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In a startling report revealing a tale of transatlantic espionage not witnessed since the glory days of 007, the London-based Financial Times recently detailed how Britain, supposedly America’s closest European ally, has been leading a multi-year European undercover ('back-door') effort within the United States to undermine U.S. climate change policy. While this is not surprising, it does smack of interference with another nation's policies. It also happens to confirm prior ITSSD research, readily accessible on its website.

 SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Wednesday that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker. The company said the undisclosed daily check is a safety measure designed to allow the tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage, to quickly shut down in case of a malfunction. For example, if the company suddenly started seeing a rash of reports that Windows copies were pirated, it might want to shut down the program to make sure it wasn't delivering false results. "It's...

Excerpt - LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — In a rare discussion on the severity of the Windows malware scourge, a Microsoft security official said businesses should consider investing in an automated process to wipe hard drives and reinstall operating systems as a practical way to recover from malware infestation. "When you are dealing with rootkits and some advanced spyware programs, the only solution is to rebuild from scratch. In some cases, there really is no way to recover without nuking the systems from orbit," Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft, said in a presentation at...

Time for a new FreeRepublic folding@home thread. Our FreeRepublic team of 300+ members comprised primarily of Free Republic members in good standing have banded together to donate their excess CPU cycles to a worthy cause. Via distributed computing, millions of computers around the world, contribute directly to scientific research, in the quest for a greater understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer, and Mad Cow (BSE). Currently, the team is in 164th place (with 992 CPUs - nearly 19,000 completed Work Units and 2,982,241 points) This is an entirely voluntary program, and if you want to learn more, please see...

Windows Vista won't have a backdoor that could be used by police forces to get into encrypted files, Microsoft has stressed. In February, a BBC News story suggested that the British government was in discussions with Microsoft over backdoor access to the operating system. A backdoor is a method of bypassing normal authentication to gain access to a computer without to the PC user knowing. But Microsoft has now quelled the suggestion that law enforcement might get such access. "Microsoft has not and will not put 'backdoors' into Windows," a company representative said in a statement sent via e-mail. The...

A group of gamers has started a site to spread a pledge to boycott video-games that come with a dangerous anti-copying mechanism.... For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure...

LOS ANGELES, CA, USA -- A US computer hacker on Monday pleaded guilty to hijacking around 400,000 computers, including military servers, and infecting them with malicious software. In the first such prosecution of its kind, "botmaster" Jeanson Ancheta, 20, admitted infecting the computers with software that caused them to send spam, show ads and launch crippling attacks on Internet sites. In federal court in Los Angeles, Ancheta admitted conspiring to violate both the Computer Fraud Abuse Act and an anti-spam law, to causing damage to US defense computers and to hacking into computers to commit fraud. His plea comes after...

This is a transcript from a show Steve Gibson did with Leo LaPorte. The link to the audio is at the above link. Also, I will excerpt a little of the relevant information here.Steve: And so, you know, because I'm a developer when I'm not being a hacker, I wanted to understand - oh, and the other thing is, I want to write a robust testing application, you know, that always works all the time. So I wanted to know, like, okay, what bytes have to be set which way, what matters, what doesn't. Because, you know, that's the way...

Looking forward to the week ahead, I find myself in the very peculiar position of having to say something that I don't believe has ever been said here in the Handler's diary before: "Please, trust us." I've written more than a few diaries, and I've often been silly or said funny things, but now, I'm being as straightforward and honest as I can possibly be: the Microsoft WMF vulnerability is bad. It is very, very bad.

Excerpt - NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) plans to release a patch for a new security flaw at its next scheduled update release on Jan. 10, leaving users largely unprotected until then from a rapidly spreading computer virus strain. "Microsoft's delay is inexcusable," said Alan Paller, director of research at computer security group SANS Institute. "There's no excuse other than incompetence and negligence." "It's a problem that there's no known solution from Microsoft," said Alfred Huger, senior director of engineering at Symantec Corp.'s (SYMC) security response team. SANS Institute, via its Internet Storm Center, has taken the unusual...

