Top 10 Security SNAFUs of 2010

Artwork: Chip TaylorThat old phrase SNAFU ("Situation Normal, All F---ked Up!") certainly describes our choices for 2010's top 10 security screw-ups.

Also read: Ten Worst Moments in Network Security History

Not surprisingly some of the biggest names in technology - Google,Cisco, McAfee, AT&T - are prominent on the list, either because they're obvious hacker targets or because whenever they make a security mistake, it's big news. Without further ado, the list:

Aurora attacks on Google. In what's come to be called the "Aurora attacks," Google in January acknowledges valuable intellectual property was stolen via a network break-in during that past December, intimating China to be the origin of the cyberattack. About a dozen other high-tech and industrial companies appear to have been struck in similar fashion. The Chinese government says it doesn't know what they're talking about. Outraged over the cyber-intrusion, Google, which had been adhering to Chinese dictates regarding search-engine censorship, says it will defy them, putting its search-engine license in China in jeopardy. But by year-end, under Chinese pressure, Google abandons its tactic of re-directing Chinese user traffic to its more liberal Hong Kong site and its renewed China license requires censorship.

Read full story

Nintendo 3DS pre-orders begin at GameStop, still no official US price

The forumites at NeoGAF were chatting it up all evening, and sure enough, it's true -- starting this morning, you can reserve a Nintendo 3DS by dropping a stack of change at any GameStop store. How high you'll have to pile the coin seems to depend on the location, as a New York employee wanted us to deposit $50, even as an Arizona store said we'd only need to bankroll a modest $25. Not that it much matters, as either way your money will go directly towards the as-yet-undetermined (likely $300) purchase price. Should your local GameStop fail to recognize the autostereoscopic handheld's impending availability, just kindly ask them to consult their computer,

Read full story

Nokia N900 mixed with Gingerbread, baked at 425 degrees for 16-18 minutes (video)

Running Android on the Nokia N900 has been an ongoing theme for the better part of the past year -- and with hardware designed from the ground up to be both hackable and high-end, we'd expect no less. Indeed, Android 2.3 is the latest victim of an N900 sneak attack, and impressively, core components like messaging already seem to be working -- likely thanks to the fact that hackers had already gotten pre-2.3 builds rock solid. What's even more impressive, though, is how smooth and generally non-janky

Read full story

Sony Ericsson mystery handset leaks out, provides juicy rumor material

Do you recognize this handset? Neither do we, and that's kind of the point. We're looking at a never-before seen Sony Ericsson smartphone running Android -- neither the Anzu / X12 nor the PlayStation Phone -- and if we're not terribly mistaken, that's the company's translucent Timescape UI on top. Oh, and it seems to be attached to Vodafone Germany, for whatever that's worth. What's more, the picture itself only tells half the story, as the other half is where it came from -- a Picasa account filled to the brim with 8 megapixel test shots from a pair of camera phones. It's hard to say whether either the Sony Ericsson "LT15i" or the "MT15i" are the device we're actually looking at here, but the brethren have now fired off over 150 images testing out these camera modules. Rumor has it that both are running Gingerbread and that this one's internal codename is "Hallon," but honestly we're more interested in that huge camera module on the front. HD video chat, perhaps? Find a full-frontal picture after the break, and plenty more at our source links. 

Read full story

Intel's Core i7-2630QM Sandy Bridge CPU spotted inside an HP dv6 in Singapore

HP's disregard for Intel's officially scheduled Sandy Bridge launch continues today, with the news that Singaporean malls are already stocking Pavilion dv6 laptops with the new Core i7 silicon lurking within. It's the same quad-core i7-2630QM chip that popped up on a dv7 spec sheet not too long ago -- it runs at 2GHz by default, but dynamic overclocking and disabling of cores can take that up to the 2.8GHz mark. Keeping it company inside HP's 15.6-inch laptop are 4GB of RAM and AMD's Radeon HD 6570M GPU. The entire machine is described as indistinguishable, in terms of construction, from HP's current crop of dv6s, leaving the precious internals to justify a price of 1,899 Singapore dollars (about $1,460).

Read full story

AMD Radeon HD 6950 can be turned into an HD 6970 using a BIOS hack

Ah, the joy of getting something for nothing -- that's what this time of year is all about, right? ThetechPowerUp! guys seem to think so, and they've got the perfect gift for all you thrifty PC gaming enthusiasts: a BIOS flash for the Radeon HD 6950 that unlocks the full potential of its hardware (in other words, it turns it into an HD 6970). We already knew the two retail SKUs were built on the same Cayman core, but this hack confirms that all the 6950's performance handicaps have been enacted in software rather than hardware, leaving you all to flip a switch, click a few confirmatory dialogs, and get your game on. You should be aware that the retail 6970 card uses an 8-pin and a 6-pin connector for its auxiliary power whereas the 6950 only has a pair of 6-pin intakes, which might cause trouble under extreme loads,

Read full story

Samsung said to be bringing a 4-inch Galaxy Player to CES 2011

Samsung Hub is reporting this morning that Samsung intends to introduce a new Galaxy Player to the tech gathering known as CES early next month. We've not been able to track down Samsung's official word on the matter, but the Hub's information details a 4-inch Super Clear LCD display with 800 x 480 resolution, Android 2.2 as the operating system (replete with Sammy's own TouchWiz layer, by the look of that screenshot above), a 1GHz CPU, 3.2 megapixel imager on the back plus a front-facing camera, and a

