John Lister

Security experts have put together some intriguing statistics about the Conficker virus, including the total spread of the worm and the worst-hit country. It seems Vietnam has seen the most serious invasion, while four per cent of all computer ... infections are related to Conficker. The figures come from OpenDNS, a firm which offers DNS (Domain Name System) resolution services. This is the process of mapping a website name (such as www.infopackets.com ) to the actual IP address where the website physically exists. Because Conficker interferes with this process, the firm has plenty of data to ... (view more)

A Texas senator is trying to make it illegal for any government agency to buy Windows Vista without prior approval. Juan Hinojosa says simply "Don't buy it because it's not worth it." If the law passes, all state agencies in Texas would need written ... approval from the Legislative Budget Board before buying Vista itself or any machine with the system pre-installed. The only exception would be for places of higher education. Anti-Vista Amendment Rides State Budget The proposal is not a separate law. Instead it's a rider to the budget: one of 800 amendments added during the legislative process. ... (view more)

Google will invest a whopping $100 million in start-up companies over the next 12 months, and says a recession is an ideal time to invest in firms that could someday make it big. The money comes from a scheme titled Google Ventures, which aims to ... combine the firm's technical knowledge and financial resources with the creative ideas of new companies. The firm says it will focus on industries including "consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care" and others. (Source: theregister.co.uk and nytimes.com ) Google says there's no reason not to invest during an economic slowdown ... (view more)

China is receiving a double dose of blame for the Conficker virus, as reports suggest that the country may either be the source of the virus, the reason why it spread so quickly, or both. The Conficker virus is due to update itself on Wednesday . ... China has already been in the news recently for security issues. It's been blamed for a widespread network of spy computers which have allegedly infected computers including those of the Dalai Lama. Origins may reach as far back as 2001 Vietnamese security firm BKIS says it has analyzed Conficker's coding and believes there are some unmistakable ... (view more)

Microsoft has revealed more about Windows 7 and its support for touch screen technology. The system sounds impressive, however, reports suggest it appears to have a high error rate. The Redmond-based company originally considered setting up a ... completely separate interface for software which used touch screens, similar to the way Media Center works. Instead, Microsoft opted to build everything into the main Windows 7 experience in order to cut down on switching back and forth between two interfaces. When Windows 7 is used with a touch screen, there will now be some slight tweaks to make it ... (view more)

According to security researchers, the Conficker worm virus -- which has infected millions of machines since its discovery in October 2008 -- is set to wreak havoc next Wednesday, April 1st. The problem is that nobody is sure exactly what the worm ... will do. At the moment the virus, which exists in at least three different 'strains' , does not actually do anything other than attempt to spread further across the webosphere. Secret Methods of Communication All that's known at the moment is that on April 1st, PCs already infected with Conficker will contact a random website for instructions on ... (view more)

If you are thinking of complaining on Twitter about a company's service, your grumble might be more effective than you think. A customer relations management firm is now offering a service that lets companies monitor and deal with comments about ... them on the site. Salesforce calls its product the 'Service Cloud' and already covers posts on Facebook. The Twitter functionality will be added free of charge to existing customer accounts. Complaints In Context While Salesforce uses some serious jargon in its publicity, their product is remarkably simple. It takes advantage of the fact that a ... (view more)

The debut of Google's Street View technology in the United Kingdom has not gone smoothly. Besides general privacy complaints and claims of hypocrisy, there have been some embarrassing images taken of British society. The service goes one step beyond ... the aerial views which were recently praised for saving lives in Australia. Street View uses millions of images to display a picture somewhat similar to what users would see if they stood in the relevant street. Already popular in other countries, it launched in the UK last week covering 25 major cities. The idea is that all faces, along with car ... (view more)

As of yesterday, the first Release Candidate (RC1) of Internet Explorer is now available from Microsoft's web site. Much of the publicity for the latest (and potentially last edition ) of Microsoft's Internet Explorer has surrounded the browser's ... usability features, which promise to make surfing easier than ever before. But it's the added security elements that deserve the most attention. It's already been proven that Internet Explorer 8 is not unbeatable by hackers . But the new security options will make more of a difference in the long run than usability features such as Web Slices and ... (view more)

A computer running Windows 7 stayed secure for longer than a Mac in the "PWN2OWN" hacking contest this week. But the challenge showed that Internet Explorer 8 -- just released today -- is still vulnerable. The contest, dubbed PWN2OWN, takes place at ... the annual CanSecWest security conference. Participants have to find a way to breach security on one of several computers, each running a different browser and operating system which have been fully patched with all currently available security updates. The winner this year took just 10 seconds to compromise a MacBook. It's bad news for ... (view more)