tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14640013890328366672024-02-18T17:34:01.889-08:00YesConTechYesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-14821875596346348252014-06-20T13:11:00.000-07:002014-06-20T13:11:03.130-07:00New generation phones to have 'Kill switches'.<div class="cnnStorySource" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: Lato, arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px 0px 5px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="color: #666666; line-height: 18px;">So-called kill switches are software to disable the phone if it is lost or stolen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;">NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - </span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 21px; line-height: 28px;">Google and Microsoft will include a so-called kill switch in the next version of their smartphone operating systems, authorities announced Thursday.</span></div>
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The technology allows for a stolen <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Google</span> <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(<span class="inlink_chart" style="background: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/7.0/main/GlobalSprite_1x.png); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="inlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GOOG&source=story_quote_link" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GOOG</a></span>)</span> Android and <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Microsoft</span> <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(<span class="inlink_chart" style="background: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/7.0/main/GlobalSprite_1x.png); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="inlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=MSFT&source=story_quote_link" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MSFT</a></span>,<a href="http://money.cnn.com/technology/tech30/index.html?iid=EL" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tech30</a>)</span> Windows Phone-powered <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nokia</span> <span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(<span class="inlink_chart" style="background: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/7.0/main/GlobalSprite_1x.png); border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="inlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=NOK&source=story_quote_link" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">NOK</a></span>)</span> device to be disabled, making it useless to the thief.</div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="0" id="121f148185b65ec8" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="121f148185b65ec8" scrolling="no" src="http://ads.cnn.com/html.ng/site=cnn_money&cnn_money_position=220x200_ctr&cnn_money_rollup=technology&cnn_money_section=quigo&params.styles=fs&page.allowcompete=no&Params.User.UserID=53a4827805b4560a3c695e0ff8002f90&transactionID=1403290366893851126464512&tile=4819630923041&domId=121f148185b65ec8&kxid=&kxseg=" style="background: transparent; border-width: 0px; left: -20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; position: absolute; top: -20px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="0"></iframe><span style="line-height: 26px;">With Google and Microsoft on board, kill switches will be available for 97% of the smartphone market, said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who made the announcement.</span></div>
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Newer versions of Apple's iOS currently include a kill switch called Activation Lock and tracking software that requires a password before the iPhone or iPad is reset. In May, Samsung launched a similar system it calls Reactivation Lock.</div>
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Schneiderman issued a report citing data that showed the number of smartphone thefts were on the rise, but that thefts of devices with kill switches were decreasing.</div>
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Although the technology is spreading, some older phones can't or likely won't be updated.</div>
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"With the majority of phones still without a kill switch, smartphone-related thefts and violence remain a tragic reality," Schneiderman's office said. "Criminals now target devices not likely to be equipped with a kill switch, increasing the importance of immediately implementing the life-saving technology across all manufacturers."</div>
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<span style="font-size: 16px;">Schneiderman's initiative pushing for kill switches,</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/13/technology/mobile/smartphone-theft/?iid=EL" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Save Our Smartphones</a><span style="font-size: 16px;">, also included officials from</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/20/technology/mobile/smartphone-killswitch-california/?iid=EL" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">California</a><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">and London.</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span></div>
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<a class="story_endoftext" href="http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/19/technology/mobile/smartphone-kill-switch/index.html?iid=EL#TOP" style="background: rgb(67, 113, 147); border: 0px; color: #437193; display: inline-block; font-weight: bold; height: 7px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; width: 7px;"></a></div>
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The article, "Kill Switch' coming to Google, Microsoft phones" with</span></span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20.790000915527344px;"><i><span style="line-height: 20px;"> a different title here,</span></i></span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> was originally published on the CNN website by </span></span></i><span class="byline" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">By Gregory Wallace</span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"> </span><a class="soc-twtname" href="https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=gregorywallace" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #437193; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">@gregorywallace</a><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><b> for CNNMoney.</b></span></span></i></div>
YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-14466998149181461462014-03-03T08:31:00.000-08:002014-03-03T08:34:27.018-08:00Google's Android security about to get even smarter.<img src="http://www.digitalafro.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/android-tips-and-tricks2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /><br />
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Android security is always a hot-button issue. "Dangerous malware" and "new threats" make for great headlines, after all -- and companies that make money selling anti-malware software are <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/18746/android_malware" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">always happy to feed fear-inducing fodder</a> to stats-loving reporters (go figure!).</div>
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The truth, though, is that Android security is one of the most sensationalized and misunderstood subjects you'll read about in the tech media today. Plain and simple, a theoretical breach and a meaningful threat that's actually putting users at risk are two very different things.</div>
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Google's made a lot of progress in separating one from the other over the years -- and the company's about to take another step in making nearly every Android device even more secure.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Android security: The next phase</strong></div>
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Over the next couple of weeks, Google will be rolling out a universal update that'll enable constant on-device monitoring for potentially problematic apps. It's an upgrade to the platform's Verify Apps function that first launched with Android 4.2 in 2012, as I <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/21259/android-42-security" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">reported exclusively at the time</a>, and then <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22552/google-android-security" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">spread to all devices with Android 2.3 and up</a> last July.</div>
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<img alt="Android Verify Apps" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files/u177/android-verify-apps_0.jpg" hspace="9" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: 242px; width: 250px;" vspace="14" />As it stands now, Verify Apps watches your device for any new applications -- particularly those that you download and install directly ("sideload") instead of installing from the Google Play Store. Anytime a new app appears, the system instantly checks it for potentially harmful code and warns you of any dangers it discovers.</div>
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What's changing is that Verify Apps will soon <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">continue</em> to monitor your applications even <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">after</em> they're installed, thereby extending its level of protection.</div>
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"We're constantly updating what [threats] we're aware of, so being able to detect those things where we've improved our coverage is valuable," Android Lead Security Engineer Adrian Ludwig tells me.</div>
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Ludwig says the newly expanded system will also help identify issues with apps installed before Verify Apps became available -- or those installed without a person's knowledge while, say, someone else was borrowing a device.</div>
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"We want to make sure that if that were to happen, a user would be made aware of it after the fact," Ludwig explains.</div>
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Just like it does now, the updated Verify Apps system will run silently in the background; Google suspects the majority of users will never even know it's there. And if you'd rather not have the protection in place, you can always disable Verify Apps altogether in your device's system settings.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Beyond a single system</strong></div>
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<img alt="Google Play Security" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files/u177/google-play-security.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: right; height: 201px; margin: 15px; width: 175px;" />Remember, too, that Verify Apps works in conjunction with a <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/19673/android_market_security" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">server</em>-side system that scans all apps uploaded to the Google Play Store</a>. And both systems take advantage of something Google calls the Android Safety Net, which detects everything down to SMS abuse and blacklists sources that have exhibited shifty behavior in the past.</div>
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"At this point, there really is a collection of services that we're starting to think about as the Google security services for Android," Ludwig says. "We want to make sure there is no single point of failure within our platform so users can be protected."</div>
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That "no single point of failure" concept is important: With last year's <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240556/Android_flaw_lets_attackers_modify_apps_without_breaking_signatures" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">"Master Key" vulnerability</a>, for instance -- publicized, coincidentally enough, by <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22445/android-malware-scare" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">a company that sells anti-malware software for Android</a> -- Google implemented protection for its Play Store scanning system within a day of learning about the exploit and for its on-device Verify Apps system a few weeks later.</div>
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Even though OS-level patches didn't start hitting devices for another few months, those initial layers of protection were available to everyone almost instantly -- and according to Google's internal data, not a single real-world exploit attempt occurred before they were in place. In other words, the real-world risk related to the vulnerability <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22445/android-malware-scare" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">was already next to none, as I pointed out at the time</a> -- and once the Play Store and Verify Apps protection kicked in, it dropped even lower.</div>
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And there's the dull truth of this domain: When it comes to security, real-world assessments make for far less sexy headlines than sensational shouting based on theoretical threats.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">The next steps</strong></div>
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The expanded Verify Apps system will be rolling out as part of an upcoming update to Google Play Services, which means it'll automatically hit all devices with Android 2.3 or higher. That covers almost every phone and tablet out there -- nearly 99 percent of actively running products, according to Google's <a href="http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">latest platform measurements</a> -- and thanks to <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22295/google-deconstructing-android" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Google's ongoing deconstruction of Android</a>, the update will happen behind-the-scenes and without the need for any manufacturer or carrier interference.</div>
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So what's the broad takeaway from this? It's the same thing I've been saying for years: Now more than ever, malware on Android is <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/18746/android_malware" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">far less significant of a real-world issue</a> than <a href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22445/android-malware-scare" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">some reports would lead you to believe</a>. In the real world, the killer viruses that are so good for headlines actually affect next to no one. And now, even if you don't exercise basic common sense -- even if you carelessly download shady-looking stuff from unofficial sources out in the wild -- your phone will automatically protect you even more than it already did.</div>
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<a href="http://twitter.com/androidpower" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><img align="right" alt="Android Power Twitter" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/default/themes/cw_blogs/cache/files/u177/android-power-twitter2.jpg" height="102" hspace="7" style="border: 0px;" vspace="7" width="200" /></a>Anti-malware software vendors will undoubtedly keep preying on ignorant reporters and consumers, but all it takes is a little bit of knowledge to keep the big bad virus monsters in perspective -- and out of your nightmares.</div>
