A hacker has successfully attacked a Web page within Microsoft's U.K. domain.

A hacker successfully attacked a Web page within Microsoft Corp.'s U.K. domain on Wednesday, resulting in the display of a photograph of a child waving the flag of Saudi Arabia.

It was "unfortunate" that the site was vulnerable, said Roger Halbheer, chief security advisor for Microsoft in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, on Friday.

The problem has since been fixed. However, the hack highlights how large software companies with technical expertise can still prove vulnerable to hackers.

The hacker, who posted his name as "rEmOtEr," exploited a programming mistake in the site by using a technique known as SQL (Structured Query Language) injection to get unauthorized access to a database, Halbheer said. The site took SQL queries of a particular form, embedded in URLs (uniform resource locators), and passed them to a database. By embedding a query with an unexpected form in the requested URL, the hacker prompted the server to return error messages, Halbheer said.

From those error messages, a hacker can get an idea of how the database is structured and refine a SQL query that the database will process as an instruction to insert, rather than retrieve, data. Eventually, the hacker found the right combination and inserted a link to an external Web site into the database.

That meant when the normal Web page was called into a browser, the database would download data from an external link. In this case, it was two photos and a graphic, a screen shot of which is available on Zone-H.org, which tracks hacked Web sites.

There are two ways to avoid this style of attack. First, the database should not be allowed to return error messages, Halbheer said. Secondly, the Web application should have validated the URL the hacker entered and rejected ones that should not be processed, he said.

If a programmer makes a mistake, "the bad guy can leverage it," Halbheer said.

SQL injection attacks are on the rise, overall, since valuable data is held within databases, said Paul Davie, founder and chief operating officer of Secerno Ltd., a security vendor that develops technology to protect databases from SQL attacks.

"I don't think Microsoft are unique in this respect and shouldn't be held up as particularly slipshod," Davie said. "This could have happened to practically anybody."

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Publisher's Description

Nexuiz is a 3d FPS deathmatch game project, created online by a team of developers called Alientrap.

Nexuiz is based on the Darkplaces engine. The darkplaces engine is an advanced Quake1 engine developed mainly by Forest "LordHavoc" Hale, who has been working with the Quake1 engine for many years.

A few of Darkplaces main features are Quake3bsp support, realtime lighting and shadowing, new particle effects, advanced menu system, and Md3/Md2 model support. Because Nexuiz is based on the Quake1 engine, its source code along with its content is entirely GPL.

Nexuiz focuses on bringing the FPS back to the basics with quick, lethal battles and balanced weaponry. As of the current release there are 9 weapons and 24 official maps, as well as 15 player models, with an average of 2 skins each.

Nexuiz is primarily multiplayer (though it includes a full single-player campaign, which allows one to play through the various multiplayer game types and maps with bots), and allows for hosting and joining of games. It can also support new gametypes, or whole conversions quickly applied to it (much like Quake). Nexuiz supports most, if not all, Quake modifications (although with varying functionality). Currently there are a few custom mods and maps used.

35 Map Pack
This is a community map pack compiled by Strahlemann. It includes 35 maps, and a campaign mode for the user to fight through. The map pack includes Quake3 communtiy maps, Nexuiz community maps, and some new maps from Nexuiz developers. Credit is given for all of the authors. To install it just unzip the file into your main Nexuiz directory.

Download the map pack (108.27MB).

System Requirements:
200mb of hard drive space

High Quality - Realtime lights and shadows on, bloom on, high detailed maps, 1024x768 or higher res
A 1.5-gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 chip or AMD Athlon 1500
9600ati or 5700fx
256 mb of ram

Low Quality - no realtime lights, no bloom
800mhz
Geforce Video card min
256 mb of ram

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Late last year Intel unveiled the world’s first quad-core desktop processor, stealing a bit of thunder from the amazing Core 2 Duo range. For a whopping $999, the new Core 2 Extreme processor would become Intel's new flagship product.

Although the Core 2 Duo remained the best value choice for most desktop users, the technological achievement was nonetheless there as AMD had - and in a way still is - without a proper answer. Clocked at 2.66GHz the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was essentially two Core 2 Duo E6700 processors stuck together. This meant that the thermal design power rating was doubled from 65 watts for the E6700, to a hot 130 watts for the QX6700.

Performance-wise the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 was a success, though it was more of a business-oriented processor. This was largely due to the fact that games are only now becoming dual-core friendly and almost none are ready for quad-core processors. In the other hand, certain applications such as Adobe Photoshop and QuickTime Pro showed reasonably strong performance gains when using the quad-core Intel processor. Then other more powerful applications, such as 3D Studio Max and Pinnacle Studio Plus, saw massive performance gains when moving to the quad-core processor.
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Invite you self and download beta version in a moment.

