Portable Gadget

Cyber Security Tip ST05-015 Understanding Bluetooth Technology

Many electronic devices are now incorporating Bluetooth technology to allow wireless communication with other Bluetooth devices. before using Bluetooth, it is important to understand what it is, what security risks it presents, and how to protect yourself.

What is Bluetooth?

Bluetooth is a technology that allows devices to communicate with each other without cables or wires. It is an electronics “standard,” which means that manufacturers that want to include this feature have to incorporate specific requirements into their electronic devices. these specifications ensure that the devices can recognize and interact with other devices that use the Bluetooth technology.

Many popular manufacturers are making devices that use Bluetooth technology. these devices include mobile phones, computers, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). the Bluetooth technology relies on short-range radio frequency, and any device that incorporates the technology can communicate as long as it is within the required distance. the technology is often used to allow two different types of devices to communicate with each other. for example, you may be able to operate your computer with a wireless keyboard, use a wireless headset to talk on your mobile phone, or add an appointment to your friend’s PDA calendar from your own PDA.

What are some security concerns?

Depending upon how it is configured, Bluetooth technology can be fairly secure. You can take advantage of its use of key authentication (see Understanding Digital Signatures for more information) and encryption (see Understanding Encryption for more information). Unfortunately, many Bluetooth devices rely on short numeric PIN numbers instead of more secure passwords or passphrases (see Choosing and Protecting Passwords for more information).

If someone can “discover” your Bluetooth device, he or she may be able to send you unsolicited messages or abuse your Bluetooth service, which could cause you to be charged extra fees. Worse, an attacker may be able to find a way to access or corrupt your data. One example of this type of activity is “bluesnarfing,” which refers to attackers using a Bluetooth connection to steal information off of your Bluetooth device. Also, viruses or other malicious code can take advantage of Bluetooth technology to infect other devices. If you are infected, your data may be corrupted, compromised, stolen, or lost. You should also be aware of attempts to convince you to send information to someone you do not trust over a Bluetooth connection (see Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks for more information).

How can you protect yourself?

* Disable Bluetooth when you are not using it – unless you are actively transferring information from one device to another, disable the technology to prevent unauthorized people from accessing it. * use Bluetooth in “hidden” mode – When you do have Bluetooth enabled, make sure it is “hidden,” not “discoverable.” the hidden mode prevents other Bluetooth devices from recognizing your device. this does not prevent you from using your Bluetooth devices together. You can “pair” devices so that they can find each other even if they are in hidden mode. although the devices (for example, a mobile phone and a headset) will need to be in discoverable mode to initially locate each other, once they are “paired” they will always recognize each other without needing to rediscover the connection. * be careful where you use Bluetooth – be aware of your environment when pairing devices or operating in discoverable mode. for example, if you are in a public wireless “hotspot,” there is a greater risk that someone else may be able to intercept the connection (see Securing Wireless Networks for more information) than if you are in your home or your car. * Evaluate your security settings – Most devices offer a variety of features that you can tailor to meet your needs and requirements. However, enabling certain features may leave you more vulnerable to being attacked, so disable any unnecessary features or Bluetooth connections. Examine your settings, particularly the security settings, and select options that meet your needs without putting you at increased risk. Make sure that all of your Bluetooth connections are configured to require a secure connection. * Take advantage of security options – Learn what security options your Bluetooth device offers, and take advantage of features like authentication and encryption. _________________________________________________________________

Authors: Mindi McDowell, Matt Lytle _________________________________________________________________

Produced 2005 by US-CERT, a government organization.

Note: this tip was previously published and is being re-distributed to increase awareness.

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- Understanding Bluetooth Technology « Bug-Blog

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This is the first in what will hopefully be a continuing series of Disney video game, movie, DVD, and Blu-Ray reviews. I enjoy doing them so I hope there is some interest.

Developer: Wideload Games

Publisher: Disney Interactive Studios

Players: One to Four

Rating: E for Everyone

Best Price: $39.76 at Amazon with Free Shipping also available for $39.99 from The Disney Store and Buy.com(with free shipping also).

Official Site: http://disney.go.com/official-sites/guilty-party/index

Gaming Introduction:

If you’ve purchased Nintendo Wii titles in the past, chances are you’ve been tricked into buying some real duds.  there are a lot of decidedly bad games on the Nintendo Wii platform.  if you tend to purchase games without checking to see if they’re any good, I would recommend visiting GameRankings and MetaCritic.  Both sites are review aggregators, which means they collect professional reviews from around the internet and provide an easy way to find the best games as well as reviews on a game you might be interested in purchasing.