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<i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The article, "How </span></span></i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">Google's Android security is about to get even smarter" with a different title here,</span></i></span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"> was originally published on the Computerworld website by <b>JR Rapheal.</b></span></span></i><br />
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-634341415582734432014-01-24T08:05:00.000-08:002014-01-24T08:05:44.466-08:00Windows malware tries to infect Android devices connected to PCs<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Researchers from Symantec found a Windows Trojan program that uses ADB to install online banking malware on Android devices..</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">IDG News Service -</span> A new computer Trojan program attempts to install mobile banking malware on Android devices when they're connected to infected PCs, according to researchers from Symantec.</div>
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This method of targeting Android devices is unusual, since mobile attackers prefer social engineering and fake apps hosted on third-party app stores to distribute Android malware.</div>
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"We've seen Android malware that attempts to infect Windows systems before," Symantec researcher Flora Liu, said Thursday in a <a href="http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/windows-malware-attempts-infect-android-devices" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog post</a>. "Android.Claco, for instance, downloads a malicious PE [portable executable] file along with an autorun.inf file and places them in the root directory of the SD card. When the compromised mobile device is connected to a computer in USB mode, and if the AutoRun feature is enabled on the computer, Windows will automatically execute the malicious PE file."</div>
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"Interestingly, we recently came across something that works the other way round: a Windows threat that attempts to infect Android devices," Liu said.</div>
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The new malware, dubbed <a href="http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2014-012109-2723-99" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Trojan.Droidpak</a> by Symantec, drops a DLL file on the Windows computer and registers a new system service to ensure its persistence across reboots. It then downloads a configuration file from a remote server that contains the location of a malicious APK (Android application package) file called AV-cdk.apk.</div>
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The Trojan program downloads the malicious APK, as well as the <a href="http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Android Debug Bridge</a> (ADB) command line tool that allows users to execute commands on Android devices connected to a PC. ADB is part of the official Android software development kit (SDK).</div>
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The malware executes the "adb.exe install AV-cdk.apk" command repeatedly to ensure that if an Android device is connected to the host computer at any time, the malicious APK is silently installed on it. However, this approach has a limitation -- it will work only if an option called "USB debugging" is enabled on the Android device.</div>
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USB debugging is a setting normally used by Android developers, but it's also required for some operations that are not directly related to development, like rooting the OS, taking screen captures on devices running old Android versions or installing custom Android firmware. Even if this feature is rarely used, users who turn it on once to perform a particular task may forget to disable it when they don't need it anymore.</div>
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The malicious APK distributed by this Windows malware is detected by Symantec as <a href="http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2013-101114-5645-99" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Android.Fakebank.B</a> and masquerades as the official Google Play application. Once installed on a device, it uses the name "Google App Store" and the same icon as the legitimate Google Play app.</div>
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The malware appears to target online banking users from South Korea.</div>
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"The malicious APK actually looks for certain Korean online banking applications on the compromised device and, if found, prompts users to delete them and install malicious versions," Liu said. It also intercepts SMS messages received by the user and sends them a remote server.</div>
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The targeting of online banking apps and the theft of SMS messages that can contain transaction authorization sent by banks suggest the motivation of this malware's authors is bank fraud.</div>
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Even if this particular threat targets users from a single country, malware coders commonly borrow ideas from each other and replicate successful attack methods.</div>
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Liu advised users to turn off the USB debugging feature on their Android devices when it's not needed and to be wary of connecting their mobile devices to computers they don't trust.</div>
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<i style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The article above was originally published on the Computerworld website by <b>Lucian Constantin</b></span></span></i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-11155183760309294892013-12-13T02:50:00.001-08:002013-12-13T02:50:33.262-08:00"Windows XP disaster inevitable" - says Microsoft.<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Makes obvious prediction -- since it's calling the shots -- that ending support for XP will mean 'more systems will get compromised'.</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Microsoft today used the hoary practice of predicting next year to drive another nail into Windows XP's coffin.</div>
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In an eight-item prognostication from several security professionals on its anti-malware and Trustworthy Computing teams, Microsoft forecast an increase in cybercrime that exploits unsupported software.</div>
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Microsoft's No. 6 prediction put the spotlight, and the onus, on Windows XP.</div>
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"This venerable platform, built last century, will not be able to keep pace with attackers, and more Windows XP-based systems will get compromised," prophesied Tim Rains, director of Trustworthy Computing, in a long post to Microsoft's <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/12/11/security-professionals-top-threat-predictions-for-2014.aspx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">security blog</a> on Thursday.</div>
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Windows XP isn't quite "last century," at least to users; it may be old, very old in OS terms, but it wasn't released until September 2001.</div>
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Still, it <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">is</i> creaky, as any 12-year-old operating system would be. (By comparison, the same-aged Mac operating system would be OS X 10.1, aka Puma, a long-dead OS that required just 128MB of system memory; ran on the long-deserted PowerPC processors co-designed by Apple, IBM and Motorola; and was handed out as a free upgrade from OS X 10.0, or Cheetah.)</div>
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Microsoft has set Windows XP's end-of-support party for April 8, 2014, less than four months from now, and has given absolutely no hint that it will backtrack from that schedule.</div>
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Even if the end of support kills -- or allows infections for -- millions of still-used PCs.</div>
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According to analytics vendor Net Applications, Windows XP powered 34% of all Windows PCs last month. And with a two-month stall in decline, it now appears inevitable that the antique OS will be running more than one in every four PCs come April.</div>
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"The most effective way to protect systems in the current environment, where drive-by download attacks are so popular with attackers, is to keep all software installed on them up-to-date with security updates," said Rains.</div>
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True. But easier said than done.</div>
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Nor was Microsoft's 2014 prediction a trip to the ledge's edge: Rains has rained on Windows XP's parade before. In October, he extrapolated data on PC infection rates to conclude that XP users will face a <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9243660/Windows_XP_infection_rate_may_jump_66_after_patches_end_in_April" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">dramatic uptick</a>, perhaps a hike by two-thirds, in attacks after April 8 because patches won't be provided to the public.</div>
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And like some predictions, Rains' was self-fulfilling. Microsoft is, after all, the one pulling the plug on users. Users aren't abandoning XP, at least not in numbers large enough to suit Microsoft.</div>
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But most outsiders don't see Microsoft letting this prediction fall flat: Even analysts who once believed the company might be forced by events to continue patching have retracted those statements as Microsoft has failed to breathe a word of any last-minute lifeline.</div>
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If a bookie will take Rains' bet, put down some money. It's as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow.</div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">This article, <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9244757/Microsoft_bets_on_Windows_XP_disaster" target="_blank">Microsoft bets on Windows XP disaster</a> with a different title here, was originally published at <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="new">Computerworld.com</a>.</i></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/author/9000163/Gregg+Keizer" rel="author" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg Keizer</a></b> covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for </span>Computerworld<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">. Follow Gregg on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/gkeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new"><img alt="Twitter" border="0" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/site/twitter_icon.jpg" title="Twitter" /></a> <a href="http://twitter.com/gkeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">@gkeizer</a>, on <a href="https://plus.google.com/102897512926418074101" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_new">Google+</a> or subscribe to <a href="http://rss.computerworld.com/computerworld/s/feed/keyword/GreggKeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg's RSS feed</a> <a href="http://rss.computerworld.com/computerworld/s/feed/keyword/GreggKeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Keizer RSS" border="0" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/default/themes/cw_blogs/images/rss_bug.jpg" title="Keizer RSS" /></a>. His email address is <a href="mailto:gkeizer@computerworld.com" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">gkeizer@computerworld.com</a>.</span></i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-48169562603374232352013-11-07T07:35:00.000-08:002013-11-07T07:35:40.886-08:00Google's dreaded 'blacklist'<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Lato, Arial, serif; line-height: 18px;">If Google detects persistent malware on a site, it will block the website, potentially freezing traffic until the problem is fixed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #999999;">NEW YORK (CNNMoney) </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 28px;">Small businesses are reeling from an increase in cybercrime, but a hacked website can have even greater consequences if Google lists you as "infected."</span></div>
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The search giant is constantly scanning the web's 60 trillion URLs for malware and phishing scams. If it deems a site suspicious, businesses can say goodbye to their customers until the problem is resolved.</div>
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"If Google blacklists an infected website, you're basically off the Internet until the website is fixed," said Peter Jensen, CEO of StopTheHacker.com.</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Google</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(<span class="inlink_chart" style="background-image: url(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/5.0/buttons/assorted_icons.gif); background-position: -200px -160px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px 19px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="inlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GOOG&source=story_quote_link" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">GOOG</a></span>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2013/snapshots/11207.html?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fortune 500</a>)</span> estimates that it flags and quarantines 10,000 websites daily (it doesn't use the term "blacklist"). It not only scans<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong>Google's search results and ads, but also flags suspicious URLs typed into browsers. The search engine Bing, run by <span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Microsoft</span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(<span class="inlink_chart" style="background-image: url(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/5.0/buttons/assorted_icons.gif); background-position: -200px -160px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 2px 19px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="inlink" href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=MSFT&source=story_quote_link" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">MSFT</a></span>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2013/snapshots/3063.html?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fortune 500</a>)</span>, treats infected sites in a similar fashion.</div>
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<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/22/smallbusiness/small-business-cybercrime/?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="inStoryHeading" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 6px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Related: Small businesses are easiest prey for cybercriminals</span></a></div>
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Being blacklisted can quickly decimate a small firm's reputation and sales.</div>
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"Businesses say they're not at fault and shouldn't be penalized. Google [says] it wants to keep the Internet safe for its users," said Jensen, whose firm is contacted 20 or 30 times a day by businesses<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong>that have been blacklisted.</div>
