nolookingca

Hackers are drooling at the thought of exploiting Microsoft's most recent vulnerabilities, security analysts said Thursday. Less than 24 hours after Microsoft released details of the latest vulnerability in Windows, hackers were sharing details and eager to get their hands on exploit code, says Ken Dunham, the director of malicious-code research for security-intelligence firm iDefense. "Hackers are already actively discussing the new JPEG vulnerability and how to exploit it," Dunham says in an E-mail to TechWeb. Tuesday, Microsoft noted that a bug in Windows XP, Windows XP SP1, and Windows Server 2003, as well as many of the company's flagship applications, could allow attackers to grab control of PCs. Exploit code exists, Dunham adds, to launch a successful denial-of-service attack on vulnerable applications, proving it's possible to create an exploit that executes code--in other words, make a worm. "While this type of exploit code has not yet publicly emerged in the [attacker] underground, this does prove that it's more likely for hackers to develop such exploit code," Dunham says. Another analyst, Vincent Weafer, the senior director of Symantec Corp.'s virus research team, agrees. "We fully expect that [hackers] will go into this," Weafer says. "There's enough knowledge about this [vulnerability] to easily make it exploitable." The most likely attack avenue, both Dunham and Weafer say, is an HTML E-mail that includes or links to a hostile .jpg image, although links to malicious Web sites or even instant messages could be used as attack vectors. Another issue that hackers will undoubtedly use to their benefit, Weafer says, is the reputation of .jpg-formatted images. "Generally, they're considered safe by most users," he says. "People send JPEG images all the time." Images, for instance, are rarely blocked by E-mail security at the gateway, unlike other file formats such as .exe or .com. That makes it "even more likely," Weafer says, that hackers will rush to roll out worms. Difficulties patching the bug will add to the problem, Dunham and Weafer predict. It's "complicated and tough for administrators to audit," Dunham says. Because the JPEG processing flaw is widespread--not only in the operating systems but also in such popular applications as those in the Office XP and Office 2003 suites--administrators may be hard-pressed to patch before an exploit is circulating. "If this vulnerability is exploited on a widespread basis, it may be some time before all of the vulnerable computers are identified and properly patched," Dunham says. Worse, even patched systems can later be turned into vulnerable computers, Weafer adds, if applications with the flawed image processing .dll are later installed on made-safe PCs. "That could 'undo' the patch," Weafer says, "and makes the 'stickiness' of the [patches] more difficult than normal." In addition, Dunham concludes, not even the massive Service Pack 2 update for Windows XP completely protects against the bug, since "other products may also need to be patched to fully protect against this vulnerability." Source: InformationWeek http://www.informationweek.com/story/showA...icleID=47212221

In what seems to be one of the more bizarre and confusing aspects of the unholy alliance between Sun and Microsoft, Sun's recent 10k filing includes previously unseen legalese from the settlement agreement. In one part of the settlement, the companies agreed not to sue each other or their respective customers for any patent infringement alleged to have taken place before the deal was signed and going forward for up to 10 years, so long as Microsoft continues to pay Sun annual extension fees. The agreement specifically excludes licensees of OpenOffice from that protection. According to the OpenOffice.org Web site, OpenOffice is licensed under a dual license strategy that involves the GNU General Public License and the Sun Industry Standards Source License. So basically, the settlement includes a provision explicitly preserving Microsoft's right to sue licensees of OpenOffice, while indemnifying Sun from any lawsuits relating to StarOffice – Sun's commercial implementation of the open source project. This could be more evidence of what David Berlind has asserted before: that Sun appears to be taking an increasingly anti-Linux posture. In this case, one that creates the sort of legal uncertainty that could dampen corporate enthusiasm for one of desktop Linux's most promising open source projects as well as any Linux distros that are bundled with it (ie: Red Hat or Novell SuSE Linux). Need we ask who benefits from such dampened enthusiam? So, where's Jonathan's blog post on this topic? Originally posted by: dave.rosenberg at ZDNet http://blogs.zdnet.com/index.php?p=498

