2005 January

Worm had infected thousands of computers in 2003
The teenage creator of a variant of the Blaster worm that infected tens of thousands of computers in 2003 was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Friday, prosecutors said.
Jeffrey Lee Parson, 19, will spend 18 months in prison followed by a three-year supervised release program, and will […]

Secunia Advisory: SA14017
Critical: Moderately critical
Impact: Security Bypass, Cross Site Scripting, Spoofing, Exposure of system information, Exposure of sensitive information
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Vendor Patch
Details have been released about several vulnerabilities in Firefox, Mozilla and Thunderbird. These can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions, conduct spoofing and script insertion attacks and disclose sensitive […]

“We’re not here to report news. No, instead we are going to examine the issues that really matter to the geek community!” That was the dream that Brandon Watts and myself had when we first got the idea to launch our own Blogcast (Podcast).
Since both of us have made our presence known as guests […]

Ever since Dell has been kicking butt in the retail end of the consumer PC industry, Gateway has been sort of left out in the cold. Their marketing appeared less and less; it seemed like they were not long for this world. In an effort to curb this belief, they released 5 new notebook computers […]

As companies like Directv and others begin the process of working with DVRs of their own, TiVo is going to find itself without any subscription base if they do not act soon. One possible solution is to pursue their work with this project. If successful, this could be just what TiVo needs to keep their […]

Digital troublemaker Jeff Pulver is at it again. This time, he’s unleashed a way to use the Internet to let anyone use your phone to make a call.
And, conversely, you can place calls all over the world–often for free–by “borrowing” someone else’s phone.
Bellster, as Pulver’s new creation is called, smashes yet another telephone industry tradition. […]

For those of you who are of an entrepreneurial bent, there’s a good article just added to The Intuitive Life all about why it’s a bad idea to have outside help when you’re creating or updating your business plan. Written by someone with years of experience in startups, both from the startup and venture capital […]

In television these days, there is hardly a show that doesn’t have the blood flowing or the boobies showing. It is hard to find a show that makes it on wit alone. Till a few weeks ago, I thought I had found the saving grace with Showtime’s original show, Dead Like Me. […]

Robert X. Cringely’s latest column is out and he offers some interesting speculation about Apple products this week. Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster Software wrote him:
“I bought two Mac minis this week — both will be servers. One is going to run my company’s store. Our new product is a runaway success — we’ve […]

Norwegians might want to use a reality check before trusting directions from Microsoft’s online MapPoint service.
A bug in Microsoft’s MapPoint software sends those looking to travel between two Norwegian cities on a trip across much of Western Europe. The suggested quickest route between Haugesund and Trondheim is a 1,685-mile journey through Belgium, England, France, […]

Amazon.com Adds Photographs to Directory
Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. is trying to become a bigger player in the Internet’s crowded search engine market with a local business directory that supplements address and phone number listings with a photographic tour covering 10 major U.S. cities.
The free service, expected to be available Thursday from Amazon search […]

In the February issue of Wired Magazine, Josh McHugh, in his article “The Firefox Explosion,” said, “It’s fast, secure, open source - and super popular. The hot new browser called Firefox is rocking the software world. (Watch your back, Bill Gates.)” Now, O’Reilly Media - the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies - offers […]

This story about New Zealand’s regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) offers hope to debaters on both sides of the issue. The Kiwis have come up with an open and transparent policy that seems to satisfy both proponents and opponents of GMOs.
The life science industries need a new prescription. ­Phar­maceutical makers, who say their high […]

Nimble and componentized Proctor & Gamble has apparently tendered an offer to buy Gillette for a mind-boggling $54 billion dollars in stock that’s been accepted. Done deal. But I’m still trying to wrap my brain around this figure, trying to get a handle on just how big $54 billion dollars really is, and thought you’d […]

Dave, I’ve been reading all this controversy about the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and how it costs companies tons of money to come into compliance, and how it gives too much control to the government, etc etc. At the same time, not a day goes by without some company delaying or restating financial reports. As an investor, […]

A fascinating thing happened this morning. Someone happened to be looking at the source HTML to Apple Computer’s PowerBook information page (which you can pop over and visit here, if you’d like) and noticed a very interesting little snippet:

    <img src=”http://switch.atdmt.com/action/apple_g5_powerbook”
height=”1″ width=”1″>

If you don’t follow the Apple market, their new G5 CPU-based […]

A recent ZDNet article, “Firefox: When is a flaw not a flaw?” presented an interesting point:
One reader even took issue with the claim that Firefox is inherently more secure than [Internet Explorer]. “Firefox may offer some ’security through obscurity,’ but once it gets to any sort of critical mass, then it will be targeted. […]

Secunia Advisory: SA14005
Critical: Highly critical
Impact: Security Bypass, Cross Site Scripting, Spoofing, Exposure of system information, Exposure of sensitive information, Privilege escalation, System access
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Vendor Patch
Apple has issued a security update for Mac OS X, which fixes various vulnerabilities….
Solution:
Apply Security Update 2005-001.
Mac OS X 10.2.8 Client:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2005001macosx1028client.html
Mac OS X 10.2.8 Server:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2005001macosx1028server.html
Mac OS X 10.3.7 Client:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/securityupdate2005001macosx1037client.html
Mac […]

I’ll bet Tomac never thought of this when he started wearing Oakleys…
OAKLEY THUMP is the world’s first digital music eyewear. No more wires. Just high-performance optics forged with an integrated, state-of-the-art digital audio engine. Listen to music virtually anywhere. Change the way you see and hear the world. OAKLEY THUMP comes in seven color combinations […]

University of Toronto’s Volo Libero project aims to fly a manned ornithopter at the 2006 Olympic Games in Turin, Italy.
After a major setback in 1999, University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies is nearly ready to resume flight attempts with their engine-powered, manned ornithopter. If the ornithopter flies as planned in April 2005, it will […]