Security researchers appear to be turning on themselves. Where security software was once accepted as "trustworthy," recent presentations have cast doubt on that. At this year's Defcon, security professionals from the Shmoo Group announced security holes in Kismet and Metaploit, two security tools used by security professionals and criminal hackers alike. A few days earlier, at Black Hat, two independent security researchers announced numerous flaws in desktop antivirus apps. After the Black Hat presentation, I asked one of the presenters, Alex Wheeler, what the average desktop computer user will think when he or she hears this message. He said that commercial antivirus apps, in general, are pretty good at what they do but that it's important to remember that no software is 100 percent perfect. I guess constant vigilance is the price of computer security.

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Ford announced it will finally offer Sirius satellite radios in some of its cars this month. And by 2008, Ford expects 90 percent of its vehicles to offer the service.

Satellite radio is a true success story--even if it fails. By that, I mean that even if the two sat radio companies cease to exist in their current form in the next few years, the appetite for a different kind of radio programming has been undeniably established: A lot of us crave better radio and are willing to pay for it. That surprised a lot of people--many of whom run terrestrial radio stations.

At the same time, $13 a month just for radio is keeping the vast majority of consumers away. We need to see carmakers offer a bundle of navigation, live traffic data, and sat radio for $995 on the option sheet and $9.95 a month before we see the next big gulp of users bite.

And it still bothers me that consumers have to choose one sat radio service or the other. It's time for "universal" sat radios that allow me to flip my listening allegiance at a whim, just like on terrestrial radio.

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One of my fondest memories of the late-'90s dot-com era is the ridiculously over-the-top parties thrown by online broadcaster Pseudo.com at its Houston-and-Broadway loft in SoHo. At the time, the feisty upstart company claimed that Internet broadcasting was the wave of the future and even more: the company would take on the broadcast networks and beat them at their own game. Without going into a long history lesson, let's just say that things didn't really turn out the way Pseudo planned.

Hundreds of millions of dollars and several years later, it turns out the famous dot-com flameout was partially right. The New York Times (registration required) today adds some mainstream cred to the growing interest in Webcasting by highlighting online offerings from traditional media outlets, such as Nickelodeon, CBS News, and MTV. While the fawning article reminds us of the Grey Lady's reputation for bringing up the rear on tech trends, it does mean that Web video is finally ready for prime time.

On a related note, CNET's got lots of groovy online videos, too. But I betcha already knew that.

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This guy: coming soon to your Xbox.
[+] Enlarge photo

This is a big deal, because for a while there it looked like the SAG might drop the S-bomb (strike, not Stephen) and foul up such forthcoming titles as The Godfather (featuring the vocal stylings of James Caan and a posthumous Marlon Brando) and Stargate SG-1 (featuring the slightly less famous stars of the original TV series). Oh, and also pretty much every other video game in development, since a generous portion of voice actors belong to the guild, even if their fame currently registers at sub-Stargate levels.

So yeah, good news all around. I couldn't imagine there being much interest in a replacement-player Godfather title, voiced by a rickety cast of scabs and celebrity impersonators. Though you have to wonder whether using Brando in the first place required some sort of workaround--I picture his body, wearing sunglasses, propped up at the mic by those two guys from Weekend at Bernie's.

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