Tuesday, November 27, 2007

How desktop virtualization will save your company from Generation Y

How desktop virtualization will save your company from Generation Y by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- * Ryan Naraine is on vacation. Guest Editorial by Rich Mogull Recently I was watching an interesting 60 Minutes episode on the new generation of “Millennials” entering the workforce. I always thought they were called Generation Y, but I guess that term is a little too old to make good television. According to CBS, if you [...]

Latest QuickTime bug leaves XP, Vista vulnerable

Latest QuickTime bug leaves XP, Vista vulnerable by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- Security researchers say that a new QuickTime flaw has gone public and leaves XP and Vista vulnerable to attack. According to Secunia, the latest QuickTime bug “can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user’s system.” A working exploit is public and the vulnerability has been confirmed for version 7.3. Secunia calls the bug “extremely [...]

Kensington MicroSaver lock defeated with a penny

Kensington MicroSaver lock defeated with a penny by ZDNet's Jason D. O'Grady -- As a fan of both Numismatics and Macs I found a recent article in 2600–The Hacker Quarterly most troubling. “A Penny For Your Laptop” (Autumn 2007 issue, page 19) by Atom Smasher demonstrates a very simple vulnerability in the Kensington Micro-Saver Notebook Lock. Apparently it can be unlocked very simply, quickly, and without destroying [...]

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Cliff Hacks Things - ASUS eeePC: First impressions and GPL violations


For my birthday, I bought myself an ASUS eeePC. Now, I've been lusting after very-small-form-factor laptops for some time (ever since I saw the Zaurus C series), and this is quite the small one. It also ships with Linux, which (I thought) was a good indication that the hardware is well supported by Linux. (Not so; read on.)

I'm very pleased with the hardware with a few exceptions, which I'll detail in the latter two thirds of this post. The screen is bright and clear, the keyboard is surprisingly usable (even with my giant hands), etc. I'm really happy with it, now that I've bent it to my will. Obligatory laptop porn below.


Full Article

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Defense-in-depth starts with DNS

Defense-in-depth starts with DNS by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- Guest Editorial: It's become painfully clear to that DNS can no longer be a fire hose that just pierces the firewall. Here are some simple action items that can be implemented on just about every network out there...

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Is it ethical to turn on wireless security for an open access point?

In my opinion, George Ou has an ethical obligation to turn this guy in for illegally attaching to several networks and changing settings on users that don't know any better. His actions could possibly cost the owners of the routers several hundred dollars in service calls and someone needs to be held liable.


Is it ethical to turn on wireless security for an open access point? by ZDNet's George Ou -- One of my readers sent me the following question and I thought it posed an interesting question on ethics. I’ll post his email and then I’ll answer his questions. I helped a friend move, and re-established her wireless network working with a new ISP. While working, I encountered 7 wireless networks (in addition to hers), 3 [...]

Firefox 3 Beta 1 has landed with better bookmark management, security

Firefox 3 Beta 1 has landed with better bookmark management, security by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- Firefox 3 Beta 1 is available for download, but Mozilla recommends that only those with a strong stomach download this release. That disclaimer aside Firefox 3 Beta 1 seems pretty stable in the early going. As reported by Paula Rooney Monday, Mozilla was prepping the release of the first Firefox 3 beta. This beta is the [...]

Testers get Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate build

Testers get Windows XP Service Pack 3 Release Candidate build by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley -- Microsoft has begun rolling out to testers a near-final Release Candidate (RC) build of Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 3. Meanwhile, some testers are questioning whether Vista SP1 will remedy some of the performance problems they've been encountering with Vista.

Rogue anti-malware lures squirming though Skype

Rogue anti-malware lures squirming though Skype by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- Malicious hackers are using Skype to try to trick Windows users into buying a rogue anti-malware application. The lures arrive via Skype's instant messaging feature with a warning that malware has been detected on the machine and urging users to buy and run a fake "repair utility.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Another Windows Server Update Services glitch hits — on the eve of Patch Tuesday

Another Windows Server Update Services glitch hits — on the eve of Patch Tuesday by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley -- It's never a good thing when Microsoft's Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) enterprise-patch mechanism malfunctions. It's even worse when WSUS breaks down right before the company plans to start pushing out its regularly scheduled Patch Tuesday fixes.

DNS-changing Trojan opens Mac OS X floodgates

DNS-changing Trojan opens Mac OS X floodgates by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- Guest Editorial by Gadi Evron “The Mac is going main-stream” is just one of the catch-phrases that we’ve seen in the past two weeks when reading about the Trojan horse infecting Apple Mac OS X users. This attack has created a lot of controversy in the security realm. What’s so special about this [...]

Wal-Mart’s $200 PC - sold out

Wal-Mart’s $200 PC - sold out by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- About two weeks ago, Wal-Mart began selling $200 Linux-based PC. The initial run was around 10,000 units. Now Wal-Mart is sold out. Has Linux now found a niche?

Rackspace’s really bad 36 hours: The Internet is fragile

Rackspace’s really bad 36 hours: The Internet is fragile by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- Rackspace, a Web hosting firm, should adopt that song “I Don’t Like Mondays” as its corporate motto. After all, Monday turned out to be horrendous for the company. That song, a 1979 hit from The Boomtown Rats, sums up Rackspace’s last 36 hours. First, Rackspace had a “maintenance failure” at its Dallas data center on Sunday. [...]

