Bill Lindner

Microsoft plans to start pushing its Internet Explorer 8 ( IE 8 ) browser to consumers who have Windows Automatic-Update feature turned on. Last month, Microsoft released IE 8 for download and said it planned to start notifying users of IE 6 or IE 7 ... on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 through Automatic Update beginning on or about the third week of April this year. It's worth noting that new versions of software are inevitably buggy and prone to incompatibility problems with other software that has not been discovered and/or documented. Therefore it is not ... (view more)

Microsoft may end up needing to keep Windows XP -- support for which has recently ended -- around a little longer. According to a recent study, the vast majority of corporate IT departments won't think about implementing Windows 7 until at least ... 2011. Despite early enthusiasm for Windows 7 by beta testers, a new survey reveals that 83% of responding IT professionals have no plans to upgrade their existing Windows systems to Windows 7 in the next year. (Source: zdnet.com ) Additionally, 42% said their organizations plan to deploy Windows 7 within 12 to 24 months of its release, 24% plan to ... (view more)

Current and former national security officials speculate that the U.S. electrical grid is under attack from Russian and Chinese cyber-spies. No damage has been done to the system yet, but the threat remains in place should a war or other national ... security crisis hit the U.S. One senior intelligence official says that the Chinese and the Russians have attempted to map infrastructure which includes the electrical grid, nuclear power plants, financial networks and our water and sewage systems. (Source: wsj.com ) Constant Attacks Against Military Networks Alleged The report of the intrusions came ... (view more)

Six Pennsylvania high school students are among the latest teens facing child pornography charges also known as sexting : the act of sending or receiving nude or semi-nude pictures on cell phones and sharing them with others. The term 'sexting' ... comes from 'texting', which is text-messaging over a cell phone. Three teenage girls aged 14 and 15 are facing charges for taking nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and sending them via their cell phones to three boys aged 16 and 17. The boys are facing charges of possession. The photos were discovered in October after school officials ... (view more)

Details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being negotiated across the globe are now labeled as a "properly classified" national security secret by the White House, in spite of a Freedom of Information Act request. ... (Source: wired.com ) Leaked Docs Suggest Massive Breach of Privacy Leaked documents posted on WikiLeaks suggest that the proposed trade accord would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches, and allow Internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor customer communications. ACTA is a treaty (PDF) regarding ... (view more)

Despite the fact that the UK parliament network was vulnerable to the Conficker virus just last week, reports suggest that the UK Government is forging ahead with their dubious plans to harvest all the personal electronic data of every citizen and ... storing it for one year, opening the door to the Big Brother super database . Mobile phone calls, emails and Internet activities of every Briton will be stored for a year, placing legal duties on Internet companies to store everyone's private information, including email traffic and Internet browsing histories effective Monday, April 6, 2009. The ... (view more)

According to reports, U.S. senators drafted legislation aimed at giving the federal government unprecedented authority over the nation's critical infrastructure, including the power to shut down or limit traffic on private networks during ... emergencies. The draft of the proposed legislation is allegedly intended to establish cyber-security standards to be imposed on both the government and the private sector, including companies providing software, IT work, or other services to networks deemed as 'critical' infrastructure, as well as mandating licenses for any and all individuals who administer ... (view more)

German security researchers at the Honeynet Project have scored a major breakthrough in studying the behavior of the Conficker/Downadup worm. According to reports, there now may be a way to detect the malware on infected networks. Security ... researchers, with the help of Dan Kaminsky and Rich Mogull, have the ability to remotely and anonymously detect Conficker infections. Kaminsky explained that since the Conficker/Downadup malware changes the way Windows looks on a network, it is possible to scan a network and have it "respond" whether or not it is or is not infected with Conficker ... (view more)

Opinions vary on whether or not it's a good idea to leave your PC running 24 hours a day. However, a recent report from the Alliance to Save Energy says that the cost of refusing to power down 108 million PCs is costing businesses an estimated $2.8 ... billion a year. Approximately 20 million tons of carbon dioxide -- roughly the equivalent of 4 million cars -- are emitted by those idling, unused PCs. (Source: usatoday.com ) The Alliance to Save Energy report analyzed workplace PC power consumption in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Wastefulness Affects Bottom Line and The ... (view more)

The Conficker/Downadup worm has reportedly found its way onto the British government's IT system, joining millions of others who have fallen victim to it. An email sent to MPs, lords and their staff revealed that parliament's IT network appears to ... be completely unsecured. The Conficker/Downadup worm has been in circulation since November 2008 and a patch is available from Microsoft that fixes it. The fact that parliament's systems have become infected indicates that their anti-virus software, if there is any, hasn't been updated since last year and could be vulnerable to other attacks. ... (view more)