Data Leak in Britain Affects 25 Million

LONDON, Nov. 21 — The British government struggled Wednesday to explain its loss of computer disks containing detailed personal information on 25 million Britons, including an unknown number of bank account identifiers, in what analysts described as potentially the most significant privacy breach of the digital era.

It has defended its decision not to disclose the loss until Tuesday, 10 days after it had been informed, saying banks had asked for time to put heightened security measures in place first. The data went astray in October, after two computer disks that contained information on families that receive government financial benefits for children were sent out from a government tax agency unregistered, via a private delivery service. The episode is one of three this year in which the agency improperly handled its vast archive of personal data, according to an account by the chancellor of the Exchequer — including the sending of a second set of disks when the first set did not arrive.

In sheer numbers, the breach was smaller than several in the United States over the last few years. Last year, a computer and detachable hard drive with the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of 26.5 million veterans and military personnel was stolen from the home of an analyst, but recovered apparently without any harm. In 2003, a former software engineer at America Online pleaded guilty to stealing and selling 92 million user names and e-mail addresses, setting off an avalanche of up to seven billion unsolicited e-mail messages.

But the disks lost in Britain contained detailed personal information on 40 percent of the population: in addition to the bank account numbers, there were names, addresses and national insurance numbers, the British equivalent of Social Security numbers. They also held data on almost every child under 16.

"This particular breach would dwarf anything we've seen in the United States in terms of percentage of the population impacted," said Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in California.

The head of the tax agency, Paul Gray, resigned Tuesday, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized to the nation on Wednesday and said he had ordered a review of the government's handling of all private data. In an address to the House of Commons, he said, "I profoundly regret and apologize for the inconvenience and worries that have been caused to millions of families that receive child benefits."

The data breach offered the opposition new ammunition. David Cameron, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said in Parliament that the government had "failed in its first duty — to protect the public."

Bank officials said they had scrutinized their records back to Oct. 18, when the disks were mailed, but had discerned no unusual account activity, and the government pledged that no individuals would be responsible for any losses related to the security breach. British families are eligible for a weekly payment of $36.30 for their first child, and $25 per additional child. Those who choose to have the money deposited directly into bank accounts must provide this information to the government.

The disks were protected by a password, the government said, but were not encrypted. They were sent by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, the country's tax collection agency, to the National Audit Office, which monitors government spending, via a parcel delivery company, TNT.

According to the chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, who delivered a lengthy explanation to the House of Commons on Tuesday, a "junior" staff member sent the disks. Three weeks later, the tax agency's managers were informed that the disks had not arrived. Mr. Darling said he was told of the problem two days later, but first had law enforcement officials hunt for the disks and then alerted banks.

"In making this statement today," he said, "I have had to balance the imperative of informing the House and the public at the earliest opportunity, whilst at the same time ensuring that when I did so the appropriate safeguards were in place to protect the public, including in relation to bank accounts. Indeed the banks were adamant that they wanted as much time as possible to prepare for this announcement."

But on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the British Bankers Association, Lesley McLeod, said the group had been informed only on Friday, and that its security measures had been completed by Monday.



Mr. Darling noted two other instances in which the tax agency had sent delicate information to the National Audit Office that were not in keeping with security rules: first in March this year, and then a second time in October, when the audit office first told the tax agency that the two disks had not arrived. Those, he said, were sent by registered mail, and did arrive. Experts on security data said there were signs of systemic security problems.
"It sort of beggars belief how anyone could have access to that data," Simon Zimmo, the commercial director for Europe,
the Middle East and Africa at SecuriData, a data security specialist based in Scotland.
Experts said the information could allow crimes beyond identity theft. Some people use the name of a child or part of an address as a password on a bank account, so the combination of these details could allow someone to break their code.

"You can bet your bottom dollar that there will be people out there looking for those disks, and it's not just MI5 trying to get them back," said Mike Davis, an analyst with the Ovum technology consulting firm in London, referring to the British domestic security services.

Matt Richtel contributed reporting from New York.

Comcast Sued Over BitTorrent Traffic Interference

t was to be expected, yesterday, a Comcast subscriber from California filed a suit against Comcast in which he calls upon the ISP to stop interfering with his BitTorrent traffic.

