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Monday the 25th of January 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Monday the 25th 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

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
---------------------------------------
Mal/Iframe-Gen on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/maliframegen.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/PDFJs-N on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malpdfjsn.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Dldr-DB on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdldrdb.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/DwnLdr-IAD on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdwnldriad.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Iframe-DQ on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojiframedq.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/StartP-CP on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojstartpcp.html?_log_from=rss
W32/Tiotua-CA on 25 January 2010 11:17:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32tiotuaca.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Buzus-CB on 25 January 2010 06:40:52 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbuzuscb.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Keylog-A on 25 January 2010 02:40:01 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malkeyloga.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/FakeAV-ARP on 25 January 2010 02:40:01 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojfakeavarp.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Humans Nearly Went Extinct 1.2M Years Ago
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/1urwjG1rg6w/Humans-Nearly-Went-Extinct-12M-Years-Ago)
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has a story on researchers from the University of Utah who have calculated that 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors Homo erectus, H. ergaster, and archaic H. sapiens were spreading through Africa, Europe, and Asia, there were probably only only about 18,500 individuals capable of breeding in all these species together (PNAS paper here). Pre-humans were an endangered species with a smaller population than today's gorillas and chimpanzees. Researchers scanned two completely sequenced modern human genomes for a type of mobile element called Alu sequences, then compared the nucleotides in these old regions with the overall diversity in the two genomes to estimate differences in effective population size, and thus genetic diversity between modern and early humans. Human geneticist Lynn Jorde says that the diminished genetic diversity one million years ago suggests human ancestors experienced a catastrophic event at that time as devastating as the Toba super-volcano in Indonesia that triggered a nuclear winter and is thought to have nearly annihilated humans 70,000 years ago."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- PS3 Hacked?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/t3p8MvfpLVE/PS3-Hacked)
Several readers have sent word that George Hotz (a.k.a. geohot), the hacker best known for unlocking Apple's iPhone, says he has now hacked the PlayStation 3. From his blog post: "I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days...that's a pretty secure system. ... As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- NASA Prepping Plans For Flexible Path To Mars
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/sYbZVNb9jGY/NASA-Prepping-Plans-For-Flexible-Path-To-Mars)
FleaPlus writes "A group at NASA has been formulating a 'Flexible Path' to Mars architecture, which many expect will be part of the soon-to-be-announced reboot of NASA's future plans. NASA's prior architecture spends much of its budget on creating two in-house rockets, the Ares I and V, and would yield no beyond-LEO human activity until a lunar landing sometime in the 2030s. In contrast, the Flexible Path would produce results sooner, using NASA's limited budget to develop and gain experience with the technologies (human and robotic) needed to progressively explore and establish waypoints at Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, the Martian moon Phobos, Mars, and other possible locations (e.g. the Moon, Venus flyby). Suggested interim goals include constructing giant telescopes in deep space, learning how to protect Earth from asteroids, establishing in-space propellant depots, and harvesting resources/fuel from asteroids and Phobos to supply Moon/Mars-bound vehicles."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Researchers Make a Case For Learning Through Video Game Creation
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8dxaRHyOORA/Researchers-Make-a-Case-For-Learning-Through-Video-Game-Creation)
ub3r n3u7r4l1st sends along this snippet from Science Daily: "Computer games have a broad appeal that transcends gender, culture, age and socio-economic status. Now, computer scientists in the US think that creating computer games, rather than just playing them, could boost students' critical and creative thinking skills as well as broaden their participation in computing. ... 'Worldwide, there is increasing recognition of a digital divide, a troubling gap between groups that use information and communication technologies widely and those that do not,' the team explains. 'The digital divide refers not only to unequal access to computing resources between groups of people but also to inequalities in their ability to use information technology fully.' There are many causes and proposed solutions to bridging this divide, but applying them at the educational and computer literacy level in an entertaining and productive way might be one of the more successful. The team adds that teaching people how to use off-the-shelf tools to quickly build a computer game might allow anyone to learn new thinking and computing skills."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- NZ School Goes Open Source Amid Microsoft Mandate
