, including your IP address.
- On Mac OSX, look under your system preferences.
- On Linux, use your magic telepathic powers to mind meld with the machine. When that doesn’t work, try “/sbin/ifconfig†at the command line.
Now, unless you got fancy when configuring your PCs, your router technically assigns a new IP address to each computer when it logs onto the network. In practice, I find that routers tend to assign the same IP address to the same PCs pretty consistently, but to be certain you can go into your computer’s network settings and copy the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway in, giving each computer a permanent IP address.
Here are some things you can do to get more out of your fancy home network:
1. Centralize content to one main computer
I have a desktop PC that’s on all the time that I use as the central “hub†in my home network. Because it has the biggest hard drive in the house, I use it to store all my documents, media files, photos, and everything else. Most files Are opened from and saved to that single My Documents folder; if I need a file on another computer – for example, if I’m going to be working on something while traveling with my netbook, it gets saved to a Windows Live Mesh folder and automatically synced back to the hub whenever I’m online.
You don’t need any special software to open files from or save files to another computer on your network – not usually, anyway. Even on mixed networks, most contemporary operating systems include software to allow them to communicate with other OSes. I find that even streaming audio and video across my home network is hitch-free – so I can watch a video on my netbook in the bedroom even though the file’s on my desktop in the living room.
2. Backup like a superstar
Since everything important is on one computer, I only have to backup from that computer. All new files are copied to an external hard drive from that computer every night using SyncBack. For redundancy, I also backup that computer to Mozy. The My Document folder on my two laptops is mirrored on the hub computer using Windows Live Mesh (which means they’re also backed up online at the Windows Live Mesh homepage).
3. Run a server
Since I do some web design from time to time, I have a webserver running on my home network – on the hub, naturally. Installation is simple: download XAMPP, run the installer, and you’re done. XAMPP installs Apache, the industry-standard web server; MySQL, the industry-standard relational database; and PHP, a scripting language. I also have a Rails server running on the same computer, from when I was using Tracks, a Ruby on Rails-based GTD app.
So, for instance, let’s say I’m working on a new website. I create a new directory in the “htdocs†folder in the XAMPP directory and install Wordpress into it. Then, from any computer in the house, I can type “192.168.10.4/newfolder†to work with Wordpress, just like I’d installed it on the Web. That looks ugly, but to be honest, I don’t type all that: I type “olympus/newfolder†into my browser, because I’ve modified the hosts file – on which we’ll talk in just a moment.
4. Use any computer in the house directly with VNC
Let’s say I’m on the couch and I want to check something on the desktop but I don’t want to get up. Easy – I fire up UltraVNC and voila – the screen from my desktop appears on my netbook (well, some of it – I have a 20†widescreen on my desktop and a 9†screen on the netbook, so I have to scroll around a little to see the whole screen…).
UltraVNC is free, open source, and simple to use. Download it and install it on every computer. It will install both a client, for viewing other computers on the network, and a server, for sharing the host computer’s screen with others. To view another computer’s desktop, run the VNC client, enter the IP address of the remote computer, enter the password, and that’s it – you can go full-screen and it’s like you’re sitting right in front of the remote computer.
Here’s one thing I use this for: Olympus, my hub computer, is right next to the TV (thankfully it’s a really quiet computer) and has TV-out. So I run Hulu Desktop (or other video) on the hub, in full screen mode, feed the image to my TV via an S-Video cable, and use my netbook as a remote control using VNC to access Olympus’ desktop. Perfect.
5. Edit your hosts file to give your networked PCs easier-to-remember names
If you do a lot of network stuff, you’re going to get tired of typing “192.168.100.114†and the like. It would be much better if you could just use words like you do on the Internet, right?
You can do that easily enough by adding entries to your computer’s hosts file. Normally when you enter a URL into a browser, the computer sends out to your ISP’s DNS servers to translate that word into an IP address, but first it checks the hosts file – if the hosts file gives an IP address, it skips the DNS lookup on the Internet. What this means is that you can assign the IP addresses of your computers names that are easy to remember, like “minervaâ€, “mercuryâ€, and “oracle†(those are computers and devices on my home network – Iâ€m sooooo clever!).
To change your hosts file:
- Go to c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\ on Windows 2000 and XP Pro or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ on Windows XP Home and Vista and open the file called “hosts†in Notepad (or another text editor; in Vista, you have to run Notepad as an administrator).
- Open Terminal.app on Mac OSX and enter “$ sudo nano /private/etc/hosts “ without the quotes.
- Go to /etc on Linux and open the file “hostsâ€. Most likely.
There should be a line that says “127.0.0.1 localhost†– don’t touch that. Below it, start entering lines like this for each computer on your network: [IP address]<tab>[Desired name]
So, for example: 192.168.10.2 olympus
Don’t forget the tab between the IP address and the new name. Notice I skipped 192.168.10.3 – that’s the computer I’m writing on now, and if I want to access it from itself, I just type “localhostâ€. Now, when I type “olympus†int the browser window, it connects to that computer. Since XAMPP is running there, I get the home page for Apache – which I could replace with something of my choice, but I haven’t. If I want to run Tracks, which runs on port 3000, I would type “olympus:3000†into my browser.
6. Share a printer
It’s stupid to have a printer attached to every computer in the house. Instead, I have a single laser printer attached to the hub, and I can print to it from any PC on the network – as long as the hub computer is on, which it always is. (Technically, because I have a networked printer, I could plug it directly into the router, but the router’s up near the ceiling and I don’t want another cable hanging down, so I connect it to the hub PC instead). Although I don’t currently have a color inkjet for photos, when I did, it was connected to the hub PC too.
