90,000 Sex Offenders Removed From MySpace
by Joel Borhart on February 4th, 2009 at 11:44 am EDT - 541 views
On Tuesday, February 3, MySpace removed nearly 90,000 of its over 110 million users who were identified as sex offenders. MySpace is a social networking website that has drawn in a younger crowd.
Following the younger crowd is the sexual predators that lie and fake their age in order to lure in the users who are not careful. Both MySpace and Facebook are constantly trying to reduce the number of sexual predators who use their sites but it is almost impossible to root out.
- 
2 CommentsSony PS3 Production Price Drops
by Joel Borhart on December 30th, 2008 at 11:14 am EDT - 190 views
As time progresses, technology costs usually go down. Supply and demand, as the amount of the product goes up, the price goes down, and new technology lowers the price of older goods or makes them obsolete. These factors have lowered the production price of Sony’s PS3.
New models of the console reduce prices with each new release. The newest integration of hardware in the PS3 has reduced the number of components to about 2,820 from 4,048. The new cost of each PS3 for Sony is now only $448.73, compared to $690.23 of the first model.
For those who have a PS3 or want one, you will notice they cost around $400 for consumers. This means Sony has been selling them at a loss, hoping to make the money up in games and royalties. Because of this reduction of price for Sony, this may bring on more game development or more advances in the ability of the console.
Source: WSJ
Category: General, Industry News
Christmas Malware is around again
by Joel Borhart on December 25th, 2008 at 5:41 pm EDT - 207 views
Last year, a Malware called storm was spread though christmas cards and other holiday themed cites. It infected thousands of computers but was eventually killed. Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool beat the trojan malware, but hackers have learned from past experience.
Because of the sucess of last years storm malware, a new one has been spread this year. This years Malware has been named by Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Center in Hanoi, Vietnam. They call it “XmasStorm.” This new malware originated from China and has up to seventy-five domains registered with christmas names to encourge the unsuspecting internet surfers to browse. Examples of these domains are superchristmasday.com and funnychristmasguide.com.
Be careful in your internet surfing at this time a year. Don’t open emails from unknown senders, keep to known sites, and make sure to watch what you download. Keep your computer clean and have a happy holiday season.
SQL Server’s Security Fix Not Released
by Joel Borhart on December 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm EDT - 184 views
On April 17, 2008, an Australian Security company called SEC Consult found a bug in the SQL Server Database program. SQL Server Database lets you run a server on any machine its installed on, often used for Internet web severs. After informing Microsoft of problem with this program, SEC Consult published the flaw and the exploit code two weeks ago, hoping to prompt quicker action from Microsoft. In response to this, a Microsoft spokesman, Bill Sisk, said this on Monday, “We are aware that exploit code has been published on the Internet. However, we are not aware of any attacks attempting to use the reported vulnerability.”
The bug in the SQL Server is a leak that can lead to the server being taken control of. An SQL injection attack on a vulnerable web program can be used to exploit this bug. SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (MSDE 2000), Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE) and Windows Internal Database (WYukon) are the versions of the SQL Server that are at risk. Newer versions like SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 4 (SP4), SQL Server 2005 SP3 and SQL Server 2008 have the bug fixed.
If you are using a version of the SQL Server Database that is vulnerable, Microsoft has posted a quick fix to the problem. Denying permissions to the sp_replwritetovarbin extended stored procedure should keep you safe until the patch it released.