Disney Guilty Party Introduction and Story

Wideload Games, now part of Disney Interactive Studios, unveiled Disney Guilty Party at the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo.  IGN awarded it the “Best Family Game at E3,” beating out Lego Harry Potter, Wii Party, EyePet, and others.

The story follows the Dickens Family Detective Agency under the leadership of The Commodore.  The Agency is the most successful in the world and all members of the family are elite sleuths.  We quickly learn that The Commodore is considering retirement and needs to find a replacement to run the Agency.  During dinner, the Commodore announces that his wife will be succeeding him, much to the chagrin of the rest of the family.  almost immediately after the announcement, The Commodore’s wife vanishes into a poof of smoke.  The Commodore has no doubt that his arch nemesis, mr. Valentine, is behind the kidnapping.  The Dickens Family must work together to solve the mystery, retrieve the Commodore’s wife, and foil the evil plot perpetrated by mr. Valentine before it’s too late.

Gameplay

Disney Guilty Party is reminiscent of an interactive hybrid of Clue and Guess who.  each player takes on the role of one of the six family detectives.  among the characters is Rudyard Dickens, better known as Kid Riddle, the child genius and courageous mini-hero (and sure to be a favorite of young boys).   Other characters include Charlotte Dickens-Johnson, Rudyard’s Grandmother, who is proficient in Kung Fu and her husband, the gigantic Butch Johnson.  while Butch has used his powerful upper body in his past life as an officer of the law, he learns from The Commodore that he must use his brains to outsmart mr. Valentine.  also playable are Max Dickens, Phoebe Dickens, and Ling-Ling Johnson.

There are two major gameplay modes in Disney Guilty Party.  The first is story Mode, which takes players through the family’s battle against mr. Valentine.  Players take turns collecting clues, interrogating suspects, and collecting Savvy Cards which can be used to thwart the clever tricks of the guilty parties.  as the game progresses, players move through varied locations, including the family’s mansion, a runaway bullet train, and a not-so-relaxing cruise ship.  each level resembles a board game and players move their characters throughout the level as they discover clues and help solve the mystery.  instead of a dice or wheel, each player receives three tokens, each of which is spent moving about the board and talking to potential suspects.

Players find success or failure collecting clues based on how well they perform the game’s 50-plus mini games.  most anything the detectives do triggers a mini game.  Mini games are performed with the Wii Remote and include various tasks like turning a lock to acquire the correct combination, paying off witnesses to give truthful testimony, and shuffling papers to discover helpful information.  Unfortunately, many of the mini games are either too easy or too difficult and most of them aren’t particularly engaging.  You’ll run into control problems on several of the games that make easy tasks impossible and many other mini-games are so easy that it would require you to take a nap to fail them.  Luckily, the mini games only last about a minute each and some of them are fun to complete.  Younger kids and casual gamers will likely find more fun playing the mini-games than more seasoned gaming veterans.

As players gather clues and talk to witnesses, they fill their notebook with facts about the suspect’s potential identity.  Players must prove the suspect’s gender, hair length, height and weight based on the information they’ve collected.  in later levels, players will also have to prove which parties are innocent.  not all of the clues will help the case and in later levels the clues become more and more ambiguous.  Going over the collected information, discussing the clues with other players, and identifying the guilty party cooperatively is where the game shines.  while I wouldn’t go so far as to call Disney Guilty Party a learning tool, it will definitely make youngsters use their critical thinking skills to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Each level in story Mode has a set number of turns before mr. Valentine outsmarts players.  however, it’s unlikely you’ll need anywhere near that many turns to progress.  it takes about five hours to make it through all six cases, possibly a little longer if you spend more time exploring the levels.  Since you will know the identity of the guilty party after a single play through, you may not want to replay the story more than once or twice.  however, Party Mode, the game’s second type of game, adds massive replay value.

Party Mode randomizes the game’s location, clues, and suspects.  there is virtually a never ending number of mysteries to solve.  in addition, Party Mode can be played either cooperatively or competitively.  The cooperative game plays like story Mode, where players work together to solve the crime.  Competitive mode is a race to solve the crime first and players work against each other to set traps and thwart the opponent’s investigation.  This mode is potentially even more fun than story Mode or Cooperative Mode and  can lead to some particularly zany moments.

Graphics and Sound

Disney Guilty Party is a polished game, with first rate voice acting, sound effects, and relatively solid graphics.  The character models and cutscenes are higher quality than the game boards, which probably has more to do with the limitations of the Wii console rather than negligence on the developer’s part.  I only have two real complaints about the sound.  The first is that there is just one background music track for each level which loops again and again as the level unfolds.  The other is the fact that each character only has a few lines that they repeat over and over again in-game.  Other than that, the over-the-top sound effects add to the funny atmosphere of the game and it’s unlikely players will find fault with the graphics.  They’re certainly not up to par with next-generation Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 titles, but they’re as good as you can expect from a third-party Wii game.

