Massive botnet 'indestructible,' say researchers

4.5M-strong botnet 'most sophisticated threat today' to Windows PCs

Computerworld - A new and improved botnet that has infected more than four million PCs is "practically indestructible," security researchers say.

"TDL-4," the name for both the bot Trojan that infects machines and the ensuing collection of compromised computers, is "the most sophisticated threat today," said Kaspersky Labs researcher Sergey Golovanov in a detailed analysis Monday.

"[TDL-4] is practically indestructible," Golovanov said.
Others agree.

CIA website hacked; Cyber criminals rule the World?

Washington, Jun 16: Just after a day the US Senate website hacked, cyber criminals attacked the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) website and forced to shut down the site for few hours on Wednesday, Jun 15.

The hacker group Lulz Security, which was allegedly behind the attack on SonyPictures, Senate website, video game company Bethesda Softworks and many other government websites around the world, claimed the responsibility for hacking the CIA website.

Claiming the credit for CIA site hacking, a tweet in Lulz Sec Twitter account, which has more than 158,000 followers,

Oh sorry, Facebook CEO is surely a thief: Winklevoss Twins

California, Jun 27: It was just a silence before the blast! The Winklevoss Twins, who decided not to move the US Supreme Court against Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have filed a fresh lawsuit against Zuckerberg.

In the fresh petition filed in the US District Court of Massachusetts, the identical twins, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, and their Harvard classmate Divya Narendra claimed that Zuckerberg hid critical information from them during the settlement in 2008.

Meanwhile, Facebook rejected the fresh claims saying that these are just "baseless allegations".

China says no Cyber War with United States

Beijing, Jun 23: Amid speculations of a possible cyber war between China and United States, a Chinese top official said there is no stranded relationship with US over the allegations of hacking.

China's Vice Foreign Minister Cui Tiankai said both China and US were facing cyber attacks, but they were in no way directed by either government. He added that both countries were already discussing the issue during their regular strategic consultations.

"I want to clear something up: there are no contradictions between China and the United States" on the issue of hacking, Cui said.

Terorrism on terrorists! Hackers attack Al-Qaeda networks

London, Jul 1: Terrorists also face terrorist attacks! An unknown hacker group has hacked Al-Qaeda's internet network and caused interruption in their ability to communicate via internet.

An anti terror expert said that hackers have attacked Al-Qaeda's online communications and forced them shut down the service. The service has been out of order and Al-Qaeda does not have a single trusted distribution channel available on the internet.

Facebook hires Sony PlayStation hacker Geohot

California, Jun 28: Is Facebook planning for cyber attacks? The world's largest social networking website, Facebook has hired the notorious Sony PlayStation hacker George Hotz, who is widely known as Geohot.

Various technology reported Facebook's hiring of George Hotz, who is popular for his hacking of the Sony PlayStation 3 console and Apple iPhone jailbreak. Later Facebook confirmed the news and said that George Hotz was working with them.

Bloggers added that Sony hired George Hotz to create an official Facebook app for the iPad. Earlier, we reported Facebook is planning to launch an exclusive iPad app. With Hotz in kit, Facebook can protect its products from future cyber attacks.

George Hotz rised to stardom with his Sony PlayStation 3 hack. In Jan, 2010, he announced that he had successfully hacked the PlayStation 3 OS by enabling himself read and write access to the machine's system memory and having hypervisor level access to the machine's processor.

Review: Google+ a clean, intuitive mobile experience so far

Amy Gahran says the Google+ user interface is less
potentially misleading than Facebook's.

Editor's note: Amy Gahran writes about mobile tech for CNN.com. She is a San Francisco Bay Area writer and media consultant whose blog, Contentious.com, explores how people communicate in the online age.

(CNN) -- Google on Tuesday unveiled its attempt to rival Facebook, a social-networking product called Google+.

I received an invitation from a friend and have been putting this nascent service through its paces --                                                                               especially on my Android phone.

Here's my experience so far:
(Do you want a Google+ invitation? Sorry, you may have to wait.)

Google faces 'wire tapping' case over Street View

Google's Street View cars took snaps and scooped up data from wi-fi networks

Google could be sued for scooping up data from open wi-fi networks after a US court ruling.


A judge in San Francisco decided that the company's actions may have violated federal laws on wire tapping.
Google had tried to have the class action lawsuit thrown out, claiming that anyone could have intercepted the wireless signals.

Google Enters the Ring for Social Smackdown, Round 2

Last year, Google took a swipe at the social networking scene by launching Buzz, which was quickly burned to a crisp by critics who blasted its apparently lax privacy protections. Now the search engine leader has returned with Google+, its latest attempt to break into the social scene. Challenging a rival the size of Facebook will be difficult, but Google's size and existing infrastructure may prove useful.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) took a second stab at social networking Tuesday with the launch of Google+, a program designed to interactively connect users and challenge worldwide social networking king Facebook.

The search engine giant failed with its first attempt at an online social network, last year's Google Buzz, which encountered difficulties in

Spotify, Facebook in talks on music service

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has teased the public about the launch of something "awesome." Is it a new music service?

Spotify may have found an American friend in Facebook.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg yesterday set off a wave of speculation by telling reporters that the social network has plans to "launch something awesome" next week.
Some have speculated whether Zuckerberg might roll out the kind of music service GigaOm outlined in a story on June 19. The blog reported that Facebook was working on some kind of music feature that incorporated multiple music services, including Spotify, Europe's top streaming-music service.
Facebook and Spotify have indeed held discussions recently about integrating the music service into Facebook in a significant way once Spotify launches in the United States, multiple sources in the music industry told CNET. One source said that it appears the parties have reached an agreement but that could not be confirmed.

Justin Timberlake an investor in MySpace buy

MySpace investor Justin Timberlake.

If there were any concerns about whether MySpace will continue to live on as a service that's tied to music culture, the new owners are trying to put that to rest. One of them being pop star Justin Timberlake.
Specific Media, which earlier today purchased MySpace from News Corp., announced Timberlake's involvement as both an owner and shaper of where the company plans to take the social network.
"As part of the deal, Emmy and Grammy winning artist Justin Timberlake will also take an ownership stake and play a major role in developing the creative direction and strategy for the company moving forward," Specific Media said in a follow-up release. "Specific Media and Timberlake plan to unveil their vision for the site in an exclusive press conference later this summer."
In the meantime, the company says MySpace will become "the premiere digital destination for original shows, video content, and music."

Mobile Devices Are Accounting for More Web Browsing

Anonymous letters from Research In Motion employees calling for change are getting a response -- sort of. RIM says, in essence, that management knows what it's doing and the financials aren't so bad. The anonymous RIM letters mention discontent among silent workers.

Several Research In Motion employees are writing anonymous letters to

management calling for change -- and the company is responding. The online letters point out the BlackBerry maker's missteps in recent years while Apple and Android gained major momentum. "I have lost confidence.