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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 09 Issue 24
Volume 9, Issue 24 Atari Online News, Etc. June 15, 2007
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2007
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
Stephen Moss
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0924 06/15/07
~ Web Security Research! ~ People Are Talking! ~ Safari for Windows!
~ Fight Over Buy It Now! ~ Fantasy League Is Sued ~ AOL Spammer Pleas!
~ JagFest UK New Dates! ~ "Image Spam" Slips In! ~ InkJet Printer Ink!
~ eBay Wants Stores Back ~ NATO Calls for Urgency ~ Sony Apologizes!
-* Watchdog Says Google Snoops! *-
-* DDOS Knocks Antispam Sites Offline *-
-* FBI Pulls Plug On Several Botnet Hackers! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Wow, what a dreary week this was! Cold and damp, with a few thunderstorms
mixed in for good measure! Definitely not ideal weather for working out
on a golf course!
Joe stole my thunder (no pun intended, see above) this week. I've been at
a loss for words for awhile now. I'd love to discuss or write about some
Atari topics, but just about everything that I'm conversant about has been
talked about to death. Any ideas from you, the readers? You do realize
that Joe and I are the primary contributors to A-ONE each week, don't you?
Heck, most weeks we're the only contributors! <grin> We've been at this
business for over 9 years with A-ONE, and many prior to that with other
Atari print media. There's only so much our aging minds can come up with
week after week. We've got a lot of experiences to share, and have shared
quite a bit over the years.
So, let's hear from you. Topics you'd like us to consider, an article or
so about some of your more memorable Atari experiences. Some favorite
software, some mods, your favorite machine, online experiences, Atari show
or dealer - whatever! You don't have to write a book, and I/we'll edit it
for you! Drop either Joe or I a line with your ideas - I guarantee you that
we'll read it, and likely publish it. Otherwise, I just know that Joe will
develop a Paris Hilton fetish and report on it weekly! <vbg>
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Mark today down on the calender, because
I'm out of ideas about what to say in this part of the column.
How often have you known THAT to happen?
Yeah, that's what I thought. [Grin]
Well, Paris Sheraton and Lizzy Lowman and all those other pseudo-celebs
who've been in the news seem to have taken a bit of a break this week.
Besides the in-and-out decisions on Paris's confinement, there really
hasn't been much news about these gadflys.
It kind of ticks me off that, even while there's a major problem on
board the International Space Station, the news shows insist on plying
us with all kinds of info on Paris and Lindsay and Brittany and their
latest antics.
Are we that far gone? Now, I admire the female form as much as any man
alive, and even I no longer care about seeing Brittany doing a
'bottoms-up' while getting into her vehicle. By now, I'm positive that
she's got a butt, that it's been seen by more than a few, and possibly
even that it's in the top few percentile of all butts in the country
(depending on how you grade these things)... but I no longer care.
That problem I mentioned earlier aboard the ISS is a rather interesting
situation. It seems that two majorly important computers have decided
to fritz out at the same time. Even more strangely, the problems
occurred almost immediately after the new solar arrays began supplying
power to the station. Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but d'you think the
two things might be related?
These two computers control the attitude and altitude of the space
station, so they're really rather important. The station must be almost
continually repositioned so that the solar panels are able to get the
most sunlight possible, and its altitude must occasionally be adjusted
due to the drag produced by various factors. Right now, the shuttle
Atlantis is doing the bull-work. But if they don't figure out what the
problem is, the whole shootin'-match could be in trouble. Maybe they
should just send up a couple of 1040 STs to do the job, huh?
Well, let's get to the news, hints, tips and info from the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Dan at Brava Sierra Computers asks for help finding Ultimate Virus
Killer:
"I need to find the latest version of UVK2000! Please don't refer me to a
search engine. I need contact info to find the author and get the
latest version. I may even register it. I'd like his E-Mail, Web
Address, Mailing Address & even phone number."
'ggnkua' tells Ben:
"Sooooooo, you never saw http://www.uvk2000.com/ ?"
A while back, Rob Mahlert of Atari-Users.Net posted this:
"I added a new section to Atari-Users.Net today. It's a google map for
Atari-Users, aka a frapper map.
The map interface requires a modern browser (I think it's Javascript
based)
Log on and add your self to our Atari Map!
While logged in, zoom in on your location then select the "add" button
on the right side.
The direct link is:
http://www.atari-users.net/index.php?module=Atari-Users%20Map
Or visit www.atari-users.net and select the "Atari-Users Map" in the
Menu."
Now, a month or so later, Rob posts:
"Only 12 so far?? I know we have more than 12 Atari users in the
world."
Bernd Mueller tells Rob:
"I think, they have the same prob like i have. After creating a new
account I get this message:
>>> You are not authorized to carry out this operation <<<
and that's it!"
Ronald Hall adds his experience:
"Ditto here."
Rob replies:
"This is the first I'm an hearing about this. Can you guys give me more
details? Is it after you log on with the new account?"
