At Consumer Reports, we have always believed that scientific testing is the best way to evaluate products. We also use a statistically-valid survey methodology to measure consumer experiences. In preparing our September security reports, we employed both methods as we have for many decades. Some additional notes on this column:

• The story was not, as you state, "filled with data sourced to eMarketer." That service provided just two pieces of data, namely the current number of Internet- and broadband-using U.S. Households
• Using a separate credit card for online transactions avoids having to cancel your main card should fraud occur.
• We test software against modified versions of actual malware because such threats are what security software will often be called upon to recognize on the job.

Finally, a note about your claim that Consumer Reports was invited to respond. Your e-mail to us requesting a comment was time-stamped on the same Saturday evening as your column is labeled as having posted. That left fewer than six hours to respond, on a weekend. It would have been helpful to have had more time.

I was just reminded of this randomly just by reading this list of new tools released at the Defcon this year. Sounds like a busy conference, with a lot of hackers who love what they do. Good stuff.

It has become more like a global fair than what most people think of conferences; even the badge is highly unique. I say this because there are so many things to do at DEFCON, other than going to talks, that you could spend your whole weekend looking at the “World’s Largest Boar!” so to speak. One of the CTF (Capture the Flag) contest winners this year actually exclaimed that he only made it to 2 talks in 12 years! I am also one of those individuals who barely get a chance to go to talks and now that the speaker pool is so diverse it’s hard to find all of the “stuff” they release.

Read the list and full article here

Exactly who was behind the cyberattack is not known. The Georgian government blamed Russia for the attacks, but the Russian government said it was not involved. In the end, Georgia, with a population of just 4.6 million and a relative latecomer to the Internet, saw little effect beyond inaccessibility to many of its government Web sites, which limited the government's ability to spread its message online and to connect with sympathizers around the world during the fighting with Russia.

[...]

In Georgia, media, communications and transportation companies were also attacked, according to security researchers. Shadowserver saw the attack against Georgia spread to computers throughout the government after Russian troops entered the Georgian province of South Ossetia. The National Bank of Georgia's Web site was defaced at one point. Images of 20th-century dictators as well as an image of Georgia's president, Mr. Saakashvili, were placed on the site. "Could this somehow be indirect Russian action? Yes, but considering Russia is past playing nice and uses real bombs, they could have attacked more strategic targets or eliminated the infrastructure kinetically," said Gadi Evron, an Israeli network security expert. "The nature of what's going on isn't clear," he said.

[...]

In addition to D.D.O.S. attacks that crippled Georgia's limited Internet infrastructure, researchers said there was evidence of redirection of Internet traffic through Russian telecommunications firms beginning last weekend. The attacks continued on Tuesday, controlled by software programs that were located in hosting centers controlled by a Russian telecommunications firms. A Russian-language Web site, stopgeorgia.ru, also continued to operate and offer software for download used for D.D.O.S. attacks.

Welcome to 21st century warfare.

"It costs about 4 cents per machine," Mr. Woodcock said. "You could fund an entire cyberwarfare campaign for the cost of replacing a tank tread, so you would be foolish not to."

LAS VEGAS -- Last weekend, more than 9,000 hackers, freaks, feds and geeks gathered for the 16th annual DefCon, the world's largest computer security convention.

Wired.com brought you live coverage of the most newsworthy events at DefCon 16. Here are some photos from the lighter side of the conference.

Left: South Korean hackers compete in the Capture the Flag competition. The goal is to hack into and keep control of targeted servers.

Mr. Sinister and Dragon Cracker battle it out in a round of Guitar Hero -- one of DefCon's newest competitions.

Bringing-your-own-booze supply ensures optimal buzz at DefCon. Shortly after this picture was taken, hotel security escorted this backpack-hacker to his room.

Computer geeks from the National Institute of Standards and Technology set up a network secured with quantum encryption in a conference room at DefCon. The quantum-entangled photons are being used to encrypt a video stream across a line-of-site network.

A compact optical bench and an atomic clock (left) are used to secure a network with quantum encryption.

In the Lock Pick Pavilion, DefCon attendees Dustin, Jennalynn and Kunfoozball practice their lock-picking skills.

DefCon founder and organizer Jeff Moss, aka Dark Tangent, at the conference's closing ceremony Sunday.

A collection of black badges awaits the winners of the various competitions. These badges give their holders lifetime entry to DefCon.

One of DefCon's logos, the smiley-faced skull and crossbones, is welded inside a yellow sphere. The sphere is the primary stage of one of the most difficult competitions at DefCon: The Mystery Challenge.

Unbeknownst to attendees, this laptop is sniffing RFID tags and taking photos of their owners when they pass in front of the detectors. RFID tags are used in everything from building access to some credit cards.

