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Tuesday, December 01, 2009 12:19 PM by MSRCTEAM Reports of Issues with November Security Updates We’ve received questions about public reports that customers might be experiencing system issues with the November Security Updates (which some are referring to “Black Screen” issues). We’ve investigated these reports and found that our November Security Updates are not making changes to the system that these reports say are responsible for these issues. While these reports weren’t brought to us directly, from our research into them, it appears they’re saying that our security updates are making permission changes in the registry to the value for...

I think the saying goes that those that don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it. This is likely to point with Apple this month as they sit stunned that Windows 7 is doing so well and they are left looking foolish with products priced out of the segment. Their big news this week was a couple of PCs, a new keyboard and a multi-touch mouse. This last will likely go down in history as one of the lamest devices yet as they should know, given the iPhone, that touch is connected to the screen and not anything else....

Myth 1: Macs Are Safer Than PCsThanks to aggressive marketing from Apple, Mac users often think they are impervious to the viruses, Trojans and numerous other assaults that have plagued Windows users for decades. Security experts say that if Mac users are less susceptible to attack, it's simply due to the fact that there are fewer viruses written for Macs than for Windows. That is rapidly changing, however, as Macs gain market share. Meanwhile, users who have the unfortunate experience of being attacked by information-stealing Trojans will likely have their systems compromised and their data stolen ... just like every...

I think we can finally put a certain myth to rest that's been circling around the web for a while now. Microsoft often claimed that netbooks running Linux saw higher return rates than those running Windows, but according to Dell, this is utter nonsense. Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager, spoke at OpenSource World, and in his talk he made it quite clear that Dell's Ubuntu netbooks see no higher return rates than the Windows variants, calling it a 'non-issue'. "They are making something of nothing," he said of Microsoft's claims.

Two new pieces of malware for Apple computers have been found in the wild according to security firm Sophos. The first, Tored-Fam, is a worm that spreads via email attachments and is simply a variant on the well known Tored family of malware that has been in circulation since last year. [NEW? Not by a long shot!—Swordmaler] The worm collects email addresses and attempts to forward itself on. Analysis if the worm’s source code by Sophos suggests it is being used to build a Mac botnet dubbed Raedbot. This is being assembled by a malware writer dubbed Ag_Raed, who is...

Prophets of Doom has been around probably since the beginning of man’s existence on earth. Whether one believe man was created by God from the dust of the earth, or he evolved from a sea creature, a monkey, or matter from a collision of the planets commonly known as the big bang. Whatever your preference for the origin of man it is no secret that from the time he began walking on planet earth he began predicting its end. It’s now estimated that more than 50% of the world population give doomsday prophets some credibility regarding “End Time Events” thereby...

Symantec says a new worm targeting Mac OS X spreads via email and network shares. But is it really a threat?According to Symantec, the Tored worm spreads through network shares and by emailing itself to addresses gathered from the infected computer's Address Book. It opens a back door to the computer, allowing it to be conscripted into distributed denial of service attacks as well as logging keystrokes (which could be used to steal passwords and other confidential information). There is no indication that Tored can execute without user intervention. For example, Symantec does not seem to suggest that there are...

If you want to push through the Democrat Party’s social agenda during a time of economic crisis, you attach it to a so-called “stimulus” package, and voila, you have what conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer calls an “abomination.” David Patten reporting in Newsmax.com on February 14th states that the “gargantuan” bill will actually cost closer to $3.27 trillion, including interest and increased spending many expanded Democrat programs (read pork) will create in the next decade. Here’s some of the pork: Three billion dollars in “neighborhood stabilization;” One point three billion dollars to bail out AMTRAK; that’s throwing bad money after bad:...

Since the 1960s Western Society has been in the grip of a remarkable and very dangerous psychological phenomenon. Again and again we have seen the rise of some great fear, centered on a mysterious new threat to human health and well-being. As a result, we are told, large numbers of people will suffer or die. Salmonella in eggs; listeria in cheese; BSE in beef; dioxins in poultry; the Millennium Bug; DDT; nitrate in water; vitamin B6; Satanic child abuse; asbestos; SARS; Asian bird flu—the list is seemingly endless. Indeed, we are currently in the grip of the greatest of such...

Back in 2002, as Roy Schestowitz calls out, Microsoft was desperately trying to figure out a response to Linux. The problem wasn't Linux as a product-level competitor. The problem, as its Windows chief, Jim Allchin, told a small gathering of Microsoft partners (PDF), is that Linux changes the nature of software competition with odd things like "community" and "GPL licensing," the latter of which Microsoft didn't like one bit : We feel a huge threat from Linux. Maybe we shouldn't, which is a question you could answer from your perspective...There's Linux the community. We're going to learn from Linux the...