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ajWBIy6V_TE/NZ-School-Goes-Open-Source-Amid-Microsoft-Mandate)
Dan Jones writes "Kiwis have built an entire school IT system out of open source software, in less than two months, despite a deal between the New Zealand government and Microsoft that effectively mandates the use of Microsoft products in the country's schools. Albany Senior High School in the northern suburbs of Auckland has been running an entirely open source infrastructure since it opened in 2009. It's using a range of applications like OpenOffice, Moodle for education content, Mahara for student portfolios, and Koha for the library catalogue. Ubuntu Linux is on the desktop and Mandriva provides the server. Interestingly, the school will move into new purpose-built premises this year, which include a dedicated server room designed based on standard New Zealand school requirements, including four racks each capable of holding 48 servers for its main systems. The main infrastructure at Albany Senior High only requires four servers, suggesting an almost 50-fold saving on hardware requirements."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- SAS Named Best Company To Work For In 2010
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/GdOkCdqK9Uo/SAS-Named-Best-Company-To-Work-For-In-2010)
theodp writes "If you're in the market for a new job, Fortune has just published its list of 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2010. Topping the list this year is SAS (jobs ist), the largest privately held software company, which Fortune notes is populated with more statisticians than engineers or MBAs, and led by a Ph.D. founder whose first love is programming. Google (jobs), which once viewed SAS as model for employee perks, took the #4 spot, and Microsoft (jobs) checked in at #51."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Ursula Le Guin's Petition Against Google Books
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/4prUeNZrRSw/Ursula-Le-Guins-Petition-Against-Google-Books)
Miracle Jones blogs about the petition against the Google Book Settlement created by science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin, winner of five Hugo awards and six Nebulas. Le Guin is urging professional writers who are opposed to the terms of the settlement to sign her online petition before the January 28th deadline. From the petition: "The free and open dissemination of information and of literature, as it exists in our Public Libraries, can and should exist in the electronic media. All authors hope for that. But we cannot have free and open dissemination of information and literature unless the use of written material continues to be controlled by those who write it or own legitimate right in it. We urge our government and our courts to allow no corporation to circumvent copyright law or dictate the terms of that control."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- IPv4 Free Pool Drops Below 10%, 1.0.0.0/8 Allocated
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/GkuYFeQNm08/IPv4-Free-Pool-Drops-Below-10-10008-Allocated)
mysidia writes "A total of 16,777,216 IP address numbers were just allocated to the Asian Pacific Network Information Centre IP address registry for assignment to users. Some venerable IP addresses such as 1.1.1.1 and 1.2.3.4 have been officially assigned to the registry itself temporarily, for testing as part of the DEBOGON project. The major address blocks 1.0.0.0/8 and 27.0.0.0/8, are chosen accordance with a decision by ICANN to assign the least-desirable remaining IP address ranges to the largest regional registries first, reserving most more desirable blocks of addresses for the African and Latin American internet users, instead of North America, Europe, or Asia. In other words: of the 256 major networks in IPv4, only 24 network blocks remain unallocated in the global free pool, and many of the remaining networks have been tainted or made less desirable by unofficial users who attempted an end-run around the registration process, and treated 'RESERVED' IP addresses as 'freely available' for their own internal use. This allocation is right on target with projected IPv4 consumption and was predicted by the IPv4 report, which has continuously and reliably estimated global pool IP address exhaustion for late 2011 and regional registry exhaustion by late 2012. So, does your enterprise intranet use any unofficial address ranges for private networks?" Reader dude_nl sends in a summary of the issues with allocating from 1.0.0.0/8 from the BGPmon.net blog. "As Alain Durand mentioned on Nanog: 'Who said the water at the bottom of the barrel of IPv4 addresses will be very pure? We ARE running out and the global pain is increasing.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Radiation Therapy Mistakes Cost Lives
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/AAqhNfE-H0A/Radiation-Therapy-Mistakes-Cost-Lives)
jmtpi recommends a long NY Times investigative report about how powerful medical linear accelerators have contributed to at least two deaths in the New York area. Although the mistakes were largely due to human error, buggy software also played a role. "...the records described 621 mistakes from 2001 to 2008... most were minor... The Times found that on 133 occasions, devices used to shape or modulate radiation beams... were left out, wrongly positioned, or otherwise misused. On 284 occasions, radiation missed all or part of its intended target or treated the wrong body part entirely. ... Another patient with stomach cancer was treated for prostate cancer. Fifty patients received radiation intended for someone else, including one brain cancer patient who received radiation intended for breast cancer."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Pope Urges Priests To Go Forth and Blog