To share a printer, just go into the Printer settings on the computer it’s connected to, right-click, and select “Sharing…â€. Turn on printer sharing. Now, go to “Add printer†on the other PC, and search the network for your printer. If all goes according to plan, your computer should install teh drivers from the host computer, and you’re set. If it doesn’t go well, you may need to use the install disc or download te drivers from the manufacturer’s website, and follow the instructions for installing a network printer. (It’s more complex on OSX and Linux, but google “share printer†and your operating system’s name and I’m sure you’ll find easy enough directions.)
The End
Do you have cool network tips to share with your fellow Lifehack readers? Share your network setup in the comments!
Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer’s Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he’s not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don’t Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
Dip in global computer shipments
July 16th, 2009 |
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Worldwide personal computer shipments between April and June were down 5% from a year earlier, a report has said.
Global shipments in the second quarter totalled 68.1 million units, said the report by computer research group Gartner, down from 71.7 million.
The decline was less than the 9.8% dip Gartner said it had expected. As a result, it said there were now "small signs" the market was recovering.
Hewlett-Packard kept its top position, with 19.6% of world PC shipments.
This was a rise on its 18.1% share a year earlier. Gartner said the firm had benefited from "aggressive" price cuts.
By contrast, rival Dell saw its second-quarter market share decline to 13.6% from 15.6% a year ago, with Gartner saying the company had decided to "protect its margins" rather than extensively reduce prices.
However, Dell kept its number two position, just ahead of Acer. Lenovo was in fourth place, followed by Toshiba.
Garner said mini-notebooks – the very smallest laptops – remained the big growth area, with shipments rising 20% from a year earlier. </p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Weaving the way
July 15th, 2009 |
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By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
As Apollo 11 sped silently on its way to landing the first men on the Moon, its safe arrival depended on the work of a long-haired maths student fresh out of college and a computer knitted together by a team of "little old ladies".
Now, 40 years after Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, the work of these unsung heroes who designed and built the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) is back in the spotlight.
"I wasn’t so aware of the responsibility at the time – it sort of sunk in later," said Don Eyles, a 23-year-old self-described "beatnik" who had just graduated from Boston University and was set the task of programming the software for the Moon landing.
"I don’t recall the risk and the responsibility and the fact that other people’s lives were to some extent in our hands."
But if Mr Eyles embodied the young, can-do attitude of many of the 400,000 people who are estimated to have worked on the Apollo programme, the "little old ladies" epitomised a more cautious approach.
"Why was onboard navigation a basic requirement for Apollo Well, because the Russians might not play fair"
Richard Battin
Director of the AGC project
The team of ex-textile workers and watch-makers were employed by defence firm Raytheon to "weave" the software into the memory of the computer.
"The astronauts toured the production facilities and got people to realise that it was real and they were real," explained Eldon Hall, designer of the AGC.
"The little old ladies said: ‘that could be my son so I am going to do my job as well as I can’."
Computer Jam
The AGC was a first-of-its-kind device that would become the forerunner of all "fly-by-wire" aircraft systems and the computer that would land man on the Moon.
"The computer was tiny compared to the one in your cell phone," said Mr Eyles. "Tiny in every dimension except size."
The one cubic-foot-sized machine had the equivalent of 160 kilobytes of memory and could do a very simple addition in 24 microseconds.
"That may sound very fast, but compared to modern computers that’s extremely slow," said Mr Eyles. "You have to understand that anything the computer did was made up of thousands if not millions of instructions."
Although relatively lethargic and cumbersome, Nasa realised early on that an onboard digital computer was the only way to guarantee success.
"Why was onboard navigation a basic requirement for Apollo Well, because the Russians might not play fair. They might jam communications," Dr Richard Battin, director of the AGC project, recently told a conference.
In addition, the missions were so complex that the fledgling space agency could see no other way for the astronauts to reach the Moon.
"The pilots could not fly the thing… even though they kept thinking they would," explained Mr Hall.
In fact, some engineers thought that any intervention from the astronauts was completely unnecessary.
"From our point of view the guidance system could be completely without the pilot," Mr Hall told BBC News.
The contract to build the system – between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nasa – was the first of the Apollo programme and was signed just 76 days after JFK outlined his plans, highlighting the importance placed on the machine.
But Mr Hall remembers that many remained sceptical that it would work.
"One you get it wired it’s not going to change without breaking those wires"
Eldon Hall
"The biggest problem was convincing people that a computer could be reliable," he said. "That was harder than designing it."
In the 1960s most computers were still housed in their own building and required huge amounts of power and frequent repairs.
In contrast, the AGC had to be small, lightweight, never fail and consume less power than a 60 watt light bulb. It also had to be designed and built in eight years or less by a team that were themselves grappling with new ideas.
"I only heard the word ‘digital’ once through my entire time at university," admitted Mr Hall.
But the MIT lab had a long history of designing instrumentation for weapons and aircraft and it was felt that the team of engineers were up to the task.
Early on, the constraints of the size and the requirements of the computer forced the team to make some bold decisions.
One of these was to use a fledgling technology known as integrated circuits – today, more commonly known as silicon chips. The first working circuit had only been shown off in 1958.
"It was an extremely courageous decision that was probably vital to the success of the mission," said Mr Eyles.
To simplify the design and manufacture – and, crucially, minimise the risk of failure – the computer used just one type of circuit.
