The Pirate Bay’s user database was hacked by an Argentinian security researcher, who got access to IP addresses and E-Mails of torrent uploaders. TPB failure to hash those very sensitive data before storing them in their database is a major FAIL w.r.t. data protection.
Archive of posts filed under the Technical category.
FireGPG is Dead
FireGPG development has just been discontinued.
Hello, World on the Bare Metal
In this tutorial, we invoke BIOS functions (which are fortunately available in Real Mode) to write a simple string on the screen. This assembly program doesn’t require an operating system kernel, and runs on bare metal.
Brazil and Germany Leading in Google Data Removal Requests
Brazil’s Government issued 291 data removal requests to Google in 2009, followed by Germany (188), India (142), and the United States (123). Regarding Web Search censorship, Germany is leading with 94 requests, followed by Argentina (31), the United States (20) and Brazil (9). However, the “enemies of the Internet” don’t show up in this “hall of shame,” because they have their own censorship infrastructure and don’t need cooperation from Google.
Unix copyrights belong to Novell, not SCO
In the Novell vs. SCO trial, a jury in Utah decided that Unix copyrights didn’t go to SCO. This is an epic win for the Linux community and Novell, but since Novell didn’t clarify their position w.r.t. non-Linux based Unix-derivatives, OpenSolaris may now be in hot waters — again! Let’s hope that Novell won’t harass the OpenSolaris community.
C++ Tutorial (5)
This is part 5 of a fast paced C++ tutorial for programmers familiar with high level languages like Perl and Python. In this part, we’ll learn how to use an external library (POCO) to base64 encode and -decode files and strings.
C++ Tutorial (4)
This is part 4 of a fast paced C++ tutorial for programmers familiar with high level languages like Perl and Python. In this part, we’ll learn how to copy files “the C++ way” using stream iterators. We’ll make use of the std::copy algorithm to eliminate the need for explicit loops, thus resulting in more idiomatic programs.
Google leaving China?
Google would rather leave China than continue censoring search results to Chinese users. While that’s a great proof of “don’t be evil”, how comes Google happily censors localized results in various countries, and bows to DMCA-style US censorship without much public protest? What’s REALLY going on between Google and China?
The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer
Did the legendary Mel contribute to the BSD/SunOS/OpenSolaris kernel codebase?
An Algorithm for Resilient Botnets
Current botnets use a pseudo-random sequence of domains to host their moving C&Cs. This post shows the drawbacks of this clever approach and proposes a little enhancement to the names generating algorithm.