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Thursday the 29th of July 2010

Welcome to the Helpforce Daily Briefing, on Thursday the 29th of July 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/Agent-CI on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malagentci.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Bckdr-N on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malbckdrn.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/DownLdr-AP on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/maldownldrap.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/EncPk-RT on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malencpkrt.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/EncPk-RU on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malencpkru.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/FakeAV-EL on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malfakeavel.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Hiloti-C on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malhilotic.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Mdrop-AL on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malmdropal.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/Sality-D on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malsalityd.html?_log_from=rss
Mal/VB-FQ on 29 July 2010 10:54:17 Z
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/malvbfq.html?_log_from=rss

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

-- The Physics of a Rolling Rubber Band
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/ttS0le2oSgE/The-Physics-of-a-Rolling-Rubber-Band)
sciencehabit writes "Modern physics can get complicated. Sure, researchers know exactly what forces act on a ball rolling down an incline—an experiment that helped Galileo develop universal laws for movement and acceleration. But what happens when a deformable shape like a a rubber band rolls around? A new study reveals that the faster it goes, the more squashed it gets. (Video included)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- ATM Hack Gives Cash On Demand
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/RgmrTXA-Jic/ATM-Hack-Gives-Cash-On-Demand)
angry tapir writes "Windows CE-based ATMs can easily be made to dole out cash, according to security researcher Barnaby Jack. Exploiting bugs in two different ATM machines at Black Hat, the researcher from IOActive was able to get them to spit out money on demand and record sensitive data from the cards of people who used them. Jack believes a large number of ATMs have remote management tools that can be accessed over a telephone. After experimenting with two machines he purchased, Jack developed a way of bypassing the remote authentication system and installing a homemade rootkit, named Scrooge,"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Nuclear Energy Now More Expensive Than Solar
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/1Fi-RadZ5B0/Nuclear-Energy-Now-More-Expensive-Than-Solar)
js_sebastian writes "According to an article on the New York Times, a historical cross-over has occurred because of the declining costs of solar vs. the increasing costs of nuclear energy: solar, hardly the cheapest of renewable technologies, is now cheaper than nuclear, at around 16 cents per kilowatt hour. Furthermore, the NY Times reports that financial markets will not finance the construction of nuclear power plants unless the risk of default (which is historically as high as 50 percent for the nuclear industry) is externalized to someone else through federal loan guarantees or ratepayer funding. The bottom line seems to be that nuclear is simply not competitive, and the push from the US government to subsidize it seems to be forcing the wrong choice on the market."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- FTC Wants Browsers To Block Online Tracking
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/m3uba74PKuc/FTC-Wants-Browsers-To-Block-Online-Tracking)
storagedude writes "The FTC wants a do-not-track mechanism that would allow Web users to opt out of online behavioral tracking, similar to the national do-not-call registry. The agency's preferred method for accomplishing this would be a browser-based tool that would give users the option of blocking data collection across the Web. The only problem is that the agency may not have the authority to require this, thanks to concerted lobbying efforts by the advertising industry. The first step may just be voluntary measures, to be released this fall."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Valve Apologizes For 12,000 Erroneous Anti-Cheating Bans
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/nuGQpQLCszY/Valve-Apologizes-For-12000-Erroneous-Anti-Cheating-Bans)
Earlier this week, there were reports that large numbers of Modern Warfare 2 players on Steam were getting erroneously banned by Valve's Anti-Cheat software. While such claims are usually best taken with a grain of salt, the quantity and suddenness caused speculation that Valve's software wasn't operating correctly. A few days later, Valve president Gabe Newell sent out an email acknowledging that roughly 12,000 players had been inappropriately banned over the preceding two weeks. "The problem was that Steam would fail a signature check between the disk version of a DLL and a latent memory version. This was caused by a combination of conditions occurring while Steam was updating the disk image of a game." Valve reversed the bans and gave free copies of Left 4 Dead 2 to everyone who was affected.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Pizza Lovers Suffer Data Breach From Hell
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/YbWir-Zr2Pg/Pizza-Lovers-Suffer-Data-Breach-From-Hell)
netbuzz writes "Some 230,000 New Zealanders have been informed that their personal information has apparently fallen into the hands of hackers who compromised the network of a locally famous food chain, Hell Pizza. The company says it suspects 'a rogue employee,' but one security expert says Hell's ordering portal is 'about 50 steps of fail.' Several New Zealand celebrities are among the victims and at least one is taking the matter in stride, musing: 'My Twitter has been hacked, my Facebook has been hacked and I'm pretty sure half of New Zealand has my phone number already. I have nothing bad to say about Hell.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- AT&T Won't Block Black Hat Eavesdropping Demo
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/xu7iDnCilrE/ATampT-Wont-Block-Black-Hat-Eavesdropping-Demo)
snydeq writes "AT&T says it won't interfere with a highly anticipated talk on intercepting cell phone calls at the Black Hat conference this week. Hacker Chris Paget last week said that he plans to demonstrate on Saturday how to set up what's essentially a fake cell tower that allows him listen in on nearby mobile calls. But Tuesday, he wrote on his blog that he had 'heard that AT&T may be considering suing me to stop my talk.' AT&T, however, has insisted it has no plans to interfere with the talk."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Fly Eyes Used For Solar Cells
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/Hn1eoxbrxiE/Fly-Eyes-Used-For-Solar-Cells)
disco_tracy writes "Researchers took corneas from blow flies, fixed them on a glass substrate, added a polymer to protect the shape and then coated nine-eye arrays in nickel within a vacuum chamber. The result was a master template that retained those useful nanoscale features and can be used to make solar cells."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Chevy Volt Not Green Enough For California
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/GDEmvUxBOEE/Chevy-Volt-Not-Green-Enough-For-California)
thecarchik writes "The first two plug-in cars from major manufacturers will go head-to-head on warranties and lease prices: $350 a month for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, $349 for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Now the choice shifts to other measures, including electric and overall range, as well as the plug-in perks that states like California offer to early adopters to encourage them to opt for electric cars. This is where it gets interesting. While California loves the Nissan Leaf, current regulations deny Chevy Volt buyers two significant perks: a $5,000 rebate, and permission to drive solo in HOV Lanes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- ASCAP Refuses To Debate Lessig
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/C2owbEHdfvg/ASCAP-Refuses-To-Debate-Lessig)
An anonymous reader writes "Back in June ASCAP oddly declared war on free culture, specifically calling out Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge, making a number of false statements about all three. The war of words continued as the three groups responded politely, pointing out the errors in the statement from ASCAP's Paul Williams. Larry Lessig wrote a blog post where he asked Williams to debate these topics, saying that it might help if they could get away from making false statements. Williams has now publicly declined to debate saying that it's not worth his time, and once again attacking these groups for trying to 'silence' him. It's difficult to see how a request for a public discussion and debate is an attempt to silence, but that's ASCAP's position and they're sticking to it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Oracle's Java Company Change Breaks Eclipse
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/8oF4_23KxDM/Oracles-Java-Company-Change-Breaks-Eclipse)
crabel writes "In Java 1.6.0_21, the company field was changed from 'Sun Microsystems, Inc' to 'Oracle.' Apparently not the best idea, because some applications depend on that field to identify the virtual machine. All Eclipse versions since 3.3 (released 2007) until and including the recent Helios release (2010) have been reported to crash with an OutOfMemoryError due to this change. This is particularly funny since the update is deployed through automatic update and suddenly applications cease to work."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Commission Affirms NVIDIA Violated Rambus Patents
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/o64jWH9w5dY/Commission-Affirms-NVIDIA-Violated-Rambus-Patents)
MojoKid writes "The International Trade Commission has announced its findings in the NVIDIA/Rambus patent infringement lawsuit, and it's not the sort of ruling Team Green would've preferred. The commission found NVIDIA to be in violation of three Rambus patents. The trade panel also granted an injunction Rambus had requested, which theoretically prevents NVIDIA and the various companies attached to the lawsuit (Asus, HP, Palit, and MSI among others) from selling products that contain the infringing IP. The commission's decision this week affirms a January ruling that saw NVIDIA in violation of three Rambus patents while dismissing two additional claims of infringement Rambus made."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- UK Courts Rule Nintendo DS R4 Cards Illegal
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/3AvBhMqye1o/UK-Courts-Rule-Nintendo-DS-R4-Cards-Illegal)
CheShACat writes "A UK high court ruled today that R4 cards for the Nintendo DS are illegal, finding two vendors guilty of selling 'game copiers.' The ruling by Justice Floyd is quoted as saying, 'The economic effect on Nintendo of the trade in these devices is substantial as each accused device can store and play copies of many Nintendo DS games [...] The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence.' No word in the article as to what law in particular they were found to have broken, nor of the penalty the vendors are facing, but this looks like bad news for all kinds of hardware mod, on any platform, that would enable homebrew users to bypass vendor locks."
Nintendo won a related lawsuit in the Netherlands recently, in addition to the one in Australia earlier this year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- Tennessee Town Releases Red Light Camera Stats
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/nEGRq4r6a2M/Tennessee-Town-Releases-Red-Light-Camera-Stats)
SonicSpike links to what he calls "a transparent look at some statistics released by a small town's red-light camera program," writing

