Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

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.

MORE »

Perhaps in a catch-up game with the recent launch of the ultra popular Mozilla Firefox 3 and upcoming Opera 9.5, Microsoft has been beefing up its own Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) with plethora of new security features

Currently in public beta phase, this once dominant Web browser hopes to win back the hearts of its disheartened users with its new anti-malware protection and Cross Site Scripting (XSS) filter to fight against the so-called reflection attacks.

On top of these new developments, Microsoft recently announced other security features in IE8 such as the upgraded version of its phishing filter called SmartScreen Filter, improvement on ActiveX controls as well as anti-social engineering features.

However, most of these features are already available in other Web browsers so it won’t do much to help IE8 differentiate itself from competition. To make matters worse, your computer must be running Windows Vista SP1 or Windows XP SP3 for you to enjoy this added protection.

In short, we suggest sticking with Firefox!

Read [InformationWeek]

Joining Continental Airlines and Northwest Airlines, Delta has become the latest to announce plans to begin accepting a cell phone or PDA as a boarding pass. This new boarding pass policy is currently only available for passengers at LaGuardia International Airport in New York.

In addition this option is currently only available for those who are domestic passengers, and once at the airport they can check their bags at the curbside check-in and skip the regular check-in and proceed directly to the screening area. Once at the screening area, the TSA representative will scan the electronic pass and check your ID. Travelers using this method will also be asked to show the phone with the electronic pass at the gate just prior to boarding.

Via [treo central]

In the hostile world of today it is good to know that anything you say, or type, is safe from the prying eyes of family member’s, government organizations or even just a nosy person of the street. However, unfortunately, that is not always the case. A recent News.com survey into privacy revealed some pretty interesting results, the most notable of which is that AOL AIM is the most secure with no logs and secure logging-in and secure conversations, and Facebook Chat is the worst as they refused to answer lots of questions and also have an insecure log-in and insecure conversations.

One of the questions asked was “Have you ever received a subpoena, court order or other law enforcement request asking you to perform a live interception or wiretap, meaning the contents of your users’ communications would be instantly forwarded to law enforcement?”

MORE »

Yes, mobile security is becoming more of a million-dollar-worry for corporations, but what about the hundreds of dollars’ worth of songs on your iPod? Your son’s graduation photos on your digital camera when it gets lost or stolen?

A recent Reuters story details some of the new software and hardware that allows runaway consumer electronics to “phone” home via wireless connectivity; Eye-Fi SD memory cards and GadgetTrak software are mentioned. Both send data back to the original owners, and there are now-famous stories of thieves caught taking pictures of themselves using the Eye-Fi enabled cameras they stole.

I was curious about the relationship between these new security companies and law enforcement: how are police handling the advent of technologies that help them do their jobs? 

MORE »

Here we go again: a new survey about security and devices that is brought to you by a company with a vested interest in providing companies security for their devices. Nevertheless, it’s probably true that if you’re using a Blackberry cell phone, Windows Mobile phone or other smartphone for your work, you’re not using the same kinds of password protection you have for your company laptop.

MORE »

South Korea is still the fastest Internet country on the planet, Microsoft software still has a big bullseye painted on it by hackers and password theft continues to be all the rage in the nether regions of the Web.

Many of the findings from Akamai’s State of the Internet Report for January-March 2008 shouldn’t come as a surprise to most technology watchers. But you might be scratching your head to learn that according to the web hosting company, Delaware is the state with the fastest Internet connections and Washington state - home to Microsoft and Amazon - is the slowest state, with the most connections at speeds of 256 kbps or slower. 

MORE »

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has sealed separate agreements with Verizon and AT&T for a combined contract price of $970.5 million.

Under the Department’s agreement with Verizon, Internet protocol (IP), security services and emergency communications services will be provided by Verizon to the Department of Homeland Security. This would greatly help the Department’s response time in a disaster situation. The deal would enable Verizon to assist the 22 agencies of the Department to combine their IP network.

This deal would add up to the previously won 10-year, $20 billion contract won by Verizon which would provide a full range of telecommunications and related network services to the whole organization of the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, the deal with AT&T calls for the company serving as the secondary network service provider in the Eastern and Western region of the U.S. Their deal will cost the Department of Homeland Security around $292 million.

Read [Reuters]

If you like the color orange and like to see IT geeks beating up on zombies, secret agents, ninjas and aliens, head on over the Forefront site.  There you’ll find a free public beta download of the integrated security software that was released quietly last month.

Code-named “Stirling”, this public beta secures clients, server and networks.  “Our goal with Stirling is an integrated client, server and network edge, all managed through a simple intuitive console,” said Ryan Hamlin, GM of Microsoft’s Access and Security Division.

Microsoft touts the beta as comprehensive, integrated and simplified.  The site works hard to demonstrate “normal” IT employees defending their systems.  Kinda cute and clever; with funky music to boot.

Microsoft expect the full bells and whisltes version to be released in the first half of next year.

Product Page [Microsoft]

AVG announced that their Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 is now available for download. This free edition combines an anti-virus and anti-spyware engine to protect users machines against spyware attacks aside from the usual viruses that threaten your computer on a daily basis. The software also provides real-time searching protection with AVG’s LinkScanner technology which was incorporated into the new AVG Security Toolbar.

An English version of the Anti-virus software will be released first, to be followed by other language versions over the next few months. The software can be freely downloaded and used only on single computers which are running on Windows 2000, XP or Vista. 

MORE »