Windows Genuine Advantage cracked

Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Programme has been cracked only days after the software giant activated the antipiracy scheme. Since the service went live on Monday (25 July), Windows users wishing to receive software updates from the Microsoft Download Centre or from Windows Update were obliged to join the WGA authentication program.

Users are prompted to download an ActiveX control that checks the authenticity of their Windows software and, if Windows is validated, stores a download key on the PC for future verification. But hackers have developed a simple one line hack(see complete post) which turns off the trigger for the key check, allowing users to get around the requirement to verify their serial number before using Windows Update.

Since security updates remain available to all Windows users — with or without WGA validation — via Automatic Updates it was always the case that security patches were available for systems running counterfeit Windows software. That was never the purpose of WGA which is instead pitched towards steering unwitting users of pirated software towards buying the real deal. Even this limited ambition raised the hackles of hackers, which tells us more about the relationship between them and the software giant, than about the efficacy of Microsoft's anti-piracy efforts. (according to www.theregister.co.uk)

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h:
window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all'
AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:

javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

It turns off the trigger for the key check.
source:www.boingboing.net

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Who's going to buy into Microsoft's new Vista?

So now we know. Microsoft's next operating system will not be called " Longhorn" - the codename under which it's been developed - but " Vista". The video of the official naming ( www.microsoft.com/winme/0507/25234/Win_Name_MBR.asx; naturally, it requires Windows Media Player) tells us that "using Vista will, at last, enable you to: sit in front of a computer, show someone your tablet PC, show someone else your mobile phone, get into cars while carrying a laptop and walk through sun-soaked rooms with highly polished floors, even while being buffeted by pulses of multicoloured light."

But what will Vista, which won't be here until late 2006 at the earliest, actually do? On the Microsoft web page, there's a huge link to "Vista" . (Developers get their hands on the first "beta" version next week.) Here, we read: "In today's digital world, you want the PC to adapt to you, so you can cut through the clutter and focus on what's important to you. It enables a new level of confidence in your PC and in your ability to get the most out of it. It introduces clear ways to organise and use information the way you want to use it. It seamlessly connects you to information, people and devices..."

So... what will it do? Here's what we do know. There will be a new version of Internet Explorer, IE7, with tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking (Netscape and Firefox have both). It will have a new user interface and graphics system, codenamed "Aero" (or "Avalon"). There'll be a "Trustworthy Computing" initiative, essentially meant to make it harder for unwanted stuff to get on your computer. There'll be deep, built-in search for local files (rather like Google Desktop, but more thorough).

Vista will have deep, built-in support for RSS, rather as earlier versions have for HTML. RSS lets one see what's changed on a website without visiting it; only new text, pictures, video or audio (think podcasts) will show up. This is a big move; RSS is spreading as a simple way to get websites connected. More on what's known (so far) is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Longhorn.

So... who's going to buy it. Obviously, Vista will be preloaded on virtually all PCs sold in 2007 (if deadlines are met). But that doesn't mean rapid adoption. Windows XP has been out for almost four years, and only about half of existing PCs use it.

Why? Most people don't upgrade the OS their PC comes with - it can be fraught with technical challenges. Even if it goes smoothly, there's always the suspicion that it didn't and something strange is happening. Also, most individuals keep their computers for up to four years. And many larger companies are only now adopting Windows XP. All that suggests a slow adoption of Vista, which will anyway be wrenchingly different from XP and its forerunners, involving much rewriting of software by developers.

So again, who'll buy Vista? Certainly people who want the latest thing. But Windows has bigger problems to tackle - for one, malware such as viruses, spyware and adware - and there's no indication yet that Vista will do that. I'll follow the beta with interest.

www.charlesarthur.com/blog

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Two New Lord of the Rings Titles In Development

As part of a recent expansion of their original contract to publish Lord of the Rings games, EA has announced two new Lord of the Rings titles to light up the PC and PSP.
EA will once more be responsible for presenting Middle-Earth apparently. The publisher announced this morning that they had officially been granted the rights to publish and develop titles based in JRR Tolkien’s fictional universe of Middle-Earth while introducing gamers to brand new characters, as part of the expansion from the original contract which permitted EA to publish titles based on New Line Cinema’s three part movie trilogy following Tolkien’s main three Lord of the Ring novels. Ea has already announced two new titles which are currently in development.

