After 15 years in a row of being the world’s richest man, Bill Gates finally had to step down from the podium and take the 3rd place. But please, don’t start sending donations to Mr. Gates yet, his fortune is still evaluated at over $58 billion.
The new world’s richest man is Gates’ friend and investment mogul Warren Buffett, according to Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the world’s wealthiest people, which was released Wednesday. The magazine estimated Buffett’s worth at $62 billion, and Gates’ fortune not too far behind at $58 billion. But that doesn’t mean he only slipped one notch: Carlos Slim, a Mexican telecoms tycoon, came in second with an estimated worth of $60 billion.
Horror stories about how corporations get their important data stolen from mobile devices have been plentiful in the past few years. To fight the problem, most companies now require that hard drives inside their mobile fleet get encrypted before leaving in the hands of employees. Normally, such a means would be more than enough to ensure data privacy in case of theft, but according to a group of researchers from Princeton University, it isn’t the case anymore.
Like most people, I always thought that RAM modules couldn’t retain their information after being powered off, but guess what? We’re wrong! DRAM chips can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to lose their stored content, which incidentally can include a drive’s encryption key. Now extracting this key in just a few seconds makes the task downright impossible, but by putting a computer’s memory modules on ice (Yes, ICE!), you can extend their memory retention capability by a few times.
Using this technique, the researchers from Princeton were able to decrypt drives protected by three of the most popular encryption software out there: Linux’s TrueCrypt, Vista’s BitLocker and OS X’s FileVault.
Obviously, protecting yourself against “memory chilling” is very easy. All you have to do is to never leave your computer in sleep or hibernation mode, and to ensure that you power it off a few minutes before leaving it alone.
The following video explains the technique in much more details.
Not only could this be very embarrassing, it could also hurt your reputation and even expose you to legal actions. Before exchanging documents with tracked changes, you should always make sure the final copy is sanitized and cleared of any sort of hidden data. Take your data security and integrity to the next level by installing SendShield, a first line of defense against hidden data in incoming and outgoing documents.
A Worst case scenario
A finance department assistant prepares a document showing the projected sales for the year to come. Once a first draft is completed, the document is sent to the finance director.
The director turns on Track Changes in Excel and increases some projected sales values thinking employees would be delighted by the goals for the upcoming year. On the cell showing off the estimated revenues, he adds a comment aimed at the vice president:
“Hey Bob, I think we should revise these numbers up. Even if we don’t reach them by the end of the year, it might prevent some departures in the next few months as we expect a decrease in sales.”
Bob gets the spreadsheet, looks at the numbers, and adds his comment:
“Good idea, these kids in IT would surely jump on the occasion to leave the company. Let’s keep ’em in the dark.”
Bob hides the changes to see how the spreadsheet looks, gets a call, and makes a careless mistake while talking on the phone: He approves the document and sends it back to the assistant.
The assistant looks at the spreadsheet, and since everything looks fine, emails it to all employees. Ouch!
Unfortunately, situations such as this one are happening regularly. Check out this page to read a few nightmare stories that got media attention.
How can IT prevent this?
I recently stumbled on SendShield, a free software that installs itself as an Outlook plugin and scans attached office documents for hidden data. The application works at the client level, so it should not be seen as a server application.
Precisely, SendShield searches for the following items:
Tracked Changes
Comments
Hidden rows, columns and sheets (Excel)
Formulas
System requirements & download
Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows Server 2003
Office 2007 or Office 2003 (coming soon: Office XP/2000)
Microsoft .NET 1.1
15 MB disk space
512 MB RAM
You can download SendShield for free without the need to go through a lengthy registration process. Before running the installation, make sure all Office programs are closed (including Outlook.)
How it works
SendShield kicks in as soon as you attach a Microsoft Office document into an Outlook email. It scans the file and displays a warning that you can’t really miss.
If you don’t take action at this point, you’ll be prompted once again when sending your email. This time, SendShield pops up an Unclean Attachments warning box requesting an action:
Either you let SendShield clean the attachment(s) (I gave this option a few try and it makes a perfect job.)
