Friday Fishbowl
Posted By dane On February 18, 2005 @ 7:40 am In Blog | No Comments
I‘m hopping a plane to Orlando this morning for the PMA conference. I’ll be covering digital photography announcements there for DigitalCameraInfo.com [1]. Watch for my video pieces. Meanwhile, here are today’s top tech stories.
- Microsoft is planning to give away its new anti-spyware program, cleverly named Microsoft AntiSpyware. The beta [2] is free right now, and according to Bill Gates [3] at this week’s RSA security conference in San Francisco, it’s going to stay that way. Unfortunately, it only works for XP and Windows 2000. Gates also announced a new anti-virus product by year end and an update to Internet Explorer [4] for Windows XP SP2. IE7 will go beta this summer with improved phishing protection.
- Meanwhile, Microsoft is recalling 14.1 million Xbox power cords, saying that there’s a fire risk. The recall applies to Xboxes manufactured before Oct. 23, 2003. I’ll live dangerously.
- Former US cybersecurity and counterterrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, also at RSA, when asked his opinion of the new Microsoft security products replied [5], “Given their record in the security area, I don’t know why anybody would buy from them.”
- Panelists speaking at RSA said that cryptography is good at protecting the content of messages, but can’t be counted on to protect content [6] for very long. , Carter Laren, security architect at Cryptographic Research noted,
“Anyone designing content protection should design for failure and if it fails update it.” - The next two stories underscore Laren’s point. The SHA-1 hash algorithm, used for digital signatures (I use it to sign all my eamil via PGP), has apparently been cracked [7].
- According to the LA Times [8], Apple and Napster are taking potshots at their respective digital rights management technologies. Steve Jobs sent recording company executives an email Tuesday morning pointing out that Napster’s new all-you-can-eat music service, Napster-To-Go had been cracked. Napster CEO Chris Gorog replied with an email Tuesday afternoon that linked to a site offering a crack for the iTunes Music Store’s DRM. Gorog wins this round. All protected music is susceptible to the Napster-To-Go crack – it’s essentially recording the analog output as you listen to the song. iTunes FairPlay has been cracked fair and square by DVD Jon and software to strip out the copy protection is widely available.
- The New York Times is buying About.com [9] for $410 million – that’s 23 time earnings.
- The creators of the TCP/IP protocol that powers the Internet won the computer industry’s Nobel Prize. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn were given the ACM Turing Award [10] and a $100,000 prize.
- The European Parliament has rejected software patents [11] and called on national parliaments to debate the subject for another year to come up with a better proposal. The EC now decides whether to accept Parliament’s recommendation.
Listen in Friday at 7:45a Pacific for my weekly news commentary on KFI 640 AM [12] in Los Angeles. Tune in Saturday at 7:40a Eastern for my weekly visit with John Donabie on 1010 CFRB Toronto [13]. And, of course, listen to my show live from Orlando this Saturday and Sunday, 11a to 2p Pacific on KFI, Los Angeles [14].
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Article printed from LOL: The Life of Leo: http://leoville.com
URL to article: http://leoville.com/friday_fishbowl
URLs in this post:
[1] DigitalCameraInfo.com: http://digitalcamerainfo.com
[2] beta: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
[3] according to Bill Gates: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/feb05/02-15RSA05KeynotePR.asp
[4] update to Internet Explorer: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx
[5] replied: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/212437_rsaclarke17.html
[6] can’t be counted on to protect content: http://www.theregister.com/2005/02/17/drm_security_shortcomings/
[7] apparently been cracked: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/sha1_broken.html
[8] LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-jobs16feb16,1,6878928.story?coll=la-headlines-technology
[9] buying About.com: http://news.com.com/N.Y.+Times+to+buy+About.com+for+410+million/2100-1030_3-5581343.html?tag=nefd.top
[10] ACM Turing Award: http://www.vnunet.com/news/1161331
[11] rejected software patents: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/technology/18patent.html
[12] KFI 640 AM: http://www.kfi640.com/
[13] 1010 CFRB Toronto: http://www.cfrb.com/
[14] KFI, Los Angeles: http://kfi640.com/
[15] : http://plasticbugs.com.nyud.net:8090/
[16] : http://www.danielwalters.net
[17] : http://www.giantcompany.com/p_as_sysreq.htm
[18] : http://www.lavasoftusa.com
[19] : http://www.safer-networking.org/
[20] : http://forum.aumha.org/downloads/cwshredder.zip
[21] : http://www.webroot.com
[22] : http://www.ascopetechnology.com/gmail.htm
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#1 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 8:38 am
Unfortunately, it only works for XP and Windows 2000. —Hmm…maybe part of Micro’s way of discontinuing Win98, Let’s it get so buggy, people have to upgrade…
And Leo, i don’t know if you have a chance to see Scott Mochilla’s website today, but he actually cracked the iTunes’s DRM for a song made of complete “Silence”. He offered the illegal cracked .m4a file on his website, but due to the traffic his website has been down for some time. You can, however follow this web addy to get to a cached version: [15]
Have fun in Orlando! If (for some strange reason) you get stuck in Birmingham for some sort of layover (which is most doubtable) let me know and I’ll buy you lunch at my favorite BBQ place.
