In spite of the current downtrend, the investment and development in newer technology continues unabated. This month, I have pieced together some of the latest developments in the Information Technology industry to gain some insight about the recent developments.
Pirate Bay verdict and file-sharing
The internet has always been a symbol for knowledge sharing. Among other things, countless users have been sharing much more than just knowledge i.e., personal information, music, movies, etc. Sharing music and movies first began hurting the entertainment industry at large, that’s when law enforcement agencies started cracking down on such sites. Pirate Bay was one such file-sharing sites and is the latest casualty of the cause. The verdict against the founders of The Pirate Bay is being hailed by many as a triumphant win against illegal file-sharing. The four men involved in the BitTorrent tracking site were found guilty of being accessories to violating copyright law. A Swedish Court sentenced each of them to a year in jail and a collective fine of $3.6 million. In the long run, though, the verdict may not be as significant as some suggest, when it comes to the battle against online file-sharing. Other players have opined this because, just like Napster, The Pirate Bay doesn’t actually host copyrighted files — it simply allows users to post links to material hosted on third-party servers. That’s why, incidentally, prosecutors ended up dropping the initial charge of ‘assisting copyright infringement’ and pursuing only a ‘assisting making available copyrighted material’ charge instead.” The Court said even if you are distributed, you are nevertheless encouraging your customers to violate copyright, and we’ll hold you accountable.
Stealthy Rootkit
Countless websites have been rigged to deliver a powerful piece of malicious software that many security products may be unprepared to handle. The malicious software is a new variant of Mebroot, a program known as a ‘rootkit’ for the stealthy way it hides deep in the Windows operating system. An earlier version of Mebroot first appeared around December 2007 and used a well-known technique to stay hidden.
Since Mebroot appeared, security vendors have refined their software to detect it. But the latest version uses much more sophisticated techniques to stay hidden. The new variant inserts program hooks into various functions of the kernel, or the operating system’s core code. Once it has taken hold, the malware then makes it appear that the Master Boot Record (MBR) hasn’t been tampered with. The rootkit infects the computer’s MBR, as a result it’s the first code a computer looks for when booting the operating system after the BIOS runs. If the MBR is under a hacker’s control, so is the entire computer and any data that’s on it or transmitted via the Internet. Then, each time the computer is booted, Mebroot injects itself into a Windows process in memory, such as svc.host. Since it’s in memory, it means that nothing is written to the hard disk, another evasive technique. Mebroot can then steal any information it likes and send it to a remote server via HTTP.
The infection mechanism is known as a drive-by download. It occurs when a person visits a legitimate website that’s been hacked. Once on the site, an invisible iframe is loaded with an exploit framework that begins testing to see if the browser has a vulnerability. If so, Mebroot is delivered, and a user notices nothing.
Nokia’s new E75 phone
Nokia has unveiled a new addition to its E-series range, the Nokia E75 with Nokia Messaging Service which provides e-mail solutions on Nokia devices with the pre-installed Nokia Messaging push e-mail service. According to a press release the E75 is the first device from Nokia that offers complete integration of e-mail and messaging services and provides an easy process for instant e-mail set-up and supports up to 16 e-mail accounts. Among other things, the Nokia E75 boasts of full desktop e-mail functionality along with both standard keypad and QWERTY keypad. It is also touted to be capable of supporting all features of Nokia Messaging Service — a number of third party e-mail solutions, namely, Gmail, Yahoo, Rediffmail, Sify, Indiatimes, Net4, Hotmail and In.com amongst others.
Of course the Nokia E75 comes with the usual stuff i.e., an intelligent input feature with auto-completion and correction, a 3.2 megapixel camera, autofocus, flash, and comes integrated with a music player, media player, FM and internet radio, an integrated A-GPS and pre-loaded maps on the memory card and last but not the least, the device includes a built-in mobile VPN for intranet access. In case you are wondering . . . . it also comes with a price tag of approx 27K.
The most vulnerable browser
Firefox fans take note : News reports circulating on the net suggest that Firefox is far more vulnerable than Opera, Safari, and Internet Explorer — and by a wide margin. In 2008, it had nearly four times as many vulnerabilities as each of those browsers. The rumours suggest that Firefox had 115 vulnerabilities reported in 2008, compared to 30 for Opera, 31 for Internet Explorer, and 32 for Safari. That doesn’t mean, though, that Internet Explorer is off the hook for security concerns. Far from it. ActiveX remains the browser plug-in or add-on with the most number of vulnerabilities.
New iPhone 3.0 Beta software
Apple has released a third beta build of the iPhone 3.0 software, taking developers one step closer to the final release in June. One of the most significant additions to the latest beta of the iPhone 3.0 software is the way individual apps will be able to notify users of updates or additional content. At the moment, individual apps flag users only in iTunes of new events, but with the 3.0 build, they will be able to do so right on the phone via badge, text or sound notifications. Spotlight (phone-wide search) will now let users save the last search they made, and can set restrictions for inside-application purchases and location data. An interesting fact about the third beta of the iPhone 3.0 software is that the Skype app no longer works on 3G. With previous builds, Skype allowed 3.0 beta software users to place calls via 3G, unlike the same app on the current 2.2 platform, which can make calls only over Wi-Fi. Apple seems to have fixed this ‘bug’, so no more wishful thinking for cheap VolP in the 3.0 final release. This third beta of the iPhone 3.0 software indicates the imminent arrival of a final 3.0 software in June, just like Apple promised. However, the question remains whether we will get some new iPhone hardware as well, especially as rumors intensified over the last weeks, detailing hardware components and features.
That’s all for this month, I hope to have more interesting developments next month.
