General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

DRM from 1998 to the Present: A Brief History of Copy Protection

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 04:07 PM PDT

Avast ye mateys, piracy is alive and well on the virtual high seas. Argh!

Time was that if you wanted to see a movie, you went to a theatre or you waited a few months to rent a VHS tape or DVD at five bucks a pop. If you wanted to read a book, you either drove to the bookstore and bought it, or to the library and borrowed it, under strict regulations governing its return. If you wanted to listen to a specific band or singer, you shelled out for the LP – or more recently, the CD.That's just the way it was. An artist/performer/writer would create something and you would pay real money to buy a copy. Or you'd pay less money and/or be somehow inconvenienced to borrow a copy that someone else had already paid for. Makes sense, right? Who wouldn't want to get paid for the work they do?

Problem is that consumers buying a disc or a tape or a book inevitably ended up paying a bunch of people other than the artist. Part of the purchase/rental price would go to the publisher. Portions of it would go to the marketing company, the shipping company, the folks who designed the album or book cover, etc, etc, etc. And hey, don't even get us started on being forced to buy an entire album comprised primarily of filler. Ultimately, most would argue, the old school media business model took advantage of the consumer.

But in the purely digital, networked era, old school routines have been forever altered. And while that's theoretically great news for the end user, who can now buy selectively and at his or her convenience, it also presents us with a whole new set of hassles. Hassles such as copy protection.

The sensibility of "protecting" a "copy" so that unauthorized users can't access it or so other copies can't be made is inarguable. After all, we can't think of a single author, artist, or performer who'd be cool with selling one copy of their work and having everyone else grab freebies from that first copy. More on that later.

But too often the current brands of copy protection stymie the authorized, original purchaser from doing what they want with their fully legit, purchased copy. Copy protection often makes access to the file in question more difficult than it should be. Copy protection-infused content may have compatibility issues with current and future devices. And copy protection costs money to incorporate into manufacturing, a fee that is occasionally passed onto the consumer.

In the end, the argument against copy protection – the most infamous iteration of which is known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), the umbrella term for any technology that modifies a device or file to inhibit improper use of that file – comes down to freedom and ownership. Do you really own something when the manufacturer might opt to render it inoperable or otherwise come a-knocking on your virtual door if you do something that annoys them? Furthermore, goes the same argument, true pirates will always find a way around whatever copy protection is currently in vogue.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and You

In October of 1998, the US Senate passed an amendment to United States copyright law criminalizing the production and distribution of technology that would allow consumers to thwart technical copy-restriction methods. Essentially, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, as it is known, makes it a crime to circumvent anti-piracy measures and outlaws the manufacture, sale, or distribution of code-cracking devices used to illegally copy software. This amendment forms the basis for all that has followed. And there has been a lot to follow.

Perhaps the most extreme example of copy protection gone awry was the Sony rootkit scandal of 2005. That was the year Sony BMG Music Entertainment had the bright idea of incorporating a rootkit – essentially a collection of tools that enables administrator-level access to a computer – into its music CDs. Why would it do this? Because inside that rootkit and "cloaked" by it was a form of DRM that stealthily sent information about you to good old Sony. If you tried playing the CD through your PC, and especially if you tried doing anything untoward, Sony would theoretically know.

    

One problem: Said rootkit, like most rootkits, also allowed basically anyone with even moderate hacking savvy to gain access to each PC that harbored it. Hello, bad guys. Worse still, the rootkit embedded itself so deeply within systems that any attempts to remove it would effectively render entire machines useless.

And to top it off, when asked to respond to public and media criticism of the concept, Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG Global Digital Business, downplayed the entire situation. According to Hogue, "Most people, I think, don't even know what a Rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Ouch.

Nevertheless, Sony quickly developed and released a software tool to enable removal of the offending rootkit. Yet even this didn't work properly – merely masking the code rather than obliterating it.  Ultimately, a second removal tool seemed to do the trick.

