Free Republic

SISZYD32.exe has possibly killed my FR computer. Yesterday it hit suddenly despite the anti-virus and other utilities I run to protect against such stuff. The victim computer is one I only use for FR and the sites it cites. That is the only clue I have to offer as to where it came from. I run several computers off a network and my FR computer is the only victim. This is the worst I have ever encountered and a search for it shows that it is very dangerous and it showed up only about a week ago (AFAICT). From years...

Apple is set to files its brief on Monday detailing the damages and injunction details it wants to see imposed on Psystar for building and selling unauthorized Mac clones. Apple filed a lawsuit against Psystar in Northern California several months ago claiming the small PC maker was violating the Mac OS X end user license agreement, and that it was violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act with the steps it used to install the Mac operating system on PCs. Psystar claimed that it should be allowed to build and sell PCs with Mac OS X pre-installed and that Apple is...

The push is on to build exascale systems that can solve the planet's biggest problems There is a race to make supercomputers as powerful as possible to solve some of the world's most important problems, including climate change, the need for ultra-long-life batteries for cars, operating fusion reactors with plasma that reaches 150 million degrees Celsius and creating bio-fuels from weeds and not corn. Supercomputers allow researchers to create three-dimensional visualizations, not unlike a video game, to run endless "what-if" scenarios with increasingly finer detail. But as big as they are today, supercomputers aren't big enough -- and a key...

From time to time, I get messages saying my earlier email was rejected or blocked for being spam. Is there some way I can get a report on my email address, sort of like a credit check? If my address has a bad reputation, how can I repair it. I am not sending spam, but perhaps someone is spooking me? Thanks.

Now appearing on Google: The story of my life. And yours. Not everyone can read it, but the engineers and advertising specialists at Google can. And now users can get a peek, thanks to Google Dashboard, a new service developed at the search giant’s outpost in Zurich. Dashboard lets registered Google users see what the company knows about them. If you’ve got a Google account, just punch up www.google.com/dashboard, and get ready to feel your skin crawl. Google knows just about everything about me. No deep, dark secrets; just thousands of tiny data points which, when put together, could provide...

A Seattle police officer was shot to death and another officer was wounded late Saturday night while conducting a traffic stop in the city's Central District neighborhood. The officer who died was a veteran of the department, and the woman who was wounded is a student officer in training, Assistant Chief Jim Pugel said

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography. Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen. Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites. Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on...

I need some Freeper help...Usually I'm asking advice about guns or stuff. But I need a different kind of help...a techie solution. A gadget. A CHEAP gadget. I'm setting up a video-conferencing solution for my company. What we'll be able to do is participate in each other's sales meetings, via the web, via webcam and microphone. It's not a static environment, but one where the leader is moving around, from place to place in the room; sometimes at the whiteboard...other times at another place in the room. I've kinda got the camera thing figured out. But what I need is...

What is it? Where is it? What's it do? ZoneAlarm Firewall

Computer Weekly, in association with ResearchNow Business, surveyed 500 users to discover which web browser they use at work and at home. Over half of the panellists predicted IE 8+ was the browser that they will be using by the end of 2010, both personally and for their business.

XP's long reign over the hearts and minds of corporates will end on October 22 when Windows 7 is launched, predicts analysts Forester. Soothsayers in Forester's tarot reading division have pulled the Death card for Windows XP on the corporate desktop. Forrester’s Benjamin Gray said that businesses needed refresh aging IT infrastructure. There was also a predicted end to XP support and getting copies of the operating system was becoming trickier. Windows 7 had an XP mode which means that most of the software that businesses have will run on the new operating system. This will improve the OS's chance...

Note: The following news brief is a quote: Turkey Arrests 50 Suspected al-Qaida-Linked Militants By VOA News 15 October 2009 Turkish police have detained at least 50 suspected al-Qaida-linked militants in raids across nine provinces. Local media say the militants, thought to be members of a group (the Islamic Jihad League) tied to al-Qaida, were planning attacks against U.S., Israeli and NATO targets in Turkey. They say the suspects may have had contact with al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and may have been trained in Afghanistan. Turkey's Hurriyet daily says police Thursday seized an unlicensed gun, documents, CDs and laptops during...

