SECURITY...

• Microsoft: Pirates Not Locked Out of Windows - Despite reports to the contrary, Microsoft has confirmed to BetaNews that it has made no changes to its Windows Genuine Advantage program to lock out users with invalid or pirated keys. "We need to be very clear, Microsoft has no plans to lock users out of their PCs, nor does it have the technical capacity to do so," David Lazar, Director of Genuine Windows at Microsoft, told BetaNews. 
• Microsoft responds to "10 flaws in XP sp2"  - The debate over responsible disclosure of security flaw warnings has erupted again, with Microsoft chiding a private research firm for releasing information on 10 new flaws found in the Windows XP SP2 operating system.
• Say hello to the "time bomb" exploit - A recent whitepaper, Second-order Code Injection Attacks (PDF), by UK security consultancy NGS Software (NGS) explains how new techniques for attacking web-based applications alter the security landscape. Gunter Ollmann, professional services director at NGS, and author of the paper, explains: "Many forms of code injection targeted at web-based applications (for instance cross-site scripting and SQL injection) rely upon the instantaneous execution of the embedded code to carry out the attack. [But] in some cases it may be possible for an attacker to inject their malicious code into a data storage area that may be executed at a later date or time". (thanks TheRegister)
• Trojan targets UK online bank accounts - The Banker-AJ Trojan (Troj/Banker-AJ) targets users of online banks including Abbey, Barclays, Egg, HSBC, Lloyds TSB, Nationwide and NatWest, according to security firm Sophos. Banker-AJ has been coded to lie dormant in the background on infected Windows PCs, waiting for users to visit legitimate online banking websites. Once the user visits one of a number of banking websites the malicious code is triggered into action, capturing passwords and taking screenshots. This information is then relayed to remote hackers who can use it to break into the bank accounts of innocent users and steal money, Sophos warned.
• Bofra worm bypasses antivirus systems - According to content security firm Clearswift, the MyDoom variant, which exploits an unpatched buffer overflow vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, employs a novel spreading strategy that makes it very difficult for traditional antivirus systems to detect. The problem centres on the fact that, unlike traditional worms, Bofra contains no attachment, nor any malicious script code in HTML. It simply contains a link back to the previously infected host machine in the chain. The worm installs a small web server on infected systems.
• Pirated Windows Still Rules in Macedonia - Only 400 companies out of 50.000 registered companies in Macedonia installed licensed version of Microsoft's software. That is the result of the software licensing action conducted by Microsoft and Macedonian government from February to May this year. According to unofficial information, despite 100.000 computers in Macedonia, only 8.000 licensed versions of software are used. Many companies were controlled, but in only two of them pirated software was found. They were accused of copyrights violation.
• Greek, British Police Break Illegal Software Ring - Greek and British police in a joint operation cracked a multi-million illegal software sales ring, arresting two people and seizing thousands of pirate high-tech software programs, Greek police said on Friday. They said they had arrested a Greek citizen and a Briton who pirated and sold an expensive computer software program for the car and aeronautic industry, charging only about 700 euros.
• Ex-Microsoft workers charged with theft - Four former Microsoft Corp. employees were charged with stealing $32.4 million worth of software and selling it on the side. According to the complaint filed Monday, the employees ordered software available to Microsoft employees for free to use for business purposes, then sold it to online software retailers. The complaint said the employees blocked managers from getting routine e-mail notification that the workers were ordering the software. The software the four are accused of stealing included the SQL Server 2000, which normally sells for $15,000, and the SQL Enterprise Server 7.0, which sells for $29,000.
• Online bride scam nets Russian $300,000 -  Translator who conned more than 3000 unsuspecting foreigners out of nearly $300,000 has been slapped over the face with a wet bus ticket by a Russian court. Yury Lazarev, 34, an English translator from the Urals, was given a one year suspended sentence despite the fact that he made a fortune conning foreigners with the scam.
• Anti-virus outfit defends job for VXer - Czech company Zoner Software has explained why it employed a prominent former virus writer to develop anti-virus software on its behalf. Benny, 22, has become the main developer of this Zoner Anti-Virus (ZAV) product. Although this product is not being sold to end users yet (though this is a possibility for the future), Zoner's appointment is still controversial. In general, the industry wants to distance itself from malware authors and to discourage the idea that writing viruses is a path into a lucrative career in computer security.
• Play Halo 2 with a "modded" Xbox, get banned - Newsgroup users with modified Xboxes have been banned from Microsoft's online Xbox Live service after attempting to play Halo 2. Microsoft has already used its online service as a way of punishing those who "mod" or alter their Xbox (often allowing it to play pirated or copied games, or increasing the size of its hard drive). Initially Xbox Live banned anyone with a modded console, but modders soon found ways to work round this. It seems that a recent Microsoft Xbox Live update has found a way to spot the modders again. And their punishment is being left unable to play Halo 2 multi-player online.

