DATA RECOVERY FROM RAM?

1. If any one can just throw some light or post a link to any matter that exists on the web pertaining to limitations/possibilities of recovery of data from RAM inside a computer?

2. Thanks.

WiFi at home : Take precautions

1. Accessing WiFi at home is no more limited to tech geeks as the simple configuration has made it accessible to even a layman who hardly has any know how of how it works and what are the dangers floating around if he goes with the default settings.The two year back case of a hacker emailing from an open WiFi account in Mumbai reflects the deep dangers associated with such mishaps.Following are a set of desirable config changes any WiFi account holder at home and office whould take care of while configuring.....

Step 1: Change the default password

Step: 2: Change the default IP address

Step 3: Disable the DHCP service

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) enables remote computers connected to the router to obtain an IP address and join the network without needing to know the IP and router address information. This is a simple and effective way of keeping intruders away. As far as possible, set up the computers on your network with static IP addresses. If you still want to use DHCP to make your own configuration easier, restrict the number of DHCP IP users to the number of computers on your network. For example, if you have five laptops running on the network, limit the DHCP IP addresses to 5 from the default 50.

Step 4: Restrict the network mode

Step 5: Change the default SSID

Step 6: Opt for WPA2 or PSK security over WEP

Step 7: Enable the MAC Filter

Step 8: Use the router’s firewall

Step 9: Use Internet Access Policies

Step 10: Disable remote administration

Step 11: Switch off the router when not in use

Step 12: Disconnect the Internet when not needed

Step 13: Position your router carefully

Step 14: Update the router firmware

Step 15: Scan for signal leaks from time to time

2. Also check out here.Thanks http://www.freealldown.com

CLEAR PLAY & DVD PLAYERs : E-CENSOR

1. A new technology that can CENSOR ALL POTENTIALLY UNSAVORY SCENES of a movie, making it watchable with children at home is all set to introduce it self to the parents.It invariably happens across the homes when one family sits down to watch a movie on a DVD thinking there’s nothing up ahead likely to cause embarrassment, only to find the stars undressing and making the set of family watching the movie awkward.

2. ClearPlay (patented) comes to the rescue in all such cases.This is an advanced parental control feature that allows filtering of regular DVD movies. ClearPlay is a technology that allows the users to skip over or mute undesirable content such as profanity, graphic violence, and adult content.

3. A ClearPlay-enabled DVD player is required, along with what are called Filter files. These files, which are created by ClearPlay editors, will know where the possibly unwanted content is located, even to the exact frame. This allows the ClearPlay DVD player to block offensive or undesirable content during playback of the DVD. The choice is also made available to watch the film in its original form, by turning the filtering off.

4. ClearPlay allows users to customize what they want to skip. There are twelve categories of content that can be filtered and with four different levels (none, implied, explicit and graphic).These categories include: Violence, Sex, Nudity and Vulgarity. You will also see a list, before the movie starts, of possibly questionable content that ClearPlay will not remove depending on the movie, scene and/or situation.

5. Thanks http://technochest.com

DANGEROUS PASSWORDS

1. According to a recent study,most dangerous passwords used across the cyber fora and continents are listed below :

123456

Tops the list.The study reveals that '123456' is the most ordinarily used password. Imperva found that nearly 1% of the 32 million people it studied were using "123456" as a password.

12345

The second most vulnerable password is 12345

123456789

Stands at a proud 3rd position

PASSWORD

The fourth most vulnerable password is the word 'Password' itself

iloveyou

Another easy one for remembrance and breaking.

princess

Stands at 6th position

Rockyou

The seventh most compromising password is 12345

1234567

Rockyou is followed by 1234567 at No 8

abc123

the last one as per study....

2. How many of you have or had from the list?be carefullllllllllllllllllllllll

3. Thanks Imperva and TOI.

MOZZILA Firefox & GERMANY

1. In another notable policy implementation involving IT aspect and signifying the importance of browser ,German government and administration has suggested computer users not to use Firefox and run an alternative browser instead, because of a critical security demerit. It has recommended that PC users stop using Firefox till Mozilla releases a fix.

2. The advice is based on studies and recommendations of BurgerCERT,a division of German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology. The reason why Germany is evoking such ostensibly forceful action is based on the presence of a critical vulnerability in currently available versions of Firefox that could be exploited by hackers to launch malicious code on users' computers.