Scientists discussed the merits and demerits of pumping sulfur into the Earth’s atmosphere as a temporary “fix” to global warming at a forum hosted in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 21 by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The idea is to artificially re-create the effects of volcanic eruptions to temporarily cool the planet. In 2006, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and National Center for Atmospheric Research Senior Scientist Tom Wigley suggested that “geo-engineering” might be used as a quick, but temporary, remedy for global warming. This idea was one of the issues discussed at the AMS forum. “In particular, Crutzen and...

Apple has taken the place of Microsoft for disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor, according to an IBM security report. The company rose from second place in 2007 to take the top spot away from Microsoft, which had fallen into third place behind open source content management system Joomla.

Apple made some progress on the iPhone security/management front, but it has a looooooong way to go before truly satisfying enterprise concerns - or becoming a suitable alternative to BlackBerry or Windows Mobile, for that matter.After months of speculation, Apple unveiled its next-generation smartphone, the iPhone 3G and solidified its push into the enterprise mobile space with a spattering of business-specific announcements. But how well did these enhancements to the uber-popular device and its software measure up to enterprise users' expectations? Last week, in anticipation of the iPhone 3G's arrival in stores —which, by the way, won't be for another...

Carbon Cult sickos are under fire for an interactive website that tells children they should die because they emit CO2. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Planet Slayer" site invites young children to take a "greenhouse gas quiz", asking them "how big a pig are you?". At the end of the quiz, the pig explodes, and ABC tells children at "what age you should die at so you don’t use more than your fair share of Earth’s resources!" It's one of a number of interactive features that "Get the dirt on greenhouse without the guilt trips. No lectures. No multinational-bashing (well, maybe...

Cornflakes in cereal killer warning By Rosemary Desmond May 13, 2008 03:28pm Article from: AAP CLIMATE change could lead to "killer cornflakes" with the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told. The effects of the toxins, known as mycotoxins, have been known since the Middle Ages when rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus was a staple part of the European diet, environmental health researcher Lisa Bricknell of Central Queensland University (CQU) said. "People started suffering mass hallucinations, manic depression, gangrene, abortions, reduced fertility and painful, convulsive death," Ms Bricknell told the 10th World Congress...

Some people are still under the delusion that Linux is written by unwashed hackers living in their parents' basements whose only social life is playing D&D and having flame wars over IRC (Internet Relay Chat) about whether vi or EMACS better and debating Picard versus Kirk. Nothing, nothing could be further from the truth. The LF (Linux Foundation) has just released a new report, "Linux Kernel Development: How Fast It is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It." This comprehensive study of the last three years of Linux kernel development, from version 2.6.11...

"A security consultant based in New Zealand has released a tool that can unlock Windows computers in seconds without the need for a password," Asher Moses reports for The Sydney Morning Herald. "Adam Boileau first demonstrated the hack, which affects Windows XP computers but has not yet been tested with Windows Vista, at a security conference in Sydney in 2006, but Microsoft has yet to develop a fix," Moses reports. ... Moses continues, "Interviewed in ITRadio's Risky Business podcast, Boileau said the tool, released to the public today, could 'unlock locked Windows machines or login without a password ... merely...

Update title to: Microsoft hoses user data - again! For most users the Office SP3 means that they won’t be able to recover their old documents. They won’t know to install Open Office, access Microsoft support or edit the registry. But bowing to complaints that the data is not literally “destroyed” I’m updating the title here. But anyone who doesn’t think that most users will be baffled and hurt by this doesn’t know many average users. End update. Will Microsofties ever learn? Without warning the Microsoft Office SP3 update blocks over a dozen common document formats, including many Word, Powerpoint...

NASHUA, N.H. -- Former president Bill Clinton yesterday delivered in stark terms a version of his wife's central campaign message: that her experience in Washington better prepares her to "deal with the unexpected." Addressing more than 100 supporters at a VFW hall here Saturday, Clinton used the strongest language he has so far in the campaign to describe the threats facing the nation, making an oblique reference to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and saying that the "most important thing of all" in selecting a nominee is the question of who could best manage unforeseen catastrophes. "You have to...

A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the earth's damaged climate system, says the scientist behind the Gaia hypothesis. Professor James Lovelock, whose hypothesis says earth is a kind of superorganism composed of living and non-living elements, has fuelled controversy for three decades. He thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried to fix our climate, even if they ultimately fail. In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 metres long and 10 metres wide be placed...

