Hackers using Twitter used to manage botnet insists security expert

A security researcher has found that hackers are using Twitter as a means to distribute instructions to a network of compromised computers, known as a botnet.

The traditional way of managing botnets is using IRC, but botnet owners are continuously working on finding new ways of keeping their networks up and running, and Twitter seems to be the latest trick.

A now-suspended Twitter account was being used to post tweets that had links new commands or executables to download and run, which would then be used by the botnet code on infected machines, wrote Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks, on in a blog posting on Thursday.

"I spotted it because a bot uses the RSS feed to get the status updates," Nazario wrote.

The account, called "Upd4t3", is under investigation by Twitter's security team, according to Nazario. But the account is just one of what appear to be a handful of Twitter command and control accounts, Nazario wrote.

Botnets can, for example, be used to send spam or carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks, which Twitter itself became the victim of last week. The botnet Nazario found is "an infostealer operation," a type that can be used to steal sensitive information such as login credentials from infected computers.

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Building an Apple-1 replica from scratch

At KansasFest 2009, held July 21 to 26 in Kansas City, Mo., retrocomputing fans from around the world gathered to celebrate the Apple II, the computer that launched Apple Computer Inc. to fame.

But going back even further than that is the Apple-1 (a.k.a. the Apple I or the Apple 1), the machine Steve Wozniak invented and first demonstrated at the Palo Alto Homebrew Computer Club in 1976.

In attendance at KansasFest was Vince Briel, who has created an authorized reproduction of this classic machine. Briel's Replica 1 sells for $149 and comes as an unassembled kit. He held a workshop at KansasFest to help new owners put together their own working Apple-1 machines.

As a regular KansasFest attendee (and the conference's marketing director), I was one of his students. Follow along as I assemble a fully functional Apple-1 clone, as documented in these photos by Emily Kahm.

NEXT: 88 component parts

Continued... 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | NEXT >

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'Pointless Babble' makes up 40% of Twitter updates claims research

According to a new report that studied 2,000 tweets over a period of two weeks, 40 per cent of Twitter updates are "pointless babble."

Twitter recently redesigned its homepage - shifting from "What are you doing now?" to "Share and discover what's happening right now, anywhere in the world, indicating an attempt to become a real time news source.

Pear Analytics captured 200 English-language US tweets each half-hour from 11am - 5pm CST (6am -12pm GMT) daily.

It then categorized tweets into six different types: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversation, and pass-along value.

Mashable reports that the winner was "pointless babble" tweets - with 40.55 per cent fitting into the "I'm eating a sandwich now" category.

Conversational tweets came in a close second with 37.55 per cent. Pass-along value - retweets or RTs - were in third-place with only 8.7 per cent. Spam accounted for just 3.75 per cent of all tweets studied.

Other key results of the study included:

News tweets are heaviest at 2:00pm CST (9pm GMT) on TuesdaysPass-along value tweets are most frequently seen at 11:30am CST (7.30am GMT) on MondaysSpam tweets flow consistently all day, everydayConversational tweets are heaviest on TuesdaysPear will be conducting this same study every quarter to identify other trends in usage.

Read the full whitepaper here.

According to Quantcast.com these are Twitter's demographics as of June 2009:

Twitter reaches 27 million people per month in the US55 per cent are female43 per cent are between 18 and 3478 per cent Caucasian, but African American users are 35 per cent above InternetaverageAverage household income is between $30 and $60k1 per cent of the addicts contribute 35% of the visits72 per cent are passers by, while only 27 per cent are regular users

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Apple’s retro themed ad could reveal next-gen Mac tablet

According to local newspaper the Sierra Sun Apple shot footage for an advertisement at the Jax on the Tracks restaurant in Truckee, California on Tuesday afternoon.

The filming was reportedly hush hush as the product being promoted is yet to be released with many speculating it could be a first sighting of Apple’s long rumoured giant iPod touch or Apple tablet.

Taiwanese paper Apple Daily recently claimed a September release date for the device.

According to the far east report, Wintek has been commissioned to supply the screens and Foxconn has been commissioned to put together the chipset.

Jax on the Tracks owner Bud Haley said a location scout found his restaurant for the project. “Apple found us, they're trying to show us as a hip and cool spot for the 20-something crowd,” Haley said.

The restaurant is housed in an original 1940s diner next to Truckee's downtown railroad tracks, and promises honest food with a twist.

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Apple’s tablet could be worth $1.2 billion claims analyst

Apple's long rumoured tablet computer could be worth $1.2 billion to the company according to a leading analyst.

Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster issued a report to clients on Friday offering some speculative facts and figures suggesting the tablet has real revenue potential and not simply niche appeal.

Munster predicts the Apple tablet device will sell 2 million units in its first year, retailing for around $600 each, generating $1.2 billion in revenue.

The analyst also believes the tablet will be available early next year and not earlier as some rumours suggest.

"Last week we spoke with an Asian component supplier that has received orders from Apple for a touch-screen device to be fulfilled by late (calendar year) 09. This data point underscores our thesis that a tablet will likely launch in early (2010)," Munster writes.

