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Saturday the 2nd of January 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Saturday the 2nd of January 2010

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

This is a free service provided by Helpforce.com, to unsubscribe please visit http://www.helpforce.com
For free technical support, visit us at http://www.helpforce.com

1. Latest Virus Alerts From Sophos
---------------------------------------
Troj/Delf-FEE on 2 January 2010 03:26:44 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdelffee.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Krap-H on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malkraph.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-LZJ on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentlzj.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-LZK on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentlzk.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/BSE-A on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbsea.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Inject-LL on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojinjectll.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Mdrop-CJL on 1 January 2010 22:25:14 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojmdropcjl.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-ANB on 1 January 2010 13:18:06 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavanb.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-ANC on 1 January 2010 13:18:06 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavanc.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Inject-LK on 1 January 2010 13:18:06 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojinjectlk.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Did the US Take the Back Seat In Science In 2009?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/rlGNPMYRSxk/Did-the-US-Take-the-Back-Seat-In-Science-In-2009)
tcd004 writes "In the PBS NewsHour's roundup of the biggest science news of the year, Neil DeGrasse Tyson dropped this doozie: '[Scientific leadership] drives the economic strength and security of nations. The fall is not from a cliff. More like a slow, downward slide — almost imperceptible from day to day. But as the years pass America will have descended from leaders to players to merely followers as we fade to insignificance, at best hitching a ride on the innovations of others.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- China Arrests Thousands In Internet Porn Crackdown
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/dBrMHfPHHCc/China-Arrests-Thousands-In-Internet-Porn-Crackdown)
Clandestine_Blaze writes "Chinese police have arrested 5,394 people — with another 4,186 criminal cases in the works — in one of the largest crackdowns on Internet porn in the country. Even more arrests are expected in 2010, according to the Ministry of Public Security's website (In Chinese or Google translated into English). According to the Reuters article on the crackdown, one of the justifications was that the pornography was 'threatening the emotional health of children.' From the English translation of the Ministry of Public Security's website linked above, it appears that certain provinces are also offering 1,000 yuan and 2,000 yuan rewards, per person, for reporting illegal websites to the government."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Man Tracked Down and Arrested Via WoW
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SpByXPwtfk4/Man-Tracked-Down-and-Arrested-Via-emWoWem)
kabome writes with this excerpt from a story about an alleged drug dealer who was located by law enforcement thanks to World of Warcraft: "Roberson’s subpoena was nothing more than a politely worded request, considering the limits of his law enforcement jurisdiction and the ambiguity of the online world. 'They don’t have to respond to us, and I was under the assumption that they wouldn’t,' said Roberson. ... Blizzard did more than cooperate. It gave Roberson everything he needed to track down Hightower, including his IP address, his account information and history, his billing address, and even his online screen name and preferred server. From there it was a simple matter to zero in on the suspect's location."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Using Fourth-Party Data Brokers To Bypass the Fourth Amendment
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4QRwnEDYrqc/Using-Fourth-Party-Data-Brokers-To-Bypass-the-Fourth-Amendment)
An anonymous reader writes "Coming out of Columbia Law School is an article about commercial data brokers and their ability to provide information about individuals to the US government despite Fourth Amendment or statutory protections (abstract, full PDF at Download link). Quoting: 'The Supreme Court has held that the Fourth Amendment does not protect information that has been voluntarily disclosed to a third-party or obtained by means of a private search. Congress reacted to these holdings by creating a patchwork of statutes designed to prevent the government's direct and unfettered access to documents stored with third-parties; thus, the government's access is fettered by various statutory requirements, including, in many cases, notice of the disclosure. Despite these protections, however, third-parties are not restricted from passing the same data to other private companies (fourth-parties), and after the events of September 11, 2001, the government, believing that it needed a greater scope of surveillance, turned to the fourth-parties to access the personal information it could not acquire on its own. As a consequence, the fourth-parties, unrestricted by Fourth Amendment or statutory concerns, delivered — and continue to deliver — personal data en masse to the government.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- SpamAssassin 2010 Bug
