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Social engineering has sunk really low…
Someone could think that the strategies currently executed by cyber-criminals to extort personal information are sophisticated, dangerous and antivirus software-proof. Maybe it’s just like this, however it’s as much true that next to the fine technique the aforementioned criminals still use dirt cheap tricks against which there wouldn’t theoretically be any need for the antivirus at all. It would be enough to have one’s own brain always turned on when in front of the screen.
W32.Changeup, the eMule-aided worm
File sharing platforms abuse by malicious code is a fashionable habit since years now. A malware usually just checks if the infected machine hosts a peer-to-peer software, but the W32.Changeup worm detected by Symantec (among the others) goes beyond and rather than searching for a P2P tool it installs its own “private” eMule copy to replicate itself. The malware is noteworthy for its ability to “assist” downloading and spreading of additional computer threats.
Videogames highlights - July 2010, Underdogs Edition
After the previous month’s feast of mainly “triple-A” games, this new round of videogaming highlights focuses for the large part on minor titles, original games and games anyway without great advertising campaigns so far. After all interactive entertainment has never been directly tied to the money spent by developers and publishers for its packaging in finished products. On the contrary: the more the gaming business becomes an “industry”, the less an eclectic and old-time player like me tends to care about just the big titles on the limelight. Big titles already receive all the attentions by everybody so it’s useless to state the obvious.
PC gaming: a platform to rule them all
It’s one of the most debated issues within the PC world together with the digital downloads’ true weight: how much is the computer video games market worth, what financial results does the PC gaming hardware gain compared to the - seemingly much healthier - major home consoles one? The reply comes from the PC Gaming Alliance (PCGA), the publishers and producers non-profit organization “dedicated to driving the worldwide growth of PC gaming” which details heavy numbers and proclaims: the computer definitely is the largest, most widespread and financially important gaming platform out there.
Estimating digital downloads’ true weight
How much are digital downloads worth within the PC video games market? According to a recent report by NPD Group, in 2009 digital delivery of commercial products would have taken 48% of the overall marketplace in North America. NPD says that the 44.8 million games sold the past year would split in 21.3 millions in digital format and 23.5 millions on optical disks. The market research firm depicts a situation where on-line distribution of videogaming products would be on par with traditional retailers, positioning itself as the only business capable of putting back in shape the PC video games market.
Wallpapers on the spotlight: Trine 2
Along with the official announcement of Trine 2 release, during the E2 2010 Atlus unveiled screenshots, a teaser trailer and some artworks of the game. All the stuff regarding the sequel to the marvellous puzzle-platformer developed by the Finnish company Frozenbyte has been collected for the latest post in the Videogames highlights series, while the topic of today’s post will be one of the aforementioned artworks which in my humble opinion is worth the evaluation by any fan of games and fantasy in search for a new wallpaper to decorate one’s own virtual desktop with.
EasyBCD & TrueCrypt, tools for the HDDs pros updated
July has been a noteworthy month for fans of the not so trivial arts of multiboot and hard disk data encryption, which have been able to profit by the release of updated versions for two of the best utility software out there: NeoSmart Technologies released version 2.0(.1) of the EasyBCD advanced bootloader, while the so called TrueCrypt Developers Association brought to 7 the version number of its powerful, open source encryption software.
Videogames highlights - June 2010, E3 special
In the days between the 14th and 17th of June Los Angeles hosted the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the most important yearly exhibition of interactive entertainment where big names and small publishers showed an almost endless cornucopia of video games coming for the next months (and years). The E3 2010 edition was marked by publishers optimism for a market that suffers the economic crisis but hopes to return soon to make the same money they were used to. Many, too many sequels were showed, while the final result suggests a noticeable revival compared to the past editions. What follows is a personal survey of the stuff appeared during and around the video gaming show, where highly appealing games and underdogs with no big names behind them alternate as usual.
Videogames highlights - February-May 2010
I could continue to speak ill of the never too much abused downloadable contents (DLC) and video games digital delivery with my own words, but this time I will leave to Sony management official statements the task to chill the continuous, boring, stupid and annoying hype about an exclusively downloadable gaming future and other crap of this kind: 1) “I want it on the disc, that way when they buy it, they get it” - Rob Dyer, SCEA vice-president while commenting on the state of the DLC market; 2) The gloomy and failing UMD-free PSPGo “was introduced in a mature lifecycle to learn more about what the consumer wanted and we’ve definitely learnt a lot. Is that measured by success in sales? I don’t think it is” - words of Andrew House, SCEE president.
