John Lister

For eighteen minutes in April, around 15 per cent of all Internet traffic was incorrectly routed through Chinese-controlled servers. Nobody knows what was behind the move, but a US government agency suspects foul play. According to the US-China ... Economic and Security Review Commission, the incident involves servers belonging to China Telecom. That's the largest telecommunications company in China; it used to be government controlled but is now partially independent. The incident, which the commission described as "hijacking", involves the way Internet traffic travels between the computers ... (view more)

A group of cyber-security experts told US lawmakers Wednesday that American facilities could be the next target of the Stuxnet virus . The Stuxnet virus made headlines this past summer when it infected USB memory sticks and attacked Siemens ... industrial automation systems. Security experts believe that the virus went beyond the work of an individual prankster and was instead a sinister "game changer". That's because unlike most viruses, which aim either to merely cause disruption or to make money through stealing data or by redirecting web browsers to pay-per-click ads, Stuxnet is ... (view more)

While Windows 7 is doing well among home users, adoption by businesses remains comparably slow. But one research company has an interesting idea for how that might change: it thinks workers used to the system on their home PCs might pressure ... employers to upgrade. While around one in five XP and Vista users overall switched to Windows 7 in its first year (ending October 22), only one in ten businesses are currently running the system. About 75 per cent still use XP. When Windows 7 first debuted, there was some debate about how rapidly businesses would adopt it. On the one hand, many companies ... (view more)

A Chinese "supercomputer" has been confirmed as the fastest in the world, the first time the country has taken the honor. But the United States is currently working on two machines that could be 10 times faster. The ranking comes from the TOP500 ... project, which produces a list twice a year to show how quickly computers have been proven to work for a sustained period. This is usually much lower than the computer's theoretical maximum speed (which is used in the rare case of tiebreak situations). Japanese, American Dominance Ends Since the list began in 1993, only the United States and Japan ... (view more)

Imagine sitting in front of your computer and using hand gestures to control your PC. In the 2002 blockbuster movie "Minority Report," Tom Cruise did just that as he sifted through wads of information using his hands and a 3D computer screen. Fast ... forward to the 2010, and we are on the brink of using similar technology at home, but it's still officially under wraps. Hands-Free Video Game Controller Used on Microsoft Windows Recently, two hackers have found a way to use Microsoft's new Kinect controller-free video game peripheral on a Windows computer rather than an Xbox 360. Whether ... (view more)

Google plans to bar other companies from accessing information in its Gmail service, even with user permission. There's suspicion the scheme is designed to increase competition between Google and social media services such as Facebook. Facebook is ... actually one the best examples of how the change will apply in action. At the moment, when a new user signs up to the site, Facebook asks if they want to import their contacts list from their email account. If they do so, Facebook then cross-references this list, finds anyone who is already on Facebook, and asks if the user wants to add them as an ... (view more)

Microsoft has announced a temporary workaround for users of older editions of Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerable to a new bug. The situation yet again highlights the importance of upgrading to the more secure, recent editions (IE8 and IE9) of the ... browser. The bug's dynamics are all-too-familiar: if a hacker persuades a user to visit a specially-crafted webpage, they'll be able to install and run malicious software on the user's computer. It's another zero day attack , meaning the problem is currently being exploited by hackers before Microsoft has a working fix. Browser Check First, Virus ... (view more)

Five portable devices have become the first certified as 'WiFi Direct,' a new system designed to rival Bluetooth in making it easy to connect devices without wires. At the moment, most WiFi-enabled devices can only connect through a router. The ... alternative is to use a tool in Windows known as an ad-hoc network connection, but this is difficult to establish and often unstable. While that's fine for home and office environments, it's of little use to business users on the road. It's also tricky to use with devices such as phones and digital cameras. The main solution to that problem has been ... (view more)

Adobe has revealed that there is a critical zero day bug in its Flash Player, Acrobat and Adobe Reader applications. As well as potentially causing a crash, the bug could allow an attacker to remotely take control of a computer. A zero day bug means ... big trouble for a software developer. It occurs where hackers have discovered a security hole in a program and are actively sharing ways to exploit it before developers know it exists. The term " Zero day " refers to the start of the period during which hackers are able to exploit the bug before the developers produce and distribute a ... (view more)

Facebook says it has discovered that some application ("app") developers have been deliberately selling user information for the intention of third-party marketing, and has responded by banning a list of developers from the site for six months. A ... similar breach was reported in a Facebook investigation last month . In that case, a technical error in the way developers used the information provided by Facebook meant they were revealing the user IDs of members who used the relevant applications, such as games. It's important to note this is simply Facebook's own reference number for ... (view more)