Researchers try to beat viruses to the punch

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, February 17, 2007

Researchers looking to root out computer attacks hope that speed kills.

Penn State University scientists said they’ve devised new anti-worm technology that can identify and contain worms milliseconds after an attack by analyzing data packets’ rate or frequency of connections, and their diversity of connections to other networks.

That allows the technology they term “proactive worm containment” to react more quickly to security threats, university researchers said.

“A lot of worms need to spread quickly in order to do the most damage, so our software looks for anomalies in the rate and diversity of connection requests going out of hosts,” Peng Liu, a Penn State information sciences and technology professor and lead researcher on the project, said in a statement.

Researchers say that many current security methods focus on “signature or pattern identification” and cannot respond fast enough to prevent worms from exploiting networks. Those approaches, they say, often miss worms that mutate automatically, bypassing the existing anti-worm controls.

Spa has the cure for “BlackBerry Thumb”:

A New York City spa has become the latest business trying to profit off your BlackBerry addiction.

Graceful Services recently introduced a BlackBerry Finger Massage that promises to help eliminate neck, back and finger-cramping caused by excessive typing on tiny BlackBerry keyboards.

A repetitive stress injury informally known as “BlackBerry Thumb” may also affect people who spend too much time with a video game controller, television remote control or any number of handheld devices.

Graceful’s hour-long BlackBerry massage costs $60. It’s a full-body massage with emphasis on the back, neck and hands.

Is this quantum leap for real?:

Quantum computing is such an elusive goal that even the company claiming to have the “world’s first commercial quantum computer” acknowledged it isn’t entirely sure the machine is performing true quantum calculations.

And independent quantum computing researchers said they are dubious of some of the claims made by D-Wave Systems Inc. because the privately held Canadian company has not yet submitted its findings for peer review, a standard step for gaining acceptance in scientific circles.

Many scientists believe that true quantum computing – which is based on the unusual properties of quantum physics – promises to solve certain factoring, simulation and other intensive problems faster than today’s machines that rely on classical physics. Most say it’s likely still years or decades away.

“Until we see more actual measurements, it’s hard to know whether they succeeded or not,” said Phil Kuekes, a computer architect in the Quantum Science Research Group at Hewlett-Packard Co.’s HP Labs.

D-Wave held its first public demonstration Tuesday of a machine it claims uses quantum mechanics to solve a certain type of problems, such as searching a database for matching molecular structures.

But the company did not make the machine available for inspection and instead showed video from a remote location, saying it was too sensitive to be easily transported.

And notwithstanding lofty claims in the company’s press release about creating the world’s first commercial quantum computer, D-Wave Chief Executive Herb Martin emphasized that the machine is not a true quantum computer and is instead a kind of special-purpose machine that uses some quantum mechanics to solve problems.

Rivals pass Sharp Corp. in flat-panel TV shipments:

Sharp Corp., which helped propel the market for liquid-crystal display televisions, is no longer the world’s leading maker of the flat-panel TVs, according to two market research companies.

Rivals surpassed the Japanese company in unit shipments last year for the first time, according to iSuppli Corp. and NPD Group’s DisplaySearch.

“This is a significant blow to Sharp,” iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel said. “While its market share had been declining, Sharp had managed to maintain a considerable distance from its competitors. However, this is no longer the case.”

Both research companies found that Samsung Electronics Co., based in South Korea, rose to the top spot, though they differ in Sharp’s relative ranking.

ISuppli said Samsung’s worldwide market share was 14.6 percent, followed by Royal Philips Electronics NV of the Netherlands at 13.4 percent then Sharp at 13.3 percent, Tokyo-based Sony Corp. at 12.7 percent and Seoul-based LG Electronics Co. at 7.6 percent.

DisplaySearch pegged Samsung’s market share at 13.4 percent, followed by Philips at 13 percent, then Sony at 11.6 percent, Sharp at 11.4 percent, and LG at 7.1 percent.