Nerd News Today; 4/6

By Oliver Rist | April 6, 2007, 9:50 am

IRS has ‘tracking tech’ on its notebooks. Maybe. Love it when they try and manipulate the press. Some budding journalist spills a story a day or so ago showing that the IRS has lost about 500 notebooks to loss or theft over the last 3.5 years. So today, there are stories based on hurriedly-produced IRS press releases saying that the IRS’ notebooks have tracking tech installed that phones home. Intent was obviously to stave off criticism for lax IT security. So if that’s true and effective…where are those laptops from 3.5 years ago? (Source: PC World)

WEP dies again. We all condemned the WEP protocol years ago…but folks keep using it because it’s way easier to setup than WPA or one of those other combo deals. Those folks figure as long as they have something up, it might be breakable but it requires enough effort to make most war drivers move on to something else. Except a new study just came out showing that hackers haven’t stood still on WEP. Tools have matured. Now it possible to crack 104-bit WEP keys in less than 60 seconds. Time to reconfig the access point, boys and girls. (Source: eWeek)

WikiSky does Google Earth for space. These are the voyages of the starship HomePC. It’s ten minute voyage to explore vast regions of space mapped by radio telescopes and brought to the screen in a searchable format on WikiSky.org. Looking for a planet, comet, asteroid or floating gas ball? This is the place for you. (Source: Digg)

First iPod virus shows up. Argh. Don’t these fuckers have anything else to do? What are you going to steal on an iPod, for chrissakes? Anyway, Kapersky Labs discovered the damn thing, it’s called Podioso because somebody out there still has a virgin’s sense of humor, and it’s being labeled as a proof-of-concept virus because people who manage virus oubreaks definitely need to have proof of their concepts. (Source: PC Mag)

adam1 Says:
April 7th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Thanks for the wikisky tip. just checked that out and it’s really cool. i wish i was more of an astronomer.
Oliver Rist Says:
April 7th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
i don’t know much about astronomy either, but it sure impressed me. actually would be a great way to learn about astronomy if someone wrote an accompanying text or tutorial.

Hmmmmm.

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.