Microsoft probes anti-spyware Trojan

Microsoft is investigating a piece of malicious code that targets the recently released beta version of its AntiSpyware product.

On Wednesday, antivirus company Sophos reported a new Trojan horse, dubbed "Bankash-A," which suppresses warning messages displayed by Microsoft AntiSpyware and deletes all of the files in the program's folder. The Trojan also steals passwords and online-banking details from Windows users.

"Microsoft is actively investigating new public reports of a criminal attack, known as the 'Bankash-A Trojan'," the company wrote in an e-mail statement. "Microsoft is not aware of any significant customer impact resulting from the Trojan. Microsoft continues to recommend customers evaluate the Microsoft AntiSpyware beta and encourage customers to follow the three steps to help keep your PC protected (at) www.microsoft.com/protect."

The software giant is also offering free support to victims of the Trojan.

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Sex and the single robot

Scientists have made them walk and talk. There are even robots that can run. But a South Korean professor is poised to take their development several steps further, and give cybersex new meaning.
Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the ITRC-Intelligent Robot Research Centre, has developed a series of artificial chromosomes that, he says, will allow robots to feel lusty, and could eventually lead to them reproducing. He says the software, which will be installed in a robot within the next three months, will give the machines the ability to feel, reason and desire.

Kim, a leading authority on technology and ethics of robotics, said: "Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of an artificial species. Until now, most researchers in this field have focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in terms of the essence of the creatures." That "essence" is a computer code, which determines a robot's propensity to "feel" happy, sad, angry, sleepy, hungry or afraid. Kim says this software is modelled on human DNA, though equivalent to a single strand of genetic code rather than the complex double helix of a real chromosome.

Kim said: "Robots will have their own personalities and emotion and - as films like I Robot warn - that could be very dangerous for humanity. If we can provide a robot with good - soft - chromosomes, they may not be such a threat."

Although he admits his ideas sound fantastic, Kim is no crank. In the mid-1990s, the professor launched the robot football world cup, which has since become one of the most popular means for robotics researchers to measure their progress against competitors from around the world.

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Yahoo launches 'contextual' search

Yahoo is offering a new search service designed to help people find more-relevant content online.

The Y!Q service offers "contextual" search that analyzes the page being read and gives a list of related search results. Instead of starting a search from a text box, a person would search while reading a specific page. For instance, a reader looking at a news story about the State of the Union address might highlight the phrase "Social Security" to get a listing of pages that deal with that topic.

The company, which has released the service in a test format, said it is making the coding available to Web designers to embed in their sites, so that the tool can search their pages. Yahoo is also offering versions of the tool for its news site and as a toolbar that readers can download and run on their browsers. The battle among Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and others is extremely heated, with new services coming almost daily. Just in the past several days, Microsoft replaced Yahoo's search technology with its own homespun software in its MSN tool, IceRocket.com licensed new technology to help visitors find and download video and music, and Amazon.com began incorporating digital photos into the yellow-pages portion of its A9.com search site. At the same time, Google has continued to tweak to its service and recently released new products designed for businesses.

While Google is the definite champion right now, there have been signs that its competitors are creeping up on it. As for Yahoo's new service, "it is more of an interesting new feature than a Google killer. We'll see how it goes," said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineWatch. Sullivan said that enabling people to generate a search while they are on a Web page may resonate with some people but that the more exciting news will come if and when Yahoo decides to add advertising to the product.

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Google exposes web surveillance cams

Blogs and message forums buzzed in the second week of january with the discovery that a pair of simple Google searches permits access to well over 1,000 unprotected surveillance cameras around the world - apparently without their owners' knowledge.

Searching on certain strings within a URL sniffs out networked cameras that have Web interfaces permitting their owners to view them remotely, and even direct the cameras' motorized pan-and-tilt mechanisms from the comfort of their own desktop.

