|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Bluetooth Can Be Cracked!
Nothing is completely safe today. Adobe has recently released a patch for a security hole in different graphical software, so why should Bluetooth be safe? ... and Bluetooth isn't safe off course! ;) Two researchers of the Tel Aviv University School of Electrical Engineering Systems say they have discovered a technique for taking control of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. After you've established a connection with an other cell phone, the attacker can easily make calls with your phone. If there is a Bluetooth connection with a PC, the hacker can even transfer data between his Bluetooth device / cell phone and the hacked computer. Bluetooth can be very dangerous as you can see! Even when the handsets have security features switched on, your cell phone isn't save at all! Avishai Wool, senior lecturer and Yaniv Shaked, graduate student and both researchers of the Tel Aviv University School of Electrical Engineering Systems have published recently a paper about three methods for forcing a repeat of the pairing process, "Cracking the Bluetooth PIN" ( http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yash/shaked-wool-mobisys05/ ).In this paper, a passive attack is described, in which an attacker can find the PIN used during the pairing process.The eye-opening conclusion of these two researchers: "Our results show that using algebraic optimizations, the most common Bluetooth PIN can be cracked within less than 0.06-0.3 seconds. If two Bluetooth devices perform pairing in a hostile area, they are vulnerable to this attack." A Belgian Master student is making a fresh attempt to keep a list with Bluetooth security links on http://student.vub.ac.be/~sijansse/2e%20lic/BT/welcome.html. Ollie Whitehousen security researcher of @stake, a digital security consulting firm ( http://www.atstake.com ) has written in October 2003 a paper that "examines methods of assessing the security of Bluetooth devices in relation to the protocol's design and implementation flaws" ( http://www.atstake.com/research/reports/acrobat/atstake_war_nibbling.pdf ). In general, the most critical point is the 'pairing' - connection procedure of two Bluetooth devices. When a Bluetooth device asks you to re-enter the PIN number for re-pairing, once the two devices are re-connected, the hacker can now easily crack the PIN code. Links: - http://www.atstake.com/research/reports/acrobat/atstake_war_nibbling.pdf - http://student.vub.ac.be/~sijansse/2e%20lic/BT/ - http://www.eng.tau.ac.il/~yash/shaked-wool-mobisys05/ For feedback on this article, please visit http://wallies.info/blog/item/145/index.html Walter V. is a self-employed internet entrepreneur and founder-webmaster of several websites, including
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Trouble-shooting Hard Drive Problems - Part 1 It is extremely important not to make or write any changes to data on the hard drive without first verifying the hard drive configuration. Therefore, the first priority when unable to access information on a hard drive is to verify all of the configuration information dealing with the suspect hard drive. Learn About The Three Basic Types Of Computer Mouse 1) Mechanical: This is a type of computer mouse that has a rubber or metal ball on its underside and it can roll in every direction. Sensors within the mouse, which are mechanical, detect the direction in which the ball is moving and moves the pointer on the screen in the same direction. A mouse pad should be used under the mouse to run on. The Making of Energy Efficient Datacenters The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron is a wonderful movie to watch. It is based on the book, The anatomy of greed, written by a former employee of Enron, Brian Cruver. One interesting thing that comes on our minds is the size of all power companies. They are all huge. We all depend on power for just about everything and yet very rarely do we think about conserving energy. A typical PC for example takes about 135 watts of power. A data center with about a 1000 servers should typically take about 135 x 1000 Watts or 135 Kilowatts and that would just power the computers. This does not include the air-conditioning and lighting. According to to a research paper sponsored by The California Energy Commission in a datacenter about 50% of the total energy consumed is by the servers and about 35% is the air conditioners. Here are some interesting research done in this field - Feeling the heat- An interesting paper by Liebert describing the challengeof effectively managing the heat dissipation in datacenters. Heat-Density Trends in Data Processing, Computer Systems, and TelecommunicationsEquipment- This white paper provides valuablecurrent data and best available insights regarding