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Google spokesman Jason Freidenfelds emphasized that point. "About 1 billion people receive protection against phishing and malware every day because of the warnings we show users about unsafe websites," he said.</div>
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Margo Schlossberg owns an online handbag business in Washington D.C. that was hacked in September. A Google search for her <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/04/smallbusiness/google-blacklist/KuraDesign.com?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">website</a> still says, "This site may be hacked."</div>
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The impact: Traffic to her site dropped 50% in the past month and her sales have been minimal.</div>
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"It's the worst time to go through this," said Schlossberg. "The holiday season is very important for my sales, but now I've been blacklisted by Google."</div>
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Schlossberg hired an expert to fix her site, which cost $1,000 (although it can cost as much as $10,000 depending on the extent of the damage).</div>
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<a href="http://money.cnn.com/gallery/smallbusiness/2013/05/28/cybercrime/?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Related: Cyber attacks devastated my business</a></div>
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Hackers had attacked several pages, and it's taken a few weeks to clean up her website. She's finally ready to resubmit her site to Google.</div>
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StopTheHacker says the process to clean up infected sites typically involves several steps: Identify the malware and how to remove it, determine where the attack originated, change passwords and relaunch the website once it's clean.</div>
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Google says it takes about a day to restore websites once it confirms they're clean. But sometimes a company can think its site is clean, but Google's review will find otherwise. This can draw out the process.</div>
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Eric Erickson's company sells eco-friendly pest control products online. When his site was attacked in 2009, it effectively paralyzed his business. He said it took 60 days to get back on track and cost several thousand dollars in lost sales.</div>
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His site was attacked again in March, but this time he was prepared. "We caught it early because we had enhanced our security," he said. The website stayed off the blacklist.</div>
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Web hosting provider DreamHost regularly checks the sites of its 350,000 customers -- 40% of whom are small businesses -- for malware and other security threats. In September, DreamHost identified almost 100,000 infected websites in its network of 1.3 million sites. If customers aren't able to fix the problems themselves, co-founder Dallas Kashuba recommends StopTheHacker to help clean up the site.</div>
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<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/23/technology/startup-cyberattack/?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Related: New startups are prime targets for cyberattacks</a></div>
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Lynda Zugec's <a href="http://theworkforceconsultants.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">HR consultancy site</a> was flagged and quarantined by Google earlier this year. Hackers had obtained her hosting password and inserted malware into her website.</div>
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It took her nearly two weeks to get back online. Even more than an economic impact, Zugec worries the experience could have hurt her reputation with clients.</div>
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But even with the financial and logistical hardships, most say Google's hardline is necessary.</div>
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"Google has its neck on the line, too," Erickson said. "When people click on your website, Google doesn't want to worry that something malicious will happen to its users."</div>
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His advice: "Don't go cheap with your security. You have to invest in it."</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The above article was originally published on the CNN website by </span></span></i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">By </span><a href="mailto:parija.bhatnagar@turner.com" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Parija Kavilanz</a> for CNNMoney</span></div>
YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-63405903510239562722013-10-18T10:20:00.000-07:002013-10-18T10:20:08.016-07:00These are dark times for online privacy.<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Lato, Arial, serif; font-size: 21px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Online privacy is dead.</h2>
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<span style="color: #999999; font-size: 14px;">NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- </span>The U.S. government is spying on its own citizens' online activities. The FBI was able to suss out and <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/02/technology/silk-road-shut-down/index.html?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">shut down</a> the anonymous black market <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/09/technology/silk-road-drug-prices/index.html?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Silk Road</a>. Even the Internet-within-the-Internet called the Tor network -- the most secretive way to browse the Web --<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong>is being monitored by the National Security Agency.</div>
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Silk Road serves as a prime example. It operated as a hidden service on Tor, an anonymizing tool that helps users and sites keep their identities secret. Everyone buying and selling drugs, weapons and other illicit items on the site thought they couldn't be tracked.Strong passwords and encrypted email services were never truly enough to protect users' online privacy. But recent revelations about government surveillance even throw into doubt the effectiveness of far-out measures of data encryption used by the most careful people surfing the Web.</div>
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But federal agents managed to track down a computer server Silk Road used, and the FBI monitored more than 1.2 million private communications on the site.</div>
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<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/11/technology/social/facebook-search-privacy/index.html?iid=EL" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Related story: Facebook kills search privacy setting</a></div>
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If online privacy can't stand up to good, old-fashioned police work, it doesn't stand a chance against some of the more potent tools the government uses:</div>
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<ul style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; display: inline-block; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 20px 13px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">The NSA figured out how to track down who's who on Tor by exploiting weaknesses in Web browsers, according to documents former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked to <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-nsa-users-online-anonymity" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></i><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> -- </i>a bug that was only recently fixed.</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">PRISM, the government's hush-hush mass data collection program, lets even low-level NSA analysts access email, chats and Internet phone calls.</li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;">The U.S. government issues frequent, secret demands for customer data from telecommunications companies.</li>
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It's no wonder, then, that many have declared the death of online privacy.</div>
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"Unfortunately, online anonymity is already dead," said Ladar Levison, founder of e-mail service LavaBit that closed its doors in the wake of the NSA's PRISM controversy. "It takes a lot more effort and skill than most have in order to keep your anonymity today."</div>
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Remaining unrecognizable and keeping conversations private online is immensely important. It's not just an issue for civil libertarians -- online privacy is crucial for crime victims, whistleblowers, dissidents and corporations trying to keep secret the latest high-tech research.</div>
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The result has been tantamount to a cryptographic arms race. On one side are independent programmers usually writing free software. On the other are a dozen U.S. intelligence agencies supported by a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/black-budget/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">$52.6 billion black budget</a>.</div>
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And while some claim <a href="http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/14/quantum-key/?iid=SF_T_River" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">unbreakable encryption is coming</a>, large-scale availability is still years away.</div>
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"It's an open question how much protection Tor or any other existing anonymous communications tool provides against the NSA's large-scale Internet surveillance," said Roger Dingledine, Tor's lead developer.</div>
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Still, Aleecia McDonald, a privacy expert at Stanford University's Center for Internet & Society, said there's still a benefit to guarding yourself with a network like Tor. At least you make it harder to get spied on.</div>
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"The NSA has to attack Tor users one by one, not en masse as they do with non-Tor users," she said. <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/17/technology/online-privacy/index.html?iid=EL#TOP" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="To top of page" border="0" height="7" src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/images/bug.gif" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="7" /></a></div>
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<span class="byline" style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The article above was originally published on the CNN website by</span></span></i><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span><a href="mailto:Jose.Pagliery@CNN.com" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #004276; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Jose Pagliery</span></a></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> </span><a class="soc-twtname" href="https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=Jose_Pagliery" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">@Jose_Pagliery</a><span style="font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> of CNN Money.</span></span></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-17065916182374299222013-09-25T05:00:00.000-07:002013-09-25T05:00:05.330-07:00Uncertain future for BlackBerry's dwindling users.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 10.5pt;">CNN</span></b><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"> -- Since
the dawn of the iPhone age in 2007, loyal BlackBerry users have
watched their favorite device maker stumble into an ever-steepening decline.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Some of the collapse is due to the consumer changeover to Apple
and Google Android <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/23/tech/mobile/blackberry-users-future/index.html?hpt=te_r1" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in;">products</span></a>, but the company -- once known as Research In
Motion -- hasn't helped itself with poor planning and <a href="http://forums.crackberry.com/general-blackberry-discussion-f2/first-day-fall-blackberry-blew-852549/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">delayed product introductions</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On Monday, the company that once blazed the trail in the
smartphone market <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/23/technology/mobile/blackberry-private/index.html"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">announced it's being taken private</span></a> by its largest
shareholder, Fairfax Financial, a Canadian insurance company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The move comes on the heels of <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/20/technology/blackberry/"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">an announced $1 billion quarterly loss</span></a> and layoffs of
4,500 employees. Its future as a maker of smartphones may be in doubt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now the dwindling numbers of loyal BlackBerry users must decide:
Is this the last straw?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
"You can tear my Blackberry's real keyboard out of my cold dead
fingers,"<a href="https://twitter.com/cswright4/status/382225486434156544" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;"> user Charles Wright of Toronto</span></a> wrote
on Twitter.It's no idle question. For all the attention paid to BlackBerry's
fall and the rise of iPhone and Android, there's still a sizable BlackBerry
market out there. <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/23/are-blackberrys-50-m-users-worth-2-billion/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Forbes magazine estimates</span></a> that
there are in excess of 50 million BlackBerry users, and they remain fiercely
devoted to their phones, with their secure e-mail software and physical
keyboards.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/24/tech/blackberry-life-after-kristie-lu-stout/index.html" target="_blank">BlackBerry: Why breaking up is hard
to do</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ronen Halevy, an IT security professional who runs the site <a href="http://www.berryreview.com/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">BerryReview.com</span></a>,
still prefers his BlackBerry because it "focuses on communications
first" -- even though he's familiar with both Android and iPhone
platforms.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"They're very good devices to consume information, but the
main point of the phone is that it's more like a computer," he says of the
Apple and Google phones. BlackBerrys, he says, are better at "flow"
from e-mail to calendar to other applications.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He hopes that the company returns to its roots.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I think that Fairfax should double down on BlackBerry 10 and
the combination of corporate and consumer market that appreciated the rock
solid communication platform it offered," he <a href="http://www.berryreview.com/2013/09/23/what-does-fairfax-taking-blackberry-private-mean-for-consumers/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">wrote on BerryReview.com</span></a>.
