Here’s something you don’t see everyday: Sneakers with headlights. Designed by Feijun Chen & Bin Zhao, the concept Pioneer shoes come with built-in kinetic-recharging headlights, so you don’t have to fear getting lost in the dark during your next midnight jogging session. The only problem I see with these is that while wearing them, you’ll probably be increasing your chance of getting mugged by about 500%. Hit the more link to see a picture of how the designers are planning to make this concept work.
Apple just released two new Windows-bashing “Get a Mac” ads for you to enjoy. As Usual, Cupertino relies on half-truths to convince the mass that Apple computers are better systems. Oh don’t get me wrong; I do agree that Macs are better for certain things, but certainly not all of them, namely business applications and games.
Have a look at what Lenovo is cooking up for Intel’s next Developer Forum (IDF): The Ideapad U8. This sexy piece of technology features Intel’s brand new Atom processor, a 4.8 inch touchscreen, EDGE/3G support, and lo and behold, a built-in optical mouse, which will apparently allow one-handed operation of the device. Video after the break.
When I think that all of this has been made as an elaborate April Fool’s prank, I can only shake my head in disbelief at the lengths IGN went to to make everybody think that this was the real deal.
It seems that 1983 was Year of the Geek. The arrival of the Compaq Portable. The invention of the Domain Name System. The first cellphone. The launch of Nintendo.
Who would have thought that so much could happen in one year?
According to a ComputerWorld article, the Hannaford Breach was not just a single keylogger installed at a critical point in the enterprise. Malware was installed on each and every server that handled the credit card processing at their stores in New England, Florida and New York. That’s a lot of breaches.
Hannaford Bros. Co. disclosed this week that the intruders who stole up to 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers from the grocer’s systems did so by planting malware programs on servers at each of its stores in New England, New York and Florida.
The malicious software was used to intercept the payment card data as the information was being transmitted from Hannaford’s point-of-sale systems to authorize transactions. The malware then forwarded the stolen card numbers as well as their expiration dates to an overseas destination.
The discovery of the mass malware installation prompted a wholesale replacement of Hannaford’s store servers. In addition to disclosing that the malware had been installed on all of Hannaford’s store servers it was designed to intercept the so-called Track 2 data that is stored in the magnetic stripe on the back of payment cards. The malware then batched the card numbers and expiration dates and “periodically transmitted the data to an offshore ISP.
The article goes on to note that Hannaford is still not sure how someone broke into the system, and laughably, they even think maybe an insider was to blame. But a network so poorly protected to allow hundreds of servers to be breached without notice and to allow data to be exfiltrated for months points more readily to poor design, poor management, and poor security.
The most likely scenario was a simple breach of a workstation by a trojan horse program installed by an unwitting employee. The operator of the trojan then simply scanned the internal network and realized that there were no safeguards in place and proceeded to backdoor each server.
At least Hannaford is proceeding with recovery in accordance with best practices. They are replacing the breached servers with new fully patched systems to avoid any lingering malware that may reside on a system that was simply “cleaned.” The old hard drives are likely in the hands of the FBI and Secret Service for forensic analysis.
In this two-post series, I will share my thoughts and recommendations on what I consider to be great books for the geek nation. I have paid attention to cover a wide variety of topics that fall into one large common category: technology. These must-read books can all be purchased online from Amazon.
I am not normally a big April Fools person but when I saw this joke this morning, I couldn’t resist trying it out – and it comes from Microsoft ironically enough.
It’s the Blue Screen of Death screensaver and when your hapless victim has their back turned, just install it on their computer, activate it and then say “oh look, your computer has that funny blue screen thingie”.
I tried it on my girlfriend and before I could say “let’s buy an Apple Mac”, she was dialling the electronics store to complain that the computer was breaking down after only buying it from them 4 months ago. When she discovered it was only a screensaver, I had to run for my life.
So it really is true – Germans really don’t have a sense of humour!
This is for all you web design geeks out there. In the following video, The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) raps about how web standards and proper design could affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site. Enjoy!
If you’re a network manager, I think your job might be under threat when your boss sees this kid. Jon Penn is only 11 years old and he’s Victory Baptist School‘s computer network manager. At 11, shouldn’t he be playing with his Nintendo Wii or something?
According to the article on Network World, his mother is the school librarian and when the IT support person suddenly quit, she found the IT job added to her already heavy workload. Enter her 11 year old son to save the day who says his favourite reading material is computer magazines.
He looked at what the school needed, looked at the budget and then started to build a network. Pretty amazing work for a kid his age.
Do you agree with what he did? Or would you have done things differently?
If you’re a network manager, I think your job might be under threat when your boss sees this kid. Jon Penn is only 11 years old and he’s