Research in Motion's BlackBerry e-mail devices have gathered a loyal (if relatively small) following, and their small-yet-usable QWERTY thumb keyboards have become widely imitated icons of modern handheld design. The BlackBerry's biggest drawback: Models that double as phones have always felt too wide to cradle comfortably to the face. That was before the new BlackBerry 7100t cell phone. While the notion of a Blackberry without a QWERTY keyboard may seem tantamount to heresy, RIM pulls it off quite well with this slim, attractive device that includes all the features BlackBerry fans have come to expect. The 7100t's narrower silhouette brings to mind another converged device--PalmOne's Treo 600 PDA-cell phone--but even the Treo has a QWERTY keyboard. The keypad on the 7100t looks much more like that of a traditional cell phone--until you examine it a bit more closely. Then it looks like a strange cross between the two. Advertisement For starters, the 7100t has a few more keypad keys than a traditional handset: Two columns of four keys flank the traditional three columns of keys (1-9, *,0, and #) that make up a standard phone keypad. The QWERTY keyboard hasn't completely disappeared--but instead of one key per letter, two letters are printed on most keys (including the numeric keys). Clearly RIM still expects you to use this BlackBerry for e-mail and text messaging. I didn't see how at first. When I tapped on a key with two letters, how would the device know which one to use? I figured that as with most phones, which crowd three or four letters on each numeric key, I would have to slow my pace to let the device know what I was trying to type. The Joy of SureType I clearly underestimated the SureType text-input system of this appealing phone. You don't have to tap once to choose the first letter on a key and twice to choose the second letter; SureType is much smarter than that. Regardless of which of a key's two letters you want, you only have to tap once: Each time you do so, SureType analyzes the possible letter combinations from your taps and guesses your word from its 35,000-entry dictionary. The guesses change as you type more letters and the list of possible words narrows; the more you type, the more likely it is the software will figure out the word. The system works, too. I was able to compose a 25-word e-mail message on the BlackBerry 7100t in one minute-A?without ever having to correct the software. The trick is to type the word completely before looking to see what SureType thinks it is (if you look earlier, you'll see a lot of wrong guesses the software later discards). SureType isn't entirely intuitive; you can't just pick it up and start typing. But after reading the top 10 typing tips that came on the phone, I was up and running efficiently within minutes. I have no trouble heartily recommending the 7100t as a text-messaging device. I liked lots of other things about this phone. Navigation is simple using the trackwheel and escape button, easily accessible on the right side of the device. It's a quad-band GSM handset--T-Mobile will be the first carrier--so you can use it around the world (with an appropriate plan). RIM even provides slide-on plug connectors for a couple of popular electrical outlet formats from around the globe. The phone will also support EDGE, the first 3G high-speed network, where available. The use of a USB cable to connect the device and the electrical adapter (the brick that plugs into an outlet) is a nice touch. If you're not near an outlet, you can disconnect the cable from the adapter and simply plug it into your notebook in order to trickle-charge the battery. The graphics are terrific, from the sprightly looking sans-serif font to the somewhat whimsical icons on the sky-blue main screen. RIM uses a backlit 340-by-320 color LCD here instead of the faded-looking affairs of previous RIM models. Web browsing is still a challenge on the small screen, but it's no worse than other small phone screens--and, thanks to the improved display quality, pages look better than they did on previous models. The battery seemed reasonably robust in my informal tests; RIM says it will last for four hours of talk or eight days of standby. You can aggregate e-mail from up to 10 corporate and personal accounts in your inbox. If your company has a BlackBerry server you can enjoy the so-called push service--it automatically sends e-mail to your device as it arrives--that helped make BlackBerry famous. (The corporate e-mail and IM services were not ready for testing on my preproduction unit, but the BlackBerry supports the major players including Exchange and Lotus Notes.) The Price Is Right Finally, at $200, the 7100t is reasonably priced. T-Mobile says it expects to begin offering the phone in early fall and plans for voice, e-mail and instant messaging (using built-in AOL, Yahoo, and ICQ clients) start at $60 per month (cheaper options are available if you don't need all these features). The 7100t's price is $100 less than the company's offer on its upcoming SideKick II device, and is dramatically less than the $500 that T-Mobile is charging for a Treo 600. My only major beef: The 7100t still runs RIM's proprietary operating system for which few additional applications are available. As a longtime Palm owner, I'm spoiled by having lots of software choices for everything from productivity to gaming. BlackBerry aficionados who've been yearning for a more phone-like phone will want to check out the 7100t, and people looking for an affordable phone/text-messaging hybrid should take a look as well. RIM once again has displayed a knack for creating a product that--like the first BlackBerry--gives people what they want, in a package that is at once practical and attractive. Source: PC World http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117783,00.asp

