Down but not out: Conficker camouflages new Windows infections

Windows PCs infected with Conficker are more likely to be compromised by other malware because the worm masks those secondary infections and makes those machines easier to exploit, a security expert said.

That's the biggest reason why Conficker, although crippled and seemingly abandoned by its makers, remains a threat and should be eradicated, said Rodney Joffe, senior technologist at Neustar and a cybersecurity adviser to the White House.

Virginia-based Neustar is an information and analytics provider, and one of the corporate members of the Conficker Working Group (CWG), which has been "sinkholing" the Conficker botnet for more than two years.

The Future of Science

Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Richard Price, founder and CEO of Academia.edu — a site that serves as a platform for academics to share their research papers and to interact with each other.

Almost every technological and medical innovation in the world has its roots in a scientific paper. Science drives much of the world’s innovation. The faster science moves, the faster the world moves.

Progress in science right now is being held back by two key inefficiencies:

The time-lag problem: there is a time-lag of, on average, 12 months between finishing a paper, and it being published.
The single mode of publication problem: scientists share their ideas only via one format, the scientific paper, and don’t take advantage of the full range of media that the web makes possible.
The stakes are high. If these inefficiencies can be removed, science would accelerate tremendously. A faster science would lead to faster innovation in medicine and technology. Cancer could be cured 2-3 years sooner than it otherwise would be, which would save millions of lives.

Foxconn Profit Down As Scrutiny Forces Corporate Changes

Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn saw its profits fall to $509 million from $1.19 billion last quarter. Chairman Terry Gou said this quarter was particularly affected by Foxconn’s recent image problem. Improvements in wages, worker benefits, and education accounted for some of the loss, although new iPad and iPhone 4S manufacturing bolstered income last quarter.


As a reaction to recent popular criticism on various fronts, the company increased wages by 25 percent this year and is planning to open a hospital and language schools for its employees.


Reuters reports that despite the fall in profit, top-rated Foxconn employees cheered vociferously at a party in Gou’s honor.

No, AirPlay Is Not The New Apple TV

Editor’s note: David McIntosh is the founder and CEO of Redux, a fast-growing video discovery company. Redux is the top downloaded app on Google TV, and you can read David’s other guest posts here.

If you asked your mom or dad what DLNA or UPnP stood for or did, would they just look at you weird? While the two technologies enable users to wirelessly beam content to Internet Connected TVs from their tablets, phones, and computers, Apple’s AirPlay is the first implementation that makes the experience seamless. Tap the button again and playback resumes on your root device. No complicated setup is required – it simply works.

Some, like Bloomberg and Hunter Walk, have suggested that AirPlay is Apple TV, and that Apple will simply license AirPlay to the major Connected TV manufactures – and by default every Connected TV sold will be an “Apple TV” – the remote being your iPhone or iPad. It’s certainly a sensible theory – there are 250 M+ iOS devices, and with the upcoming OS X update, laptops can now leverage Airplay as well. That’s over 300M Apple devices that can push content to TVs.

Facebook’s Patent Acquisitions? They’re More About Google Than Yahoo

Editor’s Note: Leonid (“Lenny”) Kravets is a patent attorney at Panitch, Schwarze, Belisario and Nadel, LLP in Philadelphia, PA. Lenny focuses his practice on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions in computer-related technology areas. He specializes in developing IP strategy for young technology companies and blogs on this topic at StartupsIP. Follow Lenny on Twitter: @lkravets and @startupsIP.

In the past few months, Facebook’s patent portfolio has grown exponentially as a result of acquisitions of patent portfolios from IBM and Microsoft. After acquiring 650 AOL patents and patent applications from Microsoft, the company now has approximately 1,400 patent assets. Amazingly, only 46 of these assets (24 issued patents and 22 published applications) were originally filed by Facebook.

Security experts: 600,000+ estimate of Mac botnet likely on target

Security experts today could not confirm claims by Doctor Web, a little-known Russian antivirus company, that more than 600,000 Macs have been infected with a zero-day-exploiting Trojan, but they said the number was within reason.

"Even though the number is very, very large, it seems correct," said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior researcher with Moscow-based antivirus company Kaspersky Lab. He added that Doctor Web's methodology looked spot-on.

Wednesday, Doctor Web estimated that more than half a million Macs had been infected with Flashback, a Trojan horse installed through drive-by attacks when users surf to compromised websites, making the ensuing collection of computers -- a "botnet" in security vernacular -- the largest ever for Apple's machine.

Google patches Chrome for second time in eight days

Google on Thursday patched 12 Chrome vulnerabilities, the second time in eight days that the search company has updated its browser.

Most of the vulnerabilities -- eight of the dozen -- were identified as "use-after-free" bugs, a common type of memory vulnerability that researchers have found in large numbers within Chrome using Google's own AddressSanitizer detection tool.

Seven of the 12 bugs were rated "high," the second-most-serious ranking in Google's scoring system. Four were marked "medium" and one was labeled "low."

Selling Digital Fear

The crowded building’s not on fire. After an exhaustive investigation of the top 100 Facebook apps, the Wall Street Journal didn’t find any serious privacy violations. While sensationalizing the dangers of online privacy sure drives page views and ad revenue, it also impedes innovation and harms the business of honest software developers.

Reality has yet to stop media outlets from yelling about privacy, and because the WSJ writers were on assignment, they wrote the “Selling You On Facebook” hit piece despite thin findings. These kind of articles can make mainstream users so worried about the worst-case scenario of what could happen to their data, they don’t see the value they get in exchange for it.

Apple and Facebook Should Be Terrified Of Google-Tinted Glasses

Google’s augmented reality eyewear is coming to disrupt your face and your business model. If you don’t even have to pull your phone out to take a photo, get directions, or message with friends, why would you need to buy the latest iPhone or spend so much time on Facebook?

It could be a year before Google eyewear reaches stores, but that’s why these and other tech companies need to strategize now. If they wait to see if the device is a hit, the world could be seeing through Google-tinted glasses by the time they adapt. Apple and Facebook’s bet might be to team up…

Google’s ‘Project Glass’ Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing

After weeks of speculation and rumors, Google has officially pulled back the curtain on what they have come to call Project Glass — a pair of augmented reality glasses that seek to provide users real-time information right in front of their eyes.

“We think technology should work for you — to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t,” wrote Babak Parviz, Steve Lee, and Sebastian Thrun, three Google employees who are part of the Google X skunkworks. “We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input.”