historical andprojected trends in power consumption and the resulting heatdissipation in computer and data processing systems (servers andworkstations), storage systems, and central office-typetelecommunications equipment. This problem can be solved by making better energy efficient airconditioners and by making more energyefficient computers. Many companies have taken a lot of interestin subject. However, nothing substantial has been done primarilybecause of the market requirements. The end users still want to hosttheir sites on the fastest processors which drives the market with thelatest processors. Going at this rate we would reach a time soon whenthe energy required would be much higher than the energy available inthe market. Intel, AMD, Transmeta and Via have all released processors whichconsume very low power. A typical Pentium or AMD processor consumesabout 25 Watts of power, whereas these low powered processors take onlyabout 5 watts of power i.e. about 5 low powered processors wouldconsume as much power as a single main stream processor of today. Theselow powered processors are also generally fan less processors whichmeans lower noise levels too. Intel has the centrino which has a lowerpower consumption than the regular pentiums. Intel also has the armprocessors but those are RISC. Our prime focus would be AMD, Transmetaand Via. They all have some very promising products.One thing to be noted is that most of these low powered processors workonly at about 1.2GHz or lower. So they won't be as fast the pentium4s.Which means one would have to host lesser sites per server. A goodrecommendation would be upto a maximum of 600 sites on aregular pentium 4 server. A low powered processor should comfortablytake about 200 sites. One advantage of these low powered processors isthat they have a very small form factor too. This means that one canhave more such servers in the same space that is typically allocated toa high powered servers. All datacenters use a profitability matrixbased on the following rule: Performance/PerWatt/Per Cubic Foot. This is one place where the low poweredprocessors really score high. AMD Geode? NX Processor familycomprises of the AMD Geode? NX 1250@6W processor, the AMD Geode?NX 1500@6W processor and the AMD Geode? NX 1750@14W processor. Thefirst two in these consume only 6Watts of power and run without acooling fan. According to AMD they provide the highest x86 performancefor fan less operations. They are based on the mobile AMD Athlonprocessor technology.Transmeta was one of the first companies to develop low powered processors.For a long time Transmeta was known as the company where theMicrosoft co founder Paul Allen had interests in and the placewhere Linus Trovalds, the father Linux, worked. Both of them are nolonger part of the organization. Today they are known for the twoprocessor families they have - The transmeta crusoe andthe transmetaefficeonTransmeta Crusoe?-processors range from 500Mhz to 1.2 Ghz. According to Transmeta,Crusoe is a unique combinationof software and hardware. It's this radical design that gives Crusoe itsimportant advantages, and manufacturers of all kinds of electronicdevices their first truly innovative new platform in over 25 years.Thanks to Crusoe, mobile devices can be made smaller and lighter thanever. These new devices will be more comfortable to use, too, becauseCrusoe generates very little heat a problem that plagues the industry'slegacy hardware-only processors. And because it uses far less power,mobile devices running on Crusoe run far longer on a single batterycharge, and Crusoe-powered ultra-dense servers do far more work perwatt, far more efficiently. TransmetaEfficeon processors are the higher end processors from Transmetaand they run at upto 1.6Ghz and have high performance I/O interfaces.They are built upon Fujitsu's next-generation 90nm silicon technologyfeaturing transistors with a length of just 40nm. The entire Transmeta range not just uses the x86 instruction set, theyalso have full multimedia instruction support (MMX, SSE-SSE2).Transmeta has done very little in marketing in terms of selling theirproducts for the server market. Like all other companies they havefocussed on mobile products, set-top boxes etc.. While these productsaregreat for the mobile market, they do have a great potential in theserver market. FIC, JM-Net etc. have some products for the servermarketwhich run on the Transmeta processors. Via, the Taiwanesemanufacturerpurchased the Cyrix processors and has since gotten out of the race offaster processors with AMD and Intel. Instead they are focussing on fanless, low-powered processors. They have the Eden and the C3 range ofprocessors. The power consumption varies from only 7watts to15Watts. Additionally, the processors come with thePadLock Hardware Security Suite which provides a