Researchers crack XML Encryption

German researchers have demonstrated a technique for breaking the encryption widely used to secure data in online transactions, which they say “poses a serious and truly practical security threat on all currently used implementations of XML Encryption.”

The attack is able to recover 160 bytes of plain-text message in 10 seconds and decrypt larger amounts of data at the same pace, the researchers said.

Although the attack, described in a paper delivered last week at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Chicago, was directed against the XML Encryption standard, it exploits weaknesses in the cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode of operation that is commonly used with many cryptographic algorithms. This makes it likely it could be used against non-XML implementations as well.

Source: XML Encryption cracked, exposing real threat to online transactions

Asus U41SV-WX111V

A good combination of capabilities, weight (~ 2 Kg) and price

More information: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/U41SV/

MacBook Air 2011

More information: http://www.apple.com/macbookair/

Samsung series 9 notebook

More information: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP900X3A-A03US

Raspberry Pi, the $25 computer

David Braben has a big idea crammed into a tiny frame. He and fellow members of the British nonprofit Raspberry Pi have designed a rugged computer powerful enough to perhaps inspire a generation of future programmers, yet cheap enough that schools can hand them out free of charge.

Source: CSMonitor.com via ACM Tech News

Chip building goes up!

Intel Increases Transistor Speed by Building Upward

(...) early transistors were built on a flat surface. But like a real estate developer building skyscrapers to get more rentable space from a plot of land, Intel is now building up.

The company has already begun making its microprocessors using a new 3-D transistor design, called a Finfet (for fin field-effect transistor), which is based around a remarkably small pillar, or fin, of silicon that rises above the surface of the chip.

(...) it expected to be able to make chips that run as much as 37 percent faster in low-voltage applications and it would be able to cut power consumption as much as 50 percent.

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iTable

With the iPad coming soon, I got to thinking what would be the best computer input device for engineering work. The answer I found was: all of them!

What I would really like to have is an iTable - a full-size drawing board - where you could input using pen, keyboard, mouse, touch, all together.

It is a huge technical challenge, but it would be really, really nice!

Image credits: http://www.tecniart.org

Mac VS PC accident

This is my PC telling what happened to him last week... Actually the culprit was the network cable, but the end result was the same.