7376
General Software Discussion / Re: Google+
« Last post by 40hz on June 29, 2011, 01:17 PM »@mahesh2k Wow! That's even worse than I thought it was.
And I already thought it was pretty bad.
And I already thought it was pretty bad.
Recent Posts
It pays to remember Google's primary goal is to deliver advertisements and ad related services. And collect data on usage patterns which they sell back to advertisers.-40hz (June 29, 2011, 07:33 AM)
This is no different than what Facebook does.-jazper (June 29, 2011, 09:21 AM)
But I don't think it'd work with my old drive, which is IDE.-kyrathaba (June 28, 2011, 09:24 PM)
there are a ton of sata hard drive docks-mouser (June 28, 2011, 07:21 PM)
Started in 1997 by Floor64 founder Mike Masnick and then growing into a group blogging effort, the Techdirt blog uses a proven economic framework to analyze and offer insight into news stories about changes in government policy, technology and legal issues that affect companies ability to innovate and grow.
The dynamic and interactive community of Techdirt readers often comment on the addictive quality of the content on the site, a feeling supported by the blog’s ~800,000 RSS subscribers, 45,000+ posts, 600,000+ comments and a consistent Technorati Technology Top 100 rating. Both Business Week and Forbes have awarded Techdirt with Best of the Web thought leader awards.
You can also find Techdirt on Twitter and Facebook.
Trojan requires infected Windows users do a System Restore
By Jose Vilches, TechSpot.com
Published: June 28, 2011, 12:00 PM EST
windows, trojan, malware,
Microsoft has warned of a new malware threat affecting Windows users that can only be completely removed by restoring the system to a previous state or wiping it altogether. According to Redmond, the culprit is the latest variant of a Trojan known as "Popureb" (specifically, Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E), which stores part of its data in the hard drive’s master boot record (MBR) and introduces a driver component to prevent the malicious code from being changed.
.
.
.
Not many details are available as to what symptoms infected machines are seeing, but its previous iteration, Trojan:Win32/Popureb.B, displays advertisements and modifies user's Internet Explorer start page.
Microsoft's antivirus engine will detect the threat. However, Feng says that those already infected will have to fix the MBR using the System Recovery Console and a command called "fixmbr", then proceed to use a recovery CD to restore the system to a pre-infected state. Recovery options for XP, Vista and Windows 7 users are detailed here:
The bootkit malware Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E has made some changes in its code compared to previous samples (specifically, Trojan:Win32/Popureb.B), and now it introduces a driver component to prevent the malicious MBR and other malicious data stored as disk sectors from being changed. The driver component protects the data in an unusual way – by hooking the DriverStartIo routine in a hard disk port driver (for example, atapi.sys). The following steps describe the trick:
1. It calls IoGetDeviceAttachmentBaseRef( ) to retrieve the bottom device object in the disk device stack, that is, the real physical disk device object.
2. Then it hooks the DriverStartIo routine in the found device's DRIVER_OBJECT structure (see the picture below).
3. The hooked DriverStartIo routine monitors the disk write operations: If it finds the write operation is trying to overwrite the MBR or the disk sectors containing malicious code, it simply replaces the write operation with a read operation. The operation will still succeed, however, the data will never actually be written onto the disk.
If your system does get infected with Trojan:Win32/Popureb.E, we advise you to fix the MBR and then use a recovery CD to restore your system to a pre-infected state (as sometimes restoring a system may not restore the MBR). To fix the MBR, we advise that you use the System Recovery Console, which supports a command called "fixmbr".
To find out how to use your system's recovery options, refer to the following articles:
* For Windows XP: Installing and using the Recovery Console in Windows XP
* For Windows Vista: System Recovery Options in Windows Vista
* For Windows 7: System Recovery Options in Windows 7
- Chun Feng
I'm not going to get into that because it's far too political for DC.-Renegade (June 28, 2011, 10:43 AM)
I don't share your confidence.
A well planned attack creates international privacy issues when you can hide behind laws or hide behind the need for a subpoena. Do that a few times, and you've got a complete bureaucratic nightmare.-Renegade (June 28, 2011, 10:01 AM)
Sounds like they know they are close to getting caught...-Josh (June 28, 2011, 08:08 AM)
) LulzSec Calls it Quits
Well, after 50 days of causing amok on the web, the guys and/or girls behind LulzSec have called it quits last night. After hacking into the systems of various Arizona law enforcement agencies and releasing countless internal documents, they published a statement on Pastebin yesterday, dumping yet another boatload of data on The Pirate Bay, and announcing their disbanding.
.
.
.
It sure has been an interesting ride - and, despite my reservations about their actions, surely a fun one. Despite their actions and tactics being quite questionable, there's no denying that they have had their impact - for instance, an Australian ISP has announced not to participate in the voluntary net censorship Down Under out of fear of LulzSec. Call it what you want, but I call that a major win.
In any case, I hardly doubt this is the last we'll hear from these folks. It's clear LulzSec and Anonymous have struck cords all around the world, and I'm sure either others will take it from here, or the same guys will emerge in some other corner of the web under a different name.
.
The case number in US District Court for the District of Delaware is 1:10-cv-00136-UNA, and answers haven’t been filed yet by the defendants.
Within the complaint, Xerox claims that the processes described in their patent System for automatically generating queries , are being used to automatically generate queries based upon the content of web pages that show related advertisements through Google’s Adsense and Adwords programs, as well as through Yahoo’s Search Marketing and Publisher Network.
Yahoo’s Y!Q Contextual Search, which I believe is no longer available, is also described in the complaint as “a system that automatically generates queries based on the content of web pages to retrieve information related to the pages.” I did write about Y!Q a while back, and you can get an idea of how it worked from my post, if you somehow missed it – Y!Q didn’t seem to catch on with a wide audience.
The other Xerox patent, Method and Apparatus for the Integration of Information and Knowledge, is claimed as being infringed by Google Maps, Google Video, YouTube videos and Yahoo Shopping.
)
Where is Xerox in all this? They invented the windowed interface - why aren't they suing Apple and Microsoft and Linux?-Carol Haynes (June 26, 2011, 04:31 PM)
In the midst of the Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit, Xerox also sued Apple alleging that Mac's GUI was heavily based on Xerox's.[2] The district court dismissed Xerox's claims without addressing whether Apple's GUI infringed Xerox's, since the latter licensed it to the former back in 1979 for pre-IPO stock.