Before I get to this week's main topic I must give a big thumbs-up to a book that all of you who like to cook will thoroughly enjoy: "Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food" by Jeff Potter (pub. O'Reilly).
In 2011, the increasingly mobile and socially networked world of technology became more intertwined than ever with politics and the law. Patent wars shaped competition in tablets and smartphones, hacktivists attacked a widening array of political and corporate targets, repressive regimes unplugged citizens from the Internet, and the U.S. government moved to block the giant merger of AT&T and T-Mobile USA. With the passing of Steve Jobs, the world lost a technology icon who redefined the computer, entertainment and consumer electronics industries. These are the IDG News Service's picks for the top 10 technology stories of the year:
Here's a piece of news that will worry anyone interested in <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/security.html">security</a> (which should be pretty much everyone who reads Network World): A programmer by the name of Juuso Salonen has created a Ruby script called <a href="https://github.com/juuso/BozoCrack">BozoCrack</a> that cracks MD5 hashed passwords with remarkable success and with very little effort.
A single group of hackers using spearphishing has stolen industrial drawings, contracts and more from at least 10 oil, gas and defense companies in Norway, according to a published report.
A hacking group called d33ds broke into the online shop of a rival hacker who sells unauthorized access to high-profile websites and data.
U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden and British Prime Minister David Cameron Tuesday condemned efforts by some countries to censor their citizens' use of the Internet, making a case that free expression online has long-term benefits.
China was slammed on several fronts in a barrage of articles published today in the U.S. media that touched on <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/topics/security.html">security</a> concerns related to the U.S. and Iran, plus a crackdown on Internet usage said to be unfolding within China.
A security penetration tester discovered a major flaw in Facebook that could allow a person to send anyone on the social-networking site malicious applications.
If the Internet is the new Wild West, then hackers are the wanted outlaws of our time. And like the gun-slinging bad boys before them, all it takes is one wrong move to land them in jail.
A Trojan used by German law enforcement authorities to intercept Internet phone calls is capable of monitoring traffic from 15 programs, including browsers and instant messaging applications.
Public companies may need to look more closely at their exposure to cyberattacks after new guidelines were released this week by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Searching for Flash Player on Bing and Yahoo can lead to rogue pages distributing a hard-to-remove rootkit, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor GFI Software.
The Zeus financial malware has been updated with P-to-P (peer-to-peer) functionality that makes it much more resilient to take-down efforts and gives its controllers flexibility in how they run their fraud operations.
Zero-day exploits are nerve-racking for IT professionals but are far less dangerous than unpatched older vulnerabilities for which fixes are available, Microsoft says.
Officials in a number of German state governments have owned up to using the Quellen-TKÜ Trojan Horse software in criminal investigations to intercept encrypted telecommunications on PCs. At least one state said it has suspended use of the software, after the Chaos Computer Club discovered that it could be controlled by anyone, not just law enforcement officers.
Innovation Awards is the market-leading awards program for celebrating ecosystem innovation and excellence across the technology sector in Australia.
