Science & Technology Today

The recent attack on the Church of Scientology website introduced me to the term Google Bomb. Apprently this attack was a result of Google Bomb. A Google bomb (also referred to as a 'link bomb') is Internet slang for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions The process of manipulating the results of Google by placing a link to a single webpage on several domains. The other most famous incident of Google bombing was when around 32 webmasters put the text “miserable failure” on their websites and placed a link under this text to George Bush’s autobiography. Causing this webpage to rank #1 in Google for the search term “miserable failure.”

If you are looking for web hosting choice it may interest you . Web hosting would perhaps be the most sought after web service required by netizens after domain name registration and finding a suitable web hosting provider, can be very challenging. Like for domain name registration, we have hundreds and thousands of web sites that offer this service all across the globe. Beside the price, you will have to consider other service parameters like Disk Space, Data Transfer, Operating System, Bandwidth, Up Time, Location etc., when selecting your web hosting provider. Web Hosting Choice has all the necessary prerequisites to help you make the correct decision.They have also rated all the service providers on scale of 1 to 10, which should also help in your decision making.This web site also has a Learning Center with some valuable information and is a ready to use tool-kit for new web users. So folks go and check this web site.

Web hosting would perhaps be the most sought after web service required by netizens after domain name registration and finding a suitable web hosting provider, can be very challenging. Like for domain name registration, we have hundreds and thousands of web sites that offer this service all across the globe. Beside the price, you will have to consider other service parameters like Disk Space, Data Transfer, Operating System, Bandwidth, Up Time, Location etc., when selecting your web hosting provider. And this task has been made much easier by a new web site http://www.webhostingchoice.com/ ,which has all the necessary prerequisites to help you make the correct decision.They have also rated all the service providers on scale of 1 to 10, which should also help in your decision making. This web site also has a Learning Center with some valuable information and is a ready to use tool-kit for new web users. So folks go and check this web site.

Over the years, Blogging has established itself as respected and accepted way for getting independent and unbiased opinion on all kind of issues, product, current affairs and what not. And all this have not escaped the eyes of advertisers and they are always on the look out for getting some attention from the Bloggers and that is were payperpost comes in the picture. payperpost is unique and I believe the only website which is acting as match maker for such opportunities. I came across payperpost soon after I started my blog and since then I have been writing some sponsored blog every now and then. Even though my blog is very specialized, I do find a few opportunities occasionally and little bit of revenue from such sponsored post gives you a good incentive to take look at some of the products and services. I just like everything about payperpost, right from the home page to registration to take opportunity to write a post and to getting paid for the post. The great thing about paype...

Here are some precautions that would significantly mitigates security risks associated with mobile wireless access. 1. Install a firewall 2. Enter passwords only into websites that include an SSL key on the bottom right. If the hotspot is not working properly, assume your password has been compromised, report to hotspot service provider and change your password at the next immediate opportunity 3. Disable/remove the wireless card if you are not actively using the hotspot 4. Ensure that your laptop is updated with the latest security patches 5. Avoid hotspots where it is difficult to tell who's connected(hotels, airport clubs, conferences) 6. Use hotspots only for internet surfing 7. Read all pop-up windows in their entirety 8. Do not use insecure applications such as non-encrypted email or instant messaging while at hotspots 9. Explicitly disable municipal WiFi access from within the enterprise

The reality of Cyberwars reached a new level in the wake of sustained denial-of service attack on the Estonian government web sites which were targeted for several weeks in April and May this year. A global botnet of compromised home computers was used to create and direct the packet flood attack and hackers also defaced key government web sites. Malicious activity will continue to be on the rises as we move away to more and more towards e-commerce. This is going to poise a treat to the countries and business a like. According to Symamtec's last Internet Security Threat Report on malicious cyber activity in different countries the United States accounted for 31% of malicious activity, China came in second with 10%, Germany was in third place with 7%, France (4%) and United Kingdom 4% completed the top five. Taking the amount of a country's malicious activity and dividing by the number of that country's Internet users, Symantec found that Israel has the most per cap...

