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Friday the 4th of June 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Friday the 4th of June 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
---------------------------------------
Mal/DelfInj-X on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/maldelfinjx.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/EncPk-QH on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malencpkqh.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/AdLoad-LV on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojadloadlv.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-NMY on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnmy.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-NMZ on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnmz.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-NNA on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnna.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-NNB on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnnb.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Agent-NND on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojagentnnd.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Bancos-BHR on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojbancosbhr.html?_log_from=rss
Troj/Dloadr-CZS on 4 June 2010 10:13:18 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/trojdloadrczs.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- Google Relents, Will Hand Over European Wi-Fi Data
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ofRrOR852HM/Google-Relents-Will-Hand-Over-European-Wi-Fi-Data)
itwbennett writes "Having previously denied demands from Germany that the company turn over hard drives with data it secretly collected from open wireless networks over the past three years, Google has reversed course. A Google representative said that it will hand over the data to German, French and Spanish authorities within a matter of days, according to the Financial Times, which first reported this latest development on Wednesday. 'We screwed up. Let's be very clear about that,' Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the newspaper."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Study Finds That "Extreme Gamers" Play 48 Hours a Week
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/mmjx2zxvmr8/Study-Finds-That-Extreme-Gamers-Play-48-Hours-a-Week)
An anonymous reader writes "Think you're a big gamer? According to a new study from market research firm NPD Group, to be considered among the real hardcore you'll need to play an average of 48.5 hours a week — nearly seven hours a day. This group of gamers is, on average, '29 years old, and — perhaps surprisingly — one-third of them are female. They're more likely to play on consoles than on the PC, and on average they've purchased 24 titles in the past three months — a bill that could easily run over a thousand dollars. But dedicated though they may be, the Extreme Gamers are just a small minority: a mere 4% of the US's 174-million-strong gaming public. '"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Jumbo Dual-Screen "Kno" Tablet Debuts At D8
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/iXiwOFZcxTw/Jumbo-Dual-Screen-Kno-Tablet-Debuts-At-D8)
itwbennett writes "The Microsoft Courier may be a dead project, but that doesn't mean you can't still have a dual-touchscreen e-reader. And a super-sized one at that, says blogger Peter Smith. The Kno, which debuted at All Things Digital's D8 conference yesterday has 'two 14.1 inch (1440 x 900) capacitive touch screens. Each screen has its own battery, giving the Kno 8-hours of battery life, but a hefty weight of 5.5 lbs. ... If Kno (the company) has its way, students will be carrying around a Kno (the device) rather than a stack of textbooks. That's the reason for the huge screens; most textbook pages can be shown 'full size' on a 14" screen.' Engadget, who got some hands-on time with the device, says 'the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance.' Price is still up in the air but Ina Fried at CNET says the company is aiming for a price well under $1000."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Traffic-Flow Algorithm Can Reduce Fuel Consumption
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3Xne5Ygy59c/Traffic-Flow-Algorithm-Can-Reduce-Fuel-Consumption)
thecarchik writes "New projects from German automakers Audi and BMW promise to ease congestion simply by looking at traffic signals and driving style, in an effort to smooth the flow of traffic. Through a test course in Munich, vehicles were able to post phenomenal fuel efficiency gains simply by adjusting the timing of traffic lights depending on traffic volume — to whatever speed provides a so-called 'green wave' of four or more synchronized signals."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- 12th Internet Problem Solving Contest, This Sunday
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/sgObMQRh7ro/12th-Internet-Problem-Solving-Contest-This-Sunday)
misof writes "Roughly a thousand teams from all around the globe have already
registered for IPSC 2010, which takes place on
Sunday, June 6. $3,000 in prize money (courtesy of Facebook, Inc.) is waiting for the best few of them. Participation is free and the contest is open to everybody. IPSC is what you could call a programming contest with a twist. Over the years, the problems always push the boundary and go
beyond the usual stuff you see in a programming contest. For example, in past few years the contestants have had to understand how arithmetic in computers differs from that in mathematics, produce a sequence of cache requests that generates many page faults,
solve
a logic puzzle given as a Flash game, and
recognize
images to evaluate a rock-paper-scissors game."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Clashing Scores In the HTML5 Compatibility Test Wars
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/yZOuc5MMSyE/Clashing-Scores-In-the-HTML5-Compatibility-Test-Wars)
Andreas(R) writes "Microsoft has published a set of HTML5 tests comparing Internet Explorer 9 to other web browsers. In Microsoft's own tests, IE9 performs 100% on all tests. However, the Internet Explorer 9 HTML5 Canvas Campaign has published results that show that Internet Explorer gets 0% on all their tests." The results reported here are selected with tongue in cheek: "Therefore, we'll also present shameless results from tests which have been carefully selected to give the results that the PR department has demanded."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Man Emails AT&T's CEO, Gets Threatened With C&D Order
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/cCqOLKJ_6I0/Man-Emails-ATampTs-CEO-Gets-Threatened-With-CampD-Order)
An anonymous reader writes "After its recent bait and switch, AT&T went ahead and threatened someone emailing the company CEO about customer service concerns, namely with a query about tethering and eligibility rates. The email author also put up a voicemail recording of the company's response and how he managed to contact the CEO in the first place — through The Consumerist." As Engadget notes (as does the complaining customer's updated page), AT&T did at least offer an apology for the threat of legal action, which the company says was unauthorized.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Guess My Speed and Give Me a Ticket, In Ohio
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/9r683oixDIQ/Guess-My-Speed-and-Give-Me-a-Ticket-In-Ohio)
quall writes "The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that police may estimate your car's speed and issue a ticket if they believe you were speeding. The hearing threw out a radar gun as evidence because the officer was not qualified to use it, but apparently his guess was good enough. If you make your way into Ohio, I suggest driving 5mph under the speed limit because this leaves little room to dispute your ticket in court. The only chance you have is if the issuing officer decides to skip your hearing."

