News (128)

DNS exploits are happening

A fatal flaw with the DNS (Domain Name System) was currently being exploited in internet attacks and more attacks were likely, the security researcher who discovered the flaw said on Thursday in the US Read more »

Olympics cybersecurity

At the Beijing Olympics, cybercriminals will be on the prowl for credit card information to steal, and security forces could well direct snooping efforts at unsuspecting travellers, warns the US government. Read more »

Black Hat expels reporters in network snooping

Three journalists for a French security magazine were kicked out of the Black Hat security conference after they allegedly sniffed the press room computer network on Thursday. Read more »

UK hacker to face US court

A British man accused of hacking into US military and NASA computer systems today lost his appeal against extradition to face trial. Read more »

San Fran gets codes to hijacked network

The computer network hostage crisis in San Francisco is over, thanks to the city's mayor. Read more »

Kevin Mitnick: Social engineering 101

Kevin Mitnick has proven that the weakest link in any security system is the person holding the information. Read more »

Flaws found in BSD, Linux software updaters

The software update mechanisms used by most BSD and Linux operating systems can be tricked into installing buggy or known-to-be-compromised software on users' systems, creating serious security risks, according to new research. Read more »

Gmail gets free Yahoo phishing protection

Google on Tuesday said it is now using an email authentication technology to keep phishers from luring Gmail users to fake eBay and PayPal Web pages in order to steal usernames and passwords. Read more »

Firefox 3: New front in the browser war

Mozilla released Firefox 3 on Tuesday, opening a new front in the browser wars. Read more »

OLPC's Bitfrost: Privacy disaster, or security haven?

Faced with a young, tech-inexperienced user base, the One Laptop Per Child foundation set out to build an easy to use security system, Bitfrost — but did it create a privacy threat that tracks users' identity instead? Read more »

Features (199)

Secure ASP.NET 2.0 sites with Membership API

Beginning with ASP.NET 2.0, the Membership API was added to simplify adding security to a Web application. This article explains how to use the Membership API with a SQL Server back-end. Read more »

Seamlessly integrate applications with eBay using its Windows SDK

The eBay Windows SDK allows you to easily access eBay data within your application. Tony Patton gives you an overview of the functionality provided by the eBay Web services API. Read more »

Inside the San Fran network lockout

A strange sort of techno-drama is playing out in the city of San Francisco, California right now. The blame for the fiasco may not be as easily assigned as it at first appears. Read more »

Realise the flexibility of OpenSSH

OpenSSH is one of the most useful tools available. With it, you can access systems remotely and securely, transfer files securely, execute single commands on remote systems, secure normally insecure services, and much more. Read more »

Delegate privileges to users with sudo

One of my favourite tools is sudo, a program that many users will be familiar with. Both Ubuntu and OS X popularised sudo by making efficient and default use of the program. Sudo allows regular users to perform commands as other users. Read more »

Encrypt backups using Oracle 10gR2's RMAN

No IT pros want their company to make headline news because of a data breach. You can make your data less vulnerable to theft by using a new feature in Oracle 10g Release 2 that lets you make encrypted backups via Recovery Manager. Read more »

Create cross-platform database-driven applications with JDBC

The Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) API offers a unified interface to different databases, providing a series of generic functions that are internally translated into native function calls. This makes it extremely easy to create database-driven applications that work across different RDBMS types. Read more »

Explore Oracle 10g's updated sample schemas

Each new release of Oracle database brings with it new features to explore. It can be a challenge to create adequate sample tables to play with a given feature. Read more »

Implementing Windows Server 2008's Read-Only Domain Controller

One of the most touted features of Windows Server 2008 is the Read-Only Domain Controller (RODC). The RODC is a domain controller deployed after a traditional domain controller that contains the schema, configuration, domain, application directory partitions, and partial attribute set schemas of an Active Directory database in a read-only fashion. Read more »

Understand ASP.NET 2.0 configuration file processing

Configuration files are an important aspect of .NET development. Here's a closer look at how ASP.NET 2.0 uses configuration files (specifically machine.config and web.config). Read more »

Video (3)

How to hack NASA -- Club Builder

Club Builder learns that blank passwords allow access to America's most sensitive computer networks. We ask if open source cut development costs? And we come across the quote of the year, thus far. Read more »

Three passwords are enough

Bill Cheswick, a security expert from AT&T Research, explains why most people don't need more than three passwords. Read more »

Tinfoil Time -- Club Builder

What does an ex-NSA scientist think about code reviews? Can Bill Gates predict the future? Will Windows 7 save Vista? All the answers in this week's Club Builder! Read more »

Blog (14)

How to Lifestream with WordPress

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Lifestreaming is the act of collecting and publishing all of your social networking activities in one stream. Here's the easy way to get started using your own install of WordPress. Read more »

Targeted for hacking by reporters at my table

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- I should have known it was only a matter of time. I've been covering security conferences on and off for about 14 years and considered myself lucky not to have been hacked, that I knew of. Until Thursday. Read more »

Software in the courts

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- In week's Roundup explores Google's assertion that privacy no longer exists, the UK-based NASA hacker loses his extradition appeal, Microsoft becomes a sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation and the Australian Tax Office chooses Windows and only Windows, again, for electronic submissions. Read more »

Google opens up the code for Browser Sync

Lana Kovacevic [blogs:webanatomy] -- After deciding to discontinue its Browser Sync, Google has decided to make the code open source to let developers continue hacking. Read more »

Gestation, robots and NASA hacking

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Firefox 3 made it out the door last week, and set a world record while doing so; after 15 years Wine 1.0 also hit the street. We also look at robots, google developer day and outsourcing in this week's Weekly Roundup. Read more »

One ID to rule them all

Lana Kovacevic [blogs:webanatomy] -- OpenID is an open-source mechanism enabling you to use a single online identity to log-in to different websites that support OpenID. Read more »

Bracing for Applefest

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- It's that time of year again, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field is about to extend throughout the internet and consume your favourite tech news sites for days. To Apple fanboys it is more than Christmas -- to others it is WWDC and you cannot escape it . Read more »

Firefox 3's better performance and memory improvements

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- As beta 5 is due to come out next week, I take a look at some of the new features and improvements in Firefox 3. Read more »

OpenID Foundation scores top-shelf board members

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- If the OpenID Foundation were a liquor cabinet, it just got stocked with some Grey Goose, Rhum Clement, and Gran Patron. Read more »

5 reasons restricting hacking is not like gun control

Nick Gibson [blogs:byteclub] -- Let's get it out of the way: Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people. People with hacking tools can steal your personal data, shut down your system and deface your web site -- but is that any reason to ban them? Read more »

Others (1)

Gnome 2.16 Preview

With the next major release of the GNOME desktop scheduled for release next month, each passing day sees more of the code frozen. This is the first iteration since version 2.14 was released in April, which saw extensive improvements in performance. Here is our first look at some of the features in Gnome 2.16. Read more »

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  • Staff Shadow chasing in browsers

    The punching and counterpunching continued in the ongoing web browser development bout. Each time one browser closes a feature gap, a new feature appears in one of the others -- how we ever put up with the years of browser stagnation, I'll never know. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Chris Duckett Safari gets Gears

    Since its release in May last year, Gears has supported only Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. With the addition of Safari into the Gears fold, it closes the loop of major browsers to support Gears Read more »

    -- posted by Chris Duckett

  • Renai LeMay MyPerfect.com.au has potential

    Victorian Web start-up My Perfect has a strong story and rationale for why it will succeed. But it has to overcome some challenges and design flaws first. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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