Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 11 Issue 13
Volume 11, Issue 13 Atari Online News, Etc. March 27, 2009
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2008
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:
Fred Horvat
To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe,
log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org
and click on "Subscriptions".
OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org
and your address will be added to the distribution list.
To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE
Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to
subscribe from.
To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the
following sites:
http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm
Now available:
http://www.atarinews.org
Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/
=~=~=~=
A-ONE #1113 03/27/09
~ Facebook Holds the Line ~ People Are Talking! ~ New PsybOt Worm!
~ Adoption of IE8 Slows! ~ Illicit Online Riches! ~ Computer On 24-7?
~ New Videogame Museum! ~ UK's E-Crime Battle! ~ Game Devs Awards!
~ Facebook Caves to Users ~ Streaming Video Games! ~ Game Bill Vetoed!
-* Verizon To Sell Notebooks! *-
-* Oz Says Web Blacklist Combats Porn! *-
-* Conficker Worm To Strike on April Fools Day *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, it's been one of those weeks, and I'm beat. Not much time to think
about an editorial topic, much less time to sit down and put it on paper.
Or, in this instance, write it digitally.
It looks like we might be getting a break in the weather, for the better,
finally. But I'm being a little tentative because we live in New England,
after all! We never know what to expect here! But, I'm hoping that
things start to warm up here soon so I can spend some time outside.
So, without any plans for this week's editorial, let's get on with this
week's issue!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, another week has come and gone, and
there have been a whopping TEN messages in the NewsGroup in the last
seven days. I remember a time when you could almost count on ten an
HOUR. I'll save those ten and add them to the pile for next week.
The decline of the NewsGroups makes me think back to the days when Atari
was a 'player' in the computer market. Remember how cool it was when a
leading computer magazine (was it BYTE?) referred to the ST as 'The
Jackintosh'? Remember seeing the Atari 'fuji' logo in the movie Blade
Runner? Remember the Atari Portfolio in Terminator2? Remember the
obligatory 2600 game console in every kids movie made in those years?
Yeah, those were the days!
I remember getting my first hard drive for the ST. It was a Supra
shoebox... shoebox is right. It housed a half-height 5.25" MFM or RLL
drive and a SCSI converter, a battery-backed clock and a SCSI/ACSI
interface. It held, if I remember correctly, sixty megabytes. It took
all evening to format and partition it, and it cost me more than ten
dollars per megabyte. A good deal at the time, but expensive as all hell
by today's standards. It was heavy, sounded like a jet taking off, and
generated a lot of heat. But it was a marvel to me, and I used to
explain to other computer-heads that I could fit more than 80 floppies
worth of stuff in that little box, not much bigger than the one my new
pair of work boots came in.
Of course, the dealer I bought the drive from (he had to special order
it from Supra) told me that I was crazy. "Who could ever use up 60
megabytes of storage? That's just insane!"
Of course, that was in the days before multi-megabyte video cards,
downloadable videos and MP3, before all the miscellaneous stuff we take
for granted today.
These days, I can carry a couple of gigabytes of storage on my keychain
without even thinking about how amazing that is. My camera will hold
more than a hundred times the amount of data on that old Supra drive on
a piece of plastic-encased silicon smaller than a stick of gum. My cell
phone has a removable card smaller than the fingernail on my pinkie that
would hold every program and accessory ever written for the ST and Atari
800 combined. And yet, when I go into a store, I still look for a bigger
one.
Now there are hacks around that will allow you to harness one of these
solid state wonders to the ACSI connection of the ST so that you can
save and retrieve data just like one of those old-time hard drives. Yes,
some of them are slower than the old drives, but some are right around
the same speed, and they're more reliable and more energy-efficient to
boot (pun intended).
I remember the excitement I felt being able to finally download programs
from CompuServe, Delphi and GEnie... and it all only took hours to do!
Imagine the convenience of being able to telecommunicate at a whopping
2400 baud! Now my internet connection runs at around two thousand times
faster, and there are still times when I get impatient! Of course, back
then the best price I could get from CompuServe was about $18.00 an hour
at lower baud speeds, so I'd cruise the forum at lower speeds to find
what I wanted, make a note of it and then log in again at the higher,
more expensive speed to download. I'll never forget how insanely mad I
was one day when, about five minutes before a download was finished, my
youngest sister picked up my phone to use it and broke my connection! A
whole hour of downloading wasted! Today access to the entire internet
for a month costs me what an HOUR used to when I connected to CompuServe
at their highest speed.
All of this leaves me to wonder what the next decade will bring. Will
our machines and connections and access to anything we could possibly
think of continue to grow, or will we 'plateau' and settle in to a sense
of normalcy about it all?
One memory keeps popping up in my mind. When I was in college and the
Apple ][ was the hottest thing going (not even the ][+, mind you), my
professor answered a question about the computer's ability to mimic
and/or create sound. "It'll never happen" he said off-handedly.
"Computers generate sound in a square wave. It's 'digital', not analog
like the way we make sound. It'll never be able to mimic a human voice,
and certainly not be able to reproduce music so that you'd want to
listen to it."
