Saturday, May 08, 2004
18-year-old man arrested by police in Lower Saxony.
From Reuters, "A spokesman for Lower Saxony police said the man was arrested on Friday. No other details were available. Sasser, a tenacious computer worm, is expected to infect millions of machines before it runs its course. Since appearing at the weekend, it has wreaked havoc on personal computers running on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows 2000, NT and XP operating systems, but is expected to slow down as computer users download anti-virus patches."
Continuing, "It was the lure of cash that proved the man's undoing. A group of individuals from Lower Saxony approached Microsoft on Wednesday inquiring about reward money should they turn in the man."
Posted by
Al on 05/08 at 09:56 AM
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
One week after discovering the security hole in the Quicktime player for the MAC, Secunia finds more then just a media bug that could plague the computer's operating system.
From TECHWORLD, "Apple has released a range of patches for security holes - both old and new - for its Mac OS X operating system, which it advises users to download immediately.
The company is downplaying the issue but one security company at least is concerned that the vulnerabilities could be extremely serious. Secunia has given the five - yes, five - patches a 'highly critical' rating and warned that they may allow hijacking, security bypass, data manipulation, privilege escalation, denial of service and system access.
In other words, it makes Microsoft's current Sasser problems look no more than a nasty nip. The difference of course is that Windows is the vast majority of the market and Macs account for only three percent of operating systems. There isn't a worm exploiting the holes as yet but the company is strongly advising users to download and install the patches as the OS looks like an easy target at the moment. "
Posted by
on 05/06 at 01:54 AM
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Sunday, May 02, 2004
Love those songs you can play on your computer or MP3 player? Ever wish you could hear them in surround sound format? Well, it's not to far off... however P2P traders might have a problem with it.
From PC Magazine, "You can rip, copy, or play an MP3 file, but one thing you can't do is get more than two channels of sound out of it. Soon, you will be able to, although you may have more trouble copying the file. The Fraunhofer Institute, originator of the file format that brought the music industry to its knees, is adding surround sound and copyright protection."
Posted by
on 05/02 at 07:34 PM
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Saturday, May 01, 2004
Fearing the bar code is becoming dated, the retail merchandise chain announces their plan to switch to a new tracking system in hopes to cut down on theft and counterfeiting.
From "WIRED, "Wal-Mart Stores and a number of its suppliers are using a Dallas distribution center as the starting point for a technology that's targeted to one day replace the bar code.
The radio frequency information, or RFID, tags provide automatic tracking of pallets and cases of goods. Eight suppliers are participating, using 21 products to be tracked. Wal-Mart said Thursday that it will have more than 100 suppliers using the tags by January.
Wal-Mart chief information officer Linda Dillman would not say how much the Bentonville, Arkansas company is spending but said the tags are on the top line of Wal-Mart's technology budget.
The RFID tags contain a chip that is imparted with information. In a backshop retail environment, the tags will contain the details of what is in a case or on a pallet of goods. Rather than have a worker with a handheld scanner logging in barcodes, the system will let a computer system use a radio signal to log the goods as they arrive at the loading dock.
The tags can also be used in the manufacturing process, which Dillman said can help suppliers become more efficient, and the tags will help companies on both ends know where their products are at all times."
Posted by
on 05/01 at 04:12 PM
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From Cnet NEWS, "Apple Computer issued on Friday a security advisory and fix for a QuickTime flaw that the company describes as a minor issue, but which is classified as a serious problem by the firm that found the vulnerability.
Apple said the flaw in the QuickTime movie player for Mac OS X could cause the player to crash. 'Playing a malformed .mov (movie) file could cause QuickTime to terminate,' Apple said in an advisory published on late Friday afternoon.
The company that found and reported the flaw to Apple in February, eEye Digital Security, claimed Apple is downplaying the seriousness of the flaw in its advisory. A movie file could be created, the firm maintained, that would cause malicious code to execute when the user opened the file."
Posted by
on 05/01 at 02:32 PM
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