Digitalrage

Information Technology News Center

December 23rd, 2009

So it looks like the two recent BlackBerry Messenger updates are the culprit behind yesterday’s BlackBerry service outage. If you’re running either of the problem-versions, you should update your software immediately via BlackBerry App World or at BlackBerry.com/Messenger using your BlackBerry Browser.

The outage is the second major North American BlackBerry service disruption for RIM and its customers in a week’s time. The occurrence of two major BlackBerry outages so close together is uncommon, and RIM typically prides itself on near-perfect uptime statistics. I can’t help but wonder if the first outage earlier this week is somehow connected to yesterday’s fiasco, but RIM isn’t providing any additional information at this point.

MoreHere

December 22nd, 2009

“It’s gotten completely out of hand. The bad guys are going to some local registries in Europe and getting massive amounts of IP space and then they just go to a hosting provider and set up their own data centers,” said Alex Lanstein, senior security researcher at FireEye, an antimalware and anti-botnet vendor. “It takes one more level out of it: You own your own IP space and you’re your own ISP at that point.

“If there’s a problem, who are you going to talk to? It’s a different ball game now. These guys are buying their own data centers. These LIRs and RIRs aren’t going to push back if you say you need a /24 or /16. They’re not the Internet police,” Lanstein said.

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December 19th, 2009

Waikato District Health Board has been crippled by a computer worm which has seen every PC in the organisation shut down.

While the main hospital in Hamilton and smaller outlying hospitals were continuing to function, spokeswoman Mary-Ann Gill said it was important people only came for treatment if it was absolutely necessary.

Emergency care was still available but those arriving for routine appointments were being affected, as were GPs who often made referrals to hospitals via email.

“We are asking GPs to only make urgent referrals,” she said.

More Here

December 19th, 2009

BOSTON – A computer hacker who was a force behind one of the largest cases of credit card theft in US history says he has a developmental disorder and is asking for a reduced sentence.

Albert Gonzalez, of Miami, admitted invading the computer systems of such retailers as TJX Cos., BJ’s Wholesale Club and Sports Authority. Federal authorities say tens of millions of credit and debit card numbers were stolen.

His lawyers have submitted a report from a psychiatrist who concluded his behaviour was consistent with Asperger’s syndrome. That’s a form of autism.

Gonzalez was scheduled to be sentenced on Monday. The hearing has been postponed indefinitely so prosecutors can consider the psychiatrist report.

His lawyers are asking for a sentence at the lower end of the 15 to 25 years in his plea agreement.

- AP

October 25th, 2009

Today Apple introduced the new wireless Magic Mouse, the first mouse to use Apple’s revolutionary Multi-Touch technology. Pioneered on iPhone, iPod touch and Mac notebook trackpads, Multi-Touch allows customers to navigate using intuitive finger gestures. Instead of mechanical buttons, scroll wheels or scroll balls, the entire top of the Magic Mouse is a seamless Multi-Touch surface. Magic Mouse comes standard with the new iMac and will be available as a Mac accessory at just $69.

The scroll button on the Mighty Mouse was a big issue for Mac users, it would stick all the time. It frustrated me so much I replaced it with a Microsoft Trackman which is a great mouse but an abomination to be attached to a Mac.

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October 12th, 2009

Back in 1999 Yahoo purchased GeoCities for $3.65 billion, but today it has sent out a “final notice” warning GeoCities users that they are pulling the plug on the 26th October.

Yahoo currently is shutting down a lot of services which it seems as though previous CEO’s purchased for no real reason. Current Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz seems to have her head switch on and is focusing on Yahoo’s key business areas:

* Homepage
* Mail
* Messenger
* Everything “mobile”
* Search
* Media experiences across sports, news, finance, entertainment

“Yahoo’s goal is to be at the center of people’s online lives, and these efforts all support that,” says a source.

What is Yahoo wanting to sell:

* Yahoo Games!
* Yahoo Hot Jobs
* Yahoo Small Business
* Zimbra
* Yahoo Shopping
* Delicious

July 14th, 2009

This was originally posted at ZDNet’s Between the Lines.

Sprint Nextel will outsource its network to Ericsson in a seven-year deal valued at $4.5 billion to $5 billion.

The deal, announced Thursday, allows Sprint to offload the costs associated with running its network. Sprint will transfer 6,000 employees to Ericsson.

Ericsson will now handle all the day-to-day operations and maintenance. The transfer of the network and the employees that go with them is set to happen by the end of the third quarter.

Steve Elfman, Sprint’s president of network operations and wholesale, said on a conference call that Sprint still owns its network and is responsible for strategic plans and investments. Elfman added that the goal is to improve the quality of the network and deploy next-generation technologies. Sprint will keep its customer service operations.
Sprint News

May 6th, 2009

Using a 1961 federal law designed to stop illegal gambling, the state has directed 11 telephone and Internet service providers to block nearly 200 gambling Web sites.

I have managed to come across the actual letter that was sent to the ISP’s from Minnesota.
Letter Sent To the ISP’s4

October 31st, 2008

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — On October 30 at 4:30 pm
Sprint-Nextel severed its Internet connection to Cogent thereby partitioning
the Internet. It is no longer possible for many Sprint customers and Cogent
customers to directly communicate across the Internet. Sprint did so in
violation of a contractual obligation to exchange Internet traffic with Cogent
on a settlement free peering basis. Sprint and Cogent are engaged in
litigation over this matter. Cogent regrets that Sprint chose to take this
unilateral action rather than await a determination by the court as to the
rights of the parties. Cogent remains ready to reestablish, on the same
settlement free basis as previously existed, the connections that Sprint has
severed.

October 29th, 2008

MOSCOW, October 9 /PRNewswire/ — ElcomSoft Co. Ltd. accelerates the recovery of WPA and WPA2 encryption
used in the Wi-Fi protocol by employing the new-generation NVIDIA video cards. ElcomSoft patent-pending GPU acceleration technology implemented in Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery allows using laptop, desktop or server computers equipped with supported NVIDIA video cards to break Wi-Fiencryption up to 100 times faster than by using CPU only.
Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery supports both WPA and the newer WPA2 encryption used in the majority of Wi-Fi networks, allowing breaking Wi-Fi protection quickly and efficiently with most laptop and desktop computers. The support of NVIDIA graphic accelerators increases the recovery speed by an average of 10 to 15 times when Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery is used on a moderate laptop with NVIDIA GeForce 8800M or 9800M series GPU, or up to 100 times when running on a desktop with two or more NVIDIA GTX 280 boards installed. Governments, forensic and corporate users will benefit from vastly increased speed of breaking Wi-Fi protection provided by Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery.
Though this software has to be purchased it has been reported as being seen on some P2P networks already.

Russia Company Breaks WIFI Security