This week’s column is about The Slashdot Effect, (subscription only, I’m afraid) and I’ve already started receiving mail telling me my explanation of the term Slashdot is wrong. Here’s what I wrote: Slashdot (slashdot.org, named after the slashes and dots in a Web site address) One reader commented: Hi Jeremy, The slash and dot in Slashdot… Read More »
I don’t know whether to blame Microsoft or not, but immediately after downloading their latest automatic XP updates, my reboot ended in near disaster. I found myself logged on as administrator, and my original profile nowhere in the normal User Accounts window in Control Panel. In short: I didn’t exist on my own computer, along… Read More »
I must be dumb here, but I don’t quite understand this. McAfee, Inc. , the anti-spam, anti-virus people, yesterday announced (not yet seen on corporate site. Registration possibly required) they had been granted US Patent 6,725,377 entitled “Method and System for Updating Anti-Intrusion Software.” This technology, they said in a press release, would allow them… Read More »
Further to my outburst about how network administrators and anti-virus companies may be making the whole MyDoom thing worse, here’s a similar take, albeit more detailed and informed than mine, from Attrition.org. The message: Treat all emails ‘notifying’ you that you have a virus as spam and inform the administrator/company/ISP accordingly. Thanks to the excellent… Read More »
Now your Microsoft Windows password can be cracked in 13.6 seconds, a vast improvement over the slow and tedious 101 seconds it took previously. An improved cryptanalytic method uses large amounts of memory–in this case, 1.4 GB–to speed its cracking of keys, says Security Wire Digest. I won’t bore you with how they did it.… Read More »