SECURITY...

• New MyDoom variant exploits IE flaw - A new variant of the MyDoom worm that exploits an unpatched flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) browser is in the wild and posing particular risk to home and small business users, security experts warned this week. The worm, which security firms dubbed MyDoom.AF, MyDoom.AH and MyDoom.AG, spreads by e-mail and exploits a recently discovered buffer overflow vulnerability in IE. Internet users should avoid opening suspicious e-mail with the subject headers "funny photos :)," "hello," "hey!" and blank headers, according to security firm iDefense Inc. More detailed description can be found here.
• New Trojan Sends Spam - An ingenious new Trojan is circulating that hijacks PCs and uses them to send SMS-based spam to mobile phones. After a PC has been infected, the Delf-HA Trojan contacts a Web site for details on which spam campaign to run and then randomly generates a series of Russian mobile numbers beginning with the prefix +7921 or +7911. It uses the "send e-mail" function of a number of Russian mobile network Web sites to actually deliver the mail sent from the infected machines.
• Security breach hits another online bank - The credibility of online banking has taken another blow after a security flaw was discovered on the Morgan Stanley online banking facility. The problem came to light after BBC Breakfast was contacted by a viewer who logged on to his Morgan Stanley account. The flaw enables users to gain access to their credit card information simply by entering the first digit of their credit card number.
• Patch in for Microsoft server spoofing flaw - The vulnerability affects Microsoft's Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2000 software, which acts as a firewall, a content filter and a Web content cache. The software is sold both as a standalone product and included in Microsoft's Small Business Server package. The company issued a patch for the vulnerability, which is also found in Microsoft Proxy Server 2.0, in its monthly advisory on Tuesday. It ranks the flaw as "important," its second-highest rating.
• Kerio Personal Firewall Multiple IP Options Denial of Service - The vulnerability allows a remote attacker to reliably render a system inoperative with one single packet. Physical access is required in order to bring an affected system out of this "frozen" state. This specific flaw exists within the component that performs low level processing of TCP, UDP, and ICMP packets.
• Hack the Pentagon - Government hotspots left unsecured - It isn't just your neighbor who forgets to secure their wireless hotspot. Federal Computer Week drove around Washington and found many civil and defense agency hotspots left wide open. The crew notes it was a particular problem among defense contractors, but also found a Pentagon hotspot open and accessible 1,000 feet from the Pentagon.
• Feds charge man with selling Windows code - Connecticut man was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he illegally sold a secret source code used for Microsoft's Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 programs, federal prosecutors said. The Manhattan United States Attorney's Office said William P. Genovese Jr., 27, was charged with unlawfully distributing a trade secret, a charge that carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine if he is convicted.
• Microsoft to back customers in infringement cases - The software maker plans to announce Wednesday that it will indemnify nearly all its customers against any claims that their use of Microsoft software infringed on any intellectual property claims. The company already offers unlimited protection to its volume license customers, but is adding the indemnity for customers who buy its key products in other ways, such as from a computer maker or even off a retail shelf
• New Rules Make Domain Hijacking Easier - Netcraft seems to have a little ditty about new rules from ICANN that take effect on Friday making it easier to hijack domain names. Essentially, if someone tries to take your domain, and you don't answer within 5 days, they now assume you are okay with the transfer! (thanks Slashdot.org)
• How A Criminal Might Infiltrate Your Network - This article is not intended to show you how to hack something, but rather to show how attackers can take advantage of your mistakes. This will enable you to avoid the common pitfalls that criminal hackers exploit
• What the heck is SSL? - AuphanOnline.com has posted an article on SSL.

OFF-TOPIC...

• Fun with Prime Numbers - Fun With Prime Numbers article offers a series of prime number finding algorithms starting with the most brute force imaginable, and working up to a paged algorithm capable of finding the first 1,716,050,469 primes in an hour and a half on a commodity machine.
• Boy sues mother for not buying him a PC - An eleven year old boy in central China has taken his mum to court for breaking a promise to buy him a PC if he did well at school. According to the China Daily, the mother told her son that if he ate all his greens and scored average marks of more than 94 per cent for his school work, she would buy him a computer. However, when the kid did so well that he managed to get this grade, she told him that she couldn't afford it.
• DVD Rentals for $15.99? - As part of a special offer, Blockbuster is offering a six-month membership on its standard three-movies-out-at-once option for $15.99, complete with two monthly in-store coupons for free movie and game rentals