Replayability

There is a ton of replayability thanks to the randomized Party Mode and multiplayer options.  Friends and family can quickly pick up the gameplay elements and jump right into the action.  Since no two cases in Party Mode are alike, there is virtually a limitless number of cases to solve.  if you enjoy the core gameplay, Disney Guilty Party will have you hooked for a long time to come.

Should I Buy it?

Kids between the ages of 7 and 14 and casual gamers will likely have the most fun with Disney Guilty Party.  it might not hold the attention of more “serious” gamers due to the simple nature of many of the mini games.  even so, everyone should enjoy story Mode, which is full of funny sequences and amusing cutscenes.  if you’re looking for a fun, family friendly game that the whole family can play together, Disney Guilty Party fits that bill.

Overall Ratings:

Story: 8.0 out of 10

Entertaining characters and clever writing produce a genuinely fun atmosphere.

Gameplay: 8.0 out of 10

Mediocre mini-games drag down an otherwise fun game.  Younger and more casual players will likely enjoy the simpler mini-games that don’t offer veteran players much of a challenge.

Graphics and Sound: 7.5 out of 10

Character models, voice acting, and sound effects are top-notch.   Background level graphics leave something to be desired and a varied soundtrack will be a welcome addition to a sequel.

Replayability: 9.0 out of 10

There is a ton of replayability here, which is rare for a Wii title like this.

Overall (Not an Average) 8.0 out of 10

Disney Guilty Party is a fun game with virtually limitless replayability.  This is a title that the entire family will enjoy and appreciate.

Disney Guilty Party Review Nintendo Wii 2010

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did the earth move for us?

Any review of PlayStation Move is going to have to admit the same thing: this is the first step on a long journey. As such, there is understandably a degree of discomfort that comes with writing about something so new, with so little real material to work from. It would be a little like Christopher Columbus describing the Americas as “a little small” having only just planted his feet on the shores of The Bahamas.?

In our case we’ve had Start the Party! and Sports Champions get us a moving in the living room. As we’ve seen from both those games, neither is particularly exciting in its own right. Sports Champions is the better of the two, demonstrating a wider, more serious side to PlayStation Move, whilst start the Party! attempts to give us a taste of fun family-friendly gaming.

PlayStation Move is composed of two core parts. The first is the PlayStation Eye camera (?24), the second is the motion controller (?29). you can buy these things separately, or in various bundles as an expandable system. The basic camera and single?motion?controller?bundle is ?49.99. The system effectively gives you a huge range of control dynamics, because it not only knows how you are manipulating the controls thanks to the on-board motions sensors, but also knows exactly where the controller is thanks to the glowing balls being detected by the camera.

A comparison to the Nintendo Wii controls is not lost here, as essentially they do the same job, with the Wii Remote having an optical sensor to determine position for on-screen pointing. The PlayStation Move feels more substantial, more grown up, and more accurate, but then it is a much newer product, even accepting the Wii MotionPlus that was added in 2009.

The Move Motion Controller is wonderfully sculpted to fit into your hand comfortably. The black plastic fits in with the rest of the PS3 world, pulling across recognisable design points from your regular PS3 controllers. like your existing controllers it is wireless with an internal battery, so you’ll have to plug it in via the Mini-USB socket in the bottom to charge, although in the future we’re guessing that using a charging cradle will be the popular option – we’ve summed up a range of accessories here.

The top of the Move Motion Controller is topped by the distinctive soft glowing ball, which already has something of an iconic look to it. There is something funky about its changing colours, and returning home on a dark evening to see through the front window two glowing orbs engaged in what looked like some sort of exotic mating ritual is a sight to behold. This is something that Microsoft’s controller-less Kinect will never be able to boast about. Not yet, anyway.?

Being able to see those glowing balls also lets the system know when you’ve done something like cross your arms: it can determine the relative position of one controller to another (see Sports Champions Archery aiming for example) which allows you to accurately aim along an axis.

The Move Motion Controller also provides vibration feedback which can provide some degree of impact recognition as well as being but to atmospheric uses. we don’t expect that vibration will really be used any differently from the way it already is.?

Setting up Move is simply a case of plugging the camera into a USB slot on your console and placing the camera in a suitable position. For many this will be front and centre beneath their TV, and the stand provides plenty of movement to get the angle you want. The Eye camera lens offers two positions depending on your room set-up. we chose the wide-angle setting, which is better suited to smaller rooms.

