Julie188 writes "A researcher recently released proof-of-concept code for an exploit that allows a hacker to overrun an Intel CPU cache and plant a rootkit. A second, independent researcher has examined the exploit and noted that it is so simple and so stealthy that it is likely out in the wild now, unbeknownst to its victims. The attack works best on a Linux system with an Intel DQ35 motherboard with 2GB of memory. It turns out that Linux allows the root user to access MTR registers incredibly easily. With Windows this exploit can be used, but requires much more work and skill and so while the Linux exploit code is readily available now, no Windows exploit code has, so far, been released or seen. This attack is hardware specific, but unfortunately, it is specific to Intel's popular DQ35 motherboards."

iago-vL writes "Despite having their domain blacklisted by Conficker, the folks at Nmap have released version 4.85BETA8, which promises better detection of the Conficker worm. How? By talking to it on its own peer-to-peer network! By sending encrypted messages to a suspect host, the tools will get Conficker.C and higher to reveal itself. This curious case of using Conficker's own tricks to find it is similar to the last method that we discussed. More information from the author is available, as well as a download for the new release (or, if you're a Conficker refugee, try a mirror instead)."

The large sums of ransom money being paid out to pirates has led some Somali women to venture to the port town of Bosaso in hopes of finding a treasure map to their heart. Kaj Larsen, a former US Navy SEAL says, "One of the interesting demographic things that's happening right now is that single Somali women are flocking to the port town Bosaso where these pirates come out of in the hopes of marrying a pirate. So you can see that it really is — the root conditions of poverty, lawlessness and civil war on the ground in Somalia are really what are breeding this problem."

The Narrative Fallacy writes "Bill Sweetman has a tongue-in-cheek post about how a few years ago he started collecting some of the more outlandish and amusing email subject lines from the many thousands of spam emails he received promoting various 'solutions' related to his private parts. Sweetman, a Canadian internet marketeer now working for Tucows gets a guilty pleasure from the copywriting 'skills' of the spammers. 'Sometimes the writing is clever. Sometimes it is accidentally funny. And sometimes it's just plain bizarre.' Sweetman writes that it takes a certain twisted creative genius to make your spam message stand out from the rest. and gives us ten of his favorite spam subject lines as well as his would-be replies to the messages. Favorites spam subject lines include 'Small friend is for hiding, big friend is for showing off' and Sweetman's reply: 'Even if the product they are pitching works as promised, I still don't think I would be walking around the neighborhood showing off the results.'"

narramissic writes "Maybe Android and the Android Market aren't so open after all. A developer who contributed to the WiFi Tether for Root Users app reports that Google has banned the application from the Android Market. The developer writes in his blog that Google cited a section of the developer agreement that says that Google may remove applications if they violate the device maker's or the operator's terms of service. T-Mobile, the only operator to offer an Android phone, expressly forbids tethering phones to a computer. This incident raises some interesting questions, the developer notes in his blog. 'Does this mean that apps in the Market have to adhere to the ToS for only T-Mobile, even when other carriers sign on? Will all apps have to adhere to the ToS for every carrier that supports Android phones?'"

pnorth writes "Ericsson has achieved data transfer rates of more than 500Mbps in what it said is the world's first live demonstration of a new VDSL2-based technology. The demonstration achieved data rates of more than 0.5 Gbps over twisted copper pairs using 'vectorized' VDSL2. Vectoring decouples the lines in a cable (from an interference point of view), substantially improving power management, and reduces noise originating from the other copper pairs in the same cable bundle."

alphadogg writes "VeriSign has promised to deploy DNS Security Extensions, known as DNSSEC, across all of its top-level domains within two years. DNSSEC is viewed as the best way to bolster the DNS against vulnerabilities such as the Kaminsky bug discovered last year. (Yesterday we discussed the workarounds coming into place until the US government signs the Internet's root zone.) DNSSEC has been deployed on top-level domains operated by Sweden, Puerto Rico, Bulgaria, Brazil, and the Czech Republic. Two larger domains — .org operated by the Public Interest Registry and .gov operated by the US government — are deploying DNSSEC this year."

alphadogg writes "Last fall, the US government sought comments from industry about how better to secure the Internet by deploying DNSSEC on the root zone. But it hasn't taken action since then. Internet policy experts anticipate further delays because the Obama Administration hasn't appointed a Secretary of Commerce yet, the position that oversees Internet addressing issues. Meanwhile, the Internet engineering community is forging ahead with a stopgap to allow DNSSEC deployment without the DNS root zone being signed. Known as a Trust Anchor Repository, the alternative was announced by ICANN last week and has been in testing since October."

lamaditx writes "The book Collective Intelligence in Action shows you how to apply theory from Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining to your business. The goal is to create systems which make use of data created by groups of people — i.e. social networks — and abstract from these to gain new or additional information. Some of you might think "just another kind of Web 2.0." This is one application you might think of, but the input and output format do not matter that much. You can use these methods anywhere as long as the amount of data is big enough. You will find some examples related to the latest web technologies to explain methods, but the code is rather generic. Also, you won't find a lot disturbing details about HTML, HTTP and the like." Keep reading for the rest of Adrian's review.

CWmike writes "Attackers are already exploiting a bug in Internet Explorer 7 that Microsoft patched just last week, security researchers warned today. Although the attacks are currently in 'very, very small numbers,' they may be just the forerunner of a larger campaign, said Trend Micro's Jamz Yaneza. 'I see this as a proof-of-concept,' said Yaneza, who noted that the exploit's payload is extremely straightforward and explained that there has been no attempt to mask it by, say, planting a root kit on the victimized PC at the same time. 'I wouldn't be surprised to see this [exploit] show up in one of those Chinese exploit kits,' he added. The new attack code, which Trend Micro dubbed 'XML_Dloadr.a,' arrives in a spam message as a malicious file masquerading as a Microsoft Word document."