Friday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:03 PM CEST - Aug,20 2004
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- New Worm Travels by IM - A
new version of the worm that spread from infected Microsoft Web servers in
June has been identified and is using instant messages and infected Web sites
in Russia, Uruguay, and the United States to spread itself, according to one
security company. Researchers at PivX Solutions of Newport Beach, California,
have intercepted new malicious code closely resembling that from widespread
attacks in June attributed to a worm named "Scob" or "Download.ject." The new
attacks use mass-distributed instant messages to lure Internet users to Web
sites that distribute malicious code similar to Download.ject, says Thor
Larholm, senior security researcher at PivX.
- Yahoo fixes two flaws in mail system -
Yahoo fixed two flaws in its free mail system that could have allowed a
malicious user to read a victim's browser cookies and change the appearance of
some pages, Yahoo said Thursday.
- Microsoft Patches the Patch -
This first hotfix for Windows XP SP2 patches a problem that SP2 creates
for some users of virtual private networks, telecommunications software that
is generally used to let workers connect securely--usually to a corporate
computer--from a remote location such as home or the road. The good news is
that
very few users actually need this patch, according to Ryan Burkhardt, lead
program manager for Windows XP SP2 at Microsoft. Additionally, most, if not
all, affected VPN users will get the hotfix through their employer's IT
department.
- Microsoft downplays XP SP2 flaw claims -
Microsoft has won
the first round against security researchers digging for flaws in its
Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), dismissing claims by German consultants to
have identified vulnerabilities. Heise Security said that flaws in the
configuration of XP after implementing SP2 could allow files to be downloaded
onto a client PC without the user's consent by bypassing the new warning
procedure for downloading files. But the researchers admitted these holes were
mainly theoretical and that no code yet exists to exploit them anyway.
Microsoft has said it does not consider the areas identified as issues that it
would develop patches or workarounds to address.
- Windows XP SP2 Guides and Tools -
A few guides and tools some of you might be interested in checking out
after you install Windows XP pro SP2:
Group Policy Settings Reference,
Group Policy Settings Reference for .adm files,
Setup Disks for Floppy Boot Install.
- Microsoft Exchange Information Store service crashes periodically after
you install Exchange Server 2003 SP1 - This problem may occur when there
is a malformed e-mail message or other malformed item in the information
store. Additionally, the processing of parameters in a HTML close tag may
cause the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service to crash.
A supported
hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct
the problem that is described in this article.
- Judges rule file-sharing software legal - Following the lead of a
lower-court decision last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Los
Angeles said on Thursday
that peer-to-peer software developers were not liable for any copyright
infringement committed by people using their products, as long as they had
no direct ability to stop the acts. (Download
the decision.)
- Microsoft, EA launch FIFA interactive soccer cup - Microsoft Corp.
joined forces with computer games giant Electronic Arts Inc. and FIFA to
launch an
interactive soccer tournament on Thursday they hope will boost online
gaming. Kicking off in October, the FIFA Interactive World Cup will be a
series of tournaments played around the world both over the Internet and
offline under the auspices of world soccer's governing body, with the final in
December.
- Two of three new Motorola smartphones are Linux-based - Motorola
introduced
a
lineup of smartphone models for the second half – the A768i and A780 with
Motorola’s new Linux smartphone OS and the MPx220 – in Japan yesterday. The
three models will be launched in the second half of this year.
- AMD sneaks strained silicon into chips - Advanced Micro Devices has
begun to incorporate a form of strained silicon into its chips, a design
twist that will let the company increase the performance of its processors.
Strained silicon is a design technique in which silicon atoms are forcibly
pulled apart from each other. With the atoms spaced out further from one
other, electrons can move more rapidly, similar to how a hockey puck can zip
faster across a rink than across a frozen lake. Faster electrons lead to
better performance.
