08.31.09
Linux Runs on Vista 7 (Picture)
08.10.09
DDoS is a Virus!
Summary: DDoS is really just another virus, or is it?
AS WE pointed out before [1, 2, 3], Twitter issues were caused by Windows-based computers that got infected and became part of a botnet. But here is a nice new example of miscomprehension in the press.
As you might notice, the portuguese article is a copy from the guardian, which was imprecise and the local clueless reporter just turn it worse. Calling DDoS a virus, saying that the attack was for London and putting the information leak paragraph out of any context, it just reveals how bad are tech reporters here.
Truthfully, these DDoS attacks did cause some further issues of spam and scareware, and even developers were caught in the crossfire. But DDoS is not a virus; by definition, however, Windows is both spyware and malware (albeit a very expensive and complex piece of malware).
In other interesting news, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has just been cracked. It is a cross-site scripting issue, but such issues can sometimes be assisted and exacerbated by a weak stack, as evidenced by ~500,000 massively-cracked IIS-powered Web sites, which became victims due to similar vulnerabilities. That was last year. Needless to say (because it’s the UK), the MoD is a Windows shop. Lessons learned, if any? █
The Golden Flying Chairlet Awards
Summary: Introducing prizes for contributors
THIS Web site is fed by a lot of input from readers and informants. Therefore, we wish to grant an e-prize to those who make a significant contribution, one of whom created the graphics above. Needless to say, it’s all humorous.
“One thing we could do is grant an award at the end of each month to a reader/member who helps the cause of advancing Free software and exposing its detractors.”“Yesterday when I was reading the IRC conversation, someone mentioned a “Chairlet” award,” writes wallclimber. “I’d have to go back and read it all to remember why it was suggested. But it struck me funny, so I made one. You can maybe award it at the end of the year to whoever does the best job of annoying Steve Ballmer, or does an exceptional job of exposing Microsoft’s bad behavior to the rest of the world.”
And that’s how the prize was conceived. One thing we could do is grant an award at the end of each month to a reader/member who helps the cause of advancing Free software and exposing its detractors. The first winner will be announced at the end of August. Should we ask Novell for sponsorship of real awards? █
05.24.09
Microsoft Lobbies Obama and Partly Takes Over Gazillion
Rockefeller Center, New York
Summary: Microsoft wants tax breaks from President Obama; Gazillion makes a Microsoft guy its Vice President
AS we noted a couple of weeks ago, Obama* wishes to rectify some rules about taxation, but Microsoft, having already snubbed American workers, is working hard against the government. It’s back to heavyweight lobbying.
“This is becoming worse than a satire. It’s infuriating to some.”On to another subject — the eternal issue of Microsoft's disregard for competition — there is yet another report about Microsoft weaseling out. Microsoft gives it away in its lobbying blog and Pamela Jones over at Groklaw states that their response said ‘the EU Commission bigwigs would be at the conference, and therefore unable to take care of Microsoft: “As a result, it appears that many of the most influential Commission and national competition officials with the greatest interest in our case will be in Zurich and so unable to attend our hearing in Brussels.”‘
This is becoming worse than a satire. It’s infuriating to some.
As we try to keep track of Microsoft cronies, here is another new press release worth keeping track of. There is also some coverage which helps it be seen that this hiring renders Gazillion a prisoner of Redmond.
Gazillion Hires Ex-Microsoft GM Moulder
[...]
Charged with overseeing overall management of Gazillion’s internal studios, Moulder will lead NetDevil, Gargantuan, Amazing Society and Slipgate Ironworks as they collectively continue their work on two Marvel super hero MMOs, Jumpgate Evolution and other online games both announced and unannounced.
Will GNU/Linux be among the platforms supported now that Microsoft is at the helm? █
_____
* To be more accurate, it’s not really Obama. George Carlin has a nice skit titled “who really controls America.”
05.13.09
Gray Knowlton Will be Happy
A reader of ours insisted on making this image, which Gray sort of begged for.
04.03.09
Hypocritical Novell Lacks a Sense of Humour
Press jumps the gun
Summary: Novell does not want people to think that Microsoft has already acquired it; littering of YouTube resumes
THIS year’s April Fool’s Day was filled with pranks and Red Hat too was a victim. IDG insinuated that it was going proprietary. When it comes to Novell, however, the suggestion that Microsoft was buying it upset the company because the prank was ‘too’ believable. Here is the short story:
The idea that Microsoft would buy Novell isn’t exactly that far-fetched. Events on April 1 have proved this.
A spoof run by iTWire, written by Linux expert David M. Williams, and headlined “Linux beware: Microsoft acquires Novell, become UNIX copyright owner”, was sufficient to cause a few people to call Novell in the US and inquire if there was some truth to the story.
Novell PR chief Ian Bruce phoned iTWire and asked that the story be retracted. iTWire editor Stan Beer had to add a paragraph to the story to state emphatically that it was an April Fool’s joke.
