http://torrentfreak.com/retailer-must-compensate-sony-anti-piracy-rootkit-victim-090914/
Retailer Must Compensate Sony Anti-Piracy Rootkit Victim
Written by enigmax on September 14, 2009
In 2005 there was a huge scandal when it was revealed that Sony’s attempts to crack down on music piracy had got out of control. The company included a rootkit (XCP) on many of its music CDs which was installed on the user’s PC without permission. Now a court has ordered compensation to be paid to an XCP victim.
… According to Germany’s Heise, a district court has just ruled in a case where an individual claimed that the presence of the Sony rootkit caused him financial losses.
After purchasing an Anastacia CD, the plaintiff played it in his computer but his anti-virus software set off an alert saying the disc was infected with a rootkit. He went on to test the CD on three other computers. As a result, the plaintiff ended up losing valuable data.
Claiming for his losses, the plaintiff demanded 200 euros for 20 hours wasted dealing with the virus alerts and another 100 euros for 10 hours spent restoring lost data. Since the plaintiff was self-employed, he also claimed for loss of profits and in addition claimed 800 euros which he paid to a computer expert to repair his network after the infection. Added to this was 185 euros in legal costs making a total claim of around 1,500 euros.
The judge’s assessment was that the CD sold to the plaintiff was faulty, since he should be able to expect that the CD could play on his system without interfering with it.
The court ordered the retailer of the CD to pay damages of 1,200 euros.
Security? What's Security?
http://www.pogowasright.org/?p=3825
Privacy issues plague Facebook users – yet again
September 14, 2009 by Dissent Filed under Breaches, Featured Headlines, Internet
Steve Ragan reports:
Over the weekend, there was an interesting bit of news out of the social networking world, which once again places the privacy protection and controls offered by Facebook in the spotlight. A post on Reddit described a Google search that displayed notes written by Facebook users, and with those notes, a good deal of personal information.
The story on Reddit was picked up by The Next Web, and as they said in their coverage, the issue isn’t so much the fact that the notes were discovered via a Google search, the issue is that the notes discovered were associated with profiles that were marked as private. The Tech Herald did some research on several profiles, and every single user we looked at had privacy settings in full effect, but in some cases, several notes were easily obtainable with a Google search.
Read more on The Tech Herald.
Some debate on this, but at minimum I see it as a nose in the tent. If you can monitor my machine for malware, you can also look for copyrighted music, child porn, or “subversive material” Simpler question: How will the ISP deal with a false positive?
Australian ISPs Asked To Cut Off Malware-Infected PCs
Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 15, @02:08AM from the good-of-the-tribe dept.
bennyboy64 writes
"Australia's Internet Industry Association has put forward a new code of conduct that suggests ISPs contact, and in some cases disconnect, customers that have malware-infected computers. 'Once an ISP has detected a compromised computer or malicious activity on its network, it should take action to address the problem. ISPs should therefore attempt to identify the end user whose computer has been compromised, and contact them to educate them about the problem,' the new code states. The code won't be mandatory, but it's expected the ISP industry will take it up if they are to work with the Australian Government in preventing the many botnets operating in Australia."
Security – Cleaning up after the CEO
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2352755,00.asp
Kill Your Phone Remotely
09.11.09
Many of today's most popular smartphones can be erased remotely if they are lost or stolen. Here's how to do it.
… That's why many of today's smartphones support a mobile kill switch, also called "remote wipe" capability. Remote wipe lets a device owner or IT support engineer remotely erase the handheld's data in case it's lost or stolen.
Perhaps the law means what we thought it meant... Sorry RIAA.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10352183-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Veoh wins copyright case; YouTube wins, too?
by Greg Sandoval September 14, 2009 12:47 PM PDT
… Universal Music Group, the largest of the four top record companies, accused Veoh of copyright violations in a lawsuit filed two years ago. But on Friday, U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz granted Veoh's motion for summary judgment, and ruled that the company is protected against such claims by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
This again suggests that Microsoft pushes the software envelope toward “tomorrows” machine. Moving to Windows 95 required many hardware upgrades, looks like this one will too.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/09/14/1338207/Windows-7-Upgrade-Can-Take-Nearly-a-Day?from=rss
Windows 7 Upgrade Can Take Nearly a Day
Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 14, @10:56AM from the just-sleep-on-it dept.
Eugen writes
"A Microsoft Software Engineer has posted the results of tests the company performed on the upgrade time of Windows 7. The metric used was total upgrade time across different user profiles (with different data set sizes and number of programs installed) and different hardware profiles. A clean 32-bit install on what Microsoft calls 'high-end hardware' should take only 30 minutes. In the worst case scenario, the process will take about 1220 minutes. That second extreme is not a typo: Microsoft really did time an upgrade that took 20 hours and 20 minutes. T hat's with 650GB of data and 40 applications, on mid-end hardware, and during a 32-bit upgrade. We don't even want to know how long it would take if Microsoft had bothered doing the same test with low-end hardware. The other interesting point worth noting is that the 32-bit upgrade is faster on a clean install than a 64-bit upgrade, regardless of the hardware configuration, and is faster on low-end hardware, regardless of the Data Profile. In the other six cases, the 64-bit upgrade is faster than the 32-bit upgrade."
Convergence Another step toward a computer controlled TV
http://hothardware.com/News/CableCARD-Now-Open-To-All-No-Need-For-OEM-Installations/
CableCARD Now Open To All, No Need For OEM Installations
Sunday, September 13, 2009 - by Shawn Oliver
… As Windows 7 enters the fray, users will be able to add CableCARDs to their own systems with little to no hassle. These cards will allow users to access all of their carrier's cable channels right on their HTPC, eliminating the need for a cable box and a media center PC.
Retire early! Get you kids interested in games!
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-ways-for-kids-to-make-money-online-nb/
Top 3 Ways for Kids To Make Money Online
Sep. 14th, 2009 By Ryan Dube
Useful stuff for my students. Besides, they love it when the professor encourages “cheating”
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/14-great-cheat-sheets-posters-to-make-you-a-software-wizard/
14 Great Cheat Sheets & Posters to Make You a Software Wizard
Sep. 14th, 2009 By Varun Kashyap
… Plus, don’t forget that MakeUseOf have our very own cheat sheets. Click here to check them out and if you like them, download them for free!
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