Or you can decide to leave the file(s) intact
SendShield has another interesting feature: it scans Office documents received by email. This could allow you to view hidden data you shouldn’t have been exposed to.
Summary
Just as a precaution, I strongly recommend Outlook users, especially those in the corporate world, to deploy SendShield. Give it a try with a few test users, and if you get good results, push it to everyone. Who knows how many embarrassing situations this could save you? Have you ever been exposed to hidden data in Office apps?
Researchers at Carnegie mellon University’s Robotics Institute are currently developing a magnetic levitation system that they claim provides the most realistic sense of touch yet to be seen on similar devices. Possible applications include microsurgery, computer-augmented design, robot control, and even data visualization.
Haptics is the study of touching, and haptic technology refers to that which applies force feedback, texture and other physical sensations when the user manipulates virtual objects. Healthy virtual tissue would feel soft; a tumor, hard. Models created by supercomputers could be manipulated without creating expensive physical artifacts.
The thing about instant messaging programs such as Pidgin and Skype is that their sounds suck. Their chat services may be the best thing since pop-tarts but it doesn’t take long for their sound effects to grate on your nerves. You know, the audio notifications that you’ve got a new message, that people have logged on, that sort of thing.
The good news is that you can change the sound to whatever you want and in true geek style, I changed it to Han Solo’s blaster. So now whenever I get an instant message coming in, my office sounds like Docking Bay 94.
“wav” audio files abound on the internet. Some sites try to charge for wav files but you don’t have to pay for them as there are countless sites giving these audio files away for free. Just decide what you want and google it, along with a “.wav” at the end. So to get the blaster file, I put “blaster.wav” into Google and I also considered “lightsaber.wav“, “phaser.wav” and so on. Just try different variations of the type of file you’re looking for and you should get quite a few download links.
Just remember though to choose a sound that isn’t going to irritate you. If you get quite a few messages each day, you’re going to hear that sound over and over. So choose very carefully.
Then head over to the sounds and notifications section of your instant messaging program and upload your wav file :
I know for a fact that Pidgin and Skype allows uploading of audio files. I can’t speak for the others. Maybe users of other IM programs can let us know in the comments if their preferred IM programs allow this too.
The Newton virus is a perfectly inoffensive little Mac application that will never replicate itself, mail itself to your contact list or delete any of your files. According to its designer, it was made to revive the golden era of “fun” viruses, which were created to make pranks upon your friends. The little critter comes on a USB key that looks like a cross between an evil Apple logo and a carnivore PacMan. If you want to infect someone with it, all you need to do it to plug the device on a Mac system for a few seconds and remove it. The Virus will then execute itself at a completely random time, and it will do so only once. Check out the following video to see it in all its destructive glory.
Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, passed away earlier today at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He turned in his character sheet. Rolled a critical fumble; smote by the gods.
This amazing CG animation was created by a small French media marketing company named Akama Studio to promote Nestlé’s KitKat chocolate bar. I normally wouldn’t post something like this, but this animation is way too well made to be ignored. Enjoy!
By Brian Boyko Contributing Writer, GAS
and Editor of Network Performance Daily
You may not remember the name Wafaa Bilal, but you probably remember the Iraqi-American who locked himself in a room with a paintball gun controlled by random individuals on the Internet for thirty days – that was him, and it’s now nine months later and he’s unable to sleep at night without medicine. Now Bilal has a new controversial art piece that has caused the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s College Republicans to call the college’s Arts department a “terrorist safehaven” for exhibiting it.
In 2003, a forgettable budget first-person shooter game called “Quest for Saddam” was released by a programmer using the Duke Nukem 3D engine. “Quest for Saddam” featured ethnic stereotypes, crude ethnic slurs, and “humor” characteristic of those who find Ann Coulter funny. The developer, Jesse Petrilla went on to found the “United American Committee,” which is most famous for hanging Osama bin Laden in effigy outside a mosque in Culver City, California.
