Microsoft Yanks Fake Security Software

Microsoft said that the anti-malware tool it pushes to Windows users as part of Patch Tuesday removed fake security software from nearly a million PCs during nine days this month.

In a post to the company's malware protection center blog on Wednesday, three of Microsoft's security researchers spelled out the impact this month's edition of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) has had on phony security software. In the period from Nov. 11 to Nov. 19, said Scott Wu, Scott Molenkamp and Hamish O'Dea, MSRT purged more than 994,000 machines of what the tool recognizes as "W32/FakeSecSen," the malware label for a broad range of bogus security program with names such as "Advanced Antivirus," "Spyware Preventer," "Ultimate Antivirus 2008" and "XPert Antivirus."

Windows users have been plagued with a flood of worthless security software in recent months as criminals have discovered that they're money-makers. According to one researcher, cyber-crooks can pull in as much as US$5 million a year by installing the rogue programs on PCs, then dunning users with made-up claims that the machine is infected. Unless consumers fork over a payment -- usually $40 to $50 -- the constant stream of pop-up messages continue, making the machine hard to use.

Read More from PC World

Kernel vulnerability found in Vista

A flaw in Vista's networking has been found that can crash the system, but no fix is expected until the next service pack

A flaw has been found in Windows Vista that could allow rootkits to be hidden or denial-of-service attacks to be executed on computers using the operating system.

The vulnerability was found by Thomas Unterleitner of Austrian security company Phion and was announced Friday. Unterleitner told ZDNet UK on Friday that Phion told Microsoft about the flaw in October but that he understood a fix would only be issued in the next Vista service pack.

According to Unterleitner's disclosure of the flaw, the issue lies in the network input/output subsystem of Vista. Certain requests sent to the iphlpapi.dll API can cause a buffer overflow that corrupts the Vista kernel memory, resulting in a blue-screen-of-death crash.

Ray Ozzie Wants to Push Microsoft Back Into Startup Mode

The keynote speaker at this past summer's TechReady conference—a gathering of 6,000 or so Microsoft engineers from around the world—was the company's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie. This was not a routine appearance. Ozzie arrived at Microsoft in 2005, and the following year he inherited the title of CSA directly from Bill Gates. He was now the microprocessor of the Microsoft machine. But he had never addressed the semiannual conclave. His explanation? He wanted to wait until he had something big to show the troops.


But there's something else: Ozzie hates speaking in public. His idea of paradise is pitching his vision around a table near a whiteboard, where he can proceed conversationally and draw on his marketplace savvy, quiet confidence, and ability to scrawl out XML code on the fly. Auditoriums are something else. "I have high anxiety—massive, huge, tremendous anxiety," he says. "It's not a natural act for me." The infrequency of his public appearances has triggered murmurs that the guy in Gates' chair is afraid to face his public, like some sort of software Greta Garbo. "Where's Ray?" Microsoft observers have been asking, as Google grabs more headlines and Apple relentlessly mocks the company's shortcomings.

Read More from Wired

How Windows 7 shames Vista on battery life

If a notebook runs Windows Vista, it will run Windows 7 and it will get better battery life, promises Gabriel Aul of the Windows Performance team. But PC manufacturers and device suppliers are also going to have to do their part to make a big difference to power consumption on new notebooks.

What Microsoft can do is make it easier for components in the system to go into low power mode when the system is idle. Some of that is 'managing' components: Windows 7 'parks' CPU cores that aren't needed, finally implements the 'slumber' feature on SATA drives, powers down USB ports and controllers more aggressively and even puts your Wi-Fi card to sleep if it's turned on but not connected to a network.

Read More from Tech Radar

....Earthquake hits the UK

About half an hour ago we were hit by an earthquake. Reports on the BBC website suggest it's centre was in the midlands. I'm up near Liverpool and the tremor was quite strong. In fact it felt like something had hit the house and I actually went outside to check. Quite surreal.

....makes me sad. Stage 6 to shut down?

Here's a copy of an email i've just received...

I'm Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service. I'm writing this message today to inform you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and you'll be able to view and download videos until Thursday.

I know this news will come as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I'd like to take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed.

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it's possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.

So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it's really as simple as that.

Now, why didn't we think of that before we decided to create Stage6 in the first place, you may ask? That's a good question. When we first created Stage6, there was a clear need for a service that would offer a true high-quality video experience online because other video destinations on the Internet simply weren't providing that to users. A gap existed, and Stage6 arrived to fill it.

As Stage6 grew quickly and dramatically (accompanied by an explosion of other sites delivering high-quality video), it became clear that operating the service as a part of the larger DivX business no longer made sense. We couldn't continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high-quality video on any device. So, in July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a private company or shut it down.