A new startup company Navio Systems based in Apple's home town of Cupertino , California is trying hard to break the hold of Apple in online music domain. Their recently launched music download website gbox is getting lot of attention and record labels like Universal and SonyBMG have started selling music on there website. Customers can buy tunes through gbox at the same price charged by market leader iTunes - 99 cents per track. gbox will also benefit from a special advertising deal with Google. The adverts, which will appear when a user searches for a particular term, such as the name of an artist, will link to the g box site. Navio Systems is hoping to finally open the iPod to other formats with a system that stores the rights associated with a musical piece, game, or movie in the file itself, according to Business Magazine. Navio software that enable its customers to offer copy-protected video content that will play on Apple's iPods . The move will create o...

The importance of IPTV is set to increase rapidly as cable operators migrate services to an all IP network and DSL service providers enhance their content capability. Service providers deploying IPTV, including AT&T and Verizon. For TV and VoD services, IPTV enables operators to consolidate network infrastructure, improve access bandwidth usage efficiency, and offer enhanced service features such as interactive programming guides (IPGs) and network-based digital video recording (DVR). IPTV can then be offered and billed as part of multi-service packages without radical changes to the customer care and billing platforms. IPTV involves the interfaces between the service-providers and network providers, as well as both Web-based and IP Multi-media Subsystem (IMS)-based approaches for added functionality. The playback of IPTV requires either a personal computer or a set-top box connected to a TV. Video content is typically compressed using either a MPEG-2 or a MPEG-4 codec and then sen...

The June report on Trends in Email, Web, and Malware Threats by Secure Computing® Research is out and here are the key findings; Spam Volume Mail volumes remained stable in June with malicious messages making up 85.0% of all email, a 0.57% increase from May. At the end of the month, the Storm Worm gang has released a new variant of the stock spam, unleashing millions of emails with images wrapped up as PDF attachments. Malware Trojans continue to dominate the malware category, accounting for almost 96% of all newly discovered malware. Windows Executables remain the most popular vector for distributing these new attacks. Zombies An average of 236,540 new zombies were detected daily in June, a 32.3% decrease from May. Web Threats An average of 12,436 total new malicious Web sites were detected in June, a 31.28% decrease from the prior month.

Everybody seems to be upset with Tipping Point- a the leading provider of network based intrusion prevention systems for awarding $ 10,000 price to Dino Dai Zovi as a top prize in a hacking contest they conducted recently. The so called a - MacBook Pro hijack exposed vulnerability in input handling in Safari, Apple Inc.'s web browser and this has started a wide debate over the “responsible disclosure” of vulnerabilities. Most of the security experts and vendors seem to up against the Tipping Point for this act, as it seems to be against the Organization of Internet Safety ( OIS ) guidelines. Whatever these guidelines may stipulate, I do not see any problem in rewarding efforts of independent security researches. In fact, the two security vendors Tipping point and VeriSign who are engaging independent security researches accounted for 25 % of total vulnerabilities reported for Windows, Linux/Unix and Macintosh. I would suggest that other security vendors may be better of to ...

When Apple announced that they would be selling DRM -free music on the iTune store, everyone thought that this would herald a new thinking on DRM . It turns out that their proprietary anti-piracy measures are even worse. Apple uses a technology known as Fairplay to limit what people can do with downloads. Fairplay can be circumvented by burning tracks to a CD and then converting them to another format. It was found that Fairplay is embedded within them the full name and account information, including e-mail address, of who bought them. It is only a matter of time before a utility program was produced which could strip out the identifying information. Apple needed to explain why the data was present.

Here is a report by Secure Computing Research to provide a view of the Internet threat landscape based on R&D on last weeks data Mail/Spam Volume Malicious messages made up 84.0% of all email last week, continuing the downward slope of the last few weeks Malware An average of 100 total and 0 new viruses were seen daily last week. Trojans are now the most popular type of malware, comprising over 60% of all new malware samples Zombies An average of 363,491 new zombies were detected daily last week, a 8.6% increase from prior week, yet it is still dramaticaly down from the 500,000+ daily average seen on a regular basis since last December Web Threats An average of 17478 total new malicious websites were detected last week, an 8.74% decrease from the prior week

A new approach to security is evolving with the development of what is called as Content-Centric Security- CCS . CCS is a self-authenticating content utilized, proprietary means to embed data and logical content within content that securely binds files with embedded crypto elements. Thus CCS is a new way to solve most of the problems associated with conventional network-centric security. As we know all networks face the difficult problem of authenticating participants, trust levels, devices, applications, and content. Existing state-of-art authentication procedures are based on centralized authorities and are very poorly suited to end-node and cross domain exchange. CCS substantially simplifies existing authentication methodologies through a novel solution to cope with growing privacy concerns, amounts and types of digital content, the number of people and assigned trust levels of those participating, and the variety of devices required to support “Security to the Edge” strategies,...