Soon thereafter, Sony announced it would exchange affected CDs and cancel its copy protection program. But to say the damage was already done is a serious understatement. If Joe Q Public hadn't already loathed the concept of DRM, he certainly had ample reason to do so now.

Limewire and P2P vs. the RIAA

But DRM isn't the only controversial element in the ongoing Battle Royal betwixt media/music publishers, the common man, and those who would pirate anything for a buck. Fast forward to 2010 and the case of LimeWire.

LimeWire was, of course, one of numerous peer-to-peer file-sharing sites operating during the wild and wooly – some would say lawless – days of the early 2000s. But while LimeWire and its ilk were undoubtedly used by some for perfectly upstanding, perfectly legal reasons, truth is that a ton of people went there for the freebie media.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certainly thought so, and it, along with Arista Records, Atlantic, BMG, Capitol, Motown, Virgin, Warner Brothers, and a half-dozen other prominent labels, took LimeWire owner Lime Group LLC to court to prove their point. At the trial, "expert" testimony stated the vast majority of files changing hands via the service was of the MP3 variety, containing copyright protected material – generally music. Indeed, the figure was said to be a whopping 93 percent.

Ultimately, like fellow P2P service Grokster – which unsuccessfully argued in 2005 that it was innocent because files had not passed directly through its own computers – and so many others before it, LimeWire was shut down. But that left a question: What damages would Lime Group be compelled to pay? Figures in the billions and even trillions of dollars had been bandied about.

On May 13th of this year, that figure was decided. Lime Group and its founder, Mark Gorton, would cough up 105 million dollars. Gorton's legal team announced he was relieved, undoubtedly in part that LimeWire was somehow able to survive as long as it did and presumably make enough bread to pay the fine. In fact, that LimeWire continued to operate until 2010, thus preventing the suing parties from making as much mullah as they felt they otherwise deserved, prompted Warner boss Edgar Bronfman to call the situation "devastating."

RIAA and the Campagin Against Piracy

Yet even in victory, the RIAA didn't quite come across as magnanimous. Rather than passing the winnings directly to the artists, the RIAA has once again followed its past pattern of earmarking the dough for its continued campaign against piracy. Though one might argue such a fight – and such a victory – will ultimately benefit the artists simply because it theoretically deters others, the gobs of money the RIAA has already thrown into its campaign certainly hasn't stamped out piracy.

Nevertheless, the RIAA remains undeterred. According to the organization, "The music business has increased its digital revenues by 1,000 percent from 2004 to 2010, (yet) digital music theft has been a major factor behind the overall global market decline of around 31 percent in the same period. And although use of peer-to-peer sites has flattened during recent years, other forms of digital theft are emerging, most notably digital storage lockers used to distribute copyrighted music."

The RIAA asks us to consider the following: "In the decade since peer-to-peer file-sharing site Napster emerged in 1999, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7 billion. From 2004 through 2009 alone, approximately 30 billion songs were illegally downloaded on file-sharing networks."

Furthermore, claims the RIAA, investigations by market research firm The NPD Group reveal that just 37 percent of music acquired by U.S. consumers in 2009 was paid for, and that US Internet users annually consume between $7 and $20 billion worth of digitally pirated recorded music.

And the RIAA hasn't stopped at P2P services. It has also sued thousands of individuals/end users for copyright infringement (some reports say as many as 35,000), and in many cases, won. Granted, it hasn't often recovered the maximum $150,000 per song damages the US Copyright Act says it's theoretically entitled to, an amount that would obviously break anyone for a lifetime. And it's dropped many cases or settled out of court for far, far smaller settlements. Even so, a far, far smaller settlement is still a victory – a victory that adds to its coffers and keeps the threat very real.

