CogitoVeritas.com

Light always travels at 186,000 miles per second (300 Million meters per second) in a vacuum. Well, almost always. A team of scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique F|AMP|eacute;d|AMP|eacute;rale de Lausanne (EPFL) has been able to control the speed of light, both decreasing and increasing it using off-the-shelf instruments under normal working conditions.

Commercial internet wi-fi hotspots are popping up in coffee shops and bookstores around the country. Most universities and many public libraries offer free wi-fi service. A quick drive though any but the most downtrodden neighborhoods yields signals from at least a small percentage of the residences. With wi-fi being as popular as it is, why is it that wi-fi infrastructure isn’t as well developed as cellular telephone service? Why hasn’t someone made wi-fi even more accessible?

The U.S. Copyright Office is soliciting opinions, through August 22d, about it’s planned website upgrade that will require the use of Microsoft Internet Explorer, effectively banning most technically-advanced users and all Linux and open-source advocates from its service.

Microsoft Corporation requires users of it’s flagship operating system, Windows XP, to verify the authenticity of their software installation before downloading patches and updates from Microsoft’s website. The validation tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), can easily be cracked without much trouble. This allows users of pirated copies of Microsoft Windows to verify their installation and receive the extra bennies offered from the manufacturer.

The SANS Institute reports that 422 new vulnerabilities were discovered in the second quarter of 2005. This is an 11 percent increase over the previous quarter. The increase in the number of security vulnerabilities stems from malicious crackers changing focus from attacking operating systems to webbrowser and other connected applications, such as digital music applications.

Microsoft Corp. is urging Windows XP users to uninstall the new Netscape 8 webbrowser because it can conflict with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Not surprisingly, Microsoft is claiming that the problem is with Netscape, rather than their own browser that invades the operating system like kudzu.

Ten people suspected of involvement with the EliteTorrents webserver were served warrants by homeland security agents. According to the U.S. government agency, this is the first criminal enforcement action taken against violators of copyright law who use the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) file swapping software. The operation, codenamed D-elite, targeted administrators and content providers working through the EliteTorrents website.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 35 government partners from more than 20 countries are targeting illegal spammers who take remote control of unwitting users’ computers to serve as spam transmission zombies. By hijacking home and business computers, spam can be routed through them, thereby hiding the true source of the spam and making the enforcement of antispam laws more difficult.

Hyper-Threading technology, built into some Intel Pentium 4 central processing unit (CPU) microprocessors can be exploited by crackers and allow access to security keys. A description of the timing attack was presented Friday by a Colin Percival, a computer science researcher, at the BSDCan 2005 conference. Intel’s Hyper-Threading (HT) algorithm enables Pentium CPUs to maximize the efficiency of the processing system. According to Intel’s website, with HT technology “desktop users can experience greater system responsiveness and performance when multitasking. At home, users can encode audio and video at the same time, or run a virus scan in the background while continuing to play their favorite game. In the office, HT Technology enables IT managers to deploy PC services such as encryption, compression or backup technologies while minimizing the impact on PC user productivity. In addition, multitasking business workers can experience greater system responsiveness, enabling increased productivity. In summary, the Pentium 4 processor supporting HT Technology delivers a new level of performance and PC responsiveness for consumers and business professionals.”

The American Council of Mayors and Urban Managers voted Friday to lobby the U.S. Congress in support of pending legislation that will render illegal 802.11b/g Wi-Fi networks, paving the way for widespread development of the much faster 802.16 WiMAX networking protocol.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a tool that doesn’t reflect the general preference of legal music downloaders. Before you read on, hoping that I will advocate for the free distribution of music, let me warn you: I’m a strong supporter of copyright and the protection of intellectual property; I want artists and distributors to make a decent living, but I’m frustrated by the current misuse of digital technology that attempts to thwart illegal distribution. In practice, DRM makes creates compatibility problems that make it excessively difficult, and in most cases, impossible, to listen to music that has been purchased online.

ScanIT, an Internet security consultancy, reports Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was unsafe 98 percent of the time, during 2004. The data were collected from 195,000 internet users who used ScanIT’s online security checker. The reported 98 percent unsafe rating is based on security holes being found in fully-patched installations of Internet Explorer on every day of the year 2004, except the week between October 12 and 19.

It was only a month ago that Microsoft Corp. announced its free antispyware application; however, malware has already been detected by an antivirus company, Sophos PLC, that will disable Microsoft’s program and delete all files in the program’s installation directory.

The Globus Consortium, founded by Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Sun Microsystems, announced today plans to design and market commercial grid-computing software applications. The consortium will promote technical standards to make grid computing a viable option for businesses. With a quarter million dollar investment from each company, the organization is sufficiently funded to begin operations. Other contributing participants include Nortel Networks, Univa Corp., and private individuals.

Panda Software, a respected vendor of antivirus software applications within the technical community, has named a Trojan, Downloader.GK, as the most malicious virus of 2004. Even though Downloader.GK isn’t technically a virus, an application that independently distributes itself, the program has caused the most damage to users’ computers, according to data collected by Panda Software’s ActiveScan process.

Symantec Corp., manufacturer of the popular Norton series of antivirus products, yesterday warned customers of a multiple critical holes in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system. The security holes make the Windows systems vulnerable to remote attack.

The U.S. Navy is developing a service-wide policy regarding the acceptable use of information technology. The policy will affect approximately 900,000 users, including Navy and Marine Corp service members, civilian employees, and contractors. The policy, which is scheduled to be effective during the first quarter of 2005, is designed to guide users and personnel managers in applying consistent rules of operation. The policy will affect all IT devices, including desktops, notebooks, handhelds, cell phones, and fax machines.

The new Santy worm uses the Google search engine to find vulnerable websites and then defaces the sites’ bulletin boards. The worm, formally named Net-Worm.Perl.Santy, attacks website bulletin boards (Internet forums or message centers) running versions of the popular phpBB bulletin board application. The worm exploits a known security vulnerability in early releases of the phpBB application, defacing the contents of the bulletin board.

Watch out for a special present included with your e-mail Christmas greetings. A mass-mailing worm, W32/Zafi.d@MM or Zafi.d, is making the rounds of e-mail users and is transmitted in the form of a Christmas greeting card with the subject line of either “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.” The e-mail message will appear to come from one of your acquaintances.

Three academic computer scientists have uncovered a serious security hole in the Google Desktop Search Toolbar that was released on October 14th. Dan Wallach, assistant professor of computer science at Rice University and two graduate students, Seth Fogarty and Seth Nielson, have known of the security problem for a month; however, this is the first confirmed report of a serious problem with Google’s popular search tool.