Classic Tech Tips Archive

Sometime over the last 2 or 3 days trackback pings stopped working for me. I didn't notice until today. I think the hexblog may have been the first one to choke the queue, but I've spent the evening …

Since there's some interest.... here is a listing of all posts related to the WMF exploit and Windows 98 that have come out in the last week. https://www.averyjparker.com/2006/01/04/lack-of-working-e…

f-secure.com has another warning for us about the pending awakening of the sober worm. From reports it's expected to start looking for sites to download from January 5th into January 6th. There is an…

There are a number of references out today to a December 31st article (on a study by av-test) about how well antivirus products were keeping up with the shifting signatures of the WMF exploits. There…

There's a zdnet article that seems to indicate that Google may be close to releasing a standalone video player. Currently videos.google.com uses a plugin that's called google video viewer. The above …

It looks like, the Windows patch (or a beta) for the WMF exploit has been leaked online. It sounds as though Steve Gibson got a hold of a copy and has tested it along side the unofficial patch. All s…

I hung on to the last batch of 20 wmf exploit samples I had been working with for the purpose of testing my clamantivirus install against them to see when "full detection" of all 20 had been acheived…

This is something you should consider if you are looking to abandoned a pre-Winxp operating system in favor of a flavor of XP. The product life cycle. In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft has differen…

Yesterday the hexblog, which is the site of the person that wrote the unofficial patch for the WMF exploit, was offline for bandwidth over use. Several mirror sites popped up to host the patch. Today…

F-Secure is reporting on another SPAM attack that tries to get people to click on a link to a site with an exploit-crafted WMF file. The message is along the lines of a claimed Professor at Yale anno…

Just saw this over at engadget. It's a Lexar jumpdrive with "amount filled" indicator. The twist is the "amount filled" is done with electronic paper. What this means is that you can see how full the…

The Sunbelt Blog has picked up on a report of some network printing problems with the unofficial WMF exploit patch installed. The first report was on the fulldisclosure list. It is recommended that t…

I want to try to clarify a point. I've spent a couple days trying to get current exploits to work on a Windows 98 SE virtual machine. Not to prove that Windows 98 is safe, but to determine if current…

Well last week was technically my "vacation" from computer work.... it didn't quite turn out that way, but I did enjoy what I got to do, although I would much rather the WMF exploit had not come abou…

I didn't exactly expect a parade staged by Microsoft for the writer of the unofficial patch for this WMF vulnerability, but.... eweek tells us that Microsoft says "beware of unofficial WMF patch" It …

Microsoft has posted a security advisory (912920) on the previously reported "awakening" of the Sober worm, expected January 6th. Systems that are infected with Win32/Sober.Z@mm may download and run …

There's a good review up of both Kubuntu and Ubuntu over at Desktoplinux.com. The writer doesn't seem to find either a perfect fit. Ubuntu is Gnome based, Kubuntu is KDE based. The versions reviewed …

I've been tinkering with placement of Google Search boxes on the site. These days, with a google search box in Firefox, I don't think about the convenience factor of putting it in the page too much, …

The unofficial WMF exploit patch now has multiple locations to download from. They've apparently run into some bandwidth problems at the main site. Sunbeltblog has an alternate download location, San…

If you've visited here in the last few days, you'll have noticed that I've been trying to test the WMF exploit against a Windows 98 Virtual machine since January 1st. I initially started out with a d…

Ok - so at least I wasn't the only one to see Microsoft's update to the security bulletin as downplaying the threat.... Of course, I don't expect them to say.... "OH NO>>>> THE INTERNET WILL BE CRASH…

I had hoped to get in another test of Windows 98 with yet another WMF viewer (tried Kodak imaging, and irfanview). So far I haven't seen a way that the WMF exploits can work on Windows 98 SE. I'm run…

Rumors have been around for some time about Google launching Google OS, an Operating System to compete with Microsoft Windows. Well.... now the rumors are circulating around the Google PC (with Googl…

There's another security warning out related to specially crafted image files. This time it's targetted at the blackberry, which is a small portable email/pda device. Basically a corrupted TIFF may l…

The Microsoft security bulletin on the WMF vulnerability has been updated to indicate that Microsoft expects to release an update for the issue in their regular patch release on January 10th. The fir…