Apple powers college supercomputer

<font size="3">Apple powers college supercomputer</font>

Everyone would love a supercomputer but with a price tag of around $100m each they are not easy to come by.

But in the United States staff and students at Virginia Tech have built one of the world's most powerful supercomputers for just $5m by plugging together hundreds of the latest computers from Apple.

The project involved placing 1,100 brand new Apple G5 towers side by side, making it the world's most powerful "homebuilt" system.

It is capable of 17.6 trillion floating point operations per second, with a combined storage capacity of 176 terabytes.

"Each individual G5 is a dual processor, 2GHZ machine with 4GB of memory. So it's extremely fast," said Pat Arvin, Project Coordinator at Virginia Tech.

The network is linked using 2,900 cables and runs at about 100 times faster than an average corporate network.

News source:...

The Netherlands: DSL Heaven or Hell?

<font size="3">The Netherlands: DSL Heaven or Hell?</font>


In a matter of weeks the Netherlands have turned into DSL heaven, with prices dropping as low as &#8364;14.95 a month. DSL users were used to &#8364;40 and &#8364;50 plans just two months ago. Now providers and, more surprising, customers, are complaining.

In August Versatel offshoot Zon introduced its &#8364;14.95 DSL service; Wanadoo, Het Net and Tiscali soon followed with similar offers. (By compairions Tiscali UK cut-price DSL product, announced Thursday, is a meagre 150 Kbps 'broadband' package for £15.99 - &#8364;22 - a month.)

This week Dutch company Speedlinq joined the fray with Europe's first "go as you please service". There is no subscription. Users buy five gigabytes for just &#8364;22.50 and they can use that amount whenever they want.

Although providers are slashing prices, few are happy. Wanadoo Benelux director Jean Jacques...

11,000 IP addresses found on accused hacker's PC

<font size="3">11,000 IP addresses found on accused hacker's PC</font>

Police found a file containing more than 11,000 vulnerable servers on the PC owned by a teenager accused of attacking a US port with a massive DDoS attack, a court heard today

More than 11,000 IP addresses of vulnerable servers were found on the computer of a UK teenager that has been accused of launching a DDoS attack responsible for knocking out IT systems at the Port of Houston in Texas, Southwark Crown Court was told on Wednesday.

Aaron Caffrey, whose father is a software engineer and mother is a lecturer in IT, allegedly used a well-known 'Unicode' exploit to take advantage of vulnerabilities in Microsoft's IIS Web server software. His defence counsel has argued that unpatched security holes in Windows enabled someone to use Caffrey's computer to launch the attack.

Southwark Crown Court heard on Wednesday that on Caffrey's...

UK law: Two years for file swapping?

<font size="3">UK law: Two years for file swapping?
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UK file swappers face up to two years' imprisonment under new copyright regulations under the provisions of a European directive, that are expected to take effect in the UK this month.

The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 was laid before Parliament on Friday after nearly a year's delay. It is expected to be passed in time to come into force by the end of October, according to legal experts.

The Copyright Directorate, a Patent Office department, had a deadline of 22 December last year to implement the European Copyright Directive of 2001 (known as EUCD), but delayed doing so several times under pressure from groups representing copyright holder interests as well as civil liberties and consumer rights organizations.

The EUCD is intended to aid copyright holders in cracking down on counterfeiting and piracy, but organizations such as...

BMG album copy protection is thwarted with the shift key?

<font size="3">BMG album copy protection is thwarted with the shift key? </font>

According to this report from P2P.net , the much ballyhooed copy protected BMG album "Comin' Where I'm From" is a hit on P2P, but not because folks want to listen to the latest from BMG. Supposedly, within hours of its release, tracks were available ad nauseum on file sharing networks because the protected cd was cracked. Especially embarrassing to Sunncomm that conducted an "external testing phase" prior to the release, "with the intention of determining compliance with the official test procedures and guidelines for protected content recently outlined by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPA)," They should have added "it's no fair if you push the shift key when you insert the album".The challenge to say you can't copy this album was more than most...

High-Level Security Exam In Beta

<font size="3">High-Level Security Exam In Beta </font>
Microsoft puts Exam 70-298 through its paces with beta testers the week of Oct. 6.

Microsoft Learning is expected to beta test Exam 70-298, Designing Security for a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network from Oct. 6 to Oct. 10. The exam, numbered 71-298 while in beta, is available for free only to qualified candidates and can be taken at selected Prometric and Pearson Vue testing centers.

Exam 70-298 is a high-level, design-oriented exam that counts toward the prescribed exams under the MCSE: Security specialization.

To read the 70-298 exam objectives guide, click here. To read more about taking beta exams, click here.

Microsoft Learning...

So, How Is Windows REALLY Doing? (article from w2knews.com)

Just some interesting statistics:

Will IM replace e-mail?

<font size="3">Will IM replace e-mail?</font>

While businesses and consumers are warming to the idea of instant messaging as an effective communications tool they are still certain it will never overthrow e-mail. silicon.com surveyed 1,000 readers and a staggering 52 per cent of those said they believe IM is faster and more efficient than e-mail--but only 3.4 per cent thought it would eventually replace e-mail altogether.

In recent years e-mail has become regarded as a bit of a thorn in the side of companies. As e-mail has become bogged down in spam and undermined by virus attacks users have increasingly been looking to use alternative forms of communication. And because of the costs associated with repairing the tattered image of e-mail many companies have encouraged that search. Only 10 per cent of respondents believe e-mail is better than IM. However, the reasons why 76 per cent of respondents say they believe...

Internet Explorer Vulnerability Exploited Again

<font size="3">Internet Explorer Vulnerability Exploited Again </font>

Security experts say a Trojan horse directed traffic from popular Web sites to an IP address designated by the attacker.

Vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser have been exploited again, security experts said on Thursday, this time by a Trojan horse that redirected traffic from more than 100 popular Web sites to an IP address designated by the attacker. The Trojan, dubbed Qhosts and Delude.B by various anti-virus vendors, redirected traffic on compromised machines from a large number of legitimate sites--primarily search engines, among them those found at AltaVista, Google, Lycos, MSN, and Yahoo. According to Computer Associates, requests to surf to those search sites were shunted instead to a Web site that was taken offline within 24 hours of the Trojan's appearance. "This is another attempt by an attacker, probably...

Lindows: Microsoft settlement site stays

<font size="3">Lindows: Microsoft settlement site stays
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Linux seller Lindows.com said Tuesday that it will continue to help Californians process legal claims against Microsoft, despite a challenge by the software giant.

An attorney representing Microsoft sent Lindows a cease-and-desist letter late last week objecting to the company's MSfreePC site. The site offers to process claims on behalf of current and former California residents who qualify for proceeds from the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft. Microsoft attorney Robert Rosenfeld said claims submitted by the Lindows service won't qualify under the terms of the settlement and demanded that Lindows remove the site.

In a letter sent to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, Lindows CEO Michael Robertson said the MSfreePC site performs a valuable service for consumers and will remain in operation. He challenged Microsoft's...