In an attempt to spare Internet users the fear of random crackdowns on illegal downloading, EU lawmakers and governments have officially finished coming up with new rights for them on Thursday. According to EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding, they sealed the deal when EU governments accepted EU parliament demands to find a happy medium between a punishment for illegal downloading and a...

A hacker this week released a new exploit that allows users to circumvent Apple's preventative measures that have blocked unauthorized code from being run on the new iPhone 3GS. In October, Apple unexpectedly began shipping new iPhone 3GS models to ward off hackers who run unauthorized software in a practice known as "jailbreaking." In addition to unlocking the handset for use on other carriers,...

Researchers say they've uncovered a flaw in the secure sockets layer protocol that allows attackers to inject text into encrypted traffic passing between two endpoints. The vulnerability in the transport layer security protocol allows man-in-the-middle attackers to surreptitiously introduce text at the beginning of an SSL session, said Marsh Ray, a security researcher who discovered the bug. A...

The Swedish police network was taken down last week in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Today it was the turn of the Swedish Signals Intelligence agency (Försvarets Radioanstalt FRA), and the attacks are raising eyebrows in the security community. No one is prepared to go out on a limb, particularly since the source of the attacks is unknown, but I wonder whether the incidents...

Electronics retailer, Best Buy, and Sonic Solutions, the digital media company that last year acquired the pioneering broadband VOD service, CinemaNow (it subsequently added "Roxio" to the service's name in order to make its branding consistent with its other products), announced Tuesday that they have formed a strategic partnership that will enable Best Buy to launch a broadband VOD service...

The 6652-A2 is a VDSL2 router with a single RJ-11 WAN port, four 10/100Mbps LAN ports and a single USB port for client PCs connection. This device can be configured as either a bridge or a router and supports network speeds of up to 100Mbps.

This router features a built-in SPI firewall to protect the network against hackers and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. It can be easily configured via...

The CTR500 is a wireless router with one 10/100Base-T port, configurable as either LAN or WAN port, an ExpressCard slot and a single USB port, used for connecting the router to a 3G/4G USB modem. Small enough to fit into your back pocket, the CTR500 can go anywhere with you. An optional external WiFi antenna can be attached for increased signal.

This device supports failover/failback...

The EW-7416APn is an 802.11n (draft 2.0) wireless access point. It has a single 10/100Base-T Ethernet port and can operate in Access point, Wireless client, Wireless bridge and Repeater modes.

This access point can act as a DHCP server. It uses WMM (QoS) to prioritize the traffic over the network and supports WEP and WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption. A WPS button allows for worry-free wireless...

The ENDSL-AR4 is an ADSL2+ router with one RJ-11 WAN port, four 10/100Mbps LAN ports and an USB 1.1 port for connecting client PCs. This device can be configured as either a bridge or a router. It provides WAN throughput of up to 8Mbps.

This router supports VPN pass-through for IPSec, L2TP and PPTP. It features a built-in firewall to protect the network against malicious attacks.

The...

The RNX-N4 is a wireless router with one 10/100/1000Base-T WAN port and four 10/100/1000Base-T LAN ports. It uses advanced MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) technology to transmit multiple steams of data in a single wireless channel giving you seamless access to multimedia content.

The integrated access point complies with the IEEE 802.11n (Draft 2.0) standard with wireless transmission...

The EnduraLink BR-624 is a broadband router with 2 10/100Mbps WAN ports and four 10/100Mbps LAN ports, providing WAN throughput of up to 44Mbps. It supports auto-failover for uninterrupted Internet connection and uses four smart load-balancing methods: based on transmitted and received bytes, packets, number of established sessions, or number of host IP addresses.

This router supports VPN...

Introduction With the popularity of wireless networks and mobile computing, an overall understanding of common security issues has become not only relevant, but very necessary for both home/SOHO users and IT professionals alike. This article is aimed at illustrating current security flaws in WEP/WPA/WPA2. Successfully cracking a wireless network assumes some basic familiarity with networking principles and terminology, as well as working with command-line tools. A basic familiarity...

This article is intended as a primer on some TCP/IP networking concepts and factors that determine an optimal TCP Receive Window.   The TCP Window  The TCP Window is the amount of outstanding data (unacknowledged by the recepient) that can remain in the network. After sending that amount of data, the sender stops and waits for acknowledgement back from the receiver that it has gotten some of it. As such, this value is probably the single most important...

Microsoft enforces a limit on half-open TCP/IP connections that is hard-coded in tcpip.sys. The maximum simultaneous half-open (incomplete) outbound TCP connection attempts per second that the system can make is intended to limit the spread of malicious viruses and worms, as well as limit the possibility of launching a DDoS attack. However, it has proven to also limit some applications using many TCP connections, such as P2P and P2PTV programs. When the OS reaches the half-open...

Windows Vista introduces a number of new features to the TCP/IP stack, including CTCP, and TCP Window Auto-Tuning. This new implementation works much better by default than previous Windows versions with broadband internet connections, and is able to adjust the RWIN value on the fly, depending on the BDP (bandwidth-delay product). This, however, introduces some problems with older routers and restricts the user from tweaking some of the TCP/IP parameters. Still, there is always some room for...

Introduction The Travel Mate 292XC is a part of the 290 Series laptops from Acer. There is a large range of models within the 290 series with different specifications, some Centrino based, and others just Pentium M. This particular model being reviewed, the LX-T3505.455, is a Celeron M 330 processor version and it is a very well priced for its specifications. This model was purchased for about $599.99 CAD and has the following specs: Processor: Intel Celeron M 330 Processor...

Introduction D-Link was founded in 1986, and since then has catered to both consumer and SOHO users. D-Link is already a well known name in the home networking market, however in the past D-Link products have been considered inferior to those of their competitors such as Linksys (Cisco) and Netgear (Bay Networks). Recently this stigma has begun to disappear with D-Link taking a large portion of the home and SOHO markets. The D-Link DI-524 is one of the company's new series of Wireless-G routers,...

Introduction Compex is an established, yet forward-thinking company in the networking, wireless and telecommunications industry. The company was founded in 1987 and focuses on designing, development and manufacturing a complete line of networking products for the home, SOHO, broadband, and WLAN market needs. The NetPassage 26G is a notable addition to the wireless wave of broadband routers that is sweeping the current home/SOHO market. It comes with a...

Netgear is well known in the networking market.  Originally a consumer-oriented subsidiary of Bay Networks, they have since been spun off to become their own company.  Some of the first consumer routers came out of Netgear, and they have been a major player in the home networking scene.  Their latest line of products sports a new sleek look, a major change of the square purple boxes for which they were known.  Personally, I was a fan of the old box, but then again, not everybody wants a...