I won't (and can't, really) go into too much detail on those first two options other than to say that we tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately neither of those two scenarios was possible, and we made the hard decision to turn the lights off and cease operation of the service.

So that's where we are today. After February 28, Stage6 will cease to exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will continue to thrive. Every day new DivX Certified devices arrive on the market making it easy to move video beyond the PC. Products powered by DivX Connected, our new initiative that lets users stream video, photos, music and Internet services from the PC to the TV, are hitting retail outlets. We remain committed to empowering content creators to deliver high-quality video to a wide audience, and we'll continue to offer services that will make it easy to find videos online in the DivX format.

It's been a wild ride, and none of it would have been possible without the support of our users. Thank you for making Stage6 everything that it was.

--Tom

Sad day.

....breaks; Seems YouTube is down.

For some reason anybody attempting to browse to www.youtube.com is out of luck at the moment, for the last 30 minutes or so the site has been unreachable. Now that's going to be affecting a lot of sites that embed their videos. Is it another broken cable?

....breaks; Another problem with deep sea cables

Reports abound that yet another cable linking the Middle East with the West has either been cut or has suffered a power outage. Conspiracy theories are starting to flow across what's left of the Internet (Perhaps Osama got a mini-sub for Christmas?). I guess it may just be possible that any extra traffic carried on this cable has caused a problem after the 3 failiures last week?

It does however highlight that our reliance on the Internet and it's apparent design weaknesses can be easily jepordised. Imagine what will happen if India becomes completely cut off from the west? All that 'out sourcing' of our call centers isn't going to seem like such a good money saving scheme to banks and the like when we can't access our details via the telephone.

God help us if a solar storm knocks out a few satallites this week; still it'll be a chance to catch up on some real 'book' reading.

Have your computer screen professionally cleaned.

This really is just for fun, and it made me laugh.

http://www.linein.org/media/screenclean.swf

OK, it seems that was taken down, but here a link to the same thing as a Windows Screensaver: http://shell.jssjr.com/files/screenclean.exe

...

Or when technology is great.

Technology put to good use against undesirables?

The Internet-based group "Anonymous" has released statements on YouTube and via a press release, outlining what they call a "War on Scientology". Church of Scientology related websites, such as religiousfreedomwatch.org have been removed due to a suspected distributed denial-of-service-attack (DDoS) by a group calling themselves "Anonymous". On Friday, the same group allegedly brought down Scientology's main website, scientology.org, which was available sporadically throughout the weekend.

Read more

Early adopters of Blu-Ray - paying the price?

It seems that people who went out and invested in Blu-Ray early-on are unlikely to be able to take advantage of new features being added to newly released movies. Blu-Ray players are divided in to categories (or profiles) with all players released before Nov 2007 being Profile 1.0. The latest profile, 1.1 allows new features to be accessed, one example of which is Picture-in-Picture. Anybody who owns a Sony PlayStation 3 will be aware that the recent update from Sony upgraded the Blu-Ray firmware to Profile 1.1. And that's the problem; there was no requirement for the hardware of early players to be upgradable and so they're pretty much stuck with an out-of-date Profile.


Whilst I'm sure there will soon be a great eBay market for 'chipping' or modding older players to upgrade the Profile of a player you've got to ask yourself how hard would it have been for the manufacturers to implement an upgrade process from day one. It would seem that in the rush to get their systems out to market, and thus not allow HD-DVD too great a lead, the players released weren't quite as good as they should have been and now the most dedicated base of users is to pay the price.

Now whilst I'm sure many of the early-adopters were aware that this may have become an issue when they purchased their players, it just doesn't seem right. In this day and age firmware updates are common for the gadgets we use (iPods, routers & games consoles etc...), and considering the complexity of the Blu-Ray technology, how hard would it have been to include an Ethernet port and update functionality?

The problem is only going to become more apparent when Profile 2.0 is released later in 2008. At present the only upgradable player on the market is the PlayStation 3 which seems to top may peoples lists as the best quality/value around.

You can read more in this BBC article

And talking of laptops; is this the most expensive ever?

This piece of cheap looking tat (i can only assume you have to be there) is the Tulip E-Go.

The Tulip E-Go Diamond notebook is inlaid with solid palladium white gold plates in which thousands (80 carats) of top-quality, brilliant cut diamonds have been pave set with surgical precision. The magnificent end result also incorporates a unique square cut ruby set in both Tulip logos and costs 283,000 Euros (US$355,000).

Apparently, E-Go stands for 'easy going' - I don't think my bank manager would see it that way.