OFF-TOPIC...

• U.S. Airborne Laser Advances to "First Light" -  A Boeing Co.-led team has successfully fired for the first time a powerful laser meant to fly aboard a modified 747 as part of a U.S. ballistic missile defense shield, officials said on Friday.
• NASA To Try for Scramjet Speed Record - An innovative engine that compresses air by its shape alone to reach hypersonic speeds will attempt to break its own record next week with a test flight over the Pacific Ocean. NASA's X-43A is scheduled for its third and final test flight on Monday, having already reached a speed of Mach 7, or seven times the speed of sound, on March 27, landing a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.
• Marvel Sues over City of Heroes - The lawsuit claims South Korea-based NCSoft and San Jose-based Cryptic Studios violated Marvel's trademark characters in their game City of Heroes. Marvel seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against the two companies to stop using its characters.
• EA Class Action Suit Coming? - Following a tip from an informed source, GameSpot contacted Attorney Robert C. Schubert, partner at San Francisco law firm Schubert & Reed LLP. He said that he has initiated legal proceedings to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of EA employees. "We are seeking unpaid overtime for a good number of [EA] employees who weren't [properly] paid," Schubert told GameSpot this afternoon. "EA contends they were exempt," Schubert said. "We contend otherwise."
• Heat is on...Oceans could rise by a meter by 2100 - Global warming is melting the Arctic ice faster than expected, and the world's oceans could rise by about a meter by 2100, swamping homes from Bangladesh to Florida, the head of a study said. About 17m people in Bangladesh live less than one meter above sea level. Pacific islands like Tuvalu could be swamped and much of Florida would be inundated by a one meter rise.
• WWII Soldier Killed at Parade Honoring Veterans - William Hammond survived one of the bloodiest battles of World War II but died at a parade honoring him and others after a van at a Veteran's Day parade ran over him.

TECHNOLOGY...

• Microsoft Not Worried About Firefox - Microsoft Australia's managing director, Steve Vamos, said that he did not believe IE's market share was under threat after the recent high profile launch of Mozilla's Firefox browser. Vamos said that although he has heard other people mention the threat posed by Firefox, he does not believe the threat is real.
• Windows Server 'R2' Details Begin to Leak - Microsoft's 'R2' still has yet to go to beta, but Microsoft is well on its way to finalizing the product due to ship in the latter half of 2005, according to sources.
• Japan Gives OK to Sun Desktop Suite - The Japanese government has approved Sun Microsystems' open-source desktop software for use within one of its ministries, Sun is expected to announce
• DVD developers set for format war - Both "Blu-ray", principally backed by Sony, and "HD DVD", which has been developed by Toshiba, are based on the same basic technology. Both replace the red lasers found in current DVD machines with blue lasers, utilizing their shorter wavelength to store data at the higher densities needed to record high-definition movies and television.
• Samsung develops 3D mobile display - Boffins at South Korean electronics giant Samsung say they have developed the first all-angle 3D display panels for mobile phones. Although there have been 3D panels developed for mobiles before, the illusion is usually destroyed unless you are right in front of the screen. However, Samsung says the new panel maintains the 3D image when viewed from any angle.
• B221 Smartphone -  HTC from Taiwan is working on Microsoft Smartphone cellphones that feature: GSM 900/1800/1900, GPRS Class 10, 65K colors, TFT LCD, 320 x 240 pixels, Full Pocket PC(PDA) features, MS Office applications, Data synchronizing with PC, MP3 and movie playback and Hand writing input and recognition.
• 1Gbit NAND flash prices to drop 50% by 2Q 2005 - Prices of 1Gbit NAND flash chips may drop about 50% to US$3-4 per chip by the end of the second quarter of 2005, as supply increases and players continue to push higher-density products into the market, according to sources with IC distributors in Taiwan.
• AMD tips "Pacifica" and "Presidio" processors for '06 - AMD on Friday disclosed its new microprocessor roadmap, including the introduction of the "Pacifica" and "Presidio" processors for the 2006 time frame.  AMD's "Pacifica" and "Presidio" technologies reportedly will be multi-core designs, built around the company's x86-based, 64-bit processor architecture.