The decision also ensured that the fast-changing silicon industry had an incentive to continue to produce the chips for the whole of the Apollo programme.
"The whole field was changing so rapidly that it was almost a suicide risk to choose one and use that thing to fly to the Moon 10 years later but that’s what we had to do," said Mr Hall.
However, the entire computer was not so hi-tech. In order to make sure that the software was robust it was "woven" into so-called "rope core memories".
These used copper wires threaded through or around tiny magnetic cores to produce the ones and zeroes of binary code at the heart of the software.
Pass the copper wire through the core and the computer read it as a one. Pass it around and it was read as a zero.
"Once you get it wired it’s not going to change without breaking those wires," said Mr Hall.
The rope core memories would become know as "LOL memory" after the "little old ladies" who knitted together the software at a factory just outside Boston.
These ladies would sit in pairs with a memory unit between them, threading metres and metres of slender copper wires through and around the cores.
"It’s an extremely time-consuming process and it meant that the programs had to be finished and fully tested months in advance," said Mr Eyles.
"It’s only now with the perspective of 40 years that Apollo stands out as a unique event, probably never to be repeated in my lifetime"
Don Eyles
"But it is extremely robust – that information probably still exists despite being left on the Moon."
To ensure reliability and the highest possible standards from the ladies, Nasa also chose to go on a PR mission to the factories.
"We used to go to the cafeteria and the astronauts would come in," said Mary Lou Rogers, one of the ladies who worked on the Apollo line.
"They’d explain the Moon shot and thank us for what a good job we were doing.
"Everybody got all excited when they came in – we were a bunch of married women with children."
However, Nasa did not just leave quality control to good will and chance, said Mrs Rogers, who also worked on Intercontinental Ballistic Missile programmes.
"[Each component] had to be looked at by three of four people before it was stamped off. We had a group of inspectors come in for the Federal Government to check our work all the time."
"It was bad when we worked on Poseidon and Trident. But nothing as bad as when we were on Apollo."
‘Spring loaded’
In the end, the attention to detail seemed to have paid off. On 20 July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin separated from the command module containing Michael Collins and began their descent to the lunar surface.
But just minutes before Neil Armstrong confirmed to Houston that the "Eagle had landed", the normally cool-headed astronaut was having a slightly more urgent exchange with mission control.
"Program alarm," the ex-fighter pilot called out over the radio.
Armstrong was confronted with a yellow warning light on the AGC, indicating a problem.
"When I heard that the computer was restarting I was very nervous because I thought something serious was going on, really serious," said Mr Hall, who – like 600 million other people – was watching the Moon landing on television.
"I was shaking in my boots. I was very concerned that they would have to abort."
Over the course of the next seven-and-a-half minutes the alarms sounded five more times; the last one went off just 2,000ft above the dusty lunar surface.
Each time Mission Control gave the command to press on with the landing.
Armstrong later explained: "In simulations we have a large number of failures and we are usually spring-loaded to the abort position.
"In the real flight, we are spring-loaded to the land position."
Seven-and-a-half-minutes after the first program alarm, Armstrong uttered the immortal words: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
But Mission Control had not been reckless. The Apollo Guidance Computer had worked perfectly.
Frantic analysis at MIT and in Houston determined that the alarms stemmed from a mistake in the astronauts’ training.
Although not needed for the landing, the rendezvous radar – used when the astronauts returned to the Command Module – was switched on in case the descent had to be aborted at short notice.
The data had overloaded the computer, which dealt with the problem by shedding "low priority tasks" and keeping life-critical functions running.
"The operating system was designed to handle that kind of problem," said Mr Hall.
"The computer was still functioning even though people still say it was failing," he added. "It was saving the mission."
In the end, the AGC and the sometimes-unlikely list of characters who designed and built the machine had succeeded: they had helped land the first men on the Moon and return them safely to Earth.
"It’s only now with the perspective of 40 years that Apollo stands out as a unique event, probably never to be repeated in my lifetime," said Mr Eyles.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Even better than the real thing
July 15th, 2009 |
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You can analyse a tennis ball’s flight, recognise strangers and play with a stegosaurus. Charles Arthur reports on augmented reality, coming soon to a smartphone near you
As the players pause between ends in a match at Wimbledon, the TV screen suddenly overlays the court with a pattern of yellow and black dots – showing where the receiver has been returning the first and second serves. As they walk back out, the overlay vanishes and they’re back to play.
As another wicket falls in the Ashes, a replay shows the flight of the ball, and how it was going to clip the off-stump before it was stopped by the batsman’s leg. And in the US, TV viewers watching an American football match see a yellow line running across the field – the “first down line” that the attacking team must reach to retain possession. Except that it’s invisible to the players on the field: it’s added in the TV studios. And this weekend’s Open Championship golf will show the greens overlaid with contours, revealing the territory each putt must negotiate.
All are examples – already so familiar as to feel quotidian – of “augmented reality” (AR), a burgeoning field that mixes computer power with real life to add extra information to a scene or event. The sports examples are only the beginning, relying as they do on static locations. The next generation of augmented reality is designed for people on the move – and it’s already being implemented.
For example, spectators visiting the All-England club this year with an Android-powered phone could download an AR application called Wimbledon Seer, which, when they held the phone up and pointed it at the courts, would display match data, where the refreshment stands were, or whether a cafe had an exceptionally long line.
