Eideard

A major flaw in the way the internet works could lead to millions of people being targeted by criminals and has prompted the “largest security update” in web history.

The bug – described as “cache poisoning” – has led to some of the technology industry’s largest companies scrambling to come up with a solution before hackers discover how to exploit the flaw.

Dan Kaminsky, an American internet security specialist who uncovered the bug, has been working with major technology companies including Microsoft and Cisco to issue software patches to prevent attacks from working.

“This is the largest synchronised security update in the history of the internet. The severity of this bug is shown by the number of those who are on board with the patches,” Kaminsky said.

The flaw exploits the internet’s address mechanism, known as the Domain Name System (DNS). The glitch allows hackers to inject themselves into the process, intercepting the name entered by the user and mapping it to a different internet address than the one intended.

This would potentially allow criminals to redirect web users to phishing websites even if they had entered the correct address in the first place.

Phew! I hope the good guys get this sorted out before the nutballs and gangsters do.

In the last several years, notorious racists such as former Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox and Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina left this Earth, and in efforts to show the humanity of both, tributes poured in, speaking to their Christian faith and unyielding conservative values.

Vice President Dick Cheney spoke warmly of Thurmond at his 2003 funeral, citing his run for president in 1948. But Cheney failed to mention that he ran as an ardent segregationist.

I recall former Sen. Zell Miller holding up a Bible belonging to Maddox as he told the world about Maddox’s wonderful faith, never citing how he used that same Bible to deny African-Americans basic rights.

Oh, such good Christian men Maddox and Thurmond were.

The tributes were endless and laudatory, hailing Jesse Helms for being a “conservative champion,” according to a piece in USA Today. Some mentioned his opposition to various issues of race, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But to recognize Helms properly in his totality, it’s important to add to the list of words and phrases to describe the unapologetic conservative Republican: unabashedly racist.

The votes and voters who kept him in office for so many years deserve the shame they bear for the same devotion to racism. An ongoing stain on the history of the United States.

Sometime late last year, an employee of a McLean investment firm decided to trade some music, or maybe a movie, with like-minded users of the online file-sharing network LimeWire while using a company computer. In doing so, he inadvertently opened the private files of his firm, Wagner Resource Group, to the public.

That exposed the names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers of about 2,000 of the firm’s clients, including a number of high-powered lawyers and Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer…

“To me, this was devastating,” said Phylyp Wagner, founder of the investment firm. “I didn’t even know what peer-to-peer was. I do now.”

Wagner said his company has contracted with FirstAdvantage of Poway, Calif., which last week sent out letters notifying affected clients of the breach and offering each six months of free credit-report monitoring. He emphasized that the peer-to-peer disclosure never endangered his clients’ financial records, which are stored by a separate company. But that may be small consolation to several lawyers on the list who said they recently experienced unexplained financial activity.

“This may explain why two weeks ago I got a $9,000 cellphone bill from AT&T,” said Steven Agresta, a partner with the law firm Alston & Bird. Someone had opened a phone account using his date of birth and Social Security number, but with a different address.

Golly. I thought that living in a nation protected by the Department of Homeland Security meant we’re all safe and sound. Eh?

Seeking to be one of the world’s first to grab the new-generation iPhone, fanatical Apple fans around Asia are queuing up two days before its launch, undiscouraged by rain or freezing temperatures.

The July 11 launch will be the first chance for Asian consumers to own an iPhone, and related websites have been swamped with inquiries and early orders…

“The big appeal (of the iPhone) is that this is an Apple product,” said Hiroyuki Sano, a 24-year-old graduate student who early on Tuesday arrived in rainy Tokyo from Nagoya, 225 miles west of the capital, to be first in line.

“I’ve told my professor I was going to go buy an iPhone, and he gave me permission,” said Sano, wearing a T-shirt with an Apple logo. “He is an Apple-lover too, and he sent me off cheerfully…”

Tee hee. Don’t you just love stories about people who wait in line for anything.

A Japanese woman and her six-month-old baby escaped unhurt from a knife-wielding thief this week after the mother calmed him down with a cup of tea and a chat.

The 30-year-old Tokyo woman was walking along a corridor in her apartment building with her daughter when a man brandishing a knife demanded money.

When the housewife told him she had none, the man barged into her apartment. Hoping to calm him, the woman made the thief a cup of tea`, whereupon he put his knife away and began a 20-minute monologue about his life.

The woman then gave the man 10,000 yen ($93.34) and ran outside to call the police from a pay phone, the report said.

Police rushed to the scene, but the thief had fled and is still being sought.

The moral of the story is, of course, you should at least have a cellphone – and a teapot.

An internal Colorado Springs Police Department investigation has found 2 officers falsified some of their daily activity reports. The 2 officers, Elvin Hill and Dan Myers, retired after the investigation…

Hill and Myers worked with the department’s motorcycle unit. The department says the officers took credit for more tickets than they issued. The District Attorney’s office says it involved roughly 190 tickets from January and February 2008…

The DA’s office reviewed the police department’s investigation and decided neither officer is guilty of any crime.

The City Attorneys office and DA’s office are going through every ticket and will be contacting people affected. The impact of the officers’ actions on the public is still unclear.

This is the silliest existential quandary posing as a news article I ever read. Next week, I guess we learn how the reporter deals with the alienation of working in a television studio.

Thanks, K B

The robots can scale surfaces using the same principles behind electrostatic charges, which make balloons stick to ceilings after being rubbed.

Developed by a team in SRI’s Mobile Robotics and Transducers Programme, the machines are about the size of a remote-controlled car and have caterpillar tracks similar to those on toy tanks.

Inside these tracks are materials with electro-adhesive properties, which mean that when a current is applied, the tracks are attracted to the wall, preventing the robots from falling off.

Research engineer Harsha Prahlad told BBC, “The robot carries with it positive and negative charges, and when the walls sees these charges it automatically generates the opposite charge. The robot can then clamp onto those charges.

“In some ways it is similar to rubbing a balloon and sticking it on the wall, except we carry our own power supply and are able to control the adhesion.”

Next, they’re working on walking along on the ceiling.

Photo only used for illustration purposes – This is NOT Ralph Belmont

A Maine man was arrested on the Fourth of July after he was found with a one-pound bag of cocaine hidden in his underwear. Trooper John Hennessey of Troop A stopped a 1997 Ford Taurus for a motor vehicle violation on Interstate 95 north in Hampton. Hennessey and Trooper Steve Cooper reported conducting a roadside investigation after determining the driver and passenger were overly nervous. Hennessey was given a written consent to search the vehicle by the driver who was not the registered owner.

According to Hennessey, during the investigation he observed a large, obvious bulge in the groin area of the passenger’s pants. Hennessey attempted to ascertain the contents of the bulge and said Belmont refused to cooperate and had to be physically restrained. Hennessey requested assistance from State Trooper Gary Ingham and his narcotics-certified K-9. Police said the K-9 gave a positive alert on Belmont’s passenger seat. Hennessey detained Belmont and applied for a search warrant to search his clothing and body. The warrant was authorized and Belmont was searched at the Seabrook Police Department.

Hennessey allegedly seized approximately one pound of cocaine in a clear Ziploc plastic bag hidden in Belmont’s underwear.

Uh, OK.

What did the dude think he was going to achieve by stalling? Did he think the drugs in his jock were going to disappear?