Bernd tells Rob:
"Direct after editing the username, the e-mail address and pressing the
'new user' button."
Rob says:
"From working with Bernd, This is when signing up for an account. The
error means an account already exist with the e-mail or username. Why
postnuke doesn't just tell you this.. I don't know. If anyone else has
issues, please let me know."
'Fried Man' posts this link:
"Check out this link, comparing a Mac plus to a modern computer. Did
the Mac Plus use the same CPU as the Atari?
http://tinyurl.com/2hxfjd (URL compressed by author)
Rick Cortese replies:
"Yes at a slightly slower clock speed.
Downside of the Atari was the OS was written in C which slowed down
execution a bit.
If you really want to get disappointed in modern MS OS, you can probably
check out some Dr. Dobb's Journal from the late 80s. One column that
was interesting was ~Inside Windows where they pointed out many flaws
and unscrupulous behavior by MS.
The rumor was the programmers at MS had the saying "Windows isn't done
until 123 won't run" in order to make excel the best selling
spreadsheet. Likewise they were in a battle to dominate word processing
software.
The net result was collusion between the OS and application programmers
at MS that eventually got them in trouble with the FTC. The OS
programmers would provide the application programmers with illegal
jump/locations in the OS so the applications would win benchmark tests.
If someone else used the illegal vectors, MS made sure the next version
of the OS would break their application.
You ended up with a bloated OS that had to carry forward illegal vectors
for their application compatibility and code to insure other
applications didn't run. That's a lot to ask an OS so you can't really
expect it to be fast or efficient too."
Everyone's favorite techie, Alyson, adds:
"I'm running Windows 98SE on an AMD XP2600+ and it puts XP/Vista to
shame.
"Load of rubbish, run Vista" they all say.
Comparatively speaking, today's computers are not hugely faster at all.
Almost all of the advancements are soaked up by a must-cater-for-all
bloatware O/S. In my mind; Windows98SE was the last one they got right.
None of this matters anyway as I code in RISC assembler for
microcontrollers with a whopping 128-bytes of RAM. They run off of a
watch battery too.
The Atari ST today is still perfectly usable. If anything it's a lot
more stable. Like, how often does your ST crash randomly?"
Well folks, that's it for this time around. Tune in again next week,
same time, same station, and be ready to listen to what they are saying
when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Church of England: Sony Game Sick!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Online Fantasy League Sued!
JagFest UK - New Dates!
And more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Church of England Calls Sony Game 'Sick'
The Church of England accused Sony Corp. on Saturday of using an English
cathedral as the backdrop to a violent computer game and said it should be
withdrawn from shop shelves.
The church said Sony did not ask for permission to use Manchester
cathedral and demanded an apology.
The popular new PlayStation 3 game, "Resistance: Fall of Man," shows a
virtual shootout between rival gunmen with hundreds of people killed
inside the cathedral. Church officials described Sony's alleged use of
the building as "sick" and sacrilegious.
A spokesman for the Church of England said a letter will be sent to Sony
on Monday. If the church's request for an apology and withdrawal of the
game is not met, the church will consider legal action, the spokesman
said.
Sony spokeswoman Amy Lake told The Associated Press on Saturday that the
company's PlayStation division was looking into the matter and would
release a statement later.
But David Wilson, a Sony spokesman, told The London Times: "It is
game-created footage, it is not video or photography. It is entertainment,
like Doctor Who or any other science fiction. It is not based on reality
at all. Throughout the whole process we have sought permission where
necessary."
The Very Rev. Rogers Govender, the dean of Manchester Cathedral, said:
"This is an important issue. For many young people these games offer a
different sort of reality and seeing guns in Manchester cathedral is not
the sort of connection we want to make.
"Every year we invite hundreds of teenagers to come and see the cathedral
and it is a shame to have Sony undermining our work."
The bishop of Manchester, the Rt. Rev. Nigel McCulloch, said: "It is well
known that Manchester has a gun crime problem. For a global manufacturer
to recreate one of our great cathedrals with photorealistic quality and
then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief
and highly irresponsible."
During the game, players are asked to assume the role of an army sergeant
and win a battle in the interior of a cathedral.
MLB Takes Fantasy League To Court
Attorneys representing Major League Baseball argued Thursday that online
fantasy baseball companies cannot operate without paying license fees to
MLB to compensate players for the use of their names.
A panel of three judges at the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seemed
skeptical that MLB could take financial control of a game that uses
publicly available statistics and widely known names of players.
"MLB is like a public religion. Everyone knows (the players') names and
what they look like," said U.S. Judge Morris Arnold. "This is just part of
being an American, isn't it?"
MLB's lawyer Virginia Seitz said online fantasy games exploit players by
effectively turning them into game pieces and using their names to draw
more customers.
"There's no way of escaping the fact that players' names are on the
product," Seitz said.
Major League Baseball is appealing a lower court judgment last year that
ruled St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. does not have to
pay licensing fees for MLB players' names and statistics as fodder for
online fantasy league games.
