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Show of 4-8-2007

  • Favorite Product of the Week: High Tech Easter Egg Night Nights
    • Website: www.GetOggz.com
    • Oggz are “color morphing accent lights.”
    • They look like huge eggs that glow and change colors.
    • Oggz can be used on their stand or as portable rechargeable lamps.
    • They cycle through an array of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) as they go from Dark Blue to Deep Red.
    • The rechargeable batteries last seven hours.
    • A 3-pack is $48 with free shipping. A single unit is $19 plus shipping
  • Google Voice Local Search
    • Google Voice Local Search is an experimental service that allows people to search for local businesses over the phone.
    • There are no ads on the service, which is available only in the U.S.
    • To use it people can dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)
    • Use voice commands to search for a business by name or category.
    • Information call and connection are free.
    • Users can also get the search results via SMS if they are on a mobile phone.
  • Phone my Phone: Find you misplaced cell phone
    • Website: www.phonemyphone.com
    • Enter you cell phone number into this site.
    • Select how many times you want it called.
    • Keeps calling until you answer
    • Calls are disabled between 10PM – 6AM PST (1AM – 9AM EST) to prevent pranks
  • Microsoft ANI Patch
    • http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/935423.mspx
    • Vulnerability has been known for some time. One of the zero-day exploits
    • Microsoft is released an off-cycle patch April 3rd for the .ANI vulnerability.
    • The amount of attacks against the vulnerability intensified over the weekend.
    • More than 100 Web sites that are spreading the .ANI vernerability.
    • Currently, the majority of the attacks appear to be downloading and installing generic password-stealing code.
    • What is the ANI vulnerability?
      • .ANI files are animated cursor files (they end in .ANI)
      • The .ANI vulnerability is available because Windows does not handle malformed animated cursor files correctly.
      • It could enable a hacker to remotely take control of an infected system.
      • The bug affects all the recent Windows releases including Vista.
    • In order for this attack to be carried out, a user must either
      • Visit a Web page that is used to exploit the vulnerability. Britney Spears Nude email spam has been used to entice users to infected sites.
      • View a specially crafted e-mail message
      • Open a specially crafted e-mail attachment sent to them by an attacker,
    • The vulnerability is the classic buffer overrun when ill-formed data is provided.
    • The fix released by CERT limits the ANI field to 36 bytes.
  • First Kazaa, then Skype, now Joost
    • Niklas Zennstrom, 39, and Janus Friis, 29, are two Denmark programmers who specialized in peer-to-peer programming.
    • The both started programming at Tele2Denmark, an alternative telecom operator
    • Venture 1: Kazaa (www.kazaa.com)
      • The first partnership of Zennstrom and Friis, 29, was the file-sharing software Kazaa, which succeeded Napster as the dominant way to trade music files over the Internet several years ago.
      • Sold Kazaa to Australian company, Sharman Networks in January 2002 for undisclosed sum, when they were threatened with legal action by music industry. ($40,000 per day fines for copyright violations)
      • Kazaa has been downloaded nearly 400 million times.
      • Kazaa is a peer-to-peer file sharing program that is used to transfer MP3 audio files. Supported by adware and difficult to get rid of.
    • Venture 2: Skype (www.skype.com)
      • Focused their attention Skype, which provides free Internet phone capability.
      • It became the most download VoIP phone client on the Internet.
      • Adware and spyware free. Highly recommended.
      • They sold Skype to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion
    • Venture 3: Joost (www.joost.com)
      • Offer "piracy-proof" online video delivery
      • Utilizes peer-to-peer streaming technology.
      • The service will be free for users who view ads alongside video content.
      • They have signed agreements with Viacom, National Geographic, BET, plus over fifty other channels.
      • This is not another YouTube, it is designed to be high quality TV delivered over the Internet free of charge.
      • Website quote: “Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping.”
      • In Beta testing now. Must be invited to join. I am waiting for an invitation to test it out.
    • They now head a 100 team of programmers located in Tallinn, Estonia.
  • Skype for International Travel
    • Website: www.skype.com
    • Last month we had a team in Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam
    • We used Skype for all voice communication
    • It worked perfectly until Vietnam
    • The Vietnam telcom blocked all Skype-out calls to the US
    • This is increasingly a problem because packet sniffing software is not available to identify Skype packet streams.
    • Blocking work arounds
      • Set up a second Skype account with call forwarding. This works if they permit Skype-to-Skype. Set the forward number to be the number you want to call. You will need to add funds to the second account for the Skype out charges.
      • Set up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to a Proxy Server. The encrypted data stream will not be detected as Skype traffic and you packet stream will not be blocked. These services are around $3 per month. Two good ones are shown below.
      • Two recommended VPN Proxy Server services
    • VPN’s are also a good way to protect your wireless privacy and on travel. So you can avoid people grabbing your passwords. Beware of the Evil Twin Attack! VPN’s will even keep the evil twin out of your data.
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