Microsoft will be releasing an update to Internet Explorer that changes the way embedded ActiveX controls are loaded. The method of loading embedded controls was at the heart of a lawsuit against Microsoft from smaller Eolas Technologies.
Software affected by the patent would include Macromedia Flash, QuickTime, RealOne Player, Acrobat Reader, Sun’s Java Virtual Machine, and Windows Media Player among other applications that embed into Web pages.
There was an article in the last few days about Instant messengers being a tempting new vector for viral infections… Well…. Incidents.org has information on a new AIM worm seen in the wild. It doesn’t travel via a security hole, but uses the good old standby of social engineering to get from place to place.
There was a time when you had to download Windows-only software to access Rhapsody (an online music service owned by real networks.) However, that has changed. It’s a move that I’m glad to see as a linux user, but just in general it makes sense that they can open it up to anyone with a web browser.
Our ISP here was out this afternoon. (Cable and internet) for a bit before I had to run to an appointment, so I got a bit behind in entries. It’s interesting though, Charter has been really pushing their new telephone service lately. Which is all well and good, but I’ve thought many times, if I were to get phone service from Charter how many times a year I’d be without phone service? How would I have called to report the outage today? (Carrier pigeon) – cell phone is the expected answer I’m sure, but….
The wikipedia is changing their rules a bit, to prevent anonymous users from creating new articles. Now to create an article, you must be logged in with an account. This is in part a response to a couple of recent stories about articles that were edited anonymously. Eventually I see it making sense to have users log in for ANY change to be made to an article create/edit/delete/etc. I know it may seem like a pain, but ultimately that would make it easier to trace an editor that was doing harm to the content.
This linux.com article will make a handy reference for anyone who’s a bit fuzzy on what ssh can do other than just something that looks like telnet, although encrypted from end to end. It’s from their CLI Magic series. Among the topics covered.
The Oboe service has launched. It’s a project that Michael Robertson of Mp3.com and Lindows/Linspire fame has been building interest in for the last 6 months or so. (Maybe a bit longer). The idea is that for a $39 per year subscription you can have an unlimited amount of space online to store your music files (.mp3, .wma, .ogg or .acc are autodetected in download links by the firefox plugin.) Then you can stream them anywhere. What’s interesting about the browser plugin is – let’s say you’re buying a track at the web site of whichever online music store, an icon appears next to the download link, you click and it “sideloads” the file into your online storage locker (bypassing the step of downloading to your pc, then uploading to the storage locker.)
A while back there was an article on Google Print alternatives. Today, Search Engine Watch has an article on a couple other options. First up is Netlibrary.com, which provides free access to a wide range of etexts. Access is not to the general public, but through partner institutions. For instance, if your public library partners with netlibrary, you can enter your library card number and log in.
Most of the time when I need to do a Dig or whois or traceroute I’m at a machine that I can use a good command line version of these essential network utilities. However, there are always times when you’re at a PC or situation that is either missing some of those, or you’d rather not run the utility on the machine for other reasons. Fortunately, many of these can be found online. For a long time, I’ve kept SamSpade.org in the back of my mind as a good utility address. There you’ll find Whois lookups, reverse IP -> domain lookups, traceroutes, etc. One thing I didn’t find though on the page was Dig…
This is filed under security, but a slightly different angle than the usual computer security articles. I just ran across a link I’ve kept to Zoneminder. Zoneminder is a neat linux application to help you setup your very own DVR (digital video recorder) for a security camera type (CCTV ?) setup. I originally came across the page by way of a livecd that uses the mklivecd tools that I was working with for a couple projects. Typically a CCTV type security camera system can involve some expensive software for the monitoring of cameras.