The Hurt Locker Controversy

Music obviously isn't the only target. Voltage Pictures, the producer of the Academy Award-winning flick Hurt Locker, has recently sued nearly 25,000 BitTorrent users for illegally downloading its explosive 2008 film. Of that total, 10,532 downloaded through Comcast, 5,239 through Verizon, 2,699 through Charter, 1,750 through Time Warner, and the rest through unknown sources. Most of these services have already agreed to turn over the offending IP addresses.

And this follows hot on the heels of similar action against downloaders of the film The Expendables, where "US Copyright Group," an arm of the law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, sued some 23,000 movie fans earlier this year. The financial details have yet to be revealed, but the hard, cold reality is that if you have an IP address, and if you illegally download a movie, you might be next on the hit list.

Illegal TV streaming has also become a target. Indeed, even sites that link to illegal streaming are susceptible. One such site goes by the name of channelsurfing.net, a website that, when it still had life, merely listed links to external, third-party sports streaming sites. In March of this year, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) branded the site a criminal operation and arrested the owner, 32-year old Brian McCarthy of Texas. McCarthy was charged with criminal copyright infringement for "reproduction and distribution" of copyrighted material and aiding and abetting copyright infringement.

He faces a maximum penalty of five year in prison. Five years!

In March, 2011, HarperCollins announced it would distribute DRM-enabled eBooks to libraries. Lend the book 26 times and it's deleted, forcing the library in question to buy another. In the gaming world, recent blockbuster titles such as Call of Duty: Black Ops have been illegally downloaded millions of times, much to the detriment of its developer and publisher. Nintendo, meanwhile, has upped the DRM ante considerably by fashioning a plan that would render permanently unplayable any 3DS system that's experienced unauthorized software or illegal mods. Anti-DRM group Free Software Foundation has responded by sending Nintendo a rather large box of faux bricks. Its reasoning being, clearly, that one brick deserves another.

 

And let's not forget the granddaddy of all things tech, Intel. It's recently come to light that the latest line of Intel Core i series processors will not only be faster, more power-efficient, and more graphically-capable, but they'll also brandish enough hardware DRM through their new "Intel Insider" feature to protect the content of motion picture studios. It works like this: Due to concerns over piracy, the big studios are nervous about getting on board the 1080p movie streaming bandwagon. So Intel is instituting measures deep within its hardware to ensure 1080p movies are streamed but not copied. Intel's going to great pains to tell anyone who'll listen that it's not DRM. But it is.

ICE and Intel Get Involved

Are Intel and the motion picture studios wrong? No. The threat of piracy, as has been proven countless times in the past, is very real. And certainly in this case, where consumers voluntarily pay for a streamed movie – not to own it but to watch it – we don't have an issue with Intel's steps.

In fact, we don't have a serious issue with some of the other copy protection measures we've outlined in this article. Why? Because sometimes, you just have to step back and eyeball a situation from the other side.

Just last year, for example, HIS and ICE officers seized two popular hip-hop blogs, OnSmash and RapGodfathers, for potential copyright infringement. While we can't comment on the validity of the seizure, we can say with authority that the some of the user comments following the shutdown do have a nasty edge. "DAMN CORPORATE GREED," says one, "We should just buy ONE album from an artist then email that album to a bunch of different email addresses and treat it like a chain letter to show this government and devilish record labels that their control is an illusion."

Now, if you were an artist trying to make a buck selling your tunes, this is the type of commentary that would make you think twice before marketing your music anywhere. Nevertheless, we also feel many measures have gone way, way overboard, to the point they seriously impact legitimate consumers and the very concept of "ownership" and "freedom."

Still, Steve Jobs calls DRM "wrong." Bill Gates says it has "huge problems." Anti-DRM groups such as Defective By Design (www.defectivebydesign.org) and Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org) are seemingly popping up everywhere. Apple began selling DRM-free music tracks in 2007. And even Google has spoken up. In a speech earlier this month, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said proposals from both the U.S. and British governments that would block search engine access to file-sharing websites would conceivably threaten freedom of speech. Schmidt said Google is not on board with the concept, and will fight it if need be.