"Specifically, in the last fiscal quarter, 7,213 incidents were recorded, 2,673 incidents were rejected by the reviewing officer, and 662 incidents were not processed due to technical issues or lack of information. All in all 3,878 citations were issued between April I — June 30 in a town of 17,000 residents. Interestingly enough there are two nearby cities claiming that individuals 'have no presumption of innocence' when accused by the red light cameras." Fines for no-harm-no-foul rolling stops bug me, and remind me of Gary Lauder's suggestion to merge stop signs and yield signs.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

-- DefCon Ninja Badges Let Hackers Do Battle
(http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/GFM6vADrZEw/DefCon-Ninja-Badges-Let-Hackers-Do-Battle)
eecue writes "The folks at DefCon, the world's largest hacker convention [previously on Slashdot], have been making awesome badges for years. Last year along with the convention badge, a group of hackers known as the Ninjas created an electronic badge for their exclusive party. This year the Ninjas have taken the whole electronic badge thing to the next level with an interactive, wireless, encrypted ninja battle video game badge. I convinced the Ninjas to give Wired.com an exclusive sneak peek, and let me tell you, this thing is awesome."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

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

-- I am unable to download files - Help!
(http://www.helpforce.com)

Question: I am unable to download files - I keep getting Microsoft error message stating site is unavailable - try again later. This happens regardless of any file I try to download and any site. I'm using Internet 6.0 Explorer.

Answer: Ok, firstly, make sure your options are correctly set up, is your browser configured correctly for your ISP/Lan/firewall? Try going via Tools, security, custom and make sure that you have allowed files to be downloaded.Try using Netscape, does that allow files to be downloaded? If so, maybe try reinstalling IE6 Reply Posted on 7/11/2002 Hi Marilyn:Are you using an accelerator (download)There are more and more sites that wont allow ftp services to DAP, GATOR, .........They have their reasons.

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

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