Computer security experts were grappling with the threat of a newweakness in Microsoft’s Windows operating system that could put hundreds of millions of PCs at risk of infection by spyware or viruses. The news marks the latest security setback for Microsoft, the world’s biggest software company, whose Windows operating system is a favourite target for hackers. “The potential [security threat] is huge,” said Mikko Hyppönen, chief research officer at F-Secure, an antivirus company. “It’s probably bigger than for any other vulnerability we’ve seen. Any version of Windows is vulnerable right now.” The flaw, which allows hackers to infect computers using...

This alert is a follow-up to a post made yesterday on our blog: http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/blog/ Websense® Security Labs™ has discovered numerous websites exploiting an unpatched Windows vulnerability in the handling of .WMF image files. The websites which have been uncovered at this point are using the exploit to distribute Spyware applications and other Potentially Unwanted Soware. The user's desktop background is replaced with a message warning of a spyware infection and a "spyware cleaning" application is launched. This application prompts the user to enter credit card information in order to remove the detected spyware. The background image used and the "spyware...

Security researchers have released instructions for exploiting a previously unknown security hole in Windows XP and Windows 2003 Web Server with all of the latest patches applied.

Sony's controversial DRM technology - which installs rootkit-style software when users play Sony BMG CDs on Windows PCs - can be defeated easily with nothing more than a piece of masking tape, security researchers have discovered. Sony BMG has endured a public-relations and legal nightmare after it emerged digital rights management (DRM) software installed on some of its music CDs (First4Internet XCP program) created a handy means for hackers to hide malware from anti-virus scanning programs....

Sony's controversial copy-protection scheme had been in use for seven months before its cloaking rootkit was discovered, leading one analyst to question the effectiveness of the security industry. "[For] at least for seven months, Sony BMG Music CD buyers have been installing rootkits on their PCs. Why then did no security software vendor detect a problem and alert customers?" asked Joe Wilcox, an analyst with JupiterResearch. "Where the failure is, that's the question mark. Is it an indictment of how consumers view security software, that they have a sense of false protection, even when they don't update their anti-virus and...

When the news first broke in the mainstream press that Windows expert and blogger Mark Russinovich (he wrote a book about Windows for Microsoft) had found that Sony's anti-piracy efforts had gone too far and that Sony's DRM was installing an undetectable rootkit on customers' computers which they couldn't safely remove, the first reaction from Microsoft was guarded. They were concerned, they said, and were evaluating what, if anything, to do: Microsoft, which also ships an anti-spyware program, recently renamed "Windows Defender," hasn't yet decided whether it will also flag the Sony DRM software as malicious code, the spokesperson said....

More than one-half million networks infected by Sony including U.S. military and various countries. Dan Kaminsky, http://www.doxpara.com/ ,is the expert who broke this and did the work. His U.S. and Europe infection maps are shown below and are frightening. Dan did a hell of a good job. Search Google News for "sony numbers trouble" for more in an excellent article today that is very worth reading.

Microsoft Corp. warned users of its Windows operating system on Tuesday of three newly found "critical" security flaws in its software, including one that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer. Computer security experts urged users to download and install the patches, which are available at www.microsoft.com/security. "Users (should) apply the updates as quickly as possible," said Oliver Friedrichs, senior manager of Symantec Security Response, part of security software company Symantec Corp. SYMC.O. Microsoft said that vulnerabilities exist in its Internet Explorer Web browser, the most severe of which could allow an attacker to take complete control...

Microsoft on Tuesday issued alerts on several security flaws in Windows, the most serious of which could allow an attacker to gain control over a victim's computer. Microsoft released six security bulletins as part of its monthly patching cycle, three of which it deems "critical." The Redmond, Wash., software gives that rating to any security issue that could allow a malicious Internet worm to spread without any action required on the part of the user. One bulletin addresses three flaws in Internet Explorer. Of all the issues Microsoft offered fixes for Tuesday, these put users at most risk of attack,...