But maybe, just maybe, Schmidt and Google are barking up the wrong proverbial tree. Look at the copy protection landscape as it currently sits. Over here you have the RIAA, dropping millions over the years fighting its fight, suing everyone from file-sharing services to end users, and making only a microscopic dent in the world of piracy. Over there you have Homeland Security busting some dude for linking to television streaming sites. The Sony rootkit scandal, self-destructive game consoles, the list goes on and on. And on.

The Steam Model

So there's this dam, see? And it keeps springing leaks. There's a whole whack of dudes running around and sticking putty in the various leaks, but it's an old dam and new leaks keep appearing. Worse still, the entire dam is becoming more fragile as each leak further impacts structural integrity. Sooner or later, you need more than putty.

Indeed, you could build a brand new dam. And that may be the ultimate solution.

One such dam is taking shape right now within government circles. It's called the Protect IP Act, and it's precisely what Google's Schmidt referenced a few paragraphs ago. Essentially, the Protect IP Act would grant authorities and copyright holders the power to completely block access to domains that are considered to have been naughty. It would also require search engines to censor offending sites out of their indexes.

If the words "draconian" and "blacklist" come to mind, you're obviously not alone. But we humbly ask that if nothing else has worked thus far, if pirates and assorted ne'er-do-wells continually find ways to circumvent current measures and effectively facilitate the theft of bazillions of dollars worth of intellectual property/copyrighted material, and if a never-ending stream of both money and time hasn't stopped what is by most accounts a purely criminal act, is it such a bad idea? It certainly is if it's used as blanket censorship. But maybe, just maybe, it won't be. Time will tell.

An even better concept may already be on display at forward-thinking services such as online gaming site Steam. As we move gradually to an always-on, always connected, Cloud-centric society wherein we're networked with the world in virtually every facet of our lives – and there's no doubt such a scenario is already on its way – the fact is that the Steam model makes a great deal of sense.

Sure, some would argue that the Steam form of DRM/copy protection – wherein users must have a live Internet connection when using and operating Steam products – is just one more way the "man" smacks us down. But we think it's the way of the future – a future where media is stealthily and without any impact on its user "validated" each and every time it's accessed. Granted, the criminals won't much like it, but hey…they're criminals.

    

We also expect some will continue to opt completely out of DRM altogether. All-purpose musician Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails, countless game scores) has done just that for quite some time now, preferring instead to make his music available at no charge and relying on concert ticket revenue, merchandise sales, and optional value-added paid versions of his tunes. After all, with many of the old school middleman costs (record store employees, shipping, elaborate packaging and design, etc) forever consigned to the distant past, Trent and others like him stand to personally see more of the proceeds. That Trent himself has long since dropped any ties to a record label certainly helps the bottom line.

As the Cloud moves inexorably over us and compels everyone to adopt to it, the DRM/copy protection battlefield will surely look much different even five years from now. We hope it's a far less convoluted future, and we know it surely couldn't get any uglier.

Or could it?

Toshiba Reveals US Launch Date and Pricing for Qosmio X770 and X770 3D

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 03:51 PM PDT

Having been available in Europe for more than two weeks now, Toshiba's Qosmio X770 and X770 3D gaming laptops are now bound for the United States. The company today announced the US launch date and pricing for both laptops.

Let's get started with the Qosmio X770 series. Starting at $1,199, the X770 has a 17.3-inch 1920x1080, a second generation Intel Core i5/i7 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 1TB HDD storage, and a GeForce GTX 560M GPU with 1.5GB RAM. It also has HDMI-out, a multi-card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, a USB 3.0 port, WLAN (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth 3.0 + HS and Gigabit LAN.

More and more notebooks are now shipping with premium sound systems these days and Toshiba's latest Qosmios are no different. The company is happily touting the premium harman/kardon speakers and subwoofer that are built into the X770 and X770 3D.

