WPA Wi-Fi encryption is cracked [Sherman's Security Blog]
It might be time to upgrade your wi-fi security if you're using the WPA (Wi-fi Protected Access) encryption scheme to secure your wireless router. According to Sherman, researchers have partially cracked the WPA scheme, allowing them to monitor the traffic going from a router to computers connected to it. While the researchers did not fully compromise WPA protected routers, the crack was accomplished relatively quickly - in 12 to 15 minutes. The researchers' data will be presented at an upcoming security conference.
While the researchers' techniques demonstrate a hypothetical attack against WPA protection, it's important to consider that hackers will likely attempt their own attacks based on the research. Most wf-fi routers on the market today support the enhanced WPA2 scheme, which has yet to be compromised. As Sherman points out, an attack against the T.J. Maxx store chain's outdated WEP-protected wireless routers netted hackers millions of credit card numbers. It appears that WPA is going the way of WEP, and it's a good time to upgrade to a more secure encryption standard.
TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix [CNET News]
Have you noticed that your favorite movies sometimes disappear from iTunes or Netflix's streaming services? It's not a glitch with those services, but a contractual obligation imposed upon those services called "release windows." When a broadcast or cable channel purchases the rights to air feature-length movies, they often stipulate that the studio cannot distribute the movies on services like iTunes or Netflix during a particular time frame, dubbed a release window. This article points to the disparity between the movie studios' revenue from television airing versus digital downloads as the reason these release windows continue to exist. If you can't currently download your favorite movie from your preferred digital download service, keep in mind that eventually the release window will close and it probably will be available for download at a later date. This article speculates that as revenue from digital downloads becomes a larger part of movie studios' business, the more likely that release windows will become a thing of the past. On the other hand, the Hollywood has long resisted earlier release dates for most video on demand product even though so many consumers now have access to it.
What were Internet users most popular searches in 2008? Google has compiled their annual Zeitgeist listing the top searches conducted by the search engine that 70% of Americans use. The U.S. presidential election moved both Sarah Palin (1st) and Barack Obama (6th) onto the list of top ten fastest growing global searches, which compares 2008 searches to 2007 searches. Web 2.0 applications like YouTube and Facebook are high on the list of popular searches also.
BitTorrent has new plan to shape up P2P behavior [ArsTechnica]
BitTorrent, makers of a popular peer-to-peer file sharing application, has announced that it wants to make its software more friendly to ISPs by reducing the demand that it places on network resources. In announcing a partnership with content delivery company Oversi, BitTorrent wants to make its P2P application more "efficient" in the way that it searches for peers to download files from. This article describes BitTorrent's approach as similar to the P4P working group's approach to improving P2P. That approach looks for the most intelligent peer connection by prioritzing links on the user's own ISP network, rather than heading out across the Internet for a more distant connection.
I often downloads movie from P2P
Posted by: movie | Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 01:59 PM
The information provided about the WEP WI-FI security hole is incorrect, not the fault of Michaels as many places have reported it incorrectly. Both WPA and WPA2 are just as hacked!!
The problem lies in the WPA Algorithm TKIP which is the default in most cases. In your router you can switch the Algorithm to AES which provents this hack. (Note: TKIP is not actually a algorithm but a Protocol, but routers listed this way)
Posted by: Steve Huff | Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 07:42 AM