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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 9 declined, 0 accepted (9 total, 0.00% accepted)

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Windows

Submission + - Microdoft Destroys User Data - Again! (zdnet.com)

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "In a January 3, 2008 blog entry by Robin Harris of PC Magazine, he writes:

Will Microsofties ever learn?

Without warning the Microsoft Office SP3 update blocks over a dozen common document formats, including many Word, Powerpoint and Excel documents. Install the update and you can't open the files. Why? Because they can!"
Windows

Submission + - Why Is Microsoft Watering Down WGA? (zdnet.com)

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "This is an article appearing on http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1012&tag=nl.e539 today (12-05-07)

Yesterday's revelation that Microsoft would be watering down Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) in Windows Vista SP1 came as a bit of a surprise to me. Why, if WGA has been so successful in the prevention of piracy, and why if the mechanism caused so little collateral damage (both points Microsoft has been adamant about throughout) now backpedal and water down WGA?

The line that Microsoft has always maintained was that WGA prevented theft, protected users from being sold illegal software and that only a tiny number of users running genuine copies of Windows were affected. When put in those terms, WGA on Vista seemed like the perfect solution to the problem of piracy. Now, I've received first hand accounts from people who were adversely affected by WGA, and it doesn't sound pretty, but these were always put down as the exception, not the rule. WGA worked. Not only that, but Microsoft has spent a year perfecting and fine-tuning this anti-piracy mechanism in order to further reduce false positives. Counterfeit rates for Vista are half that of XP."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - CoolBot Hacks Air Conditioners to Create Green Wal (goodcleantech.com)

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "Running a cool PC is the holy grail of gamers and power users. A guy in upstate New York has developed a device that will make a standard, off-the-shelf air conditioning unit operate down to 32 degrees F. While his invention was designed to make life easier for farmers, it clearly has other uses, particularly to computer builders. The bonus feature of the device is it causes the a/c unit to actually use less power than it normally would. http://www.goodcleantech.com/2007/09/coolbot_hacks _air_conditioners.php"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Retailers Still Using WEP? Learn Nothing from TJX

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "Retailers haven't learned from TJX — still running WEP by ZDNet's George Ou — When I blogged earlier this week about TJX's failure to secure their wireless LAN and how it may end up costing TJX a billion dollars, I knew that it was merely the tip of the iceberg with so many retailers still running WEP encryption. As if WEP wasn't already broken enough, WEP is now about 20 times faster to crack than in mid-2005 when TJX's WEP-based wireless LAN was broken and I knew from experience that most retailers were still running WEP. I decided to stroll through town and check on some of the largest retail stores in the country to see how they're doing today. The reason I looked at the large retailers is because they're the big juicy targets with millions of credit card transactions that the TJX hackers love. What I found was truly disturbing and I'm going to tell you what I found. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=487&tag=nl.e539"
Privacy

Submission + - Tom from MySpace is Phishing 148,000,000 Friends!

Submitted by
SkyDude
SkyDude writes: "From Wired Blogs: If we spent our time reporting every scam, phishing attack and other security hack that hit MySpace we wouldn't have time for anything else, but this one is funny. Someone apparently hacked MySpace's "Tom" account (the default friend for all new members) to send out a link to a phishing scam. Not news really until you consider that the Tom account has roughly 148,059,490 friends. What we'd like to know is how much money a phishing attack against MySpace can really generate — do they ask the marks to steal their parent's credit cards or something? [via Digg]
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/01/the_morn ing_reb_9.html"

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