NASA And Tech Partners Encourage Information Exchange

Katherine Trinidad

Headquarters, Washington     

 

Elizabeth Sabet

Random Hacks of Kindness, New York

WASHINGTON -- NASA, Google, HP, Microsoft, The World Bank and Yahoo! are inviting software developers, independent computer experts and students to participate in the Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK) event on June 4 and 5 at several worldwide locations.

RHoK is a "hackathon" that brings together the best hackers from around the world to use their skills to make the world a better place by building a community of innovation. They volunteer their time to develop new approaches to disaster relief challenges.

"NASA encourages RHoK developers to use open data sets to create cutting edge applications that can help solve global challenges," said NASA's Chief Information Officer Linda Cureton. "We are excited to support RHoK and explore new ways NASA data can help the world."

RHoK also is an opportunity to meet and work with top software developers and experts, create new applications and win prizes. Events are planned in Hartford, Conn., Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle and Silicon Valley. International venues are in Berlin; Toronto; Aarhus, Denmark; Basel, Switzerland; Bangalore, India; Buenos Aires; Kampala, Uganda; Lusaka, Zambia; Melbourne, Australia; Nairobi, Kenya; Trento, Italy; and Santiago, Chile.

During past events, participants worked on applications that are already making an impact. "I'm OK," a service that lets people inform their families about their status, was used during the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile in 2010. The World Bank is piloting software for visualizing landslide risk in the Caribbean. Other apps have received support and interest from government and non-government organizations around the world.

For more information about the RHoK, the event and registration, visit http://www.rhok.org.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit http://www.nasa.gov.

- end -

Read More >>

Never Use These Passwords

Computer security is more important than ever these days and one of the most simple things you can do to protect yourself is come up with a password that is not easy to guess. Sure, it's tempting to come up with something easy for your own benefit; with all of passwords we have to remember these days, you probably find yourself forgetting your passwords if you don't keep careful documentation of them, but an easy password is like an invitation to anyone looking to steal your information.

According to researchers at the University of Maryland's James Clark School of Engineering in College Park, unsecured computers are hacked into over 2,000 times a day or every 39 seconds. Study leader Michel Cukier says it's a lot more common than you think, "Most of these attacks employ automated scripts that indiscriminately seek out thousands of computers at a time, looking for vulnerabilities. Our data provide quantifiable evidence that attacks are happening all the time to computers with Internet connections. The computers in our study were attacked, on average, 2,244 times a day."

Hackers are experts at coming up with passwords. For example, many people use their user name as their password. If you think you're being clever, guess again. 43% of the time, hackers are able to guess passwords by simply guessing that it's the user name. So what other kind of passwords are common and easily guessed? Below is a list of the ten most common passwords:

1. User Name
2. User Name with 123 at the end
3. 123456
4. the word "password"
5. 1234
6. 12345
7. passwd
8. 123
9. test
10. 1

If any of these sound familiar, you probably need to change your information immediately. In addition, you might want to reconsider your user name if it's one of these top ten common user names:

1. root
2. admin
3. test
4. guest
5. info
6. adm
7. mysql
8. user
9. administrator
10. oracle

Once a hacker gains access to your computer, any number of things can happen. According to the study, the first things they do are check your software configuration, change your password, check your hardware and software configuration again, download a file, install the downloaded program and run the downloaded program.

But why are they doing this? Often, they are creating a "botnet." A botnet monitors your computer and reports back to the hacker. They can lead to fraud or identity theft, disrupt other networks or damage computer files, and lots of other criminal activity.

---

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.comPC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Read More >>