Well, he WAS right. Sound waves generated digitally are basically square
waves. What he didn't take into account is the ability to 'speed things
up' so that all those hard, square waves made a smooth analog-like
curve. I found that professor online once. I teased him a bit about what
he'd said and he was genuinely embarrassed about having been
shortsighted.
I can't blame him for that blunder. I mean, who among us can envision
what might be coming down the pike in the next decade? 3D displays and
user interfaces? Multi-processors that can re-arrange themselves to suit
their current tasks? Living or semi-biological processing colonies that
can design and possibly even build new processors that will be able to
do things that we can't even imagine right now?
There's a line from a Harry Chapin song that keeps hitting me when I
talk about these things. The song didn't have anything to do with
technology or computers, but the words fit... All the changes keep on
changing.
My how times have changed!
Well, that's all for this week, folks. Next week, maybe we'll have
enough messages to do a proper column. Find out next time by tuning in
and turning on. Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon, your back to
the wall, your shoulder to the wheel and your ear to the ground. Now
just try getting some work done in that position! But regardless of what
you do, keep your ears open so that you'll hear what they are saying
when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - New Console Uses 3G to Beat Piracy!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" No Disks Needed! Bane Or Boon?
Game Developers Choice Awards!
And much more!
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
New Game Console Uses 3G to Beat Piracy
A startup called Zeebo is marketing a new game console toward emerging
markets, only using a 3G wireless network to download new games.
Zeebo will launch its console to Brazilian retailers next month, priced
at the equivalent of $199. Zeebo said it is targeting the so-called BRIC
market - Brazil, Russia, India and China - with plans to lower the price
to $179 and even $149 next year. At its current price, the Zeebo console
costs the same as an Xbox 360 Arcade; the popular Nintendo Wii costs
$249.99 new.
Interestingly, the console's launch is designed to provide a competitive
answer to, and to prevent, game piracy in the emerging markets. "Selling
titles for only a slight premium over the gray market prices of the
original titles, so consumers have no reason to leave home to shop" is
one of the benefits of the new console that Zeebo touts on its Web site.
"The Zeebo console will deliver a truly engaging and entertaining gaming
experience to a potential billion new consumers around the world, many
of whom have never experienced gaming in the home," said John F. Rizzo,
chief executive of Zeebo, in a statement. "The system provides an
intuitive, quick, and easy-to-use home shopping user experience
featuring popular, culturally optimized content from leading game
publishers and developers around the world. It also delivers high value
and warranty protection compared to gray-market products with no need
for a separate wireless access plan."
In addition, content will only be able to be updated via a 3G network
that the console will subscribe to. "Titles are authorized to work with
a unique ID, assigned to each individual console," the company claims.
"They are not portable, and cannot be moved between consoles via
removable media cards. With no way to copy titles, the Zeebo system is
effectively piracy-proof.
To minimize the bandwidth needed to download new games, and to also
eliminate the costs associated with high-end CPUs and graphics chips,
the Zeebo console specializes in older or less graphics-intensive games.
On average, the company said, games will take up about 40 to 50 Mbytes
on the console, and are stored in a built-in 1-Gbyte flash chip.
Four titles ship with the console: "FIFA Soccer '09," for soccer-mad
Brazil; "Need for Speed: Carbon"; "Brain Challenge"; and "Prey Evil," a
version of the PC game "Prey". The PC classic, "Quake" is also available
as a free download, according to Zeebo.
Customers will purchases games via a points system similar to the Xbox
Marketplace. Zeebo lists 15 other games that users are able to download,
ranging from "Crazy Taxi" to "Resident Evil 4" to "Tekken 2" to "Duke
Nukem 3D". The user interface uses the Qualcomm "BREW" development
platform.
Users download content from the "Zeebonet," a 3G network accessed from
the built-in quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA
radios built into the console.
From a hardware perspective, the Zeebo console is oriented around the
Qualcomm Adreno 130 processor, with an unnamed embedded graphics chip
performing the rendering operations in a maximum of 640x480 resolution
across both PAL and NTSC displays. Games are stored in 1 Gbyte of flash
memroy, with 256 Mbytes of RAM apportioned for operating memory. Three
USB ports appear on the outside of the unit, which measures 157 x 215.4
x 44 mm.
No Disks Needed for Startup's Streamed Video Games
Music and movies can be streamed over the Internet, so why not video
games?
A startup founded by technology entrepreneur Steve Perlman says it has
developed a technology to deliver video games on demand, an idea that
threatens to eventually take consoles out of the equation.
OnLive Inc., Perlman's Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, planned to
unveil its technology Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in
San Francisco.
Seven years in the works, OnLive says it has developed a way to stream
video games without any lag that humans can notice. So the instant you
press a button to shoot something on the screen, the gun goes off.
This has not been possible before, because unlike with music and movies,
which can be compressed - or put into smaller files that are more easily
transferred online - before being streamed, video games are interactive
and require instant responses. That has meant video games needed to be
played on consoles packed with computing power, like the Xbox or the
PlayStation, or downloaded to personal computers that could process some
of the data that enabled games to run.
OnLive's technology gets around that limitation with a new form of
compression that lets its game servers communicate with players over
broadband connections in real time. This also means OnLive's service can
work on older computers, even those without a graphics processing unit
that has until now been an essential component of gaming. Through a
"MicroConsole" about the size of a cassette tape, OnLive's service will
also be available for television sets.