3. For its part, Mozilla has acknowledged the security vulnerability, and has released the latest version of its Firefox web browser ahead of schedule because of security vulnerabilities found in earlier versions.Firefox 3.6.2 was due to launch at the end of March, but is already available to download from the Mozilla website.

4. Any advises or thoughts from the MOD(IT) INDIA.....none!!!!!!

5. Thanks http://www.computerweekly.com

Consequences of Google's China Exit

1. This is a uncoiled lift from http://www.theatlanticwire.com.I thought worth putting it in here.For original post please click here.

2. The post has shown the following 4 consequences of exit :

(a) Cripples the Work of Chinese Scientists

A Nature News survey of Chinese scientists found that 84 percent of them thought losing access to Google would “somewhat or significantly” hurt their work process. Like their American counterparts, Chinese researchers use Google and Google Scholar to find papers and related information.

“Research without Google would be like life without electricity,” one Chinese scientist toldNature... If events do continue in that direction, truly global enterprises like science could suffer as information becomes harder — even if only moderately — to exchange.

(b)

Puts the Onus on China to Liberate the Internet

Puts the Onus on China to Liberate the Internet

, says Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology: "[We applaud] Google for following through on its commitment to protect human rights and for its continued effort to enable China's people with unfiltered access to robust sources of information from all over the world. Whether the Chinese people will be able to take advantage of Google search now rests squarely with the Chinese government."

(c) Fully Exposes China's Censorship

Fully Exposes China's Censorship, writes Dan Nosowitz at Fast Company: "Google almostexpects China to block the crap out of the redirect. They'll even be creating a new site to monitor exactly how much of their new services are being forcibly blocked by the Chinese government, updated daily. Google is also showing a little concern about the future of its 600-person sales staff in China, and issuing a bit of a challenge to the Chinese government: if they shut down the redirect to Google HK, Google will have to lay off a percentage of its sales team, as they'll not be needed."

(d) Cleanses Google's Reputation

Cleanses Google's Reputation, cheers Preston Gralla at Computer World: "China will become the world's largest Internet market, and in taking this step, Google is endangering its standing there. True, it only has a relatively small market share at this point, but that would have changed over time, and even a relatively small market share of a large market means a lot of revenue. It's rare that a tech company --- or any company, for that matter --- takes a stand this principled, and Google should be congratulated for it. Other tech companies, notably Apple and Microsoft, should follow suit, although all signs point to them continuing to cooperate with Chinese censors."

3. Thanks http://www.theatlanticwire.com

GOOGLE finally is OFF from China

1. In my earlier post at this,this and this,the subject matter was under decision making....finally the result is out....Monday night, the cyberspace gargantuan shut its Chinese site and repositioned its search engine services to unexpurgated Hong Kong after two months of confrontation with Beijing over censorship and alleged hacking attacks.

2. The decision has its set of PROs & CONs....this will allow opportunity for others to make an attempt to compete with google which has largely overshadowed the cyber space to a large extent with discussions like one discussed for Data retention policy between Google and Bing.This is going to make China lesser dependent on Google for a large number of things which unknowingly we all have become used to.This will disallow google to retain data as per their existing policies from the complete area of CHINA unlike others who are happily allowing them to retain all data and surfing habits.....now for the CONs....Chinese will not be able to search with the precision they used to(...although will be a temporary phase...they may come up with something better....)...is that the only CON??????I feel it is worth it!!!!!!!!!

3. Indian Sarkaaar....pls let your IT IQ refresh........thanks http://images.smh.com.au and http://www.hindustantimes.com

LIQUID COOLING IS IN - FOR CPUs & GPUs

1. I heard about water cooling concept in servers specific to data centers some years back.With induction of i3 and

continuing high end series, water cooling kits are no more visualization and futuristic components of enthusiast and fancier machines. Now water cooling is all set to reach your desktops.Thus with the execution levels of the core components increasing, keeping the heat levels under control has no more remained as a challenge.