It was a long time in coming. But Microsoft has finally acknowledged that its anti-Linux site had gone past the point of usefulness.On August 23, Microsoft pulled plug on the “Get the Facts” site, replacing it with a new Windows Server “Compare” site.The goal of the site is to offer more in-depth information and customer-to-customer opinions about many of the issues IT administrators face,” a company spokeswoman said. “It turns out people wanted 3rd party validation in addition to people’s experiences making OS purchasing decisions so in addition to customer case studies, research reports that compare platforms the site will...

Anti-depleted uranium activists have enlisted the assistance of all of Hawaii’s leftist alternative weeklies in a campaign against depleted uranium. The Hawaii Island Journal June 30 caries a front page cartoon skeleton in an aloha shirt and the headline “Radioactive us -- danger depleted uranium.” Articles on the alleged risks of depleted uranium appeared in quick succession in Honolulu Weekly, June 13, Maui Time, June 21, and Big Island Weekly, June 27 as well as the Journal. Big Island Weekly points out that the latest anti-DU hype is based on observations in South Kona by an activist armed with a...

He disappointed conservatives during his eight years in the Senate. Is there any reason to think this Washington insider and veteran trial lawyer would be any better as President? The frustration of conservatives is understandable. Faced with the prospects of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, or Mitt Romney as the next Republican presidential candidate, many are pinning their hopes on former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Could this actor-politician be the new Ronald Reagan? Mainstream media types assure us that he is. His record suggests otherwise. This is the second time conservatives have pinned their hopes on Thompson. When he was...

The first Apple iPhones hit US shops tomorrow and their arrival has thrown the spotlight on the fanatical and burgeoning movement known as the iCult. Already iPilgrims are queuing outside the Apple temple in Manhattan's 5th Avenue to be the first to own the holy handset. The iPhone is the latest "cool tool" from the mind of Steve Jobs. The self-styled techno-prophet appears to believers in a black polo neck at mass religious gatherings known as MacWorld, with revelations of ways they can part with their money. At first, the iCultists were seen as a harmless tech-heads who droned on...

The iPhone as a media event is a wonderful thing but to an IT manager it is Satan Spawned. This is because it is one of those devices and a large number of employees are likely to buy and bring to the enterprise begging, or in the case of executives, demanding support. But we don’t really take phones as seriously as we should and anything that currently showing the popularity this phone is showing should be taken seriously. If the rumored licensing announcement between Microsoft and Apple on ActiveSync is true (and some argue it is not) this would make...

Column: As IPhone Hype Reaches a Crescendo, a Memento Mori for Apple NEW YORK (AP) -- When a Roman general returned from a successful campaign and was rewarded with a triumphal parade through the city, a slave stood behind him on his chariot to whisper the words "Memento mori" in his ear. The Latin phrase means "remember that you are mortal," and was intended to keep the general's pride manageable. With the launch of the tremendously hyped iPhone soon upon us, it may be worth reminding Apple Inc. and the buying public that not every product the company has put...

Oil supplies from non-Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries producers will increase by as much as 4 million barrels a day and peak in 2015 before dropping from then until 2030, OPEC said Tuesday. Conventional non-OPEC crude production is expected to rise to at 50.5 million barrels a day in 2015 and will fall by nearly 2 million barrels a day to 48.6 million barrels a day over the following 15 years, according to a presentation held by OPEC's research director, Hasan Qabazard, in Riyadh. Non-OPEC production stood at 46.8 million barrels a day in 2005, the presentation, entitled "Global Oil...

According to an e-mail message, dated November 1, 2002, that has been entered as evidence in the Iowa consumer antitrust case against Microsoft, some Microsoft executives favored hiding the fact that Microsoft paid International Data Corp. (IDC) for one of the total-cost-of-ownership studies comparing Windows and Linux that the firm conducted at Microsoft's request. (It looks like fear of being outed triumphed, and Microsoft ultimately decided to admit its role in commissioning the IDC TCO and subsequent anti-Linux studies.)

Despite Apple's launch of the eco-friendly iPhone last week, Greenpeace is demanding an environmental revolution that will shake the company to its core. In his keynote address at MacWorld, Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs said the iPhone would be recyclable and partially solar powered, but the environmental lobby demonstrated near the site of Apple's expo in San Francisco. Greenpeace activists projected giant images of the contaminated Asian scrapyards where the group claims many electronic products, including those made by Apple, end up. The activists projected images onto a wall above an Apple retail outlet of electronics being melted down, taken...

TORONTO - A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 497 miles south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north. Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake. Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island...

