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Saturday the 22nd of November 2008

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Saturday the 22nd of November 2008

1. Virus Warnings
2. Daily Technology News
3. Latest Shareware and Freeware
4. FAQ for the day
5. Advice of the day
6. Internet Advice

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1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Troj/Agent-IIE on 22 November 2008 12:04:25 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentiie.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Dloadr-CAQ on 22 November 2008 12:04:25 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdloadrcaq.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Nebuler-S on 22 November 2008 12:04:25 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojnebulers.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Swizzor-OZ on 22 November 2008 12:04:25 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojswizzoroz.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Zbot-BB on 22 November 2008 12:04:25 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojzbotbb.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Autorun-F on 22 November 2008 05:32:32 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malautorunf.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-IHR on 22 November 2008 05:32:32 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentihr.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-IHU on 22 November 2008 05:32:32 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentihu.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Bckdr-QOY on 22 November 2008 05:32:32 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbckdrqoy.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Dload-EK on 22 November 2008 05:32:32 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdloadek.html?_log_from=rss

2. Latest Technology News From Slashdot
-----------------------------------------------

-- Internet Explorer 8 Delayed Until 2009
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YbKqaAJ6A3Y/article.pl)
Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Interest Still High In the Netflix Algorithm Competition
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ARCQf177X_0/article.pl)
circletimessquare brings us an update to the status of the million-dollar Netflix competition to develop a better algorithm for movie recommendations. We've discussed aspects of the competition since it started two years ago, but the New York Times has a lengthy overview of where it stands now. "The Netflix competition is still going strong, with a vibrant, competitive roster of some 30,000 programmers around the globe hard at work trying to win the prize. The Times provides a look at some of the more obsessive searchers, such as Len Bertoni, a semi-retired computer scientist near Pittsburgh who logs 20 hours a week on the problem, oftentimes with the help of his children. There's also Martin Chabbert in Montreal: 'After the kids are asleep and I've packed the lunches for school, I come down at 9 in the evening and work until 11 or 12.' The article gets into the history of the search algorithm Netflix currently uses, and explores the hot commodity called 'singular value decomposition' that serves as the basis for most of the algorithms in competition."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Electron Strobe Makes Movies of Atoms
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OPopmlcikE0/article.pl)
holy_calamity writes "Some grainy black and white movies are receiving rave reviews from scientists. They are taken by a new microscope which, thanks to a 'strobing' electron gun, can image movement at sub-nanometer scales. Until now, only still images that smeared out movement were possible at such scales. The press release notes, 'The researchers first blasted the sample with a pulse of heat. The heated carbon atoms began to vibrate in a random, nonsynchronized fashion. Over time, however, the oscillations of the individual atoms became synchronized as different modes of the material locked in phase, emerging to become a heartbeat-like "drumming."' Further details and a few animations are available at Caltech's site."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- BT Silences Customers Over Phorm
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/f9phBCD0SVc/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Tabula Rasa To Shut Down
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9U45cEMu8Gg/article.pl)
NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Dark Matter Discovered Near Solar System?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/FRh_qE_U3VU/article.pl)
gpronger writes "The ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter) has potentially discovered the presence of dark matter close (only 3000 light-years) to our solar system. The system detected a large amount of high energy cosmic rays which match the theoretical signature of dark matter annihilating itself. The universe is believed to be composed of about 25% dark matter, but there has been little evidence of it. This discovery, if correct, would be the first." The paper was published in Nature, but it requires a subscription to see beyond the abstract.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Google Chrome OEM Strategy To Take On IE
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/b9GaSgCLkIc/article.pl)
ruphus13 writes "In an effort to take on IE and make strong headway in its share of the browser market, Google is taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook and working on deals with PC OEMs to include Chrome in their devices. From the article: '[Google] is likely to pursue deals with major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to put Chrome on their computers and devices. ... If Mozilla could get aggressive about this too, we could see Internet Explorer facing more serious competition than ever. ... Google, much more so than Mozilla, has enough global brand recognition, money, and savvy to make a big deal of this. ... Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops. Chrome currently has just under one percent market share, according to NetApplications. That number could rise significantly through this effort. Mozilla doesn't have the kind of money required to get the significant deals in this space, but Google definitely does.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Chinese Hacking of American Military Networks On the Rise
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/zhVROub0q2E/article.pl)
Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from the Guardian: "China is stealing sensitive information from American computer networks and stepping up its online espionage, according to a US congressional panel. Beijing's investment in rocket technology is also accelerating the militarization of outer space and lifting it into the 'commanding heights' of modern warfare, the advisory group claims. ... A summary of the study, released in advance, alleges that networks and databases used by the US government and American defense contractors are regularly targeted by Chinese hackers. 'China is stealing vast amounts of sensitive information from US computer networks,' says Larry Wortzel, chairman of the commission set up by Congress in 2000 to investigate US-China issues." The full study addresses these issues and others relating to the US-China relationship (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- After Columbine, Eric Holder Advocated Internet "Restrictions"
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/wnu-c3kXP1A/article.pl)
ErikTheRed writes "In an audio clip discovered by NewsBusters, then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder advocated federal censorship of the Internet. This was in the aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings. From the clip: 'The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at.'" Holder is reported to be Barack Obama's choice for Attorney General of the United States.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- DARPA's IBM-Led Neural Network Project Seeks To Imitate Brain
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4lR_6lXPejc/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "According to an article in the BBC, IBM will lead an ambitious DARPA-funded project in 'cognitive computing.' According to Dharmendra Modha, the lead scientist on the project, '[t]he key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain.' The article continues, 'IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do. The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Microsoft Blames Add-Ons For Browser Woes
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rl8vq54BZAE/article.pl)
darthcamaro writes "Running IE and been hacked? Don't blame Microsoft — at least that's what their security types are now arguing. 'One of the things we've seen in the last two years is that attackers aren't even going after the browser itself anymore,' Eric Lawrence, Security Program Manager on Microsoft's Internet Explorer team, said. 'The browser is becoming a harder target and there are many more browsers. So attackers are targeting add-ons.' This kinda makes sense since whether you're running IE, Firefox, Safari or Chrome you could still be at risk if there is a vulnerability in Flash, PDF, QuickTime or another popular add-on. Or does it?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Worm Attack Prompts DoD To Ban Use of External Media
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/DG4cYM0Hz0c/article.pl)
An anonymous reader writes "The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVDs [...] The attack came in the form of a global virus or worm that is spreading rapidly throughout a number of military networks."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- US Officials Flunk Test On Civic Knowledge
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/XHkzLTrEo0o/article.pl)
A test on civic knowledge given to elected officials proved that they are slightly less knowledgeable than the uninformed people who voted them into office. Elected officials scored a 44 percent while ordinary citizens managed an amazing 49 percent on the 33 questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. The three branches of government aren't the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria?Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Final Judgment — SCO Loses, Owes $3,506,526
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/P_4EEZTq6hM/article.pl)
Xenographic writes "SCO has finally lost to Novell, now that Judge Kimball has entered final judgment against SCO. Of course, this is SCO we're talking about. There's still the litigation in bankruptcy court, which allowed this case to resume so that they could figure out just how much SCO owes, which is $3,506,526, if I calculated the interest properly, $625,486.90 of which will go into a constructive trust. And then there's the possibility that SCO could seek to have the judgment overturned in the appeals courts, or even the Supreme Court when that fails. Of course, they need money to do that and they don't really have much of that any more. Remember how Enderle, O'Gara and company told us that SCO was sure to win? I wonder how many people have emailed them to say, 'I told you so.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- How To Help Our Public Schools With Technology?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/nCMQr4Rv7wk/article.pl)
armorer writes "I'm a programmer engaged to an inner-city public school teacher. I've been thinking for a long time now about what I can do to help close the technology gap, and I finally did something (very small) about it. I convinced my company to give me a few old computers they were replacing, refurbished them, installed Edubuntu on them, and donated them to her classroom. I also took some vacation time to go in, install everything, and give a lesson on computers to the kids. It was a great experience, but now I know first-hand how little technology these schools have. I only helped one classroom. The school needs more. (Really the whole district needs more!) And while I want to help them, I don't really know how. With Thanksgiving a week away and more holidays approaching, I suspect I'm not the only one thinking about this sort of thing. I know it's a hard problem, so I'm not looking for any silver bullets. What do Slashdot readers do? What should I be doing so that I'm more effective? How do you find resources and time to give back?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3. Latest Shareware from Planet-Shareware
-----------------------------------------------

-- SpiceLogic Document 2 Text Converter
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SpiceLogic_Document_2_Text_Converter.htm)
SpiceLogic Document 2 Text Converter is a Windows software that provides you an efficient way of converting your document files from various types to plain text The supported conversion types are MS Word doc MS Excel xls PDF HTML and RTF It allows you to convert a lots of files as BATCH PROCESSING by a single mouse click You dont need

