Archive for May, 2007

WOW Mods for Worldofwarcraft.com

Lots of searches hitting the site for wow mods, add ons and world of warcraft mods, so I have uploaded some more videos here, World of Warcraft Mods and Add Ons, and have added links to videos demonstrating some of the mods below, be sure to checkout the whole playlist as there are 84 total at the moment.

Microsoft Security Update and Google Security Site

Couple of interesting security related stories I wanted to touch on. Google has been picking up the pace recently in being proactive about removing and blocking malicious websites from their search engine, recently they posted a study by them and Provos that said over 450,000 web pages are launching drive-by downloads of malware and another 700,000 web pages that launch downloads of suspicious software. Lots of news articles followed saying that Google said 1 in 10 websites are potentially malicious, lots of them, I thought they were misreading it, but I wasn’t for sure until today when Google launched a security blog saying it was being misreported.

Unfortunately, the scope of the problem has recently been somewhat misreported to suggest that one in 10 websites are potentially malicious. To clarify, a sample-based analysis puts the fraction of malicious pages at roughly 0.1%. The analysis described in our paper covers billions of URLs. Using targeted feature extraction and classification, we select a subset of URLs believed to be suspicious for in-depth investigation. So far, we have investigated about 12 million suspicious URLs and found about 1 million that engage in drive-by downloads. In most cases, the web sites that infect your system with malware are not intentionally doing so and are often unaware that their web servers have been compromised. Source: Introducing Google’s online security efforts

Here is a map of the globe highlighting the worst countries for drive-by downloads, of course most of the sites are in China, Russia, the US and Germany, they are highlighted in red. Orange means medium activity, yellow means low activity and green means no activity.

Should be an interesting read, hope they really keep us up to date, and don’t just use it to react to stuff. Microsoft has released Microsoft Security Advisory (937696), Release of Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment (MOICE) and File Block Functionality for Microsoft Office. Both features are designed to make it easier for customers to protect themselves from Office files that may contain malicious software, such as unsolicited Office files received from unknown or known sources. MOICE makes it easier by providing new security mitigation technologies designed to convert specific Microsoft Office files types, while File Block provides a mechanism that can control and block the opening of specific Microsoft Office file types. The Zero day blog says,

The tool, called MOICE (Microsoft Office Isolated Conversion Environment), can be used in tandem with Group Policy settings to convert documents in legacy (.doc) formats to OpenXML formats, stripping out potentially harmful elements that could pose a potential security risk.

The conversion process takes place in a safe, quarantined sandbox environment, so the user?s computer is fully protected. (See previous blog entry on the MOICE plans). Source: Microsoft releases Office exploit isolation tool

And in a related post, Zero Day describes the latest Monthly Intelligence Report from Messagelabs and says there is a surge in targeted malware against a known Word vulnerability and is suggesting an exploit generator kit may be circulating online.

These attacks increased dramatically since March 2007 from four attacks going to four single recipients to 66 attacks going to 273 recipients in April.

?On first sight, it appears that more than one hacker ring is using this Microsoft Word exploit, and so an exploit generator kit might exist, although this has not yet been found,? said Alex Shipp, senior anti-virus technologist at MessageLabs.

The report said a Taiwanese crime ring called ?Task Briefing? continued its use of Microsoft Office exploits during April, launching spear-phishing attacks with PowerPoint documents embedded in e-mails.

The ring made six attacks this month, sending 61 emails accounting for 10 percent of all targeted e-mails in April, the longest of which lasted 45 hours. In March, the same gang sent 151 emails accounting for more than 20 percent of targeted attacks.

During April 2007, MessageLabs said it intercepted 595 e-mails in 249 separate targeted attacks aimed at 192 different organizations. Of these, 180 were one-on-one targeted attacks aimed at a specific organization. Source: MS Word exploit generator circulating?

The security landscape sure is changing, and if you think you aren’t vulnerable as a person or an agency, your are severely mistaken. The report is available here.

Todays Tech 5/21/2007

Some of the interesting technology stories making the rounds today.

Google News: The End of News Indexing As We Know It? Has Google started paying newspaper sites to include their stories? Surely not, but it is making the rounds, Google denies it here, Google Denies New UK News Search Deal saying, “It is categorically no,” said spokesperson Jessica Powell. “We don’t pay to index news content.” Talk about being a big mistake if they did….

