A pro's tips on successful ATM fraud
Date: 2008-10-06 00:55:56Source: Computer World (NZ) A bank-machine hacker who reportedly was arrested earlier this month in Turkey gave would-be fraudsters tips on how to install rogue card-reading devices, including advising them to target drive-through ATMs (automated teller machines) and avoid towns with fewer than 15,000 residents.
The hacker, who went by the handle "Chao", reportedly was arrested earlier this month in Turkey. He was one of the most well-known ATM hackers in the world, according to Uri Rivner, head of new technologies for RSA Consumer Solutions.
Chao sold fake faceplates that fraudsters could attach to the card slots in ATMs. These "skimmer" devices can read the magnetic stripe of every customers ATM or credit card, and are often used in conjunction with a hidden camera that watches people enter their PINs (personal identification numbers), Rivner says. Alternatively, criminals can attach an extra keypad on top of the one in the machine and capture the PIN that way, he adds.
Indian outsourcers will be hit by US financial crisis
Date: 2008-10-06 00:55:21Source: Computer World (NZ) Indian outsourcers will be hit by the continuing crisis in the US financial services sector, according to analysts.
"The key question is whether the crisis has already hit rock-bottom, or is there worse to come," says Sudin Apte, an analyst at Forrester Research. Forrester estimates that IT budgets in the banking, insurance and financial services sector will be cut by at least 15-20%.
The National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) in Delhi has also said that the crisis in the US financial services sector will have an impact in the short term on Indian outsourcers, as new projects may get delayed. The trade body will not, however, decide until December whether to revise its target of US$60 billion (NZ$87 billion) in IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) exports by 2010.
Your mobile secrets uncovered
Date: 2008-10-06 00:54:39Source: smh.com.au Three years ago, Graham Clements, the European managing director of the Japanese packaging multinational Ishidas British subsidiary, decided to get rid of his BlackBerry and passed it on to his IT department for recycling.
In September, that BlackBerry was one of the top items on the agenda at the first board meeting that Clements had called since his return from holiday because it, and the data on it, had come back to haunt him.
Instead of being recycled, the BlackBerry, like millions of other mobile devices every year, had been passed on to a company to be sold. On Clementss device were business plans, details of customer relationships, information on the structure of the company, details of his bank accounts and details about his children.
50 significant moments from internet history
Date: 2008-10-06 00:53:57Source: ZDNet (Australia) Back in 1995, Time magazine published a cover story called "On A Screen Near You". It highlighted the results of an 18-month Carnegie Mellon University study (with the dated title "Marketing Pornography on the Information Superhighway") that looked at how much porn there was on the Net. And as demonstrated by the magazines cover image of a shocked little boy in front of a computer, the internet was overrun with porn and perverts, and the kids werent safe any more.
But it was the nature of the article itself that was interesting. It focused on bulletin board systems and newsgroups, dial-up modems, and terms like "Information Superhighway", "cyberporn", and "phone bill". Times have changed. But even in 1995, the internet — as opposed to the Web — had seen a couple of decades of development. And its now had over a decade more. Its given us hundreds and hundreds of milestones; thousands of defining moments.
We decided to plough the history of the entire internet, from the roots of its underlying technology, to the Web properties that helped it explode, the litigation it endured on the way and disasters companies have suffered as a result of the Nets popularity. Weve picked 50 of what we think are the most significant moments, in 10 categories spanning almost 40 years of internet history:
WiMax Boosters See Opportunity in the Air
Date: 2008-10-06 00:53:11Source: PC World Looking at the state of broadband Internet access globally, the WiMax Forum believes it is sitting pretty.
In general numbers, out of 6 billion people on Earth, about 3 billion now use mobile phones and a billion or so are connected to the Internet. But only 400 million people have a high-speed Internet connection, meaning that WiMax wireless broadband has a big opportunity to "capture a big chunk of the market," said Ron Resnick, president of the WiMax Forum.