When you start playing a Move game you’ll have to calibrate the controllers. The camera will give you a location overlay to stand in, so you have the correct position in front of the camera. Depending on your size, if you a playing against a child, you might need to stand either closer or further away. The same applies with two-player games (such as Table Tennis which we played). It becomes quickly obvious that you’ll need quite a lot of space to play Move,?especially?when using two controllers. with Archery, for example we had to move furniture aside to get far enough from the camera to “draw the bow” back.

You then have to calibrate the controllers. This entails pressing the button whilst holding the controller on various positions – shoulder height, by your side and at your belt buckle. You’ll also have to let the game know if you are left or right handed and in games where you can use two controllers you’ll be asked to hold them together and press the button, so it knows which controller is in which hand.?

The main controls that fall naturally under the fingers are the trigger on the underside and the “Move” button on the top. As you hold the Move Motion Controller you can’t help but place your fingers on these buttons, so they are ready to use. your four standard PlayStation buttons (square, triangle, circle, cross) are placed around this, but it takes a little practise to hit one of these on demand. We’ve already seen basic quick time event-style strikes in Sports Champions Gladiators and we can see that QTEs will be an easy way to introduce some dramatic action to Move titles, as with the standard controller.

Equally, the trigger finds a natural deployment as a grab and release button, but we’re guessing that many will want to see it as a trigger, to fire or use some sort of weapon.

Sports Champion Gladiators game also shows us some basic character movement. This is where the current deployment of the Motion Controller is limited – there is no analogue stick to move a character around. Instead we see the Move buttons used for this – press the button on the left-hand controller to circle left, and the one the right to move right. Additionally it will let you move back by holding both. This is fine in an arena, but when it comes to open-world gaming, or even on-rails first person-shooter style gaming, that’s not going to be enough.

Of course you can use the point and click school of movement for first person control, point at a place and move here, but it’s not until we get a game that offers you both Move and regular controls that we’re going to be able to determine whether this is going to catch on. Some titles, like Heavy Rain and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, will get an update to add Move support, so you’ll be able to determine whether motion control makes for a better gaming experience.

But waiting in the wings is the Move Navigation Controller, something that we’ve yet to get our hands on. This gives you the controls you’d normally find on the left-hand side of the Dual Shock, so you can move your character around with the usual analogue stick, d-pad and shoulder buttons. How this fares when faced face paced gaming remains to be seen. We’ve had a quick play on SOCOM 4 and Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest?and so far things look like they are going to work.

One of the advantages that the glowing ball gives is the ability to superimpose something on the top of the controller. As soon as we saw this in start the Party! we were thinking “lightsaber”. That gaming moment will come when, in front rooms across the country, people will be waving Move and living the Jedi fantasy. start the Party! is a collection of mini-games that didn’t really get us excited, but that glimpse into the future makes us hope and prey that someone does Move justice.

From playing the limited titles we have, it’s clear that PlayStation Move is accurate. The range movements shown off by Sports Champions gives us a clear indication of the accuracy and versatility of the Move Motion Controller, with games like Disc Golf revealing what a slight change in angle will do, and Volleyball, Gladiators and Archery demonstrating how well two controllers work together.

Verdict:

PlayStation Move may just step down the path of the predictable – bowling, tennis, fishing – but that’s not where the glory lies (in fact these titles are already lined up). Sure, it brings motion control to the PlayStation, but it’s not going to be knock-out hit as we’ve already got those on the Wii. Talking of knock-out hits, yes, boxing does get us a little more excited.

But the things that will benefit from Move will be things like flying, some parts of combat games, the weird and whacky. we need to see how the control systems are developed to integrate Move withouts things becoming too simple, or too difficult.?As it is, PlayStation Move certainly offers hardware that you’ll be happy with. It looks and feels great and we like the glowing balls. we also like using controllers, whatever Microsoft Kinect brings, we’re not ready to drop everything yet.

How do you score something this early in its life cycle? we have to score it on potential. we recognise that PlayStation Move could be something great, but it’s all about the games. Having played a few titles, we’re left wanting more: the technology works, and that’s the real point here.

Would we rush out and buy PlayStation Move as soon as it launches? no, we wouldn’t. We’d waiting until there are exciting games that we want to play using motion control. Fortunately, that’s not going to be long with the run up to Christmas seeing a number of titles released.

Related links:

• PlayStation Move: all the games – Check it out
• Pimp up your PlayStation Move – Accessories galore

Tags: Gaming PS3 Sony Playstation Move

Sony PlayStation Move originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:18:43 +0100

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Sony PlayStation Move