Unlike virtual reality, or immersive reality (think Second Life), AR takes what is already there in the real world and uses computer sensing to add more information – whether in touch (“haptic”), visual or aural formats.
Pilot scheme
It has already been used in niche applications by well-funded organisations: Boeing, for example, uses AR so that engineers can do the complex wiring on its aircraft. Since a trial in 1996 – which involved PCs worn on a waistband and special goggles – its engineers have seen the wiring diagram overlaid on the place where they are looking, so they don’t have to keep referring back to paper wiring diagrams (where it would be easy to lose your place).
But even that’s not the original form of AR – which was arguably the tapes that you could buy or borrow at museums: slot them into your cassette player (which shows how old the idea is) and as you walked to each exhibit, the tape would provide a more detailed explanation of what you were seeing. It may be the first time art has fostered a technology breakthrough. Nowadays, AR is used in museums in a more dramatic manner – such as Canon, which has a version for showing off dinosaur exhibits: viewed through a special camera, a three-dimensional stegosaurus appears to be right in front of the visitor.
Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive of the graphics card maker Nvidia, is certain that augmented reality is going to become part of our daily life – and soon. “You’ll see it in your car when you’re backing up: you’ll get a readout showing how close objects are. Golfers will be able to put on glasses and it will show them the contours of the green. Already Sony has been using it in videogames – you put a camera over a board, and you put the game cards on the board, and you see a rendering of the monsters from the cards on your computer – and they’re fighting each other. Lego has done one where the model appears to pop out of the box.” He’s sure that the growth in processing power and location-sensing will mean AR will become commonplace in a few years.
Great leap forward
Certainly, AR out in the field needs smartphones with a number of elements built in. First, video or camera input in a high enough resolution; location sensing; direction sensing; and then, the onboard computing power to analyse the visual information and decide what and where to overlay. It’s only in the past year or so that smartphones with all those elements have begun to be affordable, and include elements such as the compass built in to the recently released iPhone 3GS and Android-based G1 mobile.
And there are already a number of startup companies trying to make the most out of this burgeoning area. One is Layar, from SPRXmobile, a Dutch company: it overlays local restaurant, hotel and property data on to the scene that it “sees” through the camera.
Meanwhile a Swedish company, The Astonishing Tribe, has gone a step further, with a facial recognition system called Augmented ID. It tells you who people are, based on identifying their picture via a technology called Polar Rose, which analyses faces and then searches for photos on Flickr that match it – and pulls out the name from the tags.
Another, called Nearest Tube, for the iPhone 3GS, uses its GPS and video capability to give real-time directions – overlaid on to the scene, viewed through the iPhone – to the nearest underground station. An Austrian-based company, Mobilizy, has developed an Android application that, given a camera view and a location, overlays information about it from Wikipedia and photos from Panoramio. So far there are 800,000 points around the world where it works.
Use your imagination
And it turns out that the programming isn’t the hardest part. Chetan Damani, a director of Acrossair, which developed the Nearest Tube application, says: “The app itself wasn’t that complex. Apple released the 3.0 SDK a few months prior in beta version, so we started conceptualising the app in advance. I would say in total we spent 20-30 man days on the project (design, strategy and build).”
He adds that AR isn’t a homogenous field. “Firstly, you have AR, which involves overlaying data in to the current surroundings, like our Nearest Tube application on the iPhone. For that you need the geodata (longitude and latitude) and a capable device. The second type of AR is when you create a virtual object and layer that on to a real-world view, like the BMW Z4 AR app accessed on a PC. For this you need a visual tag the camera can recognise to create the virtual object; in this type of AR app you do not need the geodata.”
It is still early days, though. “It’s really picking up now because of the devices. AR provides a much more intuitive interface to viewing mapping data, and the one thing that the internet era has taught us is that the interface drives interest. The hardest element about AR is getting hold of accurate data – you need to have detailed longitude and latitude data, and although this is available for landmarks and for certain stores, it’s not easy to obtain.”
But with GPS getting ever more precise, and mobile phones getting ever more accurate, it may not be that long before the spectators at sports events are lifting their phones – or perhaps even special glasses – to their eyes to “watch” the event in more detail, and in ways we presently have to stay at home for. Augmenting reality could make experiencing reality much more rewarding.
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Lost your Gmail password?
July 14th, 2009 |
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It happens, I guess.
Everyone will lose their password at one time or another; and it’ll be made of suck. Come on, who here among you people hasn’t experienced the pain of sitting in front of your computer, trying to think up of whatever password you used up for that particular account? After the 10th [...]
Extraditing hacker ‘could be disaster’
July 14th, 2009 |
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Gary McKinnon, who hacked into US military computers, will suffer psychologically if imprisoned there, his lawyers say
“Humanitarian considerations” that have arisen in the case of Asperger’s syndrome sufferer Gary McKinnon mean he should not face trial in the US for hacking into American military computers, the high court heard today.
In a last-ditch attempt to overturn earlier court decisions that the 43-year-old “UFO enthusiast” should be extradited, his lawyers accused prosecutors of ignoring the “disastrous consequences” of facing trial and a possible lengthy prison sentence in an American “supermax” prison.
The case also comes as the Tories are expected to devote an opposition day debate in parliament tomorrow to McKinnons’ extradition, after David Cameron said he was “deeply saddened and worried” about the case.
McKinnon’s barrister, Ed Fitzgerald, told the high court: “The Crown Prosecution Service wrongly failed to address the specific human rights issues, and the humanitarian issue, raised by the claimant’s Aspergers syndrome.