Nova Scotia July 19, 2005 -- SpyCop today announced that the use of commercial monitoring spy software is on the rise in Internet phishing schemes, the latest scam used to steal personal information and even entire identities. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, web site at www.antiphishing.org, explains: "Phishing attacks use both social engineering and technical subterfuge to steal consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials... Technical subterfuge schemes plant crimeware onto PCs to steal credentials directly, often using Trojan keylogger spyware." The commercial spy software market has made available over 525 payware spy programs which include URL recorders, keyloggers, chat...

SAN FRANCISCO, July 15 - Add personal computers to the list of throwaways in the disposable society. On a recent Sunday morning when Lew Tucker's Dell desktop computer was overrun by spyware and adware - stealth software that delivers intrusive advertising messages and even gathers data from the user's machine - he did not simply get rid of the offending programs. He discarded the whole computer. Mr. Tucker, an Internet industry executive who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, decided that rather than take the time to remove the offending software, he would spend $400 on a new machine. He...

NEW YORK - Internet users worried about spyware and adware are shunning specific Web sites, avoiding file-sharing networks, even switching browsers. Many have also stopped opening e-mail attachments without first making sure they are safe, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in a study issued Wednesday. "People are scaling back on some Internet activities," said Susannah Fox, the study's main author. "People are feeling less adventurous, less free to do whatever they want to do online." Like no other Internet threat before it, spyware is getting people's attention, she said. "It maybe will bring more awareness of all...

As part of its monthly patching cycle, Microsoft on Tuesday plans to release three security alerts for flaws in Windows and Office. Two of the security bulletins apply to Windows, and at least one of them is deemed "critical," Microsoft's highest risk rating, the company said in a notice posted on its Web site Thursday. Its Office productivity suite will get one bulletin, also rated critical. The notice did not specify whether one of the patches will be for Internet Explorer. Microsoft earlier this week offered a workaround for a known flaw in the Web browser that opens the door...

Microsoft warns of unpatched IE flaw By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com Published on ZDNet News: July 1, 2005, 8:55 AM PT Microsoft has issued a security advisory for Internet Explorer, after a research firm published a working exploit to demonstrate how attackers could take advantage of the flaw. The vulnerability, discovered by SEC Consult, mean that attackers could cause the browser to unexpectedly exit and execute arbitrary code. Versions of IE affected by the flaw include IE 6.0 on Windows 2000 with Service Pack 1, 3 and 4, and on Windows XP with Service Pack 1 and 2. "Microsoft is investigating...

<p>I was opening up my almost brand new Dell 600m laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard.</p>

A security breach of customer information at a credit card-processing company could expose to fraud up to 40 million cardholders of multiple brands, MasterCard International Inc. said Friday. The credit card giant said its security division detected multiple instances of fraud that tracked back to CardSystems Solutions Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., which processes transactions for banks and merchants. MasterCard said in a news release late Friday afternoon that it was notifying its card-issuing banks of the problem. CardSystems was hit by a computer virus that captured customer data for the purpose of fraud, said company spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin. The FBI...

NEW YORK - A security breach of customer information at a credit card-processing company could expose to fraud up to 40 million cardholders of multiple brands, MasterCard International Inc. said Friday. The credit card giant said its security division detected multiple instances of fraud that tracked back to CardSystems Solutions Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., which processes transactions for banks and merchants. MasterCard said in a news release late Friday afternoon that it was notifying its card-issuing banks of the problem. CardSystems was hit by a computer virus that captured customer data for the purpose of fraud, said company spokeswoman Sharon...

The next time you run a scan with your anti-spyware tool, it might miss some programs. Several anti-spyware firms, including Aluria, Lavasoft, and PestPatrol, have quietly stopped detecting adware from companies like Claria and WhenU--a process called delisting. Those adware companies have been petitioning anti-spyware firms to delist their software; other companies have resorted to sending cease-and-desist letters that threaten legal action. In most cases it's difficult for customers to determine whether their anti-spyware tool has delisted anything and, if so, which adware it skips. "When a spyware program gets delisted, users won't be aware of its presence," says Harvard...

