GLENN’S SHOWNOTES
Firefox 29: Mozilla’s Biggest Browser Upgrade Since 2011?
biggest update since Firefox 4.0 was released in March 2011
Firefox can synchronize open tabs, browsing history, bookmarks, passwords and form data across desktop and mobile installations The old synchronization will continue to work for some time. To switch, you need to unpair all devices and register for a new synchronization account using Firefox 29.
he synchronization system has been overhauled and you now need a Firefox account with a verified email address and password.
Fraud investigators informed Hutchinson Real Estate in Broome, Australia that the attackers likely made their way into the company’s network after an employee clicked on a malicious link on Facebook or one located in a phishing message in their web-based email
hackers managed to change the bank account details of one of the company’s clients which were located on a “pre-entered list” of recipients that normally receive scheduled payments.
After doing so the attackers were able to direct three of the payments to a different bank account, but, to hide their tracks, would change the bank details back to the original address.
Symantec’s head of information security, Brian Dye, told The Wall Street Journal that antivirus “is dead”, since it blocks only 45% of attacks. He said his company doesn’t see it as “a moneymaker in any way” – despite it contributing to 40% of its revenue.
Dye pointed to the constantly changing nature of security threats, saying that security firms need to offer much more than antivirus in order to battle hackers, especially when it comes to businesses. Symantec, for example, will be offering a response team to consultants in order to provide businesses with better intelligence.
Simon Edwards, the head of Dennis Technology Labs
“In real-world tests run by DTL and other testing organisations, anti-malware products are rarely 100% effective but neither are they usually completely useless,” he said. “Microsoft Security Essentials often appears to be quite weak and, in our tests, always appears at the bottom of the ratings – yet it still seems to stop more than 50% of threats.”
maybe not rely on Symantec – rubbish anyway
Recommended Malwarebytes
Telstra today unveiled a handful of Google Glass applications it has developed through a partnership with b2cloud.
The vision-impaired app is based on an existing image recognition technology and it enables users to receive audio descriptions of objects in front of them.
Another app allows Google Glass users to follow conversations and then transcribe them for the hearing-impaired.
Bill Gates may own no Microsoft shares in four years
Steve Ballmer became the largest individual shareholder this week.
Bill Gates, will have no direct ownership in the company if he keeps up his recent share sales
has sold 20 million shares each quarter for most of the last dozen years under a pre-set trading plan.
Assuming no change to that pattern, Gates will have no direct ownership of Microsoft shares at all four years from now.
Gates now owns just over 330 million Microsoft shares after the sales this week. Ballmer owns just over 333 million
Gates remains on the board and spends about a third of his time as technology adviser to new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Sony tape smashes storage record
Sony has developed a new storage tape that is able to hold up to 185 terabytes (TB) of data per cartridge.
Created with the help of IBM, Sony’s technology allows for tapes that can store the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-ray discs.
The tape hold 148 gigabits (Gb) per square inch – beating a record set in 2010 more than five times over.
Storage tapes are typically used by businesses to hold huge amounts of data for a long time.
Analysts IDC predict that by 2020, global data storage will amount to 40 trillion gigabytes – around 5,200 gigabytes per person.
Sony is also working on more consumer-friendly storage – in March it announced it was working with Panasonic on the Archival Disc, which will hold 1TB of data, the equivalent of 250 DVD films.
When the National Security Agency sent a tweet Mondayfilled with garbled nonwords like “tpfccdlfdtte,” the Internet was confused, and intrigued.
Internet sleuths, armed withcryptogram-solving Web tools, solved the mystery in minutes. Turns out the nonsensical tweet was a coded recruiting pitch by the NSA, which is seeking code breakers to help decipher encrypted messages from potential terrorists.
The tweet was a basic “substitution cipher,” a code in which each letter of the alphabet is replaced by another.
Translated, it read (SPOILER ALERT for all you wannabe codebreakers): “Want to know what it takes to work at NSA? Check back each Monday in May as we explore careers essential to protecting our nation.”
When contacted by CNN, NSA spokeswoman Marci Green Miller said the Twitter account is run by the NSA recruitment office, which will post coded tweets each Monday for the rest of the month.
amsung has launched a game-based competition where you can win one of 50 840 Evo SSDs.
On its Facebook page here, the SSD manufacturer’s game requires you to click on an SSD flying across the screen. You then enter your details to be in with a chance of winning one of the SSDs and you can enter more than once.
An SSD will whiz across the screen in a random path – all you need to do is catch the SSD using your cursor (on desktop) or finger (on mobile). The game itself is so fast, it will only take seconds to play.
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