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Weekend Tech Reading - Thunderbird 1.5 Final - tech|
| (hx) 01:07 AM CET - Jan,15 2006 | |
SECURITY...
- Security expert Steve Gibson claims WMF exploit is a deliberate
back-hole - Microsoft has patched the WMF vulnerability in Windows 2000
and XP, but
in his research for a fix for Windows 95/98/Me Steve has come up with a
blockbuster (check out this
podcast) It is his considered opinion that the WMF vulnerability could not
have been a mistake. It was an intentional backdoor inserted into Windows by
Microsoft for reasons unknown. Gibson , who has come under harsh criticism on
Slashdot, a news comment
web site,
isn't
surprised that people call him a conspiracy theorist or even paranoid.
"I completely understand them," he said in an interview. "We will never have
proof one way or the other because we will never know for sure what
Microsoft's intentions were."
- No 'rootkit' vulnerability in Kaspersky Anti-Virus -
Mark Russinovich,
an independent researcher,
has recently been reported as suggesting that
Kaspersky Lab makes use of 'rootkit' technology in its Kaspersky Anti-Virus
products. According to Russinovich, this makes Kaspersky Anti-Virus products
potentially vulnerable to abuse. Kaspersky Lab wishes to state that using the
term 'rootkit' to describe technology implemented in Kaspersky Anti-Virus is
inaccurate. It seems that Russinovich's concerns arise from the use of
Kaspersky Lab iStreams technology. Kaspersky Anti-Virus' use of iStreams
technology is not a vulnerability. Referring to this technology as
a rootkit
is incorrect as it cannot be exploited by a malicious user to attack a system.
- Apple QuickTime Player StripOffsets Improper Memory Access -
Apple QuickTime has a vulnerability in parsing the specially crafted TIFF
image files. This is due to application failure to sanitize the parameter
StripOffsets value while parsing TIFF image files. A remote attacker could
construct a web page with specially crafted tiff file and entice a victim to
view it, when the user opens the TIFF image with Internet Explorer or Apple
QuickTime Player, it'll cause memory access violation, and leading to
potential Arbitrary Command Execution. Apple Computers has released a security
update for this vulnerability, which is available for downloading from
Apples's web site under security update.
- Anti-spyware guidelines get final version - The Anti-Spyware
Coalition, whose members include Microsoft, Symantec, Computer Associates,
McAfee, AOL and Yahoo, said on Thursday that
it has finalized its spyware detection guidelines.
- Malware - Future Trends -
This publication (PDF) is in no way intended to be a complete future
prediction or a reference, as future can never by fully predicted, that s the
beauty of it. Instead, its intention is to discuss the possible future trends
backed up by a little speculation, and also use some of the current ones as a
foundation for future developments.
- Symantec Caught in Rootkit Controversy -
Symantec has been forced to fix a "flaw" in Norton SystemWorks which could
possibly allow malware authors to hide files from users. While the feature is
designed to prevent SystemWorks users from accidentally deleting files vital
to the software package's NProtect feature, weaknesses in the technology could
be exploited by opportunistic developers of malicious software. Users of 2005
and 2006 versions of SystemWorks and SystemWorks Premier are urged to run
LiveUpdate to patch the flaw, which will then allow the directory to be seen
and scanned by antivirus software.
- Symantec Competing Unfairly Against Spybot? - Symantec has been
claiming for months that the anti-spyware program Spybot-Search & Destroy
corrupts Norton Ghost images. Spybot has tried to convince them this is a
false positive. After having been ignored, and this is the second time
Symantec has claimed a false positive against Spybot,
the makers of Spybot have gone public. Ed.note: Yet another reason to stay
away from Symantec products...Norton Ghost? Well, I recommend you to check out
Acronis True Image.
- Phone Records Easily Purchased By Anyone - Americablog, a political
weblog,
recently purchased one month of General Wesley Clark's cell phone records
from a private company for $90. In doing so, they brought to light a security
hole which has only recently gained media attention
- iTunes Includes "iSpy" Feature - Apple recently launched
iTunes 6.0.2,
what appears like a minor version update of iTunes 6.0.1. However, besides
their announced stability and performance improvements, the new version
actually includes
an iTunes MiniStore, which monitors the user's listening habits and
recommends music and artists based on this gathered data.
