A Man and his Penguin

Symantec’s communications director Chris Paden has said recently that Microsoft’s own security package for Windows Vista will not be able to be removed from the operating system, even if a 3rd-party package is installed. Microsoft have reportedly ignored requests by security companies to allow the inbuilt package to be replaceable.

"It would be like trying to drive a car with two dashboards. This is going to cause a great deal of consumer confusion," said Mr Paden.

He also warned that Windows Vista had been engineered to resist the kinds of threats Windows was facing three years ago, much like how Windows XP was built against the short-lived Macro Virus threat.

EU Competition
Commissioner Neelie Kroes has also expressed concern over the new security features, but in relation to possible breaches in competition law.

But I don’t need to worry about it, as Linux distributions are built in a modular fashion that allows any part of the system to be replaced, including the built-in iptables firewall; and besides, anti-virus and anti-spyware software is not needed. Linux software is always built with security in mind, the kernel itself has always been built to resist threats from the Internet, and any new threats can be accounted for by any of the kernel developers at any time.

FROM AUSTRALIAN IT

MICROSOFT has released a security patch to
fix a "critical" hole in its Internet Explorer web browser which it
said could allow an attacker to take control of a user’s computer.

The patch was released two weeks ahead of a regularly scheduled monthly
security update after Microsoft said it became aware of a "public
attack utilszing the vulnerability".

The impact on customers was "limited", Microsoft said

Microsoft typically issues security patches at the beginning of the month.

The flaw rated at critical - the highest level - existed in the coding for Vector Markup Language, or VML.

The
company defines a flaw as "critical" when the vulnerability could allow
a damaging internet worm to replicate without the user doing anything
to the machine.

But I don’t need to worry about it, as Firefox on Linux was designed and built with security in mind.

Oh, oh, oh. I don’t like Apple anymore.

I wanted to download a Mylene Farmer album from iTunes Music Store. I selected the album, made sure I had enough credit, clicked "Download"… and it told me that I needed the latest version of iTunes. iTunes 7. It’s been out all of a week, and now all Music Store customers need to upgrade.

I go to the Apple site and go to download it… and it’s frigging 34 megabytes! (By comparison, AmaroK is 14.5 megs). So, grumbling, I download it, and have an idea.

Windows has a feature called "Run As", where you can tell it to run a program as a particular user, or with the shoddy Windows equivilant of AppArmour. So I log in as a restricted user and tell Windows to run the iTunes installer as administrator.

Things go alright for a while, my existing iTunes 6 is erased. Then the installer tries to open up a new program. Unfortunately, Windows is too dumb to realise that a program run as administrator will want its child processes to also be run as administrator. This new program is run as the limited user, and of course the installation fails because of this. The iTunes installer ends off having to roll back its changes… except for the "deleting iTunes 6" bit.

So that’s why Windows users don’t use the Run As feature; because programs run with it don’t work properly. Either that, or they don’t realise how bad running as root is (I suspect the latter). It may also explain why new Ubuntu users always want to activate a real root account.

So I log back in as the administrator account, and install properly. During the install I find out that the installer includes a full copy of the latest version of Quicktime, which of course was not installed since I already have it.

To clarify: I had to download ANOTHER copy of Quicktime embedded in an installer! There’s a lot to be said for the dependancy system on Linux.

iTunes 7 works now. It’s simply crazy that the installer was over half the size of the album I wanted to download.

This new section is called "I don’t need to worry about it". It’s about the security problems that plague Windows users, but "for some reason" don’t affect Linux users. Each time, I will take an article from a news source and repost it under this category.

This section is provided in the hope that some Windows users reading this blog will even just START using Linux. I don’t mind if web browsing, e-mail and IM are the only things you start using Linux for, as long as you STOP USING WINDOWS ONLINE! Maybe, when you see these security problems concentrated, and are told about how Linux doesn’t suffer this stuff, you’ll consider switching part of your computing to open-source.

Correspondents in San Francisco
Agence France-Presse
From Australian IT

HACKERS using computer worms implanted via
America Online (AOL) instant messages could assembling a "botnet" for
sinister purposes, a Silicon Valley internet security firm said today.

  FaceBook security specialists advised users not to open any files sent to them via AIM.

FaceTime
Security Labs identified the worm as "W32.pipeline" and said the
executable software tricked its way into people’s computers by posing
as a picture attached to an instant message from someone on their AOL
"buddy list."

Once in computers, the worms open the doors to
download infectious software that essentially lets those behind the
invasion take control of the machines, according to FaceTime.

"The
motivation for the bad guys seems to be in lining up as many ‘install
chains’ as possible to insure a consistent pipeline that can be
controlled by their rogue botnet," FaceTime director of malware
research Chris Boyd said.

AIM users are duped into letting the
worms in through psychological ploy from the "social engineering"
playbook, according to FaceTime.