At the closing ceremony, DefCon organizers turn off the lights while the attendees wave their high-tech badges back and forth.

Buying a lemon is always a bad thing – but when you pay $1 billion for it?! Back in 2005, Google bought a 5% stake in AOL for $1 billion and now is calling that investment “impaired”. That’s one way of putting it, so it’s a good thing Google has money to burn.

At LinuxWorld this week, Bob Sutor, VP of open source and standards at IBM, said that the next 10 years is “do or die” for open source software designed for specific industries. 10 years? That’s like 70 years in open source development time.

And finally…8/8/08…the Olympics are here! Network administrators around the world, except for Terry Childs, will be eyeing office network bandwidth closely as people go online to watch streaming video of the games. NBC and Microsoft will offer 2,200 hours of live video coverage with up to 20 simultaneous live streams of different events. Plus NBCOlympics.com will offer 3,000 hours of on-demand video content. The time difference means that much of the primetime events will be broadcast while the Western hemisphere is supposed to be hard at work. Me – I’m just glad it’s the weekend, and I can get the Olympics fix I’ve been waiting years for.

My Grandmother always told me that a lucky person can count the really good friends they have on one hand, but a small amount of good friends far outweigh having many acquaintances. That was proven to me once again this weekend.  Ever since before I had my 2 sons, I had dreams of taking my children to both a Pittsburgh Steeler game and a NY Yankee game. Last year I had a chance to take Landon and Bradley to Pittsburgh and see a Steeler game.  With this being the last year for the old Yankee Stadium, I wanted to take the boys to see the Yankees at home and in the old stadium. 

Getting tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium is not cheap.  In looking around StubHub, for a hundred bucks a ticket (which is all I was willing to pay), the best I was going to do was out in the bleachers somewhere. But I figured it was better than nothing and was going to go for it.  That was when I called my best buddy from college Tyler to see if he wanted to go with us.  Tyler still lives in NY, actually he has an apt in Trump Palace and works in advertising for a large company, handling one of the very biggest accounts.  When I told him what I was looking at buying he said to hold on and let him see what he could do.

Well Tyler came through big time.  Not sure which vendor he got them from, but we had 6th row box seats behind third base, tickets to the Stadium Club, free parking (didn???t use it as we took the subway) and to top it off, Tyler was staying at his friends place and insisted we stay in his place at Trump. 

The boys and I had a blast hanging out in the city, going to Dylan???s candy store, the Empire State Building and then heading up to the Stadium.  I am sure it will be a time both they and I will never forget.  Like the commercial says:

1. 3 round trip airline tickets from Florida to NY ??? $750.00

2. 1 night in a hotel in NYC - $400.00

3. 3 field box seats to a Yankee game - $1000.00

4. A fried like Tyler to make it all happen for free (I used miles for the airfare) and give the kids this kind of memory??? PRICELESS!

Thanks Tyler!

My Grandmother always told me that a lucky person can count the really good friends they have on one hand, but a small amount of good friends far outweigh having many acquaintances. That was proven to me once again this weekend.  Ever since before I had my 2 sons, I had dreams of taking my children to both a Pittsburgh Steeler game and a NY Yankee game. Last year I had a chance to take Landon and Bradley to Pittsburgh and see a Steeler game.  With this being the last year for the old Yankee Stadium, I wanted to take the boys to see the Yankees at home and in the old stadium. 

Getting tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium is not cheap.  In looking around StubHub, for a hundred bucks a ticket (which is all I was willing to pay), the best I was going to do was out in the bleachers somewhere. But I figured it was better than nothing and was going to go for it.  That was when I called my best buddy from college Tyler to see if he wanted to go with us.  Tyler still lives in NY, actually he has an apt in Trump Palace and works in advertising for a large company, handling a one of the very biggest accounts.  When I told him what I was looking at buying he said to hold on and let him see what he can could do.

Well Tyler came through big time.  Not sure which vendor he got them from, but we had 6th row box seats behind third base, tickets to the Stadium Club, free parking (didn’t use it as we took the subway) and to top it off, Tyler was staying at his friends place and insisted we stay in his place at Trump. 

The boys and I had a blast hanging out in the city, going to Dylan’s candy store, the Empire State Building and then heading up to the Stadium.  I am sure it will be a time both they and I will never forget.  Like the commercial says:

1. 3 round trip airline tickets from Florida to NY – $750.00

2. 1 night in a hotel in NYC - $400.00

3. 3 field box seats to a Yankee game - $1000.00

4. A fried like Tyler to make it all happen for free (I used miles for the airfare) and give the kids this kind of memory– PRICELESS!

Thanks Tyler!