platform approach tocomputer security, ensuring uncompromising security performance. Thesefeatures include the implementation of the Quantum-based VIA PadLockRNG (Random Number Generator), and the VIA PadLock ACE (AdvancedCryptography Engine) supporting AES encryption. According to Via, the VIA Eden-NProcessor is the world's smallest, lowest power and most securenative x86 processor. It is a mere 15mm x 15mm in terms of size andconsumes between 2.5W @ 533MHz to 7W @ 1GHz. Via again like Transmeta has not focussed in the server market. Theimages above give a good idea of the benefits of this processor in theserver market. For datacenters, Via may be the best in thePerformance/Per Watt/Per Cubic Foot matrix.Companies like Hitachi make some very good low powered hard disk driveswhich have a very small form factor. They have both IDE's at 7200 rpmas well as SCSI hard drives. Many may think it is better to take higher end servers as the power orheating problem does not directly affect them. As mentioned earlier aserver driven by a low-powered processor would be able to take justabout 200 sites. This means that a person with 600 sites would need totake 3 such servers instead of one higher powered server. Here are somebenefits of this scenario. One of the biggest factors influencing the performance of sites on theinternet is the capability of the network card (ethernet) .When all sites arehosted on just one server, they all would use the same networkcard to push the data. Now if these sites are distributed among 3servers the amount of data that the sites can push would be 3 timesmorewhich means faster access to the sites. Another benefit is that if oneof the site goes down all 600 people would not be effected, rather only1/3rd the number of sites would be affected.Hence, the number of support request would be lesser. And finally, suchprocessors are very affordable. Typically they would be just a third ofthe cost of regular mainstream processors. Laptop Computers and the PVP Effect! Roll over lumbering desktop computers, the limber laptop is here, and it's here to stay! For a while now notebooks have outstripped their ageing desktop PC siblings, easily winning the gold medal in the computer sales olympics. We will illustrate how the PVP effect has contributed greatly to the increase in popularity of notebook computers. Video Cards: Is AGP Dead? If you've been looking to upgrade your computer video card you've probably heard a great deal about PCI Express and SLI. Don't run out and buy a new computer just yet and take that AGP motherboard you just threw away out of the trash. The truth is you can probably make some simple upgrades to your current computer to get a couple more years of gaming out of it. Of course if you have an extremely slow processor and/or less than an 8x AGP motherboard, you will need to do more than upgrade your graphics card. However, in most cases people's computers are only a couple of years old and really have plenty of processing power. Video Display Video displays are most recent technique used in both outdoor and indoor environments. Ink Cartridges & Printing - Poor Print Quality Solutions Why are there faint areas or gaps in my print out? Expert Guide to DVD Camcorders Thinking about a mini DVD camcorder? You're not alone, it's a rapidly growing sector of the camcorder market, with Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic all making more than one mini dvd camcorder. How to Shop for Inkjet Printer Cartridges Keeping Shipping Costs Down Printer Cartridge Economics -- Four Ways To Make Your Ink Last Longer Printer cartridge overheads can be a major expense for any busy office -- and even if you're working at home, it's important to factor in the amount you spend on your printer ink when assessing the cost of running a home-based business. And what you spent on that bargain-priced printer may turn out to be only a fraction of what you pay annually in printer supplies. A Guide To Bar Code Reader Downloads Bar code readers have proven themselves to be essential tools in modern day business. Establishments, both big and small, have started to rely on bar code readers to make their operations quicker, more convenient, and more efficient. Yet, thousands are still interested to hop aboard the bar code bandwagon, but they don't know much about the said technology. This article will discuss a variety of barcode reader downloads for every need. The Road Ahead We live in an area that has begun to use GreenBins for household waste. Our regular garbageis picked up every other week and the onlyweekly garbage collection is our green plasticbins, to be filled with leftover food productsand other organic waste. When the program first started, I was surewe could never change our ways, but beforelong, depositing bones and leftover food inthe bin became automatic.Why