Indian Tech Innovation Overview
Bernard Lunn writing for Read Write Web has some good analysis.
Ends with a nice blurb for Rajesh Jain’s Novatium – subsidy free sub $100 laptops.
Sidenote: Rajesh has a nice piece in this month’s Pragati on India’s technology potential.
Storm: Holiday Boost
The picture illustrates the success rate of the botnet: The x-axis shows the date, starting a few days before Christmas and ending today. The y-axis represents the number of infected machines within Stormnet, the “encrypted” part of the botnet in which the actual communication is XORed with a 40 byte key. As you can see, the first days before Christmas the size of the botnet was around 5-14 thousand infected machines. However, just around Christmas the size grows again due to successful infections and new victims which fell for the social engineering mails. For now, the botnet has peaked at about 40 thousand infected machines being online at a time.
Viral WiFi Attack
Interesting paper (PDF).
Based on the premise that home WiFi routers are less likely to be protected, always on, and lack third party security software, researchers:
- Mapped real networks in Chicago, Boston, New York City, the San Fransisco Bay area, Seattle, and both northern and southern Indiana.
- Simulated a WiFi pandemic.
- WPA routers are theoretically untouchable. WEP took time to infect and the rest went fast.
Conclusions:
- In 2 weeks up to 55% of routers were infected.
- Increased range (n tech) will accentuate this problem.
- Follows biological pandemic trends: stops at rivers, chains break when one router is WPA enabled.
- WPA is a must, strategically placed to protect those who won’t upgrade.
Spoofing Cisco Products to Air Traffic Control
Ouch:
The men are charged with importing cartons full of phony stickers with the Cisco Systems logo and attaching the stickers to imitation computer components. They are also accused of importing empty boxes with Cisco logos to package the equipment for shipment to the military and other agencies to make them appear to be the higher priced, legitimate Cisco product.
Myanmar Kills Connectivity
Here is one way to do it (taxes if you’re an all powerful regime):
Without warning, Myanmar’s military junta has ordered a massive 166-fold rise in the annual satellite television levy in an apparent attempt to stop people watching dissident and international news broadcasts.
With no word in state media of any license fee increases, the first satellite dish owners knew of the hike was when they went to pay the 6,000 kyat levy, only to be told it was now 1 million kyat ($780), three times the average citizen’s yearly income.