Oct
18
2007

URLs du Jour

2007-10-18

  • A few weeks back, I mentioned an allegation (made at a Microsoft-sponsored conference) that the "vast majority" of phishing sites were compromised Linux machines. If that caught your interest, you should also check out Chad Perrin's skepticism on that claim.

  • And if you're still interested, and are looking to get real depressed at the number of ways the cyberbadguys are out to get you, Bruce Schneier recommends a three-part series at CIO on "Hacker Economics": One; Two; Three.

  • Another Linux-related story, a little more cheerful: a UMass-Dartmouth researcher is doing supercomputing tasks with … an array of eight Sony PlayStation 3s, converted to run Linux.
    Khanna says that his gravity grid has been up and running for a little over a month now and that, crudely speaking, his eight consoles are equal to about 200 of the supercomputing nodes he used to rely on.
    Of course, the last time we heard something about UMass-Dartmouth, it was about the kid who made up a story about getting visited by Homeland Security because he'd checked out a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao from the library. So maybe you should take this with a grain of salt. But here's a reputable-looking page with more details and links to pictures. (Via GeekPress.)

  • One good way to protect yourself against ID theft is to not disclose your Social Security Number to institutions that don't actually need it. Jim Harper provides some details and advice.
    This kind of thing is a good exercise because the next person will have an easier time of it. Do yourself and your neighbor a favor and refuse sharing your SSN when it's not needed, mkay?
    Some really lazy institutions—coughTheUniversityOfNewHampshirecough—use your SSN for an ID number. Generally speaking, you can demand an alternate be used, and that's a good exercise too.

  • Trust the Saladeer: If you don't check out Basic Instructions periodically, you should.


Last Modified 2007-10-19 7:48 AM EDT