am I telling you this? Because using thecomputer will also become easy for you themore you try. Sure, the learning curve issteeper than remembering which containerto use for which type of garbage, but theidea is the same. Every time you perform afunction or solve a problem on your computer, it will be easier than the time before.This week, I read a book written by Bill Gatesin 1996 titled 'The Road Ahead'. Gates said, "Computers frighten almost everyone(everyone but children), before they learn touse them. When people spend more time withcomputers, they understand them better.You can start by playing computer games ordoing other simple things. Once you startusing them, I think you'll like them."With the Internet, we can keep in touch withold friends and make new ones; have virtualexperiences of flying an airplane, driving acar, even dissecting a toad. Pilots and doctorspractice their work without worrying aboutaccidents. Every school can have a wonderfullibrary thanks to the Internet. Gates saw then how much our world wouldchange because of computers. Banking andshopping online, distance learning, the abilityto telecommute and work from home - all ofthese grew as software became better andmore powerful.Gates talked about his own futuristic house. Anyone in the house wore an electronic pin thattold the house who and where you were. Whenit got dark, the pin would turn on lights nearbyand turn them off when you went away. Musicwould play near you and the phone ring nearbyonly if the call was for you. A home control console activated choices of lighting, music,and temperature. That was in 1996, so whoknows what his home is like now!The book ended with a cartoon showing a muttusing a computer and saying "On the Internet,nobody know's you're a dog." How true - onthe Internet, we are all on equal ground.When in my 40's, the university library where I worked was computerized. The thought of using those machines at my age was so intimidating that I moved to another department. I transferred back a year later, determined to learn. Choosing The Right Bar Code Reader The importance of a bar code reader in this day and age cannot be denied. A lot of practical and pragmatic applications for a bar code reader have been rendered essential by the changing times. Whether you're running a commercial establishment, a public or private library, a company that employs a lot of people, or a school that is attended by numerous students, a bar code reader would do wonders for your daily operations. Advanced Tips on Speeding Up Your PC Other then keeping your HDD free of viruses, spyware, and ad-ware at all times, there are other methods for speeding up system speed which you may like to employ. One of these is overclocking. Overclocking is a method of increasing your system speed by increasing the frequency at which your CPU operates at. If this interests you, please refer to our guide on overclocking. Testing a Transformer- How To Accurately Test A Transformer There is two types of transformers in the market- linear transformer and switch mode power transformer. The transformers design is different.Sometimes it is just referred as ac transformer. Linear transformer mostly used in radio, project kits, VCD and etc while switch mode transformer can be found in Monitor, Tv, Fax and so on. RFID for Beginners RFID technology is used frequently today and has been around since the 1920s, but not many people know about, or understand it. RFID stands for Radio Frequency Identification and is used to store and retrieve information. This information is stored and retrieved using RFID tags or transponders. RFID tags are small and can be incorporated into many products. The tags have antennas that allow them to receive and respond to radio-frequency queries from an RFID transceiver. How To Stop Junk Faxes From Wasting Your Paper and Toner Junk faxes waste the resources of every business. It is estimated that they cost businesses tens of millions of dollars a year in wasted paper, toner and fax machine maintenance. There is nothing more aggravating then coming into the office each morning to find a pile of junk faxes promotion everything from mortgage refinancing to septic tank solutions. I don't even have a septic tank! A Technical Introduction to Audio Cables What is so important about cables anyway? Does Size Really Matter In Our Digital Age? Well, we've all seen the advert, but that's not what I want to talk about, so get that out of your head straight away. No, let's think about what many call the "Queen of Arts" - namely painting. Computer Parts Online In today's age, building computers on yourself is often chosen as the safest and choicest option by a sizeable part of the market for computers. There are various advantages and disadvantages for doing so.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |