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Windows security - an oxymoron | 483 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Exclusive: Corrupt Apple Store Employees Come Forward Across America
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 20 2012 @ 09:07 PM EST

I am not sure which way to look :-) but the headline says it all.

Exclusive: Corrupt Apple Store Employees Come Forward Across America

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Windows 8 is so horribly broken that it should be
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 20 2012 @ 10:47 PM EST
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12/20/2243247/30-days-is-too-long-animated-ran
t-about-windows-8

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

HotPi Kickstarter Campaign was successful
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 20 2012 @ 11:59 PM EST

The Kickstarter Campaign for the HotPi addon was a success. Stats are:

202 backers

£5,917 pledged of £5,000 goal

0 seconds to go

HotPi on Kickstarter

Is anyone interested who didn't get one ordered during the campaign? I know someone who knows the designer, and I'd could ask if they are still taking orders.

I did ask if a Bluetooth add-on was under consideration. It isn't yet, but if enough people ask...

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The Reg: Outlook 2013 spurns your old Word and Excel documents
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 12:50 AM EST

"Outlook 2013 won’t let you import or export data to or from .doc or .xls files for Word 1997 to 2003 and Excel versions 1997 to 2003, the company has revealed in a blog."

Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/outlook_2013_chops_legacy_word_exce l/

Comment: If what the article says is accurate, this is monumental foot-shooting from Microsoft, especially the bit about importing data in old formats. Keeping it would cost really little for Microsoft, but lack of import will make many users look for alternatives...

... which is a good thing from the F/OSS perspective! OpenOffice and LibreOffice reads most old MS docs just fine.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Windows security - an oxymoron
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 01:28 AM EST

The following update just came down the pipes for my Windows 7 platform...

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS12-078 - Critical Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2783534)

This security update resolves one publicly disclosed vulnerability and one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The more severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted document or visits a malicious webpage that embeds TrueType or OpenType font files. An attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message that takes them to the attacker's website.

Just... wow. All you have to do is visit a malicious web page with a very common font, and bing! You are p0wnd.

How can this happen? Windows 7 is what Microsoft calls a Fundamentally Secure Platform

Windows 7 builds upon the strong security lineage of Windows Vista and retains all of the development processes and technologies that have made Windows Vista the most secure version of the Windows client to date. Fundamental security features such as Kernel Patch Protection, Service Hardening, Data Execution Prevention, Address Space Layout Randomization, and Mandatory Integrity Levels continue to provide enhanced protection against malware and attacks. Windows 7 is again designed and developed using Microsoft‘s Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) and is engineered to support Common Criteria requirements to achieve Evaluation Assurance Level 4 certification and meet Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2. From the solid security foundation of Windows Vista, Windows 7 makes significant enhancements to the core security technologies of event auditing and User Account Control.

So it's got all that, and yet they just found yet another hole in it you could drive a truck through. I think it is hopeless.

In the last two days I missed two pieces of very important email. Now what has that got to do with all this??? I did not receive those emails in a timely manner because they were mistaken as spam (for which I get a notice they next day - too late in the case of these two emails.) How is that Microsoft's fault? It is Microsoft's fault because it is hijacked Microsoft platforms that are pumping out spam by the billions, day and night, in such an endless variety that most spam filters can't possibly tell them apart from valid email, and that's why Microsoft is to blame for the inconvenience I suffered from receiving those emails too late to be of any use to me.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple refuses to license Lighting connector - kills a Kickstarter project
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 02:40 AM EST
The dispute has been ongoing since September, when the Lightning connector was
announced by Apple.

“We didn’t get a yes or a no up front,” Siminoff said. “But as we kept going
back and forth it was clear that it was getting harder. Then, when we saw that
they weren’t even going to allow a Lightning connector and a 30-pin connector
together, we knew it was over.”

http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/20/apple-kills-a-kickstarter-project-portable-pow
er-project-pop-refunding-139170-to-backers/

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Law relaxed on digital copying
Authored by: tiger99 on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 05:37 AM EST
BBC

This has been talked about for a while, and it is good to see that it is coming closer to actually happening. It makes perfect sense for you to be able to play the content which you have paid for on any of your hardware, anywhere, and make backup copies to ensure that you can play the content you have paid for at any time in the future. It is a basic right that everyone should have.