[...]
He replied: “I wasn’t angry. Unfortunately, your story was so well done as a spoof it got picked up in the US and we actually had a couple of calls. Amazing, I know. The headline did it, I think. Sorry for the alarm.”
That people took such a story seriously tells us more about Novell, Microsoft and the public impression that the infamous patent contract has created, than any of the articles that have been written analysing, criticising or praising the deal.
So, here are Novell’s marketing people trying to remove ‘bad’ publicity despite the fact that it’s obviously a joke and almost every large company is a victim of such jokes.
It ought to be added that, based on what we found yesterday, Novell keeps flooding YouTube with corporate brainwash, so there’s a tinge of hypocrisy in its acts regrading publicity. Yesterday alone we found someone called “Phil” shoving an extraordinary amount of Novell advertisements into YouTube. “Phil” apparently describes himself based on his employer, saying that “PJA creates marketing as innovative and inspirational as your technology and science.” It also says “Interests and Hobbies: BtoB Advertising and Marketing.” Has Novell hired these people to do this? Why can’t Novell leave YouTube alone? As evidence of this latest mass insertion of marketing material, here are the videos which “Phil” added yesterday:
- Novell Code 11 Baggage Banner
- Novell Code 11 Bolts Banner
- Novell Ubiquity
- Novell Code 11 SIXTY
- Novell Mission Critical
- Novell Interop Lobby
- Novell Interop Retail
- Novell Interop WindTunnel
Also worth adding is the fact that the Microsoft press (Redmond Developer) has just added webcasts that promote the Microsoft-taxed SLES. There are two of them. █
04.02.09
Conficker Aftermath and Links
Summary: Stories of interest from yesterday
• Conficker: Millions Hit, 300,000 Domains Blocked
Shipley told InternetNews.com that the Conficker.C worm has infected about 10 million Windows-based computers in 150 countries, with China’s level of infection estimated at 3 million, Brazil at 1 million and Russia at 800,000. In the United States, researchers suspect about 200,000 computers have been infected.
• UltraDNS back online after DDoS assault
A distributed denial of service attack knocked NeuStar’s UltraDNS managed DNS service offline for several hours on Tuesday.
NeuStar runs high-availability DNS services for customers such as online retailers and IT giants, including Oracle and Juniper. In a statement, NeuStar told Networkworld that the attack affected only a small (unspecified) subset of its customers.
• Three-fold global increase in infected websites
There was a three-fold increase in the number of malicious websites around the world infected with malware in March, with almost 3,000 potentially harmful sites intercepted every day of the month.
April 1st posts of interest:
• Ubuntu to rewrite Linux kernel using Mono
Mark Shuttleworth, the Benevolent Dictator for Life of the popular Ubuntu Linux distro, has announced his plans to rewrite all of Gnome, X11 and the Linux kernel using the Mono platform.
• YaST and Compiz during Installation
We (Thomas Göttlicher, J. Daniel Schmidt and Arvin Schnell) have use all our remaining ITO for this really cool feature.
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03.31.09
IBM in Negotiations to Acquire Novell
Summary: IBM still looking for the breakthrough deal with Big Red mond
“JAVA was just too powerful for us to have,” confessed Bob Satire, “so we decided to pursue a once-in-a-lifetime contract opportunity with Microsoft by buying a poor-but-functional copy of its key technology — called Perro — along with its parent company.”
It emerged last night from a source which does not wish to be identified that a bandit from a large city at South of the Border, who had spent the majority of his career copying the inventions of Gary Killdadd, wanted a new corporation from which to spread a language called C$ and a framework called Perro (meaning “dog” in Spanish). “We had some painful experiences with C and C++, and when Killdadd came out with Perro, we said, ‘Yes! That is what we want’,” he wrote in response to our inquiry.
“Novell is said to have been actively pursuing takeover possibilities, having witnessed its stock slip below $3 earlier this year.”IBM Commander-in-chief Sun Foot Moono was approached for a comment regarding this rumour about negotiations, yet he declined to comment.
Novell is said to have been actively pursuing takeover possibilities, having witnessed its stock slip below $3 earlier this year. “We struggled to find a suitor,” said Novell’s SCO. “Our technologies were so Microsoft-centric and not a single company cared for it. Most companies had already embraced GNU/Linux with Java or Python, so our Perro enhancements and accompanying patent protection, which is due to expire in 3 years, did not impress them.”
Apologetically, said the SCO, “we had to sell ourselves for a very low price. Our landmark agreement from November 2006 turns out to have rendered us next to worthless.” In a separate filing it emerged that Novell’s SCO laid off many of his GNU/Linux developers in order to make the company more attractive for potential takeovers, but pundits suggest that he did so in order to facilitate a $8 million bonus for his decision to put the company on sale. █
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