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3MfEQzQdz0Q/Pope-Urges-Priests-To-Go-Forth-and-Blog)
Hugh Pickens writes "Pope Benedict XV, whose own presence on the Web has grown in recent years, is urging priests to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and to engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures. 'The spread of multimedia communications and its rich "menu of options" might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web,' but priests are 'challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources,' says the Pope. The message from the Pope, prepared for the World Day of Communications, suggests such possibilities as images, videos, animated features, blogs, and Web sites and adds that young priests should become familiar with new media while still in seminary, though the Pope stresses that the use of new technologies must reflect theological and spiritual principles. Many priests and top prelates already interact with the faithful online, and one of Benedict's advisers has his own Facebook profile. So does the archbishop of Los Angeles. The Pope adds, 'I renew the invitation to make astute use of the unique possibilities offered by modern communications. May the Lord make all of you enthusiastic heralds of the Gospel in the new "agorà" which the current media are opening up.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Designing the Computer UIs In Movies
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/bzW2zTj-CtA/Designing-the-Computer-UIs-In-Movies)
xandroid points out an NPR interview with Mark Coleran, who "...designs the fancy-but-fake graphics that flash across computers in the movies. He has worked on a laundry list of blockbusters: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Men, Mission Impossible III, and many more. He says a lot of the inspiration for computer screens comes from video games." The main point of these fake movie UIs is different than that of real UIs: to tell a story very quickly, not to reveal and enable function.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- A Case For the Necessity of Science Fiction
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/QukwQbSE2wc/A-Case-For-the-Necessity-of-Science-Fiction)
unc0nn3ct3d writes "This article makes an interesting point about the necessity of science fiction — or, more specifically, speculative fiction as a tool to aid in the long-term survival of the human species. 'We live in a world that is incredibly frightening for a growing portion of the population because of the exponential rate of change we are experiencing. Our world is changing so fast now that we often don't have time to contemplate the full ramifications that come with the increasingly rapid adoption of new technologies and social changes. Most often this is simply because these changes are being introduced almost one after another after another, without any time to breathe. Speculative fiction, however, if widely adopted, makes it almost instinctive that we think about these situations and possible outcomes before they even arise.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes After All
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RoGET36joeg/Colliding-Particles-Can-Make-Black-Holes-After-All)
cremeglace writes with this excerpt from ScienceNOW: "You've heard the controversy. Particle physicists predict the world's new highest-energy atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, might create tiny black holes, which they say would be a fantastic discovery. Some doomsayers fear those black holes might gobble up the Earth — physicists say that's impossible — and have petitioned the United Nations to stop the $5.5 billion LHC. Curiously, though, nobody had ever shown that the prevailing theory of gravity, Einstein's theory of general relativity, actually predicts that a black hole can be made this way. Now a computer model shows conclusively for the first time that a particle collision really can make a black hole." That said, they estimate the required energy for creating a black hole this way to be roughly "a quintillion times higher than the LHC's maximum"; though if one of the theories requiring compact extra dimensions is true, the energy could be lower.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Why the IRS Should Automatically Fill In Returns With What It Knows
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/M1p8qyoO4LM/Why-the-IRS-Should-Automatically-Fill-In-Returns-With-What-It-Knows)
theodp writes "An article in the NY Times begins, 'In the digital age, filing income tax returns should be a snap. Important data from employers and financial institutions has already been sent to government computers. Yet taxpayers are still required to perform the chore of preparing a return from scratch, in many cases paying a software company for the privilege.' Why, if your needs are simple, can't you just download forms pre-filled with whatever data the IRS has received about you, make any necessary adjustments, and automatically get the IRS calculation of your taxes? Sounds reasonable, but the IRS rejected the President's proposal to give taxpayers the option to do so as 'not feasible at this time' due to delays in the receipt of W-2 and 1099 data. However, California managed to offer a pre-filled state tax return, which cost only 34 cents to process compared to $2.59 to process a traditional paper return. Despite the success of the pilot, meager funds have been allotted for the program due to the strength of its political opponents — 'principally, Intuit' — according to the state controller. Intuit argues it would be a 'conflict of interest for government to be both tax collector and tax preparer.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Surveillance Backdoor Enabled Chinese Gmail Attack?
