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I hadn’t heard anything via the news today, but the DIS (Department of Information Services) the department responsible for upkeep of the state’s computer systems (Government, Schools, etc.) instructed all schools statewide that all computers, including workstations, servers, etc. MUST be shut down at the end of the school day today (Friday 4/16/2004). This is to apply to ALL computers tied in with the state network. The reason? An unmanageable number of viruses and an attack by hackers (probably allowed in via the email worms infecting the system). The network is suppose to be completely down through 8:00 AM Monday...

<p>Intego today said it released an updated virus definitions for Intego VirusBarrier to protect Mac users against the first Trojan horse that affects Mac OS X. This Trojan horse, MP3Concept (MP3Virus.Gen), exploits a weakness in Mac OS X where applications can appear to be other types of files: "The Trojan horse's code is encapsulated in the ID3 tag of an MP3 (digital music) file. This code is in reality a hidden application that can run on any Macintosh computer running Mac OS X. Intego says the malicious application can delete files, propogate itself by sending a message to other users, and also infect other MP3, JPEG, GIF or QuickTime files.</p>

We've posted similar rumors in the past, but more recently we've begun to gain a clearer picture of what may really be going on behind the considerable delays of PowerPC 970FX-based Macs. Large-scale purchases of Xserve G5s by high profile educational and scientific customers like Virginia Tech are well known to be playing a part in the shipping delays affecting Xserve G5s - particularly the dual-processor model. According to new reports out of Cupertino, Austin, Apple's contractors in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, demand for those publicly acknowledged purchases is definitely strong, stronger than Apple's already optimistic projections. But Apple...

Apple's Mac OS X has been declared one of the world's safest operating systems by London-based security experts, mi2g. The security firm's Intelligence Unit has run a comparitive study of the variety of operating systems available today. It states: "The world's safest and most secure online server Operating System (OS) is proving to be the Open Source family of BSD (Berkley Software Distribution) and Mac OS X based on Darwin." It's also claimed that Linux has become the most breached online server OS in the government and non-government spheres for the first time, while the number of successful hacker...

<p>The SCO Group has announced it plans to take legal action to block Novell Inc.'s proposed purchase of SUSE Linux AG. The company claims that it has inherited a non-compete agreement, which was part of a broader agreement signed between Novell and one of SCO's ancestors, The Santa Cruz Operation Inc., when Novell sold Unix's intellectual property rights.</p>

Found an admirable tome but it's in praise of the wrong god? Faith Converter is a godsend for priests, vicars, rabbii and holy men of all descriptions. Preach next Sunday's sermon from the Vedas, Noble Eightfold Path, Torah or Das Kapital! The premier theological plagiarism solution for OS X, Faith Converter converts text between ten different religions, encompassing Atheism, Buddhism, Christianity, Communism, Hinduism, Islam, Juche, Judaism, Linux and Scientology. Converted text can be copied, saved or printed. Sample Conversions: "Attend church at Christmas or else God will send you to Hell, with Satan, for not reading your Bible." becomes: "Attend...

Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday announced the release of Mac OS X Panther and Panther Server, the latest major updates to its Unix-based operating system. The releases come just four months after Steve Jobs demoed the new operating system during his keynote address at the companies Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Both versions will be available on Friday, October 24, beginning at 8:00 p.m. "We made a big bet a while back to go to a whole new architecture and we are reaping the benefits of that right now," Brian Croll, Apple's senior director software, told MacCentral. "We...

After using my Dell Dimension Desktop with Windows XP at college for a while, I am throwing in the towel. I'm sick of using a pathetic "bite-off" operating system that's been stuck on the same version since 1995, built on a horribly unreliable platform that's only recently had any sort of improvement, exhibits unstable behavior for no apparent reason sometimes, and just doesn't cut it with video capture and editing. Whenever I get a new computer with a new version of Windows, my enjoyment of computing goes up--for precisely three weeks. Then I'm right back where I started. (You can...

An insight into the success of Apple's online music service has been provided by leaked details from a meeting with representatives from the independent record industry. According to notes published on the web, Apple has sold 3.5 million songs since it launched its iTunes music store at the end of April The computer manufacturer is selling about 500,000 songs a week and about half of those are sold as albums, allaying fears that people would choose individual tracks instead of a whole record. The notes from the 5 June presentation behind closed doors by Apple boss Steve Jobs were...

<p>Now that Apple Computer Inc. has let the cat halfway out of the bag about the next major revision to Mac OS X, sources report that the "Panther" release will reach end users in mid-September.</p> <p>According to sources familiar with the forthcoming revisions to the Unix-based OS, Apple will freeze development on new features in May and finalize enhancements to the user interface in July.</p>

Jaguar launch events pack retail stores Apple Computer Inc. on Friday officially launched Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar at its 35 retail locations across the United States. So far, the events have seen hundreds of people waiting in line to get their hands on the new operating system and to get a glimpse of the demos Apple staff are putting on the theaters. "This is the greatest night in Apple's software history," Ken Bereskin, Apple's director of Mac OS product marketing told MacCentral from Apple's Palo Alto Store tonight. "Our customers are very excited, this whole night is great."...

Security researchers have warned of a flaw in communications software that could allow attackers to take over computers running Windows, Unix-based operating systems and Mac OS X, as well as Kerberos authentication systems. The problem is widespread because it affects some implementations of XDR (external data representation) libraries, used by many applications as a way of sending data from one system process to another, regardless of the system's architecture. The affected libraries are derived from Sun Microsystems' SunRPC remote procedure call technology, which has been taken up by many vendors. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a security network...

Apple has been using an automated system to update users' computers on Mac OS X since the software was first released over a year ago. According to the Bug Traq Security list, Mac OS X's implementation of the Software Update is vulnerable to attack. According to the list, HTTP is used with no authentication when running the Software Update application. "Using well known techniques, such as DNS Spoofing, or DNS Cache Poisoning it is trivial to trick a user into installing a malicious program posing as an update from Apple," according to the site. Apparently an exploit for this...