Thursday, December 07, 2006

Zero-Day Tracker

eEye has started a page to track zero-day exploits. They have an RSS feed and I have subscribed. If you have trouble keeping track of these things and which ones affect you and those you support (which I definitely do) this is a good one. I also found it well enough done that I did not have to wade through all sorts of extraneous data to get the drift of the problem being discussed.

Jack

Windows Trojan masquerades as Vista hack

It's the first major attack against Vista and (fittingly, to my mind) it targets pirated copies of Vista. Legitimate users have nothing to fear from this one.

This short blurb at The Register has links to more detail, should you desire that.

Jack

Security bulletin; Update available for buffer overflow in Adobe Download Manager

The link is to an Adobe advisory about their Download Manager software. Originally thought only to crash the Adobe application and/or Internet Explorer, it has been found that the flaw does allow malicious code to be run. A simple upgrade in the software will fix it.

If you are using the Adobe Download Manager on either Windows or the Macintosh, this is one to take note of.

Jack

Bogus anti-spyware makers ahead of law in South Korea

This is not just a problem in South Korea. I've found several spyware infestations lately masquerading as anti-spyware applications.

I have also found some of these bogus apps using the names of respectable software companies, though there is absolutely no relation between the companies and the "applications" in question.

(I have checked as closely as I can and am not using the names of the two companies at their requests while they try to clean up their reputations. I found it most interesting that neither of the companies deals in computer security in their regular business. I guess the fakers thought picking on these companies would give them some time before discovery.)

More about this later, as things develop.

Jack

Andy UpdegroveThere are over 1,000,000 supported standards, with more being developed all the time. The Standards Blog examines how standards are d

Microsoft's "Office Open XML" file formats are up for certification as "real" standards. This short FAQ contains a lot of information on the standardization process, as well as the MS application. I thought it well worth posting for that.

Jack

How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web's Haystack

An explanation of Google's Page Rank system.

Caution; Contains enough mathematics that one really can't get the gist of it without actually messing with the math. Even so, interesting and informative.

Jack

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

James Kim found deceased | CNET News.com

We had all hoped and prayed for a happy ending after the joyous news that Kati and the children were safe, but it was not to be. Our deepest sympathies to the Kim family.

'Bad guys are winning' despite fight against spam

Gloom and doom as delivered by The International Herald Tribune. However, with my spam to honest message ration now standing at 201 spams to one actual message, I thought to pass this along.

I was being serious about that ratio. I have 9 accounts and am recieving just over 10k messages per day, ON A DIAL-UP ACCOUNT! Out of those, I got 49 "good" messages today.

The bad guys really are winning, you know.

Jack

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

War for Linux Is Lost - Almost

This is a depressing essay. The problem is that it might be true.

I offer it to those of you who care about the future of Linux, which I do, and as the basis for thought.

There is another opinion along the same line, here.

Jack

Malware wars: Are hackers on top?

Recently, two different listeners have asked me who is winning; the malware writers or the security folks. Here's the opinion of Raimund Genes, CTO of anti-malware at Trend Micro. I find this somewhat scary but, try as I might, I cannot find material refuting his claims.

Jack

Wife, Children Safe, Search On For CNET's Kim

Please continue to keep James Kim and the family in your thoughts and prayers. I saw this news before I went to bed last night. I'm so grateful that three have been found and brought to safety. Hopefully James will be found safe and reunited with his wife and children soon.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Let's Say Thanks to a Soldier

This is a great site that Xerox is sponsoring that allows you to send a Thank you card to a soldier in Iraq.
You can't pick the soldier, but does that really matter???

Let's Say Thanks
[h/t to a fellow geocacher for this link]
--MissM

Sunday, December 03, 2006

OnComputers Radio show Podcast 12-03-06

This is the On Computers Radio show podcast for 12-03-06. You can listen live every Sunday from 10AM to 1PM Pacific thats 1PM to 4PM Eastern. If you prefer, you can download the same file here via ftp.