The first of titles to be published will indeed be a sequel to last autumn’s amazing Real-time strategy Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth. The so-far untitled sequel will, like its predecessor, leave gamers to command the armies of light and dark in massive battles both from the books and the movies, using a realistic artificial intelligence system from the makers of popular futuristic RTS Command and Conquer.

"The new rights have unlocked the world of Middle-earth for The Lord of the Rings and strategy game fans alike. We're building a deeper, richer, bigger game based on the #1 RTS from the previous holiday season in North America with new fantasy races, places, heroes, and battles from both the books and films," said Mike Verdu, Senior Producer of The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth at EA.

Second of the titles to be published and with no release date as of yet, Lord of the Rings: Tactics will be a massive role-playing game exclusively for the Sony PSP, allowing total customization of a player-created character, and the choice of which path to pursue: either lead the Fellowship in their quest to destroy the ring, or play as the forces of Sauron and attempt to stop the Fellowship from reaching the fires of Mount Doom. Tactics will return to the turn-based battle system LOTR gamers grew accustomed to in last year’s turn based RPG Lord of the rings: the Third age in a WiFi four-player multiplayer battle system, letting up to four Tactics owners duke it out with their own characters. Tactics will show battles and events both new to Middle-Earth and sometimes based on events depicted in the books and movies.

"Now that we are expanding our Lord of the Rings universe to encompass Tolkien's books, we'll be able to combine the visual impact of the films with those complex stories," said Steve Gray, Executive Producer of The Lord of the Rings Tactics at EA. "The RPG genre, in particular, is a great medium for story telling. We are delving into unexplored depths of Tolkien's works to deliver new, compelling and immersive experiences. The Lord of the Rings Tactics gives RPG fans a first look at how we will do this."

While this certainly seems like plenty of Lord of the Rings news for one day: missing from the deal seems to be the RPG sequel to Lord of the Rings: the Third Age. The sequel was originally planned for a Q4 2005 release for consoles and would adopt a new quicker-paced battle-system similar to that seen in the blockbuster movie-based series, most notably: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. It is possible that Tactics is indeed the very same title, simply on PSP format. No release dates have been specified for either title, though EA has updated the Battle for Middle-Earth homepage to feature new info regarding Battle for Middle-Earth 2...

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MSN Virtual Earth Goes to Beta

MSN released a first beta of its MSN Virtual Earth technology this weekend.
The beta integrates MSN local search results with satellite imagery provided by Microsoft-Research-developed TerraServer-USA, along with MSN's MapPoint functionality..

Interested testers can access the beta version of the service at http://virtualearth.msn.com.

MSN Virtual Earth features include:
# Satellite map views on full-bleed maps that provide a continuous view in Internet Explorer;
# Multiple local search capabilities in a single view and display of multiple search results
# Ability to select specific search results and store them in a new Scratchpad feature. Users also can post their search results directly from the Scratchpad to their MSN Spaces blog, or send them in an email message to any account.
# Ability to bookmark search results and other data posted to the Scratchpad as a permalink, which can be stored and/or e-mailed to others.

MSN's Virtual Earth technology is a direct competitor to Google's Google Earth, a desktop client slated to replace Google's current Keyhole software.

To use MSN Virtual Earth, which currently shows U.S.-based satellite images only, users are first prompted to download one time the Microsoft Location Finder client application. It is this piece of software that turns WiFi-enabled PCs into "location-determining devices" without the addition of any separate hardware.

The Location Finder determines a user's location, which is identified on a map. Search results then become tailored around that location.

MSN is planning to release a refreshed version of Virtual Earth every four months, company officials said. The next beta release of MSN Virtual Earth, due this fall, is set to incorporate oblique, or bird's-eye, imagery licensed from Pictometry International that will add cities, landmarks and points of interest to the product. The fall version also will add support for the Apple Macintosh platform, MSN officials said.

MSN Virtual Earth project manager Mark Law said that people mistakenly consider MSN Virtual Earth to be a consumer-based site only. But it also is a platform for developers Law said. This fall, Microsoft is planning to make the Virtual Earth application-programming interface available to developers. For now, developers who want to get a jump start can "hack" the product to obtain the necessary interface information, Law said.

Steve Lombardi, program manager for MSN Virtual Earth, said in a recent video interview on Virtual Earth that was posted to Microsoft's Channel 9 Web site that Virtual Earth will eventually replace Microsoft's MapPoint service. At first, however, the two services will continue to run in parallel. MapPoint covers 30 countries with street-level data, while Virtual Earth at this point only covers the United States.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates introduced MSN Virtual Earth as a new satellite imagery component of their expanding search technologies, at the D: Conference in May, with promises to go live in early July. Microsoft merged its MSN Virtual Earth and MSN Search teams in June and released a private beta of MSN Local Search at that time.