"This means an end to the 'me too' additions of features to BlackBerry 10
and instead appealing to the market that made BlackBerry take off."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One commenter observed, however, that the company will be hard
pressed to win new converts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Not good news for consumers, people hate the BB name and
what it stands for. Self-inflicted suicide," kingbernie wrote. He
suspected that becoming a corporate-focused software business might be the
company's best way out of the wilderness -- even if it means leaving the
consumer market behind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHk8irHTjBiD0eYUCzbXFyW-OdJIU_bNaQcPfB_50lw5HiBNf-_fQk1Zvn1X6pO4YBxnDSgj5COLcikfUgRDCjukUFPWabx26lvOijN8n1cqGET6ccY98yKzuISy-IzTY8QUcCTfbGmuY/s1600/Pictures-of--UK-used-blackberry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHk8irHTjBiD0eYUCzbXFyW-OdJIU_bNaQcPfB_50lw5HiBNf-_fQk1Zvn1X6pO4YBxnDSgj5COLcikfUgRDCjukUFPWabx26lvOijN8n1cqGET6ccY98yKzuISy-IzTY8QUcCTfbGmuY/s320/Pictures-of--UK-used-blackberry.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/29/tech/mobile/blackberry-fall/index.html"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">From CrackBerry to 'depressing': The BlackBerry's 5-year fall</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chris Umiastowski, a tech analyst and regular contributor to the
BlackBerry boards on<a href="http://crackberry.com/users/chris-umiastowski" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;"> CrackBerry.com</span></a>, says
BlackBerry fans should remain wary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Going private doesn't necessarily change the outcome for the
company. All it is guaranteed to change is the ownership structure," he
said via e-mail. "It's not a nail in the coffin, nor is it some massive
opportunity to fix themselves. No matter who owns the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/23/tech/mobile/blackberry-users-future/index.html?hpt=te_r1" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in;">shares</span></a> they still have to compete with solid
competitors. Going private just lets them operate outside of so much public
scrutiny."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those who want to put their BlackBerrys in a drawer <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/23/tech/mobile/blackberry-users-future/index.html?hpt=te_r1" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in;">next</span></a> to their PalmPilots but want to keep a
physical keyboard on their devices, your options are limited. The <a href="http://www.motorola.com/us/Motorola-Photon-Q/m-PHOTON-Q-4G-LTE.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Motorola Photon Q</span></a> and
the <a href="http://www.motorola.com/us/DROID-4-by-Motorola/88569.html" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Motorola Droid 4</span></a> are
Android-compatible and have relatively large slide-out keyboards, but reviewers
have taken issue with their camera capabilities.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition, BerryReview.com's Halevy observes, those keyboards --
which are landscape-oriented instead of the portrait-style versions on
BlackBerrys -- seem like "afterthoughts."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Even if you're in an e-mail and you want to hit the 'delete'
button to delete an e-mail -- you think that's logical -- it doesn't
work," he says.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The <a href="http://necterrain.com/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">NEC Terrain</span></a>, another Android phone with a physical keyboard,
is marketed for its "rugged innovation"<b> </b>but, says Halevy,
he doesn't think it's really aimed at the general consumer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That leads to the host of smartphones with virtual keyboards,
including the new<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/23/technology/mobile/apple-iphone-sales/index.html"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;"> iPhone 5S and 5C</span></a>, the Android-compatible<a href="http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxys4/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;">Samsung Galaxy S4</span></a> and the Android<a href="http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one/" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #004276; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none;"> HTC One</span></a>, among many others. All have their pros and
cons, whether it's your comfort with their operating systems or your desire for
certain accessories.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But for those, like Umiastowski, who want to stick with
BlackBerry, it will hard to get them to change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His household includes a number of Apple items -- including his
wife's iPhone -- but he prefers the BlackBerry. He's frustrated by the lack of
apps for the device but still prefers the overall experience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"BlackBerry has always been (and still is) the best
experience for communicating. At first it was push email and physical
keyboards. Now I'm on a Z10 and I find the multitasking + software keyboard +
email experience is second to none," he wrote. "An iPhone would feel
like a step backwards on those things which matter to me."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Besides, says Halevy, he likes how the BlackBerry creates
community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="" name="em1"></a><a href="" name="em2"></a><a href="" name="em3"></a><a href="" name="em4"></a></span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The one thing you
notice immediately when people change from BlackBerry to other devices is you
never hear from them anymore," he says.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<o:p> </o:p><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;">The article above was originally published on the CNN website by</span></span></i><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;"> </span><strong style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Todd Leopold<span style="color: #666666;">.</span></strong></div>
YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-37491769875281092232013-09-04T04:41:00.000-07:002013-09-04T04:51:01.457-07:00Microsoft is Ending Support for Windows XP in 2014: What You Need to Know<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">MICROSOFT GETS READY TO PULL THE LIFE SUPPORT ON WINDOWS XP...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cccccc;">YesCon Tech</span><span style="color: #333333;"> - Today marks the first day of the last year of Windows XP’s long and storied life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On April 8, 2014, Microsoft will officially stop supporting Windows XP, meaning there will be no more security updates or other patches. When April 2014 rolls around Microsoft will have supported Windows XP for nearly 12 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Should you chose not to upgrade before next year, you will be, <a href="http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/springboard/archive/2013/04/08/365-days-remaining-until-xp-end-of-support-the-countdown-begins.aspx" style="color: #999999; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">in Microsoft’s words</a> “at your own risk” in dealing with security vulnerability and any potential malware designed to exploit them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to NetMarketShare, just over <a href="http://www.netmarketshare.com/" style="color: #999999; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">38 percent of PCs connected to the web</a> are still running Windows XP. Given that current XP users have already ignored three OS upgrades, it seems reasonable to assume a significant number of XP diehards still won’t upgrade even now that Microsoft is no longer issuing security updates — all of which adds up to a potentially huge number of vulnerable PCs connected to the web.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Starting around this time next year expect black hat hackers to have a botnet fire sale.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With so many suddenly vulnerable PCs on the web, it’s really only a matter of time before unpatched vulnerabilities are identified and exploited, which could mean a serious uptick in the amount of botnet spam or worse — imagine even a small percentage of those 38 percent of PCs being harnessed for distributed denial of service attacks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For individual users upgrading Windows XP shouldn’t be too difficult, barring a dependency on software that’s never been updated. If Windows 7 or 8 aren’t to your liking there’s always Linux (I suggest starting with <a href="http://www.linuxmint.com/" style="color: #999999; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Mint Linux</a> if you’re new to Linux).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Upgrading enterprise and government installations is somewhat more difficult. Microsoft puts the matter quite bluntly <a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/security/archive/2013/08/06/the-risk-of-running-windows-xp-after-support-ends.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: #999999;">on the Windows blog</span>:</a> “If your organization has not started the migration to a modern desktop, you are late.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Windows blog post contains quite a few links designed to help anyone looking to upgrade, but at the enterprise/government level it may well be too late anyway. “Based on historical customer deployment data,” says Microsoft, “the average enterprise deployment can take 18 to 32 months from business case through full deployment.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Windows XP isn’t the only Microsoft product that will be getting the heave-ho this time next year. Internet Explorer 6 on XP, Office 2003, Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (newer service packs of Exchange Server 2010 are still supported) will all be cast adrift. It’s also worth noting that this affects virtual machines as well, so if you’ve got a Windows XP virtual machine for testing websites, well, be careful out there.</span><br />
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<b style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: normal;">If You Still Need XP</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You shouldn’t keep using XP. It will become more and more unsecure over time as more security vulnerabilities are found and not patched. Finding new hardware that supports XP will be difficult if your current hardware breaks down or needs to be upgraded. New software may stop supporting XP and you may be stuck with older, outdated, and also unsecure versions of software. Current versions of Mozilla Firefox no longer support Windows 98 – Firefox users on Windows 98 are using an unsecure version of Firefox.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you have old software that only works on XP, you should consider upgrading to a modern version of Windows and running Windows XP in a virtual machine. Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 include a “<a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/5460/our-look-at-xp-mode-in-windows-7/" style="color: #114491;">Windows XP Mode</a>” feature for easily running a Windows XP virtual machine. This will help increase your security by allowing you to use a modern, supported, secure operating system on your computer while confining the unsecure, unsupported XP to a virtual machine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You should already be using antivirus software on your Windows XP systems, but this will become even more important when Windows XP starts to become the security equivalent of swiss cheese. Some security companies may jump in with solutions to secure increasingly vulnerable legacy XP systems, but you’re much better off upgrading.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your organization has a Windows XP deployment, you should already be working on migrating to a new version of Windows. If you’re a home user, you should be looking at upgrading, too. Most longtime Windows XP users generally agree that Windows 7 is a worthy upgrade (Windows 8 is more controversial), and Microsoft will be supporting Windows 7 until 2020.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s be honest: You won’t find an operating system vendor that supports their desktop operating system for as long as Microsoft supported XP. But, if you’re really upset, you can always switch to Linux instead. Just leave XP behind!</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span></span></i>