Resnick delivered a keynote address here at WiMax World, where other speakers touted the technologys attractiveness, especially in developing nations. Arguing that WiMax is well ahead of rival high-speed wireless technology Long Term Evolution (LTE), he said, "We have a time-to-market advantage thats ours to lose."
Aussie broadband sellers accused of lying
Date: 2008-10-06 00:52:21Source: stuff.co.nz A call centre selling plans on behalf of Australias largest telco has been accused of harassing people and making false promises in order to convince them to switch to Telstra.
TSA Telco Group, contracted by Australias Telstra to win back customers who have switched to a new telco, ignores the countrys Do Not Call (DNC) register, users of the Whirlpool.net.au internet forum say. They complain its staff are often rude and can call multiple times a week despite their protestations.
TSAs staff often pose as official Telstra employees but reportedly hang up when asked for their Telstra identification number. Those with caller ID can easily trace the call back to TSA. TSAs national compliance manager Zahra Peggs said the company only used customer lists that were compliant with the DNC register and had strict quality control procedures to ensure its staff complied with its standards.
Jetstar back after computer failure grounds flights
Date: 2008-10-06 00:51:35Source: Australian IT News JETSTAR flights are operating normally this morning after a computer system failure yesterday caused the cancellation of 12 flights, sparking long delays for passengers across Australia.
Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway told Sky News today all flights were operating normally.
He said the problem was caused by a Telstra outage yesterday afternoon which forced staff to handle check-in manually. Some flights were cancelled because of airport curfews, he said.
Virtualisation set to drive SaaS adoption
Date: 2008-10-06 00:50:49Source: vnunet Three-quarters of organisations believe that server virtualisation will drive adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS), according to new research released today by web hosting firm Hostway.
Over 60 per cent of respondents said that they plan to adopt SaaS in some form over the next five years, and 45 per cent believe that the technology had not taken off until recently because of the lack of available virtualisation technologies.
Prior to server virtualisation, SaaS providers found it difficult reliably to offer software on demand, according to Hostway. "Without virtualisation the business model for SaaS would not be viable," said Hostway director Neil Barton.
Vista / OS X Mash-up Created with GWT on PHP
Date: 2008-10-06 00:44:18Source: Ajaxian Here’s an interesting link for a Friday. Viktor Zeman on Quality Unit sent us a link to “PostAffiliateXpress“, some boring IT application with an interesting interface and an even more intriguing back-end.
The UI combines a Vista-like “Start” menu along with an OS X-like dock (using everyone’s favorite fish-eye widget). It also has a built-in widget system that leverages Google Widgets. Overall, it’s a pretty nice implementation of a desktop and windowing in Ajax.
The framework itself is “GwtPHP” which attempts to take all the advantages of GWT and deploy them to PHP backends in an attempt to solve the problem of limited Java-friendly hosting services. Unfortunately, the framework isn’t available for use until sometime in early November.
Who's to blame for spreading phony Jobs story?
Date: 2008-10-06 00:43:27Source: CNet News Thats the slogan CNN chose for its citizen-journalism site, iReport.com, a place designed to tap into the citizen journalism craze. At iReport, any member of the public is allowed to post news reports, ostensibly as part of the cable networks news operation, simply by providing an e-mail address. CNN and citizen journalism are being criticized after someone used the site on Friday to spread the false report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a serious heart attack.
The bogus story sparked a minor panic on Wall Street before Apple had a chance to deny the rumor. Trading in Apples stock skyrocketed, and the share price briefly fell about 10 percent before rebounding later in the day.
How is it possible that a single fraudulent Internet report can wipe away millions or even billions of dollars of market value from one of the worlds most powerful technology companies? Thats the big question if youre one of the Apples investors. If youre an investigator for the Securities and Exchange Commission youre interested in who did it and why. According to CNN, SEC investigators are looking for the person who posted the fictional story to iReport.
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