WTC SURVIVOR - Virus Hoax

A friend, The Chief Abbot (not his real name) has just sent me an email entitled "Fwd: READ ASAP - VERY IMPORTANT" which contains dire warnings about emails entitled "WTC SURVIVOR". According to SOPHOS ANTI-VIRUS, "WTC SURVIVOR" is a hoax.
This email first started to circulate in (can you guess..?) September, 2001, and one had just arrived in my Inbox today. There NEVER WAS a "WTC SURVIVOR" Virus, but the hoax lives on !
Remember, the warning IS the virus ... ANY email that asks you to forward it on is a HOAX, even if it is a warning about a VIRUS !! Everyone seems to feel that it is better to send it on, not realizing that millions of other people are doing the same thing !!
REMEMBER, TO ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION, YOU DO NOT FORWARD THE EMAIL!
Scroll towards the bottom of my Links column, on your right, and you will see the List of Top 10 Virus Hoaxes.

Google & other Search Engines hit by worm variant

A new version of the "MyDoom" computer worm was spreading on Monday, (26 July) and slowing the performance of Google and other Internet search engines such as Lycos, Altavista, and Yahoo.
According to the Washington-based SANS Internet Storm Centre - a computer security firm , the new variant known as "MyDoom.O" (also dubbed as "MyDoom.M") began appearing over the weekend. This mass-mailing worm was tapping into search engines in an effort to find more email addresses with which to spread further.

Google hit by worm variant
No wonder I had a tough time on Monday when I tried to make searches using Google. Each time I keyed in a query I was faced with a message telling me that a "server error" had occurred.

iMac G5 coming in September!!

According to Macrumors, Apple confirmed that they will be releasing a G5 iMac this coming September!
The new machines have been delayed due to a shortage of G5 chips. (That's what they said).
These chips are being manufactured by IBM in its East Fishkill, NY facility.
64 bit G5 Processor
Now, doesn't that old 17" of yours feel obsolete already?
Yoohoo!! ... I can't wait.

How much do you know about your Laptop?

Most brand name notebooks out in the market today are not manufactured by the companies that market them. There are exceptions like Asus, Toshiba and IBM but even the latter two don’t manufacture all of their laptops.
It is always funny to hear people swear by their Dell, HP (or other) laptop. Little do they realise that they are the same laptop as you would get from NEC or Acer. You say this is all crap ? Well, here is a good article that puts things into perspective.

• " The world’s largest Notebook Computer manufacturer, Quanta Computer, shipped more than 800,000 notebooks in June thanks in part to major brands like Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, NEC and Acer."
  

This Land is Your Land ......

This is really hilarious .... See John Kerry and George Bush square off and trade insults in this can't-miss campaign spoof.
Actually this is a parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" ... presented by JibJab.
Click me.

How to Fly - The Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Flight

Thanks to Victor who passed this info to me.

Come this Sunday, 18 July, there is gonna be a seminar (featuring the Eurofighter "Typhoon") at the Singapore Science Centre. The speakers are :-

• Squadron Leader Martin "Geordie" EVANS,
  Senior Engineering Officer, RAF Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit and


• Squadron Leader Rob COLLIGAN,
  Pilot of RAF Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit

Eurofighter Typhoon
Session Highlights:

• * The session will include a 45-min presentation followed by a Q&A session.


• * Video presentations of the Typhoon will be screened during the introduction.


• * Brass plates of the Typhoon (and stationery) will be available for visitors to pencil their own autographed silhouettes of the Eurofighter, the world's most advanced superior swing role fighter in production. There will even be a chance on a first-com-first-serve basis (limited to fifty participants) for autograph by the distinguished speakers.


• * Exciting souvenirs such as aircraft stickers and A4 posters, and many more to be given away!

This is surely an event that no serious aerophiles would give it a miss!

US Govt Cyber Experts Advise Browser Switch

Last Friday, in response to the latest security exploit involving Microsoft products, the usually staid U.S. government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, published a warning strongly suggesting that users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer should switch to another Web browser, due to "significant vulnerabilities" in technologies included in IE.

The following article appeared in The Straits Times, (today's issue) dated 02 July 2004:

"THE United States government's cyberdefence experts, along with other computer gurus, are urging users to consider a switch away from Microsoft's widely used Internet Explorer (IE) because of new security problems.

The unusual - and for Microsoft, highly embarrassing - warning comes because of a security hole that has allowed hackers to surreptitiously install software on hundreds of websites that use Microsoft's Web server programs.

That, in turn, downloads spyware programs to personal computers, including one that steals credit card numbers and other forms of financial information.

'This is a wake-up call for us to advise users to switch to an alternative browser,' said Mr Johannes Ulrich of the SANS Internet Storm Centre in the US, which tracks immediate threats on the Internet. 'With Internet Explorer, you're playing Russian roulette and hoping the sites you visit aren't compromised.'

Most anti-virus software have been updated to block the specific program, the JS.Scob Trojan, but Microsoft has not, so far, been able to inoculate IE against the broad technique.

None of the most prominent alternative browsers, Opera, Mozilla or Netscape, is vulnerable to the flaw. Nor are computers running Linux or the Macintosh operating systems.

Another new threat emerged this week that might compromise the passwords and account information of users who bank online.

It targets users of IE and can be picked up from pop-up ads that secretly download software capable of capturing users' keystrokes. -- LAT"