We first reported that Comcast was actively disconnecting BitTorrent seeds back in August. Comcast of course denied our allegations, even though we had proof, and they continued to do so.

Jon Hart, a Comcast subscriber from California couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take legal action. He filed a class-action lawsuit on Tuesday and demands that Comcast stops the BitTorrent traffic interference. In addition he wants Comcast to pay him, and all other Comcast customers in California, damages for not giving him the “crazy fast speeds” they advertised.

Threat Level asked Comcast for a response to this news, but the spokesman put them off with his default response: “Comcast does not, has not, and will not block any websites or online applications, including peer-to-peer services”.

Semantically speaking they are totally right, they don’t block any applications or websites, they do however, actively disconnect peer-to-peer connections, making it impossible for many users to seed files on BitTorrent.

Hart is not the only one taking action against Comcast, the people behind SaveTheInternet have also formed a coalition and plan to demand $195,000 for all the customers who are affected.

Comcast is using an application from the broadband management company Sandvine to throttle BitTorrent traffic. The application is installed at the cable modem termination system and breaks every (seed) connection with new peers after a few seconds. This means that Comcast is not simply slowing down connections, they actually disconnect peer-to-peer transfers.

Michael Dell's Linux choice? Ubuntu

Apr. 18, 2007

What operating system do the heads of Fortune 500 companies run on their personal laptops? In the case of Michael S. Dell, president and CEO of Dell, it's Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

Yes, the head of Dell Inc., with a market-capitalization of just south of $56-billion, isn't just saying that Dell will be selling Linux-equipped PCs in the near future -- he's already running Linux at home.

To be precise, Mr. Dell, in addition to running the latest version of Ubuntu, which is still scheduled for final release on April 19, is also running the VMware Workstation 6 Beta, OpenOffice.org 2.2, Automatix2, Firefox 2.0.0.3, and Evolution Groupware 2.10.

The only name that most Linux users may not recognize immediately on that list is Automatix2. Automatrix2 is a popular Debian, Ubuntu, Pioneer, and MEPIS Linux add-on program. With that application in place, it becomes mindlessly simple to install useful software that doesn't come with a vanilla Ubuntu installation. It includes access to Skype, Opera, Macromedia Flash, Google Earth, Picasa, Adobe Reader, DVD support, WiFi, and so on.

Mr. Dell is running all this on a loaded Dell Precision M90. The company describes this as a mobile workstation.

Certainly the model that Dell is running at his Austin, Texas area home qualifies as a mobile workstation by anyone's definition. His machine comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 Processor, which runs at 2.33GHz and comes with a 4MB cache. It also comes with 4GB of DDR2 (double-data-rate) 667Mhz DRAM, a 17-inch WXGA+ Widescreen LCD, a 160GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive, a 8X DVD +/- RW optical drive, and a NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500 512M graphics card.

While no WiFi card is specifically mentioned, Dell also offers both its own Dell Wireless 5700 (CDMA EVDO) External Express Card for Verizon Wireless data connections and an assortment of 802.11a and g WiFi cards.

By our calculations, the total bill for Mr. Dell's system, as described, comes to $4,703. It could have been more. He didn't splurge on the optional Blu-Ray drive.

Unfortunately, if you tried to order it yourself, your only operating system choices on that system today are Windows XP SP 2 and Vista. Sources close to Dell, however, tell us that pre-installed Linux on Dell systems may be coming before the end of April.

We still do not know which Linux Dell Inc. will be installing on its desktops and laptops. Among the distributions we know to be under consideration are: Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu. It would be safe to say now, though, that Ubuntu will be at least one of the Linuxes that Dell will be offering.

Of course, Mr. Dell also uses no fewer than four other high-end systems. Each of these is running Windows.

Still, while many millionaires, such as Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth, Red Hat's Matthew Szulik, and Novell's Ron Hovsepian, are running Linux on their own machines, Michael Dell is almost certainly the first billionaire to embrace the penguin. And, far more importantly, he's the first one who also owns one of the world's biggest PC vendors.

Pre-installed Linux on top brand-name computers is so close to becoming real you can almost run it.