- OCZ 2GB PC3200 Performance Series Dual-Channel Kit review -
If you can honestly find a meaningful use for 2GB of unbuffered memory,
OCZ's L400 dual-channel pack is as good as any. We'd pair it with AMD's new
S939 Athlon 64 FX-53 and ATI's Radeon X800 XT PE. That would lead to a
multi-purpose system that's equally at home with the most demanding of games
and adept at handling professional image and rendering applications. For most
users, though, it's one of those options you select when deciding on your
dream system. 2GB of system RAM has its uses, sure, but they are few and far
between for most of us.
- HIS Excalibur X800 Pro - VIVO Edition with IceQ II review -
HotHardware.com a posted
a review of the HIS Excalibur X800 Pro - VIVO Edition with IceQ II video
card. Another review can be found at
ViperLair.
- TDK Indi DVD 1280B 12x DVD±RW review - CDRLabs have posted
a review on the TDK Indi DVD 1280B 12x DVD±RW. The drive is based on
Lite-On's new 12x DVD±RW, the TDK Indi DVD 1280B is capable of 12x DVD+R, 8x
DVD-R and 4x DVD±RW writing speeds and can read DVD's at speeds as high as
12x.
- Plextor PX-712SA SATA DVD±RW Writer - Bjorn3D looks at one of the
first SATA DVD drives when they look at
the Plextor
PX-712SA SATA DVD±RW Writer.
- Zalman "Totally No Noise" enclosure review - Xbit labs has posted
a detailed review of Zalman's "Totally No Noise" TNN500A enclosure. The
TNN500A has a passively-cooled power supply and enough cooling fins, heat
pipes, and slugs to cool a system's hard drives, processor, and even graphics
chip in silence.
- SanDisk 256MB + Wi-Fi SD Card review -
This SD card
combines flash memory and wireless communications into a single card
giving a PDA the freedom to quickly transmit and receive data, images and
music over Wi-Fi. The SanDisk 256MB + Wi-Fi SD has to be the smallest Wi-Fi
card in the world. The unit measures just 57mm long x 24mm wide x 2.1mm deep
and weighs next to nothing. I'm still in awe that SanDisk was able to combine
both Wi-Fi and 256MB of flash memory into a package so small.
- Half-Life 2 Stress Test Benchmarked - Zone Hardware has posted
benchmarks
using Valve's Half-Life 2 Stress Test.
- EventID 4226 patcher - After almost everybody knows the [EventID
4226: TCP/IP has reached the security limit imposed on the number of
concurrent TCP connect attempts]. A couple weeks ago,
LvlLord
has created a fix for this argumentative feature. (thanks Warp2search)
- KDE 3.3 Officially Released -
KDE 3.3 has been
released (changelog)
- Yahoo! Messenger 6.0.0.1750 -
Yahoo!'s
Instant Messenger service has been updated again.
- SecureCRT 4.1.8 (shw) -
SecureCRT
(download)
gives you an encrypted SSH session with both SSH1 and SSH2™ servers. SSH
security goes far beyond the basic secure logon, rerouting data or local
applications using TCP/IP ports through an encrypted channel. The VCP utility
secures file transfers using SFTP.
- SecureFX 2.2.7 (shw) -
The SecureFX client (download)
application lets you choose between SFTP or FTP over an encrypted SSH2
connection for secure transfers, or standard FTP for non-secure transfers. It
has a simple Explorer-like interface, so it's easy to learn and use.
- SpeedFan 4.15 -
SpeedFan (download)
is a freeware program that monitors fan speeds, temperatures and voltages in
computers with hardware monitoring chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T.
info for those hard disks that support this feature (almost all :-)) and show
hard disk temperatures too, if supported. SpeedFan can even change the FSB on
some motherboards.
- Nero Recode 2.1 -
Nero
Recode 2.1, available now via a free download to Nero 6 Ultra Edition
users, literally leaves the competition in the dust, with unmatchable video
recoding speeds (DVD-9 to DVD-5 and MPEG-4 recoding).
- NvFlash Tool 5.06 - Station-Drivers have posted a new
Nvidia Nvflash utility version 5.06 to flash your video card BIOS.
- RadLinker 1012 -
RadLinker
is new tweaker/linker for ATI Radeon based graphics cards
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Updated:05:02 PM CEST Jun,05
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