03 Jan 2006
Screenshots: Sites harbor Windows Trojan

This could get ugly fast: note that M$ isn't even releasing a patch until next Tuesday, and when it does it will only cover XP. If you're still using Windows 98 or ME (and I know some readers of this blog are, because I see their signatures in my log files) I would strongly suggest upgrading now. Otherwise, you will not be protected, and your machine will be hijacked for some nefarious purpose - wouldn't you love to wake up to a visit from your local constabulary wondering why your machine has been emailing Russian kiddie porn to Saudi Arabia? And just wait until you have to explain to everyone in your address book why their machines have been attacked by a virus sent from yours. Or why they got the Russian kiddie porn from your address...

Firefox, Thunderbird, etc., won't save you on this one - this is a deep flaw in Windows itself. It must be fixed at the OS level - there's some stopgap measures you can take mentioned in the article below (and I've already taken them on my sole remaining Windows box), but essentially, until M$ releases it's proven patch, it's truly 'caveat surfer' out there.

Simply by visiting these sites using a vulnerable Windows PC could cause an infection, Websense says.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

The States' Tobacco Addiction

Man, does George Will ever hit this nail right on the head: this oughta piss you off no matter how you feel about smoking:

The states' ability to continue treating the tobacco industry as a "budgetary Alaska" -- the last frontier for exploitation -- depends on brisk sales of cigarettes far into the future. So all 50 states, which in 2004 reaped $12.3 billion in cigarette taxes, have an incentive to carefully calibrate these taxes so as to maximize revenue. They want high taxes, but not high enough to cause large numbers of smokers to quit the habit that is so lucrative to states.

This is enough to make me want to quit or grow my own! The government's depending on the addictive power of tobacco to keep their budgets balanced and the dollars flowing in - something that heretofore was a province of the tobacco cartel alone.

It also explains why a large part of the "anti-smoking" effort has thus far gone into what I like to call "hiding smoking". Ban it in public places, shuffle the smokers off and away. This makes the anti-smoking political zealots think you're actually doing something constructive: out of sight is out of mind. Just hope that they don't really quit, because that would be a budgetary disaster of the first magnitude.

Philip Morris is America's largest maker of cigarettes, a product legal to use but problematic to merchandise legally. Cigarettes are stigmatized by common sense and all state governments. But because those governments are increasingly addicted to cigarette tax revenue, the governments must be careful not to make cigarettes so expensive they do not sell well.

(link) [Washington Post]

via Overlawyered

00:00 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link

Poll: Half believe lawmakers are corrupt

Which just goes to show what I've always said: about half the population is effectively brain dead ... or blind.

About half of U.S. adults believe most members of Congress are corrupt, a poll released Tuesday suggests.

(link) [CNN.com]

00:00 /Politics | 1 comment | permanent link