The Little Browser That Could

FlexBeta.net has a great story on the history of Mozilla, from Phoenix to Firefox and every build in between.
Mozilla is a phenomenal browser, and my kudos definitely go to the author.
You can read the full story here.

Mytob Worm Woes Continue

Symantec on Wednesday confirmed that the e-mail worm Mytob continues to plague the internet, and in the last week alone has had as many as eight variants released, bringing the total number of variants to 12 since the beginning of March.

The two latest variants, W32.Mytob.R and W32.Mytob.S, have thus far been classified as mild to moderate threats by Symantec, however the anti-virus vendor is still advising subscribers to manually update their anti-virus definitions as the newest versions of the worm also adds a text file to a compromised PC, which in turn blocks anti-virus applications from automatically updating.
The two newest versions of Mytob are distributed through mass e-mailing campaigns, utilizing "backdoor" techniques to infect Windows based systems. Once infected, the worm then uses it's own SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) engine to redistribute itself to e-mail addresses harvested from the infected computer. In addition Mytob also exploits the Local Security Authority Service Remote Buffer Overflow in Windows, a security hole that has already been addressed by Microsoft via Windows Update.
E-mails infected with Mytob generally contain subject headings like "Good Day", or "Mail Transaction Failed", and one variant called W32.Mytob.Q, also contains another low level virus W32.Pinfi.
Symantec has created a removal tool and instructions for users infected with Mytob, you can download it here.

Canadian Government To Join P2P Fight

Canadian users of Peer To Peer (P2P) filesharing networks like Kazaa or Limewire may soon become the victims of lawsuits as the Federal Government is preparing to introduce legislation which would make downloading or uploading copyrighted material to P2P networks illegal. Currently downloading or sharing copyrighted materials over P2P is not a crime in Canada as the country has very broad fair use laws in place, however the Ministry of Heritage and Industry seeks to amend those rights much to the pleasure of Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

"Clearly, once we get implementation there'll be no doubt . . . it'll be illegal to engage in unauthorized file-sharing," said Graham Henderson of CRIA.
In addition to amending the Canadian Copyright Act the Federal Government also announced it's intention to sign two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, which would force ISPs like Rogers and Bell Sympatico to keep activity logs of individuals who download large amounts of copyrighted material. Those activity logs could then be subpoenaed by groups like CRIA when they sue P2P filesharers. ISP's would also have to contact and issue warnings to any customer that uses their internet connection for illegal activities such as downloading off P2P networks.
According to a press release by the Ministry of Heritage and Industry the new amended Canadian Copyright Act would "clarify that the unauthorized posting or the peer-to-peer file-sharing of material on the Internet will constitute an infringement of copyright, (and) it will also be made clear that private copies of sound recordings cannot be uploaded or further distributed." In addition the new act would also make it illegal for consumers to circumvent or "crack" copy protection on CD's and DVD's.

Using Your Wallpaper For Wallpaper

If your looking for some real cool wallpaper for your computer's desktop, then why not use a high quality digital picture of the wall behind your computer to give the illusion of the monitor being invisible.

I stumbled across this on BoingBoing.net this morning, the picture above was posted by Cory Doctorow and is accompanied by the following explanation - "Transparent Screens is a Flickr photoset of laptops whose desktop wallpaper has been set to a digital photo of the walls and windows behind them, so that they appear to have totally transparent displays. The effect is striking."
I thought it was cool too, for more invisible desktops you can check out a full gallery here.

Jeeves Become A Billionaire

Just when you thought the .com boom was over comes word from CNet and SlashDot that AskJeeves.com, the search engine that most geeks laugh at, has been sold for $1.85 billion.

InterActiveCorp, owners of Expedia.com, TicketMaster and Match.com, will purchase the search engine, including it's subsidary websites Excite.com and IWon.com, in a complicated deal which is being primarily accomplished through a stock swap.
Following completion of the deal, InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller will assume the same position with AskJeeves.com.
There is a full report on the deal here.
AskJeeves.com was started in 1996 and claims to handle over 40 million search queries a month, although I have never actually met anyone who has ever used their website.

PyMusique Promises To Turn i-Tunes Into DRM Free Tunes

A group of hackers seem destined for Apple CEO Steve Jobs hit list as they are claiming to have written a program called PyMusique that will strip i-Tunes of it's Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Cody Brocious is a 17 year old high school student from Pennsylvania who helped create PyMusique, and he told ZDNet.com on Friday that the application was created stictly as a means to buy songs from the i-Tunes music store without having to worry about Apple's strict DRM.
"The intent of the project was to be able to purchase files from the iTunes Music Store," said Brocious in the interview. "I believe very firmly that the project is ethical and does nothing but good for the community at large."
Apple's i-Tunes is the most successful legitimate online music store, and part of it's success is based on the DRM involved with i-Tunes songs. The security involved with their DRM has made it very easy for Apple to convince artists that they can safely sell their music online.
With PyMusique a user can purchase a song from i-tunes DRM-free, thus allowing them to burn or port their purchase to as many media or devices as they wish, a blatant violation of i-Tunes terms of service.
Thus far Apple has yet to publicly comment on PyMusique because until recently the software only worked on Linux based systems, however Brocious claimed in the interview that they have also created a Windows version of the program which is almost certain to raise Steve Jobs eyebrows.
As a side-note one of the programmers involved with PyMusique is Norwegian Jon Johanson, who helped crack the CSS encryption found on DVD's in 1999.

Keep Your X-Box From Becoming An Ex-Box

The Register in Britain is reporting that despite an X-Box recall by Microsoft last month many owners of the popular gaming console are still waking up in the morning and smelling the fresh aroma of melted plastic and a fried processor.

The recall began when X-Box owners began to report that their units were catching on fire, prompting Microsoft to immediately issue a recall for the nearly 14 million units sold and offer to replace the power cord at no charge. However reports persist that despite the new power cords many are still experiencing X-Box fires in their living rooms.
The story on The Register says that power cord was never really the problem and that the real culprit seems to be the X-Box's power supply.
Apparently Microsoft thought they could remedy the problem by giving owners a new cord which features a shut-off switch that would be triggered if the unit began to run too warm.
You can read the full story here.

Apple Joins The Darkside

Molly Wood from Cnet.com has an excellent story on how Apple has gone from underdog to evil empire over the last few months.

First Steve Jobs and company sued bloggers at ThinkSecret.com for releasing details about the new Mac Mini and i-Pod Shuffle prior to MacWorld, and now it seems that Apple is going after anyone who manufactures anything even closely resembling the i-Pod Shuffle.
I love Apple but I have to admit that using Microsoft-like tactics leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.
You can read Molly Wood's story here.

Linspire Turns 5.0

Well it took three years and $20 million but Linspire, the Linux distro formerly called Lindows, is set to unveil version 5.0.
According to Linspire boss Michael Robertson, the newest version contains over 1,200 improvements over previous versions including a new graphical user interface (GUI), a quick 8 minute install wizard, hundreds of new built-in applications and the ability to install Linspire to your system's hard drive or run it "live" from your computer's CD drive.

Price points for Linspire seem to be set at $49.95 for a downloadable digital version and $89.95 for the CNR version. Also look for Linspire CD's to be available for shipping in the next two weeks. You can check out Linspire 5.0 here.