(sorry not all URL came accross this week)

Hacking Is a Booming Business

It's a good time to be a malicious hacker. Business is excellent.

It's a good time to be a malicious hacker. That's because even though it's not a time of revolutionary new techniques in hacking for profit, business is booming for the established methods. Despite increased investment in information security defenses, the good guys continue to lag badly behind. According to one report by Sophos, which called the recent uptick in -malware a "deluge," by April 2007, more than 250,000 websites were hosting malicious code and more than 8,000 were being added to that total every day.

Qantas in-flight Web access next year: News – Communications – ZDNet Australia

Qantas in-flight Web access next year

in brief Qantas passengers will soon be able to surf the Web in-flight, following the airline's decision to adopt a range of aircraft with connectivity for the airborne business traveller.

Travellers using the planes will be able to connect up their own laptops to the Internet by the plane's on-board Wi-Fi network, charge it up using an in-seat plug socket to power up the PC or connect up devices to their local USB port.

Users without their own hardware will be able to get access to e-mail and the Internet, as well as phone and SMS, from their in-flight entertainment system, Qantas said.

PC World – Harry Potter's Magic Can't Beat Chinese Pirates

Harry Potter's Magic Can't Beat Chinese Pirates

Bootleg copies of the newest book and movie are hawked to tourists in China.

U.S. copyright industry companies claim bootleggers cost them $2.6 billion in sales in China in 2005. On Chinese streets, pirate DVDs can cost as little as $1, much less than legitimate copies sold in wealthy countries.

The hawker, who would not give his name, said most of the buyers were Westerners. "Chinese people will wait for the Chinese version to come out. That won't be long," he said.

The Chinese translation of Rowling's latest book is due out in about October.

Seagate: End of the road for IDE drives?

According to The Inquirer, sources from within the channel report Seagate as having briefed them that it's the end of the road for IDE hard drives.

It appears that Seagate plans to cease manufacturing IDE hard drives, also known as PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment), by the end of the year and will focus exclusively on SATA-based products instead.

This would hardly be surprising news, given that SATA (serial ATA) has overtaken PATA as the interface of choice for hard drive connectivity.

Digital TV takup update
New view on digital TV change-over

Only 30 per cent of viewers had adopted digital TV in 2006, up from 13 per cent in 2005, and 14 per cent of non-adopters were not even aware that digital free-to-air television existed at all.

A massive 71 per cent of non-adopters were not interested or not sure if they were interested in digital free-to-air TV last year, up from 61 per cent in 2005.

The studies also showed that TV broadcasters and communications authorities were failing in their efforts to promote digital television.

In 2006, 25 per cent of non-adopters said the main reason they were not interested in digital free-to-air TV was because they did not know enough about in or had not thought about it.

Apple posts record profit

APPLE'S third-quarter profit soared more than 73 per cent, fuelled by demand for its Macintosh computers, the strength of its iPod media players and the sales of 270,000 iPhones in the first two days on the market.

For the quarter ended June 30, Apple's profit rose to $US818 million, or US92c per share, up from $US472 million, or US54c a share in the year-ago quarter.

Sales grew to $US5.41 billion from $US4.37 billion last year.

Man accused of burning down a trailer in Virginia-to-Texas dispute that began online

A U.S. Navy man who got mad when someone mocked him as a "nerd" over the Internet climbed into his car and drove 1,300 miles (2.092 kilometers) from Virginia to Texas to teach the other guy a lesson.

As he made his way toward Texas, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Petty Officer Russell Tavares posted photos online showing the welcome signs at several states' borders, as if to prove to his Internet friends that he meant business.

When he finally arrived, Tavares burned the man's trailer down.

This week, Tavares, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading no contest to arson and admitting he set the blaze.

Episode 047