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">The article above was originally published on, </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.howtogeek.com/147312/microsoft-is-ending-support-for-windows-xp-in-2014-what-you-need-to-know/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Microsoft is Ending Support for Windows XP in 2014: What You Need to Know</span></a><span style="color: #3d85c6;"> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">How-To Geek</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #333333;"> and </span><a href="http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/04/microsoft-gets-ready-to-pull-the-life-support-on-windows-xp/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Scott Gilbertson</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> of </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://webmonkey.com/"><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">webmonkey.com</span></a></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;">Image Credits: </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;">How-To Geek</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;">, </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;">Microsoft</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;"> and </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Verdana; line-height: 17px;">webmonkey</span></span></i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-81517560772819450042013-08-02T03:44:00.002-07:002013-08-02T03:44:41.552-07:00Microsoft mandates Windows 8.1 upgrade<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Applies existing support policy to Windows 8: Customers must upgrade within 24 months to continue receiving patches and fixes.</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Microsoft today said that Windows 8.1, slated for release this fall, will use the same lifecycle support timeline as 2012's Windows 8, meaning that it will be supported until early 2023.</div>
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Windows 8 users will also be required to upgrade to 8.1, and presumably in the future to newer versions of the OS, to continue to receive security patches and other bug fixes, just as they have been obligated to keep up with past editions of Windows.</div>
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"The lifecycle of Windows 8.1 will remain under the same lifecycle policy as Windows 8 with support ending 1/10/2023," said Erwin Visser, who heads Windows marketing to businesses, in a Tuesday <a href="http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/business/archive/2013/07/30/windows-8-1-enterprise-preview-now-available.aspx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">blog</a>.</div>
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Microsoft's current <a href="http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=Windows+8&Filter=FilterNO" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">support life-cycle for Windows 8</a> pegs the end of "Mainstream" support on Jan. 9, 2018, and "Extended" support's end on Jan. 10, 2023. Under mainstream support, Microsoft patches security vulnerabilities <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">and</i> provides non-security bug fixes. Extended support is limited to security-only updates.</div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px;">For the first time, the company also confirmed that it will manage Windows 8 support the same way it has previous editions of the operating system.</span></div>
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"Windows 8 customers will have two years to move to Windows 8.1 after the General Availability of the Windows 8.1 update to continue to remain supported under Windows 8 life-cycle," Visser said.</div>
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"That's key," said Rob Helm, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, ranking the importance of the clarification to enterprises.</div>
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With previous editions, Microsoft cut off support for the initial build of Windows, known as RTM for "release to manufacturing," two years after the release of the first service pack. If it shipped a second service pack, it stopped supporting the first 24 months after the follow-up's debut. Service packs have historically been free, just as Windows 8.1 will be.</div>
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But Microsoft has done away with service packs for Windows 8, instead adopting a faster-paced development and release schedule that will ship a new version about once a year.</div>
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Helm had expected that Microsoft would make Windows 8.1 mandatory, just as the firm demanded customers upgrade from Windows 7 RTM to SP1.</div>
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"Windows 8 has a relatively small base at the moment [and] Windows 8.1 is free, so it's not insanely onerous to require users [to upgrade]," said Helm.</div>
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If Microsoft had changed its life-cycle policy for Windows 8.1, it would have been forced to maintain an increasing number of versions. "This makes sense because under its faster-release schedule, if it didn't pull up the carpet, there would be too many different versions to support," Helm said.</div>
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Visser also announced the availability of a preview of Windows 8.1 Enterprise -- the version designed for Microsoft's volume license customers -- in the same blog today.</div>
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"In general, Windows 8.1 is a much better target for migration than Windows 8," said Helm, echoing other analysts who have said the same. "We've been recommending Windows 8.1 as the alternative to Windows 7 to clients getting off Windows XP."</div>
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Helm cited Windows 8.1's new enterprise-oriented features for that recommendation, including "workplace join," which will allow trusted devices to access secured data on a company's network, and mobile management additions such as limiting access to a single "Modern," née "Metro," app.</div>
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"The renewed focus on mobile management will make it much easier for enterprises to handle BYOD," Helm added, referring to the "bring your own device" trend where businesses support workers' choice of hardware.<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"> </span></div>
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Also a big plus in Helm's book was Microsoft's renouncing its stubborn insistence that it knew what customers wanted. "Just the overall fact that Microsoft took the time to understand what enterprises needed, and delivered on those features, which we really could have liked to see in the initial release," has been encouraging, said Helm.</div>
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The enforced upgrade to Windows 8.1 is the strongest signal yet that Microsoft will offer future versions in the Windows 8 line -- Windows 8.2, for instance, or even 8.3 -- free of charge, just as it has service packs in the past. Deviating from free without also eliminating the upgrade requirement for continued support would likely trigger a revolt by customers, or at least a hue-and-cry that Microsoft would find hard to silence.</div>
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When Microsoft first announced it would speed up Windows releases, many experts assumed that the company would dispense free Windows 8 upgrades for several years running before launching an entirely new edition, perhaps titled Windows 9, that would come with a price tag.</div>
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Microsoft has not yet set a ship date for Windows 8.1, or as Visser put it, the version's General Availability. When it does, the 24-month clock will start ticking: An October launch of Windows 8.1, for example, means customers will have until October 2015 to finish their upgrades.</div>
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<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/evalcenter/dn237246.aspx?wt.mc_id=TEC_153_1_38" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Windows 8.1 Enterprise Preview</a> can be downloaded from Microsoft's website. The sneak peak will expire Jan. 14, 2014.</div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">This article, <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241230" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Microsoft mandates Windows 8.1 upgrade</a>, was originally published at <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Computerworld.com</a>.</i></div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/author/9000163/Gregg+Keizer" rel="author" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg Keizer</a></b> covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for </i>Computerworld<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">. Follow Gregg on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/gkeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new"><img alt="Twitter" border="0" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/site/twitter_icon.jpg" title="Twitter" /></a> <a href="http://twitter.com/gkeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">@gkeizer</a>, on <a href="https://plus.google.com/102897512926418074101" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_new">Google+</a> or subscribe to <a href="http://rss.computerworld.com/computerworld/s/feed/keyword/GreggKeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg's RSS feed</a> <a href="http://rss.computerworld.com/computerworld/s/feed/keyword/GreggKeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><img alt="Keizer RSS" border="0" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/default/themes/cw_blogs/images/rss_bug.jpg" title="Keizer RSS" /></a>. His email address is <a href="mailto:gkeizer@computerworld.com" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">gkeizer@computerworld.com</a>.</i></div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">See <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/author/9000163/Gregg+Keizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">more by Gregg Keizer on Computerworld.com</a>.</i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-7741942868853948602013-07-29T05:35:00.001-07:002013-07-29T05:35:48.510-07:00Leap Motion Controller review: A touchscreen interface without the touching..<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
It's 'Minority Report' meets Microsoft Kinetic as virtual interactivity comes to the PC. Cool, yes, but does it have any practical value?</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Anyone who's ever stood in front of a <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9239505/New_Kinect_for_Windows_to_improve_human_interaction_with_computers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Kinetic</a>-equipped Xbox knows the <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241119/Leap_Motion_Controller_review_A_touchscreen_interface_without_the_touching#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.tracksrv.com/click?v=Tkc6MzM4NzU6MTA5NjpmdW46MWY0ODQ5MDhhODNiMjExYjNhODUzOTYxNjc2MGM1Yzg6ei0xMTIyLTEwMDA5MTp3d3cuY29tcHV0ZXJ3b3JsZC5jb206MzQwMDE6YjY0NDNmZGVlMWY2MjQwNTViOTAyNmM0NWQ5MTVmMzU" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">fun</a> of virtual control, of using your hands to manipulate what you see on the screen without touching anything but air.</div>
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The Leap Motion Controller endows your PC with that same air-powered interactivity, allowing you to bypass mouse and keyboard in favor of hand-waving control of apps, games and even various PC operations.</div>
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The Leap Motion Controller sits between keyboard and monitor.</div>
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It's a cool concept, and Leap Motion pulls off the execution reasonably well -- for the surprisingly low price of $80. But it definitely raises a few questions, starting with: What would you actually use this thing for? And does it have any practical business value?</div>
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Plug and playtime</h4>
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Not much larger than an average flash drive, the Leap Motion Controller has a glossy black top with a silver band wrapped around the sides. It's attractive and surprisingly compact, which is good considering it's designed to sit below your monitor (or, if you're using a laptop, in front of the keyboard). A USB 2.0 cable provides both power and connectivity. Leap Motion supplies both short (two feet) and long (five feet) cables to accommodate various computing configurations.</div>
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I tested the Leap Motion Controller with a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 Touch laptop and Samsung Series 9 ultrabook. Although the controller itself didn't get in the way, I disliked the look of the USB cable snaking around the side. This thing really begs for a rechargeable battery and wireless connection, which would emulate the somewhat disingenuous <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241119#goto" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">promo video</a> where you see only the sensor, not the cable.</div>
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But installation couldn't have been much simpler. After loading the Windows client (it's also available for OS X) and plugging in the controller, I raised my hands and instantly saw their movement reflected in the introductory visualizer app. As a regular Kinect user, however, for me the effect was less "Wow!" and more, "Okay, it works."</div>
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Even so, when I tried the calibration process, during which you point the top of the controller at a reflective surface (a glossy screen is recommended) and move it around, I found it nearly impossible to achieve the required "pass" score of 80. Eventually I managed it with the IdeaPad, which has a glossy display, but I never hit 80 on the matte-finished display of the Series 9. The sensor still worked as expected, but I couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't operating optimally.</div>
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Space oddity</h4>
