Submission + - Online DOS sessions?
An anonymous reader writes: Question: I'm getting back into some old DOS games (many of which are free at Abandonia), and I want to play them at a computer away from home. Would it be possible to implement a web based DOS emulator with a personal directory to store the games and save games? I want to play Merchant Prince away from home.
Submission + - First Open Source ATI Drivers Now Available (opensuse.org)
apokryphos writes: "After AMD partnered with SUSE to release open source specs, they have now made some alpha ATI Radeon 5xxx/6xxx drivers available, supporting initial mode settings. The next steps are adding support for more hardware, RandR 1.2 support, video overlay support and 2D acceleration. The source and packages for Fedora, Mandriva, openSUSE and SLED are available in the openSUSE Build Service, with Debian and Ubuntu packages following shortly."
Submission + - Quicktime exploit affects Firefox
An anonymous reader writes: : A researcher has demonstrated how a security bug in Apple's QuickTime media player that was disclosed a year ago can cause Firefox to install backdoors and other malware on a fully patched computer. He said both Windows and Mac systems are vulnerable.
The researcher, Petko D. Petkov, on Wednesday posted proof-of-concept code that shows how the exploit can be used to run privileged code on an unwitting user's machine.
The XML code calls up a QuickTime-supported file such as foo.mp3, which doesn't exist on the victim's machine. The code then instructs QuickTime to load a second file. The thing is, QuickTime isn't particularly picky about the type of URLs it passes on to Firefox, so attackers are free to include addresses with Firefox's "chrome" parameter, which is used to run privileged code on a user's machine." — Story
.
"I'm a big Apple fan but are they getting lax on security lately? Meta-Data exploits, pop-unders and failing to update the open source components of Mac OS X? What gives Apple?
Submission + - 20 YR OLD Captures Abusive Police Officer on Tape (wikinews.org)
teambpsi writes: ""Brett Darrow, 20, had installed a hidden camera inside his car, much like the way some police officers do, and caught the entire incident on tape. Darrow then posted the video on the internet on places like YouTube.com."
Combine this with a GPS and a in-car monitoring system and we could kick off a "Bigger-Sister" project to counter Big Brother :)"
Combine this with a GPS and a in-car monitoring system and we could kick off a "Bigger-Sister" project to counter Big Brother
Submission + - Justice Department Opposes Net Neutrality (wsj.com)
thornomad writes: "I was saddened (though not surprised) to read that the Justice Department opposes net neutrality saying that it could "hamper development of the internet". While it may seem counter-intuitive to me, they argue that allowing ISPs to provide different levels of service/speed for different content will benefit consumers. They did promise to "continue to monitor and enforce any anticompetitive conduct to ensure a competitive broadband marketplace" — not that anyone was worried about that."
Submission + - Feds OK fee for priority Web traffic (yahoo.com)
d3l33t writes: "Yahoo News reports that "The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic.
The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user.
Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others.""
Submission + - Stealth Windows Update auto-installed w/o consent
AngusSF writes: "I'm running a little program called Tiny Watcher (http://www.donationcoders.com/kubicle/watcher/) that is a sort of poor-mans freeware HIDS (XP Pro SP2, IE6). Once a night I run it on a test system looking for stuff that has changed in critical areas, and recently it notified me that two files, wups.dll and wups2.dll, in the system32 directory had changed. I finally got around to investigating this and I found that even though I have Automatic Updates set to "Notify", this update was installed stealthily at 3:30 one morning.
I found a thread on the Microsoft Community groups which sort-of discusses this:
Critical Update slipped in through the back door — in Announcements
http://preview.tinyurl.com/39gsrr — the full URL is a 281-character
monster:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en -us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.private.security.spy ware.announcements&tid=26e8ce20-718f-44aa-bfcf-06c c172998da&cat=en_US_35183423-7a58-4c2c-881c-928711 0c8cfb&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1&mid=d4954b 09-f430-47c2-9a69-f7eb81d9a960
Here's an excerpt:
e rviceStartup\wups.dll\7.
0.600 0.381\ for the curious) is 8/24/07. When I check "Installed Updates" on the WU site I see that I ran WU on 8/15 (for August's Black Tuesday) and again on 8/29 (for KB933360). I checked all of the updates that occurred after the 7/30 date-time stamp of wups.dll and wups2.dll, and none of them list either file in the "File Information" section for Windows XP.
Interestingly a search at microsoft.com for "wups.dll 7.0.6000.381" turns up NOTHING while a search for "wups.dll 7.0.6000.374" turns up a couple of hits, one of which is this KB article "When you use Automatic Updates to scan for updates or to apply updates to applications that use Windows Installer, you experience issues that involve the Svchost.exe process" http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/93249 4 ...
