Researchers from Tohoku University achieved the new level of data density in miniature hard drives by developing 1″ HDDs of 10GB capacity.

10GB Microdrive (source)

To achieve this density of 138Gbit/inch² they used the perpendicular recording method which popularity grows these days.

Therefore Hitachi, that will most likely commercialize the novelty, will have a chance to outrun Seagate that is currently ahead with its 8GB Microdrive introduced last week along with nine other solutions.

Source: Digital-Life

Alternative Web browser company Opera Software on Thursday pushed out a new version of its flagship browser to fix several cross-site scripting vulnerabilities discovered by private security researchers.

The Norwegian company recommends that Windows users upgrade to Opera 8.0.1 to protect against malicious hacker attacks.

In all, the Opera update addresses five different vulnerabilities and also fixes a range of other security-related bugs.

The most serious issue, according to Opera’s changelog, is an XMLHttpRequest redirect vulnerability that can be exploited by malicious attackers to steal content or to perform actions on other Web sites with the target user’s privileges.

Source: eWeek

Researchers at Microsoft’s Cambridge, England, labs are developing a file-sharing technology that they say could make it easier to distribute big files such as films, television programs and software applications to end-users over the Internet.

Code-named Avalanche, the technology is similar to existing peer-to-peer (P-to-P) file swapping systems such as BitTorrent’s, in the sense that large files can be divided into many smaller pieces to ease their distribution. End users request the file parts from other users’ hard drives and reassemble them to create the original file.

Such systems can scale well to serve millions of users, and reduce the bandwidth and computing costs of sending content directly to users from central servers. Some have also irritated publishers who complain the services are used to share copyright works illegally.

The system differs from BitTorrent’s eponymous software in a few ways, said Peter Key, joint head of the systems and networking group at Microsoft’s research labs in Cambridge . It does not depend on central servers, called “trackers,” to orchestrate the download. The Avalanche client on each PC shares the files automatically among users; they do not look at other users’ hard drives to find what they want. And the system works well in smaller networks, such as a corporate intranet, he said.

Perhaps more importantly for content creators, Microsoft claims its system prevents users from redistributing copyright material, because Avalanche will only forward files that have been signed by the publisher.

Source: InfoWorld

Three hundred key U.K. business and government organizations have been threatened by a wave of data-stealing cyberattacks coming from Asia, the British government has warned.

According to the National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre, hackers in East Asia have developed Trojan horse programs that attempt to steal information from certain parts of the critical national infrastructure, which includes not only government agencies but businesses in the finance, transportation and telecommunications sectors.

Source: News.com

Gaming enthusiasts have figured out how to run unauthorized programs and games on the U.S. version of
Sony Corp’s new handheld game console.

Like its rivals, Sony had tried to keep its new PlayStation Portable on a tight leash, installing controls so it couldn’t run programs and games not vetted and licensed by the company.

But the PSP, released in the United States in March, has been the target of fervent attempts to unlock its capabilities, which go beyond any previous handheld game machine.

Sony’s restrictions were defeated by a program disseminated on the Internet this week. It requires two memory cards, which are switched while the PSP is working.

The exploit may not be practical or safe (an accompanying warning says it could cause damage if done improperly), but it represents a challenge to Sony’s policy of tight control and opens the possibility that PSP games could be pirated.

Source: AP

Public peer-to-peer networks have always been associated with adware program distributions, but BitTorrent, the program created by Bram Cohen to offer a new approach to sharing digital files, has managed to avoid the stigma.

Not any more, anti-spyware advocates warn.

According to Chris Boyd, a renowned security researcher who runs the VitalSecurity.org nonprofit resource center, the warm and fuzzy world of BitTorrent has been invaded by a massive software distribution campaign linked to New York-based adware purveyor Direct Revenue LLC.

In an e-mail interview with Ziff Davis Internet News, Boyd said rogue files have popped up occasionally in BitTorrent land but those were usually just random executables. “This is the first time I’ve seen a definite money-making campaign with affiliates, distributors and some pretty heavy-duty adware names,” he added.

Boyd, widely known for chronicling spyware, hacking and malware exploits, has published details of the BitTorrent distributions and identified Direct Revenue and Marketing Metrix Group as the companies responsible for the rigged files.

Source: eWeek

Yahoo began testing a service late Wednesday that allows people to perform simultaneous searches for information contained within subscription-based Web sites.

While most search engines crawl the Web and troll freely accessible sites, they cannot get into much of the so-called deep Web, vast amounts of data stored within paid and password-protected sites. Yahoo Search Subscriptions will allow search access to seven different subscription Web sites simultaneously, including the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal Online.

The other subscription sites Yahoo users will be able to get access to are ConsumerReports.org, TheStreet.com, The New England Journal of Medicine, Forrester Research, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. LexisNexis, Factiva and the Association of Computing Machinery subscription Web sites are expected to be added in coming weeks.

Users of Yahoo’s service must have subscriptions at the targeted sites to access the information, said Tim Mayer, director of product management at Yahoo Search. It will initially be available only in the United States and the United Kingdom, Yahoo said.

Source: News.com

special report In the name of education, the software giant invites security researchers to infiltrate Windows systems.

The random chatter of several hundred Microsoft engineers filled the cavernous executive briefing center recently at the company’s sprawling campus outside Seattle.

Within minutes after their meeting was convened, however, the hall became hushed. Hackers had successfully lured a Windows laptop onto a malicious wireless network.

“It was just silent,” said Stephen Toulouse, a program manager in Microsoft’s security unit. “You couldn’t hear anybody breathe.”

The demo was part of an extraordinary two days in which outsiders were invited into the heart of the Windows empire for the express purpose of exploiting flaws in Microsoft computing systems. The event, which Microsoft has not publicized, was dubbed “Blue Hat”–a reference to the widely known “Black Hat” security conference, tweaked to reflect Microsoft’s corporate color.

The unusual March gathering, a summit of sorts between delegates of the hacking community and their primary corporate target, illustrates how important security has become to the world’s most powerful software company.

Source: News.com