2. The Aquagate Max is the first Enthusiast System Architecture (ESA) simpatico liquid cooling kit which allows some amazing features . With multicontrol connected sensors located all around inside the case the architecturte design eliminates the need to manually check that it works properly.Together with the Cooler Master Cosmos ESA case it allows the advantage of being able to mount the liquid cooling kit inside the system case with no external parts. More from figure below

3. Thanks http://www.coolermaster.com

OS CARD : For now just an idea sirjeeeeeeee!!!

1. Recently I came across this interesting idea article which introduced me to the OS Card.....yess...the operating system card....read on for some interesting info

(a) The "OS Card" would be inbuilt with a independant operating system that is installed or flashed onto a PCI-E card for computers.

(b) Complete operating system such as Windows/solaris/ubuntu etc would come preloaded one of these cards. Instead of booting and running your OS from your local hard drive, it would run most of the OS from the PCI-E card.

(c) The card would be read only, protecting vital system files from malware such as trojans or viruses. A small number of system files that would require read and write functions would be copied to your local hard drive where they could be modified and read by the card.

2. What would this do? For amateurs it would make installing an operating system much easier. Instead of having to deal with CDs, DVDs and serial numbers a person would simply buy the card and put it in their computer.

3. The best thing to be curbed is that this would be able to put a serious incision in piracy of operating systems. Furthermore, it would free up a considerable amount of space on your hard drive.

4. The OS Card could come with it's own independent CPU and Memory (RAM), which would completely remove the need for an operating system's system requirements. This would most likely speed up all other processes and events being run on the computer now that system processes are now no longer hogging PC resources.As on date some info on related product at http://www.gi-de.com

5. What an idea sirjeeeeeeee@ http://www.creativitypool.com

Search Web by FACE recognition - Work is ON!!!: ONE ALBUM

1. Microsoft Israel Innovation Labs is currently working on ONEALBUM ,a project under development, that uses face-recognition technology to search for photos

2. "OneAlbum" scans faces that regularly appear in a user's OneAlbum photo collection, then searches his social networks (Facebook,Orkut, Windows Live and others) for more photos of these people. It then automatically finds relevant photos in other albums on the Internet and brings them to the user's album, and shows them side-by-side with his photos. Not only facial recognition, but OneAlbum also involves event-matching technology by analysing the people, dates, colours, and textures in a set of photos and will recognise these photos as being taken in on the same event.

3. Little confusing in the first reading.....what I understood is like one will be able to find a same persons photo when u bing(.. google)....so u put ur photo in the search bar and press enter...there u r......u see all content results of same person.....difficult to believe but....will be available soon in coming years!!!!

4. Thanks http://www.liveside.net

The Journey from MB to GB : Pen Drives

1. I bought my first pen drive in the year 2004 at a price of Rs 42oo/- and the capacity was a whoooping 256 MB....yeah that was so high those days.....today i came across a link to Kingston that has recently launched the world’s first 256GB Pen drive.The new pen drive is DataTraveller 300 USB Flash Drive.

2. I know the next thing that comes to mind is what about the cost?......the cost is just Rs 48000/-(i heard this is approx).

3. Thanks http://www.newtechnology.co.in

Intel® Core™ i3 Processor & Server 2003

1. Strange are the ways sometimes when we get troubled by the PC.In an attempt to upgrade one of the PCs to Intel® Core™ i3 Processor,I found a problem I never thought of.

2. Now just to give u a small brief,I have a small office complex with about 15 computers on Server 2003 which was running fine till one day when i just decided to upgrade my server machine to Intel® Core™ i3 Processor.I bought the combo pack of this processor with its motherboard for about 11k,i assembled it and started with the setup of server 2003.....started nicely but this would never install completly in my 'N' number of attempts and would hang halfways.....then i thought like Murphy is acting fine with me and their is some problem with the processor motherboard hardware...so replaced the same pack with a new one..but the problem persisted....i contacted the local dealer,surprised with the problem he himself attempted the same but met with the same end.....

3. I changed my installation CDs ,still met with the same problem...finally I could arrive that there may be some compatibility issue between server 2003 & Intel® Core™ i3 Processor.........and reverted back to core 2 duo,the earlier one.

4. I would request readers to augment their comments, if any, with such a problem being faced anywhere else.

SVCHOST.EXE vs SCVHOST.EXE

1. Two approximately similar names but with poles apart function and reason to exist.If ever you have tried cleaning or accessing an infected pen drive you must have come across these names in the file names list.I would just try and make the difference clear in brief below.

