Massive botnet 'indestructible,' say researchers. News June 29, 2011 04:19 PM ET Computerworld - A new and improved botnet that has infected more than four million PCs is "practically indestructible," security researchers say. "TDL-4," the name for both the bot Trojan that infects machines and the ensuing collection of compromised computers, is "the most sophisticated threat today," said Kaspersky Labs researcher Sergey Golovanov in a detailed analysis Monday. "[TDL-4] is practically indestructible," Golovanov said. Others agree. "I wouldn't say it's perfectly indestructible, but it is pretty much indestructible," said Joe Stewart, director of malware research at Dell SecureWorks and an internationally-known botnet expert, in an interview today. Golovanov and Stewart based their judgments on a variety of TDL-4's traits, all which make it an extremely tough character to detect, delete, suppress or eradicate.
But that's not TDL-4's secret weapon. "Each time a botnet gets taken down it raises the bar for the next time," noted Schouwenberg. 100 Most Often <strike>Mispelled</strike> Misspelled Words in English. Are you ready to explore some of the words that are often misspelled? Hint: The word "misspell" is one of them. Below, you'll find a one-stop cure for all your spelling ills. The list highlights the correct spelling of 100 hard words to spell, along with brief tips on how to avoid making common spelling mistakes. Whether you're a student or are simply looking to compile a list of hard words for a spelling bee competition, this list of 100 difficult words to spell is a great resource to use. The first two letters of the alphabet have quite a few of the hardest words to spell. From acceptable to bellwether and several words in between, there are quite a few challenging words that start with "a" and "b.
" Apply the helpful tips below and follow key spelling rules to boost your ability to properly spell some of the toughest terms to get right. acceptable - The suffix pronounced /êbl/ can be spelled as -ible or -able. Ignorance - Don't show your ignorance by spelling this word with -ence! Biz Break: For Apple, other Silicon Valley tech stocks, a midyear checkup. By Frank Michael Russell frussell@mercurynews.com Posted: 06/30/2011 01:34:53 PM PDT0 Comments|Updated: 3 years ago Today: Apple and the tech-heavy Nasdaq are up so far this year, but Apple has declined since reaching a record close in February. Plus: A new partner at Andreessen Horowitz. And: $4.5 billion in conditional loan guarantees for solar power in California.
Midyear stocks: Tech-heavy Nasdaq risesIt's the last day of June - and the last stock-trading day of the first half of 2011.After a turbulent few months, the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index (a favorite here in tech-heavy Silicon Valley) finished 4.5 percent higher than its closing level at the end of 2010.Several of Silicon Valley's largest tech stocks by market value also are in positive territory for 2011 - including Apple, Oracle and Intel.
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average (home to tech blue chips Cisco Systems, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and IBM) was up 7.2 percent for the first half of the year. Applied Materials reveals breakthrough in chip manufacturing. Applied Materials, the largest maker of chip making equipment, announced what it called a “breakthrough” technology in manufacturing chips that could become critical for continued technological progress in electronics for years to come. The advance comes in a category of chip-making equipment called “rapid thermal processing,” or RTP. That involves heating a chip material to levels of heat similar to that of jet engine within a very short period of time. While it seems arcane, it could enable chip designers to continue creating chips that are faster, better, and smaller. And those chips are the building blocks of all future electronic devices, from smartphones to gaming consoles.
To break that down further, without advances like this, you won’t have supercomputing power to deliver advanced 3D apps on your smartphone in the future. Applied has been making RTP machines for 15 years and nearly every chip manufacturer has one of its machines. How nonprofits can use crowdsourcing to work smarter and save money. Greenfunder funds socially responsible projects and businesses. Target audience: Nonprofits, social enterprises, NGOs, foundations, businesses, educators.
This is part one of a two-part series on crowdsourcing. By Lindsay Oberst Socialbrite staff High-quality work at a low cost. That’s what crowdsourcing can achieve for nonprofts that wish to save money while pursuing their mission. Crowdsourcing refers to harnessing the skills and enthusiasm of those outside an organization who are prepared to volunteer their time contributing content or skills and solving problems, sometimes for free, sometimes for a fee.