The web browser wars are over and Microsoft won, right? Well someone's forgotten to tell Ben Goodger and his team at the Mozilla Foundation because this Kiwi software engineer is taking market share from Internet Explorer (IE) with Firefox, the browser that's smaller yet smarter than anything else available. Goodger, back in New Zealand this week visiting family and friends, works for the Mozilla Foundation and has been the lead engineer on Firefox throughout its development. He began while still at the University of Auckland waiting for the launch of Netscape 5.0. "I used Netscape 4.0 and basically was just designing web pages and doing web development work." The wait for version 5.0 was a long one and when Netscape finally ceased development work on its browser and opened up the source code to the Mozilla Foundation, Goodger found himself taking time off to work in the US on the browser itself. Today he leads a relatively small team of engineers who are hard at work preparing for the release of Firefox version 1.0 and the Kiwi input is hard to miss. The code names for the previous versions of Firefox include Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill and Greenlane. Firefox has generated an enormous amount of interest among hardcore internet users around the world and for the first time has taken market share away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Goodger said the figures themselves varied depending on the source but US-based web training organisation W3Schools claimed IE 6.0 peaked in May of this year with 72.6 per cent market share among its "early adopter" users and had fallen back to 68.3 per cent in August. That's the first time IE has declined in market share since its release and could mark the turning point for the browser community. The mainstream audience is still firmly in the grasp of IE, however, with figures in excess of 90 per cent reported by several different organisations. Most, however, report that IE is losing ground to Mozilla-based browsers and most of those switching are using Firefox. In its first day of release the latest version of Firefox was downloaded more than 300,000 times. So what is it about Firefox that's attracting users? Goodger said it was a combination of things. "Some like the added features, some like the smaller size of the browser. It really depends." Goodger is quick to point out that while Firefox is smaller than other browsers, that doesn't mean it's a "lite" version of a browser. "It's fully featured. In fact if anything it's got more features that people use than many browsers." Goodger and his team have been working with one goal in mind: to make a browser that makes the internet simple again. "Do you remember how it was when you first went online? It was easier to search for things, easier to find things, there were fewer annoyances. "That's what we want to get back to." Goodger said Firefox gave users the chance to block pop-up windows, the bane of many users' lives, but went beyond that. Because the browser was not tied in to the operating system, something Microsoft touted as a benefit for IE users, it was not prone to the same security vulnerabilities as IE. "We also wanted to make the searching experience much easier for users." Consequently Firefox has a Google search box built in and allows users to search within a web page simply by typing in the word they're looking for without having to launch a separate search box. Goodger's favourite feature, however, is Firefox's smart keywords utility. "It's something that's a little bit hidden so people have been slow to find it but when they do it blows them away." Users might, for example, regularly use the company phone book online so Firefox allows them to add that search to their browser. "So you can type in 'PB' for phone book and then someone's name and it'll go and search your phone book for that person." Goodger uses the facility constantly and said it had changed the way he used the browser. The feature that excites most users enough to make the change is tabbed browsing, which allows a user to open up multiple pages in the one browser. Goodger said tabbed browsing was to regular browsing what personal video recorders such as TiVO were to the video recorder. Features such as these are slowly being added to IE but as Goodger said, they're third party add-ons that just add complexity rather than simplifying the browser experience. Goodger isn't shy about admitting to taking aspects of other browsers that he likes for use as part of Firefox. The browser has a download utility that he freely admits he modelled on Apple's long-time capability. "I always save downloads to my desktop so why should I have to tell the browser that every time?" Goodger is looking forward to the final release of version 1.0. He's got his eye firmly on the prize, however. Microsoft's market share is up for grabs and this Kiwi is going to make sure he gets a handful. Source: New Zeland Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm...condsubsection= Note: Although Firefox fans already pretty much new this, this is still "fresh" news IMO.

The worm may have turned for Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL). After years -- decades really -- of instigating, exacerbating, or at least cheering every regulatory swipe at Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the captains of Cupertino are finally reaping what they've sown: heat from the bureaucrats. A U.K. consumer protection agency, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), is reportedly investigating claims that Apple is unfairly charging U.K. customers a substantially higher price for iTunes downloads than it charges customers on the European continent. Brits pay 79p for each song. That comes out to about 1.20 euro, or 20% more than the 0.99-euro price that French and Germans must cough up. The nonprofit Consumers' Association filed a complaint with the OFT, "urging them to investigate what appears to be anti-competitive and discriminatory behaviour by iTunes against UK consumers." Wow -- that sounds familiar. Sounds a lot like the same behavior that Apple, along with RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK), assorted other also-rans and, oh, the entire European Union, has been criticizing. But only when it comes from Microsoft, or might possibly come from Microsoft, even though that firm has yet to build any presence, let alone a monopoly, in the music download scene. (In the U.S., its Media Player software actually provides direct links to competing services such as Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT), Roxio's (Nasdaq: ROXI) Napster, and Yahoo's (Nasdaq: YHOO) soon-to-be acquired Music Match.) Getting back to Cupertino's woes, while I'm tempted to sit back, smirk, and ask, "How you like them Apples?" I'm going to have to take the side of reason, and Apple, and tell it like it is: You Brits are way off on this. I've been to London and paid up for a fish and chips. You can't tell me the 100% markup over Caldbeck prices is due to real costs. It's purely a question of demand. Ever taken economics 101? Here's a refresher. Apple charges the Brits what it thinks they will pay, and a certain number of people -- 5 million in all of Europe, according to some reports -- either shell out or go elsewhere. If consumers don't like the price, they can vote with their pounds, and demand will fall. Unless... They happen to have purchased an iPod. The iPod, true to Steve Jobs' xenophobic vision, won't play the Microsoft-formatted files available from most of the competition. That means iPod owners are probably stuck downloading from iTunes (or turning to the recent and controversial "hack" from RealNetworks). Now that sounds like a harmful exploitation of a monopoly. Sure, music lovers could use iTunes to convert the WMA files and clutter up their hard drives with needless dupes. But remember, in the EU, offering consumers a technical remedy as simple as an installation CD is not enough to keep the regulators off your back. OK, enough playing devil's advocate. Fans of free commerce should be on Apple's side in this dispute. To the Brits on board, I say: If you don't like the price, stop paying it. I guarantee that if you stop buying, Apple will lower the price. To Apple, I say, charge what you think is fair, but watch your back. Now that you're a leader for once, the haters are going to set their sights on you, whether you deserve it or not. Source: Fool.com http://www.fool.com/News/mft/2004/mft04091610.htm

