Details of DNS flaw made public

(TheForceField.Net ) July 23, 2008 –A security company accidentally posted details of the DNS bug on their web blog Monday morning.

The bug was discovered by Dan Kaminsky of IOActive, Inc. and announced to the public earlier this month after a patch was created with the rare co-operation of major software vendors. Kaminsky planned to publicly release details of the DNS bug at the Black Hat conference next month and requested those who were already in the know to keep it under wraps until then.

However,  a representative at Matasano, a security research and development company, accidentally confirmed details of the DNS flaw in a blog post July 21. The post has since been removed but not before it could be read by many and cached in Google.

Now security experts predict the first attack based on the flaw is only days away and are warning the public to patch immediately and brace for the worst.

In an apology posted on the Matasano blog Monday, Thomas Ptacek, Principal, Mantasano Research, explained the snafu. "Earlier today, a security researcher posted their hypothesis regarding Dan Kaminsky’s DNS finding", Ptacek stated. "Shortly afterwards, when the story began getting traction, a post appeared on our blog about that hypothesis. It was posted in error. We regret that it ran. We removed it from the blog as soon as we saw it. Unfortunately, it takes only seconds for Internet publications to spread", he added. 

"We dropped the ball here", Ptacek admitted.

Worm infects P2P audio files

(TheForceField.Net ) July 22, 2008 — Reports are circulating on the net of a new malware threat that infects MP3 files. Dubbed Worm.Win32.GetCodec.a by Kaspersky Lab,  the worm is apparently spread through P2P networks.

According to Kaspersky Lab, the worm converts the MP3 file to a WMA file but does not alter the .mp3 file extension. When a user plays the file, it opens a malicious web site in Internet Explorer that requests the user download and install what it claims is a codec, but is actually malware. The page, says Kaspersky, "is digitally signed by Inter Technologies." If the user downloads the phony codec, a trojan is installed that allows hackers to take control of the PC.

Although the threat of downloading malware disguised as codecs is not a new idea, this is the first time audio files have been infected, says Kaspersky. While some knowledgable users will be wise to the codec ploy, many will be fooled because most users trust the integrity of their MP3 files. 

A bulletin released by Kaspersky July 16 says that the malware signature has been lncluded in their virus database

 

 

 

AMD names new CEO

(TheForceField.Net ) July 18, 2008 –AMD announced yesterday that its Board of Directors elected President and COO Dirk Meyer as the new CEO of the company. Meyer replaces Hector Ruiz, who led the company during the last six years.

Ruiz led AMD from a second banana in the desktop market to a serious contender in the server arena with the launch of the AMD Opteron processor, transforming AMD from a minor player into a serious competitor for Intel. The company has struggled during the last two years  with snafus and product delays, resulting in quarterly losses for AMD. Ruiz will remain on the Board of Directors as Executive Chairman.

Meyer, who joined AMD in 1995,helped design the AMD Athlon processor, was involved in severaly facets of the company's operations, including Research and Development, manufacturing and marketing. He was elected to the board in 2007.

According to a company press release, Myer's appointment was part of a two-year plan. “Dirk’s election to CEO is the final phase of a two-year succession plan developed and implemented jointly by AMD’s board of directors and executive team,” Robert Palmer, lead independent director, said in the press release. “Under Hector’s strong leadership, AMD drove the industry adoption of pervasive 64-bit and multicore computing, became a trusted enterprise-class partner to leading technology suppliers and significantly expanded its global footprint in high-growth markets like China."

 

Processor Magazine

Live Webinar Today: Win a $300 Gift Certificate

(TheForceField.Net) July 15, 2008 — Habeas will sponsor a live webinar today and one lucky winner will win a $300 gift certificate for attendance.

The webinar, entitled "Your Digital Company, Today and in 2013: How to Leverage Email and Online Trust for Success ", will feature industry experts from Zinio, Habeas  and Jupiter Research. The panel will discuss best practices for e-mail marketing and brand protection. They will also reveal new research from Ipsos regarding consumer behaviour, information from Jupiter Research about e-mail in a Web 2.0 world, cases studies and helpful hints for your business.