Google Coop Embeds Gadgets in Search Results If you have been playing with a Google Coop search engine, I have here, Technology Search Engine, Google is embedding some widgets on certain types of searches.

Ubuntu 7.04 Offering?Technical Details Here is an overview of what to expect from the Dell Ubuntu computer offerings that are coming up.

BenQ Sells Digital Camera Division BenQ Corp. has agreed to sell its digital camera division as part of a broad restructuring aimed at returning to financial health after a disastrous attempt to compete in the global handset business.

Who Will Buy Facebook? Duncan Riley wonders who will buy Facebook and thinks that Google is the logical choice. Meanwhile, Facebook Opens Its Pages
As a Way to Fuel Growth They are allowing other companies to provide services in the Facebook network and will be able to link to friends and networks. Previously some companies have had pages within Facebook, but they didn’t interact with the Web site’s user networks. This move is significant because it could turn Facebook into a central hub for Web users, akin to an Internet portal like Yahoo Inc. Rather than using Facebook only to keep in touch with friends and going elsewhere for other content, users could now gain access to that content inside Facebook. That could keep people on Facebook for longer periods of time, which would also appeal to advertisers. Makes sense.

Panasonic gooses megapixels, zoom Panasonic announced a new Lumix camera Monday that squeezes a wide-angle lens, a 12.2-megapixel sensor and a novel way of extending zoom lens range into a compact camera.

Windows Vista News and Info

Here are three great articles from TechRepublic about features in Windows Vista.

What’s new in Vista Group Policy? Windows Vista offers 800 new Group Policy settings, some are added features and others that enhance control over features carried over from Windows XP. Here is a detailed look at some of Vista’s more interesting Group Policy additions: access to removable media, power management, and User Account Control policies.

Restoring files with Vista’s Restore Files wizard All versions of Windows Vista come with the Back Up Files wizard that is designed to make it easy for you to back up all of your data. The Restore Files wizard is also designed to make it very easy for you to restore files from your backups. This article will show you how to use the Restore Files wizard by walking you through a restore operation.

Get more out of the Favorite Links feature Windows Vista is packed with new features designed to make everyday file management tasks easy, in this edition of the Windows Vista Report, they take a look at the Favorite Links file management feature in detail and show you how get more out of this handy feature.

StarCraft II is Coming

Blizzard announced that Starcraft II is coming, finally, at the Blizzard World Wide Invitational event in Korea, they have not announced an official date, but say that what they have is already playable in multiplayer, they know it’s really late now, even on their website they say it’s about time!

StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game. Source: StarCraft2.com via Realtechnews.com

Here is a video from Youtube showing the cinematic version of the trailer, I believe this was taped at the event in Korea, as you can hear the crowd cheering in the background, but, if you want a better picture, skip this one and watch the high resolution version on Starcraft2.com instead.

Computer News for 5/20/2007

Symantec false positive cripples thousands of Chinese PCs A signature update to Symantec’s anti-virus software crippled thousands of Chinese PCs Friday when the security software took two critical Windows .dll files for [tag]malware[/tag].

According to numerous blog entries from Chinese computer users, a virus signature database seeded yesterday mistook two system files of a Chinese edition of Windows XP SP2 as a Trojan horse which Symantec dubs “Backdoor.Haxdoor.” The anti-virus software — Norton AntiVirus, for example, or the anti-virus component of the Norton 360 or Norton Internet Security suites — then quarantined the netapi32.dll and lsasrv.dll files.

“With these files removed, Windows XP will no longer start up, and even the system Safe Mode no longer functions,” said one user writing to the alt.comp.anti-virus newsgroup this morning.

Google Licenses Technology for 3D Maps Google has licensed technology that will enable [tag]Google[/tag] to map out 3-D versions of cities world wide.

According to a Mercury News report, the technology was developed by a team of Stanford University students and was used to run a robotic car that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Although Google is the market leader in mapping, to date it has lagged behind Microsoft?s Virtual Earth in terms of 3-D functionality.

Dell announces the models for Ubuntu We will be launching a Linux based OS (Ubuntu) on the E520, 1505 and XPS 410 starting next Thursday, 5/24. We expect these systems to be less than 1% of our OS mix for the entire year which is ~20,000 systems annually. Please cover the huddle deck below with your team by EOB Sunday. If any questions come up, please let me know so I can address them before launch.