HARDWARE...

• Stereo sweatshirt to hit shelves - The item, called a "Hoodio," is a machine-washable fleece jacket with a waterproof FM radio control panel sewn into one sleeve, a detachable power pack hidden in a pocket, and removable speakers built into the hood. The Hoodio will go on sale on November 15 at GapKids stores throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and France for about $68.
• nForce4 HyperTransport link speeds clarified - DigiTimes is reporting that NVIDIA is shipping A02 and A03 versions of its nForce4 chipset that will support HyperTransport speeds of 800MHz and 1GHz, respectively. The A02 revision of the chip will apparently be destined for Socket 754 platforms while A03 will be targeted at Socket 939.
• AMD Athlon64 4000+ review - Both, Athlon64 and Athlon 64 FX use this new platform, the only difference is the size of the L2 cache memory: 512KB for Athlon64 and 1MB for Athlon64 FX, although the Athlon64 4000+ has 1MB of L2 cache, similar to an Athlon64 FX-53.
• OCing the Athlon64 3200+ 90nm - At the time we ran these tests, we could not get our hands on a 3000+, so we utilized an OEM 3200+. It would be my guess that you will realize just about the same results out of both CPUs. Do keep in mind that the 3000+ is clocked at 1.8GHz (9*200) and the 3200+ is clocked at 2GHz (10*200), but these CPUs multipliers are adjustable to lower integers.
• 7 Dual Xeon Motherboards Take On the Opteron Challenge - With its unbeaten feature set, Supermicro's X6DA8-G2 is definitely meant for professional usage and therefore eclipses all other boards that we tested. It's a unique combination of eight controllable fans, LSI RAID Zero option, Dual Gigabit LAN, IPMI option, SM bus PSU monitoring and the theoretical possibility of extending the memory up to 32 GB. While this board is the most expensive out of the bunch, it truly deserves our recommendation thanks to its flawless performance
• ABIT KV8 Pro-3rd Eye review - While the KV8 Pro-3rd Eye lacks some of the bells and whistles of the more expensive boards, we'll have to admit that it met and exceeded our expectations. At just under $91 USD without the µGuru Clock, you'll be hard pressed to find another board this fast, this tweaker friendly and this stable.
• Gigabyte GA-K8VT800 Pro - So, to close, if you're looking for a stable, simple Socket 754 motherboard, then you would really have no reason to complain with this Gigabyte offering. If you are a performance junkie looking to squeeze all the performance you can out of your system, you'd be better off looking elsewhere.
• ASUS V9999 Ultra review - PC Perspective reviews the Asus V9999 Ultra Deluxe Graphics Card.
• Gigabyte GeForce 6600 GT review - Gigabyte decided to make this product a steal. How? They include Doom 3 for free! That's 50 bucks straight in your pocket. Good stuff, really good stuff.
• ATI Radeon Xpress 200P - T-Break has posted an article on the ATI Radeon Xpress 200P video card.
• Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500SD - Despite the fact that WD2500SD lost in a few synthetic IOMeter tests, it managed to show its best in less synthetic programs such as WinBench99 and FC-Test. These results seem very optimistic and allow us to say that potential buyers of this product will get what they are looking for. All this together with higher claimed reliability makes this drive a really worthy choice
• PLEXTOR External 12x4x16 PX-712UF DVD Writer - The PLEXTOR PX-712UF is one solid CD/DVD creation device. It looks great, functions smoothly, and comes equipped with some excellent features like GigaRec. Given its external nature, installation is extremely easy- any novice user would have no problem installing this drive. Plug in the power and USB cords, install the drivers and you are ready to rock. The performance of the drive is again solid. The benchmarks all showed a perfectly smooth and steady read and write rate from the PX-712UF. The CD burn speeds aren't exactly the fastest out there, but 48x compared to 52x is hardly noticeable
• MSI DR16-B 16X DVD+/- R/RW Dual Layer Drive review - On the recording side, the MSI drive managed slightly better results, with its higher rated 40X compared to the ASUS DRW-1604P's 32X. With the DVD+/-R tests, the MSI model turned out superior performance in our tests, however, Dual-Layer performance was in favor of the ASUS model with its 4X capability.
• PCI Express Reference Guide (ver 2.1) - This guide will take a look at the history of I/O busses, the basics of PCI Express as well as the implications it will have on the consumer.
• Beginners Guide To OverClocking - OCIA.net has posted a Beginners Guide to OverClocking.

