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Comment Re:Blech (Score 1) 126

by bherman (#33144744) Attached to: Hands On With the BlackBerry Torch 9800

First of all, there's a common misconception amongst a lot of people that BlackBerries require BES, they do not, BlackBerries can hook directly into ActiveSync just like other smartphones without a BES.

I believe the Blackberry BIS service only supports Outlook Web Access (Not true ActiveSync), there are third party apps for ActiveSync but from my research they are a bit cumbersome to use.

Comment Re:Blech (Score 1) 126

by bherman (#33144690) Attached to: Hands On With the BlackBerry Torch 9800

Why people want to continue going down the BES route is a mystery

Well I know one reason I moved to a Blackberry and BES was that ActiveSync didn't handle notes. Additionally the iPhone didn't handle tasks. I don't know if any Andoid based devices do but none did when I was looking in January of this year.
Image

Anti-Speed Camera Activist Buys Police Department's Web Domain Screenshot-sm 680

Posted by samzenpus from the I-bought-the-law dept.
Brian McCrary just bought a website to complain about a $90 speeding ticket he received from the Bluff City PD — the Bluff City Police Department site. The department let its domain expire and McCrary was quick to pick it up. From the article: "Brian McCrary found the perfect venue to gripe about a $90 speeding ticket when he went to the Bluff City Police Department's website, saw that its domain name was about to expire, and bought it right out from under the city's nose. Now that McCrary is the proud owner of the site, bluffcitypd.com, the Gray, Tenn., computer network designer has been using it to post links about speed cameras — like the one on US Highway 11E that caught him — and how people don't like them."

Comment Exchange ActiveSync SSL issues (Score 3, Interesting) 283

by bherman (#28239463) Attached to: Palm Pre Is Out, Time For Discussion
There seems to be many people having issues with s self signed SSL certificates on Exchange. The phone requires you to load the certificate and "trust" it before you can connect. It doesn't allow for you to "trust" it inline with the EAS setup (ala Windows Mobile and iPhone). If you get past that, and you are running a standard SBS sever which by default creates a self signed cert with CNs for the private AD host name, the public dns host name and some SBS specific websites (companyweb and others). The pre supports multiple CN certificates, but it seems from some early research I did with a friend who just picked one up, that it uses the 1st CN to create the SSL connection (or verify the root ca) instead of the server url the user entered in the setup. Since many small shops don't use their public domain name as their AD domain name there seem to be many people having an issue.

Also, the error message it provides is not very helpful and is generic "SSL certificate error. Is the date and time correct"

Thankfully my friend's company happened to own the domain they used for the internal AD as well and since he is the admin he just added in the DNS records for it. It then worked as designed.

Comment Any way to block this at the border? (Score 2, Interesting) 285

by bherman (#27214139) Attached to: Conficker Worm Asks For Instructions, Gets Update
I was looking for information on this last night and wasn't able to find much.

Is there a way (on a ASA/PIX specifically) to block the outbound connections made by this worm so that you can contain the traffic to the local network and also log the hosts that are infected?

The only thing I found was someone making reference to blocking http://ipaddr/search?q= requests but I couldn't find any backup for that claim. TIA
The Internet

FTC Kills Scareware Scam That Duped Over 1M Users 329

Posted by samzenpus from the don't-let-it-happen-to-you dept.
coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission today got a court to at least temporarily halt a massive 'scareware' scheme, which falsely claimed that scans had detected viruses, spyware, and pornography on consumers' computers. According to the FTC, the scheme has tricked more than one million consumers into buying computer security products such as WinFixer, WinAntivirus, DriveCleaner, ErrorSafe, and XP Antivirus. The court also froze the assets of Innovative Marketing, Inc. and ByteHosting Internet Services, LLC to preserve the possibility of providing consumers with monetary redress, the FTC stated."
Security

Child-Suitable Alternatives To Passwords? 895

Posted by kdawson from the you-must-remember-this dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Two months ago I donated my old PC to my little sister, who is 7 — I had promised she would get her own computer as soon as she can read and write properly. I then proceeded to answer her questions about how it works, as far as she inquired, and tried to let her make some choices when installing Debian (she can already use GNOME). As I explained password protection and encryption to her, I was pleasantly surprised when she insisted on protection measures being as strong as possible, so that no one else can screw with her computer. She knows that my younger brother has to endure strict parental control software that was installed on his machine without his consent. The significant problem is that she cannot permanently memorize abstract passwords, even if they are her own creation. I talked with a teacher who assured me that this is common at her age. My parents would probably be able to guess non-abstract passwords. What mechanism of identifying herself does the Slashdot crowd suggest?"
Music

Warner Sues Search Engine, Tests DMCA Safe Harbor 113

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the lawyers-in-a-quick-draw-holster dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Warner Bros. Records is suing SeeqPod, the music search engine, in an attempt to test the limits of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions with a theory of contributory, vicarious and inducement liability. While other services like Last.fm have cut deals with the labels, SeeqPod relied on the DMCA Safe Harbor alone to protect it. According to the complaint [PDF] SeeqPod 'deliberately refrains' from adding simple yet ineffective content filters to screen out copyright infringing materials, presumably by not buying those filters from label-affiliated companies. Of course, this lawsuit is merely part of a recent trend seeking to move the responsibility for policing copyrights away from the copyright holders and on to third parties."
Science

Nanotubes Form The Darkest Material Yet Created 324

Posted by samzenpus from the none-more-black dept.
toxcspdrmn writes "Bad news for Spinal Tap fans. The BBC reports that researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, have produced the darkest known material by manufacturing "forests" of carbon nanotubes. This forms a surface that absorbs or scatters 99.9% of all incidental light."
Portables (Apple)

Apple Announces MacBook Air 1218

Posted by kdawson from the thin-end-of-the-wedge dept.
Apple made four announcements at MacWorld Expo: the new MacBook Air, new features for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and movie rentals via iTunes from a TV without a computer involved. The new portable gets most of the attention. It is 0.76" thick at the thickest part, tapering to 0.16". It weighs 3 pounds and has a 13.3" screen and full-size, backlit keyboard. Its Intel chip is the diameter of a dime and the thickness of a nickel. The MacBook Air will cost $1799 and up. Its storage is either 80 GB disk or 64 GB solid-state drive. 2 GB of memory. It has no optical drive (an external one is available for $99) and features a way to wirelessly use the optical drive of any nearby Mac or PC with the proper software installed.
Privacy

US Policy Would Allow Government Access to Any Email 516

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the what's-the-date-again dept.
An anonymous reader writes "National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell is currently helping to draft a new Cyber-Security Policy that could make the debate over warrantless wiretaps seem like a petty squabble. The new policy would allow the government to access to the content of any email, file transfer, or web search."

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