The $1,899.99 X770 3D boasts identical specs for the most part, but it "maxes out the platform even further with a 1.25 terabyte hard drive with Hybrid Drive technology, plus a Blu-ray Disc Rewriteable drive." Retail availability of the two machines is scheduled for later this month.

Microsoft Builds a Curved Shaped Keyboard for Frugal Typists

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 02:52 PM PDT

It's tough out there for those concerned with ergonomics on a budget. Those two concepts don't often go hand-in-hand, or hand-in-wallet, as the case may be. But there are always exceptions to the rule, such as Microsoft's newly announced Comfort Curve Keyboard 3000, Redmond's second generation Comfort Curve plank that will only set typists back a couple of Hamiltons.

"Building on the original Comfort Curve, this new key layout is designed to be a better option for straight-keyboard users and has been improved in two fundamental ways," Microsoft said in a blog post. "First, the QWERTY keys are uniformly sized in a way that is more similar to a standard straight keyboard. That increases familiarity. Second, the curve has been modified to be more organic -- adding curvature in the third dimension. That increases the comfort."

According to Microsoft, the Comfort Curve 3000 has been three years in the making. It sports a slim, glossy design and comes with easy-access media keys to control you music, video, and open the Calculator application in Windows.

Otherwise, this appears to be a basic plank (and priced as such) without a USB hub, backlit keys, or any gaming features. It's available for preorder now and will ship in August.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Is Ubuntu Ditching Firefox?

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 12:24 PM PDT

You know that cute old couple down the street, the two that have been married since before your parents were born? Firefox and Ubuntu are kind of like that. It's hard to remember a time when you could find one without the other. But are the browser and the operating system experiencing irreconcilable differences? Any conservative radio host can tell you that the divorce rate is sky-high in America, and the Ubuntu team's considering tossing Firefox to the curb and chasing some hot young Chrome tail.

The whiff of discontent comes courtesy of a Network World interview with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth. During the interview, Canonical said that the Ubuntu team considered making the switch with the next release of the operating system, and "it's a real possibility" that Chrome may displace Firefox in the future. For now, Firefox will be included in the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 release. "That probably keeps us on Firefox for another year, at least, and we'll see from there," Shuttleworth said.

If the rest of the interview's any indication, the future of Firefox on Ubuntu doesn't look very bright. Shuttleworth spent a large chunk of the interview talking about Chrome and how awesome it is, especially in the Linux environment. Google's browser has been developed from the ground up to include Linux support – Chrome OS is a Linux variant – and Shuttleworth says that focus makes Chrome a performance powerhouse on the open-source operating system.

Would it be a welcome change? There was a mini-furor when Ubuntu switched from Gnome to the Unity desktop a little while back. Could two major changes in such a short time drive upset Ubuntu fanatics in the arms of other distros?

Fast Forward: Another Leap For Intel

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 11:40 AM PDT

Suddenly, like a plunging guillotine blade, Intel has severed any hope that competitors will match its chip-fabrication technology for years to come. Last month I observed that the rest of the industry was gaining a little ground on Intel by adopting high-k metal-gate (HKMG) transistors—only four years after Intel's HKMG debut in 2007. But now comes Intel's next big leap: tri-gate transistors.

Commonly known as FinFETs (finned field-effect transistors), these devices are a radical departure from the planar transistors used in integrated circuits for 50 years. Intel calls them the first true 3D transistors, but that description and the term "tri-gate" are potentially confusing. This isn't 3D transistor stacking, which builds multiple layers of transistors on a chip. Nor does a tri-gate transistor have three electrical gates for controlling current flow.

Today's 32nm transistor passes electricity underneath a gate in a flat plane. On the right is the new 3D transistor which increases surface area, lowers leakage, and increases density.

Instead, a FinFET is a three-dimensional structure that rises vertically above the chip's flat silicon substrate. It looks like a tiny fin bisecting the gate structure. In contrast, planar transistors are flat devices etched into the substrate's surface.