-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Microsoft's $3 anti-Linux weapon

Apr. 19, 2007

In Beijing, Bill Gates announced this week that Microsoft's "Unlimited Potential" initiative will now include offering a software package, the Student Innovation Suite, to governments and students in emerging countries across the world at a price of just $3.

This suite, available in the second half of 2007, will include Windows XP Starter Edition; Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Math 3.0, Learning Essentials 2.0 for Microsoft Office, and Windows Live Mail desktop. However, Microsoft has no takers for its offering yet.

Officially, the goal is to help bring social and economic opportunity through new products and programs to as many as possible of the potential 5 billion people who do not yet use Microsoft products.

What a lot of bull feces. The goal is to kill open source off at its roots. Microsoft wants to make sure that young people in developing countries get brainwashed into the Microsoft way of computing.

Here's what's really happening. Microsoft is seeing that the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative is taking off. Soon, millions of kids will be using a computer for the first time, and their first computer is going to be running Sugar, an innovative software environment built on top of a Red Hat Fedora-based Linux variant.

Microsoft is also seeing how Linux distributions are moving quickly ahead of Windows in Africa, where Ubuntu is gaining popularity; South America, where Mandriva is making inroads; and China, which has its own powerful ecosystem of Linux companies such as Red Flag and Sun Wah Linux.

As Ubuntu founding father Mark Shuttleworth recently told me: "We're seeing Ubuntu being picked up in Asia, Russia, Ukraine, and South America. So, those places have become a real focus for us." And, in particular, "Desktop Linux is very attractive in emerging counties."

Why? That's simple: Linux is inexpensive and it works. Unlike North America and, to some extent, Western Europe, the rest of the world isn't addicted to Microsoft's offerings. They can see with far clearer eyes than most Americans that Windows is not the be-all and end-all of operating systems.

Another factor is that in many countries, there's a real desire to not get tied up with Microsoft. After all, why help Bill Gates in the U.S. become ever richer, when you can help software developers in your own country create your own local version of Silicon Valley based on Linux and open source? You can see that in France, where the National Assembly recently moved to Linux desktops, and in South Korea, which wants to help its native software businesses.

For the first time since burying OS/2, Microsoft is all too aware that it has competition for the American desktop. Apple has emerged as a serious competitor once more, and I think the Linux desktop is really starting to worry the folks from Redmond.

Consider this: On April 18, Michael Dell, head of Dell Computers, the No. 2 PC vendor in the world with a market share of 15.2 percent, told the world that he's using Ubuntu Linux on his home laptop. Dell Inc. has also announced that it will soon be selling PCs and laptops with preloaded Linux.

Oh, and the number-1 PC company in the world, HP? It hasn't come out and said it, but rumor has it that it's readying consumer pre-loads of Linux on the desktop as well.

There was a time when hardware vendors announcing that they were going to sell and support any operating system except Windows would have been unthinkable. Microsoft would destroy them.

What? You thought Microsoft became number-1 because it had better products? Please!

Read, if you will, part of a 2006 complaint by Tangent, a Burlingame, Calif.-based OEM (original equipment manufacturer), about Microsoft's business practices: "Because Microsoft, through its exclusionary practices, eliminated its competitors from the market and has blocked entry of new competitors and expansion of existing rivals, it has been able to increase, maintain or stabilize prices at anticompetitive levels" since the late 1980s.

"Microsoft's supra-competitive prices are not the result of superior products or competition on the merits. Rather, Microsoft has been able, at the financial expense of purchasers to artificially inflate its profits...," the complaint added.

Amen, brother!

The people who run Microsoft aren't idiots. They see that they're losing any chance they might have of seizing the global PC market. They know that their iron grip on the North American and Western European markets is starting to rust.

So, by throwing almost free products on the world market, they're trying to ruin the chances of Linux and open source. If Linux continues to make gains in the U.S. and Canada, I expect that Microsoft may even -- oh, how it'll hate this -- cut the prices on Vista and Office.

I don't think, however, that Microsoft will get away with it. Dumping product is a no-no in any country's trade plans. Besides, a home-grown version of Linux, OpenOffice, and Thunderbird is still cheaper than Microsoft's $3 suite. People who don't live in places where Microsoft rules have also realized that, while the first taste of Microsoft products may be free, the long-term costs are enormous.