Each attendee will receive a free white paper published by the Commerce Intelligence Unit entitled "The Digital Company in 2013 – How technology will empower the customer". One lucky winner will be chosen from attendees to receive a $300 gift certificate for Amazon, Circuit City, Starbucks or Zappos at the choice of the winner.

The one hour live webinar will be held today, July 15, 2008 at 11 AM PDT and 2 PM EDT and will be available on-demand the next day.

You can register for the live webinar at http://theforcefield.tradepub.com/free/w_habe04/prgm.cgi .

 

OpenOffice.org Releases version 3 beta 2

(TheForceField.net ) July 15, 2008 — The OpenOffice.org Community announced a second beta release of OpenOffice.org 3 to the public early this morning. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is the latest release of the open source office suite originally developed by Sun Microsystems and is considered by many to be one of few serious competitors of Microsoft Office.

In an e-mail announcement distributed to members of the OpenOffice.org community Marketing Group, John McCreesh, OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead, told members of the marketing group that the second beta was released publicly in response to feedback received by the community to the first beta released two months ago. The new beta was released publicly to provide a broader base for testing the new version but was not intended for use in a production environment.

OpenOffice.org Logo

According to McCreesh, New features to the office suite include a "Start Center", new icons and a zoom control located in the status bar. Other new features include an ability to display multiple pages in the word processor called Writer,  a solver component and an increase to 1024 columns in the Calc spreadsheet,  chart enhancements and an improvement to the crop feature used in Draw and the Microsoft Powerpoint-like presentation program known as Impress.

The new version will support ODF 1.2 and will work with Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and Microsoft Office binary file formats.

In the e-mail, McCreesh told members of the Marketing Group that the new version would also be more compatible with OS X.  "OpenOffice.org 3.0 will be the first version to run on Mac OS X without X11, with the look and feel of any other Aqua application. It introduces partial VBA support to this platform", McCreesh wrote. "In addition, OpenOffice.org 3.0 integrates well with the Mac OS X accessibility APIs, and thus offers better accessibility support than many other Mac OS X applications", he added.

According to McCreesh, OpenOffice.org 3.0 is due for release in September.

The Office suite is released under the GNU/GPL and is freely available. OpenOffice.org v3.0 beta 2 is currently available for download in English for Windows, Linux, OS X and OpenSolaris at http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta

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Software-With-A-Service Model Gives IT Firms Access to Data Storage Revenue

ON Data Center is a software-with-a-service solution that gives small IT firms the opportunity to provide data storage services for their clients. Rather than use a third party off-site backup solutions, IT service providers can offer backup storage space on their own secure servers.

Upper Darby, PA (PRWEB) July 11, 2008 — ION Data Center from Universe Point is designed to allow IT firms to maintain control of their customer's data. Rather than hand data to a third party backup and storage company, ION gives IT service providers the ability to receive and store off-site backup data from their clients. This capability allows for greater customization in security and restore solutions and benefits from the existing level of trust between the customer and their IT provider.

 

ION Data Center
ION Data Center

"We see the practice of utilizing third party, off-site backup and storage solutions as a temporary fix waiting for a solution like ION to provide a better alternative," says Jeff Snader, CEO of Universe Point, "Customers would much rather have their important data stored with their trusted IT guy then a company they don't know. ION makes it easy for them to do that."

In addition to the transfer and receive features which allow ION Data Center Users to accept backup files from numerous off-site sources, ION provides monitoring capabilities which greatly increase the security of backup procedures and the ease with which that security is insured. Highly customizable email notifications, a robust web monitoring dashboard and detailed phone notifications from the Universe Point Monitoring Center make it easy for any IT firm to maintain reliable backups regardless of the number of customers they service.

"The monitoring service, particularly the web interface, makes it simple for IT firms to track every single backup being run by their clients," says Dan Heckman, CIO of Universe Point, "Errors, failures and even inactivity are easy to identify and correct. ION makes it possible to maintain an incredibly reliable backup system without a huge amount of resources."

Companies know they need to get important data off-site for proper disaster recovery planning, but IT firms have lacked a simple way to provide this service for their clients. Often, they have been forced to bring in third-party solutions that dilute their control and complicate their client relationships. These solutions also tend to make it difficult for IT firms to structure revenue streams that account for the additional monitoring and maintenance required. At best such solutions are often simply a break-even proposition for IT firms without a better option.

