What exactly do they SOPA for?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) a.k.a. H.R. 3261, is a bill that was introduced on October 26, 2011 in the USHR. The Stop Online Piracy Act dramatically broadens the capacity of US law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.... Proponents of  SOPA say that it does protect the intellectual property market and related industry, jobs and revenue, and is essential to reinforce and strengthen enforcement of copyright laws particularly against foreign websites. Opponents of the bill forcefully deem that the bill infringes on First Amendment rights, is effectively Internet censorship,... wtf? Plus in fact will completely and effectively hobble the Internet! And more importantly, opponents strongly believe SOPA will significantly frighten many important aspects of free speech.

To date, a large portion of the most important and innovative Internet industries and a very significant percentage of Internet users have shown robust public opposition to Internet-related legislation and SOPA is no exception. Publically argued by top Internet innovators such as Craig Newmark founder of Cragists List, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and many other principal Internet industry leaders that SOPA puts the United States on a plane with the majority of tyrannical and oppressive nations in the world, They also firmly believe that SOPA will give the Feds excessive and unacceptable power and authority to censor the Web. (Check out the growing and updated list of impressive opponents. http://www.net-coalition.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Opposition_Dec16.pdf )

Please go to this site and do as many of the actions as you can. This bill has strong corporations behind it, but together we are stronger http://americancensorship.org/

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Microsoft is the number three global brand.

Microsoft is still among the world's biggest brand names, according to a newly released list of the top 100 global brands. The list, from Interbrand, puts Microsoft in the number three position for the year 2011. The actual monetary value of Microsoft's brand was $59.1 billion in 2011 although the list shows that number to be three percent lower than the previous year. Cola Cola is the world's number one brand, followed by IBM at number two. Microsoft competitor Google is in the number four position while processor maker Intel is in seventh place. Apple is shown to be in the eighth position on the list and HP is in the number 10 slot.

The list shows that Google's value surged up 27 percent from the year before and if it continues at that pace, could beat out Microsoft and be in the number two slot for next year's brand list. While Apple is in the eighth spot, its value went 58 percent higher than the previous year... Interbrand creates this annual list based on a number of factors including a company's financial performance, the role of a brand in the purchase decision process, and the overall strength of a particular brand, Yay!

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Windows 8 pre-beta demo

There is no doubt that Windows 8 is a hot topic at CES 2012. The new OS is quickly approaching beta and will be in the consumer hands before we know it. At the Microsoft booth today, a pre-beta build was shown off that included new features that are not currently included in the developers preview.
There are some things that had not been seen before such as new background colors, mouse gestures, and of course, Microsoft Music. The demo lasted about 17 minutes and is a great overview of what Windows 8 will offer.There was a lot of excitement at the booth for many reasons but the vision Microsoft has for the Metro UI begins to become a bit more clear after viewing the demo; Metro will be a fantastic addition to the platform. While many critics are writing it off without having used the interface, it offers a lot of flexibility and a new way to interact with your PC.

W8 Demo Part 1
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSeD0J6Dx0]

W8 Demo Part 2
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_jCh2PkY0g]

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Bruteforce attack tool promises WPA in 4 hours

The WiFi Protected Setup protocol is vulnerable to a brute force attack that allows an attacker to recover an access point’s WPS pin, and subsequently the WPA/WPA2 passphrase, in just a matter of hours.

Reaver is a WPA attack tool developed by Tactical Network Solutions that exploits a protocol design flaw in WiFi Protected Setup (WPS). This vulnerability exposes a side-channel attack against Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) versions 1 and 2 allowing the extraction of the Pre-Shared Key (PSK) used to secure the network. With a well-chosen PSK, the WPA and WPA2 security protocols are assumed to be secure by a majority of the 802.11 security community.

Reaver has been designed to be a robust and practical attack against WPS, and has been tested against a wide variety of access points and WPS implementations.On average Reaver will recover the target AP's plain text WPA/WPA2 passphrase in 4-10 hours, depending on the AP. In practice, it will generally take half this time to guess the correct WPS pin and recover the passphrase.

WPS allows users to enter an 8 digit PIN to connect to a secured network without having to enter a passphrase. When a user supplies the correct PIN the access point essentially gives the user the WPA/WPA2 PSK that is needed to connect to the network. Reaver will determine an access point's PIN and then extract the PSK and give it to the attacker.

Get open source version of Reaver at Google Code.

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