Unveiled: A Strix variant of the 980Ti using their new DirectCU III design.
Size (Length) of the card is not stated on the couple of reports i have flicked through.
A Poseidon variant was also released which looks strikingly similar to all their other Poseidon cards.
Feb 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.
That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based security software maker that has exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations.
Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky said. (reut.rs/1L5knm0)
The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facility. The NSA is the agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence on behalf of the United States.
A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky's analysis was correct, and that people still in the intelligence agency valued these spying programs as highly as Stuxnet. Another former intelligence operative confirmed that the NSA had developed the prized technique of concealing spyware in hard drives, but said he did not know which spy efforts relied on it.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines declined to comment.
Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001. (bit.ly/17bPUUe)
The disclosure could further hurt the NSA's surveillance abilities, already damaged by massive leaks by former contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden's revelations have hurt the United States' relations with some allies and slowed the sales of U.S. technology products abroad.
The exposure of these new spying tools could lead to greater backlash against Western technology, particularly in countries such as China, which is already drafting regulations that would require most bank technology suppliers to proffer copies of their software code for inspection.
TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH
According to Kaspersky, the spies made a technological breakthrough by figuring out how to lodge malicious software in the obscure code called firmware that launches every time a computer is turned on.
Disk drive firmware is viewed by spies and cybersecurity experts as the second-most valuable real estate on a PC for a hacker, second only to the BIOS code invoked automatically as a computer boots up.
"The hardware will be able to infect the computer over and over," lead Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu said in an interview.
Though the leaders of the still-active espionage campaign could have taken control of thousands of PCs, giving them the ability to steal files or eavesdrop on anything they wanted, the spies were selective and only established full remote control over machines belonging to the most desirable foreign targets, according to Raiu. He said Kaspersky found only a few especially high-value computers with the hard-drive infections.
Kaspersky's reconstructions of the spying programs show that they could work in disk drives sold by more than a dozen companies, comprising essentially the entire market. They include Western Digital Corp, Seagate Technology Plc , Toshiba Corp, IBM, Micron Technology Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Western Digital, Seagate and Micron said they had no knowledge of these spying programs. Toshiba and Samsung declined to comment. IBM did not respond to requests for comment.
GETTING THE SOURCE CODE
Raiu said the authors of the spying programs must have had access to the proprietary source code that directs the actions of the hard drives. That code can serve as a roadmap to vulnerabilities, allowing those who study it to launch attacks much more easily.
"There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information," Raiu said.
Concerns about access to source code flared after a series of high-profile cyberattacks on Google Inc and other U.S. companies in 2009 that were blamed on China. Investigators have said they found evidence that the hackers gained access to source code from several big U.S. tech and defense companies.
It is not clear how the NSA may have obtained the hard drives' source code. Western Digital spokesman Steve Shattuck said the company "has not provided its source code to government agencies." The other hard drive makers would not say if they had shared their source code with the NSA.
Seagate spokesman Clive Over said it has "secure measures to prevent tampering or reverse engineering of its firmware and other technologies." Micron spokesman Daniel Francisco said the company took the security of its products seriously and "we are not aware of any instances of foreign code."
According to former intelligence operatives, the NSA has multiple ways of obtaining source code from tech companies, including asking directly and posing as a software developer. If a company wants to sell products to the Pentagon or another sensitive U.S. agency, the government can request a security audit to make sure the source code is safe.
"They don't admit it, but they do say, 'We're going to do an evaluation, we need the source code,'" said Vincent Liu, a partner at security consulting firm Bishop Fox and former NSA analyst. "It's usually the NSA doing the evaluation, and it's a pretty small leap to say they're going to keep that source code."
Kaspersky called the authors of the spying program "the Equation group," named after their embrace of complex encryption formulas.
The group used a variety of means to spread other spying programs, such as by compromising jihadist websites, infecting USB sticks and CDs, and developing a self-spreading computer worm called Fanny, Kasperky said.
Fanny was like Stuxnet in that it exploited two of the same undisclosed software flaws, known as "zero days," which strongly suggested collaboration by the authors, Raiu said. He added that it was "quite possible" that the Equation group used Fanny to scout out targets for Stuxnet in Iran and spread the virus.
A new Humble Bundle has been released called the Humble Square Enix Bundle 2. The games included are:
Hitman: Absolution
Supreme Commander 2
Hitman GO
Pay more than the average of $7.27 (previously $6.45) will unlock these games:
Thief
Murdered: Soul Suspect
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut
Kayne & Lynch Collection
Added games on 2.24.2015:
Startopia
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Pay $15 or more to unlock these games:
Tomb Raider
Sleeping Dogs
You can support two good causes which include:
Make-A-Wish Foundation - worldwish.org wish.org
&
GamesAid - www.gamesaid.org
www.humblebundle.com -- Humble Store has Square Enix games up to 80% off as well!
Hey Mr_Bones757,
I would say it's a bit of an overkill to get a dedicated RAID card for such a small amount of drives. Your motherboard should support hardware RAID which should be pretty stable (RAID0, 1, 5, 10). I would recommend using that instead of software RAID.
Captain_WD.
From Australia myself.
Here's my GTX980 experience, I've tried a Reference eVGA GTX980 SC and a custom Gigabyte GTX980 G1 Gaming.
The Strix was completely out of the question due to the 90c vrm's when the G1 Gaming keeps them at 65c, and I wanted to keep the card on air.
Now if you're like me and really don't want to water cool go the custom cooler, I know they cost more, but its worth it in the end.
My personal preference is the G1 Gaming due to the lower temps and higher overclocks (Stock temps never go over 68c with a 26c ambient).
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1693&products_id=29142
In the end it does come down to the buyer what they like more.
Just a general reference for "how much wattage do I need" questions that are filling the forum. Check these and you'll have a general idea of where to start for shopping for a power supply, and questions can be diverted from "how many watts do I need" to a much more specific "what power supply should I get within my budget that will power a system that needs XXX watts"
Briefing on buying a quality power supply:
Shopping for a power supply is not all about wattage. As much as your mind or people might make it seem like so, it's not. It's about multiple factors, however the most important things are the quality of the PSU and the amps on the 12V rail. Not just watts. This is why the question of "how many watts of a PSU do I need" is becoming drowned out nowadays, because it's no longer a large variable
Info on PSU quality:
Info on PSU 12V rail amps:
On with the numbers!
Again, These numbers are established assuming you are using a quality power supply. The overclocks are also based on heavy overclocking, including overvolting.
Another way you could get a rough estimate on your own, is take the TDP of the CPU + GPU(s) and add 100W for other components. This should give you a rough estimate of the maximum power draw your PC will require at stock clock speeds.
Use these numbers when shopping for a power supply, but if you're not sure of specifically what model to get, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking! Create a thread in this section that contains your location (country is fine), preferred store or retailer (if any), and your budget. Our community members will be happy to assist you find a good quality power supply that will be quiet, efficient, and reliable.
Hope this reference guide was of help to you if you're looking to get a new PSU to upgrade or for a build. If there's anything that you feel can be added to this, or if you have any questions then let myself know. This thread is a work in progress and I'll do my best to keep working on it so leave suggestions! Thanks for looking!
Mr_Bones757 got a reaction from Torand in Asus Non-Reference 980Ti Variants
