Wednesday, January 23, 2008

FREE Advertising

Apparently TheTAZZone.com will soon be offering FREE Advertising for 3 months beginning March 1st on 4 different domains. According to inside sources this offer will be open to both personal and commercial websites.
They have a forum thread at TAZForum where you can sign up for the FREE Advertising, or you can just e-mail their administration.

TAZ Forum :: A Computer, Gaming, and Social Network Community of Friends :: TAZForum :: View topic - Free Advertising Sign-ups

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL

January 16, 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of one of the world's fastest growing open source databases for approximately $1 billion in total consideration. The acquisition accelerates Sun's position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. Today's announcement reaffirms Sun's position as the leading provider of platforms for the Web economy and its role as the largest commercial open source contributor.

With millions of global deployments including Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile, MySQL will bring synergies to Sun that will change the landscape of the software industry by driving new adoption of MySQL's open source database in more traditional applications and enterprises. The integration with Sun will greatly extend the commercial appeal of MySQL's offerings and improve its value proposition with the addition of Sun's global services organization. MySQL will also gain new distribution through Sun's channels including its OEM relationships with Intel, IBM and Dell.

Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL, Developer of the World's Most Popular Open Source Database

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Teenager hacks Polish tram system

A 14 year-old schoolboy hacked into a Polish tram system and used a remote control to change the direction of a number of vehicles.

Transport employees in Lodz immediately suspected outside interference when a driver who was trying to turn right found his tram veering to the left.

The tram's back wagon was derailed and hit a passing tram. Another derailment injured 12 passengers.


Teenager hacks Polish tram system - Personal Computer World

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Hacking attack compromises thousands of sites

Tens of thousands of Web sites have been compromised by an automated SQL injection attack, and although some have been cleaned, others continue to serve visitors a malicious script that tries to hijack their PCs using multiple exploits, security experts said this weekend.

Hacked sites included both .edu and .gov domains, the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) reported in a warning posted last Friday. The ISC also reported that several pages of security vendor CA Inc.'s Web site had been infected.

Grisoft's Thompson said that his research had identified a 15-month-old vulnerability as one of those exploited by the attack code. The exploit, he said, targeted the MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components) bug patched in April 2006 with the MS06-014 security update. "They went to the trouble of preparing a good Web site exploit, and a good mass hack but then used a moldy old client exploit. It's almost a dichotomy," said Thompson.


IT Business

Friday, January 4, 2008

Sears puts customers' buying histories on the Web

Sears Holdings Corp. has come under fire from privacy advocates for making the purchase history of its customers publicly available on its Managemyhome.com Web site.

Manage My Home is a community portal where Sears shoppers can download product manuals, find product tips and get home renovation ideas.

The Web site has a feature called "Find your products" that lets users look up past purchases. Ostensibly, this is designed to help customers keep track of items they've bought from the retailer, but the site also lets them look up the purchase histories of other people.

"Sears offers no security whatsoever to prevent a Manage My Home user from retrieving another person's purchase history by entering that person's name, phone number and address," wrote Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, in a blog posting.



Sears puts customers' buying histories on the Web