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Pq6soTqAdkc/Surveillance-Backdoor-Enabled-Chinese-Gmail-Attack)
Major Blud writes "CNN is running an opinion piece on their front page from security technologist Bruce Schneier, in which he suggest that 'In order to comply with government search warrants on user data, Google created a backdoor access system into Gmail accounts. This feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access.' His article is short on sources, and the common belief is that a flaw in IE was the main attack method. Has this come up elsewhere? Schneier continues, 'Whether the eavesdroppers are the good guys or the bad guys, these systems put us all at greater risk. Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in. And it's bad civic hygiene to build technologies that could someday be used to facilitate a police state.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- On startup I keep getting told it cant find system ini files
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: I have a compaq presario desktop, model 4112. I keep getting a black screen on startup that says it can't find system.ini files, then a window that says it can't find ac97 audio controller that will be shut down. I can't seem to install certain programs because it can't find .dll file (msvbvm60.dll). I recently took my computer in to be serviced and cleaned. They cleaned out windows 95 and installed windows 98, that is when this all started. I just want to get this running well enough for my kids to be able to surf the internet. What do I need to do, and can I do it for free? Don't want to throw money into a computer that isn't worth it!

Answer: Dear User,It sounds like when you took your PC in to be serviced and cleaned, that during the upgrade to Windows 98 the service personell accidently deleted or damaged some essential files to make Windows run properly.You have a couple of options to correct this problem.Firstly, the service center that upgraded your PC may fix the problem for free since it appears as though they caused the problem. This depends upon your contract with them and if you have a service plan with the company.If your PC is under 12 months old, it should still be under warrentee from either Compaq or the dealer/supplier that sold you the PC. In this case, I would recomend contacting the company that sold you the PC in order to arrange for a free replacement or a repare.If you can do neither of the above, then it would be down to you to fix the PC yourself. Luckily, in the case of Compaq PC's this is quite a simple task.Unfortunately, it sounds like your existing Windows setup is damaged and can not be repaired. The option that is left to you is to completely re-install your computer from scratch.This will completely erase ALL information from your PC, including personal files, work, pictures, music, favourites, etc. You need to make sure that anything you wish to keep is coppied onto Floppy disk or burned onto a CD.Next, you need to find a CD that should have come with your PC. It will be labeled "Compaq QuickRestore", usually Dark Blue with the Red compaq logo.Insert this CD into your computer and reboot/switch on.You should see the Compaq Quick Restore program on screen after a few seconds. Follow the simple instructions in your program to completely re-install your PC.The entire process takes between half an hour and one hour, during which time you shouldn't switch off your PC. It will restart it's self several times and finally ask you to remove the CD. It is advisable to remain near your computer at this time in order to provide any information it asks you for.It will only ask for simple information such as your machines serial number, found on the side or the back of the PC.If you need further help with this process, you can either contact Helpforce by replying to this email or by phoning the Compaq support number which is: 0891 518140 (charged at 50p per minute.)Hope this helps!If you have any further questions or do require further assistance, please do not hesistate to reply to this email. Please include all previous emails so that we may more easily track your problem.

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

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