The goal of launching Linux is to continue to give our customers more choices to customize their new Dell. Providing more options to our Linux Enthusiast customer group will hopefully create even more Raving Fans!!

Governments using filters to censor Internet, survey finds With the aid of sophisticated software, government censorship of the Internet is spreading into a global phenomenon, with tech-savvy governments filtering forbidden themes from politics and human rights to sexuality and religion, according to a new academic survey of 40 countries.

In the past five years, the practice has grown beyond a handful of countries, including Iran, China and Saudi Arabia, to 26 nations that block a wide range of topics as they adopt filtering techniques, according to an OpenNet Initiative report to be issued Friday in Oxford, England.

Tech News 5/18/2007

Lots of interesting technology news concerning Microsoft, Google, Torrents, Youtube and more.

The Pirate Bay to Launch YouTube Competitor The Pirate Bay is preparing to launch a Youtube competitor, they have confirmed it themselves, ?YES – we?re going to do a video streaming site. It?s true. It?s in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do.? Sounds like a version of Youtube where the copyrighted videos don’t come down, hehe.

Google Apps Partner Edition Today, we’re excited to take another step in that direction by releasing a version of Google Apps specifically designed for ISPs, portals, and other service providers, whether you have a few thousand subscribers or over a million. This new version, which we’re calling the Partner Edition, makes it easy for large and small service providers to offer your subscribers the latest versions of powerful tools, like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, without having to worry about hosting, updating, or maintaining any of the services yourself. Sounds interesting.

Microsoft Launches Popfly: Mashup App Creator Built On Silverlight A mashup and widget creator using Microsoft’s new Silverlight. Mary Jo Foley calls it Microsoft Popfly: Yahoo Pipes for the rest of us, an app for the people who don’t want to program, just create.

Now that Feedburner Story?. Is Google going to buy Feedburner? Some say yes and the Doubleclick deal is holding it up, if they do, it would give them a foothold in the RSS ad’s market. Sure glad I’m not running any ads in my feed….

Microsoft Gets Its Ad Network Microsoft announced the purchase of aQuantive, a 10-year-old, publicly traded digital marketing company in an all cash deal worth approximately $6 billion — the biggest acquisition in Microsoft history. That is kind of hard to believe, as long as Microsoft has been around, but they do tend to buy the smaller companies I guess. Om Malik says “Microsoft?s willingness to pay big dollars and bid aggressively for aQuantive ($66 a share versus mid-$30s trading price) shows that the Barons of Redmond truly believe that advertising will play a big role in its future. How that eventually plays out – remains to be seen.” Michael Arrington has posted lots of info from the Media Call here, such as this question from Bear Stearns: does this affect MS?s opinion on Google/doubleclick transaction. MS: no, not at all. Says this will promote competition and Google/doubleclick will hurt competition. Microsoft is in none of the businesses that aQuantive is in, whereas Google was already in direct competition with doubleclick and will give Google 80% market share in those markets.

How To Get Ready to Upgrade from XP to Vista

Microsoft has posted a nice little summary to get you ready to upgrade your Windows XP machines to Windows Vista. It talks about backing up all of your files, as you should be doing anyway, of course you have to be at Service Pack 2 level, you need to verify the upgrade status of your computer, make sure your programs will still work and that you have enough hard drive space on your NTFS file system.

Verify the upgrade status of the Windows XP-based computer
To determine whether you can upgrade the edition of Windows XP on the computer to Windows Vista, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx)
Additionally, you can use the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to help determine which edition of Windows Vista you can install. For more information about the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx)
If you cannot upgrade the version of Windows XP to Windows Vista, perform a custom installation. (This kind of installation is also known as a clean installation.) When you perform a custom installation, you cannot migrate the Windows XP settings to Windows Vista. For more information about how to perform a custom installation of Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
933178 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933178/) How to install Windows Vista Source: How to prepare to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista

Some of the other KB articles you may have to visit:

308422 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308422/) How to use the Backup utility that is included in Windows XP to back up files and folders

322389 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389/) How to obtain the latest Windows XP service pack

933178 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933178/) How to install Windows Vista

931359 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931359/) How to determine whether there are program-compatibility issues before you install Windows Vista

306542 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306542/) How to use the Desktop Cleanup Wizard in Windows XP

314097 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314097/) How to use Convert.exe to convert a partition to the NTFS file system

Todays Tech News

Lots of interesting tech news today, lets get to it.

