super-life.net

A great story from the BBC has hapless computer users falling victim to fake anti-virus software. Symantec, makers of ligetimate anti-virus software, say that more than 40 million people have been duped into downloading the malicious software in the last year. (If I were more synical, I might say that this figure is exaggerated to benefit legitimate anti-virus software companies. Are people really that stupid?)
There are many different versions of this type of software. Symantec have identified more than 250 variations in the field. However a typical attack senario would be that the user visits a web site and a pop-up advert appears explaining that their computer has been infected by a virus and that it can be removed using anti-virus software which can be downloaded at a website. If the user is stupid enough to click on the banner,they will be taken to a suitably convincing website and will have to pay up to £60 to download and install the scam software on their machine.
So not only have you been parted from your money, but you have given your bank details and the software is installed on your computer. Potentially this could result in hijacking and ransoming your data, giving someone else control of your computer and network, identity theft.
Ignore pop-up advertising. It is always an underhand way of gaining attention and should be treated as being from scammers or people trying to scam you. The internet is still like the wild-west and any information you get from it should be treated with great suspicion (except this post). If in doubt then don’t download it.
With the computer user being the weak link in computer security, only education can help to prevent this kind of crime.

Physicists have created magnetic monopoles in spin ice for the first time. Let’s break this down into what it means. We are all familiar with magnets. They have two poles which we call North and South and we know that when you break a magnet you form two separate magnets each with its own North and South pole. It doesn’t matter how many times you break the magnet you will always get a North and South pole. A magnetic monopole would occur if you were to break the magnet in two and find that one of the pieces was a North pole and the other piece was a South pole. So far, a single magnetic monopole that floats around has not been found but in an esoteric material known as spin ice researchers have shown that, when this is cooled close to absolute zero, the spin structure can be made equivalent to a magentic monopole and that these quantised to form magnetic monopole and that these monopoles can flow like electricity.
Magnetic monopoles would be the magnetic equivalent of charge and as aways with new material properties brings about exciting new developments in physics and technology. It is hoped that the discovery will allow scientists to create experiments to test the properties of magnetic monopoles.

Researchers in Missouri have developed tiny nuclear batteries that may have the potential to power a host of devices in the future. The big advantage of nuclear batteries is the amount of charge they can store, more than a million times that of conventional chemical batteries.
Nuclear batteries are not new, they were used in the 1950s to power pacemakers and they are still used in some applications such as powering satellites where a long-lifetime is required. The problem with these batteries has been their large size. Nuclear batteries use a solid semiconductor material to collect the electrons emitted by the radioactive material. These particles have high-energies and the crystal structure of the semiconductor is damaged by the radioactivity. Therefore, to make the batteries last as long as the radioactive source, means that a large quantity of semiconductor material is required and this increases the size of the battery.
In the new nuclear batteries, a liquid semiconductor material is used and this is not damaged by the high-energy particles emitted by the radioactive source and so the battery can be made smaller.

A phising attack has compromised thousands of Microsoft Hotmail account passwords according to Microsoft. More than 10,000 usernamesand passwords mostly originating from Europe were posted on online.
Microsoft have said that they are not sure of the scale of the problem. The compromised accounts that have been seen so far all start with the letters A or B. However, this may mean that the list is just a subset of the original data.
Phising is a growing problem with convincing websites taking in many visitors. The advice for users is the sames as it always been: don’t give out important data online.
If you have a Hotmail account then you should immediately change your password and security question so that your news details cannot be compromised. Users frequently use the same password accross a number of different accounts. If one is compromised they are potentially all compromised.

Elite a computer space trading game has celebrated its 25th anniversary. The game was released on 20 September 1984 and was one of the first games to use 3D graphics. The original games was an overnight hit selling hundreds and thousands of copies and influenced the future of the game development. There is now hope for another version by Frontier Developments but no current release date has been confirmed. The game originally had problems finding a publisher and eventually found Acorn computers who also produced the BBC Micro Computer. The difference between this game and others of that era was that it was player driven than by a story and the final end point was that the player needed to reach an Elite rating.

Although the country is in political turmoil – Rwanda is now weeks away from completing a link to a high speed internet fibre optic network. New undersea cables in Kenya will be used to connect Rwanda’s capital Kigali by November. It’s hoped that in 2010 a new fibre optic ring is due to go online. It’s hoped that the link will help transform Rwanda into a high tech innovator – something far beyond its current impoverished status. Most of the inhabitants make a living from small scale farming. The current population had 50% under the age of 14 and it’s hoped that the technology sector will help provide jobs for these individuals in the future.

One of the world’s largest computer companies Dell is buying IT service provider and fellow Texan firm Perot systems for £2.4bn pounds. The takeover should be completed between November and January and is hoped to provide a wide range of services to its customers. The cash deal will see Perot shareholders benefit from $30 per share. The deal will significantly expand Dell’s solutions – Perot specialises in IT support for hospitals, governments and banks whilst Dell is best known for its PC’s. the news comes after Dell saw its second quarter profit fall by 23% from a year earlier as it’s being hit by a slowdown in sales.

There’s been a massive drop in the shipments of personal computers (PC) by 5% between April and June as record revealed yesterday. Global shipments in the second quarter stood at 68.1 million units as per a report by Gartner a computer research group. This is down from a figure of 71.7 million earlier. Although the decline was expected due to the recession and the downturn in the global credit crunch a major factor the dip in the figures was still less than the originally predicted 9.8%. as a result there is revived hope based on these small signs that the market is recovering slowly but surely.

You Tube has lifted a block on users viewing official music videos after the website reached a agreement with songwriters group PRS for Music. Back in march You Tube blocked thousands of music videos to the UK after failing to reach agreement Over fees. The site which is owned by Google is now paying a undisclosed sum
To PRS backdating to January and until 2012. The music group says that the deal will enable and help songwriters who don’t get paid much – in some cases 90% of them earn less then £5000 per year. You tubes decision had theoretically blocked all content owned by record labels in march.

The battle over Google’s effort to digitise the worlds books and create a vast online library has intensified. A settlement of $125m was made with authors and publishers. The settlement was reached last October stemmed from a 2006 legal suit that Google faced for scanning out of print works without explicit permission from rights holders. If the ruling is in favour of Google then the Web Giant will create a Books Rights Registry where authors and publishers could register works and be compensated. An advantage this brings to individuals is access to any book no matter where it is in the world.