—DW
[16]
#2 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 10:57 am
Leo you goign to do any thign else while in the Orlando area?
#3 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 12:42 pm
Welcome to sunny Florida, Leo. On the XBox cord issue, I have an early XBox , manufacture date in 2001,and Microsoft tells me the power cord is not inculded in the recall. So, apparently , not all early Xboxes are included. As for living dangerously , I hope you turned off your XBox before you got on the plane!
Rick Georges
#4 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 4:57 pm
Hi Leo, love your site miss CHF!
“Unfortunately, it only works for XP and Windows 2000. Gates also announced a new anti-virus product by year end and an update to Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2.”
I don’t get that, you were expecting Microsoft to offer a version for Windows 3.1, NT 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 95, 95 OS-R2, 98, 98SE, NT 4.0 Server, ME? Those are old operating systems, I think its time businesses or individuals move to something more stable, either 2000 or XP, FAT/Fat 32 is something that is in the past for Microsoft and it should be fore you too. If you are using those old versions of Windows, its time you get off your inertia pedestal.
If it was Apple, you would have praised end to end. Leo, I love you man, but stop the bias!
#5 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 7:00 pm
Hmm. Giant’s product worked on Windows 98 (see [17]), but the Microsoft version does not. Technical reasons? No. A desire to force people to pay the $100 upgrade “tax”? Yes.
Don’t you think people using Windows 98 deserve protection? Especially since Microsoft created the spyware problem in the first place with poorly crafted security policies?
I admit a bias toward open, proprietary systems and against Microsoft. But all biases are not ill-informed. Sometimes one thing is better than another, and I think my job is to tell you when that’s the case, no?
#6 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 7:24 pm
The same can be applied to your beloved Apple Leo. When they were unwilling to release patches for users facing vulnerabilities under a previous version of OS 10, I think it was 10.1, they said upgrade to the latest version of OS X, because that version was not supported anymore.
OS 10.0 was released March 2001, OS 10.1, was released September 2001, Windows 98 (First Edition) was released June 1998. 10.1 was released 5 years ago and Apple has chosen not to support it anymore, 98 was released almost 8 years ago. If Apple can be supported for dropping something released 5 years aog, I don’t see why Microsoft can’t do the same for an 8 year old product.
Plus, there are so many third party antispyware solutions for 98 out there Leo, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to just google it.
Ad-Aware – [18]
Spybot – [19]
CWShredder – [20]
Spy Sweeper – [21]
Another thing is, you would have had to pay for it from GIANT anyway. I still support you for thinking about the consumer, but sometimes the consumer needs to to realize, staying with old technology forever is never the answer, moving to new technology is called progress. You can get an upgrade copy of XP Home off amazon for 89′s dollars or purchase a copy off ebay for less with a piece of hardware according the license for OEM editions of Windows.
#7 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 7:58 pm
Apple is still is more pro active on security then Microsoft period. Microsoft doesn’t want to support any of it’s older OSes. That’s why Leo wrote the story the way he did.
#8 Comment By Anonymous On February 18, 2005 @ 8:01 pm
Leo, will you be doing your KFI broadcast this weekend?
#9 Comment By Anonymous On February 19, 2005 @ 2:20 am
Yes he said at the bottom of the post, that his show would be live from Orlando.
#10 Comment By Anonymous On February 19, 2005 @ 5:03 am
Leo! You left your new cell number in the CFRB podcast. Looks like you might want to get a NEW new cell number now. If you get lots of calls, well, now you know why.
#11 Comment By Anonymous On February 19, 2005 @ 6:56 am
Hey visit [22]
for gmail. Nice site Leo
#12 Comment By Anonymous On February 20, 2005 @ 6:29 pm
Let me just add my arguement for those of us with older computers who cannot run XP with its bloated hardware requirements. I am retired and live on a pension. My computer is 8 years old but still runs well and does all that I require in terms of software. My Word processor, financial software, browser, Email client and the very few games that interest me all run well. Yes, it would be “nice” to have a modern high speed processor with lots of memory but why spend money on a new computer when the one I have is perfectly serviceable?
#13 Comment By Anonymous On February 23, 2005 @ 8:37 pm
BE Kelly, OS X and Linux are just as bloated. If you are happy with Windows 9x, fine, but there is a trade off, you can’t get AntiSpyware.
But you shouldn’t be complaining, you have third party solutions out there that can take care of you just fine, I listed them in my first post on this topic.
And about the bloatness of XP, I really don’t see it, its fast operating system (with enough memory, 256 minimum installed), (OS X 512 recommended), improved features especially in XP SP2 such as improved firewall, remote assistance, multiple user accounts, fast user switching, stable file system (NTFS), compatibility with existing applications, especially some from 95, just to name a few.
Oh another thing Leo, you call Windows a $100, I guess you would call the annual updates of OS X since 2001 extortion.