The notorious “hactivist” group “Anonymous Operations” has the National Security Agency on edge, with the Agency’s director warning of the group’s dangerous growth. General Keith Alexander has warned that within a year or two, the group could have the ability to create a “limited power outage” through a cyberattack, reports the Wall Street Journal. General Alexander provided his assessment during a private meetings at the White House and has previously warned about the emerging ability of cyberattackers to disable or even damage computer networks. The warning highlights a growing federal concern over Anonymous’s activities, however cybersecurity experts have a different opinion on the potential threat posed by the group. Read on for more.

Some federal officials believe that Anonymous could be heading down a more disruptive path, even though it has never listed a power blackout as a goal. Recently, Anonymous announced Operation Global Blackout, an initiative to shut down the Internet (most likely through mass DDoS attacks), set for March 31st.

Grid officials have said that their systems face attacks on a regular basis, and they have spent a tremendous amount of resources to repel potential threats. “The industry is engaged and stepping up widely to respond to emerging cyber threats,” said one electric-industry official to The Journal. “There is a recognition that there are groups out there like Anonymous, and we are concerned, as are other sectors.”

Another industry official noted that power grids have a number of backup systems to restore power shortly after a catastrophic event or cyberattack, however. Officials say that Anonymous doesn’t yet have the resources to pull off such an attack, but if the group’s members around the world developed or acquired it, an attack on the power grid would become far more likely.

“It’s a real threat,” said James Lewis, a cybersecurity specialist who is currently researching the group. “You want to occupy Wall Street? How about turn Wall Street off? Even for a day.” Due to these reasons, White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the administration “has made cybersecurity a top priority, and we are working tirelessly to protect ourselves from the threats we face, whether they come from other nations, cyber criminals, or from stateless activist hacker groups.”

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If you really love Linux, and are a Nexus One owner, nexusonehacks.net has a tutorial for you. The site’s founder has managed to get Ubuntu linux running on top of Android 2.2 on his rooted Nexus One handset. The site provides a video walkthrough of what Ubuntu will look like on the Sexy Nexy as well as a step-by-step guide on how to accomplish this feat. If you are looking to spend some quality time with your N1 whittling away your Thursday, hit up the read link and have at it.

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Want to know what was not found within the GM release candidate of iOS 4? Patched vulnerabilities which make jailbreaking an iPhone painfully simple. msftguy, a man known as a bit of a fixer-upper in the jailbreaking scene, has released a custom bundle for PwnageTool that allows anyone to jailbreak their iPhone 3Gs with the iOS 4 GM candidate. What’s more, the jailbreak preserves the baseband so it’s possible to unlock your iPhone right after freeing it from Apple’s shackles. If you’ve got an iPhone 3GS and have a means of getting the GM release candidate — not to mention know exactly what you’re doing — jump the bump and hit up the read file. For everyone else, we’ve got a short and sweet YouTube video of the jailbreak in action. Awww.

[Via Redmond Pie]

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Mobile gaming fans who roll with Android, prepare yourselves — a PSX emulator for Android 2.x devices in the works. A joint collaboration between emulation gods ZodTTD and yongzh, the emulator is currently said to run faster than ZodTTD’s PSX port for the iPhone 3GS while possessing a UI with an Android look and the ability to take advantage of hard keys and trackpads/trackballs. And, no, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The controller skin is indeed from the GameBroid emulator, but will be swapped out for a PSX specific skin before release. Once that’s done, ZodTDD said he’ll be setting his sights on the N64 and then VLC. No release target has been announced for the Android PSX emulator.

[Via ZodTDD]

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Google’s high profile war of words with China has garnered much public attention but the underlying cause of the dispute — the alleged hacking of Google by Chinese individuals, possibly with government sanction, has stayed quietly under the radar. A source with knowledge of Google’s internal investigation revealed to the NY Times that one of the targets of the attack was Google’s universal login system known as “Gaia”. Though you may not be familiar with the name, every Android-toting, Gmail-checking Google user is familiar with the system. Gaia, now known as “Single Sign-On”, is the password and login system that powers Google’s universal login and lets you read your feeds in Reader, analyze your website traffic, and check your Gmail using a single, simultaneous login. No passwords or accounts were compromised but the hackers allegedly obtained some, if not all, of the source code for this password/login system. Google declined to comment on this latest leaked information and towed the company line by re-affirming that it has dealt with all the security issues associated with this attack. We don’t need to elaborate on the potential ramifications this revelation has on the perceived security of Google’s cloud system; we can let you do that in the comments.

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Reduce the amount of RAM Firefox uses for its cache feature

1. Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the adress bar in the browser.
2. Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer”
3. Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)

Increase the Speed at Which Firefox loads pages

1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)

2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.

This means it will make 10 requests at once.

3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)

This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String

network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false”
“content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5“; (Five)
“plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)

Reduce RAM usage to 10MB when Firefox is minimized:

This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

Thanks, Mel!

[Via Unplggd]

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No, this certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen multi-touch demonstrated on the HTC G1. This time around however, the sweet demo is accompanied by an extensive how-to guide that will walk you through enabling your T-Mobile G1 for some sexy multi-touch zooming action. Of course the process is hardly T-Mobile approved so we have to warn you that you’ll likely void any warranties, but such is the price for the more ambitious mobile users out there. All in all, the process isn’t overly difficult for savvy gadgeteers but there’s always a chance something could go wrong – consider this your brick warning. This hack is also still in early stages so multi-touch is not yet implemented in all of the areas you’d want it to be. If you’re still fiending for some multi-touch love on your G1 however, toss on your hacker hat and hit the read link. For those who don’t quite have the stomach for invasive G1 surgery, no worries – you can still enjoy a saucy multi-touch video after the jump.

Thanks, JJ!

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