If other countries, even most of the EU, disagree, well that is bad for their citizens. They need to lobby their elected governments about it, and get the same thing there too.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

World still here?
Authored by: JamesK on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 06:57 AM EST
Just checking. ;-)

---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

"Anti-piracy chief" patents "pay up or disconnect scheme"
Authored by: knarf on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 07:03 AM EST

Waiting for one of them to patent being humanoid vermin and sue the rest of 'm out of existence...

anti-piracy-chief-patents-pay-up-or-disconnect-scheme

---
[ "Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur
et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est." ]

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Watch a human brain compile and run code in real time
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 07:57 AM EST

Link (watch the video)

Do you think maybe this indicates that any software is abstract, no different than math? ...or did the exercise documented in the video "make a new machine" out of that person's brain?

What if you presented this in court as a part of a defense against an accusation of a software patent transgression in attempt to invalidate the patent? Would you be allowed to present this video as part of the evidence?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Danish Tabloid: Ballmer close to being sacked
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 08:43 AM EST
Danish Tabloid 'Ekstrabladet' has a piece on Microsoft CEO Ballmer being close
to getting sacked.

The theme is that Ballmer needs to make Windows 8 happen in the mobile space or
he may be canned.
The piece then lists the markets where Ballmer has not delivered (music, mobile,
and tablets).
No mention of gaming.

Supposedly, the source is Gartner (nothing comes up on duckduckgo, though)

Smells like a trial balloon...

http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/elektronik/teknologi/article1888097.ece

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

My Blackberry is not working
Authored by: JamesK on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 10:02 AM EST
My Blackberry is not working ;-)

---
The following program contains immature subject matter.
Viewer discretion is advised.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Linux Tycoon - file under REALLY Off-Topic
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 10:13 AM EST


I'm in shock. Was looking for some information, and stumbled across this:

Linux Tycoon is the premier Linux Distro Building Simulator game in the universe.

The website says:

Linux Tycoon is presently available for Linux (with Ubuntu packages and a tar.gz for other distros), MacOS X and Windows.


It's a free download, though source doesn't seem to be available. Guess I'll try it out over the holidays.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Steve Jobs Yacht Seized in Amsterdam Over Payment Dispute
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 10:39 AM EST
"The mega yacht commissioned by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has
reportedly been sequestered by lawyers for designer Philippe Starck in Amsterdam
over a payment dispute."

http://reason.com/24-7/2012/12/21/steve-jobs-yacht-seized-in-amsterdam-ove

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

UK Hargreaves copyright report implementation
Authored by: sciamiko on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 10:49 AM EST
The UK government has announced its proposals for implementing the Hargreaves report on copyright after a three month consultation.

From the section on Private Copying:

People will be permitted to copy content they have bought onto any medium or device that they own, strictly for their own personal use (such as transferring their music collection from CD to iPod).

This will not allow sharing copies with others but it will allow consumers to copy material to and from private online cloud storage4.

Rights owners will still have the ability and incentive to license innovative, value-added cloud services.

It looks like good news with clear descriptions of what is allowed and coming into line with the public's expectations.

Comment from the Open Rights group.

s.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

in the 'so how can they possibly defend themselves agasint apple?' department ...
Authored by: nsomos on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 11:19 AM EST
from ...

http://amog.com/tech/155583-european-union-charging-samsung-antitrust-case/

---------
It appears that Samsung will soon face formal charges in an antitrust lawsuit
from the European Commission. The commission claims that the South Korean tech
giant broke the region’s competition rules by filing patent litigation against
Apple.
---------

The original source is financial times which requires
registration and I won't be bothered to do that just to
read about this.

Since Apple is litigating against Samsung, why doesn't
that make Apple afoul of these competition rules?

Probably because some of Samsung's patents are standards-essential
and Apples patents are just junk.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The iYacht was impounded ...
Authored by: whitehat on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 11:52 AM EST
The ugliest yacht ever built was impounded in Holland for non-payment of fees. It was designed and built for the late Steve Jobs at a total cost of US$138 million. The iYacht

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Fudzilla: "Steve Jobs was so deluded"
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 12:11 PM EST
According to Fudzilla:
"Steve Jobs was so completely deluded that he wanted to call his Safari browser “Freedom.” In 2002, the company was about to release its own Web browser in order to take control and responsibility for Web browsing on the Mac. Jobs wanted to call the browser "Freedom" because he believed that locking you into an imaginary walled garden of buggy software was somehow free. While Jobs was considered a god, no one really wanted to point out to him that his Freedom was about as liberal as Saudi Arabia."