Google began incorporating satellite images in April of this year after launching its first local search in late 2004.

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Microsoft renames Longhorn to Vista

Microsoft has announced the name of the next version of Windows due to replace the aging Windows XP. The company says that the next version, which until now has been known only by its code name 'Longhorn' will be called Windows Vista.

Microsoft has also announced that the first publicly available Beta 1 of Vista will become available by 3 August 2005. This initial release will be aimed primarily at developers and other IT professionals. This should enable the software development community to get a head start on the operating system and enable them to get new applications and drivers completed ready for the launch period next year.

The company has already said that another cut of Beta 1 for developers is likely to appear in September.A more widely available Beta 2 for end users is not likely to appear until the beginning of 2006.

Among the claims made for Vista is that it will load applications 15 per cent faster and boot 50 per cent faster than the existing Windows XP.

The announcement of the Vista name means that Microsoft is now pretty sure about the final release date sometime towards the back end of 2006. The five-year gap between the release of XP and Vista is the longest there has been between major releases of Microsoft operating systems and represents the complexity of writing a modern OS.

Even so, the announcement comes almost a year since Microsoft was forced to abandon the new WinFS file system from Longhorn for the launch, in order to deliver the Vista 'in a reasonable time frame'. Microsoft now says that the new file system will only be in beta at launch.

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EMC Unveils New Storage Computer to Keep Lead Over IBM, Hitachi

EMC Corp., the world's biggest maker of data-storage computers and software, will introduce what it calls the fastest, highest-capacity machines as it seeks to stay ahead of International Business Machines Corp. and Hitachi Ltd.

EMC unveils the DMX-3 line of computers today at prices of $250,000 to several million dollars, said David Donatelli, EMC executive vice president of storage platform operations. The machines store and process transactions, including airline reservations and stock sales, and can hold as many as 2 trillion phone-call records, said spokeswoman Anne Pace.

EMC is releasing the DMX-3 as competition from IBM, Hewlett- Packard Co. and Hitachi increases, analysts said last week. EMC has gained market share by taking advantage of missteps at those companies, which have improved their products, analysts including Morgan Keegan's Brian Freed said. EMC last week forecast third- quarter sales and profit that fell short of analysts' estimates.

``The competitive environment has gotten more difficult for EMC,'' Freed said on July 21. ``IBM has stepped up to the plate with new products.''

Data-storage computers are EMC's largest source of revenue, at 47 percent of sales last quarter. EMC's most-expensive computers, used by companies including Bank of New York Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG, represent the largest category.

A Petabyte of Data

Sales of EMC's Symmetrix line of high-end computers and software, which includes the DMX line, increased 4 percent to $677.7 million in the second quarter.

Software license and maintenance sales increased 23 percent to $878 million and accounted for 37 percent of total revenue, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based company said on July 21.

IBM released its competing DS8000 in October. Hitachi, which makes Hewlett-Packard's high-end machines, began selling its TagmaStore machine last September.

``It's a competitive market and we've been the leader for over a decade,'' Donatelli said in an interview.

EMC's DMX-3 can store as much as one petabyte of data, the equivalent of 250 million downloaded songs, Pace said. That's more than five times the DMX-2's capacity, she said.

Shares of EMC rose 40 cents to $14.49 on July 22 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have declined 2.6 percent this year.

In the first quarter, EMC widened its lead over IBM and Hitachi in the $14.2 billion market for storage gear, researcher IDC said. Second-quarter numbers haven't been released by IDC.

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Sophos service searches for zombie PCs

Anti-virus firm Sophos has launched a service that notifies organisations if any of their PCs are taken over by hackers. The ZombieAlert Service is designed to automatically notifies subscribers about exploited and hijacked computers on business networks.

Trojans such as Phatbot are often used to seize control of Windows PCs, turning them into zombie clients in networks of compromised PCs (botnets). These botnets are used to send spam or as platforms for DDoS attacks, carrying out criminal attacks right under the noses of their rightful owners. The tactic allows hackers to offload the computing effort in sending spam while creating a means to get past basic junk mail filters.