Man this is one ugly laptop

I can accept that some people have no concept of taste, each to their own, but why the hell he chose pink? He's missed out on the fluff though....

Microsoft tries to get gaming writer fired

Right, so... a games reviewer in the UK has asked Microsoft to allow him to pay for his Live account in US$ rather than UK£ (Probably because we all know that we in the UK/Europe/Canada are getting done-over by Microsoft...And Apple...And the record companies...And the movie studios...). After Microsoft declined the offer Ben Paddon complained. This had lead to a rather pathetic attempt by Microsoft to get him fired from his writing job. Wow!

You can read more from the horses mouth here.

McDonald’s boss: ‘Games to blame for childhood obesity’

A buzz started a couple of hours ago about a statement made by the boss of McDonald's UK. Apparently he was blaming video games for causing childhood obesity. When you actually read the article it becomes clear that he's merely pointing out that he thinks video game playing contributes to the problem because kids aren't out playing and burning energy (Not sure if that's the energy they get from eating his burgers?). But still, I think the funny thing is that whilst many will suspect that this may well be the case, I'm not too sure that we are prepared to listen to him on this particular matter.

We've known for a long time that the crap they sell at McDonald's does nobodies health any good; OK maybe one or two of their salads are healthy but even they have been accused of not being as healthy as they should.

You'd think after Super-Size Me was released they'd keep quiet about health related issues unless they were positive? Pointing blame at other industries just seems to be a little odd. I wonder if he's ever heard of the Nintendo Wii and it's ability to get both young and old pumping blood and burning calories?

A Cure for Video Game Motion Sickness?

If you, like me, are prone to suffer motion sickness whilst playing video games I can sympathise. I've come to see it almost as a disability. There's nothing worse than following the hype of a new release only to realise within 30 minutes of playing that it'll make you dizzy, bring on vomiting and chronic tiredness.

The very first game that made me ill was Motorhead on the PC. Back when it was released I'd just bought a fairly good PC for the time and Motorhead was one hell of a fast racer. After about 15 minutes of play I recognised the feelings I'd had as a kid going on coach trips with school. The same feelings that preceded chucking up. In those days it didn't really bother me. Most video games had low frame-rates and I'd learnt that it was this and/or bobbing camera motion that was causing the problem.

These days however it's a different story. The games which knock me sick are far more frequent: Halo 1, 2 & 3, Wipeout, Call of Duty 3 & 4, Gears of War and Ace Combat 6 to name just a few. However the god-send is the Burnout series, which for some reason has no effect on me and is one of my favourite games of all time. The others I own because my son loves playing these types of games.

However after a couple of days over the holidays of watching COD4 and lasting between 10 and 20 minutes before I had to leave the room I decided to do a little research. The obvious answer was to try Dramamine - but that would leave me feeling drowsy and I didn't want to turn to drugs simply to enjoy a good game. The next suggestion that came along was ginger. After reading a few articles I decided to pop to my local health food store and pick up some capsules. I took one and waited an hour before loading up COD4. Amazingly, even though I broke my first rule by playing in a near dark room, i lasted more than an hour. And to be honest I was feeling a little tired but I'm not sure I wanted to play longer.

So if you suffer from Motion Sickness I'd recommend taking some ginger and seeing if it helps. Just remember to read the label first!

JD Wetherspoon pubs - who the hell do these people think they are?

In an amazing story from the BBC, JD Wetherspoon, the popular pub chain have made an absolutely amazing statement. They will no longer server people who visit their pubs with children more than 2 alcoholic drinks and don't think you'll get away with switching to soft drinks or coffee after that, you still won't be welcome. Apparently this is because their pubs lack play facilities and they don't want parents staying too long although one member of staff said it was to avoid child cruelty.


When I read this I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I often visit with my son who's 9 and is perfectly able to be entertained by either adult company or that of other children who might be there. I can understand that nobody really wants to see parents getting drunk when they're with their kids, but lets face it, 99% of parents are responsible. They love their kids and are happy to take them out for some food in a pub. One of the reasons I visit Wetherspoons is because of their responsible attitude and pleasant atmosphere in their pubs. They don't tolerate drunks and provide relatively good quality food. I wonder who will be tolerated in their pubs soon?

Well guess what, I live with a perfectly good over-bearing, nanny-state created by our wonderful Government and don't need any more crap from the likes of a pub chain. JD, you've just lost my business and that of many of my friends. You will probably lose a lot more before you reverse this ridiculous rule. I always thought you were a family pub? If anybody wants me I'll be sitting in my local park with my son and a bottle of Jack Frost extra strength cider; anyone care to join me?