Category: Computers

  • Australia to ask Google Maps to pull images over security concerns

    According to this article, Australia will ask Google to pull satellite photos of its only Nuclear plant. It’s worth noting that several locations in the US Capital are either reduced resolution or blocked out with solid colors. Now that we live in an era of private satellite imagery are services like MSN’s Virtual Earth and Google’s Maps giving away TOO much information?
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  • Linux code drastically improved

    According to this writeup(in spanish), an analysis of linux kernel code in the 2.6.12 version compared to 2.6.9 is drastically improved.

    Coverity, makes software tools that analyze source code for errors. The 2.6.9 analysis turned up 6 severe errors and 985 smaller problems. The 2.6.12 analysis uncovered no severe problems. There was an increase in small problems though to 1008. (An increase of 2.3 %), The total size of the codebase though, increased by 4.7%. Meaning the pecentage of problems to lines of code went down.
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  • Huge identity theft ring discovered by spyware research

    Sunbelt blog, reports that they have uncovered a MASSIVE amount of personal data, ranging from usernames to passwords to banking information and much more while investigating spyware. They found keylogger transcript software with lots of personal information. Sunbelt develops software to protect against spam and spyware and other security threats. A keylogger is software that records every keystroke on a computer and these days usually uploads that data to a server for someone to peruse.

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  • Ways to deal with Junk Mail (2 of 2)

    Okay, in a previous post I talked about a server side solution for junk mail filtering. Now it’s time to ask…. “what if I can’t install filtering software on our mailserver?” Here is one way to deal with the answer… (more…)

  • Monad will not be in Windows Vista

    I wrote earlier about “proof of concept” viruses that targeted Monad, the next generation command shell from Microsoft. There had been talk that Monad would ship with Windows Vista and so some people were saying these “proof of concept” virii were the first to target Vista. Well, according to the Microsoft Security Response Center Blog that is wrong, Monad will not ship with Vista so these aren’t Vista viruses. I thought most of the articles I had seen had made it clear that it was uncertain when Monad would be available, possibly Vista (now we know it won’t). (The next Exchange Server release?)
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  • Ways to deal with Junk Mail (1 of 2)

    Who hasn’t ever seen junk mail? From the offers for prescription drugs to offers for who knows what. Some mail programs give you a way to filter out different senders, but the senders of junk mail are always changing (like viruses.) So what other tools are there? (more…)

  • Mail Viruses Junk Spam Phishing and now Dark?

    Okay, I’ve seen a new term come across the horizon in the battle of the email inbox. First there were viruses, then junk mail, which became known as Spam and then Phishing attacks now we’re up to DarkMail. According to scmagazine , an IT security focused publication, the earmarks of darkmail are similar to junkmail but greater in volume. According to the article one domain withstood 10 million messages in one day as the sender went alphabetically through addresses on the domain.
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  • Mandriva wins another Government convert to linux from NT

    According to Mandriva’s community newsletter, they’ve landed a contract with the French Ministry of Agriculture and Fishing. The deal will replace outdated Windows NT servers with Mandriva Linux Corporate Server on a number of machines.
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  • Good linux desktop search

    This article at mozillaquest.com gives a highlight of their search for a good linux desktop system. Mandriva (formerly Mandrake) finds itself facing off against Xandros. All in all, some good things are to be said for Mandriva. One of their emphasis is that a good desktop linux distribution is one that works well “out of the box”.
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  • Get counted at the linux counter

    One of the problems with “free software” that can be downloaded and installed on multiple machines without expense or legal recourse, is that it’s sometimes hard to know how many people run it. Yes, sure there are web statistics that might tell you if someone is using a different platform than windows. But what about those machines that don’t get used for web browsing, but sit firewalling or mail serving, or file serving their lives away without even getting to be a statistic in the big scheme of “market share” debates?
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