Universal search: The best answer is still the best answer Google updated their search engine results, they are introducing content from Images, Maps, Books, Video, and News into the search results, and making one big pile of stuff, instead of keeping it separate like they used to.

Making The Switch From Twitter to Jaiku Tired of the downtime Twitter has had lately? In a post from Techcrunch, Duncan Riley talks about people making the switch and some of the tools already available and some they want. He’s not switching, btw, and neither am I, at least not until everyone else does. Mine has been quiet recently, but you can check it here, Jimmy Daniels Twitter microblog.

More Firefox Bloat? Say It Ain’t So, Mozilla Do you feel bloated? Er, I mean, does your Firefox feel bloated? You’re not alone…

New Stuff At My Yahoo Michael Arrington covers the new stuff from My Yahoo. No, not my Yahoo, your Yahoo, no, just read it…

BitTorrent in Focus: TV-series are Hot TorrentFreak says TV is hot online, with 50% of people on BitTorrent downloading TV shows, while TV shows only make up 10% of the available “content”. Interesting, sounds like good news for Joost.

Latest AACS revision defeated a week before release Remember when Kevin Rose lost control of digg? I said they should just give up on the [tag]DRM[/tag] because someone will always be around to crack it for them, well they already have. A new volume key used by high-def films scheduled for release next week has already been cracked. The previous AACS volume key was invalidated by AACS LA after it was exposed and broadly disseminated earlier this month. The latest beta release of SlySoft’s AnyDVD HD program can apparently be used to rip HD DVD discs that use AACS version 3. Although these won’t hit store shelves until the May 22, pirates have already successfully tested SlySoft’s program with early release previews of the Matrix trilogy.

Google to Yahoo and Microsoft: the $1.65 billion was worth it Can you say du huh?

Microsoft apologizes for Halo 3 problems, extends beta The press invites sent out before the Halo 3 beta became widely available were the calm before the storm apparently, as there was a problem with gamers who had the Crackdown invites grabbing the file yesterday. Frank was caught up in the foolishness and it seemed like the entire Internet was going to come down. I know how hard it is to plan something this big, but seriously, this is Microsoft. They should have been better prepared. Now we’re at the point of apologizing, after a very unhappy player-base spent a frustrating day yesterday pulling out their hair waiting for the beta to become available.

Windows Vista Security

Some interesting articles make sure you check out Ben’s 3 monitor setup.

Researcher Reveals 2-Step Vista UAC Hack A Web application developer has uncovered a two-step process for exploiting Windows Vista’s User Account Control, by having a Trojan piggyback on what could be a legitimate download, Robert Paveza, a senior Web application developer with Terralever, published details of the vulnerability in a paper titled “User-Prompted Elevation of Unintended Code in Windows Vista.” Link to the paper follows.

User-Prompted Elevation of Unintended Code in Windows Vista Windows Vista has implemented several new security features designed primarily to alert users to potentially-dangerous situations on their computers and prevent malicious software from accessing critical system components. One of the most-touted features by Microsoft, and perhaps the most visible security addition to Windows Vista is User Account Control (UAC), in which even computer administrators do not run with full administrative privileges. This guards the user from potentially malicious software by preventing processes from writing to system folders, such as %SYSTEMROOT% and \Program Files, as well as writes to the portions of the registry that are not user-dependant, including the HKEY_LOAL_MACHINE (HKLM) and HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG (HKCC) registry hives.

Secunia: 28% of all installed apps are insecure According to data from Secunia?s free software inspector, about 28% of all detected applications are vulnerable to a known security vulnerability. The software inspector, which uses a signature database to pinpoint the specific versions of all installed programs (browsers, plugins, IM and e-mail clients, media players, operating systems) on a user?s computer, has conducted more than 350,000 inspections since December of last year and the findings show exactly why we?re in the midst of a malware epidemic.

ANS and Security Bulletin Updates The new ANS is essentially a subset of the monthly bulletin summary we publish the second Tuesday of each month. As such, the ANS will now be published at the same URL used for that month?s security bulletin summary page (example below). For those not familiar with the monthly bulletin summary, it is a high level overview of the bulletins released for a given month that includes a list of bulletins, severity rating, impact, affected software, download locations for the updates, general deployment information and a single list of acknowledgements thanking those who have practiced responsible disclosure in reporting the vulnerabilities the bulletins address.