-
[!] Microsoft Security Bulletin MS06-002 -
Vulnerability in Embedded Web Fonts Could Allow Remote Code Execution -
download patch! (Win2k/XP/2003)
- Security Update for Office 2003 -
Security Update for
Office 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack (KB892843)
/
Security Update for
Office 2000 Multilanguage Pack (KB892842) /
Security Update for
Outlook 2000 (KB892842).
- January 2006 Security and Critical
Releases ISO Image -
This ISO-9660 CD image file contains all security and critical updates for
Windows released on Windows Update on January 5th and January 10th, 2006.
CRIME/LAW...
- Attacks mounting on 'Million Dollar Homepage' -
The wildly successful pixel-powered webpage of a British university student
is coming under increasingly intense distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
attacks trying to knock down the profitable brainstorm. Another article can be
found
here.
- Annoying Online Posts Could Be Illegal -
Writing annoying, anonymous online posts or e-mails could land you in jail
for as long as two years. That's according to the Violence Against Women and
Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, which was signed into law
last week. According to a section of the act, anyone who uses the Internet
anonymously "with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person"
can be tried for violating federal telecommunications law and face fines or
jail.
- FBI warns of sick Sago disaster spam -
The FBI has issued a warning that spammers are exploiting
the Sago mining disaster in which 12 miners lost their lives. The emails
purport to be raising funds for an operation to save the life of Randal McCloy,
the only survivor of the disaster. McCloy is currently in a critical condition
in hospital after spending nearly two days trapped underground.
- Detroit spammer faces slammer -
A US spammer likely faces at least two years in jail next week after he
admitted using networks of compromised PCs to distribute junk mail messages.
OFF-TOPIC
- NASA Mission Will Explore Solar System's Frozen Edge - On Tuesday,
a powerful
Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket is scheduled to send a spacecraft called New
Horizons on a journey to the dim outer reaches of the Sun's realm for the
first close-up look at Pluto. If successful, the mission will complete the
initial exploration of the nine planets that defined the solar system at the
beginning of the space age.
- Taiwanese breed fluorescent pigs - Researchers
at the National Taiwan University Department of Animal Science and Technology
have
bred pigs that glow in the dark. Three male piglets, born three months
ago, have green eyes, teeth and trotters and their skin glows green under blue
light. The researchers said that the fluorescence continues through the
piglets' bodies including their internal organs.
- Sci-Fi channel to show
new Doctor Who in US - According to the two media organisations,
the show's first 13-episode run will air Friday nights at 9pm next March,
a year after they were shown in the UK and around the time the second series
kicks off in Britain following the Christmas special's successful introduction
of the tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant. The Sci-Fi Channel has the
option to show the 2006 season too.
- Fast-spinning neutron star smashes
speed limit -
The fastest-spinning neutron star ever found is discovered in a crowded
star cluster near the centre of the Milky Way, a new study reveals. The star
rotates 716 times per second – faster than some theories predict is possible –
and therefore may force researchers to revise their models
TECHNOLOGY...
- US game sales hit record $10.5 billion in 2005 - The NPD Group
reports
U.S. game retail sales hit a record $10.5 billion in 2005, breaking the
previous record of $10.3 billion set back in 2002. And get this; software sales
for the GBA, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP increased by 42 percent over 2004.
Nintendo's five-year-old GBA comprised a whopping 52% of total handheld sales.
- 600,000 Xbox 360 consoles sold in US - Reuters reports that
Microsoft has sold 600,000 Xbox 360 consoles in the United States since its
November 2005 launch. Data comes from the NDP Group which measures and projects
nearly two-thirds of all US retail sales. In case you are still interested,
Amazon.com and Wal-mart finally have some Xbox 360 bundles in stock
.
- Playstation 3 might cost $500 -
A CNN Mone article projected that Sony's PS3 might cost $500. The strongest
argument behind the $499 price point is the PS3's inclusion of a Blu-Ray drive.