The fantasy league industry generates more than $1.5 billion annually from
millions of players. Big media companies like Yahoo, ESPN and CBS pay MLB
millions in annual fees to operate online fantasy leagues.
Players make fake teams comprised of real MLB players. Over the course of
a season, fantasy league players crunch statistics to judge how well the
players of their fake team are performing.
If MLB wins its suit against CBC, it would effectively give the league
monopoly rights over publicly available statistics and other information
that is used as fodder for fantasy leagues across the country, said CBC's
attorney Rudy Telscher.
"If we lose this case, hundreds of companies go out of business," Telscher
said.
A key issue in Thursday's arguments was the publicity rights of MLB
players. Seitz argued that fantasy leagues are similar to a company that
steals a player's image to sell coffee cups or posters. Without using the
players' names, fantasy leagues would be an unprofitable game of
statistics crunching, she said.
"There is much less interest in predicting the crime rates of major
American cities," she said.
Telscher said fantasy leagues were not unlike newspapers, which use sports
players' names in their pages to draw readers. He said customers paid to
use CBC's Web site because it automatically process statistics for them,
so the company essentially conveys public information.
"There's not any affidavit from players who say they feel like they have
been damaged" by fantasy leagues, Telscher said.
The judges adjourned by saying they would consider the arguments before
ruling.
Sony: Sorry for Cathedral Shootout Game
Sony Corp. apologized Friday to the Church of England for a violent
computer game that features a bloody shootout inside an Anglican
cathedral.
The church had demanded withdrawal of the game "Resistance: Fall of Man,"
which includes a gun battle between an American soldier and aliens inside
a building that resembles Manchester Cathedral in northwest England.
The cathedral's dean, the Very Rev. Rogers Govender, said he had received
a letter from Sony.
"It was not our intention to cause offense by using a representation of
Manchester Cathedral in chapter eight of the work," the letter said. "If
we have done so, we sincerely apologize."
A Sony spokesman confirmed the letter was genuine and said it included the
offer of a meeting between Sony representatives and church officials.
Govender said the cathedral would accept the offer. He thanked Sony for
the apology, but underlined the church's opposition to violence, "and
especially the gun violence seen in this portrayal of the cathedral."
He said the church wanted to discuss its outstanding demands, which
include withdrawal of the game and a donation to the church's education
department, which works to fight gun violence in Manchester.
Earlier this week, the church called for Japanese citizens to join in a
campaign against the game, which was manufactured for Sony's new
PlayStation 3 console.
"For a global manufacturer to recreate the interior of any religious
building such as a mosque, synagogue, or in this case, a cathedral, with
photo realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in
the building is beyond belief and in our view highly irresponsible,"
Govender said Wednesday.
Prime Minister Tony Blair told lawmakers that companies like Sony should
focus on their wider social responsibilities and not just profit. The
church was particularly concerned because Manchester has a history of
gang-related gun violence.
In its letter, Sony said it did not accept "that there is any connection
between contemporary issues in 21st century Manchester and the work of
science fiction in which a fictitious 1950s Britain is under attack by
aliens."
"We believe a comprehensive viewing of the work will make its content and
context clear," Sony said, adding that "Resistance: Fall of Man" has sold
more than 2 million units around the world.
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
JagFest UK - New Dates
For those who are interested the revised dates for JagFest UK 2007 (
http://www.jagfest.org/uk/JFK2007/index.shtml ) is the 6th and 7th of
October.
Stephen Moss
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Google Snoops, Watchdog Says
When it comes to protecting the privacy of its users, Google ranks worse
than any other Internet company, according to an interim report by
Privacy International. The international watchdog group also accused
Google of engaging in a smear campaign in response to its findings, and
demanded an apology.
Privacy International's findings, based on six months of research, placed
Google at the bottom of 23 Internet companies examined by the group.
Google was the only company to earn the bottom ranking, for "comprehensive
consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy."
Other companies, including Microsoft and Yahoo, rated slightly better than
Google. Microsoft was given a rating of four out of six, for "serious
lapses in privacy practices." Yahoo was given a ranking of five of six,
one better than Google, for "substantial and comprehensive privacy
threats."
"We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the
ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have
found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google's approach to
privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations," Privacy
International said.
In particular, the group cited the large amount of data that Google
collects about its users and lack of privacy controls. "Google's
increasing ability to deep-drill into the minutiae of a user's life and
lifestyle choices must in our view be coupled with well defined and mature
user controls and an equally mature privacy outlook," Privacy
International said. "Neither of these elements has been demonstrated."
Privacy International plans to issue a final report in September.
Google executives were not immediately available to comment on the
report's findings.
But an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt from Privacy International
Director Simon Davies accused the company of engaging in a smear campaign
in response to the group's findings. "Two European journalists have
independently told us that Google representatives have contacted them with
the claim that 'Privacy International has a conflict of interest regarding
Microsoft.' I presume this was motivated because Microsoft scored an
overall better result than Google in the rankings," Davies wrote.