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/eOVALlZen94/SpamAssassin-2010-Bug)
SEWilco writes "You might want to check your spam folder, as SpamAssassin has a rule which is tending to mark email sent in 2010 as spam. There is some discussion in a bug report. The SpamAssassin Wiki FH_DATE_PAST_20XX page doesn't have discussion, but it was updated today with a different date rule."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Ireland's Blasphemy Law Goes Into Effect
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4OxdQjxk0Ys/Irelands-Blasphemy-Law-Goes-Into-Effect)
stereoroid writes "As of January 1, it is a crime in Ireland to commit Blasphemy. The law was changed in July 2009 to fill a gap in the Irish Constitution, which states that it is a crime but does not define what it is, an omission highlighted in a Supreme Court decision in 1999. To mark the occasion, Atheist Ireland published a list of 25 blasphemous quotations on the blasphemy.ie website, from such controversial figures as Bjork, Frank Zappa, Richard Dawkins, Randy Newman, and Pope Benedict XVI. (The last-mentioned was quoting a 14th Century Byzantine Emperor, but that's no excuse.)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Apple Fails To Deliver On Windows 7 Boot Camp Promise
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/itp8s81fZ9I/Apple-Fails-To-Deliver-On-Windows-7-Boot-Camp-Promise)
SkydiverFL writes "For those fans of Apple's Boot Camp package, it looks like you might be waiting on the next 'end of year' to use Windows 7 on your shiny silver boxes. Back in October of this year, Apple published a rather short, but affirmative promise stating quite simply that, 'Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.' The support page has no updates regarding the new version. Maybe they're waiting for iSlate?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Myths About Code Comments
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Soi7AvYrayI/Myths-About-Code-Comments)
theodp writes "Jason Baker gives his take on the biggest misconceptions about code comments: 1) Comments are free ('When you update the code that the comment references, you usually have to update the comment as well'). 2) Comments make code more readable ('by far the most pervasive myth that I've encountered'). 3) You should comment every function, method, class, and module ('documenting something that needs no documentation is universally a bad idea'). 4) Code must always be 'self documenting' ('would you rather use a one-liner that requires a 3-line comment, or a 10-liner that requires no comments?')."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- TSA Nominee's Snooping Raises Privacy Concerns
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RsbuYjsF3qs/TSA-Nominees-Snooping-Raises-Privacy-Concerns)
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Erroll Southers, President Obama's nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration, gave Congress misleading information about incidents in which he inappropriately accessed a federal database, possibly in violation of privacy laws. Southers accepted full responsibility for a 'grave error in judgment' when he accessed confidential criminal records twenty years ago about his then-estranged wife's new boyfriend. Southers's admission that he was involved in a questionable use of law enforcement background data has been a source of concern among civil libertarians, who believe the TSA performs a delicate balancing act in tapping into passenger information to find terrorists while also protecting citizens' privacy."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- NASA Mars Rover Spirit May Move Forward By Spinning Its Wheels
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/xCFNEB-S05g/NASA-Mars-Rover-Spirit-May-Move-Forward-By-Spinning-Its-Wheels)
coondoggie writes "As NASA celebrates its Mars rover Spirit's sixth anniversary exploring the red planet, it is hunting for a way to keep the machine, which is mired in a sand trap, alive to see a seventh year. On its Web site, the space agency this week noted there may indeed be such an option. That option would be spinning the wheels on the north side of Spirit, letting it dig in deeper in the Martian sand but at the same time improving the tilt of the rover's solar panels toward the Sun."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- TSA Withdraws Subpoenas Against Bloggers
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/LBr5TS3Qcr0/TSA-Withdraws-Subpoenas-Against-Bloggers)
wwphx writes "In the wake of public outcry against the Transportation Security Administration for serving civil subpoenas on two bloggers, the government agency has canceled the legal action and apologized for the strong-arm tactics agents used."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Technology Changes To Kill Netbooks?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/SHSziKYIjFY/Technology-Changes-To-Kill-Netbooks)
