Techworld "The War on Error"

Remembrance of electronic crimes past

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:38:00 GMT

Hard to believe but not long ago it was perfectly legal in most countries in the world to bombard a company's Internet gateway and email server until they fell over.

Will anti-virus testing ever be credible?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:50:00 GMT

With the appearance of a new set of malware testing guidelines, it looks as if the hitherto erratic industry of software security testing could finally be about to grow up. But there is still a long journey ahead.

Has WPA really been cracked?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:42:00 GMT

Alarming news. If you thought Wi-Fi vulnerability was from the realm of the discarded WEP, a group of well-regarded German researchers claims to have cracked its encryption replacement, WPA, in minutes. But how?

The security appliance is dead

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:21:00 GMT

If I read the market correctly, the argument over whether a company should buy a specialist security appliance for every need, or invest instead in ‘all-in-one' devices is about to be won. The specialist security box is heading for extinction.

The security applicance is dead

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:21:00 GMT

The database state

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:10:00 GMT

When the UK government isn't losing its databases, it's plotting to create new ones of unprecedented scale and reach. Indeed, the word ‘database' might turn out to be the term that defines its whole period in office.

Can the UK re-invent its famous crime unit?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:24:00 GMT

So is the new UK Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU) announced recently really the disbanded National High-Tech Crime Unit rising to fight again?

Can the UK re-invent its once-famous crime unit?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:24:00 GMT

So is the new UK Police Central e-crime Unit (PCeU) announced recently really the disbanded National High-Tech Crime Unit rising to fight again?

E-crime is killing the debit card

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:44:00 GMT

Sceptics have long wondered what plastic card crime might really do to the economy given that the sums defrauded looked small. Perhaps the credit crunch points to an answer nobody wants to hear - credit and debit cards on subscription.

Keeping the horsemen out the Valley

johnd@techworld.com — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:11:00 GMT

It probably isn't at the top of most people's worry list right now, but the agony on Wall Street has the potential to create huge long-term problems for the IT industry.

Is anyone still interested in desktop firewalls?

johnd@techworld.com — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:26:00 GMT

You get what you stump up for, unless, that is, you're buying a desktop firewall. In that case, paying nothing or not bothering at all might be a valid recommendation, according to some recent tests.

Who cares about Chrome? The SEO mindset.

johnd@techworld.com — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:29:00 GMT

How many browser wars are we on now? I make it at three and counting, each one won by achieving a different objective.

Bank says 'no' to customer's password

johnd@techworld.com — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 12:14:00 GMT

In what must be a first, a man in Shrewsbury, England was stopped by his online bank from using passwords that criticised the institution to access his account.

Blame the IT mandarins, not the government

johnd@techworld.com — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:22:00 GMT

I pity for the admins who have the near-impossible job of securing data for UK government departments. What chance do they have against a single USB data stick in the hands of a management consultant?

Chip and PIN, the success nobody loves

johnd@techworld.com — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:49:00 GMT

Just over two years after Chip and PIN arrived in the UK to save plastic from a torrent of fraud, the nay-sayers are still knocking it at every opportunity. But the problem isn't that it's failed but that its success has displaced criminality to weaker parts of the system.

The Race to Zero tells us, er, what?

johnd@techworld.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:26:00 GMT

The latest Defcon-hosted Race to Zero malware contest turned out to be a headline-grabbing exercise that told us little we didn’t already know about the limitations of anti-malware scanners.

Is Midori really the end of Windows?

johnd@techworld.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:42:00 GMT

More news from the worst kept secrets of 2008 department - Microsoft has accidentally-deliberately let slip word of a would-be replacement for Windows, codenamed Midori.

Let's pick on the fools we can catch

johnd@techworld.com — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:37:00 GMT

Work this one out. UK-based Hacker, Gary McKinnon, loses House of Lords final appeal against extradition by US authorities who want him to face charges of disrupting US military systems in 2001. Security vendors applaud that an e-criminal could find himself behind bars. And UK journalists? Most of them think the case stinks.

Information theft, TV style.

johnd@techworld.com — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30:00 GMT

As hacks go, this must be the ultimate example – a TV anchorman has been accused of hacking his colleague at a Philadelphia TV station. And they say regional US TV news is normally about as interesting as dog laxative.

More on power-hungry SSDs

johnd@techworld.com — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:00:00 GMT

Is it fair to accuse the 1.0 generation of SSDs of being power hungry? A magazine test I mentioned a few days ago did just that. Now one SSD vendor, Micron, has responded to us on the claim.

Meet the UK's most spammed consumer

johnd@techworld.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:27:00 GMT

The future is bright, but spammy. A dubious first for UK mobile-to-broadband network, Orange, which has claimed to title of hosting the most spammed email account in the UK.

SSDs - the laptop battery eaters

johnd@techworld.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:53:00 GMT

For fans of solid-state drives (SSD) laptop drives, some good news and some bad. SSD prices are plunging, but they turn out to use a lot more power than has been claimed.

A box worth opening

johnd@techworld.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 08:21:00 GMT

The Apple Mini has some serious competition at last, and it has turned out to be the Asian company Asustek, once derided as a mere ‘box-shifter’, that has revitalised the concept.

The router attacking Trojan is back

johnd@techworld.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:41:00 GMT

Lock up your routers. The infamous but fascinating DNSChanger Trojan (AKA ‘Zlob’) has returned in a new variant that once again to hacks routers to redirect any DNS lookup made through that device. Ouch!

Firefox 3.0 -- not gone to the dogs after all

johnd@techworld.com — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 16:38:00 GMT

Firefox 3.0 had to be good, and for the most part it is, assuming you didn’t try to download it on launch day. After falling into a hole of mediocrity with version 2.0, it’s back on track with bark. We can even forgive it its first vulnerability scare...