Google allegedly claimed a conflict of interest exist because one of 70
people on Privacy International's board of advisors is a current Microsoft
employee. Davies rejected the charge and listed five critical actions the
group has taken against Microsoft, including support for the European
Commission's investigation into Microsoft.
"Can I be so bold as to suggest that your company's actions stem from sour
grapes that you achieved the lowest ranking amongst the Internet giants?"
Davies wrote, demanding an apology from Schmidt.
This isn't the first time that Privacy International has raised privacy
concerns about Google. In 2004, the group filed a privacy complaint over
Google's Gmail service with regulators in France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark,
Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Australia and Canada, as well
as with the European Commission
To date, Google has rejected concerns over the information it gathers and
stores about users. Speaking recently in South Korea, Schmidt dismissed
privacy concerns over the data collected by the company, saying users
worried about privacy can always choose not to use the company's services.
He also said Google deletes information about users after a certain period
of time, but did not say how long that period is.
Privacy concerns about Google have also been raised over the company's
acquisition of DoubleClick, sparking an investigation by the U.S. Fair
Trade Commission. That investigation is ongoing.
While Google has taken flack from critics for its privacy policies, the
company has acted to protect users in at least one case: in January 2006,
Google was the only company to resist a U.S. Department of Justice
subpoena for a random sampling of 1 million Web addresses that users
searched for.
AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo did not fight the DOJ's request, which did not
seek information that would have identified the users who made the search
requests contained in the sample. Ultimately, Google shared a smaller
amount of data with the DOJ.
DDOS Knocks Antispam Sites Offline
Several antispam organizations have been targeted by an attempt to knock
them offline, according to the SANS Institute.
SANS' Internet Storm Center (ISC) said a "pretty big" distributed denial
of service (DDOS) offensive had targeted several high-profile
organizations, including Spamhaus, SURBL (Spam URI Realtime Blocklists)
and URIBL (Realtime URI Blacklist).
Rules Emporium, a site hosting rules for the open source SpamAssassin
antispam program, was also offline, and may have been targeted as well,
according to ISC handler Bojan Zdrnja.
As of Monday, Rules Emporium and URIBL were still not reachable, while
Spamhaus and SURBL appeared to have recovered.
"It looks like some antispam groups managed to get the attack(s) under
control, let's hope the things will stay that way," Zdrnja wrote.
Denial of service attacks are a routine risk for antispam groups, but the
current attack is similar to those carried out against Blue Security just
over a year ago using botnets controlled by the Storm malware, according
to SANS. The attacks caused Blue Security to exit the antispam business.
The ISC's Zdrnja suggested that such attacks may be a good sign for the
effectiveness of antispam tools.
"Spammers seem to be desperate when they launch DDOS attacks, otherwise
they would just keep sending spam, instead of using their resources this
way," he wrote.
AOL Spammer Pleads Guilty
Adam Vitale pled guilty Monday to sending unsolicited e-mail to 1.2
million AOL LLC subscribers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
New York Michael J. Garcia said.
Vitale and co-defendant Todd Moeller, were in contact with a government
confidential informant via instant messaging, and agreed to send spam
advertisements for a product in exchange for half of the profits, Garcia
said in a statement. The pair then sent about 1.2 million unsolicited
e-mails to AOL users between August 17 and August 23, 2005. They changed
the headers on the e-mails and used various computers to conceal the
source of the spam.
Vitale, 26, resides in Brooklyn. Sentencing is scheduled for September 13
before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, who presided over the criminal
case, in Manhattan. He faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison and
a fine of US$250,000 or double the maximum gain or loss resulting from the
offense. Moeller, a New Jersey resident, will stand trial for the same
charges.
FBI Pulls Plug On Several Botnet Hackers
More than 1 million computers - possibly yours, too - are used by hackers
as remote-controlled robots to crash online systems, accept spam and steal
users' personal information, the FBI said Wednesday.
The government has no way to track down all the computers, both in the
U.S. and elsewhere, that hackers have massed into centrally controlled
collections known as botnets.
But the FBI has pulled the plug on several botnet hackers, or zombies. One
man was charged this week in a scheme that froze computer systems at
Chicago-area hospitals in 2006 and delayed medical services.
What was viewed seven years ago as a kind of prank to boot people off-line
has evolved into schemes to defraud people by stealing credit card and
Social Security data, by crashing retail Web sites and through
"pump-and-dump" online stock deals.
In those stock cases, hackers break into online trading accounts to buy
and sell stocks, pumping up the price of those they can liquidate and then
dumping them.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Shawn Henry said in an interview Wednesday,
"There will likely be spam sent on the heels of this case," people
portraying themselves to be from the FBI or saying, 'We're investigating
the big botnet case that you heard about and we need to check your
computer. Provide us this information.'