Intel says farewell to PCI bus
Soon another technology that in the past years dominated the always-changing universe of computer hardware will bite the dust. That’s the decision by Intel, the merciless executioner of standards which the company itself imposes on the market and that in the upcoming months will rule the end of official support for the PCI bus. Developed by the Californian chipmaker in 1993, the PCI Local Bus standard has been implemented on all the motherboards for x86 and compatible platforms until 2004, the year when it passed on the baton to the younger and faster PCI Express technology.
X-Setup Pro shut down
The month of June started with a bad news for all the Windows systems power users and personalizations fans: X-Setup Pro, a long-history tweaking software with unique features, reached the end of its lifetime. Because of its financial problems, the company behind X-Setup interrupted the program’s development giving away the latest version with a serial code useful for its registration.
Naruto: Shippūden episode 165 - Nine-Tails, Captured!
The clash between the enigmatic Pain and a Naruto completely changed by his last training on Mount Myoboku goes on tirelessly. The Konoha ninja is able to knock down almost all the bodies controlled by Pain by exploiting all of his most powerful and effective techniques (and tactics), killing another one thanks to the enormous potential of the nature energy he is now able to canalize and finally being neutralized by the last remaining Pain. This episode too doesn’t lack shocks, incredible deaths and big talks about peace and war.
Mercedes-Benz.tv: “Sorry”
I don’t like advertising, in any conceivable form and I try to keep it away from this site as much as possible. And yet I have to admit that exceptions to the rule of banality, mediocrity and stupidity celebrated by advertising do exist. Just take this TV commercial by Mercedes-Benz for instance, a very short cutting including black humor, tale snippets, suspense, poetry flashes. Of course it’s just an illusion, that in fact goes away at 32nd second just when the German car maker logo appears and the brainwashing commanding purchase, consumption, death begins. Bittersweet…
Marco Travaglio - Il Pompiere della Sera
In Italy journalism is long-gone, and that’s a fact. And so? So greetings to Marco Travaglio and his video-column Passaparola, which arrives at the 100th installment today by picking holes in that pathetic tool of the soft propaganda that is Corriere della Sera. Which would be the “most authoritative newspaper of Italy”. Just ridiculous…
Video games, museums and theme parks
Two recently announced videogaming-focused initiatives handle interactive entertainment from opposite but complementary points of view. The first one, pretentiously defined Game Nation by its sponsoring company, aims at making a theme park of video games for videogamers, while the second one is Italy-driven and as much ambitious considering that its promoters want to create no less than “the first European museum of video games”.
Naruto: Shippūden episode 163 - Explode! Sage Mode
This week’s Naruto Shippuuden episode is really spectacular! 
The mephitic Pain attacked the Leaf Village with all of his frightening strength, killing many key characters of the anime and eventually tearing down Konoha with some sort of cold atomic explosion. This is when Naruto goes on stage, having just completed his training on Mount Myoboku and learning the secrets of the Sage Mode - the same one used by his defunct master Jiraiya. And the training results are immediately noticeable when Naruto attacks Pain with all of his usual, exploding rush…
May 2010, a month of retro-anniversaries
Some technologies are really die hard, but they can be celebrated in due time when they finally become history. It happened by chance that the twenty-second day of May 2010 fell the anniversary of two fundamental tech products, considered as milestones within their field so much that there is a “before” and an “after” their appearance on the market. And both products have no need for introduction, being no less than the first “star” of the video games history and the first Windows version to be successful among the vast user base of “IBM and compatible” PCs.
The Mario Galaxy Orchestra performs Super Mario Galaxy 2 main theme
I don’t like (Super) Mario that much, but I respect and prize the creative genius of Nintendo and Japanese designers like Shigeru Miyamoto. Very likely the Wii will be the first Nintendo console I will purchase in my life once I will be relocated in my new house, and considering the musical score beauty showed by the following video clip I’d say that the first games to buy will just be the two Super Mario Galaxy.
Sality, the virus that turned into the ultimate malware
Computer threats are continuously evolving, and there is who would even pretend that they did the leap from the machine to man by infecting RFID microchips installed under the skin. But even though they remain a “simple” IT issue, some malicious codes are a problem difficult to tackle because of their inherent complexity and an intelligent design capable of constantly putting security companies under pressure. A remarkable “intelligent” threat is for instance Sality, the new generation file virus that according to Symantec has practically turned into an “all-in-one” malware incorporating botnet-alike functionalities as well.
DOSBox and nullDC, updates and notable departures
During the past few days two important facts happened in the emulation world: DOSBox, the virtual machine that accurately replicates the PC world obsolete hardware has been updated with a new version release, while the Dreamcast emulator nullDC has found itself at a crossroad in its erratic history. Both cases concern software that are almost unique in their kind, and both the news are worth being told for the practical effects they have on the many fans using them.
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