“The CPS, as a public authority, had a duty to consider whether its failure to prosecute [in the UK] has inevitably exposed him to an avoidable and unnecessary risk of serious psychological suffering,” he added.
The hearing comes after McKinnon signed a statement earlier this year admitting he had committed an offence under UK law by hacking into 97 computers belonging to the US navy and Nasa. The incident, which the US government says is the “biggest military hack of all time” and cost more than $700,000 (£430,000) in repairs, has led to talks between UK prosecutors and the US department of justice since charges were originally brought against the 43-year-old in New Jersey in 2002.
Although previous attempts to halt the extradition – which reached the House of Lords last year – failed, McKinnon’s lawyers have since obtained a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome after consulting two psychiatrists last year.
“Both experts referred to the grave risk to his health if he was extradited to the US, and [autism expert] Professor [Simon] Baron-Cohen referred to the risk to his life,” Fitzgerald said. “[The director of public prosecutions] failed to confront the human rights arguments for prosecutions in this country rather than in the US,” Fitzgerald added.
Both former home secretary Jacqui Smith and the current home secretary, Alan Johnson, have said they would comply with US requests for McKinnon’s extradition, while prosecutors argue that although McKinnon has admitted to “computer misuse” under UK law, it is less serious than the offence of “computer fraud” alleged against him in the US
The CPS, which defended its positiontoday , claims that the damage caused by the offence took place in the US, and that the investigation and most of the witnesses and evidence were located there. In February the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was not enough evidence to try McKinnon in the UK, an argument which McKinnon’s lawyers deny.
“This was inconsistent with the CPS’s own finding that there was sufficient evidence to prosecute,” Fitzgerald said. “McKinnon’s computer hacking conduct all took place in the UK, insofar as he was located here and using a computer in his home in the UK when he gained unauthorised access to the US systems.”
McKinnon, from Wood Green, north London, is described as “vulnerable” and “misguided” by his supporters, who contrast the efforts to extradite him with terrorist suspects who have been kept in the UK.
“I will not give up this fight until the government intervenes to protect my vulnerable son,” McKinnon’s mother, Janis Sharp, said. “When considering the extradition of Abu Hamza, the then home secretary said ‘Had we evidence in this country of a crime committed here then of course the police and the attorney general would have taken action’. Well, if that’s the approach for a convicted terrorist, why not for a gentle, misguided Asperger’s sufferer like Gary?”
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Microsoft Launches Partner Program for Surface Computer
July 14th, 2009 |
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Microsoft has launched the Microsoft Surface Partner Program to expand the ecosystem for partners and developers working with Microsoft Surface, the company’s multitouch, multiuser tabletop computer.
– Microsoft has launched the Microsoft Surface Partner Program to expand the ecosystem for partners and developers working with Microsoft Surface, the company’s multitouch, multiuser computer.
Announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2009 in New Orleans, the Microsoft Surface Partner P…
Apple Gearing Up to Release Tablet for Christmas?
July 14th, 2009 |
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A report from The China Times said Apple would release an $800 tablet computer in time for Christmas, pushing the Apple rumor mill into overdrive again.
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Rumors and speculation regarding Apples future computer production plans surfaced again this week when The China Times reported that Apple would be debuting a tablet-style computer as early as October and would retail for around $800. Adding to the speculation is an earlier report from The Wall …
How to verify if Microsoft Silverlight is installed on PC?
July 13th, 2009 |
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Microsoft Silverlight is a new technology platform from Microsoft. We need Adobe Flash player plugin to view Flash based websites in web browser. Similarly, we need Microsoft Silverlight plugin to view Silverlight powered websites. This technology renders neat interactive graphics and motion to content being viewed in web browser.
Is Silverlight installed on my computer?
It is [...]
How To Spam-Proof Your Cell Phone, Inbox
July 11th, 2009 |
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Spam is the bane of computer users everywhere, accounting for more than 90 percent of e-mail. And, now, cell phones are getting spam.
North Korea launched cyber attacks, says south
July 11th, 2009 |
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Intelligence service claims document shows hackers across border waged internet war on Seoul and the US
South Korea has obtained intelligence that North Korea ordered a military institute of computer hackers known as Lab 110 to “destroy” its neighbour’s communications networks last month, news reports said.
The National Intelligence Service told parliament of its finding on Friday, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing evidence the north was behind cyber attacks that paralysed major South Korean and US websites in recent days.
The newspaper, citing unidentified members of the parliament’s intelligence committee, said Lab 110, which is affiliated with the north’s defence ministry, received an order to “destroy the South Korean puppet communications networks in an instant”.
The JoongAng Ilbo said Lab 110 specialised in hacking and spreading malicious programmes.
The NIS – South Korea’s main spy agency – said it could not confirm the report. Calls by Associated Press to several key intelligence committee members went unanswered.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency carried a similar report, saying the NIS obtained a North Korean document issuing the order on 7 June. The report, quoting an unidentified senior ruling party official, said the North Korean institute was affiliated with the people’s army.
The state-run Korea Communications Commission said it had identified and blocked five internet protocol (IP) addresses in five countries used to distribute computer viruses that caused the wave of website outages, which began in the US on 4 July.
The addresses point to computers distributing the virus that triggered the “denial of service” attacks in which many computers try to connect to a single site at the same time, overwhelming the server. They were in Austria, Georgia, Germany, South Korea and the US, a commission official said on condition of anonymity.
The attacks targeted high-profile websites, including those of the White House and South Korea’s presidential Blue House.