Read the rest of the Fudzilla piece here.



---
______
IMANAL


.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Federalist Society Podcast of debate between Judges Posner & Michel (FCCA) about patents
Authored by: artp on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 12:29 PM EST

Article over at Ars Technica. The Federalist Society put Judge Richard Posner and Judge Paul Michel of the Federal CCA together in a debate. Here is the podcast from the Federalist Society.

I'm sure this quote isn't new, but it really shook me:

In Michel's view one of the big problems with the patent system is actually that people criticize it too much. No, really: "The patent system has been so excessively criticized with overstated claims by so many commentators that it has been substantially weakened in the last five to seven years," Michel said. (We at Ars had no idea our words were so powerful!)

Government just doesn't get it. We used to have a saying at one company I worked for: "Any organization develops to the point where its primary job is to perpetuate itself." Looks like it has happened one more time.

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley sinks ?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Tomi Ahonen explains Santa Claus travel logistics and science on December 24 for your children
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 12:39 PM EST
Who else would've thunk that honestly? Santa's logistics explained

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

RIM "settles" with Nokia
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 02:20 PM EST
It sure looks like RIM has never met a patent lawsuit that it does not mind losing.

BoD1 to BoD2: Here's the plan. We are going to sue your company over some really stupid software patent. Yeah, we know it is completely bogus, but this will help you out.

BoD2: Huh? How is this going to help?

BoD1: Our contacts will prop up your stock price for a while, instead of spreading FUD about your company. Your huge amount of stock options will be worth bazillions more. Our contacts will allow you time to slowly cash out, whilst the suckers buy up the stock that the contacts will decimate later.

BoD2: Sounds great, but what's in it for you?

BoD1: We get to make it look like the really stupid software patent is valid. That way it is easier to attack other victims that have lots of money.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

NRA: bring even more guns to schools
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 03:46 PM EST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/21/nra-newtown-armed-guards-schools

NRA has called for armed security guards to be posted in every school in the
country and insisted that the only solution to gun violence in the wake of the
Newtown massacre was more guns...

Yes, guns are the core of the safety. But not the way NRA believes.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

EU confirms their belief that Samsung was naughty
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 04:15 PM EST
Link

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Steve Jobs' yacht impounded over pay dispute
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 05:23 PM EST
Steve Jobs' yacht impounded over pay dispute

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple moves to unblock China firewall
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 06:58 PM EST
Link

It will be interesting to see if China decides to block all https traffic. I suspect they will not.

This illustrates the importance of free software and open gardens. At least with an open platform the user has more options.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Canada - Supreme Court Weighs In on Juror Vetting
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 08:05 PM EST
Prosecutors might have acted improperly in vetting potential jurors but the misconduct was not serious enough to quash a series of convictions, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday.

Still, despite rejecting five appeals stemming from three separate cases, the country's top court made it clear it wasn't condoning the behaviour.

Colin Perkel, The Tyee

The Decisions:

Citation: R. v. Davey, 2012 SCC 75 Date: 20121221 Docket: 34179 http://scc.lexum.org/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/12780/index.do

Citation: R. v. Emms, 2012 SCC 74 Date: 20121221 Docket: 34087 http://scc.lexum.org/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/12781/index.do

Citation: R. v. Yumnu, 2012 SCC 73 Date: 20121221 Docket: 34090, 34091, 34340 http://scc.lexum.org/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/12782/index.do

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

War Games revisited
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, December 21 2012 @ 08:29 PM EST
Link

This is the MIC out of control.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

YouTube strips Universal and Sony of 2 billion fake views
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 03:45 AM EST
Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

[...]

More than 500 prominent YouTube channels have been stripped of preexisting YouTube views in the past 30 days, something that causes concern when you consider that YouTube views counts, unlike subscriber statistics, are cumulative and cannot organically drop at any point throughout their existence.

Google's takedown of these major music channels came on the same day that hundreds of YouTubers took to Google forums and their own YouTube channels to inform their peers that they'd been subject to a series of video takedowns for violations of YouTube's Terms of Service (TOS).