This would contradict reports from last week, which claimed a September release date for the device. Apple traditionally announces new iPod ranges in September and the Apple tablet could be revealed at the same time.

Munster also believes the Apple tablet computer will be similar to an iPod touch, only obviously larger, with the ability to run most of the 70,000 plus applications on the Apple iPhone App Store, along with a new category of applications designed for the tablet's bigger screen.

"Apple could choose to simply run the current App Store apps on the larger device, with enough usable space for multiple apps to run (multi-tasking)," Piper Jaffray's report states.

"Key apps, like Safari and Mail, could be made larger to make use of the larger screen resolution, making Apple's tablet appealing for more extended use, and the company could continue to leverage its primary asset in mobile computing, the App Store, in this scenario. We believe this is the most likely scenario given the success of the multi-touch platform and the App Store ecosystem, which could be accelerated with a tablet device."

[Via AppleInsider]

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Swindon's Museum of Computing reopens Saturday 8 August

Eighteen months after it was forced to close by the withdrawal of the University of Bath from Swindon, the long-awaited re-opening of the UK’s first dedicated Museum of Computing takes place this Saturday 8 August.

The Museum of Computing is committed to the preservation and display of examples of early computers and is twice the size of its previous venue.

The Museum’s latest exhibition, with hundreds of exhibits traces the evolution of computing beyond the mainframe, through desktop PCs at work and at home, portables, arcade games, games consoles, handhelds and mobile devices.

The 'Computers at Work' exhibition includes the IBM PC and the Next Cube developed by Steve Jobs after he left Apple. This model was used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee to develop the World Wide Web.

'Computers on the Move' meanwhile highlights the miniaturisation of computer hardware with ‘luggables’ such as the 12kg Osborne, right down to a 1984 Psion Organiser 1 billed as the World’s first practical pocket computer.

Rare exhibits include a Science of Cambridge Mark 14 with a calculator style LED display, the first computer designed by Sir Clive Sinclair.

The museum loaned it to the BBC for filming 'The Syntax Era; The Story of Early British Home Computing' due to be screened in October. The programme covers the golden era of the 1980’s fight for the UK home computer market between Commodore, Atari, Amstrad, Sinclair and Acorn.

It especially features rivalry between Sir Clive Sinclair - ZX and Spectrum - and Chris Curry, his protg and former employee who headed up Acorn - BBC Micro. The Museum also has on show the Amstrad 464, Lord Alan Sugar’s computer of the same era.

The Museum of Computing is a not for profit company limited by guarantee and receives no government funding.

Admission fees are 7.00 for a family ticket for two adults and two children, 3.50 for adults, 3 for students and concessions, 2.50 for children 6-15, while children under 5 go free.

The Museum of Computing is in Swindon town centre at 6-7 Theatre Square, Swindon SN1 1QN, at the top of Regent Street opposite the new Central Library.

Full details can be found at www.museumofcomputing.org.uk.

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Nintendo admits sales slump due to iPhone

Apple's iPhone is behind a sharp drop in Nintendo's profits, according to the gaming company.

In a conference call about its financial results, a Nintendo representative claimed the DS and DSi were suffering, “due to harsher competition in the portable arena stemming directly from Apple devices,” reports the Mirror.

Nintendo's admission suggests that games from Apple’s App Store on the iPhone and iPod touch are weakening sales of the DS and DSi.

A sharp fall in global sales of Nintendo's popular Wii console and a less dramatic slowdown in sales of the portable DS pushed down the company's sales and profits in the April to June quarter, the company said on Thursday.

Nintendo said net profit for the three-month period was 42 billion (US$443 million as of the last day of the period being reported), down 61 percent on the same period last year, while sales dropped 40 percent to 253 billion.

Sales of the Wii dropped more than half compared to the same period last year to 2.2 million units during the quarter. The drop was largest in the Americas, where unit sales fell 65 percent, and in Japan, where they declined by 60 percent. Unit sales in other markets, including Europe, fell 47 percent, Nintendo said.

In the handheld market, the company saw unit sales of its DS drop on the same period last year by a million units to 6 million.

Nintendo developed a new version of the DS, called the DSi, in response to falling sales and launched it in Japan late last year. The DSi was introduced to Europe and the Americas at the beginning of April but sales during the quarter were still lower than the same period last year. They only rose in Nintendo's home market of Japan.

In addition to the lower unit sales Nintendo was also hit by the Japanese yen, which has strengthened against both the U.S. dollar and euro since the April to June quarter of last year. The strong yen increases the price of its products that are made in Japan and also reduces the value of sales and profits made overseas when that money is returned to Japan.

Software sales for both the Wii and DS also fell. Nintendo said 29 million Wii games and 31 million DS games were sold during the period. Those figures represent declines of 20 percent and 23 percent respectively against the same period last year. Nintendo attributed the drop to fewer hit titles being released during the quarter.

For the April to March 2010 fiscal year Nintendo said it expects to record a net profit of 300 billion on sales of 1.8 trillion. The figures are unchanged on forecasts made earlier. Last year Nintendo achieved a net profit of 279 billion on sales of 1.84 trillion.

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