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The controller generates a kind of virtual-space bubble in front of your PC, one large enough to accommodate your two hands (though many apps require only one). Imagine a 10-point multitouch interface, like you'd find on a touchscreen, but in three-dimensional space. The sensors track not only the positions of your hands and fingers, but also their movements. Thus you're able to "interact" with onscreen objects without actually touching anything.</div>
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Let me just pause right here to note that any business user hoping for a Leap Motion-powered productivity edge will be disappointed. You cannot design industrial components <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">a la</i> Tony Stark in <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Iron Man</i>, nor can you sift through virtual files like Tom Cruise in <i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Minority Report</i>. We are a long, long way from that.</div>
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Apps for air</h4>
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The Leap Motion Controller runs on apps, and there's already a decent collection of them in the <a href="https://airspace.leapmotion.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Airspace Store</a> -- about 75 as of this writing. These run the gamut from games to drawing tools to music makers, with a smattering of productivity apps for good measure. Some are free, while others cost a couple of bucks. A few will seem familiar to anyone with a tablet or smartphone, including <a href="https://airspace.leapmotion.com/apps/cut-the-rope/osx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Cut the Rope</a> and <a href="http://blog.leapmotion.com/post/55639018480/leapinto-google-earth" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Google Earth</a>.</div>
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I started with <a href="https://airspace.leapmotion.com/apps/cyber-science-motion/osx" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Cyber Science - Motion</a>, which displays a photorealistic model of a human skull and lets you rotate it, zoom in and out and remove individual pieces -- all through a combination of hand and finger motions. It's really cool, and one could see where a student -- one studying anatomy, anyway -- might find this a helpful educational tool.</div>
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At a Glance</h4>
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<a href="https://www.leapmotion.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Leap Motion Controller</a></h5>
Leap Motion<br /><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Price:</b> $79.99<br /><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Pros:</b> Compact, inexpensive, easy to set up<br /><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Cons:</b> Little productivity value, it's challenging to use some apps effectively</div>
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Google Earth, on the other hand, proved an exercise in frustration. Unless you maneuver your hand with slow, exacting precision, the globe spins hopelessly out of control. That's because it responds to every single hand movement: toward the screen, away from the screen, up, down, tilted left, tilted right and so on. Without considerable practice, it's impossible to get where you want to go -- or even just take a simple flight across the mountains.</div>
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Then there's <a href="https://airspace.leapmotion.com/apps/touchless-for-windows/windows" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Touchless</a>, which effectively turns your hand into a mouse. You can click, drag, zoom, scroll and more, all via a couple of fingers mirroring what you'd do on a touchpad or touchscreen. It works, though air taps and drags can be difficult to pull off, and the lack of any tactical feedback makes for agonizingly slow navigation.</div>
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A just-announced app, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/24/dextype-virtual-keyboard/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">DexType</a>, will create a virtual keyboard for two-fingered air typing. It's a neat concept, and potentially a boon for someone who's physically impaired (although I expect it will be slow compared with a traditional keyboard).</div>
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Bottom line</h4>
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And that's really the key issue here: In what ways is the Leap Motion Controller better than a mouse or touchscreen or keyboard? For the moment, it's not. It's more toy than tool, more science fiction than practical addition.</div>
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I do find it impressive that Leap Motion managed to pack so much functionality into such a compact package, especially given the unit's impulse-buy price. But unless you're an app developer, physically challenged computer user or gadget lover, this is one Leap not worth taking -- at least, not quite yet.</div>
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Company video demonstrating the Leap Motion Controller.</div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">This article, <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9241119" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Leap Motion Controller review: A touchscreen interface without the touching</a>, was originally published at <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">Computerworld.com</a>.</i></div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Rick Broida</b> has written about technology for nearly 25 years. He pens the popular Cheapskate blog and writes for </i>Computerworld, PC World, Popular Science<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> and </i>Wired.</div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-51703181119546423202013-07-22T03:22:00.002-07:002013-07-22T03:22:50.806-07:00SIM cards vulnerable to hacking, says researcher<h2 style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">
Millions of phones could be at risk due to the use of a 1970s-era encryption standard.</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">IDG News Service -</span> Millions of mobile phones may be vulnerable to spying due to the use of outdated, 1970s-era cryptography, according to new research due to be presented at the Black Hat security conference.</div>
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<a href="http://www.blackhat.com/us-13/speakers/Karsten-Nohl.html" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Karsten Nohl</a>, an expert cryptographer with Security Research Labs, has found a way to trick mobile phones into granting access to the device's location, SMS functions and allow changes to a person's voicemail number.</div>
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Nohl's research looked at a mobile phones' SIM (Subscriber Identification Module), the small card inserted into a device that ties it to a phone number and authenticates software updates and commands sent over-the-air from an operator.</div>
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More than 7 billion SIM cards are in use worldwide. To ensure privacy and security, SIM cards use encryption when communicating with an operator, but the encryption standards use vary widely.</div>
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A mobile communication trade group, the GSM Association, said in a statement that only a "minority" of SIM cards that use older encryption standards would appear to be vulnerable.</div>
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"There is no evidence to suggest that today's more secure SIMs, which are used to support a range of advanced services, will be affected," GSMA said.</div>
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Nohl's research found that many SIMs use a weak encryption standard dating from the 1970s called DES (Data Encryption Standard), according to a preview posted on his company's <a href="https://srlabs.de/rooting-sim-cards/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">blog</a>.</div>
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DES has long been considered a weak form of encryption, and many mobile operators have upgraded now to more secure forms. It is relatively easy to discover the private key used to sign content encrypted with DES.</div>
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In its experiment, Security Research Labs sent a binary code over SMS to a device using a SIM with DES. Since the binary code wasn't properly cryptographically signed, it would not run on the device.</div>
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But while rejecting the code, the phone's SIM makes a crucial mistake: it sends back over SMS an error code that carries its own encrypted 56-bit private key, according to the company. Because DES is considered a very weak form of encryption, it's possible to decrypt the private key using known cracking techniques.</div>
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Security Research Labs did it in about two minutes on a regular computer with the help of a rainbow table, a mathematical chart that helps convert an encrypted private key or password hash into its original form faster.</div>
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With the private DES key in hand, it is then possible to "sign" malicious software updates with the key, and send those updates to the device. The device believes the software comes from a legitimate source and then grants access to sensitive data.</div>
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GSMA said that it has not seen the full details of Nohl's research but that use of the DES algorithm has been "discontinued in over the air (OTA) standards for several years."</div>
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Security Research Labs outlined an attack scenario against SIM cards that run some form of Java virtual machine, a software framework for Java applications.</div>
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Using the SIM's private key, an attacker could force the SIM to download Java applets, which are essentially very small programs that perform some function. Those applets would be "allowed to send SMS, change voicemail numbers, and query the phone location, among many other predefined functions."</div>
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"These capabilities alone provide plenty of potential for abuse," the company wrote.</div>
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Possible remedies to the problem including ensuring SIM cards use state-of-the-art cryptography and also using Java virtual machines that restrict applets' access to certain information.</div>
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GSMA said it has already provided guidance to network operators and SIM vendors that might be affected by Nohl's findings.</div>
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Nohl's presentation, <a href="http://www.blackhat.com/us-13/briefings.html#Nohl" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">"Rooting SIM cards,"</a> will take place at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas on July 31.</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Report by Jeremy Kirk, Computer World. Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk</em></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-85186977074580909712013-07-08T06:17:00.001-07:002013-07-10T02:14:14.059-07:00What is cloud computing?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.003395118284970522" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">Cloud – the buzz word that everyone is saying, and arguably the future for many aspects of IT. So what is cloud computing?</b><br />
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<span style="color: #666666;">mySchoolBackup</span><span style="color: #222222;"> - Well fundamentally it’s all about </span><strong style="color: #222222;">where data is stored</strong><span style="color: #222222;">. In the early days of computing all your data was stored on your computer’s hard disk drive, or media such as floppy disk or tapes. This included the data that was used to make your computer work – software such as the operating system and programs. Up until the last few years this was still the way most home users operated.</span></div>
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<strong>Then came networks</strong> – for businesses and organisations networks provide a more efficient way of working. Instead of each individual<a href="http://www.myschoolbackup.co.uk/what-is-cloud-computing/#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.tracksrv.com/click?v=Tkc6MzM4NzU6MTA5NjptYWNoaW5lOmVlM2QzMDI5MmFjOWFkZWQ0NWMwMzRmMDg4N2RlMGM1OnotMTEyMi0xMDAwOTE6d3d3Lm15c2Nob29sYmFja3VwLmNvLnVrOjM0MDAxOmI2NDQzZmRlZTFmNjI0MDU1YjkwMjZjNDVkOTE1ZjM1" style="color: #76b63e;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">machine</a> in a business (possibly hundreds or thousands) keeping data on its hard drive, data is stored centrally on a server. This gives advantages of being able to share data easily, backup this data in one place instead of many and much more flexible storage expansion. Software like the operating system and programs are still stored on individual PCs but can be installed via the central server, rather than manually with disks.</div>
