Fri - February 17, 2006First "wild" malware hits OS XFinally, it has happened: OS X systems have
finally been visited by a piece of malware--a frequent visitor on Windows
systems. Curious, though, how it was spread: not through web browsers, or
through email clients, as per usual on Windows systems, but, initially at least,
through Mac rumors sites.
Posted at 01:33 PM Read More Tue - February 14, 2006Benchmarking Pentiums, G4s, G5s, and Virtual MachinesHaving recently run some tests on a Compaq PC
with a pentium 1.7 GHz x86 chip, running a virtual machine with Windows XP Home
installed, I thought it might be interesting to compare tests with similar tests
run on PPC chips.
G4 iMac: 700 mhz, 384 MB of RAM G5 iMac 1600 mhz, 1.25 GB of RAM Note: All tests of the G5 iMac are made with the processor settings set at "automatic" unless otherwise noted. Note (Feb 6, 2005): Added a few specs from a G4 Powermac. Posted at 02:58 PM Read More Wed - January 18, 2006Microsoft intentionally put backdoor into WindowsAccording to the Security
Now! podcast ("Windows MetaFile Backdoor"), the recent Windows
metafile exploit, which placed fully patched Windows systems at risk of
infection merely by visiting a website, must have been put into the operating
system on purpose. While no one knows what the "purpose" of planting such an
exploit could possibly be, it is generally thought that it was done without
malice.
Posted at 09:09 PM Read More Thu - December 29, 2005Another Windows Security Flaw: "Zero-Day Exploit"Microsoft has issued yet another security
advisory, one which attacks fully patched system. Here's how it works. Thousands
of websites are distributing spyware that replaces the user's desktop background
with a message warning of a spyware infection. A prompt then appears asking the
user to enter credit card information to pay for a spyware cleaning application
to remove the offending spyware. In other words, spyware to remove the
spyware!
Posted at 11:21 AM Read More Tue - December 13, 2005Internet pornography and .xxx domainThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN) has recently given up on supplying an .xxx domain for
pornography. Apparently, the decision came about as a result of 6,000 letters
sent to the Commerce Department, allegedly from a "cell" of evangelical
Christians—in particular, from a group calling itself "Concerned Women for
America" (CWA). No doubt, these well-intentioned women were seeking to combat
the ubiquity of pornography on the net. They were worried that the .xxx domain
would give pornographers a "new platform." What they accomplished, instead, by
agitating against the .xxx is to make it harder to control internet
pornography.
Posted at 04:27 PM Read More Wed - November 16, 2005Sony, rootkits, and the future of Compact DiscsThe discovery that Sony has created CDs that,
when placed into a computer running Windows, install rootkits in the system, has
prompted some companies to ban the use of CDs within the office. Indeed, the
reaction among tech people has been so unanimously negative that we can begin to
wonder whether the CD, as a format for selling musical content, can survive in
the long run.
Posted at 04:07 PM Read More Tue - October 18, 2005"There's no reason that your e-mail system should be able to corrupt your file system."So says Jim Cannavino, the lead developer of
IBM's touted but ultimately unsuccessful operating system, OS/2.
"The architecture really doesn't
lend itself to high-level security," Cannavino admitted in an interview with
PCMag.
"Basically, you've got smart guys plugging holes. Though they do a really good
job of it, they can never tell when they're finished. If you restructured the
architecture of the system and really put some boundaries up that were hard to
get by, then there's no reason that your e-mail system should be able to corrupt
your file system."
Posted at 08:28 AM Read More Fri - October 14, 2005Video iPods and iTunes storeSpeculation about video iPods and a video iTunes
store finally bore fruit this week, with Apple's announcement this week of an
iPod with a small video screen and availability of music videos and a handful of
TV shows from ABC in Apple's iTunes online store.
Posted at 02:20 PM Read More Fri - September 23, 2005Massachusetts embraces open standards, shuns MicrosoftThe commonwealth of Massachusetts has decided to
only use products that conform to the Open
Document Format for Office Applications, or OpenDocument. All state
agencies that are part of the executive branch must migrate to
OpenDocument-compliant applications by January 1, 2007. Since Microsoft, whose
business model relies on closed, proprietary standards to lock-in people to
their Windows-Office based platform, does not support OpenDocument format, Bill
Gates & Co. will soon find themselves ousted from Massachusetts executive
government.
Posted at 11:54 PM Read More Fri - June 17, 2005Microsoft's ace in the holeSometimes the most important stories, the most
critical issues fall under the media's radar. Not many people have heard of
something called the "Trusted Computer Group," or TCG. Set up by Microsoft and
Intel, TCG uses Trusted Network Connect (TNC) protocol to enforce network access
on a per-client and/or per-network basis. This TNC protocol, it is speculated,
will eventually be embedded into hardware, perhaps into chips (i.e., Intel
chips). This means that potentially a situation could arise in which non-intel
chips that don't have embedded TNC hardware will not be able to connect, over a
network, to chips that do.
Posted at 12:30 PM Read More Wed - June 8, 2005Apple switches to Intel ChipsOn Monday, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer,
announced that his company, which for more than ten years had used Power PC
chips from IBM and Motorola, would now exclusively use x86 chips compliments of
Intel. The move not only has produced an immense amount of consternation and
hand-wringing in the Mac community, but it threatens a major repression of
Apple's hardware sales over the next year, as Apple attempts the transition from
PPC to x86. Why is Jobs doing this?
Posted at 05:03 PM Read More Mon - May 9, 2005Speculation about an iTunes store for HD Video turn out to be baselessWhen Apple released its Mac Mini, a few cyber
pundits speculated about the possibility of an
iTunes-like online store for high-definition video. The Mac Mini would be turned
into Apple's highly practical and highly elegant version of a multi-media PC.
You would download the high definition video to the Mac mini and play it on your
high definition video.
Posted at 01:34 PM Read More Fri - April 15, 2005Economic news worsensThe Stock Market plunged on Friday to its lowest
point in two years. The fact the economy is not doing well can no longer be
hidden from investors. The truth of the matter is getting out, with what results
we are beginning to see.
Posted at 11:01 PM Read More Fri - March 25, 2005Half of businesses suffered worm outbreaksAccording to a survey released earlier in the week by Mazu
Networks and the Enterprise Strategy Group, 47% of the poll's respondents
admitted that their computer systems had been infected by some sort of worm or
other piece of malicious code. Almost 25% suffered an internal breach. Two out
of five of these breaches resulted in the interruption of a critical
service.
Posted at 05:15 PM Read More Fri - March 11, 2005Will the "Cell" microprocessor spell doom for MS Windows?IBM, Sony Computer Entertainment Incorporated and
Toshiba in February unveiled their "long-awaited" Cell microprocessor, a
multicore, multithreaded "gaming engine" described
as "a supercomputer on a chip." Cell is capable of running at more than 4.5 GHz.
According to one observer
(Nicholas Blachford), "Cell will accelerate many commonly used applications by
ludicrous proportions compared to PCs. Intel could put 10 cores on a chip and
they'll match neither it's performance or price." The Cell processor "represents
the largest threat the PC has ever faced," Blachford concludes. "Cell threatens
the current Wintel dominance of the PC industry."
Posted at 11:31 PM Read More |
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Total entries in this category: Published On: Jun 24, 2007 07:40 PM |
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