computers

Google boosts customer access, functionality of Compute Engine

Google introduced somewhat of an overhaul for its Compute Engine virtual machine today, making the cloud service more readily available to more users.

Marc Cohen, a software manager on the Google Cloud Platform team, outlined in a blog post that today's update essentially boils down to three things: lower costs, more functionality and access for more customers.

Cohen also cited a recent review by Scalr founder Sebastian Stadil published on GigaOm, highlighting the speed of the cloud infrastructure against competitors.

Starting today, the Infrastructure-as-a-Service is being made available to all customers who sign up for Google's Gold Support … Read more

'Aaron's Law' rewrite backfires, reformers now on defensive

For years, criminal defense attorneys, academics, and civil libertarians have warned that an anti-hacking law, originally designed to protect NORAD's computers, needs to be reformed. Federal prosecutors have used the law to prosecute the late Aaron Swartz and a Missouri woman accused of lying on her MySpace profile.

Now a key U.S. House of Representatives committee finally is rewriting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. But instead of fixing the law's vagueness problems, or reducing its penalties, draft legislation backed by the Justice Department would make it even more Draconian.

It's a bitter setback to the … Read more

Apple patent points to pen PC with cellular and GPS features

A newly awarded Apple patent describes a pen that acts as a portable, wireless computer.

Granted to Apple today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a patent known simply as "portable computers" speaks of a pen computer with a built-in screen that can display e-mails, text message, and voice data. The device, which would be equipped with cellular and/or GPS technology to allow wireless communication, also would act as an advanced digital pen. The patent explains that the pen would include accelerometers to recognize handwriting and facilitate both speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion.

Along with … Read more

My Google spreadsheet fail

I'm a cloud-computing, Chrome OS fanboy for the most part. But today was one of of those days I was glad to have old-school Mac and Windows PCs lying around my home office.

I'm no power user, but Google Docs suits me for word processing, while Google Sheets works fine for creating spreadsheets. However, when it comes to importing and editing files from the incumbent power, Microsoft Office, Google just isn't meeting even my low-end needs.

Google handles such documents -- in either the older .doc and .xls formats, and the newer .docx and .xlsx formats -- … Read more

BlackBerry 10 erroneously reported as not secure enough by U.K.

Updated at 3:30 p.m. PT This article, originally headlined "BlackBerry 10 deemed not secure enough by U.K.," previously reported the U.K.'s Computer Experts Security Group had determined that the new operating system did not meet its standards. At the time of its publication, the CESG was unavailable for comment, so the article relied on the reporting of The Guardian. We have since learned that report was inaccurate. We have received comment from the CESG that indicates BlackBerry 10 has not yet undergone required testing. We have included the group's statement in this … Read more

RapidShare scraps unlimited storage with short notice

Online storage provider RapidShare is expanding what it offers for its free service -- but it's also scrapped its earlier unlimited plan, even for customers who paid in advance for a longer-term period.

The Swiss company, with more than 50 employees, more than a thousand servers, and the capacity to store several petabytes of user data, announced the change March 12. Paying customers get a choice between a 250GB plan costing 10 euros ($12.96) a month and a 500GB plan costing 20 euros a month. The previous unlimited-storage option vanishes Wednesday.

The change reflects a reality for cloud … Read more

AT&T 'hacker' and Internet troll sentenced to over three years

In the latest criminal prosecution to alarm Internet activists, a security researcher who accessed a non-password protected portion of AT&T's Web site was sentenced today to 41 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Andrew Auernheimer, who goes by the nickname "Weev" and was convicted by a federal jury last year of hacking, was sentenced today by a federal judge in Newark, N.J. "No matter what the outcome, I will not be broken," Auernheimer said this morning after hosting an all-night party in Newark and making an unsuccessful appearance on … Read more

Cryptography scientists win 2012 Turing Award

Two cryptography scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have won the 2012 Turing Award for pioneering ways to make online transactions secure, the Association for Computing Machinery announced today.

Scientists Shafi Goldwasser and Silvio Micali were recognized for laying the "foundations of modern theoretical cryptography," which lead to the development of technology that is now standard in security, like encryption and digital signatures, according to ACM.

The prestigious award, named after British mathematician Alan M. Turing, comes with a $250,000 cash prize provided by Intel and Google. Turing is known as a pioneer of modern computing … Read more

From 'WarGames' to Aaron Swartz: How U.S. anti-hacking law went astray

Aaron Swartz, the Internet activist who committed suicide while facing the possibility of a felony criminal conviction, was prosecuted under a law that was never intended to cover what he was accused of doing.

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 dealt only with bank and defense-related intrusions. But over the years, thanks to constant pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice, the scope of the law slowly crept outward.

So by the time Swartz was arrested in 2011, the tough federal statute meant to protect our national defense secrets covered everything from Bradley Manning's offenses to … Read more