We all know that countries like China, Singapore, North Korea, as well as organizations such as the U.S. military, the State of Kentucky, and various corporations, local school districts and public libraries censor their Internet users' web surfing. Bennett Haselton of Peacefire has a solution he calls the Circumventor.And to bring in more Circumventor users, Peacefire is paying $10 per IP address to anyone who installs the anti-censorship software and leaves it running for at least a week.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that a hacker broke into one of its databases during the first week of June and may have accessed personal records for up to 26,000 Washington, D.C.-based USDA employees, former employees and contractors, about one fourth of the department's work force.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998 at the behest of the music and movie industries, has done little to benefit anyone except a select group of companies who have used its provisions to establish, maintain and expand a virtual stranglehold on the entertainment industry. The cartel which has arisen after this act does not benefit consumers at all; rather, it gouges them for as much money as they can possibly suck out, corrupts modern technology, and sets back the state of the art.The remainder of this message is encrypted using an algorithm which provides virtually no security, but which (if I were so inclined) would open you up to lawsuits if you decrypted it without my permission.
Last August, Customs and Border Protection computers responsible for processing international travelers entering the U.S. failed for several hours due to a Windows computer virus, resulting in long delays in processing visitors. Now it comes out that the Department of Homeland Security could have prevented it, but decided to let it happen.
Generally I try to ignore President George W. Bush when he makes proclamations. But when he came out today and urged everyone to "use and regularly update their anti-virus software and firewall," I felt I had to say something.
Two separate lawsuits filed in California and Texas on Monday allege that Sony BMG distributed spyware on 52 music CD titles, which compromised the security of buyers' computer systems when the CDs were inserted into Windows PCs, and transmitted data on the computer users' listening habits back to the company.
A while back I wrote about trusted computing and how Microsoft's implementation, the Next Generation Secure Computing Base, was set to impose onerous restrictions on computer owners, such as preventing them from playing legally purchased media with a player not approved by Microsoft. The post got some scathing criticism from some trusted computing practitioners who missed the point. Trusted computing is not the problem; Microsoft is.
A U.S. Customs computer system used for processing passengers arriving on international flights shut down for several hours Thursday, resulting in lengthy delays for arriving travelers.
The DRM (digital rights management) technology to be included in Microsoft's Windows Vista is set to give Hollywood movie studios unprecedented level of control over consumers' PCs, according to a Microsoft white paper.
Consumers rarely have a disaster recovery strategy for their computer systems, and the few who do find it a frustrating experience, according to Larry Seltzer.
Microsoft has announced that their next version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn, will be named Windows Vista. I now have screenshots and an initial review.
Microsoft has begun implementation of its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base with the introduction of Secure Startup and Full-Volume Encryption in Windows Vista, though other components of the plan are too late to be included.
Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program, aimed at preventing pirate copies of Windows from receiving updates and other downloads, took effect Monday.
Microsoft recently announced the name of its next version of Windows, to be called Windows Vista. Previously codenamed Longhorn, it has been a huge disappointment to reviewers who obtained advance copies.
It seems the Department of Homeland Stupidity can't even keep its own web site up.
Microsoft reports that only one in three Windows XP installations has been upgraded to Service Pack 2.
The next version of Microsoft Windows, codenamed Longhorn, is long on flashy graphics and short on real improvements, according to a review by PCWorld. The most recent build of Longhorn–Microsoft’s next Windows–has some impressive visual touches, including the kinds of translucent objects found now in Apple’s OS X, and more powerful ways of finding files. But [...]
Some months back I let you know that tampering with Diebold election equipment may have altered the outcome of the 2004 election. Now comes an actual demonstration of the hack against the Diebold Opti-Scan system, via Bruce Schneier. As it turns out, the hack can be carried out by one person, and the results tampered with in [...]
How to install Linux without getting rid of Windows? A walkthrough with screenshots on preparing your computer to dual-boot Windows XP and Linux.
First, security expert Bruce Schneier asks why the Department of Homeland Stupidity is enforcing copyright? Shouldn’t they be tracking down terrorists instead of teenagers, or have they run out of terrorists? Or maybe it’s because people who download movies off the Internet are terrorists? Second, Sony is rolling out new copy-protected music CDs. The discs will [...]
Stop what you’re doing right now, and go ensure that you have a working backup and recovery process in place for your important files. Make sure that both backing up the files and restoring the files work! It’s useless to take backups if you can’t restore them. Now, if you’re a Windows user, go and [...]
Robin “Roblimo” Miller has posted an excellent review of the Windows XP Home Edition operating system over at NewsForge. A long time Linux user, Miller concludes: Given Microsoft’s current development rate, it’s entirely possible that within a few years Windows may be almost as good a choice for most users as Linux, . . . and [...]
Adams-Blake Co. has been running its business completely free of Windows for an entire year. Company president Alan Canton tells the full story. Our business is not that different from most others. We have products (books), services (consulting), and employees. If we can go Windowless, others can as well. While the year wasn’t without its technical challenges, [...]
The BBC has done an excellent two-part series on Microsoft. Part one gives an overview on Microsoft’s competition, including Linux and Apple, and includes the revelation that Bill Gates has downloaded and used Firefox, while part two shows how Microsoft plans to beat back its growing competition and maintain its dominant place in the market. [...]
People are actually visiting here looking for technical help with BitTorrent. Here's a nice list of common BitTorrent IO Error messages and the solutions that actually work.
It seems about 65% of my readers still use Windows for whatever reason (work, or games). Microsoft has decided that if your copy of Windows is pirated, you will not have access to Windows Update, and the only way you will get security updates for the computer is via Automatic Updates.
When will businesses, organizations and governments learn that running anything on Windows is asking for trouble? The UK’s Department of Work and Pensions suffered a nearly complete failure of 80% of its computer systems on Monday, and only today have managed to get most everything back to normal and begin clearing the backlog of 60,000 [...]
I make no secret about my love for Linux, and I make no bones about it either. I understand many of you still run Windows and you have good reasons (and sometimes really bad ones) for doing so. But if you must run Windows and connect it to the Internet, please take some steps to secure it, not only for your own sake, but for the rest of us.
Diebold delivering the election to Bush? Say it isn't so! Evidence is mounting that it is, indeed, so.
Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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