"Bad guys will continue to use whatever tools are available on the
vulnerable, on people who are unaware or unsuspecting," Henry said.
Hackers create botnets by scanning the Internet for vulnerable computers,
which are then infected and instructed to join the botnet. Because the
hacker has complete control of each "bot" computer, the botnet can be used
to launch denial-of-service attacks, send spam e-mail, steal account login
information or run any program.
Recent busts of botnet hackers, as part of the FBI's "Operation Bot Roast"
sting, include:
* James C. Brewer, of Arlington, Texas. He was indicted Tuesday on charges
of infecting more than 10,000 computers globally, including two
Chicago-area hospitals operated by the Bureau of Health Services in Cook
County, Ill. The computers at the two hospitals were linked to the health
care bureau's mainframe system. They repeatedly froze or rebooted from
October to December last year, resulting in delayed medical services,
according to the indictment. Brewer was released on a $4,500 bond, court
records show.
* Robert Alan Soloway of Seattle. When he was arrested last month, he was
described as one of the world's top spammers for allegedly using botnets
to send out millions upon millions of junk e-mails since 2003. Soloway
continued his activities even after Microsoft won a $7 million civil
judgment against him in 2005 and after Robert Brauer, the operator of a
small Internet service provider in western Oklahoma, won a $10 million
judgment. Soloway has pleaded not guilty to all charges in a 35-count
indictment.
* Jason Michael Downey, of Covington, Ky. He was accused in Detroit last
month of flooding his botnet-linked computers with spam for an 11-week
period in 2004 and causing up to $20,000 in unspecified losses, according
to court records.
The FBI's Henry said agents are investigating thousands of cyberfraud and
computer intrusion cases, although it is not clear how many might be
linked to botnets.
He said people should have their computers checked regularly for evidence
of botnet infection, including using antivirus software or security
firewalls.
"People have their cars inspected once a year to make sure they're safe,"
Henry said. "You've got to do the same types of things with your
computers."
'Image Spam' Slips into Inbox
Spammers have begun using come-ons such as stock-pushing images as e-mail
stationery backgrounds to evade antispam technology and shovel their
unwanted messages into your inbox.
One antispam vendor has spotted the technique in its early stages, but
expects we'll see more of it. In a sample e-mail, the subject read 'GED'
and the simple message was "I truly believe you guys would outsell the
world if only guys could get their hands on your product." But that
pointless text was essentially illegible against a tiled background that
contained the real message: a typical pump-and-dump stock scam image,
according to representatives of Secure Computing.
"Many spam filters look in the [e-mail] body, but don't look into the
headers," says Paul Henry, Secure Computing's vice president of technology
evangelism. The background image is specified in the message's HTML header,
along with other layout and style information. For this sample, the picture
was pulled from fcslur.com, which is registered to the ironically-named
"Privacyprotect.org" in Wellington, New Zealand.
Henry says Microsoft Office displays the background image if it's
configured to display HTML e-mail, and the sample e-mail delivered its
payload in Lotus Notes e-mail as well. Setting either program to display
only text would block the stationery-using junk e-mail, according to Henry
- but would also block anted images. Thunderbird did not display the
background.
Henry says his company is seeing only a small amount of this type of image
spam, but believes it's destined to increase. Adam O'Donnell, director of
emerging technologies at Cloudmark, which also offers antispam products,
agrees.
"People continually try to vary up how they're going to try to enclose
their image in spam," O'Donnell says. It's a "technique used to evade
[antispam] systems."
The varying techniques used by spammers to try to evade antispam filters
mimics the ongoing cat-and-mouse game between malware authors and
antivirus companies - and for exactly the same reasons. Spammers and
virus-writers alike will attempt to change their spam or virus just enough
to evade some automated filters or signature scanners.
Also, this new scam approach comes at a time when the overall amount of
image spam is decreasing, according to recent statistics released by
antivirus vendor McAfee. The picture-pushing junk mail made up 60 percent
of all spam in the first quarter of the year, but in May the amount fell
to just 12 percent.
Image spam may decrease, or new evasion techniques such as this use of
stationery background may see it increase once more. But one thing is for
certain: spam isn't going away any time soon.
"These guys are in business, and they're going to do the amount of work
necessary to stay in business," O'Donnell says.
Law Puts Damper on Web Security Research
Web security research is being seriously hampered by laws that punish
researchers for even attempting to locate flaws in web software, much
less disclosing those flaws, according to a new study.
The report is the first by the Computer Security Institute (CSI), a
research and training organization under the aegis of CMP Technology. It
draws on discussions by a broad working group, including security
researchers and representatives of U.S. law enforcement agencies.
The upshot is that current legal frameworks designed to allow
prosecution of web attackers also make it next to impossible to legally
spot security flaws in the "web 2.0" applications quickly becoming
ubiquitous on the Internet.
Those researchers who do feel safe probing web software for flaws are
probably not aware of their real legal position, the report said.
