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'Friendly' Worms Could Spread Software Fixes 306

Posted by Zonk from the perfect-way-to-make-a-rogue-ai dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft researchers are working out the perfect strategies for worms to spread through networks. Their goal is to distribute software patches and other friendly information via virus, reducing load on servers. This raises the prospect of worm races — deploying a whitehat worm to spread a fix faster than a new attacking worm can reach vulnerable machines."

Music Industry Looking for Lyrics Payoff 205

Posted by Zonk from the those-lyrics-look-unlicensed-there-kid dept.
theodp writes "U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote has obtained licenses to distribute the lyrics of more than 1 million songs. Music publishers are still mulling legal action against Web sites that provide lyrics without authorization." From the article: "Ralph Peer II, Firth's counterpart at peermusic, said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion annually. Peer said he hopes the unauthorized sites will seek licenses. 'I think we'll see a reasonable increase, as much as a 5 percent increase, in industry music publishing revenues five years out from where we are right now,' Peer said."

Windows Rootkit Wars Escalate 342

Posted by timothy from the most-secure-version-of-windows-ever dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The rootkit wars have started to escalate with a rootkit named Rustock which is able to remain hidden from all the popular anti-rootkit tools. It uses some new techniques including not only putting itself in a ADS (NTFS alternate data stream) which isn't seen by normal file system enumeration tools, but even blocks ADS aware tools from seeing the stream. Works in Vista, too! Analysis in both Symantec and F-Secure blogs."

Van Gogh Painted Turbulence 76

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fasten-seatbelt-sign-has-been-illuminated dept.
rangeva writes "Nature is reporting that Van Gogh works have a pattern of light and dark that closely follows the mathematical structure of turbulent flow. From the article: 'Vincent van Gogh is known for his chaotic paintings and similarly tumultuous state of mind. Now a mathematical analysis of his works reveals that the stormy patterns in many of his paintings are uncannily like real turbulence, as seen in swirling water or the air from a jet engine.'"

OpenOffice.org Newspaper Ad Mockup Released 413

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the spread-the-word dept.
Benjamin Horst writes "The volunteer effort raising $10,000 to place at least two backpage ads in New York City's free daily paper Metro is now entering its second full week. We've collected over 10% of our goal already and continue to find new pledge donors at a healthy pace. Our project's purpose is to help 'cross the chasm' and bring awareness of OpenOffice.org 2.0 to the large number of computer users who stand to benefit from its broad feature set and range of useful capabilities. This is not the first time an open source project has sought a high-profile newspaper ad buy. In fact, our effort was directly inspired by the Firefox New York Times ad. Firefox's famous effort announcing its arrival on the world stage helped push it from about 10 million downloads to its current tally of over 185 million!"

Another Microsoft Exec Steps Down 315

Posted by CmdrTaco from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
Arcanimus writes "On Tuesday, the corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN marketing, Martin Taylor, announced that he is leaving Microsoft. Just three months ago, Taylor was appointed to his new position to manage the marketing of Windows Live. In his 13 years with the company, Taylor even worked directly with CEO Steve Ballmer."

Microsoft Employees May Lose Admin Rights 502

Posted by Zonk from the root-to-moot dept.
daria42 writes "As Microsoft moves its internal desktop systems to Windows Vista, the company is contemplating whether to change a long running tradition and take away admin rights from its employees in order to improve security." From the article: "'We haven't made that final determination yet. We would like to absolutely look at scenarios where we can look at elements of User Access Control -- that is the feature in Vista -- so that we can start moving in that direction ... It is a tough balance and every company has to decide what is right for them,' said Estberg. However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees."

Why Emails Are Misunderstood 337

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-thought-it-because-you-were-a-jerk dept.
werdna writes "The Christian Science Monitor has a piece on why it's so easy to misinterpret emails. From the article: 'First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it difficult for recipients to decode meaning well. Second, the prospect of instantaneous communication creates an urgency that pressures e-mailers to think and write quickly, which can lead to carelessness. Finally, the inability to develop personal rapport over e-mail makes relationships fragile in the face of conflict.'"

Under the Hood of AT&T's Monitoring System 416

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the running-commentary dept.
pkbarbiedoll writes "The recent discovery of AT&T's monitoring program has raised more than a few eyebrows. While the class action suit filed by EFF is pending (as well as a seperate suit filed against the NSA filed by the ACLU), interested parties are taking the time to learn more about the scope of this massive invasion of privacy. Bewert examines the Narus architecture used by AT&T in their previously shadowed (and ongoing) collaboration with the NSA."

Google/Earthlink Wins San Francisco WiFi Deal 149

Posted by Zonk from the googlelink dept.
maximander wrote to mention coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle of that city's final decision on their city-wide WiFi system. They've chosen to go with Google and EarthLink. From the article: "In choosing to negotiate with the Google-EarthLink team, the city is going with two Internet giants with marque names. Both firms have deep pockets and proven track records online, but only limited experience building a large wireless network. The project, championed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, is intended to boost the city's technology credentials and help bridge the digital divide between the Internet haves and have-nots. It has also generated intense interest from other cities looking to build similar networks. "

Comment Still could be a 3rd or 4th? (Score 1) 391

by crosstopher (#14593658) Attached to: Toy Story 3 Scrapped
Another option is that since Lasseter is so protective of his Toy Story franchise, he cancelled Disney's TS3 project so he could make it from scratch himself, the way he originally imagined.

I've heard he's had at least four movies on the TS theme in mind from the very beginning, and the fact that Disney wouldn't follow his direction for TS2 was one of the contributing factors to the (now resolved) Pixar-Disney rift.

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