Last, but far from least, people everywhere are finally realizing that they don't need to buy into Microsoft's expensive monopoly to use their PCs. It's really quite simple: You don't need Windows anymore, and Microsoft is continuing to con you, and the rest of the world, into believing that you do.


-- Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Congratulations Ubuntu !!!

Thanks to the extraordinary work of the entire Ubuntu community, developers, writers, artists, translators and advocates, we have finally set free the Feisty Fawn. Henceforth, this release will be known as Ubuntu 7.04 and it is the recommended best version of Ubuntu for anyone who wants to use the best of free software!

Here's the overall release announcement: or you might want to jump straight to the download zone:. Congratulations Ubuntu!

Microsoft admits Vista failure

Actions speak louder than PR


By Charlie Demerjian in Beijing: Saturday 21 April 2007, 12:20

WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants.
It did two unprecedented things this week that frankly stunned us.

Dell announced that it would be offering XP again on home PCs. The second that Vista came out, Microsoft makes it very hard for you to sell anything other than Me II. It can't do this on the business side because it would be laughed out the door, but for the walking sheep class, well, you take what you are shovelled.

This is classic abusive monopoly behavior, Microsoft wrote the modern book on it. It pulled all the major OEMs in by twisting their arms with the usual methods, and they again all fell into line. Never before has anyone backpedalled on this, to do so would earn you the wrath of Microsoft.

But Dell just did. This means that Me II sales are at least as bad as we think, the software and driver situation is just as miserable, and Dell had no choice but to buck the trend. If anyone thinks this is an act of atonement for foisting such a steaming pile on us, think again, it doesn't care about the consumer.

What happened is the OEMs revolted in the background and forced Microsoft's hand. This is a big neon sign above Me II saying 'FAILURE'. Blink blink blink. OK, Me II won't fail, Microsoft has OEMs whipped and threatened into a corner, it will sell, but you can almost hear the defectors marching toward Linux. This is a watershed.

The other equally monumental Me II failure? Gates in China launching a $3 version of bundled Me II. Why is this not altruism? Well, it goes back to piracy and how it helped enforce the MS monopoly. If you can easily pirate Windows, Linux has no price advantage, they both cost zero.

With Me II, Microsoft made it very hard to pirate. It is do-able, you can use the BIOS hack and probably a host of others, but the point is, it raised the bar enough so lots of people have to buy it. Want to bet that in a country with $100 average monthly salary, people aren't going to shell out $299 for Me II Broken Edition?

What did MS do? It dropped the price about 100x or so. I can't say this is unprecedented, when it made Office 2003 hard to pirate it had to backpedal with the student edition for about $150. This time though, things are much more desperate.

If you fit Microsoft's somewhat convoluted definition of poor, it still wants to lock you in, you might get rich enough to afford the full-priced stuff someday. It is at a dangerous crossroads, if its software bumps up the price of a computer by 100 per cent, people might look to alternatives.

That means no Me II DRM infection lock in, no mass migration to the newer Office obfuscated and patented file formats, and worse yet, people might utter the W word. Yes, you guessed it, 'why'. People might ask why it is sticking with the MS lock in, and at that point, it is in deep trouble.

So, it did the unthinkable, and dropped the price. I won't bother to hunt down all the exec quotes saying how people can't afford clean water would be overjoyed to sell kidneys to upgrade to the new version of Office, but they are out there. This was a sacred cow, and it is now hamburger backed up against the wall.

These two actions by Microsoft are proof of what I suggested three years ago. Microsoft has lost its ability to twist arms, and now it is going to die. It can't compete on level ground, so is left with backpedalling and discounts of almost 100 times.