"Project Grey Goose and University at Albany SUNY to investigate major Power Grid blackouts caused by hackers" SNIPPET: "This is an open call for volunteers who wish to participate in a joint Project Grey Goose / University at Albany SUNY open source intelligence investigation into power grid blackouts caused by hacker attacks. The scope is global and includes the U.S. Interested parties should contact me from their work email address with an expression of interest, a brief bio, and your experience, if any, in SCADA systems in general or the power grid in particular. All respondents will be kept confidential....

I am so sorry to post a vanity, but I am desperate and you guys are so smart around here... I am working in "My Math Lab" on course compass. They use Quicktime Video for instruction (some of the course is online) and for some reason the Quicktime video is now just playing the audio. When you click on the video, the box opens as if it is starting the video,the Quicktime logo will pop up, the status bar goes to the center of the box and the screen remains black while you can still hear the audio. I have...

ISLAMABAD: SNIPPET: "Police found some objectionable literature, computers and some other stuff in the house and seized over 15 vehicles, including Sedan cars and sport utility vehicles. According to a senior police officer, the arrested people were booked under the Anti-Terrorism Act and produced in a court of law for further legal action. He said the activists were suspected of helping militants. He said the meeting was being held in a rented house and police were searching for the owner who would also face a legal action."

I need help!!!! After much back and forth with other browsers, I found that I needed to get back to IE7. So I installed it, but when I go to open it up, it appears for a split second and vanishes. So I have to revert to Firefox, which I am having other issues with. As usual, the Microsoft website was of little help (a few others had this problem, but the solutions were of no help). Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this problem? Thanks in advance.

My wife was working on a PowerPoint 2002 presentation on her Sony Vaio laptop, using Vista home. She saved the file, then kept working on it. Then, PowerPoint suddenly ended/crashed. When she restarted PowerPoint and attempted to reopon the file, she got the message that the file caused a serious error, and did she want to open it? She answered yes, and PowerPoint simply hung up while trying to open the file. Since that time, I have tried creating a new presentation and inserting slides from the other one, but that method didn't succeed. I also have tried simply double...

The FBI on Wednesday announced that it had charged 53 defendants, the largest number ever charged in a cybercrime case, following a multinational investigation into a phishing scheme that operated in the United States and Egypt. Thirty-three of the 53 defendants named in the indictment have been arrested, the FBI said, and several others are being sought. The investigation, dubbed "Operation Phish Phry," began in 2007. Authorities in Egypt have charged 47 defendants linked to the phishing operation. Phishing is a form of social engineering that attempts to convince Internet users, via e-mail or other means, to provide online credentials...

You paid for your antivirus software? Why? Good free options have been available for years, mainly from no-name companies. Nervous consumers figure they’re better off buying major brands, like Norton security software from Symantec Corp. Well, here’s a major brand for you: Microsoft Corp.

"...In other words, after you've blithely downloaded a plug-in that shares your computer's Internet connection and processing power with other, unknown computers, Octoshape might choose to alter just what it's doing, how it's doing it, or the extent to which it is using your computer, remotely updating the software on your machine to change it, and /they're not going to tell you/. Oh, they'll make a revision to the license agreement available on their website, sure – but when was the last time you actually read all of the details of any software agreement, much less reviewed revisions to the...

"EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour" The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour"." SNIPPET: "A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence"." SNIPPET: "Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police...

“MI5 hiring Asian teenagers to fight cyber terror” London, September 21, 2009 First Published: 00:09 IST(21/9/2009) Last Updated: 02:44 IST(21/9/2009) SNIPPET: “MI5 head Jonathan Evans has told his staff that the recruits were essential to combat cyber terrorism which has been traced to China, Russia and Pakistan — the hackers have also intercepted messages from terrorists in Belmarsh maximum security prison, the newspaper said. In a report to Lord West, the Security Minister, Evans has revealed that during the summer over 1,000 hits were made on computers in Whitehall. Other targets have been air traffic control, power stations and the...

