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Black Hat 2008 promises to be big

LAS VEGAS--Black Hat 2008 is bigger, and some might say better. Occupying most of the third and fourth floors of the convention hall at Caesars Palace, the conference started on Saturday with two- and four-day training sessions that continue through Tuesday.

The "public" part of Black Hat runs Wednesday and Thursday and features speakers in 15 separate tracks. One of the tracks will consist of Turbo talks of 20 minutes each. After those, there will an opportunity for the audience to talk with some of the speakers in a another room.

Wednesday starts with a bang with … Read more

The 404 119: Where if we don't have a title, it's not the end of the world

Justin Yu takes a meeting, so Mark the Intern in his first week as Mark the Associate Producer takes his place. We chit chat about the lack of balls it takes to use Microsoft Surface to flirt with girls and why the iPhone actually costs more than your first born child. We also hit up some news about the life expectancy in the United States, and it looks like we're going to break out our walkers. Finally some ramblings about Iron Man 2 and restoring your male virginity through surgery. All this goodness and more found on the Interwebs. … Read more

Readers reveal their iPod habits, desires

Very few people have sat out the iPod revolution.

At least, very few people who read CNET News.com and took the time to answer a poll about iPods, that is. Last week we asked readers to participate in an iPod survey to help inform a separate story on the future of the iPod, which ran over here.

A few disclaimers: this survey was not sanctioned by The Official Group That Makes Surveys Officious, and should not be viewed as a competitor to data complied by professional survey companies or market research firms. I think it is more representative of … Read more

Microsoft's Blue Hat talks start Thursday

On Thursday and Friday, Microsoft will once again gather select security researchers in Redmond, Wash., for its seventh annual Blue Hat talks.

The conference, by invitation only, has gained a reputation for providing Microsoft engineers with a first-hand opportunity to hear from and question leading security researchers. There will be an executive event on Thursday, with general sessions on Friday. Microsoft has more on the Blue Hat schedule here, and a blog here.

Among those invited to present is Cesar Cerrudo, of Argeniss, who will update his Hack the Box talk on Token Kidnapping. Cerrudo defines an access token as &… Read more

Gmail cookie stolen via Google Spreadsheets

Security researcher Bill Rios reported Monday that a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack against Google Spreadsheet could have exposed all of Google's services. XSS can occur whenever a legitimate site accepts input from the user but does not filter that input properly and could allow the injection of potentially malicious instructions. In this case, however, once an attacker gained access to any xxxx.google.com site, they would have access to other Google services, such as Gmail, Docs, and Code.

In an e-mail to CNET News.com, a Google representative confirmed that the flaw as described by Rios has been … Read more

'98 to '08: What we lost along the way

In the '90s, when the MP3 was new, it was difficult to predict the medium's effect on the music industry and our culture. Today, the results of the MP3 revolution are starting to show, and I sometimes wonder what we won.… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 677: HD VMD FTW 2.0

EPISODE 677

Beatles (finally) coming to iTunes? http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9889538-7.html

Xbox 360 price drops in Europe http://www.gamespot.com/news/6187433.html

Digg CEO shoots down bidding war rumors http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9888959-36.html

TSA can’t believe MacBook Air is a real laptop, causes owner to miss flight http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/10/ tsa-cant-believe-macbook-air-is-a-real-laptop-causes-owner-to/

To Aim Ads, Web Is Keeping Closer Eye on You http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10privacy.html

HD VMD going mainstream http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/10/technology/10dvd.html

EPA fines Iogear over ‘… Read more

Black Hat D.C. wraps up

Breaking things--that's what the very bright and super curious do; they look beyond the obvious to see what's truly lurking beneath the surface. On Wednesday and Thursday, attendees at Black Hat D.C. 2008 got a window into the latest research being done on Web applications, wireless, and embedded technologies.

On Wednesday, researchers David Hulton and "Steve" showed how with about $1,000 with of equipment they can decrypt A5/1 cellular GSM traffic in less than a hour. Following that, Adam Laurie reprised his popular RFIDiots talk from last year's Black Hat briefings with … Read more

The myth of the Ninja Hacker

Washington D.C. -- On Wednesday, in a talk at Black Hat D.C. 2008, two researchers set out to see whether phishing sites were created by the "Einsteinian, ninja hackers that the media makes them out to be."

In a talk titled "Bad Sushi: Beating Phishers at their own game," Nitesh Dhanjani and Billy Rios found not a sophisticated gang of elite coders, but hundreds of bad coders all copying one another, and often stealing from each other.

Dhanjani and Rios expressed disapproval of antiphishing products that use black lists to block known phishing sites. … Read more