Though fingers were immediately pointed at the north, the IP addresses themselves provide little in the way of clarity. It is likely the hackers used the addresses to conceal their identities – for instance, by accessing the computers from a remote location. IP addresses can also be faked or masked, hiding a computer’s true location.
South Korean media reported in May that a North Korean internet warfare unit was trying to hack into American and South Korean military networks to gather confidential information and disrupt service. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that the north had between 500 and 1,000 hackers.
Members of the parliamentary intelligence committee have said in recent days that the NIS also suspects North Korea because of a threat it made in state media last month where it boasted of being “fully ready for any form of hi-tech war”.
The fact that some of the attacked sites – such as that of the ruling party and the office of President Lee Myung-bak – have links to the South Korean government’s hardline policies toward the north were further cited.
The north has drawn repeated international rebukes in recent months for threats and actions seen as provocative by the international community. Those include a nuclear test in May and short-range ballistic missile launches on 4 July.
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Giving life a shape
July 3rd, 2009 |
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Novel ways of thinking about the digital world are needed, says Bill Thompson, and perhaps the arts can help.
One of the more interesting shifts in the technology world over the last quarter century has been the way that cultural organisations have gone from being the late adopters, inheriting office-oriented computer systems from business and making do with them, to being those leading the digital revolution in many areas.
When I worked with the Community Computing Network in the late 80s it was hard work persuading charities and voluntary organisations that having a computer to handle their member databases and print letters was worthwhile.
But now that there really is a computer on every desk and word processing, spreadsheets and databases are standard, arts organisations seem to be far more willing to engage and experiment with the latest tools, especially online.
"We have few stories that talk about technology and few workable metaphors or analogies that let us convey complex technological issues in ways that people really grasp"
Bill Thompson
Many are making expert use of social media, moving from MySpace and Bebo to Facebook to follow the audiences, but also finding out how Twitter and other services can be used to help them engage and interact with people who may be interested in their art.
Stage craft
The much-loved Pilot Theatre brought in virtual worlds expert Caron Lyon to built them a stage set in Second Life. The team at Hoi Polloi used video diaries, Facebook and Twitter to establish an online following that has supported them as they tour from their Cambridge base as far afield as Australia, offering new audiences a chance to discover their work in all its strangeness while also ensuring that fans – including me – know what they are up to while they are away.
When it comes crossover organisations like Hide&Seek, who recently ran a social gaming festival in London, it is impossible to separate the art from the technology, and their work offers a real inspiration to those who wonder what the arts will look like in a digitised world.
This cross-fertilisation is important in several ways. It obviously makes sense for those committed to experiment and exploration in the arts to embrace new technologies as a way of exploring the creative potential of a new domain of human activity, just as painters explored the radical new technology of oils for for many decades, or sculptors turned from marble and limestone to work with welded iron or novel materials like frozen blood.
But there is something else going on, something deeper and potentially more important, because in working through the creative potential of new technologies artists of all types are helping us to find new ways to think about these tools and working out how to integrate them into our wider cultural and commercial practice.
They are helping us to explore the latest chapter in the ongoing conversation between human psychology and the capabilities of modern technology, something which will matter more and more as the network becomes pervasive and digital devices penetrate every area of our lives.
The point was made clear to me at Shift Happens, a conference on the ways arts organisations are using new technologies that took place this week at York Theatre Royal.
Over a day and a half the audience, mostly made up of practitioners, was treated to a fascinating selection of arts-based technology, or technology-based arts, from the interactive animations of the always-engaging Sancho Plan through calls to ensure that tech-based arts are environmentally sustainable from Envirodigital and a demonstration of how to subtitle your online video from Internet Subtitling.
It quickly became clear that the network revolution is already happening in the arts even if its success on the political stage is sometimes sadly limited, as we saw this week in Iran.
One problem in talking about this is that relatively few people understand the underlying technology sufficiently well to be comfortable with it. We have few stories that talk about technology and few workable metaphors or analogies that let us convey complex technological issues in ways that people really grasp.
Texting times
I wonder, however, if we can take some old stories and use them to explore the new world. Take The Tempest, for example, Shakespeare’s last play and one of his finest. Set on a remote island where Prospero, exiled Duke of Milan, lives with his daughter Miranda and a strange creature called Caliban, the Tempest explores issues of redemption and forgiveness and the use and abuse of power.
Prospero rules his island thanks the the spells in the books he has studied in his exile, commanding the spirit Ariel to torment and manipulate his former enemies, who have been shipwrecked on the island by a tempest created at Prospero’s command.
A modern reading this tale would see Ariel as a representative of the digital realm, created from bits but able to have a real effect on the physical world. We discover during the play that Ariel was locked into a forked tree until released by Prospero, a good analogy for the effort needed to liberate the power of the digital revolution, represented by Prospero’s books of spells.
We can take this further. The witch’s child Caliban believes himself the true inheritor of the island as his mother was banished there before Prospero arrived and fails to realise that Prospero’s books have given him power over the unseen world that far outstrip Caliban’s physical prowess, just as the rulers of analogue distribution fear the world we have conjured from our code.
And when Caliban, wandering the island with shipwrecked sailors Trinculo and Stephano, hears an invisible Ariel playing on a pipe he tells them:
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Today the thousand twangling instruments that Ariel and his sprites conjure up are replaced by millions of tweets, status updates, but they still fill the world with sweet sounds, and offer us a vision of a digital world that can be as rich and full of delight as we choose to make it. It’s reassuring to see that some of our best artists are working hard to make that happen.
Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet.</p
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
10 More Linux Resources for Kids
June 30th, 2009 |
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Yesterday, I wrote about Linux distributions designed with kids’ needs in mind and some of the software for children that runs on Linux. Today I thought I’d share some of the other resources I came across while researching a likely candidate to install on my nephew’s and niece’s new PC.
- Switching Your Kids to Linux by Scott K. This is a great primer for parents getting ready to give their kids a Linux system. The author walks parents through the steps of getting your kids ready, such as making sure open source software like Firefox, Pidgin, and Thunderbird are already installed on any Windows systems your kids might use, so that when you give them their Linux system, the only thing they have to get used to is the new interface, not new programs.
Be sure to read the comments on this one for some further insights and advice from other parents who are teaching their kids to use Linux.
- The Linux for Kids Experiment. Paul Barry at Linux Journal relates his experience getting his kids to use Linux – which proved to be easier than even he had thought. One good tip he gives is to set up a window with links to all the kids’ favorite apps (or the most appropriate ones) so that kids can access them more easily. Again, there’s some good information in the comments, too.
- SchoolForge is a directory of open source educational software. Though SchoolForge includes software for Windows and Mac as well as Linux, most programs will run on Linux and everything is clearly marked.
- Open Source Programming Languages for Kids. Although not every kid will be interested in learning to program, some will, and Linux offers plenty of tools to help kids learn from basic to pretty advanced programming concepts. Ryan McGrath reviews three programming languages and kid-friendly environments to learn how to use them. These will run on Windows or Mac, too, so don’t feel left out if you aren’t quite ready to build a Linux system for your kids!
- Using Linux to Teach Kids How to Program by Anderson Silva. Since programming is a complex skill, parents may want a little direction in how to get their kids started. Anderson Silva discusses some of the basics of LOGO, a programming tool where kids learn programming syntax to make a “turtle†draw pictures.
- KidZui is a Firefox extension that transforms your plain-vanilla browser into a kid-safe Web browsing environment, with access to hundreds of thousands of pre-screened websites, videos, and games. It is vital, of course, that you teach your kids safe browsing habits and that you provide appropriate supervision when they’re using the Internet, but for younger kids this can be especially difficult – how do you explain what they shouldn’t do without having to explain concepts they may not be ready to understand? A safe “sandbox†like KidZui offers a safety net to back up your own instruction – and helps parents find fun stuff for their kids to do online, too!
- Adobe Flash Player. Because of licensing issues, many Linux distros do not come with Flash installed. However, your kids will quickly tire of their YouTube- and Flash-game-free computer, so it’s a good idea to get it installed quickly. Just go to the link from your kids’ Linux computer, select “Linuxâ€, and follow the instructions to get Flash up and running on your Linux box.
- Free eBooks and AudioBooks for Mobile Computers. I went looking for a decent eBook reader for my nephew’s and niece’s computer, and found this site with links to dozens of eBook resources. Because it’s intended for mobile computing, some of the resources listed are for Linux-based PDAs, not PCs, but other than that there are a lot of great resources here, from readers to websites to download free AudioBooks and eBooks.
- YuuGuu. Since I’m going to be supporting this computer, I want to have some way to access it remotely. LogMeIn, my preferred remote access service, doesn’t have a Linux server yet (though one is supposed to be coming by the end of this year). VNC works great and is pre-installed on most distros, but is complex to set up on a home system behind a router and without a static IP address (if none of that means anything to you, it would be even more complex for you to do!). YuuGuu is the only desktop sharing service I could find that is both free and Linux-ready, so I’ll give it a try – the only downside is that it looks like Iâ€ll have to have someone initiate a session from the kids’ computer in order to do remote support.
- My Game Company is a distributor of “family-friendly†games for all platforms, including Linux. Linux isn’t known as a gaming platform, but there are some pretty good titles out there, and even some commercial games. The owners of My Game Country screen them all for excessive violence, foul language, and adult sexuality to provide parents with games they can be sure won’t raise too many difficult questions in young players’ minds. Although the owners are explicitly Christian, the game content itself is not Christian – and I think the standards they use will please most parents Christian or otherwise.
I’m a little disappointed at the lack of resources available for parents looking to explore Linux with their kids. It’s surprising, since Linux has virtually created the huge niche of childhood computing as an affordable alternative to Windows for schools in poor countries. There are now-defunct sites like “linuxforkids.org†that appear to have once been developing resources, but are now only link farms. I’ll be happy to see new players on the field paying some attention to what seems poised to become an important computing niche.
Maybe you know some good resources. If you know of anything, let us know in the comments!
Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer’s Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he’s not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don’t Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
Linux for Children
June 29th, 2009 |
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I recently took possession of a pair of older PCs – the natural consequence of nagging one’s older relatives to get something a little more “post-Columbian†– and of course my first instinct is to refurbish one as a Linux PC for my nephew and niece, ages 7 and 5. My nephew, especially, is computer-obsessed, and I figure that giving him a complete child-friendly, education-focused PC might encourage some more productive “play†than he gets using mom and dad’s PC.
Kid-Friendly Linux Distributions
Believe it or not, there are several distributions of Linux intended for use by children as young as 3 years old. Child-oriented Linux distros tend to have a simplified interface with large, “chunkyâ€, colorful icons and a specialized set of programs designed with kids in mind. Some of the better-known distributions aimed at children include:
- Sugar, the operating system designed for the One Laptop Per Child project. Sugar is a radical departure from traditional desktops, with a strong emphasis on teaching programming skills, but is very strongly geared towards classroom use. Although I’m pretty comfortable using Linux, I’m afraid Sugar might be too different for me to help my nephew and niece make use of it.