SiCortex wins Dev Connection “Sexiest in show” award

SiCortex wins Dev Connection “Sexiest in show” award by ZDNet's Ed Burnette -- Here's one computer that looks like it belongs on the bridge of a starship: the SiCortex SC5832. It's this year's winner of the soon-to-be-coveted Dev Connection "Sexiest in show" award for SC07.

Vista mistakes Microsoft won’t repeat with Windows 7

Vista mistakes Microsoft won’t repeat with Windows 7 by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley -- Microsoft learned some hard lessons with Windows Vista that it already is applying to Windows 7. So says Mike Nash, Corporate Vice President of Windows Product Management, who is chatting this week with press and bloggers about the state of Vista, just about a year after the company released the product to manufacturing.

Malware found on new hard drives

Malware found on new hard drives by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- The Taipei Times is reporting that around 1,800 new 300GB and 500GB external hard drives manufactured by Maxtor shipped with malware on them. What makes this story even more interesting is that Taiwanese authorities suspected that Chinese authorities were involved.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Can we afford not to give our kids Linux?

Stan Beer's article on iTWire hit home. I also have placed Ubuntu Linux on the machine that my wife and daughter use. My wife uses the computer to attend an online college. She doesn't have any problems with anything she has to do for her classes. My daughter uses it to play kids games (educational downloads or Nick Jr.). Since she is only four years old she doesn't do IM's and emails yet. By the time she does, she will know the difference between Windows and Linux. Especially when her friends talk about a new virus or malware they have on their machine and she is not affected.

All the machines at my house have Ubuntu Linux installed. I have one machine that dual boots Windows just in case I need to do something that absolutely cannot be done in Linux. Needless to say, I rarely have to boot into windows.

If you build it they will come. I have been saying this for a while now. If the programmers start compiling their programs for Linux as well as Windows, They will see more of a shift towards Linux. I am sure of it.

I hope you enjoy his article as much as I have. He is not trying to score points for Linux, he is just stating what I know to be true.


For any parent, myself included, setting your kids loose on the net is a daunting prospect. We have to do it because the net is a fact of life - it's in our schools, the workplace, public libraries and in many if not most homes of the developed world. Therefore, do we really have any option but to give them Linux?

When I first conceived this article I considered giving it the title "can we afford to let our kids use Windows online". However, I felt that taking a positive tack would be more constructive. The fact is that these days security is paramount with kids surfing the net, exchanging emails and chatting online while still in primary school.

Having recently migrated to Ubuntu from Windows, I fully appreciate the risks that our kids are exposed to everytime they venture online with Windows. Basically, kids online are an accident waiting to happen, regardless of what anti-virus, firewall and anti-spyware they happen to be running.

Every other day, some anti-malware vendor issues a media release about a zero day attack of a new worm or Trojan horse that has slipped under the guard of known anti-malware signatures. At least once a month - and quite often more frequently - we hear of critical vulnerabilities in Windows whatever the version that require software patching. Microsoft freely admits that exploits for these vulnerabilities could hand control of a computer to a remote attacker. Sometimes exploits are already in the market before patches arrive.


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Thursday, November 08, 2007

Clueless flight attendant to passenger: Turn off that iPhone movie NOW!

Clueless flight attendant to passenger: Turn off that iPhone movie NOW! by ZDNet's Russell Shaw -- My colleague Tom Krazit notes a Consumerist report that an ATA Airlines flight attendant tried to get a passengerto turn off his iPhone because, well, cell phones are not allowed to be used in flight and he was watching a movie on his iPhone. The passenger, who we know as Casey, tried to explain to the [...]

When it comes to releasing operating systems, Ubuntu have it figured out

When it comes to releasing operating systems, Ubuntu have it figured out by ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes -- I know that it might not seem like it at times, but I'm a big Ubuntu fan. I haven't fully figured out how and where it fits into my computing ecosystem yet, but I know that it does have a place there. One aspect of Ubuntu that particularly impresses me is the clear development time-line that is published and adhered to. You always know what's coming and when to expect it.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Monday, November 05, 2007

ICANN taps New Zealand lawyer to replace Cerf

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has elected New Zealand lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush as its new chairman, replacing one of the Internet's "founding fathers," Vint Cerf.

ICANN, the not-for-profit organization that governs the Internet's domain name system, has elected Thrush, a specialist in intellectual property and Internet law, in a unanimous decision to replace Cerf, co-creator of the TCP/IP protocol.

"ICANN has moved from a foundation state to a steady state," Cerf said in a statement.

Cerf indicated that Thrush's understanding of the transition made him the preferred candidate "to keep the organization strong and focused," and described the appointment as "a clear signal that ICANN has matured."

Thrush has been involved with ICANN since its inception in 1998 and, before being elected to the chairman's position, was serving on the ICANN president's strategy and executive committees.

ICANN President Paul Twomey said Thrush's legal background is an important asset for the advancement of the organization and singled out his experience with contract law, which Twomey describes as a "key mechanism" in ICANN.

The agency will now set to work on better catering to an international audience.

"ICANN is a unique model supporting a global community, which works because it stands for one global Internet that is coordinated and not controlled," Thrush said.

Italy's Roberto Gaetano was unanimously re-elected as ICANN's vice chairman.

Article here.