What we are seeing is an unprecedented shift of power. It is also an unprecedented admission of failure. And the funniest part about the moves made? They are the wrong things to do. Microsoft is in deep trouble. µ

MS Vista, degenerative technology analysis

by oday — posted at 2007-04-04 17:43 last modified 2007-04-04 17:49 Copyright 2007 Oliver Day: You can redistribute this article and/or modify it according to terms of the Free Art License (http://artlibre.org/licence/lalgb.html).
One commenter on digg.com asked what the sense of my article is. Is it just that Microsoft Vista will introduce new levels of encryption to the playback of HD content? I wish it were as simple as that. And this goes way beyond the idea that consumers will have to pay for the extra components on the video cards which will not be used if they don’t play HD content. It goes way beyond the fact that pirated HD content is already available which invalidates all their efforts to date. The real issue that warrants your attention is that Microsoft has teamed up with the entertainment industries (RIAA + MPAA) to create an operating system that can control what you do, where you do it, and how you do it. The real issue is that they are collectively pushing degenerative technology which is causing a cultural backslide.

The new features which create “pipelines” to secure audio and video ensure that consumers can not play movies or music on devices that are not approved. More then ever, the industries who produce the entertainment consumed by the masses treat those very same people as potential criminals. Microsoft isn’t kowtowing to demands; they are gladly aiding the entertainment industry to fight a battle they themselves are waging. Piracy affects anyone who distributes products under a restrictive copyright regime. Unlike what many a blog commenter has tried to argue DRM is not free. There are significant costs involved which I have tried to outline in my previous articles in the form of additional hardware, resource usage, engineering time, technical support, and PR spin to counter people like me who are against such things. One commenter on the windowsvistablog was nice enough to extract all six mentions of who is paying for these restrictions. The consumer.

Yet if one were to conduct a survey among users I would find it difficult to believe that anyone would list DRM high on their wish list. It’s difficult to imagine someone asking for “computers which run software you can’t see, can’t understand, can’t control, and which reports to other people what is going on in your network without your ability to interrupt or do anything?”. Even if the payoff is the ability to play back HD content from major studios. This is the leverage that Microsoft has touted from the beginning and their hope is that consumers value this “ability” so highly as to turn a blind eye to the degenerative methodologies embedded in the very core of their new operating system.

Part of the adherence to the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) specifications is the deliberate obfuscation of drivers and the withdrawal of open hardware specifications. When an approved device is given a piece of HD content the operating system begins negotiating with the device to verify that it is real and authentic. To accomplish this, undocumented calls are made to the device verifying that it is not a fake device intent on viewing unencrypted frames of the premium content. How does this affect you? Dave Marsh responded that “HFS uses additional chip characteristics other than those needed to write a driver. HFS requirements should not prevent the disclosure of all the information needed to write drivers.” What he doesn’t mention is that the authors of the drivers for future video hardware are under contract to obfuscate their code and keep their specifications closed. Closed specifications affect hardware design for ALL operating systems. Free software driver developers will find less and less publicly available documentation. One of the commenters on my original post had a great response which I’m including here.

“I don’t care about ‘premium content’, neither copied nor purchased, and yet I, as a software developer, have to live with the fact that it’s hard to use 3D graphics cards using free drivers. Thanks to the deal between the likes of MPAA-Microsoft-ATI, the situation won’t improve, it will only get worse. “

Support governments moving away from Windows Vista and toward free software

by John Sullivan — posted at 2007-04-20 13:02 last modified 2007-04-20 14:11
Since the launch of Vista several governments and government agencies around the world have said publicly that they will not use it, including the US Department of Transportation and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. But we need to make sure that the space this creates is filled by free software operating systems like GNU/Linux.

In some cases, governments are instead moving to other kinds of proprietary software. This is why we need to emphasize the freedom of free software operating systems like GNU/Linux and not just their technical advantages (as represented by the term “open source”). What we want is not the rejection of Microsoft in particular—we want governments to acknowledge the ethical ramifications of their software choices and leave proprietary software behind entirely.

Though the rejections so far are good news, we shouldn't get complacent. In some cases these Vista bans are being presented as only temporary measures, with Vista still under long-term consideration. We still need to let our government officials know that we support free software.

If you are a Massachusetts resident, you can let Governor Patrick know that you want the Commonwealth to free itself from proprietary software interests for good by going to http://devalpatrick.com/issue/freesoftware and endorsing the issue.

What can be done in other states, and other countries?

