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Comment Re:GERMS ARE GOOD..... (Score 1) 695

by yourexhalekiss (#27725179) Attached to: US Declares Public Health Emergency Over Swine Flu

When we kill germs with powerful disinfectants, we eliminate the chances of allowing our immune system to strengthen itself. I see commercials for cleaners that kiil 99.9% of bacteria, commercials for disinfectants aimed at parents using children as an excuse for sanitizing everything they touch so they don't get a cold.

The more we continue to push for stricter standards, and the increased sanitization of our homes, workplaces, and restaurants, the weaker our immune systems will get, and the more deadly previously harmless germs will become.

GERMS ARE GOOD!

All I can say is "I told you so.".

I agree with your premise - people aren't dirty enough these days, and it's bad for them. However, this is a virus, not a "germ". Disinfectants like the ones you describe do not work against viruses, and will neither help nor hinder the spread of the swine flu virus.
Businesses

Submission + - Microsoft Should Acquire SAP not Yahoo

Submitted by
Reservoir Hill
Reservoir Hill writes: "Randall Stross has an interesting article in the NY Times that says that if Microsoft thinks this is the right time to try a major acquisition on a scale it has never tried before, it should not pursue Yahoo but another major player in business software, merging Microsoft's strength with that of another. This is more likely to produce a happier outcome than yoking two ailing businesses, Yahoo's and Microsoft's own online offerings, and hoping for a miracle. Stross points to Oracle as a company that has picked up key products and customers while avoiding an "oops" slip, venturing too far away from its core business, or paying too much and recommends that Microsoft set its sights on $59 billion business software company SAP. Microsoft's acquiring of SAP and leaving it alone as an autonomous division would avoid a cross-cultural integration fiasco and large enterprise customers are arguably the best customers a software company can have. A few dozen well-paying Fortune 500 customers may actually be more valuable than tens of millions of Web e-mail "customers" who pay nothing for the service and whose attention is not highly valued by online advertisers."
Security

Submission + - DNS attack ushers in new era of Phishing 2.0 (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10
Bergkamp10 writes: Researchers at Google and the Georgia Institute of technology are studying a new virtually undetectable form of attack that exploits 'open recursive' DNS servers, which are used to tell computers how to find each other on the Internet by translating domain names like google.com into numerical Internet Protocol addresses. Some 17 million open-recursive DNS servers are on the Internet, and unlike other DNS servers they answer all DNS lookup requests from any computer on the net, making them the perfect target for would be hackers and attackers. Criminals are apparently using these servers in tandem with new attack techniques to develop a generation 2.0 of phishing. Here's how an attack would work. A victim would visit a Web site or open a malicious attachment that would exploit a bug in his computer's software. Attackers would then change just one file in the Windows registry settings, telling the PC to go to the criminal's server for all DNS information. If the initial exploit code was not stopped by antivirus software, the attack would give attackers virtually undetectable control over the computer. Once they'd changed the Windows settings, the criminals could take victims to the correct Web sites most of the time, but then suddenly redirect them to phishing sites whenever they wanted — during an online banking session, for example. Because the attack is happening at the DNS level, anti-phishing software would not flag the phoney sites.
Security

Submission + - FTC: payment processor schemes took millions (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Federal Trade Commission and seven states have charged a payment processor with violating federal and state laws by debiting, or attempting to debit from consumers' bank accounts on behalf of numerous fraudulent telemarketers and Internet-based merchants.Between June 23, 2004 and March 31, 2006, the payment processing company, Your Money Access, processed more than $200 million in debits and attempted debits to consumers' bank accounts and more than $69 million of the attempted debits were returned or rejected by consumers or their banks for various reasons, indicating the lack of consumer authorization, the FTC complaint alleges. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22935"
Education

Submission + - NIST Creates Perpetual Motion (dailytech.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The DailyTech writes that "The National Institute of Standards and Technology, in conjunction with the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute, created a short-lived "proof of concept" of perpetual motion. Using an exotic type of matter known as a Bose Einstein condensate, or BEC, the team demonstrated true perpetual motion. Though the state persisted only ten seconds, team members say it will one day lead to real-world applications." http://www.dailytech.com/NIST+Creates+Perpetual+Motion++But+Only+for+10+Seconds/article9865.htm

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