In a recent demonstration, OnLive showed off "Crysis," a complex shooter
game that's currently only available for PCs, played on a TV set through
the little "console" and on a Mac laptop.
"It's the last console you'll need," said Perlman, a former principal
scientist at Apple who in 1995 co-founded WebTV, bringing Internet
access to TV sets. He later sold WebTV to Microsoft Corp. for more than
$500 million.
OnLive says it would be difficult for its users to exceed the monthly
bandwidth caps that Internet service providers are increasingly placing
on their subscribers. A typical user would have to play about 284 hours
- nearly 12 full days - to consume Comcast Corp.'s 250-gigabyte cap.
Nielsen Co. estimates many gamers play roughly 60 hours a month.
OnLive plans to launch its service late this year for monthly
subscription fees it has not disclosed. Most big-name game publishers,
like Electronic Arts Inc., Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. and Eidos
Interactive Ltd., have signed on, and OnLive says upcoming games will be
available on the service at the same time they are released in stores.
OnLive's investors include Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., Autodesk
Inc. and Maverick Capital.
Patrick Seybold, a spokesman at Sony Corp. - maker of the PlayStation
consoles and publisher of titles like "Killzone 2" and "LittleBigPlanet"
- said the company has a "competitive offering for consumers" with games
distributed via both the Internet and disks.
Although OnLive may seem to offer a different approach, Seybold said,
consumers may end up paying more and possibly sacrifice performance
"when you get this into a real-world environment where multiple devices
are plugged into one broadband connection."
If OnLive takes off as its backers hope, it could be a blow to retailers
like GameStop Corp., just as digital music sales are closing up record
stores and drying up CD sales - not this year, or even next, but as
inevitably as the death of the eight-track.
In fact, OnLive was the second major technology announced at the Game
Developers Conference that relied on digital delivery. The Zeebo, an
inexpensive video game console for emerging economies, downloads its
games wirelessly rather than using disks.
"Retailers have a day of reckoning coming, and that's digital
distribution," said IDC video games analyst Billy Pidgeon.
Streaming Games Could Be Bane Or Boon for ISPs
Parents might get a new reason to yell at their kids for playing video
games too much: In the future, it could rack up their Internet bills.
A service unveiled this week aims to stream video games over the
Internet, setting gamers on a collision course with cable and phone
companies that are seeking to curb growing demands on their networks by
charging for heavy usage.
OnLive Inc., a startup from Palo Alto, Calif., revealed its service
Tuesday night at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Users
would get a small, simple device to connect to their TVs, or they could
run the application on a PC. Their screens would receive the game video
from OnLive's servers, which would do the data-crunching needed to
render a richly detailed environment. No game console or high-end gaming
PC would be needed.
It's uncertain how well OnLive would work in homes; there has been no
widespread customer trial. It is clear, though, that it would consume
large amounts of bandwidth, far higher than that required for current
online games, where most of the content is stored on the computer or
console.
The company puts the data usage at just under a gigabyte per hour of
high-definition gaming. The only Internet application with comparable
consumption is high-definition video, like movies bought through iTunes,
watched on Netflix Inc.'s streaming service, or downloaded from
file-sharing networks.
Internet service providers are already girding for rising use of
Internet video by placing monthly limits on the amount of traffic their
subscribers can use. The approach varies. Some are setting limits so
high than only a small fraction of users ever reach them. For instance,
Comcast Corp., the country's second-largest ISP, limits usage to 250
gigabytes per month, and cuts off repeat violators. OnLive says its
users would need to play around the clock for nearly 12 straight days to
reach that.
However, other Internet service providers are trying lower limits, then
charging extra for those who go over. It's not clear which approach will
win out, but subscribers on low-limit ISPs could quickly find themselves
paying far more for their Internet connection, particularly since many
gamers spend more than 20 hours a week on a game.
Frontier Corp., a regional phone company, has alerted its customers that
it plans to charge extra for usage above 5 gigabytes per month. That's 5
hours and 40 minutes of OnLive gaming, if the connection is used for
nothing else. Time Warner Cable Inc., the country's third-largest ISP,
is testing four plans with different caps in Beaumont, Texas. The
highest provides 40 gigabytes per month. Every gigabyte above that, or a
bit more than hour of OnLive gaming, would cost a dollar.
Time Warner Cable spokesman Alex Dudley say the fees are a way to
finance the network, by charging more for those who use their connection
the most.
Derek Turner, research director at media and Internet advocacy group
Free Press, said the bandwidth caps are "misguided" because they can
stifle new applications like OnLive that add value to an Internet
connection.
Also, he said, the profit margins on Internet connections are very high,
and it's not clear that ISPs need to increase their fees to finance
upgrades, especially since the cost of network hardware keeps falling.
Utah Governor Vetoes Video Game Bill
Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (R) has vetoed HB353, a bill in Utah that
proponents had hoped would impose fines upon retailers who sold children
violent video games. Announcing the veto in a letter sent to Utah's speaker
of the House and Senate president, Huntsman said the bill would likely face
stiff constitutional opposition, were it passed into law.