Avoid the Vista badge, it means DRM inside

Comment Don't just blame Dammit, damn it


By Charlie Demerjian: Sunday 15 April 2007, 11:10

THE RECENT BILE directed at DAMMIT over the framebuffer lockout is entirely misdirected. Or, at least, the reason to blame the firm is wrong. The hardware providers may be guilty as hell here, but not for this - the real evil here is Microsoft with its DRM fetish. The loser? You, once again.
As we have been saying for years now, DRM infections have no positives for the user, there is literally no good that you get from them. Everything they do is negative under each and every scenario. While the content mafiaa gets positively orgasmic over the money they will rake in while you twist, the whole industry tanks.

Back to the issue at hand, there is no hardware provider that I talked to, be it DAAMIT, Intel, Nvidia, or device manufacturer like the drive makers that want, like, or even say good things about the DRM infections. They hate this more than you do.

Why? It cost them a lot of money to license the IP involved in this. Then they have to make the things, which add engineering debugging and testing time. DRM infections lower compatibility, drive up support costs, and in general are no fun.

Once you get the design done, it adds silicon area, lowering yields and adding cost. The finished devices consume more power, you don't think that encryption comes for free do you, lowers performance, and in general, sucks.

On top of this, you have to not only make driver that understand this on top of the normal functionality, but you have to obfuscate, secure, and enforce the DRM infections. Again, this lowers compatibility, breaks functionality, and costs a hell of a lot to do.

It will then be broken in a few hours, and you will have to make a new set of drivers with a different encryption scheme. Who pays for this massive engineering effort in the end? The user, that would be you. What do you get for your added money? Less compatibility, devices that don't work, much less work together, and forced updates that will break your machine if you don't apply them. You are roadkill that is forced to pay for your pain, a wallet with legs.

So, if the hardware people hate this inflicted pain, why do we have it? Two reasons, MS and the hardware vendors themselves abdicating their responsibilities to you the consumer. MS is evil, the rest of them sold you out for their profits. Ironically, they all lost, as did we the users.

The root of this crappy DRM infection is Microsoft. It is the driving force here. This has nothing to do with protecting content, as we keep pointing out, there has never been a single thing that has had a DRM infection applied that didn't end up cracked on the net in hours. DRM is about walled gardens and control.

He who controls the DRM infection controls the market. DRM is about preventing you from doing anything with the devices without paying the gatekeeper a fee. This is what MS wants, nothing less than a slice of everything watched, listened to or discussed from now on. DRM prevents others from playing there, thanks to the DMCA and other anti-consumer laws.

Make no mistake, MS is pushing the DRM malware as hard as it can so it can rake in money hand over fist with no competition. It is really good at lock-in, in fact, the firm based its entire business model on harming the user so they have to comply and spend more.

Want more proof? If you look at the Windows MeII (aka Vista) logo requirements, specifically the graphics portion or the list (Spreadsheet section I, lines 452 and on), you will see that they list something very curious. The first thing they list is that the graphics is DRM infected, this is mandatory. The next requirement is that it meets the functionality standards, like 453. So, MS is saying in no uncertain terms that DRM infections are more important than the device actually working.

What a wonderful world we live in, in the real rational world, roadkill does not have to pay for the privilege or agree to a crushing Windows EULA before they get their brains splattered on the grill of a coked out record company exec's Porsche logo.

So, if Microsoft is the root of all this evil, why blame the hardware folks? Because they are all spineless cowards. Intel sold you out. ATI sold you out. Nvidia sold you out. AMD sold you out. Every other hardware vendor that has a Windows Vista malware sticker on their machines sold you out. This is a badge of compliance, just that you are being forced to, not that the stuff will work with Vista.

These corporate worms all stood in line and assured their own pain, and then heaped that pain and cost on you. None of them had the balls to stand up and do anything about it, they are dumb sheep, and MS knows this. They use logo compliance as a weapon, and everyone falls into line.

What is the result? Media centers suck, all of them. They are unwieldy, unworkable, unfriendly, anti-consumer piles of garbage that sit on store shelves rotting. People don't buy media center PCs because they want a DRM infection that turns their $5K flat panel into a black screen, or if they are really lucky, a downrezzed blur, they buy them in spite of it. This is usually done out of ignorance, something that seems to be prevalent in abundance among the masses. All the companies prey on this.