I checked my Event Viewer log for anything interesting on 8/24 and I found an entry at 3:34 AM where the Windows Update Agent installed _something_:
>> Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: Automatic Updates
All of the other "Windows Update Agent" Event-19 entries in the System Log include a KB number in the event listing:
>> Installation Successful: Windows successfully installed the following update: Update for Windows XP (KB933360)
I checked on other XP desktops I have handy, all of which are also set to "Notify" _AND_ all of which have non-Admin users and I see date-time stamps from 8/21 through 8/24 for the wups.dll install-directories %SYS32%\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\ServiceStartup\ wups.dll\7.0.6000.381\.
This update is particularly disturbing. I find it both curious and very annoying that Microsoft still hasn't learned not to sneak around behind people's backs.
I'm curious, does anyone running a WSUS server on their network also have this stealth update on any of their systems? Is this something that was also distributed through WSUS or is this just something that was installed by folks running WU directly from Microsoft?
TIA
Angus"
Well, it certainly appears that Microsoft is installing updates without permission or consent. I have Windows Update set to "Notify" (XP Pro SP2, IE6), and I run WU manually. The date-time stamp of the directory where wups.dll v7.0.6000.381 is loaded (C:\WINDOWS\system32\SoftwareDistribution\Setup\S"dean-dean" wrote: > Windows Update Software 7.0.6000.381 is an update to Windows Update > itself. It is an update for both Windows XP and Windows Vista. Unless > the update is installed, Windows Update won't work, at least in terms of > searching for further updates. Normal use of Windows Update, in other > words, is blocked until this update is installed..... > In XP, it updates the following system32 files to version 7.0.6000.381: > > wuweb.dll > wuaueng.dll > wuapi.dll > wucltui.dll > wuaucpl.cpl > cdm.dll > wuauclt.exe > wups2.dll > wups.dll
Submission + - Apple Replaces Macs Destroyed By Genious Bar
Sean B. writes: "I took my old, old Mac in for it probably last AppleCare service on Thursday of last week (8/30) and left it. Waiting not so anxiously with my new PC, I get a call on Monday of this week (9/3). Apparently an Applecare technician, whom had been fired for not assembling machines correctly, had destroyed my poor ol' Mac, I'd originally brought it in because it would not start, at all. He continues that he pronounced the machine completely wrecked, and would replace it. Solution: I left with a new 20' aluminum iMac.
I was left thinking, Any other place, would fix the machine, and get it back to me in a month, but a three day response and a complete replacement? My machine was worth almost nothing, at the most about $200. But I left with a $1000 upgrade. For nothing. Sure, The man destroyed the Mac that could have had my data on it. Luckily it did not, and I was left generally happy. Anyone want an Intel Core2 Vista Box? :D
Good for you, Apple."
Submission + - AMD frees ATI graphics hardware specs (lwn.net)
An anonymous reader writes: Check this out, corbet of LWN fame reports on a major happening at the Linux Kernel Summit. "AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well;" Wohoo!!!
Submission + - Web Site Blocks Firefox Over Ad-blocker (itworld.com) 1
narramissic writes: "Saying that accessing Web site content while using the popular ad-blocker Firefox extension 'would be no less than stealing,' Web site designer and author Danny Carlton has barred Firefox users from his Web sites. Firefox users who go to http://jacklewis.net/weblog/ are redirected to Why Firefox is Blocked, which says the Adblock Plus extension undercuts Web sites that are dependant on advertising revenue. 'Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software,' he added in a posting on the Why Firefox is Blocked Web site."
Submission + - How to bring down Internet Explorer in six words (commandline.org.uk) 1
Marcion writes: "Some handy Japanese guy called Hamachiya discovered a bug in Internet Explorer. Under certain conditions, an asterisk when used as a wildcard can crash IE as soon as the user attempts to go to another webpage. Feel free to add the code to your stylesheet too!"
Submission + - Strangest Sights Visibile Using Google Earth (pcworld.com) 1
BethEllen writes: Hi — Saw today's post on the Chinese nuclear sub prototype visible on Google Maps. Thought you would be interested in this slide show highlighting some of the cooler, and stranger, sights found using Google Earth, including crop circles and a 1.8-square-mile scale model of a disputed region on the border of China and India.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134186/article.h tml?tk=pr_googe-ss
Best,
Beth
Submission + - Anheuser Busch has USDA changing 'Organic' (organicconsumers.org)
paulevans writes: "Anheuser Busch, Wal-Mart and other for-profit corporations have seeked and are getting a definition change on '95% Organic'. Such a change would allow for Anheuser Busch to "sell its 'Organic Wild Hops Beer' without using any organic hops at all".
Other changes would allow "sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" '..' to contain intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics."
It is amazing how powerful the almighty dollar really is."
Other changes would allow "sausages, brats, and breakfast links labeled as "USDA Organic" '..' to contain intestines from factory farmed animals raised on chemically grown feed, synthetic hormones, and antibiotics."
It is amazing how powerful the almighty dollar really is."
