Microsoft

In response to claims of copyright infringement, web site "cryptome.org" was recently (and temporarily) shut down after the site posted an internal document outlining details on how Microsoft manages logs of user activity. (Source: sfgate.com ) Web ... proprietor John Young filed a counterclaim a day after Microsoft filed its Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, arguing that he had a fair use to publish the document, a full day before the deadline was set by Network Solutions, his hosting provider. Cryptome.org Temporarily Shut Down Network Solutions shut down Cryptome.org ... (view more)

Microsoft is reminding users that support for several editions of Windows will end beginning April 13, 2010. It will mean no more security updates, though users can easily upgrade to supported editions without charge. The affected editions are ... Windows XP with the second service pack (SP) and Vista with no service pack applied. In other words, if you haven't already installed at least Windows XP Service Pack 3 or Vista Service Pack 1, your computer will be exceedingly vulnerable to security exploits (and hackers). Service packs are collections of security and software updates which are ... (view more)

A recently discovered decade-old denial-of-service condition could cause the instantaneous crash of a system and present users with the now-infamous blue screen of death, says a group of researchers. The condition was discovered this week by a ... collection of researchers in Malta, the tiny southern European archipelago in the middle of the Mediterranean. According to Paul Gafa, CTO of 2X Software, if a user launches an application containing the malicious code, they could find their systems crashed. "You can be the least privileged user on the system and still crash it," Gafa said. (Source: ... (view more)

Windows 7 has been available to the wider public since October 22, 2009, a period of five months. According to a new report, in that time it has accumulated twice as many users as its predecessor, Windows Vista, over the same amount of time ... following its release in late January, 2007. The findings are provided by California-based web analysts NetApplications.com. They found that Windows 7, as of this past Sunday, accounted for about 9 per cent of all operating systems (OS) being used online. By contrast, Windows Vista had just a 4.5 per cent share of the OS market five months after its ... (view more)

Microsoft is trying to harness the power of social networking for its own connectivity tool, email program Outlook. But rather than start its own network, Microsoft is aiming for an easier way to manage existing accounts. The firm has announced a ... beta program to integrate LinkedIn directly with Outlook. It's also announced partnerships are in the works for both Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is a primarily business-oriented tool for tracking networks. As well as acting like an online resume, it's designed for people to be able to make new business contacts through shared contacts. The site ... (view more)

The Microsoft " browser ballot ," which is meant to promote fair competition amongst web browsers by offering choices aside from Internet Explorer (IE), will debut via an update March 1. However, at least one security company is warning that the ... process could open doors for hackers to attack. For those unaware of the browser ballot, it's Microsoft's response to accusations by the European Union that the software company's traditional bundling of Internet Explorer with its Windows operating systems was a violation of antitrust laws. Thus, Microsoft agreed that it would eventually offer users ... (view more)

Microsoft has been recently criticized for suggesting that it may charge phone companies to use its newly-unveiled mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 (previously known as Windows Mobile 7). However, other analysts argue that charging for the ... operating system is both reasonable and sensible. The charge was led by the Business Insider website, where a columnist estimated that Microsoft's annual revenue from licensing the Windows Phone 7 system will be around $300 million. That's clearly no trifling sum, as Dan Frommer argues, but it's a tiny part of Microsoft's annual income of around $66 ... (view more)

Critics this morning are wondering what impact an outage of Microsoft's Hotmail email service will have on consumers, who are increasingly leaning towards Google's Gmail and Yahoo! Mail. According to reports, yesterday at about 12:30pm Eastern Time, ... or 9:30am Pacific Time, Microsoft's Hotmail email service and the Windows Live Messenger instant messaging program both stopped working. Many users were barred from entering into their Hotmail or Messenger accounts, and at this time it's not 100 per cent clear what was behind the outage. Some initial reactions to the news included fears that the ... (view more)

A U.S. District Court Judge for Washington's Western District has dismissed a claim against software giant Microsoft over the use of its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program four years ago. One of many reasons that Windows Vista failed was ... because of widespread fear of something called WGA, or the Windows Genuine Advantage program. The drive behind WGA was simple: analyze a computer for pirated copy of Windows and report back to Microsoft headquarters. Unfortunately, the Windows Genuine Advantage stirred up plenty of fear and anger in the lead-up to Vista's launch. Plaintiffs Claim WGA is ... (view more)

Microsoft is releasing a set of tools aimed at detecting and undoing attempts to bypass Windows 7 anti-piracy checks. It's mostly meant for corporate networks, but the release is also intended as a security warning. The toolset is an update for ... Windows Activation Technologies, one of the systems which checks that a copy of Windows 7 is legitimate. The update will search for and eliminate 70 known tactics for attempting to bypass these checks. (Source: windowsteamblog.com ) Microsoft Touts Antipiracy Tools Obviously, anyone who is knowingly using a pirated copy of Windows 7 is not going to ... (view more)