So, you have an evil mastermind herding spineless sheep. You suffer and pay more. Media center PCs are a dead category because of DRM infections, a promising new tech squashed in the name of greed and control. Lets chrome one and put it beside a mini-disc player with a DAT as a backdrop. Garnish with Audio DVDs, Blu-Rays and HD-DVDs as needed.

What good did DRM do here? All the things that DRM infections have tried to protect are still cracked, AACS patches are cracked before the new discs have started to be pressed, and the game goes on. The content mafiaa and MS have lost every single skirmish in the war.

Another promising tech squashed. Another set of world domination dreams fizzled. Another generation of consumers blindsided because they don't pay attention. Another set of miserable and broken hardware foisted on us.

When you aim the guns at DAAMIT, make sure you aim the guns at the right target for the right reasons. So far, very few have, there is more than enough DRM related greed and evil to go around. Have at thee, but have at thee correctly.

And they wonder why we don't care about the crap they make any more and sales are in the toilet. That is the real puzzler.

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BadVista.org: Stopping Microsoft Windows Vista adoption by promoting free software

The BadVista campaign is an advocate for the freedom of computer users, opposing adoption of Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free (as in freedom) software alternatives.

The Free Software Foundation

Free software is a matter of liberty not price.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), established in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free software, particularly the GNU operating system, used widely in its GNU/Linux variant.

http://www.fsf.org/

Another reason for not using VISTA

Microsoft promises to wow people who are upgrading from Windows XP to its new operating system, but with the joys of Windows Vista comes plenty of pain.

1. Vista Activation Cracked by Brute Force
-"The Inquirer has a story about a brute force Vista key activation crack. It's nothing fancy; it's described as a 'glorified guesser.' The danger of this approach is that sooner or later the key cracker will begin activating legitimate keys purchased by other consumers. From the article: 'The code is floating, the method is known, and there is nothing MS can do at this point other than suck it down and prepare for the problems this causes. To make matters worse, Microsoft will have to decide if it is worth it to allow people to take back legit keys that have been hijacked, or tell customers to go away, we have your money already, read your license agreement and get bent, we owe you nothing.'"

2. Vista Firewall Easily Tricked, Says Symantec
-"[The firewall] poses a great limitation for malicious code looking to backdoor a host," said Padilla in the entry. "Unfortunately, the Unblock button may be accessed with the same privilege level as a standard user. This configuration of privileges creates a point of vulnerability that undermines the effectiveness of the firewall's policy in Windows Vista."

3. Vista's user account control is not trustworthy

4. Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating system is a giant step backward for your freedoms.
-Usually software is supposed to enable you to do more with your computer. Vista, though, is designed to restrict what you can do. Vista enforces new forms of "Digital Rights Management (DRM)". DRM is more accurately called Digital Restrictions Management, because it is a technology that Big Media and computer companies try to impose on us all, in order to have control over how our computers are used.

DRM enables Microsoft and media companies to:
*Decide which programs you can and can't use on your computer
*Decide which features of your computer or software you can use at any given moment
*Force you to install new programs even when you don't want to (and, of course, pay for the privilege)
*Restrict your access to certain programs and even to your own data files

DRM is enforced by technological barriers. You try to do something, and your computer tells you that you can't. To make this effective, your computer has to be constantly monitoring what you are doing. This constant monitoring uses computing power and memory, and is a large part of the reason why Microsoft is telling you that you have to buy new and more powerful hardware in order to run Vista. They want you to buy new hardware not because you need it, but because your computer needs it in order to be more effective at restricting what you do.

Microsoft and other computer companies sometimes refer to these restrictions as "Trusted Computing." Given that they are designed to make it so that your computer stops trusting you and starts trusting Microsoft, these restrictions are more appropriately called "Treacherous Computing".

Even when you legally buy Vista, you don't own it.

Windows Vista, like previous versions of Windows, is proprietary software: leased to you under a license that severely restricts how you can use it, and without source code, so nobody but Microsoft can change it or even verify what it really does.

Microsoft says it best:

The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways.

To make it even more confusing, different versions of Vista have different licensing restrictions. You can read all of the licenses at http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx.