Joost is a new way of watching TV on the internet. With Joost, you get all the things you love about TV, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping. You get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program - so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. And with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like - as often as you want. Joost is completely free, and works with most modern PCs and Intel Mac-based computers with a broadband connection. Get Joost today! Licence: Freeware.

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NVIDIA BIOS Editor (NiBiTor) enables you to change the sign-on message text & color, GPU & memory clocks, hidden features like SBA (Side Band Addressing) and much more. NiBiTor is the original and defenitive BIOS tweaker that supports the latest NVIDIA graphics cards. NiBiTor allows graphics card enthusiasts to have full control over advanced features and functionality found on firmware of supporting cards. And this to gain some extra performance, enable certain hidden features and get extra stability on the NVIDIA based graphics cards.

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Asus has just revealed a notebook that might rival the Eee PC, the Asus U6Ep for Mobile users. This notebook is touted to give high performance mobility. ASUS U6Ep is equipped with a 12.1-inch screen display wide panel and Biometric Fingerprint for personal security. Based on a Intel Core 2 duo processor T9300 2.6GHz, it gives users powerful mobile performance and improved battery lifespan.

Asus U6Ep notebook uses an Intel GM965 Express Chipset, DDR2 667MHZ for main memory, and Intel GMA X3100 for graphics solution. Storage space is 160GB Hybrid with 256MB of Flash, and will give a better performance when loading data. It also has built-in bluetooth connectivity and wireless supports.

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There's a good news for Dell loyals who are looking to buy a mid-range machine with decent specification and reasonable price point. Dell today announced its redesigned Vostro laptop line for small businesses, including the new 13.3-inch Vostro 1310 starting at $749, 15.4-inch Vostro 1510 starting at $599, and 17-inch Vostro 1710 laptops. All of them boast a sleek design, with slot load optical drive, that is thinner and lighter than previous generation Vostro laptops. What's more the Vostro 1310 and 1510 laptops also offer couple of security features such as integrated fingerprint reader, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 1.2 helping prevent unauthorized network access and data theft, cable lock slot, and Dell-exclusive, factory-installed McAfee Total Protection for Small Business security software.

“Listening to customers and acting quickly on their feedback to improve our products and services sets Dell apart,” said Frank Muehleman, vice president and general manager, Dell Small and Medium Business. “For example, customers told us in a recent global laptop study that data protection and pre-installed security software are, by far, the most important security features.

“They also said they wanted thinner and lighter machines, all at a good price,” Muehleman said. “We paid attention.”

All three of them will be available starting from May.

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Pictures of the first prototype AMD 790GX motherboard with integrated Radeon HD 3300 IGP started sufracing yesterday. The upcoming AMD 790GX chipset not only supports CrossFire X and Hybrid CrossFire, but it also adds 3-way Hybrid CrossFire in the loop. 3-way Hybrid CrossFire combines an integrated graphics with two PCI-E 2.0 x8 slots that can be used in CrossFire mode. Just an example, imagine two HD 3870 X2 cards working in CrossFire X helped by an AMD Radeon HD3300 IGP graphics. When in 2D mode only the integrated graphics will be used, but if the system is running at full throttle all three cards will be operating. Yes, the HD3300 IGP graphics won't give any significant boost in games and 3D apps, but at least it'll be built into the motherboard and will be working without requiring any additional interventions, so why don't use it? The AMD 790GX based products are expected to go on sale in May.

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NVIDIA has quietly updated its professional video cards with the new dual-GPU Quadro FX 4700 X2 PCI-E 2.0. Designed for CAD, DCC, and other visualization applications, the newest Quadro is SLI ready, has 256-bit memory interface, 2GB GDDR3 memory (1GB per GPU), and four dual-link DVI connectors for simultaneous work on up to four high-resolution displays. We only know that the card is powered by two DirectX 10/Shader Model 4.0 capable GPUs, but NVIDIA does not name whether these are G92 or G94 cores. The specifications page only hints at the card's power consumption during load - 226W.

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LG Electronics has launched a new, "elegantly designed" 22-inch widescreen monitor. Although it does not boast the 10,000:1 digital fine contrast ratio of the also recently introduced W2252TQ, it does boast a non-too-shabby 8000:1 when set to "movie" mode. The W2242S is aimed at those wanting a stylish display solution with a "sleek" silver frame and electric blue power light.

Powered by LG's picture enhancing chipset, F-Engine, this new LG monitor claims to have the "very best image definition and colour reproduction available today". Other specifications of note are the 5ms response time (grey-to-grey), 1680 x 1050 resolution, brightness of 300 nits/16.7cd/m and 170 degree viewing angle. The price is "retailer dependent" at around the £170 mark and it is available now.

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