Chase Hoffberger, Daily Dot

In other YouTube news - PSY's 'Gangnam Style' broke a 1,000,000,000 views today.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

New online transcription tool
Authored by: odysseus on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 09:39 AM EST
http://scripto.org/

"A free, open source tool enabling community transcriptions of document and
multimedia files. Scripto brings the power of MediaWiki to your collections.
Designed to allow members of the public to transcribe a range of different kinds
of files, Scripto will increase your content’s findability while building your
user community through active engagement."

Looks a bit easier to use than Distributed Proofreaders (http://www.pgdp.net/c/)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Too Hot to Handle - terminated because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 02:08 PM EST
If a wife suspects her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with one of his female employees, is it legal to fire the female employee even if there's no evidence of an affair?

It is in Iowa. The state's Supreme Court ruled today that an "employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction."

The court upheld a lower court ruling that Melissa Nelson, who had worked as a dental assistant for Dr. James Knight of Fort Dodge for 10 years, had no basis under the state's civil rights act to sue him when he fired her at his wife's demand.

The two had texted each other with what could be considered sexually suggestive messages. And when Dr. Knight fired Ms. Nelson, he told her it was because he might try to have an affair with her.

Bob Collins, Minnesota Public Radio

Decision:
.PDF http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/Recent_Opinions/20121221/11-1857.pdf

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

WB, Intel file suit over HDCP key crack
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 04:07 PM EST
Link

For some reason, they waited two years.

Perhaps so that more damages could be created.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Link not working! - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 03:31 PM EST
    • Link, try this - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 04:00 PM EST
Secret Settlements
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 07:17 PM EST
"America’s best tech companies could go back to focusing their resources
and energies on product innovation instead of legal strategy."
Get real. They will mainly focus on vested interests like they always have,
unless innovation is their forever business plan.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Copyright law & enforcement in the age of the electronic book + the world’s oldest pirate copy
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, December 22 2012 @ 07:46 PM EST
Copyright law did a pretty good job protecting books from piracy for exactly three centuries. But the technological developments of the last few years are rapidly transforming both books and piracy, and have greatly reduced the practical effect of copyright in books. The law of copyright is as crucial as ever in defining authors’ rights and providing the framework for authors, publishers, and distributors to deal with each other. But it can only be enforced in jurisdictions that play by the rules.
Matt Rubinstein, Australian Book Review

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

How we gave colors names, and it messed with our brains
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 02:02 AM EST
In Japan, people often refer to traffic lights as being blue in color. And this is a bit odd, because the traffic signal indicating ‘go’ in Japan is just as green as it is anywhere else in the world. So why is the color getting lost in translation?

This visual conundrum has its roots in the history of language.

Aatish Bhatia, Empirical Zeal

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Everyone has the potential to be a terrorist - FBI Monitoring OWS
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 09:17 AM EST
FBI documents just obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) pursuant to the PCJF’s Freedom of Information Act demands reveal that from its inception, the FBI treated the Occupy movement as a potential criminal and terrorist threat even though the agency acknowledges in documents that organizers explicitly called for peaceful protest and did “not condone the use of violence” at occupy protests.

The PCJF has obtained heavily redacted documents showing that FBI offices and agents around the country were in high gear conducting surveillance against the movement even as early as August 2011, a month prior to the establishment of the OWS encampment in Zuccotti Park and other Occupy actions around the country.

“This production, which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI’s surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protestors organizing with the Occupy movement,” stated Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Microsoft releases Gadugi the world is ending soon
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 02:46 PM EST
Microsoft also developed a new sans-serif user interface font called Gadugi – the Cherokee word for "working together" – for the Windows 8 build, as well as for a forthcoming version of Office 2013. The world is ending soon. LOL Click here to release the toads

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Netscape Still Biting (CVE-2012-4786)
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 03:11 PM EST
Why would you need kernel mode drivers to screen render TTF or OTF?
Because Windows Explorer is snagged so deep in the OS bowels.
Workarounds to block known attack vectors (specially crafted ttf files)
include (inter alia) "Disabling the Preview and Details panes..."
It's so long ago I've forgotten when that workaround was issued
for somewhat similar reasons, and my life ever since has been
warning people to turn Preview off because it's an easy way
for bad stuff to get in, and MS really don't know how to fix it.
Oh, for the joy of elm on a 14k4 line...
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-078

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Merry Christmas Groklaw!
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Sunday, December 23 2012 @ 06:46 PM EST
Merry Christmas to everyone out there following Groklaw and especially to PJ who
made all this happen to begin with!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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