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<strong>Now the cloud</strong> – instead of storing data on a PC or a locally managed server, data is stored in a remote datacenter (a large group of servers in a secure location) run by a cloud provider. The data is then accessed over the internet from anywhere with an internet connection. This datacenter is so far removed from the end user that their data appears to be stored in a “cloud” on the internet.</div>
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<strong>You’re probably already using it</strong> – The most common reason most of us have used the cloud is to store our data, either to easily share and sync data between our PCs and devices using a service such as Dropbox, with our music collection on iTunes, our pictures on Flickr or a social network like Facebook.<br />
But it’s not only our data that can sit in the cloud, our applications can as well – Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail – are all email applications that sit in the cloud, you never have to install them and you can access them from anywhere.</div>
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Pacific Northwest electric utilities are handling the energy-intensive loads of data centers owned by Google, Facebook and others. (Photo By: iStockphoto)</div>
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So those are the bits of the cloud you’ve probably heard of and used, even if you didn’t know it at the time! So what else can the cloud do? Well pretty much anything you can do locally, here’s how cloud services are broken down with some examples:</div>
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<strong>Software-as-a-service – SaaS</strong> – equivalent to programs<br />
Instead of installing software on your computer you log in and use it online, such as webmail, Google Docs and customer relationship management software eg Salesforce.</div>
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<strong>Platform-as-a-service – PaaS</strong> – equivalent to the operating system<br />
This is a base from which software developers can build applications, eg Google Apps or Force.com for Salesforce.</div>
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<strong>Infrastructure-as-a-service</strong> – equivalent to servers<br />
Some things you might just need a whole server for, but why not have that server in the cloud? Infrastructure-as-a-service does just that, provides virtual servers that you can log into remotely and control in a similar fashion as you would your local server. Amazon and Microsoft provide such services.</div>
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We hope this article has given you a greater understanding of cloud computing, in future articles we’ll look into the benefits of cloud computing, and our area of specialisation, cloud backup.</div>
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By <span class="author vcard" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="fn"><a class="fn n" href="http://www.myschoolbackup.co.uk/author/myschoolbackup/" rel="author" style="color: #76b63e; text-decoration: none;" title="mySchoolBackup">mySchoolBackup</a></span></span></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-50398476769051906082013-07-08T06:11:00.000-07:002013-07-08T06:11:45.268-07:00Data Management. Finding Value in Business Outcomes..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.625px;">A discussion on how having a sound Recovery Management strategy that focuses on Data Protection and High Availability technologies can help organisations avoid downtime, which often impacts productivity, reputation and profitability.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 16.796875px;"><span style="color: #666666;">CA Technologies</span><span style="color: #333333;"> - The cloud file-sharing service Dropbox is immensely popular among consumer and enterprise users – and not because it’s free.</span></span></span><br />
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Despite its insecurities, Dropbox is a favorite among 200 million users because it does what it advertises, and it does it well. It’s simple, drag-and-drop functionality makes moving files between users and devices a snap. And, in some regards, it provides data protection against loss and corruption.</div>
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Dropbox isn’t the system most enterprises would typically choose. It doesn't have the management features, account administration controls, reporting mechanisms or security most enterprises desire. It doesn't have “feature creep” (the continual addition of features and functions), and it doesn't need them.</div>
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Now, I’m not advocating Dropbox as an enterprise solution. But it is a good example of how simple, straightforward IT products and services often have more enterprise value because they do what they’re designed to do with ease.</div>
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Enterprise expectations are changing for what technology is supposed to deliver. Notions that IT is about automation and cost savings are evaporating in the heat of need for growth in productivity, revenue and profits.</div>
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In other words, enterprises want technology that results in better outcomes.</div>
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IT decision-makers are fatigued by the features wars – the escalation of new functions, interface improvements and reporting mechanisms that may improve the look and feel of an application/system, but do little to effectuate net-gain outcomes.</div>
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For years, the technology industry has used the features wars to entice customers into upgrading applications and migrating to new platforms. The process worked: Incremental improvements were enough to justify spending. However, enterprises have caught on that these feature wars mean they’re paying for features they rarely or never use.</div>
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Instead of new features, enterprises want applications and systems that produce better results, regardless of the underlying interface or discrete feature options. We see this today in backup and data protection systems. The market is flooded with cloud, hybrid and on-premises products differentiated by interface features rather than those that solve real problems, such as recovery time objectives and recovery point objectives.</div>
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Think about backup for a moment. Cool reporting functions and a slick user interface are good, but they aren't the same as having assurances that RTO and RPO are absolutely achievable. After all, data integrity and availability are paramount to normal business operations and continuity.</div>
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The same thing can be said in virtualization. With nearly 60 percent of the server install base virtualized, we’re fast approaching the point where the benefits of this technology are shifting from <a href="http://community.ca.com/blogs/recoverymanagement/archive/2013/04/01/finding-value-in-business-outcomes.aspx#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.tracksrv.com/click?v=Tkc6MzM4NzU6MTA5NjptYWNoaW5lOjdkZTNhMmJmODllMDhmNjNkNjlhZDMwNjEyNDE5NDk1OnotMTEyMi0xMDAwOTE6Y29tbXVuaXR5LmNhLmNvbTo0MjA5MjplMjk1OTg4ODgzODEzNTA5NDUwOTRiZDQ5NDZlNzczMg" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">machine</a> consolidation to operational performance. To the enterprise, performance and outcome are about how well a virtualized environment is backed up, is replicated and fails over. However, many of the tools available in market promote add-ons that don’t always have definable value.</div>
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As Stephen Covey, author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” believes outcomes still matter. Rather than focusing on what goes into the technology, vendors and solution providers should help their customers achieve higher levels of performance and results. Or, as he succinctly says, “We must always start with the end in mind.”</div>
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Making things simple and valuable isn't easy – but making things easier, allowing for technical agility based on business objectives, increasing value and reducing operational costs are more valuable to an enterprise than a new blinking light or colorful dashboard.</div>
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Too often, we get caught up in the features rather than the goal. When the dust settles on the current or next hype cycle, we all need to be mindful that we serve one purpose: organizational outcomes.</div>
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by <strong><a class="bluelink" href="http://community.ca.com/members/Michael-Crest.aspx" style="color: #0071b2; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Michael Crest</a></strong></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f7f9fa;">Michael Crest is general manager for the Data Management customer solutions unit at CA Technologies, responsible for the team that develops, markets, sells and supports the company’s ARCserve and ERwin product lines.</span></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-74191907151870585222013-07-05T03:04:00.000-07:002013-07-05T03:04:09.064-07:00IE10 pushes past predecessor to take second place among Microsoft's browsers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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If trend continues, IE9 will soon slip under ancient IE6 in user share.</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Internet Explorer 10 (IE10) jumped into second place among Microsoft's browsers last month, pushing past IE9 through an enforced upgrade.</div>
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IE10's user share climbed from 16.5% to a record 24% of all copies of Internet Explorer in June, according to Web measurement firm Net Applications.</div>
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Among Microsoft's five supported browsers, IE10 was the second-most-used, leapfrogging the two-year-old IE9, which shed user share to end June with 20.9% of all copies of Internet Explorer. The 12-year-old IE6 was fourth with 10.9%, while 2009's IE8 remained in first with 40.4%.</div>
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IE10's climb has accelerated: June's user share increase was the largest since the browser's introduction on Windows 7 in February. As in previous months, June's jump was fueled by the automatic update from IE9 to IE10 on Windows 7 that kicked in last winter.</div>
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Windows 8's gradual if not dramatic rise in user share also contributed to IE10's increase, since that and Windows RT come with IE10: Windows 8's share grew in June by the largest amount since its October 2012 launch.</div>
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IE10's climb was mirrored by a large fall in IE9's user share; the browser that once threatened IE8's dominance plunged from 27.5% of all copies of IE to 20.9%. IE9 peaked in February 2013 at 38.8%, but unless Microsoft soon runs out of Windows 7 PCs to upgrade, the browser could be eclipsed by the still-surviving IE6 within a couple of months.</div>
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Overall, IE remained flat with approximately 56% of the user share of all browsers, implying that few if any of IE10's gains came from people switching browser brands. About 39% of all Windows users ran a non-Microsoft browser in June, slightly less than in May.</div>
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IE8 lost about seven-tenths of a percentage point in June -- the largest decrease since December 2012 -- to end with a 40.4% share of all copies of Internet Explorer. IE8 will remain the most popular of Microsoft's browsers for some time, experts have said, because as the most modern version available for Windows XP it's been made the standard in enterprises supporting heterogeneous environments with both Windows XP and Windows 7 systems.</div>
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The rapid rise in IE10's user share has been unprecedented in Microsoft's experience. It has been much more akin to the quick turnover by rivals like Chrome and Firefox, which also automatically upgrade users, than any previous edition of Internet Explorer, showing that the Redmond, Wash. developer can, if it wants, migrate large numbers of users to a newer browser.</div>
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But IE10's time as a climber will probably be short lived: Microsoft has<a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240416/Microsoft_promises_IE11_on_Windows_7" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">promised to deliver IE11 for Windows 7</a>, which will trigger a downturn in IE10's user share and corresponding rise in IE11.</div>
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Other browsers stayed in their long-inhabited positions in Net Applications' measurements, with Chrome exiting June with 17.2%, an increase of 1.4 percentage points, and Firefox dropping by 1.5 points to 19.2%. Apple's Safari and Opera Software's Opera remained flat at 5.6% and 1.6%, respectively.</div>
