Earlier this month, Symantec released patches for its PCAnywhere program, saying the patches would protect its users from hackers who have gotten control of PCAnywhere source codes. These were critical patches for Windows versions of PCAnywhere. With these patches, Symantec also admitted that some of its source code was stolen back in 2006, and it was being contacted by the Lords of Dharmaraja (a hacker group) over these stolen codes.

Symantec PCAnywhere 12.5 is the world’s leading remote access software solution. It lets you manage computers efficiently, resolve helpdesk issues quickly, and connect to remote devices simply and securely.

While the patches released by Symantec fixed known vulnerabilities, there could still be some unknown vulnerabilities, which were unpatched.

Symantec claims that the Anonymous interacted with the FBI in its negotiations, but it is unclear whom they really contacted. Some speculate it is Symantec, and they are using the FBI story as a cover up. On the other hand, the hackers have released 1.27 GB of data this Monday, and claim that there is more.

An interesting part of the conversation between Symantec and hackers reads,

We cannot pay you $50,000 at once for the reasons we discussed previously.  We can pay you $2,500 per month for the first three months.  In exchange, you will make a public statement on behalf of your group that you lied about the hack (as you previously stated).   Once that’s done, we will pay the rest of the $50,000 to your account and you can take it all out at once.  That should solve your problem. Obviously you still have our code so if we don’t follow through you still have the upper hand.

When Symantec tried to play the hacker Yama Tough, who claims to have the code, he got impatient and released the code online on 6 February. After analyzing the leaked code, Symantec has declared that it is a five-year-old code and its patches are enough to keep users safe. However, these source code leaks are unacceptable from a company that deals in security.

The list of email conversations can be found on this paste from PasteBin.

In the past couple of weeks, more than 300 people have been arrested in connection with the Occupy Oakland protests. Multiple incidents of violence were reported across Oakland with the police often resorting to the use of excessive force. As you might have guessed, the police clampdown didn’t sit well with Anonymous, which has retaliated in the only way it knows how. Anonymous has leaked private information of several top city officials, who may or may not have had a role to play in the reported police brutality.

Date of birth, address, private phone number, salary, social media accounts and other information of several prominent Oakland officials including the Mayor Jean Quan and her husband, City Administrator Deanna Santana, police Chief Howard Jordan, City Attorney Barbara Parker, and all City Council members, have been leaked. The only council member to be spared is Rebecca Kaplan. Anonymous thanked her for “being a true leader in the community” and revealed only her public phone number.

The hacked information is available on Pastebin, but Anonymous being Anonymous also released a dramatic video to announce their latest move. The video and its transcript are embedded below.

Anonymous has been watching. Since the inception of Occupy Oakland, We have been actively monitoring your behavior, and exposing the identities and sensitive information of Officers of the Oakland Police Department; as they have continued to act in an unprofessional and violent manner. You tear gassed Us. You shot Us with your weapons. You arrested Us. You beat Us. You also did this to Our Friends, and to Our Families. We watched as you cut budgets, cut Our jobs, closed Our schools, Our parks, and Our libraries, while leaving your own salaries alone. We laughed in disgust as Deanna Santana said she would need to speak to her attorney before discussing her pay cut. The people on this list are supposed to represent the best of what the City of Oakland has to offer. If they are the best, why is there so much trouble within the Police Department, and in the City of Oakland?

We are shocked and disgusted by your behavior. Before you commit atrocities against innocent people again, think twice.

You should have expected Us.

Facebook has a had a huge week with them going public with their $5 Billion IPO. However, it looks like they are facing problems with their infrastructure with the "Facebook Activity Feed" for websites showing an "invalid action type" error all across the web.

Website owners who have been using the "Activity Feed" social plugin from Facebook might notice that the feed is no longer showing up and instead an error box with the message "Invalid action type" has taken it’s place. This problem is occurring on all websites and seems to be a big problem on Facebook’s side.

The error is also apparent on Facebook’s Social Plugin code generator for all websites as seen in the screenshot above. Facebook has faced several problems in the past where the site has gone down for hours due to database problems and DNS issues among other things. However, this look like the first time that their social plugins have had issues.

If you are a webmaster who uses the Facebook Activity Feed on your website, you might see the above error. However, having the widget in question on your site does not affect loading time. We have contacted Facebook to check why this problem is occurring and will update the post when we get a response.

Google just released Chrome, one of the most popular Desktop browsers out there, for one of the most popular mobile OS in the market, Android.

Chrome for Android is still in Beta, like any other Google product is when it is initially launched, but is feature packed to the brim. The Android version of Chrome comes with all the features, which we find in its desktop counterpart, including speed, syncing features and simplicity.

Chrome for Android automatically loads your top few Google search results in the background for faster browsing, has a URL/Search omnibox, comes with a UI, which is specifically made for small-screen phones, card view, and makes use of intuitive gestures. The Link Preview feature in Chrome for Android will make it easier for users to select a particular link out of thousands of them in a page, much more easier.