BULLETIN -- NEW YORK POLICE AND FBI RAID HOMES IN QUEENS IN TERRORISM INVESTIGATION.6 minutes ago from BNO Headquarters

Note: See comments after the blog entry. Chinese researchers show how the PRC “owns” the U.S. Power Grid I had a head-slapping “What the F” moment when I read the New Scientist story “How to Short-Circuit the U.S. Power Grid“. Let’s start with the fact that the military strategy of the PRC ever since the U.S. speedily won the first Iraq war has been to find ways to mitigate our technological superiority by attacking its most vulnerable point - the network. That includes, as the Wall Street Journal so sensationally reminded us, the U.S. power grid. How fast do you...

I am trying to create recovery disks for a Sony Vaio. After getting to help and support windows, and clicking on a link for "recovery disks," I reach a window that explains what recovery disks are and what they do. The last line in this window says, "to create recovery disks, click next." However, this window has no link labeled "next" and no clickable button labeled "next." Furthermore, the window cannot be maximized (there is no maximize icon), or does it have horizontal or vertical scrolling. In other words, there's nothing to click. Has anyone run into this issue? How...

Device captures everything you type and sends it via your ethernet card to the Dept. of Homeland Security without your knowledge, consent or a search warrant - every time you log on to the internet! I was opening up my almost brand new laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard. -------------------------------------------------- This was sent to me, not confirmed.

Sorry to clog the board with a vanity but I have a problem. It is an extra older machine running Windows 2000 Professional. Our office had power problems and I did not have it on a power backup and it lost power.

Hope this is the right area to post this geek thing. I'm trying to locate a program to protect my laptop in case it's stolen. I have passwords on it but I would like to have a USB flash drive as a key/lock. If the flash drive is not installed then the laptop can't be booted or accessed in any way. The USB flash drive has to be inserted into the laptop before it's turned on and the laptop needs to access a program on it before it would boot. Any ideas?

A TSG investigation unmasks the leader of Pranknet and the miscreants behind a year-long wave of phone call criminality AUGUST 4--At 4:15 AM on a recent Tuesday, on a quiet, darkened street in Windsor, Ontario, a man was wrapping up another long day tormenting and terrorizing strangers on the telephone. Working from a sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment in a ramshackle building a block from the Detroit River, the man, nicknamed "Dex", heads a network of so-called pranksters who have spent more than a year engaged in an orgy of criminal activity--vandalism, threats, harassment, impersonation, hacking, and other assorted felonies and...

A Briton wanted in the United States for breaking into NASA and Pentagon networks in "the biggest military hack of all time" lost an appeal against his extradition Friday, making a U.S. trial more likely. Gary McKinnon, 43, has fought a three-year battle to avoid extradition, including going to the European Court of Human Rights, but he appeared to have run out of options as Britain's High Court ruled against his latest appeal Friday. The court rejected arguments by McKinnon's lawyers that extraditing McKinnon, who was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, would have disastrous consequences for...

New Version Reflects Lowered Price on Mac Notebook NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Following a complaint from Apple, Microsoft has quietly tweaked at least one of the ads in its "Laptop Hunters" campaign to reflect its rival's lower pricing on its Mac notebooks. In the new version of the ad, Lauren doesn't talk about how much the Mac costs, but she does say: 'It seems like you're paying a lot for the brand.' 'Greatest single phone call' Just last week Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner was ecstatic about a phone call from Apple lawyers, who demanded that Microsoft stop showing...

I came in nn it appears a harddrive was failing. Jumped in the car to take it to the computer guy. I should have a solid backup to restore plus I had a new 80 gig HD in a box.