The bill has met with controversy since it was first put on the floor of
the Utah legislature for consideration, partly for its contents and
partly for its pedigree: Jack Thompson purportedly was involved with its
creation. He's an avid proponent of restricting or abolishing the sales
of violent video games. A frequent guest on talk shows and news programs
focusing on violent video games, Thompson is an attorney in Florida who
was disbarred in October, 2008.
Huntsman's move has surprised many watchers from the sideline, as HB353
passed quickly with the approval of both Utah's House and Senate;
legislators overwhelmingly approved the bill.
In rejecting HB353, Huntsman writes, "While protecting children from
inappropriate materials is a laudable goal, the language of this bill is
so broad that it likely will be struck down by the courts as an
unconstitutional violation of the Dormant Commerce Clause and/or the
First Amendment."
Huntsman's opinion mirrors that previously made by the Entertainment
Software Association (ESA), a video game industry group which has
successfully overturned every other state law that's been put into
effect to regulate the sale of video games.
HB353, which would amend Utah's "Truth In Advertising Act," sought to
restrict the sale of games rated "M" for "Mature" or "A" for "Adults
Only" by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). Such games are
intended specifically for players 17 years old and older. Retailers
found violating this would be subject to fines, hence, "truth in
advertising."
The ESRB rating system, much like the motion picture rating system upon
which it's based, is an entirely voluntary program, though it has the
backing of major U.S. game publishers and national retailers of video
games. And studies, including studies done by the U.S. government, show
that the system works, and has been working increasingly in recent
years, as the ESA and other groups have put more pressure on retailers
to comply.
Critics pointed out a loophole in Utah's amendments, however "retailers
wouldn't be fined if they didn't sell products with age-appropriate
labeling." It's this that stuck Huntsman from signing the bill into law.
"Therefore, the unintended consequence of the bill would be that parents
and children would have no labels to guide them in determining the age
appropriateness of the goods or service, thereby increasing children's
potential exposure to something they or their parents would have
otherwise determined was inappropriate under the voluntary labeling
system now being recognized and embraced by a significant number of
vendors," Huntsman concluded.
'LittleBigPlanet' Wins Big at Video Game Awards
"LittleBigPlanet" sacked the competition to win four trophies at the
Game Developers Choice Awards.
Developed by Media Molecule, the cutsey PlayStation 3 adventure game
which allows players to create and share their own levels was honored
for best game design, debut, technology and innovation at the Game
Developers Conference ceremony Wednesday evening.
Bethesda Softworks' "Fallout 3" seized the evening's top prize. The
post-apocalyptic shooter, which is set in the ruins of Washington, D.C.,
blasted fellow nominees "LittleBigPlanet," Valve Software's "Left 4
Dead," Lionhead Studios' "Fable II" and Rockstar Games' "Grand Theft
Auto IV" to win game of the year. "Fallout 3" was also awarded the best
writing trophy.
"I was a nerd growing up in South Boston," said "Fallout 3" lead writer
Emil Pagliarulo during his acceptance speech. "To all the nerds growing
up in South Boston, don't play hockey. Don't join Little League. Stay in
your room, read your Lloyd Alexander and play 'Dungeons and Dragons.' It
all works out in the end."
Selected by a jury of game creators, the Game Developers Choice Awards
honor the best games of the past year. The lively ninth annual ceremony
was hosted by "Psychonauts " and "Brutal Legend" developer Tim Schafer.
The show was capped off with the debut teaser trailer for "Call of Duty:
Modern Warfare 2," the upcoming sequel to the best-selling game of 2007.
Other winners at the ceremony at the Moscone Convention Center were
Ubisoft Montreal's "Prince of Persia" for best visual art, Ready at Dawn
Studios' "God of War: Chains of Olympus" for best handheld game, EA
Redwood Shores' "Dead Space" for best audio and 2D Boy's "World of Goo"
for best downloadable game.
"Video Games Live" concert series co-founder Tommy Tallarico was awarded
the ambassador trophy. Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, co-founders of
"Rock Band" developer Harmonix, received the pioneer award. "Metal Gear
Solid" creator Hideo Kojima was bestowed with the lifetime achievement
award.
"I wanted to give my speech in English, but this is GDC," joked the
veteran Japanese designer while accepting his lifetime achievement
award. "All of this will be up on YouTube. If I make a mistake, it could
stay on the net for the next century, so please allow me to read my
speech."
Earlier in the evening, several trophies were handed out at the 11th
annual Independent Games Festival Awards. Erik Svedang's "Blueberry
Garden" won the top honor, taking home the $30,000 Seumas McNally grand
prize for best independent game. Other winners included Jason Rohrer's
"Between," Data Realms' "Cortex Command" and KranX Productions' "Musaic
Box."
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
Videogame Museum Opens in Rochester, New York
You know you've reached a certain age when the elements that defined your
childhood become "artifacts" in a museum. A whole generation is about to
have that experience when the National Center for the History of
Electronic Games opens its doors in Rochester, New York. According to a
Eurogamer report, the museum includes over 15,000 objects covering all
aspects of electronic gaming, including early console systems such as the
Atari 2600 and Colecovision as well as handhelds and gadgets such as the
Microvision, Mattel's Electronic Football, and Simon. Also inclded are a
plethora of advertising, television commercials and instruction manuals.