I wonder whether the court would also accept a driver's own GPS log as exculpatory evidence.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- How To Get Rejected From the App Store
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/tmmQTFyzGb8/How-To-Get-Rejected-From-the-App-Store)
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister catalogs 12 sure-fire ways to get your app rejected from Apple's notoriously fickle App Store. From executing interpreted code, to using Apple's APIs without permission, to designing your UI, each transgression has been abstracted from real-life rejections — for the most part because Apple seems to be making up the rules as it goes along. 'It'd be nice for Apple to make conditions for rejection clear,' McAllister writes. 'Apple has been tinkering with the language of its iPhone SDK license agreement lately, but that hasn't done much to clarify the rules — unless you're Adobe. For everyone else, the App Store's requirements seem as vague and capricious as ever.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Frank Zappa's Influence On Linux and FOSS Development
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/cshWw102qTE/Frank-Zappas-Influence-On-Linux-and-FOSS-Development)
Roblimo writes "Zappa's 'Dinah-Moe Hummm' is totally about Linux, at least in spirit, while the song 'Montana,' with its talk of zirconium-encrusted tweezers and dental floss, 'is obviously about Mac users.' Not only that: In the early '70s Zappa wrote a song called 'Penguin in Bondage,' an obvious foretelling of the anti-Linux lawsuits and threats from SCO, Microsoft, and other evildoers. Zappa was also a heavy user of the Synclavier, an electronic music machine that was a precursor to today's 'studio on a computer' recording and sound editing software. According to an article on DevX, today Zappa would no doubt be using Linux and Ardour for most of his recording and composition."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Six Major 3G and 4G Networks Tested Nationwide
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ziiB2Fy7vGY/Six-Major-3G-and-4G-Networks-Tested-Nationwide)
adeelarshad82 writes "PCMag recently tested six 3G and 4G networks to determine which ones were the fastest (and slowest) in 18 different US cities. They focused on data, not calls, and used their own testing script and methodology, which combined various kinds of uploads and downloads. Using laptops, more than a dozen people ran more than 10,000 tests; they found AT&T is both the fastest national 3G network, and the least consistent. Sprint's 3G system was the slowest of the 'big four' carriers, but the most consistent. When the test results were broken down by regions, AT&T led on speed in the Southeast, Central, and West, but T-Mobile took the crown in the Northeast region. Sprint's 4G network was fast where it was available, but it was surprisingly slower than 3G in some cities. The fastest AT&T download seen, at 5.05 megabits/sec, was right behind Apple's headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA. The fastest connection in any of the tests was a blazing 9.11 megabits down on Sprint 4G in the Midtown neighborhood of Atlanta, GA. The slowest city, on average, was Raleigh, with average 3G downloads of 880kbits/sec."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Mobile Phones vs. Supercomputers of the Past
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/D7AUWrUlSys/Mobile-Phones-vs-Supercomputers-of-the-Past)
An anonymous reader writes "The recently published Top 500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers is based on the Linpack benchmark developed decades ago by Jack Dongarra. This same test has been ported to Android mobile phones, which means that we can compare the performance of our phones against that of the supercomputers of the past. For example, a tweaked Motorola Droid can hit 52 Mflop/s, which is more than 15 times faster than the CPUs used in the 1979 Cray-1." But even today's most powerful cellphones don't come with an integrated bench.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- FTC Staff Discuss a Tax on Electronics To Support the News Business
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RWSAy1nVfYQ/FTC-Staff-Discuss-a-Tax-on-Electronics-To-Support-the-News-Business)
dptalia links to this piece describing a staff discussion draft from the Federal Trade Commission, writing "The FTC is concerned about the death of the 'news.' Specifically newspapers. Rather than look to how old media models can be adapted to the Internet, they instead suggest taxing consumer electronics to support a huge newspaper bailout. Additionally, they suggest making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them."

