Linux on Itanium passes milestone

Linux on Itanium passes milestone

Linux can now run on Intel's high end processor without needing special patches

The Itanium version of Linux crossed an important threshold on Monday, developers said: it now can be built from the standard software maintained by Linux leader Linus Torvalds rather than requiring special patches.

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Sneaky virus poses as email from sysadmin

One of the sneakiest viruses to date began spreading rapidly across the Internet this weekend.

Mimail, which poses as an email from a potential victim's own sysadmin or ISP, suggests that a user's email account is about to expire.

Potential victims are urge to open an attachment message.zip, containing a copy of the virus.

Users who unzip the file find another innocent-looking HTML file inside, named 'message.html'.

This file contains an embedded EXE file, when opened in vulnerable versions of Internet Explorer, will drop an executable named foo.exe and run it. More information on the IE MHTML vulnerability used here can be found in an April 2003 advisory by Microsoft.


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Spam emails hide key logger virus

Spam emails hide key logger virus

A dangerous strain of 'virus spam' is tricking computer users into allowing serious infections into home and business computer systems, IT experts have warned.
According to industry body The Corporate IT Forum (Tif) virus spam, or 'v-spam', dodges antivirus and firewall systems by tempting users to click on a website link contained in an email which then sends them a virus.

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Start-up touts keyboard made of light

Start-up touts keyboard made of light

A Californian company will next year release chipsets that beam a working keyboard onto a flat surface

A California-based start-up has joined other companies in embracing the concept of a portable computer keyboard made of light.

Canesta will release chipsets next year that will beam a fully functional keyboard onto a flat surface, Carlo Tomasi, the company's chief technical officer, said on Tuesday at the Siggraph 2003 conference here. Siggraph bills itself as "the world's largest marketplace of computer graphics and interactive techniques."

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Bill Gates is the biggest hoax on the internet

Bill Gates is the biggest hoax on the internet, says Sophos

Sophos reported today that Bill Gates of Microsoft has become a chart topper, taking first place in the list of most commonly encountered email chain letters, virus hoaxes and scams.

The Bill Gates fortune email chain letter claims that Microsoft's chairman is sharing his wealth with everyone who forwards the email to a friend.

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Full sentence for virus writer after appeal fails

Full sentence for virus writer after appeal fails

A computer wizard who devised three viruses which between them attacked 27,000 computers in 42 countries must serve his full time behind bars.

Simon Vallor, 22, who devised his trio of "worms" between June and December 2000, was jailed for two years in January after pleading guilty to three counts of releasing a computer virus on the internet.

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Gruel worms launch cruel attack on Microsoft

Gruel worms launch cruel attack on Microsoft, Sophos Anti-Virus says beware

Sophos has reported that the new Gruel worm (W32/Gruel-D), the latest in a number of variants of the worm - which poses as a critical security patch from Microsoft - actually attempts to launch a double edged attack on the Windows operating system. In addition to attacking the Windows installation, the worm displays a message abusing the Microsoft operating system.

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MS alerts users to Windows DirectX vulnerability

Microsoft yesterday warned of security flaws with DirectX's DirectShow component that might be used by an attacker to run hostile code on vulnerable Windows machines.

Redmond has issued a patch - designated as critical - which users are urged to review.

The list of affected software is extensive: Microsoft DirectX 5.2 on Windows 98; MS DirectX 6.1 on Windows 98 SE; DirectX 7.0a and DirectX 9.0a on Windows Me; DirectX and DirectX 9.0a 7.0 on Win 2000; DirectX 8.1 and DirectX 9.0a on Win XP; DirectX 8.1 and DirectX 9.0a on Win Server 2003 are all potentially vulnerable.

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Iomega touts 1.5GB micro drive as Flash killer

Iomega is having another go at getting its removable disk technology incorporated into devices other than PCs.

This time it's touting a micro-drive system based on a 1.5GB disk encased in a stainless steel cartridge that's a couple of inches in diameter and weighs 9g.

Iomega calls the unit a Digital Capture Technology (DCT), and it's pushing the product at consumer electronics vendors as an alternative to Flash-based solid-state storage technologies. DCT drives, it says, will offer higher capacities, be more resilient, offer faster data access times and consume less power than today's portable storage solutions. They're also too expensive - Iomega says the DCT will be a "low-cost" solution.

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Cracking Windows passwords in seconds

Cracking Windows passwords in seconds

If your passwords consist of letters and numbers, beware.

Swiss researchers released a paper on Tuesday outlining a way to speed the cracking of alphanumeric Windows passwords, reducing the time to break such codes to an average of 13.6 seconds from 1 minute 41 seconds.

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