Unlike researchers who address offline software and operating systems,
web software researchers face significant legal restrictions designed to
trap attackers, according to Jeremiah Grossman, chief technology officer
of White Hat Security and a member of the working group.
"Under some laws, a researcher could find himself prosecuted for simply
looking for website vulnerability, much less disclosing it publicly," he
said in a statement.
The report is to be released on Monday at CSI's NetSec '07 conference in
Scottsdale, Arizona.
It suggests that changes may be needed if the emerging ecosystem of web
applications is to be kept secure. That could include changes in the law,
including to the assignment of liability, how "damage" is quantified and
how disclosure and criminal intent figure into the picture, the report
said.
Short of changes to the law, the report suggested websites could encourage
vulnerability disclosures through anonymous tip lines or the use of
"dummy" sites specifically for the use of researchers.
The working group included organizations such as Fortify Software, SPI
Labs, the U.S. Department of Justice, Cenzic and the Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
NATO Says Urgent Need To Tackle Cyber Attack
NATO defense ministers agreed on Thursday that fast action was needed to
tackle the threat of "cyber attacks" on key Internet sites after Estonia
suffered a wave of assaults on its computer networks last month.
"There was sentiment round the table that urgent work is needed to enhance
the ability to protect information systems of critical importance," NATO
spokesman James Appathurai told a news conference at a two-day meeting in
Brussels.
"They (the attacks on Estonia) were sustained, coordinated and focused.
They had clear national security and economic implications," he said.
"That will be the subject of work here."
Estonia suffered an onslaught of cyber attacks on private and government
Internet sites, peaking in May after a decision to move a Soviet-era
statue from a square in Tallinn prompted outrage from Russian nationals
in Estonia and a diplomatic row with Moscow.
The attacks appeared to have stemmed initially from Russia although the
Kremlin denied it was behind the assaults.
Network specialists said the attacks consisted of a barrage of clicks on
a given Web site, leading to overload. Some sites faced up to 1,000 clicks
a second, compared with a normal level of 1,000 to 1,500 clicks a day.
Estonia said they affected thousands of sites and were akin to a terrorist
attack in their potential to cripple key infrastructure. It urged NATO to
recognize such incidents as an emerging threat.
"We got more support than we expected, particularly with this
acknowledgement of an urgent need to react," Estonian Defense Minister
Jaak Aaviksoo told Reuters during a break in the meeting.
NATO officials said the 26-member alliance, which sent a technology
expert to Estonia at the height of the onslaught, would study how it could
step up existing work within NATO and national capitals on tackling the
cyber threat.
Apple To Take On Microsoft With Web Browser
Apple Inc. will create a version of its Safari Internet browser for
Windows, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said on Monday, challenging Microsoft
Corp. in its key stronghold of Web access software.
The move by Apple, which has expanded beyond its Macintosh computer core
with iPod music players that work with Windows and the upcoming iPhone,
could let the company control how the vast majority of people use the Web
at a time when services and programs are increasingly becoming
Internet-based.
Jobs also said Apple would let outside developers create applications to
run on its upcoming iPhone by tapping Safari, softening the company's
previous position that the device would not support other software due to
security concerns.
But investors were disappointed that Jobs - known for his surprise
announcements - did not have bigger news to announce, and Apple shares
sank 3.4 percent, their biggest one-day fall in about four months.
"Apple always hits a home run, and when they hit a triple, it's a
disappointment," said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co. who
has an "outperform" rating on Apple stock.
"People always expect them to do something out of the blue, and they
didn't do anything out of the blue."
Consumers and investors are hungry for any iPhone news ahead of the
product's June 29 launch.
Speaking at Apple's annual developers' conference in San Francisco, Jobs
put Microsoft's dominant Internet Explorer browser squarely in his
sights, saying that test versions of Apple's Safari software were twice
as fast.
"We would love for Safari's market share to grow substantially," Jobs
said during a presentation in which he focused on new features in Apple's
upcoming operating system update, called Leopard.
Jobs said Safari had 5 percent of the browser market, with Internet
Explorer taking up 78 percent and Firefox, a browser from the nonprofit
Mozilla Foundation, taking 15 percent.
The announcement sets the stage for a new browser war nearly a decade
after Microsoft knocked out pioneering rival Netscape by including
Internet Explorer for free in Windows.
Analysts said Apple clearly hopes to replicate its success in making a
Windows version of its iTunes media management software, a move that not
only helped drive sales of its iPod media players but ultimately helped
sell more Mac computers.
"We assume Safari for Windows should increase market share and encourage
Web site developers to allow for greater compatibility with Safari,"
Soleil Equity Research analyst Shannon Cross said.
"It should also help increase Apple's exposure to the Windows community
and potentially attract a larger audience of switchers," Cross wrote in
a research note.
Addressing concerns that the iPhone would not support programs not
created by Apple, Jobs said independent developers could write
application software for Safari, which is included in the multimedia
device.