Sections of the exhibit focus on all aspects of the hobby including game
developers, players, controversies, and the games themselves.
A quick persusal of the NCHEG Web site reveals the center to be part of
the Strong National Museum of Play, a family-oriented museum that focuses
on toys and games. The site also reveals that this appears to be a bit
more than just a nostalgic collection of memorabilia. There definitely
seems to be a scholarly dedication to actually curating these objects and
properly placing them within a hstorical context that will shed light on
the role of electronic gaming in society. Of course the place offers
birthday party packages, so take that for what it's worth.
Allen says: I don't know about you, but I just found the location for my
next vacation. Fortunately I'm originally from New York and I do go back
to Long Island occasionally for visits so maybe there's a chance I can
convince my wife to take a good five- or six-hour drive... to see a
videogame museum. Sigh. I'm never getting there.
On a purely up note, let's hope this is a serious effort to preserve the
early history of electronic gaming. One of the great tragedies of the
film world is that so little of the output prior to the 1930s actually
survives - particularly the work of the silent era. At the time, the
culture czars also thought that movies were disposable trash
entertainment not worthy of serious study, and as a result we lost
priceless pieces of cultural history. Yes. I just referred to Nintendo's
Game & Watch as "a priceless piece of cultural history."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Adoption of Internet Explorer 8 Slows
Adoption of Microsoft's new Internet Explorer Web browser appeared to
be leveling off Monday after peaking at 2.58 percent of all Internet
users over the weekend, reports Net Applications. IE8's share of the
global market was down to 2.02 percent on Monday at noon, equivalent to
the new browser's adoption rate at 5 p.m. Friday - the first full
business day after its release.
Microsoft's relatively quiet rollout of IE8 stands in stark contrast to
the excitement that Mozilla generated when it released Firefox 3 to
great fanfare on June 17. By the start of the following month, Mozilla's
new browser had already captured a 4.34 percent share of the global
browser market.
One reason for IE8's slow adoption is clearly due to Internet Explorer's
enduring strength as the Web platform of choice among enterprises, which
are always cautious when it comes to adopting a new browser, noted
Gartner Research Vice President and Distinguished Analyst Michael
Silver. "While the promise of browser-based applications was that
migration would not be necessary, some applications are still written to
specific browsers," Silver said.
This helps explain why IE6, which was introduced in 2001, still has
18.85 percent of the global browser market, just behind the 19.11
percent share held by Firefox 3. "IE6 seems to be a particular problem,
with many IE6 applications not working properly on IE7 or IE8," Silver
said.
"This has prevented many organizations from upgrading beyond IE6 and has
even delayed some Vista migrations," Silver said. "This is likely to
continue being a problem in the Windows 7 time frame as, again, IE6
cannot be run on that platform."
On the consumer side, IE8's slow gallop out the starting gate suggests
that Microsoft hasn't made a good case for why users should upgrade from
previous Internet Explorer releases or switch from the rival Firefox,
Chrome and Opera browsers. If anything, the fact that IE8 now looks and
feels much like Firefox 3.0 makes it that much harder for Microsoft to
attract trend-conscious users looking for the next best thing.
Microsoft says Internet Explorer 8 is a leap forward in support for the
latest Web standards. "We believe that IE8 has the first complete
implementation of CSS 2.1 in the industry and it is fully compliant with
the current CSS 2.1 test suite," said Internet Explorer Test Manager
Jason Upton.
But the downside to Microsoft's embrace of the latest Web standards is
that some early adopters are finding that IE8 will not display some Web
pages accurately. Users who fail to select IE8's Compatibility View
option are bound to be disappointed when viewing Web pages incompatible
with the latest Web publishing standards.
Though IE8 has received high marks from many security experts, some
Internet users seem reluctant to switch to the new browser until a
general consensus has been reached that Microsoft has plugged all
potential exploit holes. To this end, it didn't help Microsoft last week
when white-hat security experts were able to exploit vulnerabilities in
IE8 during the annual PWN2OWN contest at CanSecWest.
By contrast, Google's Chrome browser emerged from the event unscathed.
What makes Chrome different from other browsers is the product's use of
"an innovative multiprocessed sandboxing architecture, where each
process is isolated and stripped of most of its privileges to prevent it
from accessing other components of the user's computer," Google said.
Verizon Plans To Sell Netbooks
Verizon Wireless will start selling a netbook - a cheaper, more basic
version of a notebook - as early as next quarter, Bloomberg said, citing a
person close to the project.
The devices are being developed with more than one PC maker, the news
agency cited the person as saying. Price and plan details aren't
complete, the person told the news agency.
Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc and Britain's
Vodafone Group Plc, competes with AT&T and Sprint Nextel in the wireless
carrier market.
Verizon Wireless and AT&T see devices used mainly for data rather than
voice as the next phase of wireless growth as the vast majority of the
U.S. population owns mobile phones.
Facebook Holds the Line Against Spammers, Scammers
Facebook is shoring up its security protection procedures as the
social-networking site increasingly comes under attacks from spammers,
data thieves and other tricksters, according to the company's chief
privacy officer.
Facebook, which has about 100 million daily visitors and about 175
million registered users, has come under scrutiny over how it manages
user data as well as how it lets users control who sees their own data.
