South Korean hit by Chinese Hackers

Not blaming the North for once

 

South Korea is furious that the personal information of about 35 million of its Internet users were stolen in a hacking attack that originated in China. Normally South Korea has to worry about hack attacks from the North, but this time it does not think that “Dear Leader” has been on his computer console hacking them

Internet and social media sites Nate and Cyworld were hit with the hackers looking for social security numbers and email addresses. According to the Korea Communications Commission the operator of the sites, SK Communications, alleged the attack originated from computers in China based on their Internet Protocol addresses

For once it also does not seem to be a state sponsored attack either. Governments are not usually interested in the user IDs, passwords, social security numbers, names, mobile phone numbers and email addresses of the great unwashed. It is more likely Chinese criminal gangs who want to use the information for Phishing attacks

According to NP the attack would be the largest Internet hacking case to have taken place in South Korea

San Fran Driver pushed back again

Only pushed back an additional week this time

 

Ubisoft has confirmed that Driver: San Francisco will not make its latest ship date. Instead, the game will be pushed back an additional week, which makes the new release date for North America September 6th , instead of August 30th

No reason was announced for the delay. The majority of the feedback that we have been hearing about Driver: San Francisco has been very positive, with some claiming that it clearly has a compelling multiplayer experience that could be a very big draw if the word gets out. We will have to wait till September 6th to find out

AMD rolls out Catalyst 11.7 WHQL driver

Followed by 11.8 64-bit preview one

 

As expected, AMD has rolled out its latest monthly Catalyst release, the Catalyst 11.7 WHQL. The new driver supports all the card from Radeon HD 2000 days and although it doesn't bring any new features or impressive performance gains it does fix a rather large amount of bugs found in previous versions of Catalyst. In addition to the new 11.7 WHQL version, AMD has also rolled out the new preview driver as well, dubbed Catalyst 11.8 Preview

As noted, the Catalyst 11.7 WHQL brings a rather large list of fixes including mouse cursor lag, some problems with 11.6 driver and HDMI/DP displays, 720p DivX problems on Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player, some problems with various games in both single and Crossfire configurations, problems with various applications including PowerDVD, VLC Player, WinDVD 10 and much more

On the other hand, the 11.8 Preview driver, available only for Windows 7 64-bit brings a couple of rather interesting features and pefromance updates. The most important one is the HD3D technology support for 3D monitors via DisplayPort. The list of perfromance updates includes Crysis 2 by up to 10 percent on Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series cards as well as up to eight percent in Fear 3 under DirectX 11 with the same series cards

The last is a performance improvement of up to 30 percent when AMD's Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA) is enabled via Catalyst Control Center on Radeon HD 6000 and HD 5000 series cards

Catalyst 11.7 WHQL can be found here while the 11.8 Preview one is here

Driver San Fran for PC deploys new DRM

Constant Internet connection required to play

 

For the PC version of Driver: San Francisco, UbiSoft has apparently not learned from the past and will again release a title that requires a permanent Internet connection. As you can imagine, this is already making some unhappy

This is not the first time that UbiSoft has tried to deploy this DRM scheme on the PC. Due to the amount of blacklash, the company did soften its stance a bit, but we hear that this will not be the case this time around. In addition, the PC version will deploy the company’s new Uplay Passport code that contains a “one-time use code” such that when entered, allows the user to play on-line; without it, there is no online play

The console versions will also use the new Ubisoft “Uplay Passport code” strategy, as well

Google stops techies giving Android a value

Legal manoeuvres in the dark

 

It seems that Google is doing its best to make sure that a technical expert does not give evidence about the value of Android in a court case about Java

Oracle wants a technie to tell the court that Google owes it billions while Google wants a marketing expert. The court needs to settle the question of the contribution Oracle's Java-related intellectual property rights make to Android's success. Google thinks that an industry expert would be more helpful to the Court and the jury than a technical expert

An industry expert would have first-hand knowledge of the market for handsets, operating systems, and applications, how those products are marketed to consumers, and the reason why consumers make their practical purchasing decisions. Analyst Florian Mueller thinks it is really funny as Google always likes to present itself as a company with a markedly "geeky" culture. Oracle's leadership is more like a group of marketeers and investment bankers. They are business-oriented

“Google obviously wants to downplay the role Oracle's Java IPRs play, claiming that anything those patents (and copyrights) cover is just a small part of Android as a whole,” he said

Battlefield 3 Alpha & Beta plans revealed

Alpha will be invite only, beta will be more open

 

On their blog DICE has answered some of the questions surrounding the Alpha and Beta testing for Battlefield 3. According to what we understand now, the Alpha test will be closed and by invitation only

Alpha invites have apparently already started to go out via Email. Apparently at this point, the only way to maybe get in the Alpha test is to subscribe to the new letter and make sure that your Veteran status is up to date; only then maybe you might be called upon. DICE will not be giving out any public keys to the Alpha test, so this is the only way that you might get in if you have not already been invited

As for the Beta, it will start in September, and those that purchase the Limited Edition of Medal of Honor will be able to join the Beta once it starts. Rumors of an Email going out about the Beta are apparently true; however, there was no code or ticket in this Email that will get you into the Beta. DICE will be making an additional announcement about joining the Beta as we get closer to September