It's painful to read the licenses, and this is often why people don't object to them. But if we don't start objecting, we will lose valuable freedoms. Here are some of the ridiculous restrictions you will find in your reading:
If your copy of Vista came with the purchase of a new computer, that copy of Vista may only be legally used on that machine, forever.
If you bought Vista in a retail store and installed it on a machine you already owned, you have to completely delete it on that machine before you can install it on another machine.
You give Microsoft the right, through programs like Windows Defender, to delete programs from your system that it decides are spyware.
You consent to being spied upon by Microsoft, through the "Windows Genuine Advantage" system. This system tries to identify instances of copying that Microsoft thinks are illegitimate. Unfortunately, a recent study indicated that this system has already screwed up in over 500,000 cases.

Free software like GNU/Linux does not require you to consent to these absurd licensing terms. It is called free software because you are free to make as many copies as you want, and to share it with as many friends as you want. Nobody will be monitoring your actions or falsely calling you a thief.
What you can do to help protect your freedom

There is a battle underway between those who value freedom, and corporations such as Microsoft who wish to profit by taking that freedom away. DRM and absurd licenses are at the heart of that battle. Please join us on the side of freedom by saying NO not just to Windows Vista and other DRM-enabled products, but to proprietary software in general. Instead, use non-DRM, "free" software such as the GNU/Linux operating system. You can get your work done while ensuring that your rights and freedoms will not be restricted now and into the future.

As more and more of our lives become digital, it is vital that we protect our digital freedoms just like we have always worked to protect our freedom of expression in print and speech.

SpyLocked, the latest rogue!

March 20th, 2007 by AndyAtHull

Which looks alot like VirusBurst(ers) and recent rogue, SpyDawn. Only they styled it the same blue as this rocking site! Ok enough of me boasting. Serious stuff here.

I never really tell you how these get installed or where they come from whilst surfing the internet. Mainly because we have all seen it before and generally know. But for the new readers applications like this get installed on a system by the Trojan.Zlob from fake codecs to view video files.

Then once you view these files with the codecs you will be asked to install these rogues then once installed it’s found x, y and z on your system. Only to lure you in to pay for the program which in affect is a scam.



This rogue, like many others generally look the same. The licence agreement or known as EULA contain the most mistakes as they sometimes show previous rogues mentioned rather than the rogue it is installing. And the web-sites for these also generate many mistakes.

This rogue is associated with the infamous Inhoster as the whois shows:

Registration Service Provided By: ERDOMAIN.COM
Contact: +49.1797458539
Website: http://www.erdomain.com

Domain Name: SPYLOCKED.COM

Registrant:
Privacyprotect.org
Domain Admin (contact@privacyprotect.org)
PO Box 83-000
Johnsonville
Wellington
null,6440
NZ
Tel. +45.36946676

Creation Date: 19-Feb-2007
Expiration Date: 19-Feb-2008

Domain servers in listed order:
ns3.wildgadgets.biz
ns2.wildgadgets.biz
ns1.wildgadgets.biz

If you come across this rogue, avoid installing it. If you have became affected by fake codecs and installed this one then visit our SpyLocked Removal Guide or get step by step assistance from a qualified helper here. Discuss it in more here.

Posted in Security Related, Rogue Programs | 1 Comment »
VistaRewired Bookmarked
March 20th, 2007 by Corrine

I was catching up the postings at Windows Vista Magazine which led me to a nice tutorial on how to Disable unnecessary services the quick and easy way at VistaRewired.

There is a lot more at VistaRewired, which is why the site has been bookmarked in Reviews and Collections. The individual tutorials are linked below. Perhaps when time allows (!), I will break those links down further into suitable bookmark pages. In the meantime, there is a lot of information at VistaRewired:
Improve productivity with a 3D virtual desktop
Ten must-read tips and tutorials for Vista
Prepare a System Health Report
How to log in to your PC when you have forgotten your password
Get windows to automatically log you in each time you reboot
Know when to defragment your drive
Perform a Clean Install with a Vista Upgrade Disc
Run XP in Vista and vice-versa
Run your non-Vista software o1n Vista
Disable unnecessary services the quick and easy way
How to resize a partition in Windows Vista
Disabling User Account Control

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you come across this rogue, avoid installing it. If you have became affected by fake codecs and installed this one then visit or get step by step assistance from a qualified helper here: . Discuss it in more here: .