That aggregation of data, as well as high numbers of visitors, makes the
site attractive to miscreants and cybercriminals.
"Obviously, we've become a very large target for people trying to hack
the site, trying to spam people on the site," said Chris Kelly, who is
also the company's head of global public policy, during a presentation
at the E-crime Congress in London on Tuesday. "In those rare occasions
where these attempts get through, we learn very quickly."
Facebook has an automated system in place that's designed to either stop
or eliminate fake profiles, one of the weaknesses of social networks. It
looks for odd behavior, such as having lots of friend requests rejected
or too many searches conducted in a short period of time, which can
indicate the use of scripts or a bot, Kelly said.
Chat messages and wall posts are also analyzed to see if they contain
links to bad Web sites or are posted across a high number of profiles.
Facebook takes down thousands of fake accounts per week, some designed
to spam people or perpetrate fraud, Kelly said. The site also heavily
relies on its users to report fake profiles, an additional mechanism
that the company calls "community verification."
Additionally, Facebook has two security teams - one in California and
one in Dublin - that will review reports of nudity, pornography or
harassment within 24 hours and other e-mail complaints within three
days, since those requests are often more complex, Kelly said.
As far as upcoming features, the company plans to integrate more
granular controls over how users can share data with friends, Kelly
said. "You'll see this get more extensive over time rather than less,"
he said. That will allow users to carefully parse what groups of friends
they want to share information with.
Still, if users really do not want anyone else to see a bit of
information, they should not put it on Facebook at all, Kelly said.
"If you want something to stay truly secret, Facebook is not the site
for you," Kelly said.
In other Facebook news, the company is moving ahead with new terms of
use. Facebook came under criticism in mid-February after it modified its
terms of use in a way that appeared to give the company perpetual
control over material posted to the site, even if it was deleted. In the
wake of the controversy, Facebook reverted back to its previous terms
while launching a process to let users help create new terms.
The site has two documents open for public comment through Sunday:
"Principles and the "Statement of Rights and Responsibilities," the latter
of which will evolve into new terms of use. After Sunday, Facebook will
respond to the comments, and then a ratification process will begin, Kelly
said.
Nasty New Worm Targets Home Routers, Cable Modems
A computer worm has been discovered that can infect 55 different
home-based routers and DSL/cable modems including common brands like
Linksys and Netgear.
Believed to have originated in Australia and known as "psyb0t" or
Bluepill, this is the first worm known to be able to infect residential
routers and modems.
Psyb0t is armed with 6000 common usernames and 13,000 popular passwords
that it tries in various combinations to gain entry to your home
network. Most home-based routers will give you unlimited attempts to get
the username and password correct, making these devices an ideal target
for infection. Also, unlike your PC, your router and modem are running
24 hours a day meaning psyb0t has a relatively unlimited amount of time
to try and gain access.
If that wasn't frightening enough, psyb0t is reportedly very hard to
detect and most home users will be unaware that they're infected. Like
other worms, psyb0t is designed to infect systems and then carry out
commands given by its author, creating what is known as a botnet.
There may not be much cause for alarm, though, as APC Magazine
is reporting that the botnet capabilities for this worm are no longer
active. At its height, psyb0t was suspected of controlling 80,000 tio
100,000 systems.
The DroneBl blog - a real-time tracker that looks for botnets - says the
threat psyb0t poses or could have posed is overstated. DroneBL believes
this is not an "end of the world, all routers are vulnerable" thing. But
the appearance of psyb0t is troubling because it is so hard to detect and
could be used to steal "personally identifying information," the blog
adds.
While the threat posed by psyb0t may not be high, it is still extremely
important to take precautionary measures against this kind of attack.
The best way to protect yourself is to make sure you are not using the
default password and username that came with your equipment. Consult the
materials that came with your device or the manufacturer's website for
instructions on how to change your username and password. If you're
worried you have been infected, a simple factory reset of your device will
kill the worm.
Conficker Worm Will Call Home on April Fools' Day
April 1 brings on the age-old tradition of jokes and pranks. But this
year, April 1 will be more than just April Fools' Day.
The first day of April 2009 is when security analysts around the world
will watch to see what happens to thousands of computers because of the
Conficker worm, a family of malware that is now widespread and affecting
10 million computers.
Conficker, also known as Downadup, is spread in three ways, including
via exploit, weak passwords, and the use of autorun.inf files which are
copied to USB drives.
Graham Cluley, a security analyst with Sophos, said it's not possible
for analysts to figure out what the payload could be because it's not
yet present in the Conficker code.
"Some people have got rather confused as to what the April 1st deadline
really means," Cluley said in an official blog post. "The truth is that
Conficker is not set to activate a specific payload on April 1st.
Rather, on April 1st Conficker will begin to attempt to contact the
50,000-a-day potential call-home Web servers from which it may receive
updates."
Beyond that, Cluley said there's no guarantee the download will even
occur on the first day of April. It all depends on when the authors of
the malicious code choose to register a domain out of the 50,000 listed
each day.
