Show of 12-20-2003

Made by Dave Roe from EMR Group
iPIX? patented immersive technology.
The EMR Group offers the whole picture through interactive, spherical images providing users a complete field of view from earth to sky, floor to ceiling, horizon to horizon.

Identity Theft — Low Tech, High Profit Activity (Requires Free Registration)

FTC estimates loses of $53 billion per year
Seven million victimized in 2002
An interview with Stephen Massey provides insight into ?best practices?
- Discovered his first victims at the dump in the recycling shed
- He found a big barrel of discarded tax forms from an accounting firm
- He then harvested dumpsters at hospitals, accounting firms, and law firms
- Some hack databases or use ?phishing? sites and emails. This is the exception rather than the rule
- Used a team of drug addicts to do his collecting.
After getting the data for a new victim, he would
- Run a credit check to see if they owned a home
- Apply for credit card using an on-line credit-card company and get an instant line of credit for 1K to 5K
- Use the victims current address and then indicate a recent move
- Use PO Box for current address
- Use pre-paid cell phone for phone number
- Pay off one credit with a second card to keep a good account alive
- Massey stole identity of over 400 people and stole over $1M before being caught.
- One of his addict collectors led police to him.
Company insiders also provide much information
- Auditors, consultants, security experts have access to passwords
- Sell records for $60 each
Keystroke loggers and sniffer programs can also be used at public computers and terminals.

Worst Technology
- Winner: Paperless Voting
- Runner-up: Surgically implanted RFID
- Last year: Darpa?s Total Information Awareness ?with John Poindexter.
Best Technology
- Camera Phones
- Started with one-megapixel, fixed focus
- Casio just introduces two-megapixels, 10X digital zoom, autofocus
- May be banned from health clubs and other private areas
Best of the Rest
- Apple Power Mac G5 ($1,799
  - 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor (up to two)
- Gateway 42-inch HD Plasma TV ($4,000)
  - 50-inch for $5,500
- Pioneer-810HS DVD Recorder with? TiVo ($1,000)
  - Hardrive and DVD-R to store
  - TiVo convenience

RealNetworks filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft
MS refused to disclose or delayed disclosing AIP relating to Secure Audio Pathway, a MS technology that encrypts audio streams to the audio card
Tactics are the same as those employed against Netscape
MS want to control the distribution of digital media and is giving away its digital media products at zero or negative prices
MS selectively licensed Secure Audio Pathway (SAP) to RealNetworks competitors
MS used similar tactics against Sun
Suit is aimed at stopping MS attempt to ?dominate the creation, delivery, and playback of media, regardless of the device used for delivery or playback.?

Peer-to-Peer News

RIAA loses Verizon appeal
- RIAA is Record Industry Association of America
- RIAA asked Verizon for list customers who were sharing MP3 songs
- Court denied request calling some of RIAA?s arguments silly
- Good the consumers
Dutch Court Rules Kazaa legal
- Ruled that it is lawful to make Kazaa software available
- Said that Kazaa could not be held liable for copyright-infringements
- Ruling came to too late to save Kazaa
- Sale already complete to Sharman Networks
Wal-Mart gets into online song business
- Selling songs for 88 cents each
- Undercutting Apple’s iTunes Music Store price (99 cents)
- Let the competition begin, consumers will win

FCC accused CPM, Inc (Irvine CA) of making eight telemarketing calls to people who listed their names on the Do Not Call Registry.
FCC permitted to fine up to $11,000 per violation
You can register complaints by going to DoNotCall Registry
- Click on file a complaint
- To file a complaint now, your phone number must have been on the registry for three months.
- To file a complaint, we need the date you got the call, and either the name or telephone number of the company that called you.

Top Ten Things to Do with Old Computer

Learn Networking (Ethernet)
Make a Multimedia Player (Sound card, hook to stereo, jukebox program, MP3s)
Try Multiplayer Games (Doom95)
Install Linux
Make Server (shared files, shared printers, shared MP3s)
Donate to church or school
Take it apart
Strip it and sell the parts on eBay
Turn it into an aquarium (Macquarium)
- Here is one already built
- ?Who needs a screen saver when you can have real fish in your old Mac??
Recycle it ($5 to $15 cost)

Guard Against Spyware and Adware

Download ?free? software can be dangerous
Trojan software communicates your surfing habits and delivers ads that match your interests
Locate and destroy spyware/adware with Spybot

MS Blaster Facts
- Exploits a flaw with the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) process, which controls activities such as file sharing.
- The flaw enables the attacker to gain full access to the system.
- The vulnerability affects Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP
- MS Blaster hit the Internet August 11, 2003
- Infected more than one million machines in the days following
Timeline for blackout
- At 2:14 pm the alarm and logging software in FirstEnergy?s control room failed
- Six minutes later, several remote control consoles failed
- At 2:41 pm, the primary server computer hosting alarm functions failed
- For over an hour no one in FirstEnergy?s control room grasp that their computer systems were not operating properly
- The State Estimator computer, which is used to check the power grid itself, failed at 12:15pm.
- The cascading power failure was not detected in the critical first hour
Bruce Schnierer, CNet, speculates that the failure of the various computers looks like a computer worm wending its way through FirstEnergy?s operational computers
Other worms have caused trouble
- Slammer worm knocked out 911 emergency telephone service in Bellevue
- Natchi worm disabled automatic teller machines (ATM) made by Diebold

Stratford News

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