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.

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In an attempt to be more proactive rather than simply reactive, the MPAA has recently approved the DreamStream system and its 2048-bit “military strength” anti-piracy encryption technology to protect content streamed to viewers online.

First introduced to the MPAA in March of 2008 by Laura Tunberg, MGM’s former vice president of intellectual property enforcement, it was since reviewed by the MPAA and found it to be a viable means for securing digital content. Chief development officer for DreamStream, Ulf Diebel, is excited by this acknowledgment of their product.

“We are very excited to have the MPAA stand behind our technology.”

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HP has announced the new MediaSmart Receiver which will turn any HDTV “into a next-generation connected TV, allowing consumers to enjoy photos, music, movies and videos – wired or wirelessly – from multiple PCs around the home to the “big screen” in the heart of the home.”

Well it will if you use Windows XP or Vista, so all you Mac users can stop reading this now. If you do stop reading you will miss the fact that is has a sleek black “Zen” like look to it, features “advanced network connectivity, including 802.11 A, B, G and N, three embedded antennae and compatibility with other UPnP- and DLNA-compliant devices such as the HP MediaSmart Server. “

Oh yes, it is also DivX certified so should work across a wide range of digital devices. By adding a Pocket Media Drive you can access and share content directly from any PC.

Other news from HP that you may want to keep an eye out for at CES includes:

• Extender for Windows Media Center which offers deep and rich control of the Media Center experience.
• A new line of HP MediaSmart TVs, featuring an updated design, 1080p high definition, built-in Extender for Windows Media Center technology, three HMDI ports and wired and wireless network connectivity.
• HP Media Vault mv2100 and mv5100 series – affordable, expandable storage.

Everyone has been saying that the name of the game is becoming storage (and my upcoming What The Future Holds column will focus on this trend). So are you in need of extra space to store all of those illegal movies, music, files, and more?

Information week has a rather good, but lengthy, article about how to go about and build your own personal storage. Now we’re not talking a few gigs or even a few hundred gigs, they drop the details on how to build your own 1 terabyte server for under $500. This is certainty more reliable cheaper than going and getting a Yellow Machine.

Let us know if you have any luck.

Read [Information Week]