FinFETs can handle higher drive currents and switch between their on and off states at lower voltages. Chip designers can use those characteristics to reach higher clock speeds, or use less power, or achieve some combination of those advantages. FinFETs also leak much less current when the transistor is switched off.

Intel now has a fundamentally superior transistor, in addition to its 18- to 24-month lead in lithography. While Intel is moving into 22nm production this year, competitors are lagging a generation behind, just starting 32nm or 28nm production. Some companies don't expect to have FinFETs until one process generation after Intel (14nm). Others have no FinFET roadmap at all. It adds up to a four-year lead for Intel—a huge obstacle for rival chipmakers to overcome.

Tom Halfhill was formerly a senior editor for Byte magazine and is now an analyst for Microprocessor Report.

Google Unveils New Search Options

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 11:38 AM PDT

After watching E3, Computex and WWDC hog the headlines for the past few weeks, Google reminded digerati journalists that they were still, you know, one of the biggest freakin' companies in the world at the "Instant Search" event in San Francisco today. The party's barely underway and the Goog's already announced three majorly nifty features coming soon to a search engine near you.

First off, Google Voice is coming to the desktop. Mobile users have been able to blurt out search terms for a while now, but home-bound PC users have been relegated to henpecking out their search parameters manually, at least if they don't feel like dropping $200 on Dragon NaturallySpeaking or booting up Windows' built-in voice recognition utility. According to ZDNet, the newly announced Google Voice for desktop includes support for approximately 66 percent of the world's population via 27 different languages or dialects, plus it can translate on the fly.

Another nifty new tool announced today is an image search function. Drag any picture on the Internet into Google's search bar and the search engine will scour the Internet for results related to the picture. Don't like dragging-and-dropping? You'll also be able to cut-and-paste image URLs into Google to the same effect. Google's even going to let you upload pictures from your hard drive if you want to find some search results for an image that you can't find anywhere else on the web. The improved search should launch today, although we aren't seeing it yet.

Finally, the company showed off "Instant Pages," a new feature that loads a Web page immediately – like 0.0 seconds immediately – when you click on its link. Users with decent broadband connections don't have to wait very long for a page to load anyways, but Instant Pages could shave some serious time off of a Google power user's day.

The combination of Instant Pages and the improved image search already has our mental wheels spinning as we think of new ways to screw around at work throughout the day. Thanks Google!

Cablevision Boosts NYC Wi-Fi To Landline Speeds

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 10:53 AM PDT

Ah, it's good to be an on-the-go computer user in the Big Apple. Just last week Mayor Bloomberg and AT&T announced a collaboration to bring free Wi-Fi access to 26 locations across New York's various parks. Now, Cablevision's boosting their "Optimum Wi-Fi" network in order to bring customers cable-modem speeds over the airwaves. "But I'm not a Cablevision subscriber!" you wail, scrunching your face to hold back the tears. No need to cry, chum – Time Warner and Comcast struck a deal with Cablevision about a year ago that lets their subscribers hop on to Optimum Wi-Fi at will.

The announcement coincided with the cable industry's annual "Cable Show" in Chicago. The upgrade means Optimum Wi-Fi users will be able to download at a speedy 15Mbps clip and upload at 4Mbps. That's a huge jump over the network's previous speeds of 3Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up, according to the company's press release. You can still get in on the goodness even if you don't have cable – over 7,000 businesses offer Optimum Wi-Fi hotspots across New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

So why the boost? To compete with the cellular networks, naturally. The increased proliferation of 3G and 4G access has cable companies worried about the future; offering super-speedy Wi-Fi helps to beat back the 4G network's claims of increased browsing speed.

"With this increase, Optimum WiFi not only blows away 3G and 4G cellular data speeds, it's three times faster than the average wired residential broadband service across the country," said Kevin Curran, Cablevision's senior vice president of wireless product management.

