Internet Tech Tip Of The Week

· Getting A-Pope-Lectic: Vatican Web Site Getting Record Traffic - Following the passing of Pope John Paul II and subsequent conclave to elect (soon to be inaugurated) Pope Benedict XIV, the Vatican's website has been receiving unprecedented traffic volume. It wouldn't hurt to brush up on your Latin before clicking on some of these pages...

· Fight The Power! Fight The Power Dat Be! - The Internet is rapidly approaching the Colt Revolver as a great equalizer -- Us "little guys" (and gals) can formulate a reprisal against the Big Boys that scam us, slam us, or just ignore our complaints about their products.

· Like Falling Off A Blog... - Be careful about curing workplace boredom by "blogging": You could wind up doing it as your fulltime job!

· Helping Tech Support To Diagnose Your Machine - There are many venues for getting help when your machine is ailing, especially when you suspect a virus, trojan. or other malware is at the heart of the problem. However, all of them share one thing in common -- they need information about your machine; Not only what is misbehaving, but what has already been checked and found to be good (or bad). This link drops you into a forum discussion about that very situation, and shows you what you need to gather before ringing up tech support. [Note: Contrary to the name, "HijackThis" is a security enhancement tool!]

Security Tech Tip(s) Of The Week

· It Never Hurts To Remind You... - ...that the CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team at the Department of Homeland Security) publishes frequent security (Cyber) alerts about security flaws in various consumer software products. Another round of security flaws admitted by Microsoft this week should guide you to this site for more info on symptoms and ways to plug the holes and swat the bugs. Check it out before the bugs check you out!

· Database Has Good Security And Bug Status - Considering a database for your bid-niss? MySQL gets high ratings from software security analysis company Coverity. Read all about it!

· Oy! My papa!! Foundational protocol is possible vehicle of service attack - Now THIS is a problem -- Lax validation of ICMP messages by some industry giants (incl. Cisco, Juniper, IBM, and OF COURSE! Microsoft) leaves a venue for performance attacks on TCP/IP networks. If your vendor hasn't yet informed you about this problem, get the straight poop in this article and its links.

· Pickin' on the New Kid: Firefox comes under fire. - If there's something good out there, you'll find lowlifes trying to destroy it: Mozilla and Firefox are the latest targets of proof-of-concept security hacks.

· Newly Revealed Security Flaw In Win2K And Variants - Win2K, probably the most solid Microsoft OS version to date, isn't perfect: Reluctantly, Redmond admits that this security flaw is currently unpatched (and, maybe, unpatchable??!?) Keep an eye on this one -- Lots of companies are still using W2K Server variants.

· IRS Flaws Expose Taxpayers to Snooping - This is really going to shock you (snicker!): The IRS' lax security allows unauthorized agencies and others to access your tax returns. Probably, the only person who can't see your tax info on the IRS systems is YOU!

Review and Comment Articles

· Tech Gloom Deepens, But Is Sky Falling? - Spring is in the air, and for tech investors, it's the time of year for minor panic. But many signs of falling technology spending may be simply a seasonal trend, compounded by problems at less competitive companies, rather than a change in the purchasing climate.

· Ascent, Sony Sign Deal to Digitize Movies, TV - Film and television service provider Ascent Media Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment on Monday said they reached an agreement on a plan to put Sony films and TV programs into digital form.
· Infinity Plans to Broadcast to Cellphones in U.S. - Infinity Broadcasting said on Sunday it planned to broadcast its programs to mobile phones in the United States, and include text data for subscribers. The plan would let cellphone users view song titles and artists' names, check concert dates, buy tickets, ring tones and other content, and participate in station promotions.
· Windows 2000 Users: The Clock Is Ticking - June 30 marks the end of mainstream support for both the client and server Windows 2000 releases. A Windows 2000 rollup pack is still due by midyear. While Microsoft's Windows team is laser-focused on Longhorn, many Windows users are more concerned with older versions of Windows, for which the support-clock is ticking away.
· Sunbelt Scoops Up Google-like Spyware Sniffer - Anti-spyware vendor Sunbelt Software said it acquired Web-crawling technology that will enable its researchers to identify new spyware outbreaks more quickly.
· Group Aims to Develop Guidelines to Define Spyware - Even as the menace grows, security vendors are having increasing difficulty defining and identifying spyware, and their indecision is slowing efforts to assist frustrated IT managers tasked with keeping employees' PCs clean.
· Device would offer cheaper, comfortable breast exams - Its inventor hopes that if it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration in a couple of years, it will become a first-line breast cancer screening that can be done painlessly and much more cheaply than mammograms, which many women complain are uncomfortable.
· House considers creation of National Cybersecurity Office - The House subcommittee in charge of cybersecurity has approved a bill that would create a new cybersecurity czar.
· Dubai hotel is a traveling geek's gilded dream - The unique aspects of the Emirates Palace are hidden inside its ductwork: nearly a thousand miles of blue, red and green fiber-optic and broadcast cable, and enough other advancements to have convinced the staff that this is the world's most high-tech hotel. They may even be right.
· 'Pharmers' hit online bank users with fraud scam - The ploy is called pharming — a play on "phishing," another type of Internet fraud — and it involves highly skilled hackers who secretly redirect users' computers from financial sites to the scammers' fake ones, where they steal passwords and other personal information. Even the Web address looks the same. Unlike phishing, where users click on links in e-mails and are taken to fake sites, pharming intercepts a user on his or her way to the bank or credit-card firm. And it potentially can affect thousands of users at a time.
· Rutan: Regulations hinder progress of space tourism - Speaking before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics today, SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan said the commercial space industry will thrive but the current regulatory system is in need of repair and nearly destroyed his test program.
· AOL comes out swinging in phish fight - America Online Inc. is stepping up efforts to fight e-mail "phishing" scams by more aggressively blocking Web sites that masquerade as legitimate financial institutions requesting passwords and account information.
· Qatar to replace camel riders with robots - With the reins in one hand and a whip in the other, the purple-jerseyed rider prodded a camel around the track. But this jockey wasn't the usual underfed boy. The jockey was a robot.
· Colorful language - Coming soon to an iPod near you - iPods get colorful as display costs dissolve into the cost of storage...
· Virus pits itself against music pirates - A hacker has created a virus that targets music lovers by deleting MP3 files on infected computers, according to antivirus company Sophos. The worm, dubbed Nopir.B, spreads over peer-to-peer networks and appears to have originated in France, security researchers at Sophos said Friday.
· College freshmen less interested in tech - Incoming college students seem to have developed an allergy to computer science during the past four years--with women particularly being uninterested in the field.
· Firewall to zap XML viruses
· This week in security
· Police Chief gets chip implant
· US movie pirates face jail terms
· Should you or shouldn't you? DNA testing for disease prediction - This company can test for numerous progressive illnesses, but when preventive methods are unavailable, the question is: Do you really want to know?
· Wipro profits jump on outsourcing
· Helpful users face virus danger
· File-sharers facing spam attacks
· UK laws are failing to deter spam
· Nasdaq to Acquire Electronic Stock Trader
· It Was the '60s, Man
· Happiness Is the Best Medicine
· Anti-HIV Bacterium Isolated?
· Far Apart but Intensely Connected