Footnotes

Security Note - Web Surfing at risk

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:13:17 -0500

“They’re called ‘servers that lie.’ ”

So begins a copyrighted story by AP (no longer available online). It was reported that a peer-reviewed paper, presented at an internet security event in San Diego, said that there are approximately 68,000 rogue DNS servers functioning on the internet. These are used to direct innocent web traffic to fraudulent web-sites without the user’s knowledge.

According to the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google, computers infected by a virus that changes DNS settings are usually directed correctly to the requested website by the rogue server; however the hackers controlling these malicious DNS servers can send their victims to fraudulent websites at any time. Some of the bogus sites are obvious frauds but some are “stunningly convincing.”

The basic idea of attacks using manipulated DNS results is not new, but apparently the “recent wave” of attacks that modify users DNS settings is new.

Current virus software is reportedly capable of finding and correcting the problem (until the next infection).

Return with us, now, to those thrilling days...

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:09:32 -0400

Recent web browsing found these two photos on CNET.com, part of an interesting set of images from the stone age of high-tech. The image above is the type of memory used in the first computer that I handled directly (an IBM 1130). This is central core storage - each of the little black objects is a magnetically chargeable donut strung at the intersection of two conducting wires. It stored either a zero or a one, depending on the charge. The entire computer had 16K of core storage, and it occupied a floor-standing unit that was counter-height and two or three feet square. By contrast a standard 3.5” floppy disk held 800K or 1440K and fit in my shirt-pocket.

The image below is reported to be of the first Apple computer, the Apple 1, in its fully assembled state.

First Cyberspace War?

Tue, 29 May 2007 11:12:28 -0400

The New York Times has reported that political conflict in Estonia, over the removal of a WW II era memorial statue, led first to street riots and then to war in cyberspace. The protests were triggered by the removal from a public park of the bronze statue of a Soviet Soldier, which had become the rallying point for Estonia’s large ethnic Russian minority.

The month-long digital attack “came close to shutting down the country’s digital infrastructure, clogging the Web sites of the president, the prime minister, Parliament and other government agencies, staggering Estonia’s biggest bank and overwhelming the sites of several daily newspapers.” The Estonian defense minister called it a national security situation and compared it to having “your ports shut to the sea.”

Read the entire story (may require free registration):

Digital Fears Emerge After Data Siege in Estonia - New York Times

Then read William Gibson’s seminal novel “Neuromancer”, which coined the term “cyberspace”.

Bendable Display

Fri, 25 May 2007 09:12:20 -0400

Everybody wants displays that are thinner, lighter, and easier to deploy, right? Today Sony Corp. announced a display so thin and light that it bends while operating.

Many of today’s displays use TFT technology - thin film transistor. This one uses Sony’s organic TFT and another technology called organic electroluminescent display. The sample above is 0.01 inches thick.

The President of Sony first boasted that this was in development over a year ago. It will present the research, along with a video of the device, at an academic symposium in Long Beach this month.

Phillips and Seiko are reported to be working on electronic paper.

In the meantime we can all speculate on what delights and horrors await. Read some of Neal Stephenson’s fiction, particularly “The Diamond Age”, for a near-future look at it.

(This story was compiled from various online sources.)