conficker

You'd think the British government would be up on the latest and greatest security practices, but apparently even officials there have their problems.

The U.K. parliament's computer network has been infected with the Conficker worm, according to the Dizzy Thinks blog.

In his own blog post, Trend Micro security researcher Rik Ferguson questioned the security practices that could have allowed Conficker onto such hallowed turf. "Dear Parliament, if you are having trouble cleaning this up, give us a call, we'll come and do it for nothing," he offers.

Below is the text of the … Read more

While Twitter has announced a sort of a business plan, President Obama is ripping off Digg for an Internet town hall meeting, and Windows 7 may be getting a release candidate in May, we really don't care. Because we have some hardcore physics stories about buckyballs and hardware neuron simulators.

Twitter to be a freemium service http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-confirms-paid-pro-accounts-on-the-way-2009-3

AT&T exec: ISP will never terminate service on RIAA’s word http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10204514-93.html

Windows 7 Release Candidate coming in May http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7965513.stm… Read more

There's been lots of hype about the fact that the latest variant of the Conficker worm is set to start communicating with other computers on the Internet on April 1--like an April Fool's Day time bomb with some mysterious payload.

But security researchers say the reality is probably going to be more like what happened when the clocks on the world's computers turned to January 1, 2000, after lots of dire predictions about the so-called millennium bug. That is, not much at all.

"It doesn't mean we're going to see some large cyber event … Read more

Somehow we packed a conference room with more people than we had chairs for here at South by Southwest. Special guests Caroline McCarthy, Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk, and The Onion's Baratunde Thurston join us for today's show.

The Web turns 20 http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10195512-60.html

It’s Red Nose Day http://www.rednoseday.com/

Apple ready for third generation of iPhone- Demo 3/17 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10195098-37.html

iTunes 8.1 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10194549-37.html

iPod Touch explodes, sets kids’ pants on … Read more

The Conficker worm, also known as Downadup, is targeting the Web site of Southwest Airlines and could disrupt online flight check-in and other services on March 13 as a result, security firm Sophos warned on Monday.

Mike Wood of SophosLabs Canada did some digging and found that the millions of computers infected with Conficker are programmed to contact wnsux.com, which redirects visitors to the main Southwest.com site, on March 13 to get instructions. That would cause a denial of service, shutting the site down temporarily, he wrote in a blog entry.

The worm is targeting about 7,750 … Read more

A new variant of the Conficker Internet worm is circulating that opens up a backdoor that could allow an attacker to distribute malware to infected machines, the US-CERT organization warned on Monday.

The new Conficker/Downadup worm, dubbed "Conficker B++," uses a new backdoor with "auto-update" functionality, CERT said in an advisory.

Microsoft says there is no indication that systems infected with previous variants of Conficker can automatically be re-infected with the new variant, CERT said.

Previous versions of Conficker took action to prevent further exploitation of the vulnerability, Microsoft said in an advisory of its own. … Read more

Nintendo is smashing the competition in game consoles and Rafe thinks he knows the reason why. The G/D ratio will probably become a new economic leading indicator. We also determine just how long you should wait for Windows 7. And by determine, I mean Rafe and I fight over it and I win. And what do you think of the Microsoft store?

Unix Time stamp generator http://www.timestampgenerator.com/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10163129-235.html

Sources: Windows 7 moving toward 2009 release http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10162609-56.html

New Windows … Read more

Correction, 1:08 p.m. PST: This story initially misstated the amount of the reward. It is $250,000.

Microsoft on Thursday said it is offering a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for creating the Conficker Internet worm that has infected millions of PCs.

Microsoft said it is offering the reward because the worm constitutes a "criminal attack" and offering compensation should hasten prosecution. Residents of any country are eligible for the reward and should contact their international law enforcement authorities, the company said in a statement. … Read more

To avoid a trademark problem should we call it gnetbook, pnetbook or knetbook? Cooley thinks all the ideas are pretty. Google wants to mind your power for you, but if they treat that data like they do your posts on blogger you may find your dryer deleted without notice.

Sony INT-W250 WebTV High-Speed Linkup http://www.theonion.com/

You have until the end of the day to download Windows 7 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10160285-56.html

Google PowerMeter http://www.google.org/powermeter/howitworks.html

Google deleting blog posts without warning http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-05/music/google-39-s-new-killer-app-why-are-music-bloggers-39-posts-disappearing-and-who-is-deleting-them/all… Read more