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Credit Microsoft's automatic upgrade of Windows 7 PCs from IE9 to IE10 for the quick climb in the latter's user share fortunes. (Data: Net Applications.)</div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg Keizer</b> covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for </i>Computerworld<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">. Follow Gregg on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/gkeizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new"><img alt="Twitter" border="0" src="http://www.computerworld.com/common/images/site/twitter_icon.jpg" title="Twitter" />@gkeizer</a>, or subscribe to <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/feed/keyword/Gregg+Keizer" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Gregg's RSS feed <img alt="Keizer RSS" border="0" src="http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/default/themes/cw_blogs/images/rss_bug.jpg" title="Keizer RSS" /></a>. His email address is<a href="mailto:gkeizer@ix.netcom.com" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">gkeizer@ix.netcom.com</a>.</i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-79072505723016344242013-07-03T03:26:00.000-07:002013-07-03T03:26:00.122-07:00With BlackBerry reportedly hacked, is anything secure?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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You have to wonder what level of encryption can withstand the brute-force computing power that is cheaply available today.</h2>
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<span class="source" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Computerworld -</span> Is anything secure anymore? The National Security Agency (NSA) leaks have produced a number of side effects. What we assumed was a safe form of communications is perhaps not so secure after all. The gold standard of secure mobile messaging, BlackBerry, may have been compromised!</div>
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Apparently, <a href="http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/blackberry-hacked-nsa-gchq-reportedly-break-blackberry-calls-messages/2013-06-17" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">the NSA and Britain's spy agency GCHQ (and/or other governments/agencies) were able to hack into the BlackBerry streams of government officials attending a G20 summit in London</a>. If true, this raises a bigger question: Is any encrypted communication safe anymore given the massive amount of brute-force computing power that can be applied to code-breaking and pattern recognition?</div>
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Low-cost GPUs (graphical processer units) that are being configured into massively parallel systems are far better at code-breaking than traditional CPUs. When the encryption algorithms were originally created, people reported it would take tens or hundreds of years in brute-force computing power to break them. But they never envisioned the relatively cheap, massively parallel systems available today using hundreds or thousands of NVidia or AMD GPU cores. These parallel processing machines are really effective at finding patterns and hence decrypting data streams. Indeed, some "researchers" have demonstrated ways of breaking the <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/topic/17/Security" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Computerworld coverage of security">security</a> of wireless transmissions like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.</div>
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Do we need to re-evaluate what secure mobile messaging is all about? For years, Research In Motion has said its BlackBerry system was secure. There's no reason to doubt that RIM is being honest when it confirms that there is no back door designed into its systems to allow decoding of user data streams. But that does not mean it can't be done by other means, perhaps by monitoring the data and then deciphering it, and not necessarily in real time. (Recording in real time than processing the data in massive supercomputing systems is common practice.) What may have taken tens or hundreds of years to brute-force when algorithms were designed may no longer be an accurate estimate for those players able to devote enough resources to their defeat. And the cost and availability of those resources is dropping rapidly.</div>
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So should organizations, even ones that believe they are highly secure (and perhaps even FIPS-compliant), assume they are safe? Should stand-alone or PC-installed encrypted <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/topic/19/Storage" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Computerworld coverage of storage">storage</a> devices be assumed unbreakable? Should highly encrypted mobile messaging be assumed unreadable by prying eyes? They're safe from most hacking, probably. From all hacking and various government agencies, U.S. and otherwise, not necessarily. Don't forget, Enigma, the most ambitious and secure "unbreakable" system of its day, was defeated.</div>
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The NSA disclosures should raise red flags. We are entering a new era of security where decryption of secure systems is something that can be accomplished on multiple levels and with relatively easily available technology. Mobile users with highly sensitive data should be concerned, both with mobile data transfers and also data at rest that may be stolen (e.g., while laptops remain in a <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9240475/With_BlackBerry_reportedly_hacked_is_anything_secure_?taxonomyId=84&pageNumber=1#" id="_GPLITA_0" in_rurl="http://i.tracksrv.com/click?v=Tkc6MTU1Njk6NjY4OmhvdGVsIHJvb206YmZiYjRlODM0MTU4YTBiMWRlMzQzMzAzOTVhMGJkNDE6ei0xMTIyLTEwMDA5MTp3d3cuY29tcHV0ZXJ3b3JsZC5jb206NjY4OTowMmI1YzQwMjFlMGMwMzlmOTE3ZTYzNDVlM2VlMjU3MA" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">hotel room</a> and the owner goes out). There is no longer an absolute guarantee of confidentiality. This is not paranoia. Moore's Law's exponential expansion applies as well to the brute-force hacking of encryption as it does to other computing tasks.</div>
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There will be a continuous struggle to find more secure encryption algorithms, or use increasingly longer bit-lengths to enhance security and make it more difficult to defeat. But this may also require more onboard resources to do the encryption/decryption and raise the cost of devices. Ultimately security isn't free.</div>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bottom line: </b>Complacency is the enemy. All organizations must be vigilant and review what level of data encryption and levels of security they employ, especially if the technologies are more than one or two years old and the companies are in highly regulated and/or sensitive industries. Only the most current security-enabled products should be utilized, but that may not be enough to prevent a data breech by those groups/agencies with enough resources to apply to the task.</div>
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<b style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Jack Gold</b><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> is the founder and principal analyst at <a href="http://www.jgoldassociates.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #206ba4; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="new">J.Gold Associates</a>, an information technology analyst firm based in Northborough, Mass.</i></div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1464001389032836667.post-56222917621980387362013-07-01T05:38:00.000-07:002013-07-01T05:38:15.176-07:00Microsoft updates new Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 and makes other significant changes...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The newest version of Windows is getting some changes. Among them? A little dose of old Windows.</div>
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Microsoft is making adjustments to its Windows 8 operating system, beginning with the resurrection of the Start button.</div>
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The changes, announced today at the<a href="http://www.buildwindows.com/" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"> Microsoft Build developer conference</a> in San Francisco, address some of the complaints leveled at the hybrid tablet and PC operating system that surfaced when it was released late last year.</div>
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The company also unveiled improvements to its Bing search engine, built-in support for 3-D printers, an updated Xbox Music app, and new tools for developers making WIndows 8 applications.</div>
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"The PC, the Windows device of today, doesn't look a lot like the PC of 10 years ago or of 15 years ago," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a keynote address kicking off the conference.</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2FWJx-4qWg"><img alt="" border="0" class="box-image" height="120" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130531084123-ns-tom-warren-new-windows-00041001-story-body.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="214" /></a><cite class="expCaption" style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; bottom: 0px; height: 20px; left: 10px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.85; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 214px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: white; display: block; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; left: 4px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;">Microsoft brings back 'start' button</span></cite></div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeGUksPnwzQ"><img alt="" border="0" class="box-image" height="120" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130507153014-qmb-intv-windows-8-upgrade-blues-00013824-story-body.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="214" /></a><cite class="expCaption" style="background-color: black; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; bottom: 0px; height: 20px; left: 10px; margin: 0px; opacity: 0.85; padding: 0px; position: absolute; width: 214px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: white; display: block; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: normal; left: 4px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; position: relative; top: 2px; vertical-align: baseline;">Windows 8 tiles pose challenge for users</span></cite></div>
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Ballmer outlined some of the new changes to Windows 8.1, which he described as a "refined blend."</div>
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When the radically different, touchscreen-optimized system came out eight months ago, many Windows users were upset about radical departure from the typical Windows interface, especially the lack of a Start button. The button is back, and now it leads to a list of all your applications.</div>
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The company announced a few new applications for Windows 8, including an official Facebook app, Flipboard and NFL Fantasy football. Though there was a brief preview of a new version of PowerPoint for WIndows 8, the next version of the Microsoft Office suite won't be released until 2014.</div>
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The speedy Windows 8 update is part of Microsoft's new approach to releasing fixes and adding features to products.</div>
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The software and hardware company is now focused on a "rapid release" cycle, which will let it roll out changes to software in a matter of months instead of years. It has already released a number of changes to Windows 8, but this version is the biggest overhaul so far.</div>
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A free preview version of the Windows 8.1 update for developers is available to anyone interested in installing it. The version for regular consumers will come out later this year.</div>
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Other changes include the ability to boot directly into the desktop, more flexibility with the tiles on the Start screen, support for high-resolution displays, and greater Bing integration.</div>
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"Search is not just a list of links, it's things you can do," said Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president of Windows, who demonstrated some new Bing features.</div>
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Developers can now tap into Bing, which has opened up access to its 3-D maps, entities and knowledge database, and natural user interfaces.</div>
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The big Xbox Music update is a radio feature that builds a station for listeners based on a song, much like Pandora.</div>
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As part of a feature coming later this year, people will be able to automatically create Xbox Music playlists based on Web pages, like a Pitchfork list of top songs of the year.</div>
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Microsoft also highlighted a few of the of the 3,000 Windows 8 certified tablets, PCs and hybrids, including an 18-inch Dell tablet. It highlighted more touchscreen devices, "workhorse" 2-in-1 tablets and smaller tablets.</div>
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"We're going to see a proliferation of Windows 8 small tablet devices over the next few months," said Ballmer.</div>
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Microsoft's own entry in to the hardware world wasn't forgotten. After some scripted banter about how much they loved their own Surface tablets, presenters announced that developers attending the conference would all receive free Surface Pros. Attendees will also get Acer Iconia W3 tablets.</div>
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YesCon Techhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07450709493275583081noreply@blogger.com1