-- Hide My Files
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Hide_My_Files.htm)
Hide My Files is an easy to use folder lock used to hide files and folders from unauthorized use This file and folder security software provides an easy to use interface that allows you to choose the files by selecting the directories in which you choose to block users from viewing

-- NET Document 2 Text Converter DLL
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/.NET_Document_2_Text_Converter_DLL.htm)
NET Document 2 Text Converter DLL is a NET class library that provides you an efficient way of converting your document files from various types to plain text Recommended for Windows application only Not for ASPNET The supported conversion types are MS Word doc MS Excel xls PDF HTML and RTF You dont need MS Office installed to r

-- SPYWIPE
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SPYWIPE.htm)
SPYWIPE is the fastest scanning techniques in the market It will protect your PC from the thousands of SpyWare and AdWare internet surfers come across In addition SPYWIPE have the ability to manage the infected lists so the user can take an action later without performing a new scan A set of scan options is proviided so the user can highly custo

-- SPYWAREWIPE
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/SPYWAREWIPE.htm)
SPYWAREWIPE is the fastest scanning techniques in the market It will protect your PC from the thousands of SpyWare and AdWare internet surfers come across In addition SPYWAREWIPE have the ability to manage the infected lists so the user can take an action later without performing a new scan A set of scan options is proviided so the user can high

-- Flowers Screensaver
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Flowers_Screensaver.htm)
A Screen Saver with pictures of different flowers in nice colors It has a black background and the pictures of the flowers change every five seconds This Screensaver can be installed with one click A nice Screen Saver for spring dreams at the computer

-- ReplaceMagic ExcelOnly Standard
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/ReplaceMagic_ExcelOnly_Standard.htm)
Have you ever been in situation that you need to change text header footer comments OLE object links hyperlinks or even more in thousands of files and you had to open each file manually to make changes? With ReplaceMagic you can scan folders for files and by entering search and replace strings let application to do all changes automatically fo

-- Easter Bonus
(http://www.planet-shareware.com/Easter_Bonus.htm)
Love match-three games? Spring into action and play Easter Bonus Slick and addictive and really really cute; this is the latest game from the Xmas Bonus team Fluffy chicks chocolate eggs and the Easter bunnywe know you cant resist A calorie-free treat for players of all ages

4. FAQ of the day from Helpforce
-----------------------------------------------

-- Setting up security Policies for Windows 98 PC
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: Hi, we are setting a small LAN with about 15 Win 98 SE PCs.Is there any adm app or prog to avoid users from installing software in the PCs ? We want to install only the necessary software for the users and keep the computers "clean".BTW Windows 98 SE is a must, and we cannot consider another Operating System.Thanks

Answer: Dear Pablo,The only way to lock users out of vairious elements of Windows 95/98/ME is to use Policy Manager.Policy manger is a Windows NT tool that usually relies on you running it from a Windows NT server, but if you can't use Windows NT the tool is a little tricky to use.The Policy manager is just a simple .exe program, but you will need to go to every single PC to set the policy up as it's part of the registry and can't be coppied as a file from one machine to the next.Once you had the tool it would simply be a case of loading it, finding the option to lock out setups and installs then saving hte policy and moving on to the next.However, if you leave the tool on the PC there is nothing to prevent the user from unlocking the option again so it would need to be removed once you are done.For absolubt waterproof security you'd also need to lock out the registry to prevent users from opening up the setup options that way.If you would like a copy of the tool which is Microsoft Freeware (A part of the Windows NT options pack) It can be downloaded from: http://download.microsoft.com/download/win95upg/poledit/1/W95/EN-US/policy.exe(Related knowledge base article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q135315)(If you hadn't already told me you couldn't consider another operating system I would strongly recomend having a Windows NT or 2000 server on your network of 98 PC's as without a server a workgroup as large as this can very easily be a network management nightmare.)

5. Advice of the Day from ask-leo
-----------------------------------------------

-- Word Tips - Microsoft Word Tips, Tricks and Answers
I don't know everything. I know that's a shock to maybe one or two
of you, but it's the truth. One of the techniques I use to make it look
like I know more than I really do is to know where to look for
information.
Allen Wyatt's Word Tips is one of these places. Yes, I've used Microsoft
Word for many, many years and know it very well ... but Word Tips has more
answers and more suggestions than I could ever hope to have.

6. Internet Advice
-----------------------------------------------

-- Should I Give an iPhone as a Present?(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/a/257737.htm)

The iPhone 3G is one of the hottest gadgets in recent memory and seems like it should be a perfect gift for the gadget-lover on your holiday shopping list. But...

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