Note: The following text is a quote: Federal Grand Jury Returns Indictment on Internet Bomb Threats Hammond, IN—The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Indiana announced that a three-count indictment was returned against Ashton Lundeby for his role in Internet bomb and related threats directed to Purdue University, Indiana University/Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Ind., and numerous other educational institutions throughout the country. Lundeby, 16, of Oxford, N.C., was arrested by the FBI at his home in Oxford on March 6, 2009. A federal search warrant was also executed at that time. Lundeby was arrested pursuant to a...

The doctrine of karma states that one's state in this life is a result of actions (both physical and mental) in past incarnations, and action in this life can determine one's destiny in future incarnations. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the Karmic Koala, the newest member of our alliterative menagerie. Mark Shuttleworth introduces Ubuntu 9.10-Karmic Koala! A good Koala knows how to see the wood for the trees, even when her head is in the clouds. Ubuntu aims to keep free software at the forefront of cloud computing by embracing the API’s of Amazon EC2, and making it...

"Cybersecurity Plan to Involve NSA, Telecoms DHS Officials Debating The Privacy Implications" SNIPPET: "The Obama administration will proceed with a Bush-era plan to use National Security Agency assistance in screening government computer traffic on private-sector networks, with AT&T as the likely test site, according to three current and former government officials. President Obama said in May that government efforts to protect computer systems from attack would not involve "monitoring private-sector networks or Internet traffic," and Department of Homeland Security officials say the new program will scrutinize only data going to or from government systems."

Officials accused Aleynikov of stealing codes that are used for sophisticated automated stock and commodities trading.

Microsoft on Monday warned of a vulnerability in its Video ActiveX Control that could allow an attacker to take control of a PC if the user visits a malicious Web site. There have been limited attacks exploiting the hole, which affects Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft said on its Security Response Center blog. This is the second DirectShow security hole Microsoft has announced in the past few months. The company has yet to provide a security update for a vulnerability announced in May that involves the way DirectX handles QuickTime files. Since there are no by-design uses for...

15 Must-Have Web Apps for Students June 28, 2009 in Tips and Tools Welcome! If this is your first time here, you may want to subscribe to get updates in your RSS feed reader. Thanks for visiting! This is a guest post from Karen Schweitzer. For more from Karen, check out her blog about Online College Courses, or follow her on Twitter. College students are increasingly reliant on computers – and, for many of us, that means spending tons of money software that we’d rather not use anyway. The reality, though, is that there are a ton of great, free...

This an unrestricted tout of an "incredible" printer. It's a Brother HL-2140 monochrome-only, but there are a few other brands like this. Monochrome only, laser printer, the cartridges are REALLY cheap, and they have significant life. The cart that comes with the printer is good for 1000 pages. The replacement ones are 1500 pages. Tired of having to refill or rebuy ink-jet printer cartridges, especially since 98% of my printing is just monochrome anyway. This little dude was SIXTY BUCKS at Fry's, including the cartridge. It's USB-only (no parallel input) That may have SOME impact on one's ability (in Windows)...

I've got two kids (12 and 10) and we are moving about 800 miles away from their friends. They want to be able to stay in touch so I am thinking about letting them have email addresses BUT with conditions. Is there a safe way to allow kids this age to surf the web and email? I just looked at my gmail spam box and I'm having second thoughts. What are your suggestions? Spam filters? Web filters? Is there a way to only allow access to specified incoming email and specified web sites? I'll take all the help I can...

A recent computer intrusion that forced the FBI to shut down its computer network and disrupted FBI operations was traced to an e-mail containing malicious code that originated in China, according to FBI officials. The forced shutdown of the network affected one significant FBI operation -- the May 20 arrest of homegrown terrorism suspects in New York, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. "The Chinese shut down our network," said one FBI official familiar with assessments of the attack.