This game should have faded into obscurity, except that a group called the “Global Islamic Media Front” transformed “Quest for Saddam” into “Quest for Bush” by replacing all the textures. Press coverage immediately slammed “Quest for Bush” as an Al Qaeda recruiting tool, while generally ignoring the content of the original “Quest for Saddam.”
Gameology has more information in a well researched article on both “Quest for Saddam” and “Quest for Bush,” as well as this line:
“Creating a game that repeatedly portrays the killing of a specific individual or ideology and then distributing that game in a context that sincerely advocates the killing of that individual or ideology precludes any claims about that game’s facetiousness.”
That line should be plastered above the door of every FPS shooter game development company as a litmus test.
Bilal’s new art installation takes the game and hacks it to create “The Night of Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi.” Through the game, which will be revealed this Wednesday night, March 5th, 2008 at Rensselaer, Bilal casts himself as a suicide-bomber.
After learning of the real-life death of his brother in the war, he is recruited by Al Qaeda to join the hunt for Bush. This work is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as Quest for Saddam; along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.’s failed strategy in securing Iraq. The work also aims to shed light on groups that traffic in crass and hateful stereotypes of Arab culture with games like Quest for Saddam and other media.
I’ll admit that even I wasn’t comfortable with the medium and thought that the message might be lost in the controversy over Bilal casting himself as would-be assassin in work of interactive fiction. Still, I sat down for a phone interview with Wafaa Bilal about the project – and its decidedly controversial nature.
I’m still not sure if I’m comfortable with the work, but at least I know more about the thought process that went into it.
Geek Support has its first question from one of our readers!
It comes from Flor in Mexico City :
My best friend just made the switch to Linux. After much brainwashing from my part, she decided to switch to Ubuntu 7.10. We had tons of problems on her laptop, an Inspiron 1520. Between my boyfriend and me, we have pretty much solved most of them. However, there’s still one problem we can’t solve and we don’t know why. We can’t synchronize her iPod Classic with her laptop. I thought it would be as easy as plug and play, just like my iPod. I own an iPod Photo 40gb and use it perfectly. Her iPod Classic 80gb just doesn’t work. Whenever we plug it and I transfer any songs from my computer, her iPod just doesn’t work. After we disconnect it and all, we browse on the iPod and realize that all the data it had was erased. None of the music we transfered is present and even more, all the data that was there before connecting it is no longer present. We then connect it again but in Windows Vista and the iPod is not detected, just in disk mode. What we usually end up doing is resetting the iPod from iTunes.
We’ve tried everything, gtkpod, using libgpod script…nothing. We have the same problem over and over again. My question is: is there a REAL way to make an iPod Classic work on Ubuntu 7.10? It’s so frustrating, all the how-tos i’ve found they say it works perfectly but we just can’t make it work.
Mark says : Hmmmph…..typical….first question and I can’t answer it! I haven’t installed Ubuntu on my PC so I can’t claim to know anything about it. I’m too attached to my Windows XP. I know, pathetic….
My first instinctive response in this situation is to run a virtual Windows session on the Linux system. So she can run her iPod on iTunes inside a virtual Windows and then use Linux for everything else. To me this would be the easiest solution of the lot. There are plenty of programs out there that can help Flor achieve this. I suggested VirtualBox. Flor said she would give it a try.
Mackenzie says : Try using Rhythmbox instead of trying to just drag n’ drop. If Flor doesn’t like Rhythmbox as her main music player, check out Banshee, Exaile, and Amarok.
Also, maybe try the libgpod upgradesince resetting it may have made it start to behave like a brand new iPod. Also, be sure to eject the iPod properly. Linux (or OSX) does not sync changes to the disk immediately. They are kept in a buffer, so no data is written until you eject.
The outcome : all the options have been passed onto Flor and she’s been asked to let us know if any of them work. We’ll keep you updated.
Meanwhile, if any of you have any alternative ideas on how to solve Flor’s problem, let us know in the comments! Do any of you have any geeky hacks that Flor can take advantage of?
The thing about instant messaging programs such as 
You may not remember the name Wafaa Bilal, but you probably remember the Iraqi-American who 
