Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Power over Ethernet (“PoE”) is nothing new.  Usually, PoE is used to power switches and other networking devices.  A company called Baumer Ltd. is using PoE to power cameras over Cat6 cable.  The “TXG camera” can shoot at VGA and higher resolutions and up to 90 frames per second. 

Where would you use something like this?  It probably could be used in surveillance or in some kind of robot.  These TXG cameras are tiny and weigh less than a quarter pound.  You can get a sense of scale by looking at the Ethernet jack on the back of the device.

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Security experts are warning users to be on the alert for a new hacking technique involving fake blogs.  Hackers have begun exploiting Google’s Trends Lab, which lists the days most searched topics.  They use this information to create real news stories which they then place on a fake blog in order to increase page rankings.  Unsuspecting users who click through to the blog are presented with several videos.

From there, the routine uses an old but still effective trick.  When a video is clicked on, a pop up prompts them to download a codec-which is actually malicious software.  The software loads a fake antispyware program which nags and goads the user into purchasing still more malware which exposes their personal info.

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Sections: Computers, Security, Web, Websites, Google

You have FaceBook and MySpace and YouTube…..and now…A-Space.  Only unless you have top level clearances, you won’t be joining this social networking site. Well, let’s hope that’s how it really goes down. (Kind of scary that the government thinks the internet is secure when you really think about it).

The soon to be launching A-Space program is a site for analysts working within the 16 US intelligence agencies. “It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more,“ said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.  “It’s a place where not only spies can meet but share data they’ve never been able to share before,“ Wertheimer said. “This is going to give them for the first time a chance to think out loud, think in public amongst their peers, under the protection of an A-Space umbrella.“  Ummm….an A-Space umbrella? I sure hope it can weather a decent storm.

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Sections: Computers, Networking, Security, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites

The alleged takeover of the City by the Bay may sound totally rare, but, unfortunately, it has happened before that disgruntled employees take to modern technology as a means for revenge.

City tech employee Terry Childs, allegedly modified the city system so that he was the only one with top level clearances. The city is still in a tizzy trying to regain control of their new fiber optic municipal network that handles everything from the mayor’s email to electronic court records. Childs, who was arrested on Sunday, is still being held on $5 million bail, after allegedly refusing to hand over the passwords. He at first did supply some, but they turned out to be bogus.

It isn’t even clear why he did what he did, although it’s been said that in days leading up to his arrest, his behavior towards his colleagues was becoming erratic. A new security chief had been brought in to oversee the group’s security, and over the past few weeks some evidence of tampering had been found. It was escalated to the police, who in turn brought in their own forensics team to investigate their network.

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Omar Khan, an 18-year-old student from Coto de Caza, California attempted to pull a move straight from the movie War Games. And I am not referring to the whole “lets play Global Thermonuclear War” incident, but instead the hacking into his schools computer to change his failing grades to passing grades. Mr. Kahn was “allegedly” changing his D’s and F’s to something a little more positive, A’s. Wow, talk about an improvement, you would think he would have settled to at least pass and just move them up to a C in an effort to avoid detection. But instead he went all the way up, because it seems his intention was not only to avoid failing and the potential summer school, but to get into a good college. I can only assume that he would have continued to hack his grades after he started college as well.

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You say you first thought that the plot of “Live Free or Die Hard” was simply the product of a screenwriter’s overheated imagination? That the idea of cyberterrorists taking over electric utility/natural gas/traffic/financial market computer systems was just too far-fetched to be believed, even though it was uber-cool to see Bruce Willis take down a fighter jet with his bare hands?

O ye of little faith in Hollywood. Remember, the 9/11 Commission faulted U.S. intelligence agencies for having “a failure of imagination.“ And “Live Free or Die Hard’s” script was partially based on a non-fiction article in Wired Magazine that described the scenario for a so-called “fire sale” attack on America’s infrastructure.

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US government computers are supposed to be the most secure in the world, but a Romanian hacker proved just the opposite.

A Romanian national was indicted on charges of hacking into more than 150 U.S. government computers, causing disruptions that cost NASA, the Energy Department and the Navy nearly $1.5 million.

While we know hacking is a criminal act, I would like to raise one question: Should hackers be jailed or rewarded? I ask this because computer security consultants employed by big corporations developing security solutions can never match hackers’ intuitive skills. If not for the hackers, no one would be able to prove that the solutions offered by these money-sucking companies actually have many loopholes.

I am proposing that hackers be sentenced to minimal jail terms as a deterrent, but put them behind a high-tech bar and let them hack more supposedly secure government computers in a controlled environment, and then pay them handsomely when they break through the security. The money can come from the government itself or a system where security solutions providers subsidize the cost for their own blunders.

What do you say folks?

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