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Sees $100 Million First Day for "Halo 2" - First-day sales of Microsoft new video game "Halo 2" will reach $100 million, a senior Microsoft games executive said on Tuesday. "I'm calling a $100 million day on 'Halo' today," Peter Moore, a corporate vice president in Microsoft's games division, said at a Harris Nesbitt investment conference in New York.
• Microsoft ready to launch search engine - Microsoft on Thursday will launch its long-promised Internet search engine, which will compete directly with market leader Google, sources close to the company said Tuesday.
• Microsoft to Update IE Before Longhorn? Maybe So  - Microsoft is investigating whether it can use the same IE add-on mechanism that third-party developers are deploying, so as to issue out-of-band browser updates. When asked whether Microsoft will release an updated version of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser before Longhorn ships in 2006, Microsoft's pat answer is that it has no current plans to do so. IE is part of Windows, and that's that, according to the Microsoft party line. But if you ask a slightly different question - whether Microsoft intends to add new features and functionality to IE without releasing a whole new standalone version - you'll get a different
• Xbox 2 hardware begins to shape up - Microsoft Xbox 2 hardware is starting to come together, according to reports, as final graphics details are thrashed out. Sources have told us that ATI is now starting to roll out the R500 part which will be the basis of Xbox 2, ahead of the machine's launch on January 5 at the Consumer Electronics Show. R500 is a Shader Model 3.0 part, and will be similar to the R520 part that will be its next generation PC graphics chip. The tape out will be a relief to developers, who have been working on the 9800 class hardware that shipped in the Xbox 2 development kits.
• R480 and SLI details emerge - ATI will introduce three version of its R480 card (probably bnded XT PE, XT and PRO). R480XT Platinum Edition is likely to be clocked at 540MHz while it memory should rock at 1180MHz. This is 20MHz core and 60MHz memory speed upgrades from fastest of AGP X800 XT Platinum Edition card. Just for the record, R480 cards are PCI Express only.
• AMD trims processor prices - This latest round of cuts isn't dramatic - the largest price drop is only 11% - but it's better than nothing. The low end of the Athlon 64 line benefits the most from these latest price cuts. Chips rated between 3500+ and 2800+ see discounts between 6 and 11% while price cuts on high-end CPUs barely crack 1%.
• Sharp unveils first DVB-H front-end tuner - Sharp Microelectronics Europe has unveiled the industry's first DVB-H front-end module to meet high-speed and low power requirements for the emerging European mobile TV standard. Sharp claimed its DVB-H front-end module reduces the power consumption of mobile TV reception to less than 100 mW for the first time. The new module combines a tuner unit with circuits for decoding DVB-H signals, demultiplexing, OFDM demodulation and MPE FEC IP data correction.

HARDWARE...

