Computer Tips -Tech Info

Fines and prison time are among the penalties envisioned under a proposed house bill. The requirement would be that businesses with database holding information on more than 10,000 people (or federal employees) would have to inform either the Secret Service or the FBI of a data security breach. (The maximum sentence would be five years.) Now, on my first read of this, I thought, well sure – any company should disclose the possible loss, theft, or breach of a database holding customer data. I still think that… but I don’t know that the focus of penalty is on the right shoulders.

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Incidents.org has another interesting post about a spyware site. One of the handlers ran across it while doing a search for an educational institution. (They’ve used a wildcard in the dns record so that they can get traffic to {fillinkeyword}.nastydomain.com) Anyway… the main page tries to install WinAntiSpyware2006FreeInstall.cab from WinSoftware Corporation, Inc. It gives the little ActiveX control popdown bar and insists that it must be installed to view the page properly. But that’s not the most interesting part…

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Apple has released Quicktime v. 7.1 for both Windows and OS X to address about 12 vulnerabilities. It looks as though all of the vulnerabilities were related to either a specially crafted images or movies (a variety of formats…) Upgrade or use another viewer…

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For a long time, the only way to play around with Google advertising possibilities was to join Adwords and then you could choose different keywords, see search volume information, estimate the ad position, clicks per day, etc…. I’ve been tempted many times to look into Adwords (which is the flip side of AdSense…) Many times. In fact, I still may, but today the Inside Adwords blog has announced the standalone traffic estimator that can be used without logging into your adwords account.

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There is no doubt that spyware is a problem, but when a vendor of anti-spyware software claims 87% of pcs have on average 34 pieces of spyware per machine installed…… you do have to wonder. And when they claim that in part on FREE anti-spyware software…..

“Security analysts blame this increasing infection rate on the adoption of free anti-spyware programs that use outdated technology and don’t provide immediate threat definitions to combat against new and emerging threats. To guard against new spyware programs, home computer users must use an anti-spyware program with frequent definition updates and engines that are capable of removing the toughest spyware from deep within the operating system. Unfortunately, users who only install free anti-spyware programs do not get access to frequently updated definitions and versions.”

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Last month, April, the Microsoft patch cycle had one problem patch that broke certain explorer extensions (most notable some HP software…) This time around it looks like the Flash patch that they distributed has given a few people fits. For starters, yes it’s odd for Microsoft to distribute a patch for a 3rd party product.

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It looks as though Google has made a bit of a splash with four product announcements today. Nothing being EXACTLY as forecast it is a bit interesting…. First there is Google Coop where it looks as though people in specific fields can help suggest, review and refine results (like a directory), then users subscribe to an individual who has labelled sites. This is the area that Google Health falls under and there are a couple areas that are “Under development”. This gives some interesting possibilities for refining searches in certain areas.

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First let me tell you I have not seen first hand Microsoft’s Vista UAP (User Account Protection) I cannot then claim firsthand experience with it, the following is and will be based on what I have read plus how it relates and compares to linux and “run as” functionality. George Ou thinks that UAP is getting a “bum rap” from people, some of whom want it both ways, tighter file access security, but this is annoying… Another ZDNet columnist has done a more detailed look at UAP. One of the articles cited by George Ou is this post from Paul Thurrott which is highly critical of UAP

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It seems that today is Google Press day and speculation is rampant as to what will be unvelied. Google Health/ Google Purchases are among the leading speculations. In fact, Google Health has been a standing rumor as has the Google Purchases, but there are some signs that a launch might be nearing.

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Rootkits are a piece (or pieces) of software that someone can be used once a system is compromised to a) regain access to a system and b) remove traces of a compromise and c) many times hide itself. There are some tools for linux based systems that can be run to detect traces of rootkits and probably the best known is a tool called chkrootkit. I’ve know of it for what seems like years now and it can run a relatively quick test for traces of a wide range of KNOWN linux rootkits.

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