Woman Indicted in MySpace Suicide Case

This article details how a federal grand jury indicted a Missouri woman accused of using a phony online identity to trick and taunt a 13-year-old girl, who committed suicide in response to the cyber-bullying.

 “After a few weeks of chatting, “Josh Evans” began to send Megan nasty messages, via the MySpace account, ending with one that suggested “the world would be a better place” without her. Megan, believing she had been rejected by “Josh,” committed suicide in her home. “

 I’m interested to see how this will end up.

Volatile Memory - Hardware attack at Full Disk Encryption Keys

Researchers at Princeton University have made significant progress in the analysis of volatile memory, specifically DRAM.

Whitepaper

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Sony demos wireless transfers that are faster than USB 2.0

In this article Martyn Willams writes:

“Transfer Jet is based on a Sony-developed near-field communications system that the company envisages being built into a range of different portable consumer electronics devices to enable transfer without wires. Effective data rates of about 375M bps (bits per second) over a 560M bps physical layer can be realized with the system, which puts it faster on paper than USB2.0 and IEEE1394 FireWire interfaces.

A prototype of the system is on show this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In a demonstration, a digital camera equipped with Transfer Jet and about 45 images was placed onto a version of Sony’s photo reader box that also packed the technology. After a short pause, the images began transferring and within a few seconds the VGA-resolution images were inside the photo reader and could be viewed on a television.

Sony clearly sees big things ahead for the technology. During a CES news conference Steve Haber, a senior vice president with responsibility for mobile and imaging products, said Transfer Jet “could also play a key role for Sony moving forward.”

Transfer Jet has been under development by Sony for a couple of years and there’s about a year’s worth of work left before it’s ready for the commercial market, said Kentaro Odaka, general manager of Sony’s communication technology laboratory, in an interview.

Odaka said the technology is based on a completely new near-field system developed by Sony that isn’t related to its already-popular Felica system. Felica is widely used in smartcards across Asia but lacks the data throughput for more demanding applications. Transfer Jet uses a 4.5GHz system that is different but similar to ultra wideband, he said. The system has no security or encryption because it operates over a distance of a few centimeters.

Sony gave a few hints on where Transfer Jet might turn up. In the demonstration at CES it is embedded into a digital still camera and digital video camera. “Look for Transfer Jet technology in a variety of new products in the near future,” said Haber. “

Discount retail website Geeks.com hacked

Geeks.com hacked

Check out the bottom of the page -”Hacker Safe - Tested Daily”

Sony, Skype calling gamers

Another reason to potentially consider a Sony PSP as data source in an investigation.

“Sony has partnered with eBay’s Skype division and developed a portable version on the VoIP service for the PSP, effectively turning the gaming handheld into a Skype phone — with the same functionality, as well its limitations.

Here’s what we know:

In about 1-2 months, owners of the newer PSP model (the P-2000) will be able to download a firmware update and secure a free application that will allow users to make free PSP-to-PSP and PSP-to-PC calls so long as both parties are in a WiFi hotspot. PSP owners with the Skype firmware update can also make calls to conventional land lines (or cell phones) off the Skype network, however, a per-call charge will be assessed.”

If Your Hard Drive Could Testify …

In this article, Adam Liptak discusses the case surrounding a search of Michael T. Arnold’s laptop which resulted in the discovery of Child Pornography. In short, there have been multiple cases recently surrounding the scenario of digital devices being searched at US borders.  I don’t see these cases coming to complete fruition any time soon - its defiantly case law to keep your eye on.

FAA: Boeing’s New 787 May Be Vulnerable to Hacker Attack

In this article, Wired’s Kim Zetter reports on how Boeing implemented an open computer network on their new 787… But passengers were on the same network as the flight control systems… which theoretically could be compromised in flight..

 ”According to the FAA document published in the Federal Register (mirrored at Cryptome.org), the vulnerability exists because the plane’s computer systems connect the passenger network with the flight-safety, control and navigation network. It also connects to the airline’s business and administrative-support network, which communicates maintenance issues to ground crews.”

Sex offender in NJ = No unsupervised Internet for you!

Not all sex offenders are being restricted from the Internet, but some are. This article by the NyTimes details how:

“Under the new law, convicted sex offenders will have to let the State Parole Board know about their access to computers; submit to periodic, unannounced examinations of their computer equipment; and install equipment on their computer so its use can be monitored.

The State Parole Board currently supervises about 4,200 paroled sex offenders whose sentencing guidelines call for lifetime supervision — regardless of whether their original crime involved the Internet.”

Whistleblower for the IRS

This is the article

“Blowing the whistle on big-time tax cheats could make some informants wealthy — as long as they have hard evidence and plenty of patience.

Just over a year ago, President Bush signed legislation authorizing the Internal Revenue Service to pay sharply higher rewards to tipsters in cases involving large amounts of money. In some cases, the reward could be as high as 30% of whatever the IRS collects.”

Hi, I’m a Mac… I’m a PC

An article posted on ZDnet shows how many vulnerabilities are present in both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. This is a very unique article and I must say that in the past, I’ve never seen this topic laid out so clearly with actual supporting data. 

Quote from the article… “So this shows that Apple had more than 5 times the number of flaws per month than Windows XP and Vista in 2007, and most of these flaws are serious.”

Some of the comments below the article are worth reading into, so please don’t use this as a primary contributing factor when selecting windows/mac box. Also, please keep in mind that statistics oftentimes have a trend of being misrepresented by those presenting them. Example - red apples are not always being compared to red apples…