May 07, 2008

Malware r Us

If there were any doubt the underworld of malware and the universe of legitimate software were converging, it was dispelled last week, after researchers at Symantec uncovered a malware EULA (written in Russian) that was more restrictive than the kind of thing Microsoft puts out. According to the Associated Press report, the botnet software had the following restrictions: The customer can't resell the product, examine its underlying coding, use it to control other bot nets or submit it to antivirus companies and agrees to pay the seller a fee for product updates....The threat: Violate the terms, and we'll report you... more

TAGS: Hackme Inc.

May 05, 2008

MicroHoo we hardly knew ye

OK, I was wrong. It turns out little Frodo and the other hobbits were able to muster enough elves, dwarves, and humans to make the Eye of Ballmeron blink and repel the evil Microsoft from Middle Internet.  In a letter sent on Saturday, Steve Ballmer threw in the towel on the fight to acquire Yahoo, saying a hostile takeover attempt would lead to Yahoo taking "steps that would make Yahoo undesirable as an acquisition target for Microsoft." (I understand Yahoo planned to shave its head, get a nose ring, and go on an all-Twinkie diet.) The letter, addressed to Jerry... more

TAGS: Yahoo's your daddy?

May 02, 2008

Geek Week: Microsoft prepares for war, BEA is no more

One ring to rule them all. Remember that scene in The Lord of the Rings where Sauron has all the Orcs busy sharpening tools and digging up Goblins in preparation for the huge battle to decide the fate of man- elf- and dwarf-kind? That's apparently what Microsoft has been doing all week, contemplating just how medieval it's going to get on Yahoo's assets. According to reports in the Wall Street Journal (Microsoft's preferred outlet for unofficial leaks), the MS board has been meeting all week to decide whether to up the bid, go hostile or walk away. As if Ballmer... more

TAGS: News you can lose

April 30, 2008

HP: Bad motherboards, broken support, and the black arts

Things have been kind of quiet lately on the Hewlett Packard front. There have been no recent spying scandals, no daily kerfuffles over what the CEO is doing, saying, or wearing. Bill Hewlett and David Packard have stopped spinning in their graves at 7200 rpm. But if the letters I've been getting lately from Cringesters are any indication, there's something rotting in HP's den, or at least giving off the distinct aroma of toe cheese. The first story comes from Cringester E. H., who purchased a Compaq laptop for his college-bound son along with an HP Care Pack that promised... more

TAGS: Come Hell or HP

April 28, 2008

Smart phones, stupid people

A Mexican press attache walked off with "six or seven" Blackberries belonging to US officials at a summit between the presidents of Canada, Mexico, and some guy named Bush in New Orleans last week. Press officer Rafael Quintero Curiel was captured on video tape picking up the smart phones, which were deliberately left outside a meeting room by officials. He was promptly canned. Apparently, the theft went undetected until White House staffers noticed an unusually large number of visits to Tila Tequila's MySpace page on their data account. (Note to my more literal minded readers: that was a joke.)... more

TAGS: national insecurity

April 25, 2008

Geek Week: Microsoft's XP spin, Yahoo says 'come on in!'

Great eXPectations? Microsoft has made a multi-billion-dollar business out of spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt, but lately it seems to be sharing the FUD about its own products. Take the burning question of when XP will shuffle off this mortal coil. June 30 is still the official date, but every time the Mad Ballmer opens his mouth it sounds like he's backtracking. "If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter, but right now, we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments," he said earlier this week in Belgium. Microsoft hastily issued a statement saying essentially 'never... more

TAGS: Microsoft Madness

April 23, 2008

How tech firms can save the earth

Just in case you've suddenly emerged from a coma and hadn't noticed, yesterday was Earth Day here on our planet. And it seems like everybody is putting on their green. Even the US government has a site celebrating its efforts to ravage save the earth. While tech companies are certainly puffing up their environmental street cred, they could be doing more. In fact, I have a few suggestions for what the leading tech companies can do to save the planet. Microsoft:  First, install a filter to capture the greenhouse gases expelled into the atmosphere every time Steve Ballmer opens his... more

TAGS: Political pandering

April 21, 2008

Save the whales, save XP

The international movement to save endangered operating systems (aka Windows XP) has gained supporters in unlikely quarters. Cringester J. C. reports: Just got a call from my Dell rep: Dell will provide XP on business class computers (Latitude and Optiplex) through 2011 at no extra cost. The media kit for Vista will be supplied to those who want it. Vostro gets the same deal at a $50.00 premium. Note: this carries beyond the release date for Windows 7, allowing a reasonable time to see what that is like. Even The Mad Ballmer is backing off his Use Vista or Die... more

TAGS: Microsoft Madness

April 18, 2008

Geek Week: Vista rocks, Gates rolls

Blunder Road. A Microsoft music video by "Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band" has been causing a few chuckles and a lot of retching across the Net. In the video, a Born in the USA-era Springsteen impersonator sings: "Last year when Vista was new You sold the Optimized Desktop Value That's a pitch that never fails And you saw lots of sales" Microsoft insists it was not the world's lamest sales motivational tool but a clever spoof. Personally I think it was both. Microsoft is actually pretty good at poking fun at its own hopelessly uncool self (see the... more

TAGS: None

April 16, 2008

Voting accidents and other avoidable tragedies

When I was in school I learned that the difference between comedy and tragedy is that one of them ends in death and the other in marriage. (But I could never remember which is which, which may be why I have such a hard time holding onto girl friends.) Likewise, I can't really decide if our current e-voting follies are comic or tragic. At the RSA conference earlier this month, a panel of security wonks who tested California's e-voting equipment declared the machines slightly more secure than a box of Jujubees. The California audit examined systems from Diebold Elections Systems,... more

TAGS: Political pandering

April 14, 2008

Windows is falling -- run for your lives!

That creaking sound, the dust, that feeling of vague but imminent doom? It's not an earthquake. Your office isn't falling into a sink hole. It's the warning signs of Windows collapsing. According to a presentation served up last week by two Gartner analysts, Windows is plummeting like a Herman Miller chair tossed off the C-Level balcony at One Microsoft Way. The reasons are obvious: Vista is a bloated mess. Corporate America doesn't want it. Even Microsoft's own mid-level managers couldn't hide their disgust at what their overly hyped OS simply can't do. Fact is, the future belongs to nimble, lightweight... more

TAGS: None

April 11, 2008

Geek Week: Sequoia gets felled, digital census quelled

When you least expect it, you're elected. Sequoia Voting Systems may believe that shipping its source code off to some good ol' boy in Texas is all the independent testing they require, but a New Jersey judge thinks different. She's issued subpoenas for voting machines in six NJ counties where the machines were unable to perform 3rd grade math. Meanwhile, Princeton researcher Ed Felten has looked at more Sequioa voting machines and says the problem is worse than he originally thought. (Felten is the same guy who demonstrated how a Diebold voting machine is only slightly harder to hack than... more

TAGS: Cringe

April 09, 2008

Blog and/or Die

It seems blogging has joined parajumping, rattlesnake wrestling, and being personal assistant to Naomi Campbell as the world's deadliest professions. Last week The New York Times revealed just how dangerous writing Weblogs can be. Two prolific tech bloggers, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, recently dropped dead of heart attacks in mid-rant. A third, Om Malik, suffered a nonfatal attack at just 41 years of age. Then there are the lesser maladies: Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is... more

TAGS: Sweatshops-R-Us