Pakistan Bans Facebook over Caricatures

Lahore High Court has issued an order to ban the access of popular social networking site Facebook in Pakistan for holding a contest of Prophet Muhammad's Caricatures. Chinese News Agency Xinhua reported that Judge Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry had instructed the Ministry of Telecom to block the access of Facebook in Pakistan and submit a written reply by May 31.

Islamic Lawyers Movement had filed a petition against a competition that was about Islamic religion founder Prophet Muhammad's blasphemous caricatures on Facebook. The lawyers stressed, "The competition has hurt the sentiments of the Muslims." The Ministry of Telecom officials told the court that after the news was reported, Facebook pages showing Prophet Muhammad's blasphemous caricatures were blocked.

However, the lawyers argued that the entire website should be blocked and hence Facebook is reportedly blocked in Pakistan by Telecommunication Authority. So until a written reply is received, the website will apparently be inaccessible in Pakistan .

That goes out to Facebook, ouch!

Fujitsu CELSIUS Workstations Pepped for Adobe CS5

Fujitsu has launched CELSIUS workstations which are specially optimized for the new Adobe Creative Suite 5. The CELSIUS lineup consists of four workstations: CELSIUS W380, CELSIUS W480, CELSIUS M470-2 and CELSIUS R570-2, which promise to provide design professionals a choice of workstations suited for their needs. Needless to say, the systems have been configured and optimized for the best performance and stability for creative professionals from the online, print and video media industry who will be using the new Adobe CS5.

Each of the Fujitsu CELSIUS workstation comes preinstalled with a unified product design based on Fujitsu's intensive field tests. These workstations are touted to have high reliability and performance with environmental factors being taken into consideration. Along with all the above, these boast of elegant and timeless look rather than the boring appearance generally associated with workstations.

This new range of Fujitsu CELSIUS workstations optimized for Adobe is available throughout CEMEA&I. The pricing of the different workstation models under the CELSIUS lineup are as below.

• W380 - Rs. 59,990
• W480 - Rs. 1, 29, 890
• M470 -2: Rs 1,89,970
• R570-2 : Rs 2, 59, 780

The pricing may vary according to local markets and specifications.

WebOS coming to Slates, Web-connected Printers: HP

HP has officially announced its plans for Palm's WebOS. HP CEO Mark Hurd revealed this juicy detail at the company's second-quarter 2010 earnings conference call. Hurd told analysts that the WebOS would hit in form factors such as Slates and web-connected devices. Hence, the buzz we've heard about the upcoming HP tablet internally dubbed asHurricane is true.

HP has recently acquired Palm and the transaction is set to close on July 31. Obviously, HP would be making best of Palm's WebOS and would be investing in the research and development of the same. At the recent conference call, Hurd told the analysts that "after closing the acquisition we expect to leverage webOS in the app store beyond Smartphones in the form factor such as slates and web connected printers".

HP already has Photosmart Premium printer sporting TouchSmart Web printer features and a 4.33-inch touchscreen. We suppose more such printers with WebOS loaded on them can be expected.

The transcript of HP's second quarter 2010 earnings call can be found at Scribd.

Fuzzdb Beta Release

Web Fuzzing Discovery and Attack Pattern Database – A comprehensive set of fuzzing patterns for discovery and attack during highly targeted brute force testing of web applications.

This is especially useful for many filter bypass type exploits. Identical encoding sequences have been observed to bypass filters for more than one application. Examples can be observed in categories including xss, sqli, evil script upload, OS command execution, traversal issues, directory indexing bugs, source code revealing vulnerabilities, etc. In recent times, for example, new embedded webservers were discovered to be vulnerable to directory traversal issues triggered by encodings that exploited Microsoft IIS in 2000.

This approach is also useful for targeted use of brute force for discovery using, for example, lists of known vulnerable scripts sorted by platform type, default locations of critical files of popular apps, high quality lists of common directory names.

More info and Download: http://code.google.com/p/fuzzdb

"World's Smallest Laser Printer" by Samsung

Samsung Electronics has enhanced its printer line-up with the launch of 8 new models in the Laser Printer, Multi Function Printer and Network Printer categories, including what the company claims to be the world's smallest laser printer-ML-1666.

The ML-1666 is a compact monochrome laser printer which has a speed of 16 pages per minute. It claims to offer a number of easy to use one touch features into the product design. This petit device is priced at an MRP of Rs. 5,499, which includes a starter toner of 1,500 pages, making it very affordable even for home users or small shopkeepers. At just Rs.399 extra, you get a 2 year warranty in addition to the standard one year onsite warranty.

In addition to the ML-1666, Samsung has launched three Mono Laser printers - ML-1911, ML-2525, and ML-2581N. These stylish Laser Printers boast monthly duty cycles of up to 12,000 pages, 8 MB Memory and Print speeds of 18ppm/24 ppm pages (ML-2526/2581N). All the Samsung Laser Printers launched today sport 'Printelligent' features such as Toner Save, Smart Panel (enables easy trouble shooting), One Touch print screen and AnyWEb Printing. The MRP of ML-1911 is Rs. 6,499; ML-2526 is Rs. 8,999 and the ML-2581 N is priced at Rs. 12,999. These printers come with a one year, onsite warranty.


Apart from these, Samsung has added a range of Laser Multi Function Printers to its current portfolio. These feature rich Multi Function Printers SCX-4601, SCX-4623 FH, SCX-4623 FN boast of high speeds up to 22 ppm and are designed for optimum usability. The MRP of SCX-4601 is Rs. 9,999 while the SCX-4623FH costs Rs.14,499.


The new SCX-4623FN is a versatile 22 ppm Network ready MFP with Print, Scan, Copy and Fax functions, gives up to 1200x1200 dpi effective output for print/scan and Copy functions. It comes with 128 MB memory; a monthly duty cycle of up to 10,000 pages and a 7 MB Fax memory.  An ADF capacity of 40 sheets; Advanced Digital Copy Functions - 2 sides in 1 (ID Copy), Autofit, Clone, Poster Copy and Fax to PC and PC to Fax capability, all contribute to making this printer ideal for SMB and workgroup environments .The Samsung SCX-4623FN is priced at Rs. 15,499.