• HP unveils low-cost corporate copier - HP said its new LaserJet 4345mfp can spit out up to 45 pages per minute at a third of the cost of comparable devices. The product, which is small enough to fit on a desktop and which prints, copies, scans and faxes, is priced starting at $2,599 and slated to be available Nov. 30.
• ABIT Unveils CPU Accelerator Technology on AA8XE series, AA8-DuraMAX and AG8 Motherboards - CPU Accelerator basically enables users to change the multiplier factor of their CPUs. By altering the CPU multiplier, users can more easily find the optimal operating speed of their systems for massive performance gains. CPU Accelerator allows users to run their 800MHz FSB CPUs at a 1066MHz Front Side Bus. With the additional bandwidth provided by the increased system bus, PC’s equipped with CPU Accelerator deliver next-generation performance with the technology of today. In fact, CPU Accelerator can increase system performance by a whopping 33%!
• AMD FX-55/4000+ CPU review - The release of the new 4000+ was kind of a strange thing for AMD, as in reality it turns out to be a renamed FX-53, which is a 2.4GHz CPU with a 1MB cache. Strange, why not just keep the FX-53 on the market instead of the renaming and release of the 4000+? Probably since Intel cancelled its plans on the release of a 4.0GHz CPU AMD just decided to use a little flash in the pan to make it seem like they had a market ready CPU solution that broke the 3GHz barrier. Oh well, I guess it really doesn't matter much to the consumer, but it is a bit odd in the least and a hollow victory in the real sense.
• Mushkin 1GB L2V2 PC3200 Dual Channel Kit - Overclocking isn't something that everyone is comfortable doing, but the lower timings from this Mushkin 1GB L2V2 PC3200 Dual Channel Kit will help go towards wringing every last drop of performance from your system.
• G.Skill PC3200-PC4400 Memory tested on A64 S939 - The results and benchmarks speak volumes for the potential performance to be had with high HTT and memory speeds on a Socket 939 Athlon64 setup. I have no hesitation in recommending this memory to those users seeking the utmost in performance potential from their high end computing hardware.
• Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE motherboard - The Fatal1ty AA8XE is built with the just released Intel 925XE chipset, which sports a 1066FSB, DDR2 memory, and a PCI Express x16 slot for a graphics card.
• AOpen EX915 XCube SFF PC review  - In terms of standard equipment, the system also supports IEEE 1394b, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 channel audio, S-Video out and an onboard videocard. Of course, if you feel the need to upgrade, the AOpen EX915 XCube also includes one 32-bit PCI slot as well as a PCI Express 16x slot for hardcore videocard goodness.
• MSI NX6800 Ultra-T2D256 graphics card - Though the MSI NX6800 Ultra-T2D256 resembled very much like the reference GeForce 6800 Ultra, it was for its own good because it operated at a faster 425MHZ GPU core clock versus the recommended 400MHz. As such, the huge reference cooler unit is most ideal to effectively remove the excess heat. Its extra 25MHz clock speed produced frame rates 3% faster than the reference card when taking in the average of all the results we have obtained.
• Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D-3 6600GT PCI-E VGA - Gigabyte GV-NX66T128D flexes its muscle over the old PCX5900 and R9800Pro, due to its advanced architecture. It is amazing to see that Nvidia managed to give a sub $400NZ card this level of performance.
• Albatron GeForce PC6600 - Albatron typically doesn't include a large software bundle with their cards, and true to form the PC6600 comes with a full version of Arx Fatalis, a five game demo CD, WinDVD and a driver CD. With a retail price of only $161 CDN ($130 US) the card is very affordable, and the extra's are modest. Oh, did I happen to mention that the Albatron GeForce PC6600 also supports TV-Output, as well as component out for HDTV users? Well, it does.
• ATI X800 Pro Video Card - CoolTechZone has posted a review of ATI X800 Pro Video Card.
• PCI-X Serial ATA RAID - Highpoint RocketRAID 1820A review - TweakTown take a look at the Highpoint Rocket RAID 1820A card and comparing it to the Silicon Image 3114 4 Port SATA chip and the ICH5-S Adaptec Southbridge based RAID controller to see if the PCI-X bus can give the added juice that is needed.
• Gigabyte N512 Laptop review - The Gigabyte N512 is a very powerful and versatile laptop that should appeal to a large number of people. Gamers will be drawn to this system because of the ATI Radeon 9600 graphics adapter and the 512MB of system memory.
• PalmOne GPS Solution Zire 72 Edition - As the receiver is Bluetooth, your in car set up can be pleasantly wire free. However, when the batteries are running low you can plug in the Bluetooth receiver and the Zire into the the car power socket via the cradle. This usefully features an on/off switch on the front so you don’t have to unplug everything to turn off the power.

SOFTWARE...

• Mozilla Launches Firefox 1.0 - As I mentioned yesterday, The Mozilla Foundation has released version 1.0 of its Firefox browser, an open-source product that has generated lofty expectations that it will offer real competition to Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer..

• Windows XP Media Center Edition Test Kit v2.0 - This program will install a collection of software utilities intended to assist Media Center PC OEMs and device driver developers in evaluating readiness for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

• Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2 Evaluation Edition - This free downloadable version of Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2 is segmented into smaller downloads so you can easily and successfully access the tools to begin evaluating Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 2 today

• Magic DVD Ripper V2.2 - Magic DVD Ripper is a powerful and easy-to-use DVD copy and convert software, which can copy protected DVD to hard drive or convert DVD to DivX, VCD, SVCD and AVI formats. This new version added the promised audio bitrate option and bitrate calculator of AVI.

• Cyberlink PowerDVD 6.0 - PowerDVD (download trial) incorporates support for high-definition audio and video, true 8-channel home theater audio playback, virtual surround sound, as well as complete controls and extra features for DVD enthusiasts.

• DVDFab 2.50 beta 2 - DVDFab now can copy DVD-9 in 1:1 mode, and remove all the protections (CSS, Region Code, RCE, Macrovision, UOPs), then burn to double layer disc, so you will get a perfect copy without any restriction.

• FlashFXP 3.0.2.1045 Final - FlashFXP (download) is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today. It is loaded with features for the power user, but has an intuitive user interface that takes only minutes to master.

• BenQ DW1620/DW1620 Pro firmware - BenQ has released a new firmware for the DW1620/DW1620 Pro which now supports writing dual layer DVD+R discs at 4 speed.

• SiS Wireless LAN driver v1.05 WHQL - SiS released new wireless LAN drivers for SIS160 & 162 chipset

• ATi Linux Driver v3.14.6 - ATi released a new set of Linux drivers.