- Microsoft nearing ad system for MSN searches - Microsoft said
Thursday that by the end of June
it would begin selling advertising alongside its MSN Web search results. It
previously relied on a partnership with rival Yahoo! for those ads, but has been
testing its own system in the U.S. since October.
- LCD Monitors to Take 80% Share in 2006 - Displaybank have brought out
an interesting report on the projected market share that LCD monitors will have
this year. "LCD monitors are expected to account for more than 80%", stated CEO
Peter Kwon. They also expect LCD Monitor shipments to hit 125 million, 20
million more than 2005.
If true this will equal a impressive 80.4% share.
- CES 2006 Coverage @ X-bit Labs -
check it out
+ Extended64 has
151 pictures from the show. Highlights include some awesome Microsoft
products, huge plasmas, and rollup displays.
- Sky Available Through Wires - skybybroadband -
Sky TV has
launched a broadband only service which allows users to download films and
programmes legally. Customers who are on Sky's Digital package and have either
Sky Sports or Sky Movies will be able to access a wide range of videos, at no
extra cost. The videos are encoded at 860kbps and are at a resolution of
540x432. Sky reckons a 2 hour movie will be about 750MB. Windows XP is needed to
watch the videos according to Sky. They hope to offer over 1,000 films through
their back catalogue, whilst Sky Sports subscribers will be able to watch sports
clips. Films will usually be viewable for 30 days until the license expires.
- New Network Could Compete With Cellular Phone Service -
Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) fired a shot across the bow of American Cellular
carriers, announcing
it has placed an order with Boeing for three satellites.
The company intends to launch the satellites by 2010 in order to provide mobile
voice and data to customers across North and South America.
- Free VOIP USB Phone - Bargain electronics store Computer Geeks has a
great deal on a USB VOIP Handset.
It sells for $39.99, but you get a $39.99 mail-in rebate (valid until
1/31/06), making it a for free deal. The generic brand AU-100 Voice Over IP USB
Phone connects via USB 2.0 and features full duplex communication, noise
reduction and echo cancellation. It is for sure not the best VOIP PC handset,
but its free, just do not forget to mail-in the rebate form
- Nvidia is shipping 6800 AGP -
The cards
are clocked at 350MHz core and 1000MHz GDDR 3 memory and in the UK they cost
around L187 including VAT. In Euroland, at least in the German part of Euroland,
the cards will cost EURO249 including VAT. In Austria it will cost you a little
bit more as you have to pay more VAT in Austroland. The 6800 GS AGP is a twelve
pipelines part powered with 256 bit memory interface and it is more or less
declocked Geforce 6800 GT, for much less money. It does support Shader Model 3,
something that Nvidia has been preaching so long and ATI just jumped on its
bandwagon. It is AGP, so it will fit into your AGP upgrade systems and won't
cost you a fortune to change the whole PC to get a faster graphic card.
- GeForce 7900 Reportedly Coming in March - HEXUS.net appears to have
received confirmation that NVIDIA's next graphics processor, codenamed
G71
and its first using the 90nm process, will be launched this March at CeBIT 2006
as the GeForce 7900. The flagship 7900 GTX will sport 32 pixel pipelines and
have a clock speed between 700 and 750MHz.
- ATI R580 will do 1.1 teraflops - TheInquirer reports that when ATI
launches its R580 chip on the 24th of January next,
the beastie
will perform at a staggering 1.1 teraflops.
HARDWARE...
GUIDES...
-
All Opteron Models -
A series
of quick reference tables containing the main specs of all Opteron
processors released to date.
-
How To Correctly Apply Thermal Grease -
Everything you need to know about thermal grease: learn how to correctly
apply it in order to prevent your CPU from overheating. A complete guide full
of pictures.
-
How Many Cores Do You Need To Be "Hardcore"? -
-
Screencasting: Make Your Own Tutorials! -
The fact
that screencasting is gaining popularity is hardly surprising. What's
more, neither screencasting nor the technologies it employs are new. There has
been screencasting software (i.e. - Lotus ScreenCam) for more than a decade,
not to mention the existence of audio and screen capture techniques that have
existed for more than twenty or thirty years.