The best feature of Chrome for Android is its syncing ability. By syncing Chrome for Android with the same email ID they use on the desktop version, users can view their open tabs, sync their bookmarks, get smarter auto-fill suggestion and much more. Other features of Chrome for Android include Remote Debugging, GPU accelerated, 3D transforms, Full screen API, binary screenshots and much more.

Sadly, all this goodness comes at a price. Chrome for Android is only available for Ice Cream Sandwich running handsets and tablets, and only in selected regions of the world. If your handset/tablet is already running Ice Cream Sandwich, you can download Chrome for Android (beta) from here.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview (Beta) is nearing and the news and leaks about the same have started flowing fast and furiously. Today (February 7), Tom Warren at The Verge is reporting that a source familiar with Microsoft’s Windows Store plans for Windows 8 has revealed several top notch games which will be made available in the Windows Store for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

Here is the list they have revealed (in addition to Cut The Rope which was demoed heavily at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas):

• Hydro Thunder
• Toy Soldiers
• Reckless Racing
• Angry Birds
• Ilomilo
• Rocket Riot
• Full House Poker
• Tentacles
• Crash Course
• Ms Splosion Man
• Wordament

In addition, Warren reports that Pinball and Solitaire will come preinstalled on Windows 8.

As you can see, these games are not only popular, but they are from top tier development houses. This is a good sign for Windows 8 because Microsoft is virtually going to have to start from scratch with their Store just like they had to do with Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. WinRT and Windows 8 are brand new and so is the Windows Store, and it has been well-documented that the most popular “apps” in any ecosystem are games. To have high quality games as well as top tier brands at the time of Consumer Preview and most definitely at the time of launch is a must-have in order for Windows 8 to gain any kind of foothold in this rapidly approaching Post-PC or PC-Plus era.

What is more intriguing though, is that most of these games are familiar to Xbox and Windows Phone users. Could we see some sort of multi-player scenarios among Windows Phone, Xbox and Windows 8? Wouldn’t it be awesome to play Full House Poker with your friends who may be on their Xbox and you are on your Windows Phone or your Windows 8 PC? Xbox has already enabled “Cloud Save” with games; could we see a scenario where I can continue Angry Birds on my phone and not lose the progress I have made on my Windows 8 PC? It is so annoying to have to start from scratch every time the game is reinstalled or you install the game on a new device. With the power of the Microsoft Cloud (a.k.a. SkyDrive), we could see games which tap into the Cloud Save concept and allow seamless movement across devices without losing progress.

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Images:

Reckless Racing: From iTunes Store

Full House Poker: Xbox.com

Hydro Thunder: Xbox.com

Couple of years back, Google launched Goggles for Android, which is pretty cool by itself. However, Google is now reportedly trying to build the real thing – an actual goggles with a HUD (heads up display).

9To5Google learnt by the way of a tipster that Google is currently developing wearable glasses that resemble Oakley Thumps. These glasses will be fitted with a tiny HUD for each eye on the sides. The display is expected to provide an augmented reality experience by showing real-time information corresponding to objects in your sight. Navigating the on-screen HUD is said to be as simple as tilting your head. The glasses will have a tiny camera equipped with flash, along with a mic for recieving voice commands. CPU, RAM, and other storage will be equivalent to previous generation Android smartphones, which will be stunning considering the form factor for the device.

Oakley Thump

The glasses are still a long way from being done, and Google isn’t even sure if there is an actual demand for such a gadget. However, what this clearly illustrates is just how ambitious and bold Google has become. It’s not afraid to invest money and time into projects that almost appear to be science fiction. 9To5 believes that Google might launch a public beta testing program to gauge demand, as it did with the Cr-48 Chromebooks. Let’s hope that they are right.

Anonymous has made a Pastebin dump of email exchanges between a Symantec representative called Sam Thomas and Yamatough, the spokesperson of the hacker group Lords of Dharmaraja.

The hacker group is accusing Symantec of ‘bribing’ them in order to prevent the release of the pcAnywhere source code. Looking at the email exchange however, it seems that the hacker group was in fact trying to extort money from Symantec.

The emails shows how Yamatough was trying to extort money through a service called ‘Liberty Reserve’ to an offshore account or to accounts in Lithuania or Libya. Sam instead suggests wiring $1000 through PayPal which Yamatough declines. Sam then increased the total payment to $50,000 with an initial transfer of $2500 for three months and the rest of the money after they provide enough proof that the source code has been destroyed. At this point, Yamatough becomes suspicious that the FBI is involved and the email exchange stops even though Sam tries to continue the conversation. You can read the entire conversation in the above link.

In a comment made at Infosec Island, Cris Paden of Symantec confirmed that the email exchange posted was legitimate.

In January an individual claiming to be part of the ‘Anonymous’ group attempted to extort a payment from Symantec in exchange for not publicly posting stolen Symantec source code they claimed to have in their possession. Symantec conducted an internal investigation into this incident and also contacted law enforcement given the attempted extortion and apparent theft of intellectual property. The communications with the person(s) attempting to extort the payment from Symantec were part of the law enforcement investigation. Given that the investigation is still on going, we are not going to disclose the law enforcement agencies involved and have no additional information to provide.