SophosLabs reckons more than 50 per cent of all spam originates from zombie computers. As spammers become more aggressive, collaborating with VXers to create botnet armies of zombie computers, legitimate organisations with hijacked computers are being identified as a source of spam. This not only harms the organization’s reputation, but can also cause the firm’s email to be blocked by others.

ZombieAlert fires off a warning if spam from a subscriber's domain is trapped in Sophos's network of spam traps. It also provides notification to customers if their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are listed in public Domain Name Server Blackhole Lists (DNSBL). These alerts help customers to locate problems and clean up their systems before spam sent from their domain becomes the subject of widespread complaint. ZombieAlert is part of Sophos's premium and platinum support packages. It can also be purchased as a standalone subscription at, for example, $2,500 for organisations with up to 1,000 seats.

Cleansing the net from the plague of zombie spam networks has become the focus of a number of industry initiatives over recent months. ISPs are encouraged to apply rate-limiting controls for email relays and to block port 25 (a common Internet port used for email) from inappropriate use as part of an educational campaign called Operation Spam Zombies, launched by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and government agencies worldwide in May 2005. ISPs are also being urged to educate consumers about net security and to provide tools to disinfect computers under one of the most ambitious net security education initiatives to date.

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XP flaw allows for DoS attacks

Problems in the Remote Desktop Service could allow attackers to knock machines running Windows XP Service Pack 2 offline

A newly discovered and as-of-yet unpatched security vulnerability in Windows XP could let an attacker remotely crash computers.The flaw affects the Windows Remote Desktop Service, which lets users access their Windows PC from a remote location. An attacker could remotely exploit the problem to crash a victim's PC, according to a posting on the Security Protocols Web site earlier this week. The user would then see the Windows Blue Screen of Death.

Microsoft knows of the security flaw and is working on a patch, a company representative said on Friday.
"The issue was originally privately reported to Microsoft and we are working on an update that will be released when it is of the appropriate quality," the representative said. "The concern is that this has now gone public, potentially putting customers at risk."

According to the Security Protocols Web site, Microsoft was informed of the problem on 4 May and plans to release a patch as part of its August update cycle. Fully patched Windows XP machines — including those with the Service Pack 2 update and the firewall enabled — are vulnerable, according to Security Protocols.
In its initial review of the bug, Microsoft found that an attacker would not be able to run code on the victim's PC, but the attacker could cause the computer to stop responding, the representative said. Also, only computers that have the Remote Desktop Service enabled are vulnerable, she said. Windows ships with the service disabled, according to Microsoft.

Security researchers at iDefense are also looking into the vulnerability. "It does not look like it is more than a DoS," said Michael Sutton, a lab director at iDefense. "An attacker won't be able to take over your PC, but could knock it offline." Security monitoring company Secunia rates the vulnerability "moderately critical", it said in an advisory issued on Thursday.Microsoft said it is not aware of attacks that try to use the new vulnerability.

Reports of the new Windows flaw come in the same week that Microsoft patched two "critical" Windows vulnerabilities. Both those Windows flaws are actively being exploited by attackers, the Redmond, Washington, software giant said on Tuesday.

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Prepare for Internet Explorer 7

Microsoft is to launch a beta release of their next version of the web browser Internet Explorer sometime later this year. Earlier the company had plans to launch Internet Explorer 7 version only in their next operating system release currently codenamed Longhorn though pressure from the Open Source Browser Mozilla Firefox seemed to have changed their strategies.

Now, that the beta release is coming near, the company has advised the web developers around the world to be prepared to update their websites for this updated browser. Considering, Internet Explorer remains the most used web browser around the world, it is crucial for corporates to have their website working in all the popular versions of the browsers available in the market.

The expected time for the launch is in this summer only and the company wants Web site developers and managers to run certain tests now to prevent problems when the beta version does appear. They have however not released many details on what the new version would introduce. The company has just said that they would be adding more support to the established standards and add tabs to the browser.

More information is expected to be released through their technical resource site. Gary Schare, director of Microsoft’s Internet Platforms and Security Product Management said in a statement: “Follow the IE Blog to gain general technical insights about IE 7 directly from the development team. Stay tuned in the coming months as we announce more details.”

One of the important suggestions from Microsoft is that the web developers should update their browser sniffers to tell the servers to treat the Internet Explorer 7 browser as at least Internet Explorer 6 to cut down on incompatible code sent to the browser. However, most developers around have started developing sites following the common web standards making them compatible with almost all the available browsers around.

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