Jart Armin, a security expert with HostExploit, agrees. "The April 1st
date would appear to be speculation; in the four or so worm variations
seen so far, all have had various 'call home for an update' dates, times
and varying locations," Armin said. "Conficker remains a dangerous
threat, but its masters are obviously playing a cat-and-mouse game with
the community, constantly matching any publicized anti-measures, and
it's normal business as usual for malware in general."
Armin warned that the authors of the code may be using April Fools' Day
to distract people while they commit other attacks. "It is important to
remember, when observing illusionists as in this case, to also watch
what the other hand is being used for," he said.
While the Conficker masters iron out details, businesses are planning
countermeasures to fight the virus.
In February, Microsoft announced a collaboration dubbed the Conficker
Cabal with other industry leaders, including AOL, F-Secure, Arbor
Networks, and VeriSign, to put together a coordinated response to the worm.
The software giant has been working with the Internet Corporation of
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and operators of Domain Name Systems
to find a way to disable the domains targeted by Conficker. Microsoft
has also posted a $250,000 bounty for information that results in the
arrest and conviction of those responsible for launching the malicious code.
Site Hacks, Fake Security Rakes in Serious Cash
Here's a recipe for illicit online riches:
1. Hack a Web site to insert pages full of keywords to popular terms. 2.
Redirect the millions of people who click on the search result links to
the fake pages to a site selling rogue antivirus software. 3. Sit back
and collect affiliate fees from the rogue software seller, to the tune
of up to $10,000 a day.
Web security company Finjan gathered details on this kind of operation
after gaining access to a traffic management server used by the bad
guys. The redirection that started with a poisoned search link went
through the traffic servers on the way to rogue AV sites, allowing
Finjan to observe the process.
The company found that crooks were hacking legitimate Web sites to
insert parasite pages stuffed full of search terms pulled from the
Google Trends system, along with others with minor typos from real terms
like Gogle or Obbama.
These fake pages, designed to get search engines to find and display the
pages in online searches, would redirect anyone who clicked on them to a
site selling rogue AV software. Pushing the fake apps has become a
popular profit-making technique among online crooks, and for good reason.
Finjan found that affiliate programs from the crap software pushers pay
hackers 9.6 cents per redirection to the software-selling sites. That
adds up to serious cash when you're talking about 1.8 million unique
user redirections in 16 consecutive days, as Finjan observed.
Of those 1.8 million users, 1.79 percent of them paid $50 for the fake
AV software. The software sellers used those profits to pay a total of
$172,000 - or $10,800 per day - to affiliates.
With numbers like these, it's no surprise that rogue antivirus is
becoming more common. And its spread doesn't just hurt those who get
conned out of $50 or more for the software. Search engines will
typically penalize sites that they believe are trying to game the
system by stuffing pages full of random search terms, Finjan says. So
the legitimate sites that get hacked may be penalized and see their
real pages drop in search engine rankings.
With Limited Resources, UK Vows to Battle E-crime
A new U.K. police force dedicated to tracking down cybercriminals is
gearing up to make the most of what one senior police official
acknowledges is limited funding.
The Police Central e-crime Unit, due to begin operations soon, came to
be as part a comprehensive overview of how the U.K. handles fraud and
e-crime after years of criticism that the government wasn't doing enough.
The unit will receive £7 million (US$10 million) in funding over the
next three years from the Home Office and Metropolitan Police.
"This is not a lot of money," said Janet Williams, deputy assistant
commissioner in the Specialist Crime Directorate of the Metropolitan
Police Service, during a presentation at the E-crime Congress in London
on Wednesday.
Overall, the strategy for dealing with e-crime will be increased
training for law enforcement, linking different law enforcement agencies
and allying with private industry.
Of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, "only a handful of
high-tech investigators" are in those jurisdictions, William said.
Additionally, it's likely that specific computer forensics equipment
would have to be shared between jurisdictions.
As far as training, Williams said they would like to see many law
enforcement officials get basic training in dealing with electronic
crime. Other investigators can get more specific training, such as the
right way to collect electronic evidence for presentation in court
cases, Williams said.
There's been a "huge backlog" in cases dealing with child pornography,
as investigators are having trouble analyzing data. Investigators should
have the skills to be able to triage a digital crime case "so they're
not bringing the whole computer and locking everything up for three
months but we go for what we need in order to prove the case," Williams
said.
She cautioned, however, that the unit will not be able to handle every
cybercrime incident.
"What I'm not saying and have never said, and I've been very clear
about, is that the national e-crime unit ... can investigate all
e-crime," Williams said. "That is never going to happen. We haven't got
the capability or the capacity."
U.K. law enforcement is also preparing for an expected increase in fraud
and e-crime related to hosting the Olympics in 2012. An Olympic e-crime
assessment has been completed, and a business case has been put forward
to the Home Office to fund the effort.
Of concern are possible denial-of-service attacks on Olympic Web sites,
Williams said. Also, officials have already seen suspicious domain names
registered for Olympic-related businesses.
"We are already seeing some sort of precursor-type activity," Williams
said in a subsequent interview with IDG News Service. Some domain-name
registrations are raising concerns: "We're thinking from the nature of
the registration 'Are these legitimate companies or not?'"
Australia Says Web Blacklist Combats Child Porn
Australia's communications minister has defended a proposed Internet
blacklist as necessary to combat child pornography but admitted that at
least one site had been wrongly blocked during trials.
