eEye Offers Free Fix for Windows Zero-day Vulnerability

According to eEye Chief Technology Officer Marc Maiffret, Microsoft should have caught the problem two years ago, when his company first reported the bug that was patched in the MS05-002 update. "They fixed the bug we discovered back in ’05, but during their standard bug report code audit, they missed an area... where identical code was used, with an identical vulnerability," he said via instant message. "It is hard to say how long people have been exploiting this in the wild due to the similar nature of the bugs."

Micro$oft has known of this for two years -- in fact patched identical code in a separate area -- and yet the problem still exists today, in Vista, their "most secure product ever". Thank you, BillyG.

TJX Data Breach Called Biggest Ever

According to The Boston Globe, "At least 45.7 million credit and debit card numbers were stolen by hackers who accessed the computer systems at the TJX Cos. at its headquarters in Framingham and in the United Kingdom over a period of several years, making it the biggest breach of personal data ever reported."

According to a survey done by the IT Policy Compliance Group, 68% of all companies lose sensitive data at least six times a year, and another 20% suffer losses twice a month.

"Your data will be stored encrypted, using the latest Igpay Atinlay algorithm, developed by our dedicated out-sourced IT staff in Rawalpindi."

Bottom Line: Hackers ain't the problem. Lame and loose controls are.

Extend Vista's Activation Grace Period - For a Year

Undoubtedly, someone will discover where the increment counter is for slmgr and you'll be able to do this indefinitely, but until then, Vista users will have a year to extend activation if they wish.

Everyone likes "free" windows, but at some point you have to ask yourself one question: If you can get herpes for free, do you still want it?

How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes

By Dirk A. D. Smith, Network World, 04/19/05

Excellent stuff here. I used it to chase down and dissect a kernel dump on my Windows 2000 box. I think the windbg tool has changed a bit since the article was written, however. You aren't going to need the second command to search out the driver information -- once the bad driver is identified, it's hyperlinked -- just click on it instead.

Read the article, try it out on the sample data, and get ready for your next BSOD.

A day without a BSOD is... 1) a good day in Windows, or 2) just another day to Linux.

U.S. DOT Ban On Windows Vista, Explorer 7, and Office 2007

Tens of thousands of federal workers are prohibited from upgrading to the latest versions, according to memos seen by InformationWeek

In a memo to his staff, the DOT's CIO Daniel Mintz says he has placed "an indefinite moratorium" on the upgrades as "there appears to be no compelling technical or business case for upgrading to these new Microsoft software products. Furthermore, there appears to be specific reasons not to upgrade."

That will cut some tens of thousands of Vista installs.