Analysis On my computer right now I have three anti-spyware programs, three anti-virus programs, and three anti-spam programs, together with a hardware and software firewall, an IPsec VPN, and data level encryption on certain files (and no, this is not intended to be an invitation for you to try to test my security.) The anti-spyware, anti-virus, and anti-spam software all work in very much the same way - they have definitions of known malicious programs, and they may also have algorithms to raise flags about unknown programs which operate in an unusual way. Depending upon user preferences, the programs either...

Microsoft is readying a new consumer security product that offers virus and spyware protection, a new firewall and several tune-up tools for Windows PCs, a move that pits the software giant squarely against traditional security software vendors. The product, dubbed Windows OneCare, will be tested internally at Microsoft starting this week. A public test, or beta, version is scheduled to be available by year's end, Microsoft said in a statement this week. The final product will be offered as a subscription service, the Redmond, Washington, software maker says. OneCare marks Microsoft's long-anticipated entry into the antivirus space, until now the...

Less than a month since its launch, Backless Lingerie has already become a runaway success with women of all ages, from New Zealand to Canada and beyond. The revolutionary new backless panty, available at www.BacklessLingerie.com, has confirmed the demand for sexy, discrete panties that never show, no matter how low your jeans are Montreal, Quebec (PRWEB) March 22, 2005 -- They’re sexy, they’re fashionable, and they provide the solution to a common dilemma facing fashionable women everywhere: Backless Lingerie. A revolution in women’s underwear, Backless Lingerie enable any woman to wear the lowest cut jeans or the sheerest gowns without...

Karl Marx may have suffered a second death at the end of the last century, but look for a spirited comeback in this one. The next great battle between socialism and capitalism will be waged over human health and life expectancy. As rich countries grow richer, and as healthcare technology continues to improve, people will spend ever growing shares of their income on living longer and healthier lives. US healthcare costs have already reached 15 percent of annual national income and could exceed 30 percent by the middle of this century – and other industrialized nations are not far behind....

Virus experts at Sophos have reported that a new worm demonstrates the ancient British art of gurning, the tradition of pulling a funny or scary face, as it infects computers. The Wurmark-F worm spreads via email, pretending to be from addresses such as easy_lay666@lovenet.com, sexy_guy88@aol.com and sexy_lil_thing@no-ip.com. Emails can have a variety of characteristics including: Subject: Hhahahah lol!!!! Message body: i found this on my computer from ages ago download it and see if you can remember it lol i was lauging like mad when i saw it! :D email me back haha... Subject: Rate My Pic....... Message body: Hi...

Some Californians could find a nasty surprise in their water and sewer bills, courtesy of state government. Water consumers will be paying more to help cover the state budget shortfall, a back-door tax hike possible because of confusing, irresponsible state budget-writing. Special districts - local agencies formed to provide water, sewer, fire protection and other services - were supposed to ship about $350 million in property taxes to the state this year, as part of a two-year deal to help balance the state budget. But last-minute changes exempted many special districts from most or all of the tax shift, which...

The Royal Air Force is to become the first of the Armed Forces to take part in a gay pride festival. Eight officers from the force will man a float at Manchester's gay pride event this weekend. The RAF says it is part of a recruitment drive to show how the military welcomes people from different backgrounds. A spokesman said: "Along with the other Armed Forces, the RAF tries to reflect the community from which it draws it members. "We have recruitment policies that recognise that people from different backgrounds can make positive contributions. An individual's sexual orientation is none...

6/7/04: AWB renewal now on Senate calendar. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has once again introduced legislation to renew the so-called "assault weapons" ban. S.2498 was introduced last week, and, by using a "nuclear option" referred to as Rule XIV, has gotten the bill placed on the Senate calendar. As a Senate educational article on the subject puts it, "Most bills are routinely referred to the committee with appropriate jurisdiction as soon as they are introduced. But if a Senator plans to introduce a bill and believes that the committee to which it would be referred will be unsympathetic, Rule XIV...