Stephen Conroy also told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television
on Thursday night that the blacklist was not censorship of the type
practiced by China or Saudi Arabia.
"It is possible to support a blacklist and support free speech," Conroy
said. He did not explain how.
His comments came a week after a whistle-blower organization published a
list of 2,400 sites that it said were on the government's secret
blacklist, including a dentist's office, poker sites and a PG-rated site
displaying images by a controversial Australian photographer.
Conroy said the dentist's site had been hacked and child pornography
photos were posted. The office confirmed last week it had been hacked
more than a year ago, and visitors were temporarily redirected to an
adult Web site. The office said it quickly switched to a different
Internet provider and hasn't had a problem since.
The minister said a site showing photos by Bill Henson, whose images of
nude children have caused complaints by child advocates, was also
wrongly blocked because of a "technical issue."
The blacklist, maintained by the Australian Communications and Media
Authority, is provided to creators of Internet filtering software that
people can opt to install on their computers.
But Conroy wants a mandatory implementation of the blacklist by all
Internet service providers. That would make Australia one of the
strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.
The proposal has prompted protests across the country, with critics
slamming it as censorship. Internet providers argue that a filter could
slow browsing speeds, and point out that illegal material such as child
pornography can be traded on peer-to-peer networks or chats, which would
not be covered by the filter.
Several Internet providers are conducting trials of the filter through
June though three of Australia's biggest ISPs have withdrawn from the
trial.
The authority said the list largely contains the addresses of Web sites
promoting child pornography and sexual violence, but it has refused to
release its contents publicly.
Conroy said the list was needed to tackle pro-rape, pro-child
pornography and pro-incest Web sites, adding it would give parents the
choice to block certain sites.
But opposition politician Greg Hunt warned there was a danger of the
government encroaching on political freedoms to combat the "worst of the
worst" Web sites.
"We need to increase the resources to take on people who will engage in
child pornography and increase penalties for those acting illegally,"
Hunt said.
Facebook Caves to User Gripes Over Redesign
Facebook says it will tweak its homepage in the coming weeks in direct
response to user uproar over recent designs changes. The social network
caved to customer feedback against the site's recent improvements and
says it decided to listen to the millions asking for less change.
Chris Cox, Facebook Director of Product, posted last night on the
Facebook Blog a lengthy explanation of the features the social network is
going to look into tweaking after the colossal user feedback. The most
changes will be seen in the users' streams, which will finally get live
updating and friend list filters.
"Redesigns are generally hard to manage, in part because change is
always hard and in part because we may miss improvements that any
individual user may like to see," said Chris Cox in his blog post. This
week, change was hard on almost two million Facebook users, which joined
petition groups campaigning against the site's latest improvements.
The stream, the central dashboard on the main Facebook page, is the part
that will see the most significant changes. Facebook claims that this is
where the most user feedback was focused on, so they decided to
concentrate on "improvements immediately and over the next several weeks."
Live stream updating "will be adding the ability to turn on auto
updating in the near future so you no longer need to refresh the page."
Also, if one of your friends is tagged in a photo, it will appear in
your stream. Users had to hit the refresh button on their browser every
time they wanted to see new items on their stream.
Other tweaks include moving friend requests notifications and event
invites to the top of the left column and a friends list which will
allow users to create a new list of friends with which to filter the
stream. However, application bookmarks will continue to live in the
toolbar at the bottom left of the page.
Certainly most of the unhappy users will be fairly content with
Facebook's decision to listen to their feedback, but critics actually
think this is a bad decision. Judged by numbers, around just one percent
of Facebook users complained about the site's latest redesign. Still, in
numbers alone, two million sounds a lot.
But as some point out, Facebook has enforced several times now redesigns
on its users and ignored their complaints. This time round though, just
like with the site's Terms of Service, the number of users complaining
grew tenfold (around 200,000 last year and just under two million over
the last week) Facebook might have thought that they couldn't risk losing
such a large number of users.
Computer on 24-7? You're Wasting $2.8 Billion Per Year
The environmental damage caused by continuously idle computers is
nothing new. However, even in these dire economic straits nearly half of
U.S. workers who use a PC at work do not shut it down at night.
These constantly powered, unused computers waste $2.8B a year, according
to the 2009 PC Energy Report - an international study released Wednesday
by UK software company 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy. How many
machines did it take to wreak such eco havoc? In the United States alone
that number came to a staggering 108 million, according to the study.
Idling computers are projected to emit 20 million tons of carbon dioxide
by year's end - equivalent to emissions from 4 million cars. To avoid
this, 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy recommend simple, non-intrusive
green IT practices.
"Employers today have a golden opportunity to demonstrate their
environmental and financial leadership by taking a few simple,
energy-saving measures, like setting up processes to power down PCs,"
said Sumir Karayi, CEO of 1E. "Shutting down PCs when not in use will
help businesses to significantly reduce costs while preventing tons of
CO2 from being emitted into our atmosphere."
=~=~=~=
Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire
Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted
at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for
profit publications only under the following terms: articles must
remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of
each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of
request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org
No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial
media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or
internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without
the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of
Atari Online News, Etc.
Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do
not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All
material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.
