Chinese Hackers Are At It Again…. WTF?

First Google, then Yahoo, and now the Dalai Lama? What is up with hackers from China?

The word on the street is that the among others, the Dalai Lama got his e-mail hacked by a group of Chinese hackers. The hack was discovered by a group of Canadian researchers:

For eight months, researchers based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto worked with independent computer analysts in the United States to monitor the activities of a gang of Chinese hackers based in the central city of Chengdu.

The Munk Centre was responsible for the discovery of GhostNet last year, an enormous Chinese hacking network that had penetrated 103 countries and almost 1,300 computers. One-third of the targets were highly sensitive, including foreign ministries, embassies and even a computer at Nato headquarters.

Of course, the Chinese when approached with this info had a very predictable response:

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign ministry said the country condemned hacking, but that there was no official government response.

He added: “My personal view is that this is an attempt by the foreign media to spin the issue of hacking for political purposes, especially since this report is related to Tibet. The report appears groundless and comes from an institute that is not credible.”

That’s right, blame the messenger.

The fact is that the Chinese government is either looking the other way when it comes to hackers within their borders, or they are active participants in this. Either way, this is a cause for concern because while there is currently no direct link between the hackers and the Chinese government, one has to believe that the info that was stolen will find it’s way into the hands of the Chinese government. It would be nice if the Chinese government came out and said that it will put a stop to this, but somehow I don’t see that happening. So with that in mind, I’d expect that companies all over the place should look at beefing up their IT security to stop this from happening.

Rogers Starts Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Pre-Orders

I got a note from “my best friends at Rogers” to let me know that you can now pre-order the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 from them. If you’re lusting after this Android based phone, simply surf to this website and place your order there. To entice you further, Rogers mentioned this:

“With every preorder with a three year voice and data plan, customers also get a free Bluetooth headset and a chance to win two tickets to the FIFA World Cup.”

Cool. Plus you’ll get your X10 sometime during the week of April 12th if you pre-order by April 9th. There is a note that says “Hurry! Offer expires April 14th” so get moving if you want this phone.

Bye Bye Bell! – Part 3

So March 30th has come and gone, and the universe didn’t end after switching from Bell to Teksavvy Home Phone. One of the things that did happen is that Teksavvy called us to make sure that everything well (in fact they called us twice after we didn’t respond to their first call). That’s a nice touch and it shows their commitment to quality customer service.

We’re expecting something from Bell shortly. We’ve heard rumors that they charge you an extra month as you allegedly have to give them 30 days notice. We’ll see if they do that to us, and if they do I’ll let you know. We’ll also see if Bell sends us any marketing material. We remember when we switched our DSL based Internet to Teksavvy, Bell sent us a letter from Kevin Crull (President – Residential Services for Bell) saying that they’d miss us and they’d welcome us back when we wanted to come back. Let’s think about that for a second. We get better customer service and pay less for the same services from someone other than Bell and we would consider going back to Bell? I don’t think so. It’s not going to happen.

Stay tuned. I plan on reporting on what Bell does and I’ll let you know about important things like call quality and the like (which so far isn’t any different than Bell. That isn’t a shock as we’re still using Bell copper to deliver my phone service).

Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.6.3 To Plug Pwn2Own Hole

If you haven’t updated to Firefox 3.6.3 yet, what are you waiting for? The latest version of Firefox plugs the hole that was used to hack the browser at Pwn2Own where every major browser was hacked. According to the security advisory, here’s what was fixed:

A memory corruption flaw leading to code execution was reported by security researcher Nils of MWR InfoSecurity during the 2010 Pwn2Own contest sponsored by TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative. By moving DOM nodes between documents Nils found a case where the moved node incorrectly retained its old scope. If garbage collection could be triggered at the right time then Firefox would later use this freed object.

So if you haven’t updated, do it now! At least one browser cares enough to close the holes found at Pwn2Own. As for the rest, what are you guys waiting for?

It’s On! ITC will investigate Apple’s claims against HTC

You’ll recall that Apple recently sued smart phone maker HTC for patent infringement and HTC said that it will defend itself. We’ll circle the wagons HTC, because the International Trade Commission is going to investigate Apple’s claims. This is going to take a while so don’t expect a quick resolution to this. My question is this: Will Google come to the rescue of HTC as this is really an attack on Google by proxy?

Anyone care to take bets on this?