Logitech's Flexible C615 Webcam Makes Awkward Conversations Slightly Less Awkward

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 10:03 AM PDT

PC owners love Logitech for their gaming-focused keyboards, mice and badass racing wheels, but the company's no one-trick pony. For those of you who are more prone to chatting up strangers rather blowing them to jelly with a BFG9000, Logitech's newly unveiled C615 HD webcam might be right up your alley. Sure, its fold-and-swivel design makes it look like the head of our future robotic overlords, complete with a cold, unblinking eye (Seriously, just look at it), but it also makes it ideal for Skyping on the run.

Love it or hate it, the webcam's design is definitely unique. Closed, it looks kind of like a carrying case for glasses, but like a Tootsie pop, the good stuff's on the inside. Opening and unfolding the C615 reveals several flexible joints and the camera itself, which spins around in a full 360 degree circle. The mobility lets you shoot videos with the C615 that other models simply couldn't capture.

Tech-wise, the C615's capable of full-blown 1080p videos, although video chat drops the rate down to 720p. You can snap 8-megapixel still shots with this bad boy, and the device supports all the major video chat/IM services out there. Logitech built on the travel-friendly design of the C615 with the inclusion of a simple plug-and-play USB connection. You'll be able to bring the webcam to your family reunion and easily connect it to your Grandmother's eMachine, in other words.

The C615 is available now for $80.

CIA Chief Equates Hacking Frenzy to Pearl Harbor

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 09:07 AM PDT

Lulz Security might very well be on a mission to hack the entire planet. Adding to the group's collective resume of security breaches is the U.S. Senate's computer network, which was targeted because of LulzSec's admitted disdain for the U.S. government. The attack is the latest in a long string of high profile break-ins that include hacks on Sony, Fox.com, Bethesda Softworks, and the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service network.

"We don't like the U.S. government very much," LulzSec posted on its website. "Their boats are weak, their lulz are low, and their sites aren't very secure. In an attempt to help them fix their issues, we've decided to donate additional lulz in the form of owning them some more!

"This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov -- is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?"

A act of war might not be far off the mark, at least not as far as CIA Chief Leon Panetta is concerned. Responding to the heightened threat of hacker attacks, the U.K.'s Daily Mail quotes Panetta as saying, "The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our government systems. As a result, I think we have to aggressively be able to counter that. It is going to take both defensive measures as well as aggressive measures to deal with it."

In this specific instance, the Senate released a statement saying that no sensitive data was stolen, and "Although this intrusion is inconvenient, it does not compromise the security of the Senate's network, its members, or staff. Specifically, there is no individual user account information on the server supporting Senate.gov that could have been compromised."

Overclockers Set GPU Frequency Record with MSI's N580GTX Lightning and N560GTX-Ti Hawk Cards

Posted: 14 Jun 2011 08:12 AM PDT

MSI's always touting how overclockable its graphics cards are, making a big deal about Military Class components, all solid capacitors, custom cooling solutions, and other features. Turns out the graphics card wasn't just blowing a bunch of hot air. MSI's N580GTX Lightning was used to set the single-card, single-core world record for the highest GPU frequency, while the company's N560GTX-Ti was used to set the higher core frequency of any GTX 560 Ti card.

The record-breaking frequency for the N580GTX Lightning stands at 1665MHz. It was hit by German overclockers "BenchBros," who pushed the card 215 percent higher than the default value to achieve the highest frequency for a GTX 580 to date. Meanwhile, American overclocker "Splave" set a Unigine Heaven (DX11) benchmark record of 2501.96 points using the card and a healthy dose of LN2.

As for the N560GTX-Ti Hawk, Belgian overclocker "Massman" also used LN2 as he cranked the core frequency to 1500MHz, the highest yet for any GTX 560 Ti. He then set a world record for a single-card GTX 560 Ti on 3DMark 11 with a score of 7611, as well as on Unigine Engine with a score of 1652.71.

Image Credit: MSI
Posted by Shri Krishna

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