Monday Tech News
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on December 28, 2004 at 3:54:13 AM
phpBB virus spreads with search engine help.
AOL sees decline in spam from its members.
Holiday online sales strong.
An asteriod may hit us! In 2037.
Hacking the RCA cable modem.
IPv6 network opens in China.
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After Google took measures to prevent the worm from executing Google searches for the faulty bulletin board software, Santy variants are making the rounds using AOL and Yahoo search, according to security firms, and are still targeting Google as well.
AOL sees decline in spam from its members.
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As of November, the online unit of Time Warner received an average of 2.2 million complaints each day from its more than 24 million subscribers, down from 11 million complaints in the same period last year. The daily average number of e-mails blocked by AOL's spam filters fell 50 percent to about 1.2 billion e-mails in late 2004 from a peak of 2.4 billion in 2003.
Holiday online sales strong.
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According to ComScore Networks, online sales through the middle of last week reached $13.5 billion, a 28 percent increase from last year's holiday season. ComScore had expected growth of between 23 percent and 26 percent, while other firms, like Jupiter Research, had predicted a 19 percent rise in sales. Those forecasts were consistent with the idea that the days of breakaway online retail sales growth in the United States were nearing an end.
An asteriod may hit us! In 2037.
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It's now official. NASA's Near Earth Objects page lists 2004 MN4, the asteroid that's been covered on slashdot recently, as having a 1 in 56,000 chance of hitting earth, and even then only in 2037. It seems that earth was near the edge of the cone of probability of when it could go. As the cone kept closing, the probability of hitting earth grew, but it kept getting closer to the edge. It's now outside the cone, and we can be safe.
Hacking the RCA cable modem.
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This is a very interesting hack that takes place. By grounding the address pin, the modem will not be able to Read or Write data to the EEPROM. The modem will panic and give you a diagnostic console.
IPv6 network opens in China.
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"We were a learner and follower in the development of the first generation Internet, but we have caught up with world's leaders in the next-generation Internet, become a first mover, and won respect and attention from the international community," said Wu Jianping, director of the expert committee of the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) and a mastermind in the development of the next-generation Internet in China.