Now here is confirmation of what I said about Malware in my previous post. Google found that one out of 10 web pages scrutinized by them, contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC . This was based on the survey of billions of sites and in-depth analysis 4.5 million web pages. Theses so called phantom sites are empty shell, booby-trapped websites that download and automatically install Malware , to infect a computer or steal sensitive information in what is called “Drive-by” downloads. The vast majority exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install themselves. Google also found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets. Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a web page or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded from third-party sites. The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave cri...

You will be surprised to know, how easily one can hack and eavesdrop a Wi - Fi hotspot, both secured and unsecured. A rouge Wi - Fi connection can be set up on a laptop with some simple programming and a special USB thump drive that acts as a access point. These rouge Wi - Fi hotspot have a new name "evil twin". The hackers computer can be configured to pass the victim (of his misdeeds) through to the legitimate access point, while stealing/ decoding his data packets.This type of access point is hard to trace, because they can be shut off and on at will.While you still protected if you are working over a VPN , without VPN you are certainly at risk from a "evil twin". So next time you are sipping your coffee at Starbucks, make you sure to be on a VPN .

As mentioned in my previous post, bidding seems to be the new way of doing business and here we have another example of this . At bid4prizes you can bid for the latest catchy items from Plasma TV to iPhone . The lowest unique bid for every prize starts out at one penny - but if more than one persons bids a penny, then that penny is no longer the lowest unique bid and 2 cents is. If more than one person bids 2 cents then 3 cents is the next lowest unique bid. And so on and so on.The biding is done by enter your cell number and your bid in cents for the selected item and then bid4prizes will send you a text message telling you whether or not you have the lowest unique bid. If you win,you do not have to pay a dime for the actual prize, which is only to determine the prize of the product. So if you like text messaging and surfing, this is great way to combine the two and win some prizes.

Online vendors, it is time to dump the print and published version like Yellow Pages and get listed in online directories. Online directory publishers have come up with creative and ingenious ways for pricing, the listing in these directories. I have found that Big Web Links has created a directory, were links are sorted by the bid amount.So go ahead bid for placement and see online shoppers swarming your website. Looks like pricing by biding is a new way of get the market price for goods and services.

You do not have to check all that mail to collect the desired coupons anymore, man it is headache to open all those envelopes .All discount coupons and merchant deals are available online.Of course, we have hundreds of websites to look at for these free coupons and you really have to good at searching the web to get all the available deals and discounts. One thing that puzzles me, is that many of these deals/discounts are not available at the merchant website but only at these coupon websites. So if you are buying say some Dell merchandise do not look at just the Dell website, check out at other coupon websites as well. Here are some Dell Coupons for shopping at their online store.Happy Shopping folks Please Note:-This is a sponsored and paid post for couponchief.

The pace with which new websites are being created is unbelievable, everyday you run into some new and innovative website. Today I surfed into this website, which can act as a catalogue for all your collectibles. For hobbyists which are into collections, it a good repository to buy and sell items of choice. Check out the Comic Book Collection at this website to see for yourself. You can shop,create custom categories and get to know people with similar interests.You may just use it to create an item list, just in case you have huge collection or you are forgetful like myself. Check it out folks!

Most of the calling cards companies these days are using VOIP and they definitely offer the cheapest rates for international calling.But I was surprised to see that they are offering US long distance for pennies as well . You may check the latest United States calling card rates and judge for yourself. Most of these services come with No-PIN Dialing feature that allows you to connect to your calls faster and work from any wire-line or wireless phone. Of course for any calling card service, you have to dial an 800 number and if your number is registered with them, you may go ahead and dialed the number you want just after the greeting voice prompt. One such company offering calling card services is Pingo. Pingo seems to be everywhere, go check them out guys.