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Security

+ - Emerging Fallout from Facebook and Twitter DDoS->

Submitted by
Erris
Erris writes "The emerging Facebook and Twitter DDoS attack story has Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols saying, "It's time to get rid of Windows."

It happened because Windows is an insecure piece of junk. Anyone who knows anything about security knows that this kind of disaster was only a matter of time. Windows botnets are responsible for DDoS attacks and most of e-mail spam. You cannot secure Windows. Microsoft keeps saying that they will, and they always fail. Period.

Twitter and Facebook users are just the kind of people M$ can't afford to lose. They are the decision makers who decided Vista's fate and will soon do the same for Windows 7. They are generally aware of Windows performance problems that 7 is still slower than XP and that Ubuntu is faster than both. Will people finally heed the security warning and walk away from Windows at work?"
Link to Original Source

Windows

Gartner Tells Businesses to Forget About Vista 309

Posted by timothy
from the whereas-9.04-to-9.10-is-not-bad dept.
Barence writes "IT analyst firm Gartner has told businesses to skip Vista and prepare to roll out Windows 7. Companies have traditionally been advised to wait until the first Service Pack of an operating system arrives before considering migration. However, Gartner is urging organisations that aren't already midway through Vista deployments to give the much-maligned operating system a miss. 'Preparing for Vista will require the same amount of effort as preparing for Windows 7, so at this point, targeting Windows 7 would add less than six months to the schedule and would result in a plan that is more politically palatable, better for users, and results in greater longevity.' Even businesses that are midway through planning a Vista migration are urged to consider scrapping the deployment. 'Consider switching to Windows 7 if it would delay deployment by six months or less.'"
Windows

Windows 7's Virtual XP Mode a Support Nightmare? 413

Posted by kdawson
from the twice-as-many-windows-to-wash dept.
CWmike writes "Microsoft's decision to let Windows 7 users run Windows XP applications in a virtual machine may have been necessary to convince people to upgrade, but it could also create support nightmares, analysts said today. Gartner analyst Michael Silver outlines the downsides. 'You'll have to support two versions of Windows,' he said. 'Each needs to be secured, antivirused, firewalled and patched. If a company has 10,000 PCs, that's 20,000 instances of Windows.' The other big problem Silver foresees: Making sure the software they run is compatible with Windows 7. 'This is a great Band-Aid, but companies need to heal their applications,' Silver said. 'They'll be doing themselves a disservice if, because of XPM, they're not making sure that all their apps support Windows 7.'"
The Internet

Time Warner Cable Won't Compete, Seeks Legislation 621

Posted by Soulskill
from the they-sure-seem-to-like-bad-publicity dept.
narramissic writes "The good people of Wilson, NC pay $99/month for 10/10 Mbps internet service, 81 TV channels and telephone service. How'd they manage that, you ask? Well, the city-owned and operated cable service called Greenlight came into being when the City of Wilson approached TWC and local DSL provider Embarq and requested faster service for the area. 'TWC refused the request. And so Greenlight was born,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq are upset that they've got competition, and rather than try to go head to head with Greenlight on price and service, they've instead been lobbying the state government of NC to pass laws to put Greenlight out of business. Apparently they're having some success, as the NC State Senate has proposed bills that would do TWC's bidding.'"
Sun Microsystems

Sun Announces New MySQL, Michael Widenius Forks 306

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the this-cracks-me-up dept.
viktor.91 writes "Sun Microsystems announced three new MySQL products: MySQL 5.4, MySQL Cluster 7.0 and MySQL Enterprise Partner Program for 'Remote DBA' service providers." which showed up in the firehose today next to Glyn Moody's submission where he writes "Michael Widenius, founder and original developer of MySQL, says that most of the leading coders for that project have either left Sun or will be leaving in the wake of Oracle's takeover. To ensure MySQL's survival, he wants to fork from the official version — using his company Monty Program Ab to create what he calls a MySQL "Fedora" project. This raises the larger question of who really owns a commercial open software application: the corporate copyright holders, or the community?"
The Courts

Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased 415

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the aren't-we-all dept.
maglo writes "The judge who handed down the harsh sentence to the four accused in the The Pirate Bay trial was biased, writes Sveriges Radio (Sweden Public Radio): sr.se (swedish). Google translation. The judge is member of two copyright lobby organizations, something he shares with several of the prosecutor attorneys (Monique Wadsted, Henrik Pontén and Peter Danowsky). The organizations in question are Svenska Föreningen för Upphovsrätt (SFU) and Svenska föreningen för industriellt rättsskydd (SFIR)."

Comment: Re:Brings me back (Score 1, Informative) 361

by Erris (#27682731) Attached to: The History of Microsoft's Anti-Competitive Behavior

He's probably talking about the Disney that's had a hand in every copyright extension in the 20th century aftery your 1909 case. 28 years + the posibility of renewal is not nearly as bad as 90 years + DMCA and other absurdly broken laws we have now. People are waking up to the tyrany around them and they won't tollerate ACTA and further foolishness.

None of it really matters now. Broadcast is dying and their little file clerks at M$ are going down with them. Good riddance to bad rubbish, it's all downhill from here.

Movies

Biden Promises 'Right Person' As Copyright Czar 492

Posted by samzenpus
from the film-appreciation dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Vice President Joe Biden lauded Hollywood at a gala dinner in Washington, assailed movie piracy, and promised film executives that the Obama administration would pick 'the right person' as its copyright czar. Biden warned of the harms of piracy at the private event organized by the Motion Picture Association of America in the sumptuous, newly renovated Great Hall of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. 'It's pure theft, stolen from the artists and quite frankly from the American people as consequence of loss of jobs and as a consequence of loss of income,' Biden said, according to a White House pool report. Biden addressed President Obama's forthcoming decision about who will be named the intellectual-property enforcement coordinator, better known as the copyright czar. Under a law approved by the US Congress last October, Obama is required to appoint someone to coordinate the administration's IP enforcement efforts and prepare annual reports. Copyright industry lobbyists sent a letter to the president asking him to pick someone sympathetic to their concerns, while groups that would curb copyright law sent their own letter (PDF) urging the opposite approach. We 'will find the right person for intellectual property czar,' Biden said."
Security

New Mega-Botnet Discovered 257

Posted by samzenpus
from the we're-gonna-need-a-bigger-internet dept.
yahoi writes "According to the DarkReading article, 'Researchers have discovered a major botnet operating out of the Ukraine that has infected 1.9 million machines, including large corporate and government PCs mainly in the US. The botnet, which appears to be larger than the infamous Storm botnet was in its heyday, has infected machines from some 77 government-owned domains — 51 of which are in the US government. Researchers from Finjan who found the botnet say it's controlled by six individuals, and includes machines in major banks.'"
Microsoft

+ - M$ Funds Publisher's Lawsuits Vrs Google Books->

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes "M$'s Plot to Kill Google has taken an ugly turn as M$ is funding opposition to the Google book settlement.

The $125 million deal gives Google the right to store digital copies of the books, include them in its search results, sell online versions and license its book-scans to libraries. It also allows millions of "orphan" works (books still under copyright but whose copyright-holders can't be found) to be included in Google's program.

The only obstacle remaining for the settlement to take effect is final court approval. ... [it is not] surprising that at least one party nudging its way into the settlement is an internet-issues-oriented group from New York Law School. But what does raise an eyebrow is the source of New York Law's funding on this matter: Microsoft.

This is especially interesting given M$'s proven inability to make money with books. The Wired article goes on to expose curious grants to law schools favorable to M$'s positions on various issues. So goes the war on sharing and universal access to knowledge."
Link to Original Source

Windows

+ - Texas Vista Ban is one Signature Away->

Submitted by twitter
twitter writes "Texas state Senator Juan Hinojosa did not like the results of Vista deployment and put a statewide ban on the OS into the state's budget. Apparently, his peers agreed and the ban now only needs Governor Rick Perry's signature to be law.

