Computer Tips -Tech Info

Author: Avery

  • Takedown phishing sites

    Sunbeltblog has a good post on a group that helps “take bad guys out”. The Internet Crime Provention and Control Institute (Link expired). Basically, they will take submissions of complaints and assist in getting sites taken down. A good example would be phishing sites, maybe servers hosting illegal content, stolen information, etc. etc.

    Or, perhaps a machine is spewing out viral, nigerian 419 scam or other material. That’s what the ICPCI is there to receive complaints on and coordinate “takedowns”. According to the sunbelt entry (a tip from a reader), they’re pretty effective at the takedowns (even when the site is hosted in places you would think makes it tougher.)

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  • Dell recalling 35,000 notebook batteries

    Ouch, Dell is recalling 35,000 notebook batteries that were shipped between October 5rd and 13th of this year. They were made in China or Japan and “pose a risk of fire.” There is a web-site setup by Dell on the issue… here.

    They also suggest

    “Batteries subject to recall should not be used while awaiting a replacement battery pack from Dell, it says.”

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  • Google Talk notes

    Since Google Talk is based on the Jabber protocol (XMPP) it’s been compatible with any jabber client for instant messaging. That was a well and good move. Very welcoming to see a big name use an open protocol that can be implemented by anyone. There were some concerns though that the voice talk features were only supported in the Google Talk client and so, no one else would be able to get in on the voice features.

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  • Microsoft moving display drivers outside the kernel

    In what will undoubtedly make Vista a more stable release of Windows… Microsoft will be moving display drivers outside the main kernel and run them in “userland”. Display adapter/driver problems have been one of the greatest source of instability and crashes for some time. That should make for a noticable improvement.

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  • Bittorrent is amazing

    As I type this, I’m downloading a compressed hard drive image from the freeoszoo download page. The download size is about 1.2GB and it’s been BLAZING fast. (286KBps is the top I’ve seen) it’s been going – maybe 20-30 minutes and is 70% through…

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  • Network Security guide for the home or small business network – Part 4 – Know your software

    Ok, so you’ve got a hardware firewall and you’ve got antivirus. You’re safe right? Well, not entirely. I’ve mentioned the flaws of antivirus. It’s always a step behind. A firewall doesn’t protect against unknown viruses, so what else is there to do? I’m going to tackle this in two steps. The first is to know what software is running on your system. Isn’t there a lot of that? How can I keep up?

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  • Disinfecting a PC… part 3

    Picking up from last time… AVG was failing to install with a peculiar registry error. (Which I didn’t see much reference to online.) OK, so here is another fruit of the online search (so many bugs to identify…)

    jawa32.exe is listed as spyware.seekseek in sarc’s database.

    OK – let’s see if we can kill of some of these suspects… it’s time for a couple cycles of ctrl-alt-del to remove running processes that look suspect, followed by msconfig – disabling of processes running at boot, reboot, repeat.

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  • Artists revolting against DRM

    This is under the security tab because DRM software protection has proven to be a computer security issue… Spyware Confidential is reporting on artists revolting against the Sony DRM. According to the story…

    My Morning Jacket, the artists who recorded the copy protected CD “Z” I mentioned here, are doing more than protesting Sony BMG’s use of DRM spyware. They are revolting. Yesterday I read that My Morning Jacket was doing their own recall of the affected CDs. Now I see they are burning unrestricted copies of their CD and mailing them to users. Hmm… I wonder if they are breaking the law under the DMCA.

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  • The 2nd journey begins… Mandriva 2006 upgrade 2 – Part 2

    OK – copying of the most crucial files are done. It’s time to start the process. First I’ve gathered a list of URPMI sources that I can use from online. No local mirror this time, so it may take a while to pull all the files I need. Second, it’s time to say #urpmi.removemedia -a to clean out our list of software install sources.

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  • Adobe moving to monthly patch cycle

    I just saw a news article (sorry no link at the moment)… that mentioned that Adobe has announced they will move to a monthly patch cycle. This takes a cue from Microsoft which since October of 2003 has had a predictable monthly patch release. It’s nice to see security patches released in a routine, expected, predictable, orderly way. Now if only we can get the malware writers to stick to a single monthly malware release we’ll be in good shape.

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