ION Data Center changes this by eliminating the third-party interference and allowing IT firms to service their customers directly. By providing data storage and monitoring solutions for their clients these firms give customers the peace of mind they want while generating the steady recurring revenue that IT professionals need to be profitable.

"There is a huge demand for this kind of off-site backup," says Greg Bryan of KDI, an IT service provider and Universe Point partner, "The initial response from our existing customer base has been overwhelming. The companies we work with definitely want to store their data with someone they know and trust, and ION has made it easy for us to provide that service."

ION Data Center is a complete multi-site (off-site and on-site) backup solution available to any IT firm looking to provide data storage solutions to their customers. Setup and implementation are made simple through the intuitive design of the software and the expertise of the Universe Point support staff. Predictable pricing structures allow for easy integration into service contracts and pricing sheets. The basic client side software is available for download at www.universepoint.com. Those interested in the Data Center version should contact Universe Point sales at sales @ universepoint.com or by calling 610-352-1150.

 

 

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Xandros buys Linspire

(TheForceField.Net ) July 8, 2008 — Xandros , a Linux distro used on the Eee PC, officially announced the purchase of the Linux desktop distro Linspire last week. In an allegedly secret meeting June 19, Linspire founder Michael Robertson and CEO Larry Kettler approved the sale of the company  to Xandros. A formal press release was posted on Xandros' web site June2 to officially announce the acquisition.

Robertson hailed the move as a great step forward for both distros. In the July Linspire Letter, a monthly newsletter sent to Linspire users, Robertson explained his view of the sale. "I'm excited to see the Linspire, Freespire and CNR technology go to a worthy competitor", Robertson stated. "Linux is going through some healthy and necessary consolidation which will give resulting companies greater assets and size to deliver on larger initiatives so Linux can touch more people", he added.

The news was received with mixed reviews. Some thought the move was an opportunity to bolster the presence of Linux on the Asus Eee PC and other ultra mobile portables or as a defensive response to the recent entry of Microsoft into the Eee PC market. Others saw the transaction as a quick sell off of Linspire, which has languished in the marketplace in the last several months.

Linspire shareholders were surprise by the move. According to former CEO Kevin Carmony, who left the company in 2007, shareholders were given no notice of the meeting and were notified of the transaction by a memorandum sent after the decision was made. Carmony, also a shareholder, was incensed.

"In classic Michael Robertson form, he has once again completely disregarded the 100 some-odd shareholders of Linspire by pulling off this deal without a shareholder meeting", Carmony wrote in his blog June 30. "Just watch…this will not be good for Linspire's customers, partners or minority shareholders. I'd love nothing more than to be proven wrong! We'll know as soon as I hear what my stock is now worth", he wrote.

Editor's note: The Force Field interviewed Linspire CEO Larry Kettler earlier this year. You can hear the interview in The Force Field podcast Episode 19 .

 

 

Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Linux Servers

 

Intel says no to Vista, won’t upgrade to new OS

(TheForceField.Net) June 27, 2008 — The New York Times reported this week that Intel will not upgrade its computers to Microsoft Windows Vista.

In an article written by Steve Lohr and posted on the newpaper's web site, an anonymous source close to Intel said that the company will not migrate to Vista and a company spokesperson said that although Vista would be installed on some machines for testing and deployment in select departments, the company would not be installing it on all computers for its 80,000 employees.

Intel joins the ranks of a large number of corporations that have shunned migration to Microsoft's latest version of Windows, slowing adoption of the operating system in both the SMB market and the enterprise. Many companies perceive Vista as slow, buggy and a resource hog. Lack of support from software developers and for third party device drivers are also considered factors against adoption.

This was not unexpected. Many companies typically wait until the first service pack is released and the bugs are worked out before moving to a new operating system. However, the release of SP1 lacked improvements many were expecting or hoping for and so far has done little to spur adoption.