One of those errors, a serious one, is in the software code underlying the company's new Internet Explorer 7 browser...That would make it possible for an attacker to inject rogue software into the Vista-based computer...vulnerability described by the Russian Web site...permits the privileges of a standard user account in Vista and other versions of Windows to be increased, permitting control of all of the operations of the computer.

VISTA'S CONTENT PROTECTION specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history, claims a new and detailed report from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. "Peter Gutmann's report describes the pernicious DRM built into Vista and required by MS for approval of hardware and drivers," said INQ reader Brad Steffler, MD, who brought the report to our attention. "As a physician who uses PCs for image review before I perform surgery, this situation is intolerable. It is also intolerable for me as a medical school professor as I will have to switch to a MAC or a...

There is the story about a motorist evacuating New Orleans at the onset of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The motorist ran out of fuel on a crowded expressway. When later asked why he did not turn off the motor to conserve fuel, he replied, "Why would I do that? I needed the air conditioning." The story illustrates a fundamental obstacle in our country's critical need to conserve energy and use it wisely. "Even when you are running for your life, with no fuel supply in sight, people do not make the connection with the fact that their fuel tank contains...

A security researcher has published attack code for an unpatched flaw in Mac OS X.The proof-of-concept code exploits a security hole in the way Apple's operating system handles disk image files, the researcher wrote on a blog devoted to a 'Month of Kernel Bugs' campaign which promises to reveal details of a new flaw in low-level software every day this month.The researcher, who goes by the initials 'LMH', wrote: "Mac OS X com.apple.AppleDiskImageController fails to properly handle corrupted DMG (disk image) image structures, leading to an exploitable memory corruption condition with potential kernel-mode arbitrary code execution by unprivileged users." The...

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration Tuesday for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the country's environment, economy and public health. The lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. The plaintiffs claim the government must complete such a report every four years under the Global Change Research Act of 1990. "Global warming is one of the most serious threats facing humanity today," according to the complaint. Without the report, decision makers and...

Climate chaos? Don't believe it By Christopher Monckton, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:14am GMT 05/11/2006 Download Christopher Monckton's references and detailed calculations [pdf] The Stern report last week predicted dire economic and social effects of unchecked global warming. In what many will see as a highly controversial polemic, Christopher Monckton disputes the 'facts' of this impending apocalypse and accuses the UN and its scientists of distorting the truth Biblical droughts, floods, plagues and extinctions? Last week, Gordon Brown and his chief economist both said global warming was the worst "market failure" ever. That loaded soundbite suggests that the "climate-change" scare...

Software radical Richard Stallman helped build the Linux revolution. Now he threatens to tear it apart. The free Linux operating system set off one of the biggest revolutions in the history of computing when it leapt from the fingertips of a Finnish college kid named Linus Torvalds 15 years ago. Linux now drives $15 billion in annual sales of hardware, software and services, and this wondrous bit of code has been tweaked by thousands of independent programmers to run the world's most powerful supercomputers, the latest cell phones and TiVo video recorders and other gadgets. But while Torvalds has been...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Apple computers have long been prized for being relatively virus-free. But as more people use Apple products, experts say the company is increasingly becoming a target for cyber pranksters and criminals writing viruses and other forms of malware. The threat was highlighted earlier this week after a handful of the company's iPods were shipped with the RavMonE.exe virus, which targeted iPods used with Microsoft Windows-based computers. According to Apple, the virus affected less than 1 percent of the video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006. The problem is thought to have originated in the...

Consultant rebuts Mac lovers, describing how his G5 soured his home office Last month, in Law Technology News' Tech Counsel column, California attorney Ed Siebel sang the praises of running his law office with Apple Inc. computers and peripherals. Today, I'm singing a different tune. In fact, right now, I'm completing an online ad to sell my Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz computer. I was suckered in by the hype about freedom from viruses, simplicity of computing and versatility. Instead, I bought a boat anchor that can't view Web sites properly, is not compatible with Microsoft Word and can run...

As part of its current ad campaign, Apple suggests that Macs aren't vulnerable to the same Internet security problems PCs are. But according to a new study by security vendor Symantec, the number of vulnerabilities identified in Apple's Safari browser in the first half of 2006 doubled over the prior six months—and it increased its window of exposure to Net-based exploits from zero days to five. Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser still has a longer window of exposure—the time between when code exploiting a vulnerability appears and when a fix is available—and a greater total number of security holes. But Apple...