Title says it all. It's discovered yesterday, called Randex. It is a backdoor worm, you don't need to open e-mail to get it. Symantec latest update will find it. It showed up on one of our computers and I hear many others. Symantec page

<p>Federal officials say more signs of "prevention fatigue" are reflected in the latest report on AIDS — a 17 percent increase in new HIV cases among gay men over the past three years. "HIV is not over in the United States," said Robert Janssen, director HIV/AIDS prevention division for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The fight is as urgent as it was 20 years ago."</p>

NEW YORK, Sept. 11 — Since last month’s widespread blackout, utilities have accelerated plans to automate the electric grid, replacing aging monitoring systems with digital switches and other high-tech gear. But those very improvements are making the electricity supply vulnerable to a different kind of peril: computer viruses and hackers who could black out substations, cities or entire states. Researches working for the U.S., Canadian and British governments have already found “back doors” — ways into the digital relays and control room technology that increasingly direct electricity flow in North America.

Microsoft has scoffed at suggestions its software contains back doors for use by United States intelligence services as the Australian government signed on for access to the source code behind Windows. Creating back doors for the CIA would be a "stupid decision" as the feature would certainly be discovered, says Microsoft's chief security strategist Scott Charney. "Let assume we put a back door in, do you think it wouldn't be discovered? Look how many people are probing and testing our products," Charney told a security round table at Microsoft's premier technical conference, TechEd 2003, in Brisbane this week. "If it...

With apologies to Dr. Seuss Rhymes for ACC expansion timesOn the Front Row Chris Graham chris@augustafreepress.com Every Hoo in Hooville hated the Hokies a lot, But the Governor, who lived just east of Hooville, did NOT! The Governor loved the Hokies, especially in football season. Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason. It could be his priorities weren't in an order just right. It could be, perhaps, that he's been staying out too late at night. But I think that the most likely reason of all May be that his chances at higher office are so...

The download site for two very common Linux based utilities, tcpdump.org, was hacked into on Nov. 11, and the software available for download was modified to contain Trojan Horse code. This Trojan Horse, or "back door" software allows the hacker that wrote it to access any machine on which the modified software is run. The two software items affected are tcpdump and libpcap, tools commonly used in information security applications. Some Intrusion Detection System (IDS) software requires libpcap. The identity of the hacker conducting this campaign is unknown, as is whether a connection exists between the separate incidents. CERT releasedan...

Are any of you getting a pop up add from themensnetwork.com, when on Free Republic. This thing is a homosexual porno piece of trash that pops up full screen when I am reading FreeRepublic. Is there anything that can be done to keep the add from poping up?

After traveling across the ocean for three months, 22 Asian immigrants were detained Friday by local police shortly after coming ashore in Rincon. Aguadilla police spokesman Juan Bautista Ayala said the 17 men and five women were taken into custody around 2 a.m. Friday after agents Wilfredo Vega and Jose Ventura spotted them while patrolling the area. Bautista Ayala said the detainees had apparently set out aboard a vessel from the Dominican Republic. The immigrants remained together after coming ashore and did not resist arrest. A Chinese businessman from Rincon was asked to serve as interpreter, Ayala said, and although...

For two days across the treacherous Mona Passage, Enerolisa Paredes prayed, clasped the wooden slab beneath her until her fingers went numb and kept her eyes tightly shut until the canoe-like vessel packed with other Dominicans finally made landfall. But the most intimidating part of the harrowing journey came as a shivering Paredes hid beneath the thick brush that grows along Puerto Rico's western coast, barely breathing, for fear that U.S. Border Patrol agents searching nearby would find her. "I could see them and hear their footsteps," said Paredes, 26. "There was a cow that kept stepping all over me....

"Opening the Open-Source Debate" The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI) has finally published its white paper entitled "Opening the Open Source Debate". My earlier comments were based on media reports and e-mail correspondence with the paper's author. This document was written after I read the actual white paper. (The original link seems not to work; I managed to grab a copy of the paper before AdTI pulled it. This link may work.) The AdTI's very weak and poorly-researched paper opens no debate. It simply confirms that Microsoft paid AdTI to come up with something---anything---to stem the growing adoption of open-source...