by Jovie Cabais | Nov 7, 2010 | Tech Updates
Are you a researcher who likes to find vulnerabilities on web applications? You have a chance to earn money if you can “discover legitimate, critical flaws in its Web applications — including Google.com, Blogger.com, Orkut.com, and YouTube.com”. In a bold move, Google is offering money for bugs that users can find on its various services. The rules are simple: “No automated testing tools are allowed, nor are attacks against Google’s corporate infrastructure, social engineering and physical attacks, denial-of-service bugs, non- Web application vulnerabilities, SEO blackhat techniques, vulnerabilities in Google-branded websites hosted by third parties, and flaws in any newly acquired technologies by Google”. And researches can only use their own accounts and must not acquire access to data from another account. Bug reports can earn the research $500 to $3,133.70, depending on the severity and cleverness of the bug reported. The researcher of the bug report that got accepted for the monetary award will also be recognized in Google’s security page. A similar program launched for the Chromium project last January yielded important bug reports and Google hopes to duplicate the success with its web applications. The Chromium project is an open source browser that “aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all Internet users to experience the web.”, according the Chromium website. Sources: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2010/11/rewarding-web-application-security.html http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228200276 http://dev.chromium.org/Home Share...
by Jovie Cabais | Oct 31, 2010 | Tech Updates
When we hear WiFi, we often associate it with Internet access via wireless network. However, WiFi may also be used for local area network and not necessarily have Internet access. For some facilities, using wired network for LAN connection is not possible due to distance or aesthetics. In this case, WiFi technology may be used as a low cost solution. An example of a situation requiring a wireless network for LAN connection is for a resort complex with buildings scattered in a large estate. The business units requiring a point of sale (POS) device like restaurant, spa, dive shop, pool bar, etc, must be connected to the main server but are scattered in different buildings that are hundreds of meters apart. The POS devices need a secure wireless connection to the main server that is isolated from regular WiFi Internet access. A WiFi based LAN must implement multiple security features of the WiFi specifications. Among these are hidden SSID, the use of WEP for encryption and the use of MAC address filtering to help ensure that only known WiFi devices are connected to the network. There are various devices that can be used for a WiFi LAN implementation. For situations that need the devices to be located outside the building, weatherproof models should be used. It is also important that devices to be exposed to the elements use power over ethernet (POE) to avoid another cable run for the power supply. Also, use devices with a watchdog feature that will automatically restart the device if the network connection is down. This feature will increase uptime and lessen the need...
by Jovie Cabais | Oct 24, 2010 | Tech Updates
SEO or search engine optimization is among the latest buzzwords in online marketing and every website owner should have an understanding of what SEO is, so that the value of the website as a marketing tool can be maximized. In a nutshell, SEO is the implementation of best practices that help the website gain higher position on the search results. Every website owner would like to have their website on the first search result for the target keywords. An example of this is if you search on Google for the keywords ‘bohol news’, you will find that the first result shows BoholNewsDaily.com. This website has been optimized for those keywords. Google encourages website owners to deliver quality content on their websites rather than resort to tactics that artificially increase website traffic. Google and other search engines usually penalize websites that use methods to artificially boost search result positions. Google prefers that a website gains traffic because its content is useful or entertaining and users recommend the link to other people. Tricking users to land on a website even if the user did not really want to go there is considered a bad practice and Google penalizes websites using such techniques. Sometimes, those websites will be removed from the search database. The initial phase of SEO is to make sure that the website uses proper titles, urls, tags and metatags and descriptions as these are used by the search engine when someone searches for keywords. The choice of keywords that should be optimized is very important as it determines whether your website appears on search results or not. However, it...
by Jovie Cabais | Oct 17, 2010 | Tech Updates
Friday, October 14th, 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground were brought back to the surface successfully and with less trouble and delay than expected. Once again, excellent technology plus a lot of faith and hard work has saved the day. The trapped miners have finally been rescued and are now enjoying a lot of attention from the world because of having survived their 69-day ordeal. They are not just miners now, but heroes. Aside from a really big miracle, the trapped miners survived everything with the help of modern technology. Families that made makeshift homes around the site were able to constantly communicate with their trapped loved one via phone or an iPod. Food, medicine, water and other needs for hygiene were coursed through “Paloma” a tube sent to them and available for their needs 24 hours a day. According to some doctors, it was important to help the miners think of things other than their present condition, so they were pretty much allowed to do a lot of stuff. The miners gambled, which made them think they were just whiling away the afternoon at some dark corner of the casino, they exercised with a trainor to keep them fit, they listened to music through the iPod, and, they even watched a soccer game via fiber optics. Fiber optics were used due to the distance of the place were the miners were trapped. A normal wire can only be used for distances of up to 300 ft. Fiber optics on the other hand, deliver quality signals even for up to 10 kilometers or more, depending on their kind. Auza.net...
by Jovie Cabais | Oct 10, 2010 | Tech Updates
Just yesterday, October 9, 2010, 60 students with IT related courses from BIT-IC participated in the Auza.net-sponsored Google Applications training. The BIT-IC students were the first batch to be trained, and given their own Google Apps email. The training started at around 9 o’clock in the morning at the BIT-IC Computer Laboratory. Their speaker was Auza.net Technology Consultant Mr. Jerome Auza, assisted by Rey Doblas and Jeffrey Jabines. The training included creating individual personnal email accounts for the participants and the step-by-step instructions on how to efficiently use the applications. The energy and excitement of the students were noticeable upon learning of the many features of their email and upon the discovery of how group collaboration can be so easy. Armed with what they have learned from the short yet very helpful training, the BIT-IC students are now more keen on working with their teachers, classmates or project groupmates. This goes to show that Google Applications do not prove itself useful in office settings, but even more so in academic atmospheres. Auza.net will hopefully be conducting more trainings regarding google applications in the future, so that more and more students can make use of this technology. The training was organized with the help of BIT-IC instructor Mr. Hercules Avenido, and with special thanks to Mr. Neil Balite. Share...