Note, though, "The good news in all this is that the FTC's bureaucrats try hard to recommend little. They just discuss. And much of what the agency staff ponders are political impossibilities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Yahoo Treading Carefully Before Exposing More Private Data
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/wYu2IZPqdzM/Yahoo-Treading-Carefully-Before-Exposing-More-Private-Data)
crimeandpunishment writes "Yahoo hopes to turn on a new sharing option without turning off its users. The company is trying to avoid the privacy backlash that has befallen Facebook and Google. It's advising its email account holders, all 280M of them, to review their privacy settings in advance of Yahoo's new features that will share users' online activities and interests with people in their address books, unless they take steps to prevent it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Police Officers Seek Right Not To Be Recorded
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/OsEit_oEJG8/Police-Officers-Seek-Right-Not-To-Be-Recorded)
linzeal writes "When the police act as though cameras were the equivalent of guns pointed at them, there is a sense in which they are correct. Cameras have become the most effective weapon that ordinary people have to protect against and to expose police abuse. And the police want it to stop. Judges, juries, and legislatures support the police overwhelmingly on this issue, with only a few cases where those accused of 'shooting' the cops being vindicated through the courts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- I keep getting hits on different ports on my computer
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: I recently installed a firewall on my computer and ad-aware. I am connected to the internet through a dsl cable. since installing the firewall and have noticed hundreds of hits on numerous ports on my computer. The most hits are on 1616, 137,139, & 80. my question is this, is this just background noise or actual hack attempts? These hits are continuous averaging 100+ per hour. Is there a downloadable program out there to trace these events, or is there anything else i can do to protect myself from being hacked.

Answer: What firewall do you use? Try one (e.g. zonealarm) which monitors which programs are using which ports and then asks whether or not they should be allowed. This will stop spyware or trojans. Apart from that, I would suggest keeping your IP address a secret. If you use IRC try to get a VLine or mode +x if the network supports that.

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

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

-- What Is 'NSFW'?(http://netforbeginners.about.com/b/2010/06/04/what-is-nsfw.htm)

NSFW is an emailÂ warning you will sometimes see in the subject line. If you are at the office, you should heed this warning, and not open the email there. You...

Thank you for your continued support, please do not reply to this email address as emails will not be answered.

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