I have many memories of Slashdot, some good, and some bad.

9/11
That Jon Katz asshat
Natalie Portman, and hot grits.

But I never visit any more.

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The summary links to four different commentaries but not Asimov's original article. I'd rather get it from the source.

Yes, but Download.com still assures users that they will never bundle that "extra stuff". Their Adware & Spyware Notice says:

Also, they make it look like a download link for the real installer (which it used to be), and then the user gets this CNET crap. But they still used our name liberally in the trojan installer as if we were somehow responsible for or involved in this abomination. I've got screen shots on my Download.com fiasco page.

Also, this "apology" rings hollow because they aren't fixing the problem along with it. In particular:

1) He claims that bundling malware with Nmap was a “mistake on our part” and “we reviewed all open source files in our catalog to ensure none are being bundled.” Either that is a lie, or they are totally incompetent, because tons of open source software is still being bundled. You can read the comments below his post for many examples.

2) Even if they had removed the malware bundling from open source software, what about all of the other free (but not open source) Windows software out there? They shouldn't infect any 3rd party software with sketchy toolbars, search engine redirectors, etc.

3) At the same time that Sean sent the “apology” to users, he sent this very different note to developers. He says they are working on a new expanded version of the rogue installer and “initial feedback from developers on our new model has been very positive and we are excited to bring this to the broader community as soon as possible”. He tries to mollify developers by promising to give them a cut (“revenue share”) of the proceeds from infecting their users.

4) You no longer need to register and log in to get the small (non-trojan) “direct download” link, but the giant green download button still exposes users to malware.

5) The Download.Com Adware & Spyware Notice still says “every time you download software from Download.com, you can trust that we've tested it and found it to be adware-free.” How can they say that while they are still adding their own adware? At least they removed the statement from their trojan installer that it is “SAFE, TRUSTED, AND SPYWARE FREE”.

Yes.

Yes. No.

We just today released Nmap 5.30BETA1, which contains the version detection signature described in this post for detecting the Energizer trojan. It also includes a detection and exploitation script for a major Mac OS X vulnerability which Nmap developer Patrik Karlsson found last month and Apple finally patched this morning. There are about 100 other changes as well, including 37 new NSE scripts. You can download it free here.

Pardon the Nmap promotion, but it seemed on-topic for the story.

When I was working for NASA, on the NISN network, we'd get these weird router crashes for the old Cisco router located at (or very near) the South Pole in Antarctica. It was always a memory problem, and I'd always have to call someone to get them to powercycle the router. It irritated me to keep bothering those guys, so I opened a case with Cisco TAC.

The TAC guy sent a terse response, saying that particular crash was a "transient memory error" due to "alpha radiation or sun spots." That really pissed me off -- Cisco TAC just gave me a standard BOFH response! I escalated, and swung the NASA club around some, and finally got a senior engineer on the phone. "You said this router's at the South Pole, right? So that means it's at very high altitude, with very little ozone shielding, right?" "Umm, yeah." "Well there you go. There's a lot more radiation at that altitude than at sea level. Our stuff's only rated for sea level. See if they can .. I dunno, put a lead blanket over it or something."

I relayed the info to my contact at McMurdo, and he laughed and said he'd figure something out.

On a hunch, I checked the other two "high-altitude" routers we had, and sure enough, they both had a statistically higher failure rate for "transient memory errors".