Monthly Archives: November 2005

So how long has Sony known about the rootkit problem?

Posted on by

Curiouser and curiouser. According to Business Week, Sony were warned about the problem with their DRM system a full month before Mark Russinovich posted the news on his Blog — and did nothing. Excerpt:

Sony BMG is in a catfight with a well-known computer-security outfit that became aware of the software problem on Sept. 30 and notified the music company on Oct. 4 — nearly a month before the issue blew up. F-Secure, a Finland-based antivirus company that prides itself on being the first to spot new malware outbreaks, says Sony BMG didn’t understand the software it was introducing to people’s computers and was slow to react.

“If [Sony] had woken up and smelled the coffee when we told them there was a problem, they could have avoided this trouble,” says Mikko H. Hypponen, F-Secure’s director of antivirus research.

That ‘special relationship’

Posted on by

Nice quote from Martin Kettle’s review of Christopher Meyer’s memoir, DC Confidential…

Meyer is wisely unsentimental, too, about the so-called “special relationship”. The phrase was banned from use while he was ambassador, quite rightly, and he smartly observes that the only countries that can truly lay claim to such a status in Washington – in the sense of being able to have significant influence on US politics and policy – are Ireland, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, and certainly not Britain, even under Blair or Thatcher.

Martin was the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief from 1997 to 2001.

H2O

Posted on by

My spam filter, bless it, catches 99.9% of the usual crap, but this one got through. Who says water and snake oil don’t mix?

Did you know that there is a little-known secret about water that has
existed for thousands of years?

And it has been carefully hidden from you!
-The Japanese know about it.
-Scientists and non-traditional doctors know about it.
-A NASA lab has examined it up one side and down the other.

The powers that control the Pharmaceutical Markets know about it.
Yet, 99% of the world has never even heard of it !

What if I could show you: “The World’s Most Perfect Water”.
-A Perfect Water that energizes and Ph balances your body naturally.
-A Perfect Water that allows you to create massive wealth?
(I am dead serious; I can verify everything I am telling you.)

The code has been cracked, the Secret is out. This product has (2) US
Patents and is closely guarded with exclusive-global rights.
* You can finally learn what only the most-informed health & wealth
insiders know.
* There is nothing like this product anywhere.
* You can make money over and over every day with a hands-off system
with just a push of a button!

Learn how you can receive phone-in leads from across the USA.
The Secret Code of “The World’s Most Perfect Water” will be aired on
ABC, CBS, & FOX TV Networks on October 18, 2005.

The opportunity to become wealthy as a distributor of this new
product is enormous!
-Are you serious and not just curious?
-Are you truly seeking health & wealth?

If you answered: YES, Then You Deserve The Truth NOW.
The code for Xtreme Water (X20) has been cracked:

There then follows the usual address-confirming link. Wonder who falls for this stuff.

Eliot Spitzer wades in on Sony spyware case

Posted on by

From Business Week…

BUYER, BEWARE.  [New York Attorney General] Spitzer’s office dispatched investigators who, disguised as customers, were able to purchase affected CDs in New York music retail outlets — and to do so more than a week after Sony BMG recalled the disks. The investigators bought CDs at stores including Wal-Mart, BestBuy, Sam Goody, Circuit City, FYE, and Virgin Megastore, according to a Nov. 23 statement from Spitzer’s office.

Sony BMG says it shipped nearly 5 million CDs containing the software, of which 2.1 million had been sold. The company says 52 individual titles are affected.

Spitzer’s office urged consumers not to buy the disks, and if they do buy them, not to play them in computers. The disks should be returned to the place of purchase for a refund, Spitzer advises.

MORE PRESSURE. 

“It is unacceptable that more than three weeks after this serious vulnerability was revealed, these same CDs are still on shelves, during the busiest shopping days of the year,” Spitzer said in a written statement. “I strongly urge all retailers to heed the warnings issued about these products, pull them from distribution immediately, and ship them back to Sony.”

Attaboy!

Inside the Googlemind

Posted on by

A little while back, I signed up for Google’s AdSense program, which puts ads down the right-hand side of this page. The idea was not to make money (just as well — to date I’ve earned a grand total of about $10) but to see what inferences Google servers would draw from the Blog content. The results are sometimes puzzling and sometimes hilarious. For example, I’ve just posted something about Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of community sites for twentysomethings and the first ad is now for “Free Sex Dating Contacts”! The second ad is for an Internet Security Guide. The third and fourth are for search-engine services (presumeably triggered by several posts about Google). Whenever I write about Iraq, there tends to be an ad for something about the CIA. Weird.

Google tests out Click-to-Call AdWords

Posted on by

Someone should call Google and tell them to stop introducing a new service every day. It’s giving rise to cognitive overload in the advertising industry! Greg Yardley picked up on the sudden appearance of a phone icon beside some sponsored links appearing on the right hand side of a Google search-results page. He then investigated further and quotes this from the FAQ page of the experimental service.

We’re testing a new product that gives you a free and fast way to speak directly to the advertiser you found on a Google search results page – over the phone.

Here’s how it works: When you click the phone icon, you can enter your phone number. Once you click ‘Connect For Free,’ Google calls the number you provided. When you pick up, you hear ringing on the other end as Google connects you to the other party. Then, chat away on our dime.

We won’t share your telephone number with anyone, including the advertiser. When you’re connected with the advertiser, your number is blocked so the advertiser can’t see it. In addition, we’ll delete the number from our servers after a short period of time.

Quote of the day

Posted on by

“I don’t know anybody under 30 who has ever looked at a classified advertisement in a newspaper.”

Rupert Murdoch, quoted in the Financial Times.

Well, he may have misunderstood the Internet the first time around, but he certainly gets it now. News Corporation has spent $1.5bn so far this year on MySpace.com, a fast-growing online community, and IGN Entertainment, a games and content site, Murdoch responded to the recent claim by Martin Sorrell, a leading advertising honcho, that some traditional media owners were “panic buying” new media assets. Quoth the Digger:

“There’s no panic, and there’s certainly no overpayment. It was a very careful strategy to go for the two biggest community sites for people under 30. If you take the number of page views in the US, we are the third biggest presence already.”

The laws of physics

Posted on by

An old Dave Barry column…

Rob and his roommate, Hal, stay up all night discussing Deep Questions and figuring out the universe, and when they have it nailed down — The Rob and Hal Theory of Everything — Rob calls me up, all excited, and starts talking about time travel, the Fifth Dimension, the Big Bang, etc. I try to follow him, but I am hampered by a brain that for decades has firmly believed that the Fifth Dimension is the musical group that sang ”Up, Up and Away.” So I quickly become confused and testy, and Rob gets frustrated and says, ”Don’t you understand? THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS TIME!” And I’ll say, “YES THERE IS, AND RIGHT NOW IT’S FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!”…

This is not to say that I know nothing about physics. I studied physics for an ENTIRE YEAR in Pleasantville High School under the legendary Mr. Heideman. We learned that there are five simple machines: the lever, the pulley, the doorbell, the hammer and the toaster. We learned that the most powerful force in the universe is static electricity, which Mr. Heideman demonstrated by getting a volunteer to place his or her hand on a generator, which caused the volunteer’s hair to stand on end, unless the volunteer was a girl with the popular early-’60s ”beehive” hairstyle held rigidly in place by the other most powerful force in the universe, hairspray. Presumably, if Mr. Heideman had cranked the power up enough, the static electricity buildup would have caused the volunteer’s head to explode, and we would finally have found out if — as widely rumored — many ”beehive” hairstyles contained nests of baby spiders.