Canadian inventor Dmitry Gorodnichy has devised the world's first computer to be controlled by the nose and eyelids. The gadget could be a boon for people with disabilities who cannot use the conventional mouse, next week's issue of the British journal New Scientist reports. The nose-steered mouse, called a "nouse", works by using tracking software linked to a webcam that identifies a group of 25 pixels which are the tip of the nose. Motion detection software is used to spot the blink of the user's eye. Blinking the left or right eye twice takes the place of left or right mouse clicks. Source: New Zealand Herald http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory....ubsection=world --------------------------- nolookingca's note: What if the guy's a regular person who blinks at regular intervals? Note2: A more detailed news report is available at CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2...ouse040916.html

Might be the AV software (you should check those mail AV scan settings) P.S. The makers of gPopper also created gNotify http://gPopper.com http://gNotify.com The home page for both: http://imizzy.com/

These files work with SP2 FINAL Go to: Start, Run, winver. There should be something like xpsp_sp2_rtm in the middle

Symantec is to stop classifying a software utility that enables Chinese surfers to view blocked websites as a Trojan horse. The reassessment follows stories earlier this week questioning the designation of the widely-used Freegate programas malicious code. Freegate has 200,000 users, Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT), its developer, estimates. The software lets users view sites banned by the Chinese government by taking advantage of a range of proxy servers assigned to changeable internet addresses. Symantec mislabelled this behaviour as that of malicious code and wrongly-labelled Freegate as malign. In a statement today, Symantec said: "A number of our customers drew our attention to what they deemed the suspicious nature of the Freegate software. Upon investigation by our researchers, similarities were noted between how the software operated and how various Trojan horses operated, based on the use of open proxies to penetrate firewalls used to block web sites. As a result, it was deemed a cyber threat and blocked by our software. Since that time, further investigation indicates that Freegate is in fact not a Trojan horse and detection for this program has therefore been removed from Symantec’s virus definitions." The change in policy means Freegate users will once again be able to use the software on systems protected by Symantec's Norton AV security software. Which is nice. Source: The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/16/sy...abels_freegate/

:D

Judging from the size of your driver packs (approx. 20MB per pack), I can probably provide a very limited mirror (1GB bandwith shared with my other unattended stuff)

@prathapml: and I'm sure the TS and designing of a paid product will happily make linspire a lot more user friendly than Linux usually is. (Just the ads are probably enough )

I believe that "lock" you're talking about is the "limited or no connectivity" icon. Are you certain everything's connected properly, settings checked, etc? Especially pay attention to the IP address (that's probably what it is) And is your PSU supplying above 450 watts?

*Reasonably confirmed*

If you're doing a CD, DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT extract the files. Just overwrite the files in i386 and the unhacked one won't even exist on the cd. @SovereignScorn: That good to know, but you know what the mods do to posts that go off-topic

Never knew it did that. Thanks!

I didn't personally use Linspire/Lindows, but the main windows-user friendly "feature" is actually achievable through just about any distro and a good UI. (there's this Xp-imitation one)

Try the admin account through ctrl-alt-del-del (classic login)

Try searching the Tweaks section. They have a reg hack for just about any right-click entry.

winnt - dos winnt32 - windows

I've had the same problem with an SpeedStream ADSL modem from Sympatico on more than one occasion. It's connected via the ethernet port, so it might be the device type.

I'm not sure, but I read somewhere (probably from Zaheer, whose file pack I based upon) that you need to replace all the copies. It probably can't hurt if you go either way. (I've once replaced only one copy, and it seemed to work) P.S. If you're doing this just once, there's really no point in using a script.

I never thought about it like that, but I have similar problems - even with the start menu, which has about 4 items.

Did you apply any sort of "tweaks" that changed the policy? (Or any software install that may have done it) Iceman's theory seems a bit more likely. Did you check all the policies?

have you tried googling for hwxkor.dll and then using the hacked files page in the unattended guide?