The FTC pulled the plug on the Cutwail botnet by shutting down Internet Service Provider Pricewert LLC when the agency filed a complaint Thursday alleging that it actively and knowingly participated in the distribution of child pornography, spam and malware. Security experts say that the Cutwait botnet was one of the most notorious botnets, accounting for up to 35 percent of global spam levels in May, security experts said. The FTC issued a complaint accusing the San Jose-based Pricewert, also known as 3FN and APS Telecom, of actively recruiting and colluding with criminals that sought to distribute illegal and malicious...

Imagine a world in which all cars are like the Toyota Prius: four-door midsize hybrids. Sure, they aren’t bad cars, you can paint them any way you want and even modify some parts, but in the end you still just have a generic Toyota with a funky paint job.That’s the world of personal computing today. It doesn’t matter if you’re running Windows, Mac OS, or Linux. Your machine is almost certainly using Intel chips at its core and almost everything else is fairly generic—even the world’s greatest case mod with water-cooled dual-Xeons and quad-SLI graphics is just a really fast...

May 13th, 2009 China's 'secure' OS Kylin - a threat to U.S offensive cyber capabilities? Posted by Dancho Danchev @ 6:23 am Categories: Browsers, Complex Attacks, Governments, Hackers, Kernel-level Exploits... Tags: China, Operating System, Operating Systems, Linux, Software... Picture a cyber warfare arms race where the participating countries have spent years of building offensive cyber warfare capabilities by exploiting the monoculture on one another’s IT infrastructure. Suddenly, one of the countries starts migrating to a hardened operating system of its own, and by integrating it on systems managing the critical infrastructure it successfully undermines the offensive cyber warfare capabilities developed...

I discovered a great site that fit one of my desires perfectly.

Rochester, NY (OBBeC) - Researchers have reported new revelations on how the body responds to flu. According to the report, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have for the first time -- with the use of a computer simulation -- successfully tested a major portion of the body's immune reaction to influenza type A, with implications for treatment design and preparation ahead of future pandemics. The work has been accepted for publication, and posted online, by the Journal of Virology. The new "global" flu model is built out of preexisting, smaller-scale models that capture in mathematical equations millions...

Recently we were approached by a source who is closely connected to Apple’s hardware development team. The source was willing to provide detailed information on the specs and release date of the next generation iPhone. We have checked the source’s credentials to the best of our ability and at this point deem the source as reputable. Of course we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the source’s claims since Apple will neither confirm nor deny any future product releases, including if a new phone will even be released! Many of the specifics proposed by our source have been discussed in recent...

"Jihad Recollections - Issue # 2 In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Ever Merciful Al-Fursan Media Productions Presents Jihad Recollections / Issue no. 2 SNIPPET: "[ Obamaturk: The Secular Phenomenon ]" SNIPPET: "Your brothers in Al-Fursan Media Productions May 2009 / Jumada al-Awwal 1430H" SNIPPET: "73 Pages DATE ADDED 05/16/2009" DOCUMENT DETAILS - QUOTE: http://www.scribd.com/docinfo/15508071?access_key=key-p4jtwgkqbgc51b1xpos SNIPPET: "Document Details for Jihad Recollections - Issue # 2 Metadata Title Jihad Recollections - Issue # 2 Description In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Ever Merciful Al-Fursan Media Productions Presents Jihad Recollections / Issue no. 2 [ Obamaturk:...

SNIPPET: "NEW YORK — A jury convicted a Lebanese-born Swede on Tuesday of plotting to help Al Qaeda recruit by trying to set up a weapons-training post in Oregon and distributing terrorist training manuals over the Internet. The verdict against Oussama Kassir..."

Twelve million computers have been brought into botnets since January, according to a new report — and 18% of all zombie machines are in the US. A new report from security company McAfee says that since January an estimated 12 million computers have been infected with malware and turned into zombies, making them part of botnets, and that these zombie numbers have increased by 50% since last year. At 18%, the US hosts the largest number of infected machines, followed by China with 13%. Jeff Green, senior vice-president of McAfee, said: “The massive expansion of these botnets provides cyber-criminals with...