Could Wikia Search be a serious rival to Google?

By Mark O’Neill

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is hoping that the Wikipedia magic will rub off on his latest project – to build a user community “wiki” search engine – unimaginatively called “Wikia Search“.

The search engine has been in existence for quite a while. I have had an beta invite to look at it and poke around at it with others, but yesterday marked the first time that anyone could participate without an invite. In fact, before today, I hadn’t taken a look at the search engine in quite a while and I was really pleasantly surprised at how far the project had come. But after putting in a few search terms, it’s clear the search engine still needs a lot of work done to it.

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Crazy Russian Office Worker Goes on Rampage

Warning: the following footage contains scenes of extreme violence and has apparently happened just a few days ago in one of Moscow’s official newspaper offices.

Edit: We just got our hands on additional footage of the scene. If anyone speaks russian here, a translation would be appreciated.



JJ Abrams’ new TV series – and it starts on a plane!

By Mark O’Neill

It’s the hotly anticipated new TV series of 2008. It’s written and created by JJ Abrams (creator and writer of “Lost” and “Alias”) so the hype is big. Also like “Lost”, it starts on a plane.

“Fringe”, which starts on August 26th on Fox, is all about Flight 627 which lands at Boston Airport with every passenger dead from a flesh eating virus.   Enter the FBI to investigate.

Of course being JJ Abrams, it won’t be long before we are knee-deep in X-Files-style government conspiracies, people dying left right and center….expect a great TV series as “Lost” starts to wind down.   Let’s just hope though that Fox doesn’t cancel it in favour of another reality show.

FBI Warns Wi-Fi Users to be Wary of Public Hot Spots

Top 10 Nations with Wi-Fi Hot Spots

With the increasing amount of WiFi hot spots everywhere, the FBI is warning people to be careful when connecting to unknown wireless networks. Without the proper protection, it is fairly easy for a villain to capture information broadcasted from your system while being connected to a rogue or compromised access point. Since most laptops are configured to automatically connect to the strongest signal they can find by default, users are often unaware of the owner of the network they connect to, turning their “free” public internet connection into a very costly experience.

Here’s something else to consider: there are 68,000 Wi-Fi “hot spots” in the U.S. (see the graphic below for the top Wi-Fi countries), at airports, coffee shops, hotels, bookstores, schools, and other locations where hundreds or thousands of people pass through every day. While many of these hot spots have secure networks, some do not, according to Supervisory Special Agent Donna Peterson of our Cyber Division. And connecting to an unsecure network can leave you vulnerable to attacks from hackers. (Source: FBI)

To protect yourself against these attacks, there is one simple solution: Disable the automatic connection feature of your wireless client software. Here’s how to do it in Windows XP:

  1. Open your control panel and double click “network connections”
  2. Right click on your “Wireless Network Connection” entry, and click properties
  3. Select the Wireless Networks tab
  4. If “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings” isn’t selected, it probably means you are using a third-party wireless client. If this is the case, you’ll have to consult the product’s documentation to learn about how to disable the feature.
  5. Under Preferred networks, select the top choice and click advanced
  6. Select “Access point (Infrastructure) networks only”
  7. Uncheck the “Automatically connect to non-preferred networks” box

  8. Click on the “close” button.
  9. Click on “OK”

Voilà! From now on, you’ll have to manually connect to any network that has not been added to the “preferred networks” list in your wireless connection properties window. For some, this will look to be more of a hassle than anything, but hey, you know what they say, better be safe than sorry!

New Technology Hides Messages in Internet Phone Calls

By JR Raphael
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

A couple of Polish scientists have come up with a way to encode secret messages within the data of internet-based VoIP calls.

The men, from the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, designed a steganographic system — a special kind of code that allows content to be encrypted inside of other content, unbeknownst to anyone else. The idea has been used before to encode information within an image that can then be detected using specialized software, but the scientists say their work would be the first time encryption has been used in an audio-based phone call.

One of the researchers explained the process to New Scientist Magazine (subscription required):

“You replace some of the voice data packets that you are sending with the hidden message. This is possible because VoIP uses a data transmission routine called the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Unlike the more familiar TCP, which delivers web pages and emails, UDP does not guarantee that packets will arrive in the same order they were sent. They may arrive out of order, be duplicated, or simply go missing. The fact that the voice message can survive when VoIP packets are lost means that some of them can be used for another message: the hidden one.”

The pair is now working to further control the effect the hidden messages have on the call’s audio quality to make sure the process stays undetected. So how would this technology be used? The scientists say it’s open to interpretation.

“Whether we treat VoIP covert channels as a potential threat to network security or as a mean to improve VoIP functionality, we must accept the fact that the number of information that we can covertly transfer is significant,” the researchers concluded.

ObamaHillary.com – prudent investment or worthless?

By Mark O’Neill

While Senator Barack Obama FINALLY moves towards to the Democratic presidential nomination and the TV talking heads speculate endlessly about his Vice-Presidential running mate, one domain name reseller has already decided who it will be – and he’s got the domain up for sale on eBay for a bargain basement $5000.

Don Bowman sits at home, watches TV and comes up with domain names that might prove to be valuable. His latest one is ObamaHillary.com because he is convinced that Senator Obama has the former First Lady on speed dial and will call her up sometime soon to invite her on the ticket. That’s when his domain’s value will shoot through the roof and he will rake in the cash. Ah-hah.

I don’t know what you think, but to me, domain name speculation is a very hit and miss affair. It’s just like going to the bookmakers and putting your money on the horses, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.  Buying domain names and trying to predict the future isn’t much different.

But I think we can assume in this case, the horse isn’t going to come in.

Hat Creek Radio Observatory about to start

By Mark O’Neill

In what is being touted as a “new switchboard for aliens“, the 42 telescope dishes at Hat Creek Radio Observatory will soon kick into action.

When the full 350 telescope dish display is finished in a few years time – initially funded by $30 million from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – it will be the biggest extra-terrestrial search station ever in the world.

But problems are already cropping up.   Allen’s $30 million is already gone and they need a further $40 million to finish the rest of the dishes.    So they are having to resort to tacky “Adopt a Scientist” schemes to raise the extra money as the government isn’t going to rush in and write them a check.

It’s a sad day when science and exploration gets pushed to the back of the line in favour of billions getting pumped into pointless wars in the Middle East.