The BBC is reporting that the netbook craze may already be nearing the end of its run. Citing rising netbook prices and many other evolving technologies that can potentially fill that gap, some critics think that the limited power of netbooks will ultimately bring about the quick demise of the once popular device. "Ian Drew, spokesman for chip designer Arm, also believes netbooks are in for a shake-up. Consumers, he said, were chafing against the restrictions that using a netbook imposed on them. 'We have failed the consumer because we have imposed constraints on them,' he said. Changing web habits and greater use of social media will mean consumers will be looking for gadgets that are tuned to specific purposes. 'It will be a lot of different machines for a lot of different people,' he said. 'This whole market will be exploding in the next couple of years.' Impetus for this change will come, he believes, from the phone world where many, many types of gadgets are already blooming."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Online Services Let Virus Writers Check Their Work
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/L3Xmvfrv-NY/Online-Services-Let-Virus-Writers-Check-Their-Work)
An anonymous reader writes "Former Washington Post Security Fix blogger Brian Krebs has launched a new blog at krebsonsecurity.com, and his first story highlights a pair of underground antivirus scanning services that cater to virus writers. Scanning services like virustotal.com scan submitted files against dozens of antivirus products, and share the results with each of the vendors so that all benefit from learning about threats they don't yet detect. But there are number of budding online services that allow customers to pay per scan, and promise that the results will never get reported back to the antivirus companies. One service even tests how well web site 'exploit packs' are detected, while others promise additional layers of protection. 'The service claims that it will soon be rolling out advanced features, such as testing malware against anti-spyware and firewall programs, as well as a test to see whether the malware functions in a virtual machine.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- The Key To Astronomy Has Often Been Serendipity
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/EVkYaRS69g4/The-Key-To-Astronomy-Has-Often-Been-Serendipity)
Ars Technica has a great look at just how often serendipity plays a part in major astronomy advances. From Galileo to the accidental discovery of cosmic microwaves, it seems that it is still better to be lucky than good. "But what's stunning is a catalog of just how common this sort of event has been. Herschell was looking for faint stars when he happened across the planet Uranus, while Piazi was simply creating a star catalog when he observed the object that turned out to be the first asteroid to ever be described, Ceres I."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2009
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8DLHKjTzRyk/Top-Scientific-Breakthroughs-of-2009)
Wired has posted their favorite scientific breakthroughs of the past year. The feats include things like the confirmation of element 114, a cancer-detecting breathalyzer, the power of jellyfish and more. What other discoveries should have made the list and what might we look forward to in 2010? "Also this year, researchers at the University of Washington cured two adult monkeys of colorblindness by giving them injections of a gene that produces pigments necessary for color vision. After the treatment, the animals scored higher on a computerized color blindness test. In the coming years, gene therapy will be tested as a remedy for all sorts of inherited diseases, cancer, viral infections and even high cholesterol."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- I cant install the software for my card reader - help!
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: While trying to installsetup software for a card reader it gave a error message--- incompatable version of R P C stub does that mean my version of windows (98) is incompatable or do i have other problems yoursw keeble

Answer: Dear User,The error you are encountering does indeed mean that your version of Windows (98 in this case) is not compatible with your card reader.The only way to fix this problem would be to upgrade your version of Windows to a later version. Windows XP will definately support this type of card reader.Hope this helps and appologies for the delay in replying to you.If you require any further assistance, please feel free to reply to this message. Please include all previous emails so that we may more easily track your problem.

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

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

-- Troubleshoot Your Slow Internet Connection(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/a/258255.htm)

Slow Internet happens for various reasons. You might have poor hardware connecting your machine to the wall. Maybe your modem-router is not configured correctly. Perhaps you have...

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