- Edubuntu is based on the popular Ubuntu distribution. Designed to be easy to install and very Windows-like in its operation, Edubuntu would be my first choice if I were using newer hardware. With its rich graphical interface, though, I worry that these years-old PCs, neither of which have graphic cards, will lag running Edubuntu. And given kids’ attention spans, I’m afraid that would be a major barrier to getting them to use it.
- LinuxKidX uses a KDE-based desktop highly customized for children, and is based on the Slackware distro. The only drawback for me is that most of the support material is in Portuguese (although the distro I linked to is in English), making it hard for me to be confident about my ability to help if there are any problems.
- Foresight for Kids is based on Foresight Linux, a distro distinguished by the use of the Conary package manager. Conary is intended to make updates and dependencies much easier to manage than other package managers – in English, it should be easier to install and update software. On the other hand, finding software packaged for the Conary installer might be a challenge, though I expect the most popular programs are being adapted by the Foresight team.
- Qimo is another system based on Ubuntu, but designed to be used by a single home user instead of in classroom instruction. The system requirements are fairly low, since it’s designed to be run on donated equipment which Qimo’s parent organization, QuinnCo, distributes to needy kids.
Given the low specs of the equipment Iâ€m working with, Qimo seems idea for me, but since most of these will run from either a Live CD or a USB memory key, there’s no reason not to download them all and give each a try to see what you – and, more importantly, your kids – like best.
Linux Software for Kids
In addition to the kid-friendly interface, all of the distributions above come with an assortment of software that’s either designed especially for kids or has special appeal for kids. This includes specifically educational software intended to teach math, typing, art, or even computer programming; typical productivity applications like word processors and graphics programs; and, of course, games. Of course, Linux doesn’t have nearly the range of games that are available for Windows PCs, but my thinking is, the games are good enough for younger kids, and older kids will gravitate towards consoles (my brother and sister-in-law have a Wii).
Some of the software available for kids includes:
- GCompris, a set of over 100 educational games intended to teach everything from basic computer use to reading, art history, telling time, and vector drawing.
- Childsplay is another collection of games, with an emphasis on memory skills.
- TuxPaint, an amazing drawing program filled with fun sound effects and neat effects.
- EToys is a scripting environment, more or less. The idea is that kids solve problems by breaking them down into pieces, scripting them, and running their scripts – the same way programmers do. But the goal doesn’t seem to be to teach programming but rather to provide an immersive learning environment in which kids learn foundational thinking skills.
- SuperTux and Secret Maryo are Super Mario clones, because kids love Super Mario. You already know that.
- TomBoy, a wiki-like note-taking program.
- TuxTyping, a typing game intended to help develop basic typing skills.
- Kalzium is a guide to the periodic table and a database of information about chemistry and the elements. Great for older students.
- Atomix, a cool little game where kids build molecules out of atoms.
- Tux of Math Command is an arcade game that helps develop math skills.
Not all distros come with all of these games, but they are easy enough to install from the online repositories if your chosen distro doesn’t come with one or more of them. Of course, most distros also come with standard Linux programs like OpenOffice.org (an Office-like suite of productivity apps), AbiWord (a Word-like word processor), GIMP (a powerful image editor), Pidgin (a multi-account IM client), and Firefox.
Linux is a complex operating system, but it’s also a highly customizable one – for kids, that means a system that can grow as they do and a powerful learning environment. Of course, children’s computer use should not be totally unsupervised – any kid can stumble across Web content that might be pretty uncomfortable for mom and dad to have to explain – but kids should have a chance to explore the possibilities of today’s technology and get their hands dirty, like kids do. And worst-case scenario – your 6-year old borks the operating system and you re-install. Wouldn’t you rather it was on the Edubuntu system, rather than on your mission-critical work PC? (Make sure you back up the /home directory regularly so you don’t lose all your kids’ drawings, poems, stories, or whatever.)
Do you know of other kid=friendly Linux distributions? Have you set up a Linux PC for your kids? Are their other games or programs you’d recommend? Let us know your experiences in the comments.
Update: Comic book writer Jeremiah Gray emailed me after this post came out to tell me about his series of Ubuntu-oriented Linux tutorials published in comic book format, Hackett and Bankwell. You can order printed copies or download PDF versions fro free from the website, and each is heavily supplemented with links to related resources on the Web. And they’re not bad reading, either! Looks like a great way to get kids (and even adults) up to speed with Linux.
Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer’s Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he’s not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don’t Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.
Follow him on Twitter: @dwax.
ASBIS presents complete mobile solutions
October 20th, 2004 |
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ASBIS, the leading supplier of computer components to the EMEA emerging markets, presents a complete line of products and services for all PC mobile integrators. “Creating an exceptional relationship with integrators and local OEMs is the top priority for our company”, – says Sergey Kostevich, President and CEO at Asbis Enterprises. – “We constantly follow the trends of the global market in order to offer our customers the latest technologies. Today we offer complete mobile solutions to all system integrators and OEMs from all countries where we have offices”.
ASBIS announces termination of distribution agreement with Maxtor
September 28th, 2004 |
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ASBIS, a leading supplier of computer components to the EMEA emerging markets, announced today that it will terminate distribution agreement with Maxtor.