Report

HAVOC CAUSING hacker activist group Operation Payback has extended its reach and strangled the life out of the UK Intellectual Property Office’s website. Yesterday they apparently took down the MPAA’s website in the US, and today, though already busy, they have widened their focus and laid a smackdown on the UK IPO, knocking its website offline. According to a blog post on the Panda security blog Anonymous is 4Chan, and yesterday a forum on that website published its list of targets and its timeline for attacks. ...

Two regional websites for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) were hacked on Tuesday by unknown perpetrators claiming to be Turkish following controversial comments by her conservatives on immigration. Police and domestic intelligence agencies are now investigating in both the city-state of Hamburg and the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after CDU officials said their party sites were paralysed overnight when hackers replaced their homepages with a black background featuring a Turkish crest and critical comments. ...

If the internet is feeling a little more crowded these days, there’s good reason. According to a report out Tuesday, there will be 2 billion Web dwellers by the end of this year. The number of internet users worldwide has doubled in the past five years according to the report, from the International Telecommunication Union. Much of the big number can be attributed to internet growth in developing countries. The report said 162 million of the 226 million new Internet users in 2010 will live in those countries, where Web access is still growing. ...

In late January, the Number Resource Organization (NRO) warned that IPv4 addresses were drying up, with less than 10% unallocated — a figure that has shrunk rapidly over the last nine months. The organization now reports that two more blocks of IPv4 addresses have been assigned, putting the number of vacant addresses below 5%. “This is a major milestone in the life of the Internet, and means that allocation of the last blocks of IPv4 to the RIRs is imminent,” said NRO chairman Axel Pawlik. He continued by urging all Internet stakeholders to take action now by adopting IPv6, the “next generation” of the Internet Protocol, which offers infinitely more address space. IPv4 (32-bit) gives up to 4.3 billion addresses, whereas IPv6 (128-bit) provides 340 undecillion addresses (340 billion billion billion billion — that’s 36 zeros). ...

Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, said that Google’s mobile platform was “fragmented” and bad for developers and consumers. Steve Jobs launched in to an astonishing five-minute critique of rival companies, operating systems and platforms during the earnings call, in which Apple announced record profits of $20bn for the quarter. He said that the Google Android platform was “fragmented”, and not as open as some people made out, while also saying that iPad-style tablet computers with smaller 7in screens would be “dead on arrival”. ...

The New Acrobat X is finally here! What can it do for education? Here is a quick list of new and improved features: New user interface The Interface tool pane brings top user needs out front Customizable Tool Bar Tools Pane reveals most useful tools to improve productivity Tools and Tasks are easier to access HUD display provides more real estate for viewing __ Amazing document repurposing New export options allow for Word and Excel options including headers, footers, and worksheets New scanning engine improves accuracy and file size Efficient tagging and reflow ensure viewing and access on a variety of screens __ ...

You might be wondering why the frontpage of Twitter has a big “Edit” line running through it in the screenshot below: The answer, of course, is that this is not the real Twitter page at all. It’s part of an increasingly popular kit used for shenanigans: The scammer downloads the zip, edits the links in the .htm file and places something likely to catch the attention of an end-user underneath the “Edit” line. The fact that the fake content is sitting directly underneath the “New Twitter” promotional text is not a coincidence. ...

Sometimes we encounter childish messages from the authors in the body of malware. A variant of the TDSS family we got recently is even going a step further by offering a convenient location for a malware signature. The samples include the message “Put your signature here”, which is shown when run inside a debugger. While in many cases signatures could be still useful for detection, Avira prefer to use other technologies which are more generic and proactive. This is especially the case with malware families like TDSS/Alureon, whose authors continuously adapt their creations so they are able to work around even proactive detection in a short time. This variant is detected as TR/Crypt.XPACK.Gen3. ...

The information being transmitted is one of Facebook’s basic building blocks: the unique “Facebook ID” number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person’s name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with “everyone,” including age, residence, occupation and photos. ...

NEW YORK — The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 10 popular Facebook applications have been transmitting users’ personal identifying information to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies. The newspaper said Monday that the breach also includes users who set all their information to be completely private. And in some cases, it says, the apps provided access to friends’ names. A Facebook spokesman told the Journal on Sunday that the company would introduce new technology to contain the breach. It’s not clear how long the breach went on. ...