SOFTWARE...

• First Look: $100 Video Editing Apps Square Off -  PCWorld tested shipping versions of Adobe's Premiere Elements 1 and Pinnacle Systems' Studio Plus 9 and found that both do a great job of capturing, editing, and burning movies to disc. Premiere Elements, however, is the clear winner for advanced users and for people who want room to grow.

• Internet Explorer Address Bar Tweaks - Internet Explorer has a feature that replaces text entered in the address bar based upon a registry setting. For example, its possible to type in 'kb q198279' (without the quotes), and have IE generate the URL to display the knowledge base article Q198279. It does this by replacing 'kb' with another string containing a placeholder for the remaining arguments. This feature saves typing URLs and reduces the number of pages visited to get the results you're after.

• New Way To Slim Down Windows XP, Including SP2 - For my test, I selected all 120 items for removal, and let XPlite go to work. It took about half an hour of disk thrashing, plus a reboot, but when it was done, I ended up with a minimal XP installation less than half the size of the original--53% less, to be precise--or just under 850 Mbytes (that's 0.85 Gbytes).

• MSN Toolbar 1.02.0002.1001 - With this free and customizable search tool, you can Search the Web from any Web page; Use the Highlight Viewer to quickly locate your search words; Use Quick Links to launch MSN Hotmail, MSN Messenger, and your personalized MSN home page; and Get rid of pop-up ads with the Pop-up Guard.

• Gaim 1.0.3  - Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.

• PowerStrip 3.54.478 (shw) - PowerStrip 3.46 provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest Radeon 9800. It's the only program of its type to support multiple graphics cards from multiple chipset vendors, simultaneously, under every Windows operating system from Windows 95 to XP.

• Mediacode speed edit tool for LiteOn DVD recorders - Club CD Freaks Member ala42 has released a tool that is able to edit media codes of older Lite-On firmwares. This is usefull for users who would like better media compatibility with older Lite-On DVD recorders.

• DVD Identifier 3.5 - DVD Identifier by Kris Schoofs, is a handy program that will allow you to retrieve and interpret pre-recorded information found on DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW media.

• Forceware 67.50 Win2000/XP Beta  - The 27th of October 2004 is what these files are dated on, making this a very new set of drivers. All NVIDIA graphics cards are supported.

• ATi Catalyst 4.12 Beta - Random hanging has been observed with certain games on certain systems when using the PunkBuster server. To resolve this issue, please download CATALYST 4.12 Beta Release (download) which resolves the majority of cases of this hang.