Last night, mobile phone operator Orange managed to cripple services to its network. Reports state that just before 6pm, access in and out of the Orange network was severely disrupted. To make matters worse, calls to Orange Customer Service numbers where also plagued with problems. I can confirm, from first hand experience, as I was in the middle of trying to modify my tariff at the time. Calls to customer service were either dropped instantly, met with a message informing the user that the line was busy, or a nondescript beeping loop. Orange have made a statement on the issue claiming the problems were due to a technical bork in one of the areas managed by one of its network partners

At this years Black Hat conference in New York, security consultant Brendan O’Connor displayed a proof of concept attack against a Xerox printer. Exploiting vulnerabilities in the printers embedded software; O’Connor was able to snoop on the traffic being passed to the device. During the conference O’Connor highlighted the importance of security in embedded software and pointed out the huge amount of sensitive information that could be leaked if such an attack occurred. Xerox has released a patch for their WorkCenter printers but O’Connor maintains that the issue is not fully resolved.

Whilst the war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray rages on, storage manufacturers have started to look ahead for the next big thing in data containment. InPhase, a Lucent spin off, have been looking into a 3D-storage mechanism over the past 5 years. By stacking data in 3 dimensions, instead of two, InPhase - in cohorts with Hitachi Maxell - claim that by 2010, 3D storage devices will be capable of offering up 1.6TB’s on media the size of a CD, with 300GB devices available by the end of this year.

How Hitachi Maxell’s method differs from say, a dual-layer DVD (and thus 3D-storage model) is unknown, and at $15,000 a writer, $180 a disc, demand is going to be short. To this end InPhase and Hitachi Maxell have been in discussions relating to high capacity devices available to the mass market, one possibility is a small disc, about the size of a postage stamp, that will hold 75-100GB.

More information at : www.inphase-tech.com

Related Stories : 2600uk - 50 Terabyte DVD

The Register is running a two-page article on the cloning of the new biometric passports that are becoming widely implemented. Lukas Grunwald, from Germany’s DN-Systems consultants, demonstrated, at Black Hat, the ease to which a biometric passport can be fraudulently cloned. What may be even more surprising, is that the, widely available, ICAO documentation actually outlines the technical processes in quite a lot of detail.

To read more, please follow this link to The Register

Telecoms regulator Ofcom, are making efforts to increase the availability of wireless networks in rural parts of the UK where broadband isnt readily available.

The problem with wireless networks outside of urban areas is that, due to the relatively low range, a greater number of transmitters is required to provide wide coverage. This of course costs alot of money. Ofcom aims to increase the range of each node in order to reduce the number of transmitters required.

In a BBC article, Selina Lo of Ruckus said;

“A typical network will have hundreds or low thousands of access points. If you have power limits, these nodes have to be closer together and you need a lot more nodes.”

Need we go on? Blogger Rickard Liljeberg posts on his website of a strange phenomenon whereby a Dell desktop, model GX520, will spontaneously shut itself down if a mobile phone placed near it recieves an SMS text message. A video of the bug can be found on Lliljeberg’s site.

Initially baffled, Dell blame the problem on interference between the phone and the harddrive and recommend that people refrain from using their mobiles within a foot of their desktop.

If last months exploding laptop wasnt enough for Dell, its happened again in a small office in Illinois, USA. As before, it would appear that the battery developed a fault, caused massive amounts of heat and then exploded.

A full set of pictures and first hand account can be found at Toms Hardware

In an effort to reduce mobile phone related crime, the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF), along with all five major UK mobile networks, have vowed to block 80% of stolen phones, within 24-48 hours of being reported.

MICAF are now making the phone networks take full accountability for the theft of mobile phones. Backing the incentive, Home Secretary, John Reid has pledge £1.35 million in order to form a new “National Phone Crime” unit.

It is likely that the IMEI will be blocked in order to render the phones useless, but many people fear that this may lead to an increase in stolen phones as thiefs will be likely to use the phoen for 48 hours and discard it in place of another.

At this years HOPE conference in New York, Jonathan Westhues of www.cq.cx demonstrated the ability to clone an RFID chip imbedded in the arm of his colleague. Using a laptop running signal processing software, a standard RFID reader and antenna, Westhues was able to read the ID number from the embedded VeriChip.

“Their (VeriChip’s) website claims that it cannot be counterfeited — that is something that Jonathan and I have shown to be untrue,” Annalee Newitz (colleague).

A “VeriChip” is an implantable, passive Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) about the size of a grain of sand that can be used in a variety of applications such as assessing whether somebody has authority to enter a high-security area.

more information can be found at Westhues site : http://cq.cx/verichip.pl

Shanghai’s Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies have created a toy car that will run entirely from hydrogen as part of their research into cleaner fuel alternatives.

The 6 inch car uses a small electric current, supplied by the solar cells, to extract the hydrogen from water and can run for 4 minutes on a full tank.

Horizon’s car, the H-Racer, comes complete with its own solar powered refuelling station and is expected to retail at around $80 USD.

More Information: www.horizonfuelcell.com