The fact that blind people can use computers is nothing new, but when you say "computers for the blind," it usually gets down to expensive screen-reader software, and so these people are somehow "tied up" to their home computers, since public PCs in hotels, libraries or Internet cafes don't have this kind of software installed. Well, that was true until a few days ago, when a free Web-based application for the blind was released, with the goal of making this world a better place for them. That's simply great, if you ask me, so let's find out more about it, shall we?

Developed by a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington, Jeffrey Bigham, WebAnywhere "requires no special software to be installed on the client machine and, therefore, enables blind people to access the web from any computer they happen to have access to that has a sound card."

The best part is that, according to its creator, this application is able to run on "on any machine, even heavily locked-down public terminals, regardless of what operating system it is running and regardless of what browsers are installed."<-125x125 Button - right->

In the end, this program may be only the beginning, but I found it extremely handy that, with its help, virtually all computers connected to the Internet can be turned into computers for the blind, and since WebAnywhere is open source, everything looks great, don't you think?

For now, there are still some keystrokes required to move around Web pages, but Jeffrey Bigham made a big step for the blind with his application. All I can hope is that others will step in and give him a hand, since professor Richard Ladner, his faculty adviser, is hoping for a commercial search engine to use WebAnywhere as a module.

All in all, we may move from computers for the blind to "webpages for the blind," and I must repeat this is simply great, making information easier for everyone to find. After all, computers can do so much, but interaction with those with visual impairments is still far from being perfect just yet.

If you ask me about Heaven and Hell, all I can tell you for sure is that I love Black Sabbath's song, and I am also crazy about some of those many covers recorded and released by various bands, including Overkill, Solitude Aeturnus or Enola Gay. I know, you may say this has nothing to do with the software world, but I must tell you it has a lot to do, because hackers are considered to be the demons of this world, and a recent court decision just turned Netherlands into a "hackers' heaven," if we exaggerate a little!

I know those waiting to read about the facilities in Heaven, especially wireless access, will be disappointed, but I can't give you the accurate description of heaven, because there's no human able to do that, but if we talk about Netherlands, here's the story...

Earlier this summer, London Transport's Oyster Card was hacked by Dutch researchers, who turned a laptop into a mobile card lab, and scored a day's worth of free rides. So far, so good. They did it for the sake of science, of course, and now, a Dutch court gave them permission to publish details on how they did it, disregarding the protests of the chipmaker involved, although this wasn't just some small company, but a Philips spinoff, called NXP.<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->

The tragicomical part of the story is that these cards are used around the world for both public transit and building security, and I am sure somebody will have to spend a lot of money to make things right, and that must happen really soon. "Driven by a sense of social responsibility, the University immediately and confidentially informed the Dutch Government as well as the manufacturer (NXP) of the results of the independent research on the Mifare Classic Chip. Since March, the researchers have deliberately withheld further details of the imperfections of the chip in order to give those involved, including NXP, the opportunity to take the necessary steps. Publication of the scientific article was anticipated in October 2008 and in June the article was sent confidentially to NXP so that NXP could ask for a legal opinion," said the University behind the researchers involved in the whole deal.

Well, at least they did it for "the greater good," and now NXP has enough time to solve its security issues, I guess. Since even the Dutch government's buildings were protected by the smartcards system hacked earlier, I guess Netherlands could be used as a description of heaven for hackers...as long as they don't do it with bad intentions! ;)

If you forgot what a Trojan Horse is, when talking about the computer world, then let me remind you - after all, we're not talking about this every day - "a Trojan horse, also known as a trojan, is a piece of malware which appears to perform a certain action but in fact performs many different forms of codes. Therefore, a computer worm or virus may be a Trojan horse." That should make things clear. So...want to buy one? Don't ask why, just read on, I won't ask "why" either!



As it was recently reported by Prevx, some evil genius out there has put his wicked synapses to work, and the result is a new "uberTrojan," MOAT(think about the MOAB, to figure out what this means!), "ultimate Trojan," "Ghost Trojan..." just call it whatever you want, but the idea is that this evil piece of code is for sale, guaranteed to evade any detection method - or you will get your money back. How much money? Well, "just" $1300, and nothing more...a piece of cake, don't you think?<-336x280 Large Rectangle - right->

The Trojan is known as Limbo 2, and can be easily customized, so those that created it are selling custom versions to various customers, according to their requests, so if a variant is being detected after a while, the changed one won't be... at least for a while, of course. Now, here comes the interesting part...

Apart from doing what most keyloggers do, Limbo 2 also displays spoofed information boxes, so you may be asked to enter credit card data, email addresses, your T-shirt size, and the favorite beer brand. Oh, no, wait - I was kidding with the last two! Even worse, any personal information on your hard drive will be packed up and sent away. Not good, not good at all!

No, I don't know where can this Trojan be purchased, and I don't even want to know. Just...be sure to stay away from such things, and pay extra attention to the incoming and outgoing traffic stats on your firewall, all right? Good luck, and stay safe!