The infected attachments are
disguised as image "JPEG" files and arrive with AIM messages to the
effect of "hey would it (be) okay if I upload this picture of you to my
blog?"

The worm sends copies of itself to addresses found on
AOL instant messaging (AIM) buddy lists of newly infected machines,
FaceTime said.

The robotic computers can be amassed in a network referred to as a "botnet."

"FaceTime
researchers believe that the ultimate goal of the W32.pipeline is to
create a sophisticated botnet that can be used for a range of malicious
purposes," the company said.

Botnets under the control of
hackers can be mined for personal information or used to send junk
email or overwhelm business websites with simultaneous requests in what
are known as "denial-of-service" attacks.

Hackers could also
use zombie machine armies to commit "click fraud" by having them
repeatedly connect to internet advertising for which businesses are
charged per click.

But I don’t need to worry about it.

Thanks for the recent round of comments I’ve been getting, directly to my blog and also sent to my Friendster account.

David, the first thing I thought when you said that you’d upgraded your laptop’s memory was "Is your memory uneven?"

I’ve heard that Linux doesn’t really like it when you don’t have the same amount of memory in each slot. Personally, I’ve never run into it, though I’ve got 1 gig in one slot and 256 megs in another. If your memory is uneven, that might be causing the booting problems.

I sympathise with the comments I’ve had about me giving away CDs. I’ve given Linux CDs to some friends, which haven’t been used. I don’t mind it if they’re a really busy person, as I’ve got a couple of live distros which I’ve been meaning to try but haven’t gotten around to; but some of these friends aren’t busy enough for this to be the problem

I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but:

My father almost refuses to use my computer. He used it once recently to OCR scan some documents, but then he immediately took the resulting text files onto his old iMac and Mac OS. He edited those files in Microsoft Word, complaining the whole while about how terrible Word is, that it’s just a toy, and that Microsoft have obviously never used a word processor. He uses IE 5.5 for web browsing on his Mac, which is absolutely HORRIBLE. It doesn’t render many pages correctly, but he always thinks that the problems are caused by bad web design.

So I set him up a user account on Ubuntu. Gnome, with the desktop icons down the right-hand side (like on the Mac), and a simplified Applications menu. I even set up Evolution with his e-mail details. I told him that I’d created this account and that he should use it for web browsing. Does he use it? Nope. I suggested he use OpenOffice.org (which is a lot more sane) instead of Word. He still hasn’t booted Ubuntu since the time he turned on the computer and made a coffee to find that GRUB had timed out.

He’s also got a flash MP3 player, which he loads from MP3-CDs. The old iMac’s CD drive won’t read many of these discs, so his MP3 player only ever has songs from those discs that will read. It’s crazy. He says he doesn’t use my computer "in case you want to use it", but he uses his computer even when I am asleep.

So if I can’t even get others in my household to use Ubuntu, what hope do I have of getting strangers and friends to?

I updated my Compiz to the latest version from Quinn’s repository. It has much better performance, and there are a number of new animations. The theming engine, a new settings program, and a system tray menu to let you enable and disable Compiz, are all included with the new version.

An annoyingly-high number of included themes are ripoffs of the Windows Vista Aero theme, and there are a couple of OS X themes included too, but a couple of the others are original and quite nice. There’s even a Compiz version of the Human Metacity theme from Ubuntu.

However, I went the whole hog and gave my desktop a complete facelift. I went onto Gnome-look and downloaded a set of Wii themes (you know, named after the Nintendo Wii). There’s a Compiz theme, a Metacity theme, a GTK theme and an Ubuntu wallpaper (I substituted the wallpaper for a dark, letterboxed one of the sea and a jetty). It uses the Tango icon theme.

I was never a fan of dark themes, but this one is really cool. Lots of black and cyan, and the drop shadows are blue too!

I highly recommend upgrading to the latest version of Compiz. It’ll wipe out your existing settings unfortunately, but it’s worth it (besides, the default settings for the wobbly windows are much more sane than they used to be). Who can resist a great theming engine?

This is a screenshot of the Wii theme running on ordinary Gnome, i.e. Metacity. On the Compiz one, you get blue shadows and more interesting titlebars. Click to enlarge.

…of how difficult it is to give free CDs to all comers.

Was at the shopping centre for half an hour, and didn’t manage to unload a single CD. Most people were rude to me, too.

So I went for a walk and just put the CDs into letterboxes. I shall keep a few discs for myself and for people who I actually know.

…of how difficult it is to give free CDs to all comers.

Was at the shopping centre for half an hour, and didn’t manage to unload a single CD. Most people were rude to me, too.

So I went for a walk and just put the CDs into letterboxes. I shall keep a few discs for myself and for people who I actually know.

…of how difficult it is to give free CDs to all comers.

Was at the shopping centre for half an hour, and didn’t manage to unload a single CD. Most people were rude to me, too.

So I went for a walk and just put the CDs into letterboxes. I shall keep a few discs for myself and for people who I actually know.