Paden also confirmed to Forbes that Sam was in fact an agent trying to get more information out of Yamatough.

“Anonymous has been talking to law enforcement, not to us. No money was exchanged, and there was never going to be any money exchanged. It was all an effort to gather information for the investigation,” he said.

Anonymous has uploaded the leaked source code to the torrents. But Symantec has reiterated that, you are safe, as long as you are using the latest version.

You can find additional information about the source leak here.

Scientists from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have discovered two large circular structures which they believe were used by the Harrapan Civilization as astronomical observatories. This is a significant find as it is the first evidence of astronomy being used by the ancient people group.

Dholavira is one of the largest ancient cities of the Indus valley civilization. This civilization existed around 2650 BCE and encompassed areas of western India and modern day Pakistan. Pictured below, you can see the location of Dholavira on the map.

Courtesy Google Maps

Dholavira was first discovered in 1967 and according to Wikipedia “has been under excavation almost continuously since 1990 by the Archaeological Survey of India“. Recently, a team led by Dr. Mayank Vahia of TIFR set out to study the  Dholavira site in hopes to discover what structures might have been used as observatories.

According to an Indian Express article:

“It is highly implausible that such an intellectually advanced civilisation did not have any knowledge of positional astronomy. These (structures) would have been useful for calendrical (including time of the day, time of the night, seasons, years and possibly even longer periods) and navigational purposes apart from providing intellectual challenge to understanding the movement of the heavens,”

It is assumed that Dholavira was surrounded by water back in the day and that it was an important center of trade for the region. This idea is what drove the team to search for astro observatories due to the fact that such a cultural center had to have a strong grasp of time. Out of over a thousand structures observed so far it appears they have only been able to identify these two structures with such a purpose. Due to their “celestial orientations”, it is believed that this was their express purpose. They were able to make assumptions based on computer simulations which showed that shadows would align at an entrance on summer and winter solstice.

This study will enable scientists to measure the intelligence of the Harappan people and will give them some idea how they ”used the astronomical data to conduct business, farming and other activities”.

For more information about this archaeological site see the Archaeology Survey of India’s page.

Google has rolled out a new project called “Solve for X”. The project seeks to ”amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork.” They’re looking for new ideas and new innovations that will solve some of the world’s most enigmatic problems.

“Solve for X” is a forum that hopes to engage individuals in a dialog to solve massive problems that our world faces. They describe the solutions they are looking for as “radical” as they state on their website:

Radical in the sense that the audaciousness of the proposals makes them sound like science fiction. And radical in the sense that there is some real technology breakthrough on the horizon to give us all hope that these ideas could really be brought to life.

Below is a small video they posted to describe their endeavor.

There are several speakers who have videos posted on this website. If you go to www.wesolveforx.com you can see several “moonshot” ideas. You can also view the videos on their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/wesolveforx.

I really like the premise of this website. To me, the internet will never reach its full potential until we are able to connect the minds of people across the globe and truly seek solutions to the challenges we face. While the internet has been great for commerce, the potential for solving problems and sharing ideas is truly its biggest asset.

Cloud computing has slowly but steadily become firmly integrated with almost any IT company who cares to use it. It is a strange new world that has everything on the internet. Today there are companies and there are cloud-computing companies.

Initially, cloud computing services were regarded as little more than some fad that provided interesting conversation over a coffee machine. It has become so much more. The multiple gains that companies have attained in productivity and profitability have been drivers for its use. Having everything on-the-go and being able to use the cloud for day-to-day operations has become an inevitable reality for many companies.

Some issues that are still faced in terms of security and privacy of data are being ironed out. We currently still do not know how and when cloud based companies will use the data in future. It is a relationship that is based on trust. But the line blurs when we get profits into the picture.

We have to remember that this is not a physical and tangible entity, so the issues that we will face will be more abstract. We will loose out on reliability but gain on convenience. The issues with it being 100% reliable cannot be addressed at this point of time. We have seen how downtimes with Google mail had closed down operations for almost 6 million people who were affected by it right in the middle of the work day. Nonetheless to their credit, these are anomalies in their performance. Attaining 6-sigma standard of perfection is something they must definitely dream about.

The growing competition between various cloud providers and the increasing bandwidths available to a growing number of people has set the base for the use of cloud computing. This industry is almost doubling in size every year.

For businesses, there are issues on the reorganization of existing business processes. We have so many “trends” that we forget about what to do with those that actually live through once the phase is over. There are many nay-sayers who believe that cloud computing has reached its peak and will move out of the system. As a trend, cloud computing has definitively peaked; but it is so widely used and integrated in so many current and  future products that is entirely impossible that cloud computing is being driven by hype alone.

As it is, using these services saves companies all over the world almost $13 billion in server and power costs. We cannot begin to imagine what an impact a mass migration to cloud computing will do to the IT world. Either way, the cloud is becoming our backyard. Time to brace for impact.

So whats next for cloud computing? Stay tuned.