"I have read a lot about the problems they have with this particular software. ... We have a lot of problems with the Vista program. It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible with other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that is being used by state agencies, and it's not," said Hinojosa.

Hinojosa's budget provision wouldn't eliminate these ongoing uses nor outright banish Vista from the state. It would, however, require any state agencies (save for higher education institutions) to receive formal approval from the Legislative Budget Board [to purchase Windows Vista-related software, hardware, or licenses]

If passed, Texas would join the FAA, DOT, BECTA, most IT professionals, Windows "pirates", Intel and the mainstream press in their avoidance and opinion of the hated OS"
Link to Original Source

Comment: Blog Police. (Score -1) 300

by Erris (#27404177) Attached to: Anonymous Blogger Outed By Politician

Representatives are special. There's nothing to keep them from stalking people in their spare time. The minute he uses any of his state privileges or state employees to do the job, he's crossed the line. The only way you can spend state time and money is by passing a law telling everyone how the money is to be spent. We do not and never should have a blog police.

A full investigation of the means of discovery should be launched in this case. The representative obviously meant the outing as a form of retribution and punishment. He may also have violated the US Constitution by searching private property without reasonable suspicion of a crime. Where there is malice and means there is often crime.

Privacy

Anonymous Blogger Outed By Politician 300

Posted by kdawson
from the by-what-right dept.
Snoskred writes with the story of a blogger who chose to remain pseudonymous, who has been outed by an Alaskan politician in his legislative newsletter. Alaska Rep. Mike Doogan had been writing bizarre emails to people who emailed him, and the Alaskan blogger "Mudflats" was one of those who called him on it. (Mudflats first began getting noticed after blogging about Sarah Palin from a local point of view.) Doogan seems to have developed a particular itch to learn who Mudflats is, and he finally found out, though he got her last name wrong, and named her in his official newsletter. The Huffington Post is one of the many outlets writing about the affair. The blogger happens to be Democrat — as is Doogan — but that is immaterial to the question of the right to anonymity in political speech. Does an American have the right to post political opinion online anonymously? May a government official breach that anonymity absent a compelling state interest?

Comment: Yes, humor and pride are manly. (Score -1, Troll) 993

by Erris (#27393993) Attached to: How Do I Make My Netbook More Manly?

The mod needs to be in his head. A laptop won't change his presence/personality. Insecurity over mistaken perception ... why? Now for some mods that I've done.

Aluminum up armoring is a practical mod. You can use cheap flashing aluminum and silicone type adhesives to make a durable, tough and relatively light weight cover for easily scratched or soiled plastic. If your plastic is hard enough and in good shape, you don't need this.

Support GNU with stickers. GNU is good for you.

Security

Taming Conficker, the Easy Way 288

Posted by kdawson
from the scanner-lightly dept.
Dan Kaminsky writes "We may not know what the Conficker authors have in store for us on April 1st, but I doubt many network administrators want to find out. Maybe they don't have to: I've been working with the Honeynet Project'sTillmann Werner and Felix Leder, who have been digging into Conficker's profile on the network. What we've found is pretty cool: Conficker actually changes what Windows looks like on the network, and this change can be detected remotely, anonymously, and very, very quickly. You can literally ask a server if it's infected with Conficker, and it will give you an honest answer. Tillmann and Felix have their own proof of concept scanner, and with the help of Securosis' Rich Mogull and the multivendor Conficker Working Group, enterprise-class scanners should already be out from Tenable (Nessus), McAfee/Foundstone, nmap, ncircle, and Qualys. We figured this out on Friday, and got code put together for Monday. It's been one heck of a weekend."

Now there's three things you can do in a baseball game: you can win or you can lose or it can rain. -- Casey Stengel

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