SOFTWARE...
-
Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 Final -
Thunderbird (release
notes /
download) is a full-featured email, RSS and newsgroup client that makes
emailing safer, faster and easier than ever before. Thunderbird 1.5 now
features support for podcasting, as well as improvements to how the client
deals with RSS feeds.
-
QuickTime 7.04 -
download (WinXP/2k) /
release
notes
-
Bart PE Builder v3.1.9 -
Bart's PE Builder (changelog
/ download)
helps you build a "BartPE" (Bart Preinstalled Environment) bootable Windows
CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003
installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.
-
AbiWord 2.4.2 -
AbiWord (download)
is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable
for a wide variety of word processing tasks.
-
Google Talk 1.0.0.82 Beta -
Google Talk (download)
enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free -
anytime, anywhere in the world.
-
PHP 4.4.2 -
This
release (download)
address a few small security issues, and also corrects some regressions that
occurred in PHP 4.4.1. All PHP 4 users are encouraged to upgrade to this
release.
-
PHP 5.1.2 Final - The PHP development team is proud to announce the
release of PHP
5.1.2 (download)
-
µTorrent 1.4 -
µTorrent 1.4 (download)
is finally out. This new version adds Bitcomet style add dialog, RSS Reader
and Speed wizard to select your proper settings based on upload speed.
-
FileZilla Server 0.9.12c -
FileZilla
Server (download)
is a reliable FTP server.
-
1by1 1.51 - 1by1
(+mpglib.dll
0.92) is a very small sized player which is not only small: It plays whole
directories without any playlist.
-
FastStone Image Viewer 2.30 Beta 2 -
FastStone Image Viewer (download)
is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a
nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison,
red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments.
-
AnyDVD 5.8.2.1 -
AnyDVD
works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD
movie as soon as it's inserted into the drive, allowing you then to backup the
movie using a DVD backup tool such as CloneDVD. Word is: "Added support for a
new version of the Sony Arccos protection as found on "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" R2
(Swiss German) to the option to remove "Protection based on unreadable
Sectors" NOTE: This Arccos version is not yet supported with DVDShrink and
Nero Recode. With elby CloneDVD 2.8.5.1 the quality bar will not work, but
this is only a cosmetic problem. We will try to support this Arccos version
better in the future. "
-
aTuner 1.9.40.8198 - With
aTuner
(download),
you can change so calles "quality features" very fast and easy. On GeForce-
and Radeon-Cards you can alter the antialiasing-mode, the degree of
anisotropic filtering, and the VSync-mode. That's of course far less than any
other tweaker offers, but aTuner's usability is unique.
-
Z-Tweaked drivers 82.12 -
Z-Tweaked drivers are a modified version of nvidia's forceware graphics
card drivers and are tweaked for the purpose of improved performance.
-
Forceware 81.97 Win2000/XP -
A
new ForceWare driver is out today as released by Dell. Seems like a good
quality build. This driver supports most GeForce Graphics cards available.
-
ForceWare 82.65 Win2000/XP x32 -
These drivers support some new cards like a 7300 LE and 7300 GS. Among
other things some users report that AMD's X2 (dual core) processor issues seem
to be fixed in this release.
-
ForceWare 82.65 Windows XP x64 -
These drivers support some new cards like a 7300 LE and 7300 GS. In it's
current state these drivers are WHQL certified and this is why they left the
.inf file intact.
|
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last 10 comments: | Anonymous | (02:08 PM CET - Jan,15 2006 ) | | DELETED | |
| yessum | (03:45 PM CET - Jan,15 2006 ) | | mmmnap | |
| Majnun | (09:29 PM CET - Jan,15 2006 ) | YES! Finally a technology break-thru that means something!
quote: Three male piglets, born three months ago, have green eyes, teeth and trotters and their skin glows green under blue light
One step closer to green eggs and ham.
Thank you Taiwan, thank you. | |
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