"It's an innovative new way to create apps for mobile devices ... and
it gives us tremendous capability, more than has ever been in a mobile
device," Jobs said.
ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes said developers writing
applications to run on Safari would be able to have their software run
on either a Macintosh or Windows-based computer. "That same app should
be able to run on the iPhone," he said.
The bulk of Jobs' speech was dedicated to showing off new features in
the updated operating system, such as improved ways to find and view
files, visual effects in its iChat video chat program, and the inclusion
of a program to let Mac users run Windows on Apple computers.
"It is a hot area, this idea that you have a Mac but may need to switch
to Windows to run some applications. It helps with market share and
helps with customers that are on the fence trying to move to the Mac,"
Phil Schiller, Apple's head of product marketing, said in an interview.
EBay Attempts to Welcome Back Store Owners
EBay Inc. is wooing store owners after a series of decisions by the
online retail giant frustrated some merchants.
If a speech from Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, hints at
future relationships between the company and its sellers, the message is
keep your doors open. During a Thursday keynote at eBay's annual sellers
convention, Cobb pledged not to increase merchant selling fees this July
and said that the stores category will return to the eBay page header
within 30 days.
In addition to offering its main auction listings, eBay allows merchants to
set up shops and sell wares at fixed prices. Last July relations between
store owners and eBay grew contentious when eBay announced an effort
"rebalance the overall eBay marketplace," which had seen store listings
eclipse auctions listings. The rebalancing meant higher store fees as of
last August and in April the stores tab was removed from eBay page
headers.
"For eBay Stores, the last 10 months have been a transition. We are
committed to the long-term success of eBay Store owners," Cobb said. While
store owners didn't welcome last August's fees, Cobb said he is pleased
with the realignment's progress.
Additional efforts to court store owners include 24-hour phone support for
Featured eBay Store owners and a reduction in Anchor Store monthly fees.
Among a raft of other initiatives for sellers, Cobb announced a temporary
reduction in the Final Value Fee, a charge tacked on to an item's final
selling price. Visual navigation, in which photographs play a prominent
role in navigation, will be introduced to more categories.
PayPal President Rajiv Dutta addressed merchant security during his
portion of the keynote.
"We heard the message on fraud. We know it's a top challenge. I am
personally committed to keeping fraudsters off the site," Dutta said.
In an effort to combat phishing, PayPal, eBay's payment division, will make
the PayPal Security Key available to all eBay and PayPal users on Friday.
The security key device, previously in beta testing, generates unique
security codes in 30 second intervals. Users then enter the code when
logging on to their PayPal or eBay account.
In August PayPal will launch a payment review system that flags
"transactions that pose a risk." The questionable transaction is
highlighted and the seller is told to wait on shipping the item until
PayPal confirms that the buyer's account contains adequate purchasing
funds.
Meg Whitman, eBay president and CEO, opened the keynote and emphasized that
the company is suited to reach its goal of connecting people through three
of its divisions. Finding, buying, communicating, entertaining and paying
are main Internet activities, she said. EBay fulfills the buying aspect,
PayPal handles payment functions and VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol)
provider Skype, which the company purchased in 2005, provides
communication services.
"The lines between finding and buying are blurring. At the core the
company is about connecting people," Whitman said.
As eBay executives discussed staying linked and protected, some sellers
said they felt a disconnect from the company.
"I'm happy to hear that stores are going back in the header," said Maria
Ginter, who sells furniture and home decor on eBay.
Ginter was less impressed that eBay is no longer advertising on Google
Inc. after a spat this week over a Google event to promote its own online
payment system, Google Checkout.
"That's how people find my furniture," she said.
Deb Martin, who sells collectible figurines on her store wanted to hear of
security efforts to crack down on dishonest buyers who create new user
identifications to solely commit more fraud.
"Buyers have no incentive to keep their name. They just restart their IDs
and log back in."
She also questioned the merits behind the temporary fee reduction and saw
it as an effort to boost quarterly revenue and benefit shareholders.
Although eBay is emphasizing its auctions, one merchant thinks that form
of e-commerce has faded.
"A lot of people are over bidding. They're just buying now," said Judy
Pykhoff, who operates the Red Cougar Trading Post store on eBay.
eBay In Patent Fight Over 'Buy It Now'
A small Virginia company in a patent fight with eBay Inc. asked a federal
judge Tuesday to stop the online auction powerhouse from using its "Buy
It Now" feature allowing shoppers to buy items at a fixed price.
A federal jury found in 2003 that eBay had infringed Great Falls-based
MercExchange LLC's patent. But last year, the U.S. Supreme Court handed a
victory to patent-reform advocates when it ruled that MercExchange was
not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending
service.
Now, U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman must decide whether
MercExchange is entitled to a permanent injunction. The judge did not say
when he would rule.
Friedman also did not immediately rule on eBay's request to stay the
proceedings until the federal patent office has completed a re-examination
of the patent - a process that MercExchange's lawyers said could take 10
years.