The decision by Intel is likely to create speculation about the chip maker's relationship with Microsoft, which historically has been very close and is believed by some in the industry as a reason Redmond found itself faced with legal problems related to their Vista Capable program,  a marketing campaign which designated certain OEM PCs shipped with scaled down versions of Windows Vista as being capable of running the higher versions. Some of the machines were found to be lacking the resources to actually live up to the designation, prompting at least one lawsuit. E-mails collected from Microsoft executives and made public indicated Microsoft was aware of the problem but may have felt compelled to offer it anyway to please Intel.

Although Intel does not plan to fully migrate to Vista, the New York Times article reports that the company could change its mind. Intel and Microsoft have a long history together and enjoy a close relationship. Soft prompting from Microsoft could influence them to upgrade after all. For now, however, the company reportedly has no plans to do so.

 

 

Electronic Design Magazine

 

Hostway Announces Apple iPhone 3G Triple Giveaway

Customers ordering five or more hosted Microsoft Exchange accounts from Hostway between June 17 and September 17, 2008 will be automatically entered to win a 16 GB Apple iPhone 3G in one of three drawings.

Chicago, Illinois (Vocus/PRWEB ) June 19, 2008 — Hostway Corporation, the global Web solutions leader, will hold three drawings for the new 16 GB Apple iPhone 3G to give Hostway customers a chance to experience all the benefits of Microsoft Exchange on the most cutting-edge wireless device to date.

 

Hostway Corporation Logo
Hostway Corporation Logo

"We're thrilled that the new iPhone 3G was designed to better integrate with Microsoft Exchange's ActiveSync features," said David Choi, business development analyst for Hostway’s Advanced Product Group. "We include ActiveSync free with every hosted Exchange account, so our winners will be able to enjoy on-the-go access to email, contact lists and calendars on the newest iPhone."

Apple recently announced the highly anticipated July 11 release of the new 3G device (referring to third generation mobile phone standards and technology.) Touted by Apple as a combination “revolutionary phone, widescreen iPod, and breakthrough Internet device,” consumers are eager to get their hands on the gadget.

And Hostway is doing its part to make that happen. Three drawings will be held as part of the Giveaway, with winners to be announced on July 25, August 25 and September 25, 2008.

Customers who sign up early have more chances to win. Any name not selected in the first drawings will be entered into each subsequent drawing. Customers who order five or more hosted Exchange accounts between June 17 and September 17, 2008 are automatically entered in the drawing.

Hosted Microsoft Exchange offers enterprise-level messaging with the flexibility of sending and receiving email messages from a wireless device, desktop computer or any computer with an Internet connection. It also encourages team members to work together with collaboration features including: shared folders, calendars and task lists.

No purchase is necessary for Hostway's iPhone drawing. Certain restrictions apply. For information about alternate means of entry and other giveaway details, go to http://www.hostway.com/iphone/iphone-terms.html.

About Hostway Corporation
Hostway Corporation provides domain name registration, Web hosting and ecommerce, colocation, managed dedicated hosting, SaaS hosting, Web design and online marketing services to more than 600,000 customers and over 2 million Web sites worldwide. It operates state-of-the-art data centers that reduce the complexity and cost of Web-based technologies for small businesses and large enterprises. Founded in 1998, Hostway is one of the world’s largest Web hosting companies with a direct presence in 11 countries, 15 worldwide operation centers and more than 600 employees.

Contact
Lyza Swearingen Latham
Director of Marketing
Hostway Corporation
954-334-8139

 

 

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Firefox 3 Download Day 2008 Begins!

Firefox 3 Download Day officially begins at 10 AM Pacific Daylight Time on June 17, 2008. During the next 24 hours, the front page of The Force Field web portal has been dedicated to Firefox 3 Download Day 2008. 

To celebrate the release of Firefox 3, Mozilla announced  Firefox Download Day 2008, an effort set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads of a software application in 24 hours. A web site was created to host the event and encourage participation on a local level. As of Friday, over one million pledges across the world were recorded.

Everyone is invited and encouraged to download Firefox 3 during the next 24 hours and help set a new world record. Help put Firefox 3 in the Guinness Book of World Records and download Firefox now!

If you use Twitter you can follow Firefox!

 http://twitter.com/mozillafirefox

 Current Download count: 8,419,496

 

 

 

Download Day 2008