2. SCVHOST.EXE is a process which is registered as W32/Agobot-S virus. This Trojan allows attackers to access your computer from remote locations, stealing passwords, Internet banking and personal data. This process is a security risk and should be removed from your system.

3. SVCHOST.EXE is located in the System32 folder and is an built-in part of Windows OS. It cannot be stopped or restarted manually. This process manages 32-bit DLLs and other services. At startup, Svchost.exe checks the services portion of the registry and constructs a list of services that it needs to load. Under normal conditions, multiple instances of Svchost.exe will be running simultaneously. Each Svchost.exe session can contain a grouping of services, so that many services can be run depending on how and where Svchost.exe is started. This allows for better control and debugging.

4. I hope this amply makes the difference clear

How to avoid an infected USB/PEN Drive?

1. The most common way for a virus to infect a healthy PC is through USB/Flash drives. Common viruses such as 'Ravmon' , 'New Folder.exe', etc spread through USB/flash drives . Invariably, anti virus programs are unable to detect them and even if they do, in most cases they are unable to delete the file, only quarantine it. Following are a step by step easy to do instruction

(a) A window appears similar to the one shown below…

(b) Don't click on Ok , just choose 'Cancel'.

(c) Open the Command Prompt by typing 'cmd' in the run box.

(d) In the command prompt type the drive letter: and press enter . Now type dir /w/a and press enter.

(e) This will display a list of the files in the Flash drive or Hardisk. Check whether the following files are there or not

(i) Autorun.inf

(ii) Ravmon.exe

(iii) New Folder.exe

(iv) svchost.exe

(v) Heap41a

(vi) or any other .exe which may be suspicious.

(f) If any of the above files are there, then probably the USB drive is infected.

(g) In command prompt type attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter. This will remove the Read Only, Archive, System and hidden file attribute from all the files.

(h) Now just delete the files using the command del filename. example del Ravmon.exe. Delete all the files that are suspicious. To be on a safer side, just scan the USB drive with a latest anti-virus program like McAfee or TrendMicro's PCCillin to check whether it is free of virus or not. Now remove the drive and plug it again. In most of the cases, the real culprit turns out to be the "Autorun.inf" file which mostly gets executed when someone clicks Ok in the dialog window which appears above. Thus the infections invariably spreads...but not if u take these precautions as mentioned above.

2. Thanks http://www.howtodothings.com

Steganography : Hide in a JPEG/BMP

1. Steganography is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one,apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message, a form of security through obscurity while Cryptography is the practice and study of hiding information.

2. The advantage of steganography, over cryptography alone, is that messages do not attract attention to themselves. Plainly visible encrypted messages no matter how unbreakable will arouse suspicion,therefore, whereas cryptography protects the contents of a message,steganography can be said to protect both messages and communicating parties.

3. Just for how it works..i tried one free Steganography software "Invisible Secrets" that allows one to encrypt and hide files in other files (carriers) which are not suspect of encryption (JPG, PNG, BMP).The link I downloaded from can be accessed by clicking here.

4. Now this is a small 1.8 MB software good enough to do the job.The file u see below of golden temple is just not a jpeg,it consists of a text file with a message...the password to access the text file is 12_34....for those of u who r interested to experiment

5. The scope of utility involves provisioning solutions to the following queries of any user across :

(a) Are you afraid that someone else can see your sensitive and secret data stored on your computer ?

(b) Are you afraid that hackers or other people can penetrate your system and find your valuable information ?

(c) Your wife, boss and kids can see what you used the internet for?

(d) You have many passwords in your mind or spread all over your computer and you can't organize them?

(e) You want to send a secure email to your friend or partner and you want nobody to read or to access it?

(f) You want to password protect certain applications to be used only by you? Do you want them not to be visible in the Start Menu, but still have quick access to them?

(g) You want to delete an email or a file but you think someone else can restore it and use it against you ?

(h) You want to combine file encryption with steganography (hide files and folders) to better protect your documents and emails?

(j) You want to hide files on your computer so that nobody finds them?

6. Thanks http://www.invisiblesecrets.com