Lawyers for San Jose-based eBay told the judge that the company has
designed a workaround so that it no longer infringes on the patent and
thus an injunction is unnecessary.
Attorney Jeff Randall also said MercExchange has not suffered
irreparable harm and that the company is better off now than it was before
the trial, citing an investment by a hedge fund.
MercExchange's attorneys, however, argued that the potential for future
infringement is at stake and that MercExchange will not be able to sell
exclusive licenses for use of its patent without an injunction.
"Without an injunction in the face of an infringing monopolist that now
has 95 percent of the market, MercExchange cannot make productive use of
its patent in any way," lawyer Seth Waxman said.
Randall said an injunction would give MercExchange "illegitimate
leverage," hurting eBay's reputation in the marketplace by making people
think eBay is still infringing the patent.
"That's what they want," Randall said of MercExchange.
Randall also said MercExchange is not interested in building its business.
"They sit back and try to collect from businesses for their patents, and
that is it," he said.
In arguing for a stay, Randall said waiting for the outcome of the patent
re-examination would save a lot of litigation in the meantime.
"I get the impression that, in a nice legal way, the court is being
threatened," the judge said.
MercExchange attorney Greg Stillman said it was wrong to wait for patent
authorities to sort everything out and that eBay could have avoided a lot
of litigation by asking for the re-examination much earlier.
The patent battle focuses on eBay's button for buying products at a fixed
price, bypassing the bidding process, and MercExchange's claim that the
technology infringes on its intellectual property.
The federal jury that sided with MercExchange awarded the company $35
million. The amount later was reduced to $25 million. Stillman said
outside court that MercExchange intends to ask the judge to increase the
damages to take into account infringement since the 2003 trial.
The Supreme Court's ruling does not affect the judgment against eBay.
In the closely watched case, the high court ruled that judges have
flexibility in deciding whether to issue court orders barring continued
use of a technology after juries find a patent violation. The decision
threw out a ruling by a federal appeals court that said injunctions
should be automatic unless exceptional circumstances apply.
The case became a rallying point for critics who argue the U.S. patent
system is riddled with abuse from small businesses that sue established
companies to enforce patents for ideas that have never been developed
into products.
Over Half of Inkjet Printer Ink is Thrown Away
As much as 60 percent of the ink contained in a typical inkjet cartridge
is wasted, when printers ask users to throw away half-full cartridges,
according to research commissioned by Epson.
The printer company commissioned research laboratory TUV Rheinland to
measure how much ink is used up and how much remains in an inkjet
cartridge when the printer claims it's out of ink. The study revealed
vast amounts of wastage: no matter which printer you choose, around half
the ink you pay for goes unused. On average, inkjet printers provide an
ink efficiency of just 58 percent when used for photo printing purposes
and 47 percent when used for printing business documents such as
presentations.
Research company TUV Rheinland performed comparative tests on eight
different printers from well-known brands such as HP, Canon, Brother,
Lexmark, Epson and Kodak. The Kodak EasyShare model that was included in
the test proved to have an ink efficiency level of just 40 percent. By
contrast, models made by Epson and one HP inkjet, were shown to have
efficiency levels of around 80 percent.
The printers that scored particularly poorly were multi-ink cartridge
models. This category included printers in which colors are supplied in
a single unit of cyan, magenta and yellow as well as six-color printers
that have a five-color ink cartridge. The printers each printed as many
sample pages as possible until one of the colors was exhausted. The
residual amount of ink that was unused was then recorded.
TUV Rheinland's Hartmut Mueller-Gerbes explained that tests were carried
out separately for photo printing and for business printing. The sample
photo prints used were chosen at random by a focus group while a typical
PowerPoint presentation was used as the sample document for the
business-focused efficiency test.
Here, explained Mueller-Gerbes, one color tends to dominate as a
presentation will have a particular color theme "such as the light
magenta used in our example or the light cyan used in my presentation."
Because of this, business printing tends to drain one color faster than
any other and the printer alerts the user that replenishment ink is
needed.
Epson commissioned the tests to measure the environmental impact of ink
waste and to back up its assertion that it's less wasteful - as well as
cheaper - to use a printer that has individual color tanks. Epson sells
inkjet printers only that have separate ink cartridges for each color.
This means that when one color runs out, the consumer can replace a
single cartridge, rather than having to replace all the colors when only
one has been used up, as is the case with multi-ink cartridges.
The weight of the inkjet cartridges was taken before and after the tests
to ascertain how much ink was in it. They also compared with the weight
of an empty cartridge to arrive at a figure for the ink on its own. The
cartridges were chemically cleaned to ensure the weight of the cartridge
alone was factored in.
However, as conference attendees were quick to point out, the tests
Epson commissioned did not measure the cost to the consumer, the number
of pages each printer was able to produce before running out of color
and did not factor in the amount of ink used up by the cleaning cycle
that printers routinely perform. This last factor is something industry
experts believe accounts for a significant amount of ink waste.
=~=~=~=
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