Crowdsourcing, a bit of a catch-all term, can be used to gather information, solicit advice, save money or get stuff done. We’ve seen the rise of community crowdsourcing with the advent of social media, but it’s always been part of the way society works. Here are a few quick, low-key ways crowdsourcing works Say you’re a nonprofit looking to improve your services. Or take blog posts. Why you can't print counterfeit money on a color laser printer | Printers | Macworld. Could you print counterfeit money, certificates, or other official documents on a color laser or LED printer? Some current printer models are indeed capable of creating reasonable facsimiles. The authorities, however, have already taken steps to thwart such activity. Print any nontext image on your printer, and take a very close look at it under bright light: You might just be able to make out a subtle pattern of yellow dots covering the page.
Those dots are a microscopic code that allows government agencies to trace the page back to the printer that created it--making the person who pressed the Print button pretty easy to find. How is the code printed, and what data does it contain? That's secret, of course--printer vendors remain tight-lipped about the details. In 2005, the Electronic Frontier Foundation cracked the anticounterfeiting code on a Xerox color laser printer; the documents the EFF examined were date- and time-stamped, and could be traced to the location of the printer.
Mark Suster: Understanding the Changes in the Software & Venture Capital Industries. The venture capital industry has changed over the past 5 years in ways that I believe will be lasting rather than temporal change. We are in the process of our own creative destruction with new market entrants and new models of innovation at the precise moment that our industry itself is contracting. When the dust settles, although we will have fewer firms, each type well end up more focused on traditional stage segments that cater to the core competencies of that firm. The trend of funding anything from the first $25,000 to funding $50 million at a $1 billion-plus valuation is unlikely to last as the skills and style to be effective at all stages are diverse enough to warrant focus. I will argue that LPs who invest in VC funds will also need to adjust a bit as well.
Rewind When I built my first company starting in 1999 it cost $2.5 million in infrastructure just to get started and another $2.5 million in team costs to code, launch, manage, market & sell our software. Enter Amazon. Amazon. Page 2. >> Make Your Own Moleskine-Like-Notebook. Now comes the fun part. Measure off a length of upholsery thread equal to the number of signatures multiplied by the height of one spine. For instance this project has 8 (signatures) with a spine that measures 5 1/2" so; 8 x 5.5 = 44". It's better to have a piece that's too long than too short. Thread the needle and pull about six inches through the eye. Wax the thread with the beeswax paying particular attention to the area below the needle.
Pick up one of your signatures and open it a little to the center. Pull the thread until all the slack is out of the signature while holding the short piece of thread at the bottom. Place another signature next to your first one and push the needle into the corresponding top hole of the second signature. I've noticed two things that happen to me when sewing signatures: I feel like I have only thumbs and I lose track of where I started.
Okay, where were we? Here's a diagram of how the sewing goes throughout the eight signatures. Cisco Systems embraces “media company” concept with launch of The Network | Business. Posted on June 28, 2011 8:18 am by Shel Holtz | Business | Media | Social Media Cisco Systems may be under seige by investors—including no less than Ralph Nader—but at nobody can blame the company’s communications team of failing to do its part. Earlier this month, Cisco relaunched its corporate news site with a new name— The Network—and a new approach to sharing news and information. “A piece of content that is shared with a friend, or friends, or followers, or the world is the ultimate measurement of its success,” according to social media team leader John Earnhardt, writing on the Cisco blog, The Platform. “That person is validating that the piece of content they are sharing was valuable enough, interesting enough or topical enough to share with one or with many.”
The idea is to produce sharable content that’s worth sharing. The content is listed in reverse chronological order with icons to make it easy to distinguish the type of content: Cisco isn’t even mentioned in the article. The Power of Negative Gossip: Coloring How We See the World, One Rumor at a Time | Artful Choice. Gossip: you can’t avoid it. And maybe, you shouldn’t want to. Scientists have argued that gossip is an important tool for social cohesion and information transmission, allowing us to function more effectively in an ever-larger society. Moreover, it’s an important tool for affective learning: it can give us a sense of who would make a good ally—or who we should avoid—even in the absence of direct contact.
But can gossip influence our minds on a more profound level? How gossip affects our actual perception of the world In the study, researchers used a typical paradigm used to study visual processing, binocular rivalry. In this case, subjects saw neutral faces, with exactly the same visual properties. What happened? The consequences of focusing on the negative So, gossip—especially of the nasty kind—not only influences our perceptions in a more abstract sense (Who do we like? Is this a good thing? The importance of being aware of gossip’s power over our minds.