Read full story

Dell's Looking Glass tablet passes through FCC, shows off SD and SIM card slots

Dell's still calling this a Mobile Internet Device, but you can call it by any of its codenames: Looking Glass, M02M, iPad eviscerator, they're all in here. Yes, the FCC has spent a month of quality time with Dell's still unofficial, but very much upcoming, tablet and has given the go-ahead for its integrated 3G (the listed UMTS bands II, IV and V indicate compatibility with both AT&T and T-Mobile), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and 802.11n WiFi radios. Labeling for the attached (and apparently not removable) door on the back of the device indicates an SD card slot, which will sit right alongside a SIM card port. The latter will

Read full story

Mobclix: Android Impressions Grew By 420 Percent In 2010; iPhone Up 347 Percent

Recently acquired mobile ad exchange Mobclix is releasing its 2010 report, which takes a look at the top trend in the mobile advertising space. 2010 has been a big year for mobile advertising companies and startups, with the Google-AdMob deal approved, Apple’sQuattro buy and iAds launch, Millennial’s fast growth and more. Unsurprisingly, the trend that tops Mobclix’s report is the platform war between Apple and Google over the iPhone versus Android. Mobclix says that impressions on Android phones via Mobclix’s platform grew by 420 percent over the past year whereas iPhone impressions grew by 347 percent for the same 12 month period.

Another interesting trend highlighted by the report is that real-time bidding for mobile ad space is becoming more widely adopted by publishers and developers as the optimal way to fill space. Mobclix says that real time bidding inventory is expected to make up 10% – 15% of total ad buys for 2011. In fact, 50% of all targeted online ad display platforms will be powered through real time platforms by 2015.

Read full story

Researcher demonstrates vulnerabilities of mobile phones

Hackers equipped with inexpensive radio hardware and open source software can compromise your mobile phone, listen to your conversations, intercept your data, or rack up huge bills on premium services, all without you knowing. Ralf-Philipp Weinmann, a cryptologist at the University of Luxembourg Laboratory of Cryptology and Security, has discovered a new type of over-the-air attack on mobile phones, and at the 2010 DeepSec conference in Vienna demonstrated how the exploit could be used against nearly any mobile phone.

Using a US$1,500 base transceiver station, Weinmann, who has previously exposedsecurity weaknesses in the iPhone, demonstrated that common “devastating” programming errors in the Layer 3 communication stack of mobile devices can be exploited to gain control over the devices. He said that a motivated hacker could take advantage of these flaws to make an almost undetectable attack on the vast majority of cell phone models.

Read full story

Stairscraper gives apartment dwellers taste of suburbia

One of the big drawbacks for high-rise living is the lack of outdoor space, which in the best case is usually limited to a small balcony, or in the worst cases a window flowerbox ... or nothing at all. An innovative skyscraper design by Barcelona-based firm Nabito Architects solves this problem with a corkscrew design that makes the roof of the unit below an outdoor space for the unit above.

Read full story

Brain-Computer Interface Can Help You Get In The Game

Are you an athlete? Do you play mentally challenging games? TheBrainAthlete system, the world's first brainwave athletic trainer, could help you get in the zone and massacre the competition.

The BrainAthlete system is a brain-computer interface that monitors your mental states as you play the game. The BrainAthlete is engineered into a standard golf visor and has three contact points in the headband that are noninvasive. These contact points monitor theEEG electrical activity in the brain and then can relay the information by way of Bluetooth to a computer up to 10 meters away.

The BrainAthlete can then review the material to determine what they need to do to get more "in the game." The visor weighs only 100 grams (slightly less than a quarter of a pound) and will run on battery for up to 2 hours. You'll be able to buy yourself one in the U.S. sometime in the first quarter of 2011.

Read full story

HRP-2 humanoid robot learns to use obstacles to its advantage

There may be plenty of robots out there able to avoid or overcome obstacles, but we can't say we've seen too many that are actually able to use obstacles to their advantage. That's the claim to fame of this so-called HRP-2 robot built by researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, however, which is able to detect objects around it and discern how they can be used to help it with a specific task -- like leaning on a table to help balance while kicking a ball, for instance.

Read full story

Toshiba outsourcing semiconductor production to rival Samsung

'Tis the season for manufacturing deals? Sure seems it. Merely hours after Sony announced its intentions to buy back Cell chip fabrication facilities from Toshiba, it looks as if Tosh is about to enter into yet another agreement. In this case, it'll be outsourcing the unprofitable production of semiconductors to rival Samsung, which will be responsible for churning out the brains behind a number of smartphones, televisions and digital home appliances. Numerous sources have explained that Toshiba is interested in realigning its focus onto the blossoming memory chip business, and moreover, its hoping to evade costly facility upgrades that would be necessary to remain competitive in the system LSI business. 

Read full story

Fisker raises Karma plug-in hybrid base price to $95,900, brings that 750i back into consideration

Oh, sure -- gas is bound to hit $4 a gallon before 2020, but you can buy an awful let of petrol with the money you'll save from dodging Fisker's increasingly expensive Karma. 'Course, those looking to blow 100 grand on an eco-friendly automobile are probably doing so just to throw Ma Earth a bone, but still -- money matters. Originally teased way back in the fall of 2007, Fisker's first plug-in hybrid still hasn't ended up anywhere near mass production, but it has managed to see two rather significant upticks in price all the while. Right around two years ago, we saw the $80,000 MSRP boosted by $7,000, and today, prospective customers are being notified via email that the Karma's base price is now sitting at $95,900 before a $950 destination fee. Granted, the company insists that this includes an integrated solar roof panel (valued at $5,000), and it still starts at $1,400 less than a Panamera S. And yeah, that base

Read full story