Video surfers are using this knowledge to peek in on office and restaurant interiors, a Japanese barnyard, women doing laundry, the interior of an Internet collocation facility, and a cage full of rodents, among other things, in locales scattered around the world.

News of the panoptical search queries apparently began on a community web forum, then spread to the widely-read BoingBoing weblog Wednesday and Thursday.

In the past, geeks wanting to peek in on surveillance cams have driven around with receivers and special antenna rigs to pick up signals from wireless cameras.

One of the Google search strings circulating summons a list of nearly 1,000 installed network cameras made by Swedish-based Axis Communications, the other turns up about 500 cameras sold by Panasonic. Neither company could be reached after hours Friday.

According to their websites, both companies offer the ability to password-protect the Web interfaces to their cameras, and Axis has a feature that blocks access to webcams from all but approved Internet IP addresses. t's not apparent whether the security features are enabled by default. A FAQ on Panasonic's website includes a warning that their network cameras may not be right for "sensitive applications," and sports a broad disclaimer: "No specific claims are made pertaining to specific levels of security the camera offers."

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Wireless network smashes world speed record

A new world record has been set for transmitting data across a wireless network, claim researchers in Germany.

A team at Siemens Communications research laboratory in Munich, have transmitted one gigabit (one billion bits) of data per second across their mobile network. By contrast, the average wireless computer network can send only around 50 megabits (50 million bits) of data per second.

The researchers used three transmitting and four receiving antennas and a technique for boosting the amount of data that can be sent wirelessly, called Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM), to set their record.

"With our experimental system, we've been able to demonstrate how powerful [multiple] antennas can be in combination with OFDM," says Christoph Caselitz, president of the Mobile Networks Division at Siemens Communications. Caselitz estimates that wireless networks will be expected to cope with 10 times as much data by 2015.

Avoiding interference
"Future mobile communications systems will have to utilise the frequency band as efficiently as possible," Caselitz adds. This means using the lowest possible transmit power to keep phone devices from running down, he explains.

Frequency-division multiplexing involves simultaneously sending multiple signals over different frequencies between two points. The technique can be prone to interference between different signals.

But OFDM splits carrier signals into smaller sub-units which are synchronised to reduce interference. The technique has already been implemented in some wireless computer networks and digital television broadcasting systems.

Recombining smaller signals in real time, however, requires considerable computing power. So the Siemens team developed new computer algorithms in order to send more data using existing hardware.

The speedy OFDM network was developed in cooperation with the Heinrich Hertz Institute and the Institute for Applied Radio System Technology, both in Germany. It will be demonstrated at the 3GSM World Congress in February, 2005.

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Hackers soon to hit their last frontier

Anyone who sends an email or bids on eBay with a niggling fear about privacy may soon be able to relax. Programmers have made a major breakthrough in their quest for a totally secure computer network by turning to Star Trek-style physics that would bamboozle the sharpest hacker.
Quantum cryptography is the ultimate example of small-is-beautiful technology: information is encoded at the subatomic level on individual photons, the smallest known units of light. They can then be sent on optical fibre networks from one computer to another. To snoop on such messages undetected, a hacker would have to defy the laws of quantum mechanics.

'Any attempt by the hacker to read the message causes errors that show up. This results from a proven law of nature,' said Dr Andrew Shields, leader of Toshiba Research Europe's quantum information group.

Previous experiments with quantum cryptography foundered because photons are so sensitive to fluctuations in the hardware that the tiniest change in temperature or movement of the fibre wrecked the process.

But Toshiba Research Europe in Cambridge has devised a system that prevents fluctuations and keeps light particles flowing precisely. A recent trial sent information automatically and uninterruptedly for nearly a week.

Toshiba predicts the technology will become commercial within three years, and is looking to begin further trials with financial organisations. Shields said: 'It means quantum cryptography can be used by anyone. The first users are likely to be in the financial and public service sectors. It might take a while before it is used by your home PC.'

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