Schwarzenegger Squashes Religious Freedom Thomasson: “Arnold Schwarzenegger has two faces. He speaks at churches and says he believes in religious freedom and family values, yet he’s stabbing pro-family Californians in the back.” Sacramento, California – Campaign for Children and Families is shocked and dismayed that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed SB 1441 (Kuehl). Today’s disastrous action by Schwarzenegger means Christian and other faith-based colleges in California will be forced to promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality if they accept students with Cal Grants. “People of conscience are appalled that Arnold Schwarzenegger has trampled religious freedom to satisfy hyperactive sexual activists,”...

Microsoft, on Tuesday, issued yet another bumper crop of security updates to fix over 20 flaws in its software, its biggest update since it began the regular bulletins. The 12 updates fix a staggering 23 flaws in Windows software, with 15 of them rated as critical, Microsoft's most severe rating. One of the 15 critical vulnerabilities has been tagged as a possible worm candidate; anonymous users can exploit the Service Server vulnerability remotely, regardless of the operating system. Three of the flaws were discovered in Office products, including Powerpoint, while 20 were present in the Windows system. Mac users also...

THE huge rise of autism in Britain is linked to old iPod batteries, mobile phones and other products of the electronic age, a leading scientist claimed this weekend. Autistic children have been shown to have problems getting rid of toxic metals - and those metals are increasingly polluting the environment, says Dr Richard Lathe. "Think of iPod batteries, computers, television sets and mobile phones - thousands of them tossed aside without any thought to their proper disposal, " says the molecular biologist, who specialises in research into autism and other brain disorders. "If they are buried in landfill, the mercury...

Attack code that exploits a flaw in Apple Computer's Mac OS X was publicly released Wednesday, increasing the urgency to patch. The code's arrival comes just a day after Apple made an update available for its operating system. The malicious program takes advantage of a locally exploitable vulnerability in an operating system component called "launchd". "Attackers may exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges," Symantec said in a security alert to customers that was updated on Thursday. On Tuesday, Apple delivered Mac OS X 10.4.7. The operating system update repairs a total of five flaws. Four of...

Normally, we expect new Linux desktop users to come from the ranks of disgruntled Windows users. After all, they're the ones who have to deal with high-prices and endless security problems. Now, it seems that some Mac gurus are also making the switch to Linux.

Linux isn't a threat to Windows on the desktop and is losing steam on the server as customers separate the operating system from the development model, according to Microsoft's chief platform strategist. Bill Hilf, general manager of competitive strategy at Microsoft, said pundits have predicted for years that Linux will gain momentum on the desktop, but that won't happen because of the complexity involved in delivering a tightly integrated and tested desktop product.

Here's what one reader wrote: "Williams, I can understand how the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and Middle East political uncertainty can jack up gasoline prices. But it's price-gouging for the oil companies to raise the price of all the gasoline already bought and stored before the crisis." Several other readers made similar allegations. Such allegations reflect a misunderstanding of how prices are determined. Let's start off with an example. Say you owned a small 10-pound inventory of coffee that you purchased for $3 a pound. Each week you'd sell me a pound for $3.25. Suppose a freeze in Brazil destroyed...

2006 seems to be the year of Mac FUD. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Why? News headlines proclaim viruses on Mac OS X, new vulnerabilities, and potential exploits. Is there truth to the news? Are viruses a problem on the Mac? Mac360 reader and former Windows user Michael Kenney of New York sheds some light on a dark problem in a two part series: Macs And Viruses: Fact vs. FUD Apple Computer’s Intel-based Macs have been the darlings of the news media recently. Apple announced last year they would switch their entire line of mobile and desktop computers to Intel processors...

Chip-level attacks target a vulnerability in the processor rather than the software Researchers have claimed that "chip-level threats" pose a potential problem for Intel-powered Mac systems. A chip-level attack targets a feature or vulnerability in the processor rather than attacking software as is the case with nearly all today's security threats. Examples of chip-level attacks are rare. The last known serious outbreak dates back to 1998, when the CIH/Chernobyl virus embedded itself into the flash-BIOS of infected systems. Security vendor McAfee said in a recent white paper about security challenges for Apple systems that chip-level threats are a potential problem...

"The recent move by Apple Computer to begin shipping Macintosh computers that use microprocessors from Intel could open the door to more attacks against computers running the company's OS X operating system, security experts warn," Paul F. Roberts reports for eWeek. "The shift to Intel processors from the Motorola Power PC processors will make it easier to create software exploits for Macintosh systems, and could result in a steady stream of Mac exploits in years to come." "The change could put more pressure on Apple to build security features into OS X, according to interviews conducted by eWEEK," Roberts reports....