Worlds First Webpage Reborn, 20 Years of WWW

On 30 April 1993 a statement was published that would change the lives of all future generations, in almost evey corner of the globe.  An offer to make a new technology freely available, a technology that today  runs everything from Electricity Grids to Facebook.

The worlds first web server, web page and all it’s code was given to the world in the hope that sharing might eccelerate our learning, www has accomplished that and a bunch more.

20 years later: 30 April 2013, and the world’s first web page is being dragged out of cyber-mothballs and upgraded for today’s internet browsers as part of a project to celebrate 20 years of the world wide  web. The team behind the project – CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research is also considering creating an emulator that could run the original web browser :: Read the full article »»»»

UPDATE! LulzSec Leader Arrested In Australia

The self-proclaimed leader of international hacking group Lulz Security has been arrested by AFP – Australian Federal Police – on the New South Wales central coast. The AFP says the 24-year-old man was arrested in the Gosford suburb of Point Clare yesterday.

He has been charged with two counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment and one count of unauthorised access to a restricted computer system. The AFP says he claims to be in charge of Lulz Security, or LulzSec, which has previously claimed responsibility for high-profile hacking attacks, includinga DDS attack that took the CIA website offline, and a hack which caused some serious headaches for Sony Corp.

AFP is alleging that the 24 year old IT worker hacked an Australian Government website site last month, the man has been bailed to appear in court later this year.

In June last year the hack-group allegedly broke into Australian Government departments, universities and schools. Some of the targets included AusAid, Victorian Government departments and local councils in Victoria and New South Wales. The group bragged over the Aussie hack, saying in a Twitter post,  ”Releasing 62,000 possible account combinations is the loot for creative minds to scour; think of it like digging a very unique mineshaft.” At the time LulzSec claimed more than 5,000 people had downloaded the leaked files.

Passwords for email accounts within eight Australian universities were leaked, along with the log-ins for two high schools in Queensland and Melbourne. The 24-year-old man is the first alleged member of the group to be charged by the AFP UPDATED :: Read the full article »»»»

UPDATE! Apple, Microsoft and Adobe Front Australian Parliamentary Inquiry

Australia’s parliamentary inquiry into consumer electronics and IT pricing has heard testimony from Apple, Microsoft and Adobe, the testimony however failed to impress. Australia consumers pay up to 90 per cent more for some of the most commonly required IT products, the trap of course is that programs like Adobe’s Photoshop are essential, irreplaceable tools in many businesses. The price discrepancies rely heavily on an enthusiastic abuse of copyright and a heavy handed approach to geo-blocking.

The price gouging by some of the planets largest companies led the parliamentary inquiry to take the unusual step of forcing Apple, Microsoft and Adobe – The Big Three – to front up and explain their obscene pricing policies. The inquiry issued a threatening summons to the world’s technology behemoths, demanding they answer accusations. Committee chairman Nick Champion says the inquiry has heard from many Australian consumers and organisations frustrated at the prices charged for digitally downloaded software, computer games, music, movies, and e-books. Matt Levey, head of campaigns for independent consumer organisation Choice, says Australian consumers should not have to pay so much more.

Microsoft, which employs 800 people in Australia, says attempts to compare absolute prices across different counties is of limited use because there are a range of regional factors that need to be taken into account. The company says it provides recommended retail prices for its products that take into account various market forces, such as the size of the market, and the consumers willingness to pay. Adobe, which sells a wide range of consumer and professional software packages, says most of its business in Australia is conducted through third parties which incur local costs. Adobe told the commission that it charges an extra $1,000 to download software in Australia because it offers a local, bespoke experience, while Apple blames local copyright holders for its iTunes prices, which are 50 per cent higher than in the United States. The inquiry heard examples of an Arctic Monkeys album costing $17.99 on iTunes in Australia but the equivalent of $13 overseas, and the movie Toy Story costing $24.99 in Australia but $10 overseas :: Read the full article »»»»

Googles Ghost-town Tours, Fukushima Nuclear Wastelands via Googlemaps/Streetview

Internet behemoth Google has launched a virtual tour through the nuclear wasteland surrounding Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

Virtual tourists can now take an eery tour through the deserted streets of Namie, one of the towns abandoned after the Fukushima meltdowns spewed radioactive fallout across a large area.

The site reveals streets overgrown with weeds, and time appears to have stood still since Namie’s entire population of 21,000 people was evacuated two years ago.

Fifty percent of the town on the Pacific coast sits within the 20-kilometre evacuation zone around the nuclear plant, which was crippled by Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami :: Read the full article »»»»

UPDATE! Chinese Military Hack Attacks Might Originate in NORTH KOREAN

Last month we reported that security experts from Mandiant believed a Chinese military unit was responsible for multiple hack attacks on US companies. Mandiant released a report that identified ‘Unit 61398′ as the most likely source of attacks on at least US 141 organisations, “across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006″.

“The nature of ‘Unit 61398′s’ work is considered by China to be a state secret; however, we believe it engages in harmful ‘Computer Network Operations’,” Mandiant said in the report. ”It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively.”

The Mandiant report said that Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai’s Pudong district, China’s financial and banking hub, and staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations.

There are now suspicions that the facility might be shared with North Korean backed hackers? An unnamed source from South Korea’s presidential office was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying the discovery of the IP address indicated Pyongyang was responsible for the attack on Wednesday. A previous attack on a South Korean newspaper that the government in Seoul traced back to North Korea also used a Chinese IP address :: Read the full article »»»»