Sunday, April 29, 2007

New Email Extortions

Dallas Computer Repair has seen reports of emails threatening millionaires with blackmail. The emails report that they have been targeted to be murdered if they do not respond to the emails that demand $30,000 upfront and $10,000 after information (a tape recording) is delivered to them on the person paying for the "hit". Information Week goes on to report that was is different about this type of email blackmail, that was first noticed in December, 2006, is that the sender's addressed is not "spoofed" but from a real IP address.

Also, the people that respond to these emails have been given back personal information about them most likely gathered by malware and/or hackers.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reports that about 115 of these have been recorded with the latest wave of assaults happening today, Wed. April 25, 2007.

Report this activity. Let's stop cybercrime, email blackmail and email extortions by reporting these thugs.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

New Laptop Technology for Data Backup

A computer manufacturer company in India, HCL Infosystems, has invented a new technology that will allow their new laptop computers to restore data in less than a minute. Information Week reports that the new system technology automatically stores the data and back it up using an image. George Paul an executive at HCL Infosystems, reports that 95% of all computer problems are software related including deleting data accidently.

The laptops are available only in India at this time where they retail for an American equivalency of $685.00.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Congress Examines Government Hacks

A major leader of the House Committee on Homeland Security testified in 2006 that the security breaches to government servers where the "tip of the iceberg", according to Information Week. Two computer break-ins at the Department of State and the Department of Commerce last summer are most likely more serious than reported.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Microsoft's $3.00 Software

Microsoft is out to push the world to their operating system by offering some governments their operating system and Microsoft office for $3.00. The offer is for developing countries to put the system on school children's computers.

Will not this be a great training ground for kiddie hackers and scams by developing nations that already plaque or email system? I could think of no better way, especially since Microsoft cannot even secure their own systems. These efforts will no doubt lead to more viruses being spread and new viruses that will have the potential to cripple the internet. I hope Microsoft plans on putting anti-virus packages with their deal.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

San Fran Univ. Cal. Hacker

A hacker recently as of last month got caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Administrators at UCSF noticed resources being sucked from a server and investigated to find a hidden program. Dallas Computer Repair has consistently maintained its stance on security and encryption with sensitive data.

No, UCSF did not encrypt the data that the hidden program had access to, including 43,000 staff and over 3,000 as reported by VirusList. The identity theft is unknown as far as damages so far.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Government Security Report

The U.S. Government got their report card. 8 government agencies got failing grades. Over the last three years the agencies received D marks but this year overall the score was a C-. I just question why this is. We have more than adequate security tools available to us.

There is more than just firewalls that need to be deployed to secure computer systems. The government should have adequate anti-virus and other software to keep out spyware but there remains the vulnerability of employees with information that is afforded to them.

The government needs to regulate all information given to employees for its dissemination. That only would secure the systems significantly.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

U.S. Internet Infrastructure

Dallas Computer Repair has come a long way in the last year. That being said, why is the United States internet infrastructure so far behind the world-leading internet countries? Most in Europe now have t1 connections but we are still using phone lines. There has been no major move to push the United States into faster connections where we could use internet T.V. and other video in real-time. We constantly "give" our intellectual and proprietary property away to third world countries but yet we cannot keep our own technology growth at pace for our own people.

We have got to keep up the pace or we will fall as an international technology leader. This is plain and simple. If we do lose the technology front we will lose on many other fronts.

Lets push our legislators for faster internet connections, locally, at the state level and our U.S. Senators. Let's get these lazy, greedy people off their ass and get them to work for us and not the corporations who fund these individuals through many different hidden means.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Thoughts on iPod Virus

Well, the thoughts are definitely in about the supposed first iPod virus as reported by Dallas Computer Repair. Many are upset that it is not a real threat, lol. The iPod environment will most likely never survive supporting a virus in the wild due to the environment in which iPod's don't exchange information between each machine or unit.

A lot of mad people. Just be glad that iPod's don't have infrared data exchange or viruses would plague the machine.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Blogger Hiding Behind an IP?

In an interesting Federal Case, a blogger is hiding and refusing so far to acknowledge a subpoena. Information Week reports that a blogger named "Pamela Jones" is bashing a software company SCO about filing suits against competitors. The suits maintain that IBM and Novell open source software contains SCO's proprietary source code while IBM and Novell deny it. Dallas Computer Repair is used to dealing with hackers hiding but bloggers? Can't they find her IP address. Pamela Jones has a website, www.groklaw.net...and she can't be tracked down? Hogwash.

Saturday, April 7, 2007

1st iPod Virus Oslo

Dallas Computer Repair has now posted the news about the new iPod Virus that is a "proof of concept" virus. The virus runs on Linux iPod Operating Systems and will not cross infect other OS platforms.